First Grammar Lessons: Preface

Preface

By The Author

Because English Grammar is a logical study, and deals with sentences and the positions that words occupy in them, rather than with words, and what they are in their own right, it is better that the child should begin with the sentence, and not with the parts of speech; that is, that he should learn a little of what is called analysis of sentences before he learns to parse; should learn to divide a simple sentence into the thing we speak of, and what we say about it—“The cat—sits on the hearth”—before he is lost in the fog of person, mood, and part of speech.

“So then I took up the next book. It was about grammar. It said extraordinary things about nouns and verbs and particles and pronouns, and past participles and objective cases and subjunctive moods. ‘What are all these things?’ asked the king. ‘I don’t know, your majesty,’ and the queen did not know, but she said it would be very suitable for children to learn. It would keep them quiet.” (Palace Tales, H. Fielding.)

It is so important that children should not be puzzled as were this bewildered king and queen, that the following Grammar Lessons were written.

(Home Education.)