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GRAMMATICAL STRUCTURE

OF THE

ENGLISH LANGUAGE.

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SIMPKIN, MARSHALL, AND CO.

EDINBURGH: J. SHEPHERD. BELFAST: SHEPHERD & AITCHESON;
HENRY GREER. DUBLIN: W. CURRY AND CO.

1854.

302. C. 74.

[ENTERED AT STATIONERS' HALL.]

MURRAY AND Gibb, printers, Edinburgh.

PREFACE.

EVERY friend of education will admit the importance of a knowledge of the structure of our own language, and few will deny that, whatever may be the cause, this valuable knowledge is very imperfectly obtained by the common method of grammatical instruction. The unsatisfactory results of the study of English grammar are, no doubt, attributable partly to the numerous inaccuracies in the details of our common elementary treatises on grammar, but much more, as we think, to the method in which the science has been hitherto universally presented—a method calculated to discourage and disgust the student, by calling on him at the commencement of his course to learn by rote a mass of dry, and, to him, unintelligible technicalities, before he obtains the slightest glimpse of the purpose of his labors.

Our constant aim in this and in our larger treatise is to remedy this great defect in the manner of exhibiting English grammar. We have endeavored to combine with scrupulous accuracy in the details such an arrangement as, by setting the purpose of grammatical studies clearly before his eyes from the commencement, may awaken the interest and stimulate the efforts of the learner.

If the instructors of youth-the class most directly interested in the success of this undertaking-will cheerfully second the efforts of the author, he feels assured that the study of English grammar may be rescued from the opprobrium of irksomeness

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