in winning the approbation of committees and teachers,
that it may be worth while to notice most of them here.

"REM. 1.--A sentence or phrase _often supplies the place_ of a noun or
pronoun in the objective case; as, 'You see _how few of these men have
returned.'"--Wells' s School Gram._, "Third Thousand," p. 154; late Ed.
Sec.215. According to this, must we not suppose verbs to be often transitive,
when _not made so_ by the author's _definition_? And if _"see"_ is here
transitive, would not other forms, such as _are told, have been told_, or
_are aware_, be just as much so, if put in its place?

"REM. 2.--An _intransitive_ verb may be used to _govern an objective_, when
the verb and the noun depending upon it are of kindred signification; as,
'_To live_ a blameless _life;'--'To run_ a _race.'"--Ib._ Here verbs are
absurdly called "_intransitive_," when, both in fact and by the foregoing
definition, they are clearly transitive; or, at least, are, by many
teachers, supposed to be so.

"REM. 3.--Idiomatic expressions sometimes occur in which _intransitive_
verbs are followed by _objectives depending upon them_; as, 'To _look_ the
_subject_ fully in the face.'--_Channing_. 'They _laughed him_ to
scorn.'--_Matt_. 9:24. 'And _talked_ the _night_ away.'--_Goldsmith_."--
_Ib._ Here again, verbs evidently _made transitive by the construction_,
are, with strange inconsistency, called "_intransitive_." By these three
remarks together, the distinction between transitives and intransitives
must needs be extensively _obscured_ in the mind of the learner.

"REM. 4.--Transitive verbs of _asking, giving, teaching_, and _some
others_, are often employed to govern two objectives; as, '_Ask him_ his
_opinion_;'--'This experience _taught me_ a valuable _lesson_.'--'_Spare
me_ yet this bitter _cup.'--Hemans_. 'I thrice _presented him_ a kingly
_crown_.'--_Shakspeare_."--_Ib._ This rule not only jumbles together
several different constructions, such as would require different cases in
Latin or Greek, but is evidently repugnant to _the sense_ of many of the
passages to which it is meant to be applied. Wells thinks, the practice of
supplying a preposition, "is, in many cases, arbitrary, and does violence
to an important and well established _idiom_ of the language."--_Ib._ But
how can any idiom be violated by a mode of parsing, which merely expounds
its _true meaning_? If the dative case has the meaning of _to_, and the
ablative has the me