us dicitur. Grammatista est qui barbaris literis
obstrepit, cui abusus pro usu est; Graecis Latinam dat etymologiam, et totus
in nugis est: Latine dicitur literator."--DESPAUTER. _Synt._, fol. 1.

1. It is hardly to be supposed that any person can have a very clear
conviction of the best method of doing a thing, who shall not at first have
acquired a pretty correct and adequate notion of the thing to be done. Arts
must be taught by artists; sciences, by learned men; and, if Grammar is the
science of words, the art of writing and speaking well, the best speakers
and writers will be the best teachers of it, if they choose to direct their
attention to so humble an employment. For, without disparagement of the
many worthy men whom choice or necessity has made schoolmasters, it may be
admitted that the low estimation in which school-keeping is commonly held,
does mostly exclude from it the first order of talents, and the highest
acquirements of scholarship. It is one strong proof of this, that we have
heretofore been content to receive our digests of English grammar, either
from men who had had no practical experience in the labours of a
school-room, or from miserable modifiers and abridgers, destitute alike of
learning and of industry, of judgement and of skill.

2. But, to have a correct and adequate notion of English grammar, and of
the best method of learning or teaching it, is no light attainment. The
critical knowledge of this subject lies in no narrow circle of observation;
nor are there any precise limits to possible improvement. The simple
definition in which the general idea of the art is embraced, "Grammar is
the art of writing and speaking correctly," however useful in order to fix
the learner's conception, can scarcely give him a better knowledge of the
thing itself, than he would have of the art of painting, when he had
learned from Dr. Webster, that it is "the art of representing to the eye,
by means of figures and colors, any object of sight, and sometimes emotions
of the mind." The first would no more enable him to write a sonnet, than
the second, to take his master's likeness. The force of this remark extends
to all the technical divisions, definitions, rules, and arrangements of
grammar; the learner may commit them all to memory, and know but very
little about the art.

3. This fact, too frequently illustrated in
practice, has been made the basis of the strongest argument ever raised
against the study o