e nominative and the possessive. This was certainly an
important question, touching a fundamental principle of our grammar; and
any erroneous opinion concerning it, might well go far to condemn the book
that avouched it. Every intelligent teacher must see this. For what sense
could be made of parsing, without supposing an objective case to nouns? or
what propriety could there be in making the words, _of_, and _to_, and
_from_, govern or compose three different cases? Again, with what truth can
it be said, that nouns have _no cases_ in English? or what reason can be
assigned for making more than three?

OBS. 4.--Public opinion is now clear in the decision, that it is
_expedient_ to assign to English nouns three cases, and no more; and, in a
matter of this kind, what is expedient for the purpose of instruction, is
right. Yet, from the works of our grammarians, may be quoted every
conceivable notion, right or wrong, upon this point. Cardell, with Tooke
and Gilchrist on his side, contends that English nouns have _no cases_.
Brightland averred that they have neither cases nor genders.[162] Buchanan,
and the author of the old British Grammar, assigned to them _one_ case
only, the possessive, or genitive. Dr. Adam also says, "In English, nouns
have _only one case_, namely, the genitive, or possessive case."--_Latin
and Eng. Gram._, p. 7. W. B. Fowle has two cases, but rejects the word
_case_: "We use the simple term _agent_ for a _noun that acts_, and
_object_ for the object of an action."--_Fowle's True Eng. Gram._, Part II,
p. 68. Spencer too discards the word _case_, preferring "_form_," that he
may merge in one the nominative and the objective, giving to nouns _two_
cases, but neither of these. "Nouns have _two Forms_, called the _Simple_
and [the] _Possessive_."--_Spencer's E. Gram._, p. 30. Webber's Grammar,
published at Cambridge in 1832, recognizes but _two_ cases of nouns,
declaring the objective to be "altogether superfluous."--P. 22. "Our
substantives have no more cases than two."--_Jamieson's Rhet._, p. 14. "A
Substantive doth not properly admit of more than two cases: the Nominative,
and the Genitive."--_Ellen Devis's Gram._, p. 19. Dr. Webster, in his
Philosophical Grammar, of 1807, and in his Improved Grammar, of 1831,
teaches the same doctrine, but less positively. This assumption has also
had the support of Lowth, Johnson, Priestley, Ash, Bicknell, Fisher,
Dalton, and our celebrated Lindley Murray.[163] In Child