Relation of Grammar to Other Language Study 323

fore a corrective for certain faults of mind that merely technical study sometimes induces.

The study of literature used to be thought of as belonging to the later part of school life. Yet even for the youngest children in schools there is literary material in abundance which can be studied for artistic ends. The study of literature, not in name but in its essence, should begin in the kindergarten and extend through all stages of school and college life.

But literary study as well as the technical study of language has its limitations. The study of a literary masterpiece is in a degree a receptive study. It does not always lead to active effort in the use of one's own language powers. It may even have a tendency to paralyze active literary effort, as one yields himself to the passive enjoyment of the work of others, or to the sense of discouragement sometimes induced by the disparaging comparisons which great writings invite toward all humbler performances. While the critical taste is cultivated, the creative faculty is not always aroused by the study of noble writings.

Both literary study and formal language study therefore need to be reinforced by plenty of practical composition work. By well-graded exercises and the use of stimulating motives the teacher should call forth the best creative energies of the pupil and lead him to the habit of free and correct expression of his own thoughts in both spoken and written English.

From the primary school to the university, then, these three lines of English study, the formal or

structural, the literary or artistic, and the creative or practical-need to be pursued side by side, with no one of the three overshadowing, but each aiding and correcting the others, until by their joint actions and reactions the student comes to deserve the praise once bestowed upon an English scholar, "He was welllanguaged."

II

RELATIONS OF THE STUDY OF ENGLISH GRAMMAR TO THE STUDY OF FOREIGN GRAMMARS

Most of us wish to learn other languages than our own. We can do this more easily and accurately if we understand how our own language is made and used.-WHITNEY AND LOCKWOOD.

It may fairly be said that the construction and comprehension of an English sentence demand and suppose the exercise of higher mental power than are required for framing or understanding a proposition in Latin.-WELSH.

There is a strong difference between the analytical study of English and that of a language of the highly inflected type. In Latin, for instance, the part of speech of a word and its logical relations are usually shown by its inflectional form. But in English it is chiefly the sense that must decide, and so the study of the English sentence has a disciplinary value that is all its own.

There are many teachers of foreign languages, and educated persons that have drunk deeply from the full cup of classical learning, who feel a doubt whether the study of English grammar can give much aid to the acquirement of foreign tongues.

It may well be granted that a knowledge of English inflections, so meagre, so incomplete, and seemingly

irregular as they all are, is but a slight aid to a study of inflection and inflectional agreements, in general grammar. The remnants of inflection that are left seem arbitrary and inconsistent, and seldom give an adequate impression of inflection in its true sense.

For a primary knowledge of grammatical inflections and what they signify, one must agree with the report made years ago by Mr. George H. Martin (at that time agent of the Massachusetts Board of Education, of which he is now the secretary), in which he said: 'After noting carefully the mental operations of thousands of pupils in the high schools, I am convinced that nothing can take the place of Latin in high school work.'

But, in gaining a knowledge of the syntax of Latin, that is spread out on the pages of the Latin grammar, and that is so vital to the knowledge and use of the language, will a knowledge of English syntax avail nothing?

Is a knowledge of the twelve or more different relations in which an English noun can be placed, no aid in seeing these same relations when found in another tongue? Can our varied objective constructions, the indirect objects, the factitive or double objects, throw no light on Latin datives and accusatives?

Have the absolute constructions of other languages, the participial and infinitive phrases and clauses, the impersonal or unipersonal, and many abbreviated forms of foreign tongues, nothing to gain from the student's knowledge of such constructions in his native speech?

If it be said that the study of English syntax gains great advantage from the study of foreign forms and agreements which point out by external marks the syntactical relationships, no one can question the truth of this statement. The recognition of syntax relations is easier when the word-form is limited to a certain use. No one can deny the value to an elementary student of such plain guide marks as inflection gives to a knowledge of the structure of sentences.

But this gain is chiefly in a certain elementary part of the subject. There are syntactical relations in every language which far transcend all the powers of inflection to point them out. The very fact that inflections are largely depended on to show syntax, tends to obscure the more subtle language relations.

While Latin study can greatly aid the study of English it is also most true that a right study of English constructions will bring very effective aid to the study of Latin. And the same thing is even more true in relation to the modern languages which follow more nearly than Latin the English type of structure.

But there is a reason still greater than that of the inherent nature of the study, why the study of English may and should be made a help to the acquirement of foreign tongues. The mind goes always most naturally from the known to the unknown, from the native to the foreign. The facts of English are already mostly in the possession of the native student. He has not tested nor systematized his knowledge. But he does understand in general how to construct his sentences