THE USE OF SCHOOLS AND SELF-TEACHING; AND PARTICULARLY ADAPTED FOR THOSE WHO LEARN FOREIGN LANGUAGES. BY E. DEL MAR, AUTHOR OF AN IMPROVED ANGLO-SPANISH GRAMMAR, ETC., ETC. UTINAM DESIDERIUM MULTITUDINIS IMPLEAM. LONDON: CRADOCK AND CO., (LATE BALDWIN AND CRADOCK,) 48, PATERNOSTER ROW. 1842. 60. The Key to the Exercises may be had separately. G. Woodfall and Son, Printers, Angel Court, Skinner Street, London. PREFACE. THE number of English Grammars has latterly increased in proportion as the desire for instruction is become more general; nevertheless, every compiler in bringing forward another Grammar must have some motive for doing so: this ought to be principally the desire of being useful to youth; and although several of the English Grammars extant have many claims to merit, the hope of rendering still further assistance to the learner, generally, has induced the Author to publish the present compilation, which is the result of many years' experience in teaching Grammar vivá The Lectures which it comprises are such as he has been in the habit of delivering to his pupils, whether in class or individually; and having found that they seldom failed to accomplish the desired end, he has ventured to offer them to the public in this small volume. voce. In preparing these Lectures, the Author has frequently had recourse to such Grammars as enjoy the most repute, and which, in his own estimation, were the best to be consulted. More than ordinary attention has been paid to impart to the student a thorough knowledge of the several parts of speech; the nature of the cases of nouns; the use of the different kinds of verbs; the proper employment of the tenses, and, in short, it has been the Author's aim through out to explain every difficulty in Grammar as clearly and concisely as possible, in language that appeals to the reason rather than to the memory of the pupil. In the method of Parsing pursued in this Grammar, he flatters himself that he has rendered considerable assistance to the teacher, and much facility to the student in going through this important exercise. As the cultivation of foreign languages is now become an almost indispensable branch of education to the English student, a Grammar so arranged, as to clear the way to arrive at their knowledge with facility, will, the Author trusts, be considered a desideratum: in the whole arrangement of this work, he has had this object in view. In conclusion, the Author begs to state, that wherever he has differed from other Grammarians, it has been neither for the display of his own method, nor with the view of depreciating the merits of the productions of his predecessors; but wherever he has, in any manner, deviated from the trodden path, it has been only when he considered that he might render greater facility to the pupil. Nor does he presume to hope that his book will, in all its parts, please every body; but in its general arrangement, and in the plan he has adopted to lessen the labour of both teacher and pupil, he trusts that those who may make use of it will find it to answer the intended purpose. And should this work meet with as favourable a reception from the public as his other elementary works have experienced, the Author will consider the pains bestowed on it amply rewarded. |