Thk Teaching ok Latin. 317 



are made for, and what, primarily at least, our minds take most interest 

 in. The first intelligent notice the infant takes is directed to the 

 movements and doings of its mother and nurse. In Nature's school 

 dohiif it is the method of instruction employed. She has, thei-efore, 

 implanted in the child's mind the instinct to observe and to imitate 

 the actions of the persons with whom it lives. Long before the days 

 of e\olutionary psychology Wordsworth noticed this, and wrote about 

 the six-year-old actor conning another part with "new joy and pride." 



"^As if his whole vocation 

 Were endless imitation." 



Interest in the domestic animals comes next, for they also move 

 and sometimes bite and scratch. On the other hand, Wordsworth's 

 Intimations notwithstanding, interest in the larger and more per- 

 manent features of nature awakens late both in child and race. 



The strong instinctive interest in action, especially human action, 

 persists. Quicquid agunt homines still forms the oi'dinary subject of 

 conversation and the newspaper. And I would draw particular atten- 

 tion to the fascination there is in the sight of strenuous personal action 

 — as, for example, in the wild energy of a battle. 



Even if we should not care to see the actual struggle represented, 

 as the Romans did in their gladiatorial shows, we read about it with 

 interest in the novels of Sir Walter Scott or Robert Louis Stevenson. 



As action then claims our first — and, indeed, absorbing — attention, 

 it folloM's that the normal type of sentence is that in which an action, 

 generally a human action, is the central idea. 



Before proceeding to its analysis, I wish to show that one most 

 important result has followed from this dominant character of the 

 action sentence. Its predominating influence has brought it to pass 

 that all sentences are constructed on its model, and a feeling has been 

 engendered that a sentence, if it is to be grammatical, must have a 

 verb, even though it be only the semblance of a verb. This was not 

 originall}'^ the case. There were verbless sentences — as, for example, 

 sentences concerning the qualities of a thing. A man tasted a berry 

 and found it good. " Good berry " was an earlier and more natural 

 way of saying this than "The berry is good." In KaXo^ o Trar? the 

 etTTi is not understood, as grammarians assert ; it was added in later 

 times. 



The substantive use of the vei-b " to be " is not primitive. The 

 forms of this verb are no doubt old, but its meaning was evolved com- 

 paratively late in the history of speech. The logical copula " is " is 

 later still. A sentence such as "man is mortal" does not represent 

 an original type, though grammarians and logicians with their doctrine 

 of subject and predicate have taken it as typical. The predication 

 simply consists in the mind thinking the ideas "man" and "mortal" 

 together and finding no contradiction in them. It does not lie, as is 

 asserted, in the use of " is." For " is " is also used in the question 

 "Is man mortal?" What purpose, then, does the insertion of "is" 



