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THE POPULAR EDUCATOR. 



on the preposition, and only in remote dependence on the verb, 

 eo we may frame the rule thus : 



A noun as an object may be dependent on a preposition; 

 or thus : , 



A preposition may govern a noun as its object ; as 

 ' Ah ! who can tell the triumphs of the mind, 

 By truth illumined, and by taste refined ? " Rogers. 



We have already seen that an infinitive mood may be the 

 object of a verb in the finite mood ; as 



I love to wander, 



where wander is an infinitive governed by I love. Now, instead 

 of to wander you may supply a noun and say 

 I love wandering, or I love a stroll. 



The preposition to, you thus see, connects its object with a 

 transitive verb, when that object is a verb. The preposition 

 in such cases is a connecting word, but a connecting word 

 which is essential to the import. That it is essential you may 

 learn by removing it; thus, I love, wander. Here, too, the 

 object wander is in immediate dependence on to, and only in 

 remote dependence on I love ; consequently, we may say that 



The latter of two verbs connected together by the preposition 

 TO is dependent on, or governed by, that preposition. 



We may also lay it down as a fact that 



The preposition TO stands before a verb when it is used in its 

 most general application, or in the infinitive mood. 



Now a verb so used is in meaning very near to the noun. It 

 is, indeed, a verbal noun ; as 



To learn to die is the great business of life. 



Usage allows the preposition to, thus employed, to be in one 

 kind of sentence strengthened by another preposition, namely, 

 for, which, however, has its own object ; as- 



" For us to learn to die is the great business of life." 



The preposition for thus set at the beginning, followed by an 

 infinitive, forms a clause or member which is the subject of the 

 finite verb. 



As prepositions govern nouns, so may they govern whatever 

 stands as, or is used with, the force of a noun, and conse- 

 quently prepositions may govern (1) A present participle used 

 as a noun ; as, " He accused the boys of fighting." (2) A 

 present participle and a noun; as, "He accused the soldiers 

 of being cowards." (3) A present combined with a past par- 

 ticiple; as, "He accused the soldiers of having been cowards." 

 (4) A clause of a sentence or a phrase; as, "He accused the 

 troops of having acted in a cowardly manner." 



Prepositions in general stand before the nouns they govern, 

 but by poetic licence they may be placed after ; as 

 " Wild Carron's lonely woods among." Langliorne. 



In verbs used with separable prepositions, the preposition, 

 when separated, may stand after its object, and even at the 

 end of the sentence : 



" This you pride yourself upon and this you are ruined by." 

 In some phrases the preposition follows the noun ; as 

 " Civil and religious liberty all the world over." 



Ellipses of prepositions have given rise to idiomatic phrases ; 

 as in this example : 



We rode (over) sixty miles (on) that day. 

 This looks very like (to) a paradox. 

 Like, near, next, and other adjectives and adverbs, are used 

 with an object immediately dependent on them : 



" And earthly power doth then show lilcest God's 

 When mercy seasons justice." Shakespeare. 



Care must be taken not to confound prepositions with ad- 

 verbs, especially with regard to the words which are used both 

 ways. Before is an instance ; as 



Adverb. She entered before. | Preposition. She entered before me. 

 You may ascertain whether in any particular case before (anc 

 similar words) is an adverb or preposition by considering whal 

 it goes with, a verb or a noun ; as 



The king came near. | The king came near the city. 



In the first place, near does no more than qualify came ; in the 

 second, near governs the city. 



The prepositions between and among have specific meanings 

 and should be used accordingly. Between (twain, two) is by 



wo, that is, two individuals, or two sets or classes of indi- 

 viduals. Among denotes distribution to several : 



He divided the apple between his brother and sister. 

 He divided the apples among the children. 



Among differs from in in this, that while among denotes dis- 

 ;ribution, in. denotes presence in a place, and so requires its 

 object to be one, one individually, or one collectively ; as 



In a great nation many are found among whom charity may find 

 deserving objects. 



POLITICAL ECONOMY. III. 



BY J. E. THOKOLD KOGEES, M.A. 



LABOUR AND WAGES. 

 A VERT slight acquaintance with the physical nature of man 

 informs us that the continuance of his life is surrounded by a 

 number of very strict conditions. He must breathe, eat, drink, 

 be housed and clothed, and he must be supplied with these 

 necessaries regularly. If his supply of air be withheld for a 

 very few minutes, his food and drink for a very few days, 

 clothes and shelter (in most parts of the earth at least) for 

 a very few weeks, he would perish. Unlike any other living 

 creature, too, he passes through a very protracted nonage, 

 during which he needs the care and protection of others in order 

 that he may subsist. During his whole life (though familiarity 

 with the fact makes it less plain and obvious) he finds that the 

 regular supply of his wants depends entirely on the mutual 

 assistance which men give their fellow-men. By himself, as 

 Bastiat has eaid, his needs are far in excess of the power of 

 satisfying them ; in the social state the supply is far in excess 

 of his wants. 



Ordinarily, one of the things which he wants is rendered to 

 him so plentifully that ho need be at no pains to procure it. 

 Air, the first necessary of life, is dispersed everywhere by 

 reason of certain physical laws. If, indeed, he gets into some 

 place where these laws do not operate, or operate imperfectly, 

 he would have to take pains to procure air, or to get some one 

 to take the pains for him. If he goes to the bottom of the sea 

 in a diving-bell, air must be pumped downwards to him ; if he 

 works in a deep mine, he must in order to prevent the air 

 from being vitiated get it constantly changed or circulated. 

 But, except under these circumstances, he gets air without 

 trouble. And, similarly, he generally gets water without charge 

 unless he dwells in a large town, the dense occupation of which 

 cither cuts off the local supply altogether, or renders it un- 

 wholesome. Everything else gives him trouble or labour before 

 he can be supplied with it. If he lives, as some savage tribes 

 live, by hunting, he gets his food only bygreat exertion and skill, 

 and he gets it precariously. If he tames and keeps cattle, he 

 has to find them pasture and protect them, and to use the 

 produce of his herd or flock by the exercise of his labour. If 

 he lives on the fruits of the earth, and on grain, his labour, 

 though its products are vastly more abundant, is still more 

 unremitting and continuous. 



The demand for useful things, which cannot be procured 

 without the expenditure of labour, constitutes the value of such, 

 things ; and the amount of value the proportionate quantity of 

 other things also in demand and produced by labour, which any 

 one thing can procure is generally settled by the cost which 

 the persons who produce it are, as a rule, put to before they 

 can get it. There are objects which occasionally are of higher 

 value than the labour required to get them in the first instance, 

 and there are objects which are of lower value. For example, 

 fifty books printed by Caxton or De Worde would bear a value 

 at present which is wholly disproportionate to the original cost 

 of making the paper, setting up the type, and printing the 

 volumes. And on the other hand, fifty volumes of sermons 

 printed a century ago would, if they could find a purchaser, 

 sell for much less than their original cost of production. 



The value of an article, then, depciids, as a rule, on the 

 labour expended on getting it. The reason why, weight for 

 weight, a pound of gold is worth about fifteen and a half pounds 

 of silver, is that it takes on an average fifteen and a half 

 times as much labour to get a pound of gold as it does to get a 

 pound of silver. The reason why a pound of wheat, when the 

 quarter is worth 50s., is worth about two ounces of mutton, 

 is that it takes eight times as much cost to get a pound of 



