Page images
PDF
EPUB

Frank W. Weymouth

A

ONE-BOOK COURSE in English

IN ENGLISH

IN WHICH THE PUPIL IS LED BY A SERIES OF OBSERVATION
LESSONS TO DISCOVER AND APPLY THE PRINCIPLES
THAT UNDERLIE THE CONSTRUCTION OF THE

SENTENCE, AND THAT CONTROL THE

USE OF GRAMMATICAL FORMS.

A COMPLETE TEXT-BOOK ON GRAMMAR

AND COMPOSITION.

FOR SCHOOLS WHOSE CURRICULUM WILL NOT ALLOW TIME
FOR THE AUTHORS' TWO-BOOK COURSE.

BY

ALONZO REED, A. M., AND BRAINERD KELLOGG, LL.D.,

AUTHORS OF "GRADED LESSONS IN ENGLISH,"

"HIGHER LESSONS IN ENGLISH,"

ETC.

WASHINGTON EDITION.

NEW YORK:

MAYNARD, MERRILL & CO.,

1895.

Copyright, 1895, by

ALONZO REED AND BRAINERD KELLOGG.

Press of J. J. Little & Co.
Astor Place, New York

PREFACE.

To induce habits of exhaustive observation and to develop power to use the results of observation as material for thought being the aim and end of teaching, it follows that the relative position of any school study must be determined by the extent to which it contributes to this end.

First place in school instruction is popularly claimed for natural history and the physical sciences, on the ground that these afford the only means for developing a pupil in the line of his natural activities, and that the knowledge result of these studies most closely concerns the practical business of living.

While appreciating the educational value of the natural sciences, we claim for the study of language, properly taught, results equal, if not superior, both in the habit of mind induced and in the practical value of the knowledge accumulated.

To depreciate all systematic study of language because the methods of the past may have been irrational and unproductive is as unwise as it would be to rule all science out of the common school because it is often improperly presented as a series of dry formulas and technical terms.

Grammar should be learned from the language inductively, but it should be learned. Popular maxims are sometimes mischievous and misleading. We do not "learn to do" by simply "doing," but by

« PreviousContinue »