he perpendicularity of speech, is a species of
metaphysics not very edifying to a child. Into what absurdity men of
abilities may be led by the desire of explaining what they do not
sufficiently understand, is fully exemplified in other sciences as
well as grammar.

The discoveries made by the author of Epea Pteroenta, show the
difference between a vain attempt to substitute analogy and rhetoric
in the place of demonstration and common sense. When a child has been
patiently taught in conversation to analyze what he says, he will take
great pleasure in the exercise of his new talent; he will soon
discover, that the cause of the action does not always come before the
verb in a sentence, that sometimes it follows the verb. "John beats
Thomas," and "Thomas is beaten by John," he will perceive mean the
same thing; he may, with very little difficulty, be taught the
difference between a verb active and a verb passive; that one brings
first before the mind the person or thing which performs the action,
and the other represents in the first place the person or thing upon
whom the action is performed. A child of moderate capacity, after he
has been familiarized to this general idea of a verb active and
passive, and after he has been taught the names of the cases, will
probably, without much difficulty, discover that the nominative case
to a passive verb becomes the accusative case to a verb active.
"School-masters are plagued by boys." A child sees plainly, that
school-masters are the persons upon whom the action of plaguing is
performed, and he will convert the sentence readily into "boys plague
school-masters."

We need not, however, be in any hurry to teach our pupil the names of
the cases; technical grammar may be easily learned, after a general
idea of rational grammar has been obtained. For instance, _the verb_
means only _the word_, or the principal word in a sentence; a child
can easily learn this after he has learnt what is meant by a sentence;
but it would be extremely difficult to make him comprehend it before
he could distinguish a verb from a noun, and before he had any idea of
the structure of a common sentence. From easy, we should proceed to
more complicated, sentences. The grammatical construction of the
following lines, for example, may not be immediately apparent to a
child:

"What modes of sight between each vast extreme,
The mole's dim curtain, and the lynx's beam;
Of smell the headlong lione