ods by which those derivative
words which are not formed by mere grammatical inflections, are deduced
from their primitives. Most of those words which are regarded as primitives
in English, may be traced to ulterior sources, and many of them are found
to be compounds or derivatives in the other languages from which they have
come to us. To show the composition, origin, and literal sense of these, is
also a part, and a highly useful part, of this general inquiry, or theme of
instruction.

This species of information, though insignificant in those whose studies
reach to nothing better,--to nothing valuable and available in life,--is
nevertheless essential to education and to science; because it is essential
to a right understanding of the import and just application of such words.
All reliable etymology, all authentic derivation of words, has ever been
highly valued by the wise. The learned James Harris has a remark as
follows: "How useful to ETHIC SCIENCE, and indeed to KNOWLEDGE in general,
a GRAMMATICAL DISQUISITION into the _Etymology_ and _Meaning_ of WORDS was
esteemed by the chief and ablest Philosophers, may be seen by consulting
_Plato_ in his _Cratylus; Xenophon's Memorabilia_, IV, 5, 6; _Arrian.
Epict._ I, 17; II, 10; _Marc. Anton_. III, 11;" &c.--See _Harris's Hermes_,
p. 407.

A knowledge of the _Saxon, Latin, Greek_, and _French_ languages, will
throw much light on this subject, the derivation of our modern English; nor
is it a weak argument in favour of studying these, that our acquaintance
with them, whether deep or slight, tends to a better understanding of what
is borrowed, and what is vernacular, in our own tongue. But etymological
analysis may extensively teach the origin of English words, their
composition, and the import of their parts, without demanding of the
student the power of reading foreign or ancient languages, or of
discoursing at all on General Grammar. And, since many of the users of this
work may be but readers of our current English, to whom an unknown letter
or a foreign word is a particularly uncouth and repulsive thing, we shall
here forbear the use of Saxon characters, and, in our explanations, not go
beyond the precincts of our own language, except to show the origin and
primitive import of some of our definitive and connecting particles, and to
explain the prefixes and terminations which are frequently employed to form
English derivatives.

The rude and cursory languages of barba