e
book, which can attract levity to sober reflection, teach thoughtlessness
the true meaning of words, raise vulgarity from its fondness for low
examples, awaken the spirit which attains to excellency of speech, and
cause grammatical exercises to be skillfully managed, where teachers
themselves are so often lamentably deficient in them. Yet something may be
effected by means of better books, if better can be introduced. And what
withstands?--Whatever there is of ignorance or error in relation to the
premises. And is it arrogant to say there is much? Alas! in regard to this,
as well as to many a weightier matter, one may too truly affirm, _Multa non
sunt sicut multis videntur_--Many things are not as they seem to many.
Common errors are apt to conceal themselves from the common mind; and the
appeal to reason and just authority is often frustrated, because a wrong
head defies both. But, apart from this, there are difficulties:
multiplicity perplexes choice; inconvenience attends change; improvement
requires effort; conflicting theories demand examination; the principles of
the science are unprofitably disputed; the end is often divorced from the
means; and much that belies the title, has been published under the name.

29. It is certain, that the printed formularies most commonly furnished for
the important exercises of parsing and correcting, are either so awkwardly
written or so negligently followed, as to make grammar, in the mouths of
our juvenile orators, little else than a crude and faltering jargon. Murray
evidently intended that his book of exercises should be constantly used
with his grammar; but he made the examples in the former so dull and
prolix, that few learners, if any, have ever gone through the series
agreeably to his direction. The publishing of them in a separate volume,
has probably given rise to the absurd practice of endeavouring to teach his
grammar without them. The forms of parsing and correcting which this author
furnishes, are also misplaced; and when found by the learner, are of little
use. They are so verbose, awkward, irregular, and deficient, that the pupil
must be either a dull boy or utterly ignorant of grammar, if he cannot
express the facts extemporaneously in better English. They are also very
meagre as a whole, and altogether inadequate to their purpose; many things
that frequently occur in the language, not being at all exemplified in
them, or even explained in the grammar itself. When