of
instruction which experience has shown to be inefficient, or of little use,
I am in no wise concerned to remove it. The reader of this treatise will
find their faults not only admitted, but to a great extent purposely
exposed; while an attempt is here made, as well as in my earlier grammars,
to introduce a method which it is hoped will better reach the end proposed.
But it may easily be perceived that this author's proposition to dispense
with the formal study of English grammar is founded upon an untenable
assumption. Whatever may be the advantages of those purer habits of speech,
which the young naturally acquire from conversation with educated people,
it is not true, that, without instruction directed to this end, they will
of themselves become so well educated as to speak and write grammatically.
Their language may indeed be comparatively accurate and genteel, because
it is learned of those who have paid some attention to the study; but, as
they cannot always be preserved from hearing vulgar and improper
phraseology, or from seeing it in books, they cannot otherwise be guarded
from improprieties of diction, than by a knowledge of the rules of grammar.
One might easily back this position by the citation of some scores of
faulty sentences from the pen of this very able writer himself.

19. I imagine there can be no mistake in the opinion, that in exact
proportion as the rules of grammar are unknown or neglected in any country,
will corruptions and improprieties of language be there multiplied. The
"general science" of grammar, or "the philosophy of language," the author
seems to exempt, and in some sort to commend; and at the same time his
proposition of exclusion is applied not merely to the school-grammars, but
_a fortiori_ to this science, under the notion that it is unintelligible to
school-boys. But why should any principle of grammar be the less
intelligible on account of the extent of its application? Will a boy
pretend that he cannot understand a rule of English grammar, because he is
told that it holds good in all languages? Ancient etymologies, and other
facts in literary history, must be taken by the young upon the credit of
him who states them; but the doctrines of general grammar are to the
learner the easiest and the most important principles of the science. And I
know of nothing in the true philosophy of language, which, by proper
definitions and examples, may not be made as intelligible to a boy, as