Two widely different views of the object of grammar study have prevailed among educators. Some textbooks affirm definitely, or in substance, that the design of English grammar now is, and always has been, to teach the art of speaking and writing the English language with propriety," and that Grammars should be guides plain and direct to correct writing and speaking.'

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That grammar will give, and ought to give, principles of criticism whose application will conduce to correct writing and speaking, no one will deny. Yet, as an offset to this class of grammarians who pride themselves on making grammar an entirely practical subject," there are others who maintain that a still higher purpose in grammar is the gaining of reflective power, and that mere correctness is a secondary object. W. D. Whitney once wrote: "Grammar will be ready, by-and-by, to do its part in correcting and polishing our usages, but only in its own time and way. We may turn it at once into an apparatus for discovering and eliminating errors of speech— but only at the risk of sacrificing more legitimate objects The real aim of grammar is to turn the lights of intelligent reflection upon the instrumentality of thought, to see what is its structure in word and phrase, to look at the familiar facts in their resemblances and differences, their connections and relations;-and this partly for its own sake, partly for what it leads to. These opposing views of the aim to be sought in the study of grammar, are the cause of the chief differ

A Reasons

ences in the methods used. Grammar pursued for the second and higher end is necessarily an analytical subject. The analytic method will develop some principles that will conduce indirectly to the "art of speaking and writing correctly"; yet it is now universally conceded that power in the use of language is gained more directly by constructive methods than by the analysis of language forms. Through practice in using language under wise direction the child comes to an understanding of what correct English is, and gains the habit of using it. The later analytical study will indeed give him more sure and final tests which he can apply to his language and so confirm the good habits which he has acquired. Yet most of his knowledge of the requirements of English comes to the child at an earlier age, and in other ways than through the study of formal grammar.

Nor are the final tests of correctness best gained by making them the direct end and aim of the grammatical study. The power of discriminating criticism is subtle and far-reaching, and demands an intimate knowledge of all the language facts. In other words, the so-called" practical aim of grammar," that is, the discovering and eliminating of errors in speech, can never be fully attained except through the pursuit of its higher end,—namely, the gaining of reflective power.

The facts of language with which grammar deals should be acquired by the same inductive methods that are used in all modern scientific study. The student of English is an explorer in language fields,

searching out language facts by his own investigations, and forming his own conclusions.

Dogmatism is one of the most serious as well as most frequent faults in grammatical treatises. As has been well said, "The grammarian is not to take the position of one who lays down the law of the language, saying, 'You should say this or that, or you violate a rule of grammar,' but rather 'You see that we (you and I and all who speak good English) say thus and so.' Therefore we hold this as a principle of our language."*

There is a peculiarity in grammar as a study that needs to be taken full account of in the method pursued. The native student comes to the study having already a good command of the facts with which he is to deal. He knows the forms of words and phrases and can in general tell bad English from good. If his environment has been so unfortunate that he has not the power of doing this, the analytical parts of his language work should not be omitted. They should be fully supplemented, however, by a large amount of constructive work as well. Yet it is the student that can already "speak and write correctly" who is in the best position to get the highest benefits of a course in grammar. For such a student the chief object to be gained is a clearer and more exact sense of the relations of thought. Out of a good grammatical drill one who is seldom or never guilty of a grammatical solecism may gain a fine culture which it is idle to depreciate, and which will yield rich results in increasing the perfections of thought and its expression.

* Professor Whitney, in Journal of Education.

VII

THE SENTENCE UNIT

"First the whole, afterward the parts."

A sentence must be looked upon as the first creation of language. HISTORY OF LANGUAGE, BY STRONG, LOGEMAN, AND WHEELER.

The thought is the unit in thinking, hence the sentence is the unit in speech.-BOYDEN.

The sentence is the structural unit in the use of language. A knowledge of its elements and their relation one to another must logically precede any detailed study of words and their forms.-SOUTHWORTH.

The larger elements of sentence-structure are the foundations of grammar, and these must be familiar before the pupil is ready for the study of separate words.-BUEHLER.

Psychologists and logicians in all times and almost without exception, have insisted that the sentence must have three parts corresponding to the three elements of the judgment.-WISELY.

One would naturally expect the sentence to correspond as to number of parts with the judgment which it expresses; but since we commonly find the copula and attribute combined in one symbol, it is convenient to include these two offices under the term predicate, and so to divide the sentence into two parts only.-IRENE M. MEAD, IN THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE AND ITS GRAMMAR.

The distinction of the noun and the verb as the two essential constituents of the true sentence, the one naming some

thing, the other asserting something about it-this was the first distinction successfully made in the historical development of our speech.-WHITNEY.

The study of the grammar of a foreign language begins naturally with the study of words and their inflections. So also the older treatises on English grammar usually begin with the parts of speech. But the newer views of the purpose of the study of grammar have changed the point of beginning. The very name "parts of speech" emphasizes the fact that there is a whole of speech that is larger than the classes of words to be studied.

Speech is made up of sentences, and words considered in their relation to sentences, are "parts of speech. The essential facts of the sentence as a whole and of the parts of speech which compose the sentence, these are the fundamental elements of grammar. The best modern grammarians are united in the view that some knowledge of the general plan of the sentence must precede any attempt to deal with words on a grammatical basis.

The sentence is the expression of a thought and is therefore the unit of connected speech. It has two parts, a subject and a predicate. The subject is the part of a sentence which represents the person or thing of which something is said. The predicate is the part which expresses what is said of this person or thing. The subject therefore is naturally the name of a person or thing, or will contain a name with other modifying words. The predicate must contain