372 WHITNEY'S USSENTIALS OF ENGLISH GRAMMAR. 



Diodorus Siculus also speaks of a great island over against Lilya, many 

 days sail westward. Chinese records speak of their ships, during the 5th 

 century, journeying to a country called Fa-Sang, distant 20,000 li from Ta 

 Han, or 7,000 miles, or more. 



I advise those who have not read Baldwin to get the book and read it. 

 Also, a subsequent work of his on Ancient Ameri.ca. 



THE ESSENTIALS OF ENGLISH GRAMMAR.- 



The study of English Grammar by the younger scholars in our schools 

 is probably as unmeaning, unsatisfactory and unprofitable as anything they 

 can be set at. To say that they can learn to speak and write correctly 

 without knowing anything of the rules governing the construction of sen- 

 tences, and the proper use of the words composing them, seems rather 

 paradoxical, but it is no more so than to say that one can learn to play or 

 sing correctly without first learning the elements and principles of music. 

 A boy of eight or ten years of age will readily perceive the correctness of 

 such a sentence as "the fog came pouring in at every narrow chink and 

 keyhole," while probably at fifteen he will stammer over and among the 

 "predicate nouns," the "attributive adjectives" and the "adverbial predi- 

 cates" in very helplessness. 



From a careful examination of Professor Whitney's book we are con- 

 vinced that it is the best work of the kind for teachers and advanced pu- 

 pils in school that we have ever seen. He has undertaken to point out the 

 essentials of English grammar only, and in doing so he avoids arbitrary 

 rules and depends largely upon citations, quotations and illustrations for 

 giving the learner so complete an understanding of his own language that, 

 he can state his ideas correctly and point out the principles involved in the 

 construction of his sentences. The dissimilarity between Professor Whit- 

 ney's definitions and descriptions of the various parts of speech and those 

 of Kirkham, Lindley Murra}'- and Smith will be so striking and interesting 

 to those of our readers who studied grammar thirty years ago, as we did, 

 and have not kept watch of the works on grammar used in the schools 

 since then, that we will point a few for their edification. 



At that time and by the authors above named, a verb was defined to bo 

 a word which expressed "to be, to do or to suffer." Professor Whitney de- 

 scribes it as "a word that asserts or declares, and hence that can stand 

 alone or with other words as the predicate of a sentence." Those old 

 teachers o-ave the verb five moods and six tenses. Some later writers have 

 dropped, or attempted to drop, the subjunctive mood. Professor Whitney 

 discards both potential and infinitive, the latter of which he calls a "verbal 

 noun," and refers to' the subjunctive as "almost lost and out of mind." He 



'"By Prof. Whitney, of Yale College. Published by Ctinn & Heath, Boston. 



