father and a feminine mother have neuter children. They eat neuter bread, feminine butter and masculine cheese."

Those who are born to the English idiom and are blessed in the absence of nominal gender in their mother tongue cannot help looking at its existence in other languages as a useless complication of linguistic machinery.—STARCK.

The lack of grammatical gender in English has enriched the language with poetical gender. The figure of personification is denied to languages having nominal gender.— JOYNES.

Gender in modern English is a very different grammatical property from that which belongs to most inflected languages. The office of gender forms in English is to show sex. Yet in general grammar, gender is usually a matter of the form of a word and of its agreements with other words, and seems only remotely connected with the idea of sex. Many scholars believe that the gender forms of general grammar were originally sex forms, and that they came into use by poetically attributing sex-qualities to inanimate objects. This is a matter of conjecture, however, rather than of proof. Jesperson and some other recent writers on language have expressed doubts as to whether this is the true origin of grammatical gender.

If gender in English be considered strictly as an inflection it belongs exclusively to a very small number of nouns, such as actor, actress. Even these might perhaps be ruled out as being two words having the same root, rather than grammatical forms of the same word. Somewhere in the English language course, whether under the head of grammar or of word formation, the

student needs to become acquainted with the feminine suffixes. The most important of these is ess, used in certain titles of nobility for a wife who shares the honors of her husband, as baron, baroness; also in a few cases it indicates a woman who holds in her own right an occupation or character that may belong to either sex, as prophetess; heiress. Ine in heroine, a in sultana, trix in executrix, are also feminine suffixes that have come into English from various sources, but are not used in new formations. Ess is the only living feminine suffix, that is, the only one that can be used to make new word forms, and this is very rarely done.

Most of the sex ideas in nouns are expressed by "gender-equivalents"-a name sometimes given to the large class of words that denote sex by the use of different words, instead of by a change in termination. Such are boy, girl; youth, maiden; cock, hen; uncle, aunt; father, mother; and most important of all, the singular pronouns of the third person, he, she, and it. To these must be added various titles that have sex signification, and also the various compound words which are made to serve the same end, as he-goat, shegoat. The use of the personal pronoun with a noun to show gender is peculiar to English; but the awkwardness of the construction has led to its gradual abandonment. The older writers used it frequently. Such combinations as he-friend, she-condition, may be met with in the older English writings. Thus Fuller speaks of a she-saint, and she-devils, and Shakspeare writes "Be brief, my good she-Mercury."

Early English uses many gender-forms. But historical changes have so modified the language as almost to justify the sweeping declaration of Richard Grant White: "There is no vestige of gender in English. We simply do not call a woman a man, or a bull a cow.'

Historical grammar shows many interesting facts of changes in English gender. In old English masculine, feminine, and neuter nouns were marked by different endings, and articles and adjectives had agreeing gender forms. Some of these old gender nouns have come down to us, but bearing no longer any gender distinctions. Nouns in dom as freedom, were originally masculine. Ung, nes, (now ing and ness) were feminine endings, as in greeting, goodness.

Some diminutives in en as maiden, chicken were neuter. But en was also a feminine ending, as found to-day in vixen. Ster was another old feminine ending that has come down to us in spinster. Many words were formed with this suffix, as:

In the fourteenth century ess began to replace ster as a feminine suffix and ster began to acquire a masculine signification, as in huckster, songster, teamster, and youngster. New feminines were then formed from some of these words, producing such hybrids as songstress, seamstress.

By the Elizabethan period ess had become the com

mon feminine suffix. Most of the feminines compounded with ess have now gone by, one form being used for both genders. The grammars of the early part of the nineteenth century give many such feminine forms-as, teacheress, doctoress, sculptress-that are now wholly obsolete. Even during the last generation the words authoress, poetess and negress have fallen into disuse. Most of the names of classes that are formed on mental or moral qualities have no gender distinctions, as saint, sinner, thief, friend, genius, schemer. In very ancient English writings, however, such words as saintess, synneress, occur. The modern practice is to ignore the feminine form whenever sex is immaterial to the character or office itself. On this principle such words as authoress, postmistress, executrix seem to be unnecessary. Actress is justified, however, by the habit of engaging women for women's parts. One important part of the teacher's work in dealing with gender is to show the present usage with regard to such words, so that those forms and those only, may be employed, which belong to the reputable usage of the modern age.

Although the etymology of gender includes many facts about nouns, the syntax of gender belongs almost exclusively to the three little pronouns he, she, and it, and their relations to other words. In regard to these pronouns, gender, though not an inflection, is an important "grammatical distinction," denoting the natural distinction of sex which belongs to living objects. Yet the neuter pronoun is as much "a gender" as the

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others, since it also shows a grammatical distinction regarding sex. The word common" as applied to gender-since there is no common sex-is omitted from many modern grammars. Yet it is a convenient term to apply occasionally to such words as cousin, friend, culprit, etc., which can stand as antecedent to pronouns of either gender according to the application of the word. An obsolete term, epicene, found in ancient grammars, was applied to animal names, which, while strictly of one gender, were made to cover both sexes.

The English language claims the right to apply the terms he and she to inanimate objects, and personification is a frequent and forceful rhetorical figure both in speech and writing.

Nouns have a small share in the syntax of gender since they require the pronouns to "hark back" to themselves as antecedents for the justification of their gender-forms. This is as true of the nouns which are not "gender-words" as of the others; so in a sense, most nouns may be said to be of the neuter gender.

The syntax of gender, though not large, requires careful attention. The rule for the agreement of the pronoun with its antecedent is the only important grammatical rule that belongs to gender. But the applications of this rule involve some knotty points. One of the chief of these is the choice of pronoun when its singular antecedent applies equally to the two sexes. Usage in this case generally takes the masculine as the representative of both. There are cases, however, when the feminine is used, as being most representative