ch critics
have denounced as follows: "But the history of the language scarcely
affords a parallel to the innovation, at once unphilosophical and
hypercritical, pedantic and illiterate, which has lately appeared in the
excruciating refinement '_is being_' and its unmerciful variations. We
hope, and indeed believe, that it has not received the sanction of any
grammar adopted in our popular education, as it certainly never will of any
writer of just pretensions to scholarship."--_The True Sun_. N. Y., April
16, 1846.

[271] Education is a work of continuance, yet completed, like many others,
as fast as it goes on. It is not, like the act of loving or hating, so
complete at the first moment as not to admit the progressive form of the
verb; for one may say of a lad, "I _am educating_ him for the law;" and
possibly, "He _is educating_ for the law;" though not so well as, "He _is
to be educated_ for the law." But, to suppose that "_is educated_" or "_are
educated_" implies unnecessarily a _cessation of the educating_ is a
mistake. That conception is right, only when _educated_ is taken
adjectively. The phrase, "those who _are educated_ in our seminaries,"
hardly includes such as _have been educated_ there in times past: much less
does it apply to these exclusively, as some seem to think. "_Being_," as
inserted by Southey, is therefore quite _needless_: so it is _often_, in
this new phraseology, the best correction being its mere omission.

[272] Worcester has also this citation: "The Eclectic Review remarks, 'That
a need of this phrase, or an equivalent one, is felt, is sufficiently
proved by the extent to which it is used by educated persons and
respectable writers.'"--_Gram. before Dict._, p. xlvi. Sundry phrases,
equivalent in sense to this new voice, have long been in use, and are, of
course, still needed; something from among them being always, by every
accurate writer, still preferred. But this awkward innovation, use it who
will, can no more be justified by a plea of "_need_," than can every other
hackneyed solecism extant. Even the Archbishop, if quoted right by
Worcester, has descended to "uncouth English," without either necessity or
propriety, having thereby only misexpounded a very common Greek word--a
"perfect or pluperfect" participle, which means "_beaten, struck_, or
_having been beaten_"--G. Brown.

[273] Wells has also the following citations, which most probably accord
with his own opinions, though the fi