PREFACE.

ness.

THIS book is not intended to supply the place of an English Grammar. It presupposes a knowledge of Grammar and of English idiom in its readers, and does not address itself to foreigners, but to those who, having already a familiar knowledge of English, need help to write it with taste and exactSome degree of knowledge is presumed in the reader; nevertheless we do not presume that he possesses so much as to render him incapable of profiting from lessons. Our object is, if possible, not merely to interest, but to teach; to write lessons, not essays,-lessons that may perhaps prove interesting to some who have passed beyond the routine of school life, but still lessons, in the strictest sense, adapted for school classes.

Aiming at practical utility, the book deals only with those difficulties which, in the course of teaching, we have found to be most common and most serious. For there are many difficulties, even when grammatical accuracy has been attained, in the way of English persons attempting to write and speak correctly. First, there is the cramping restriction of an insufficient vocabulary; not merely a loose and inexact

apprehension of many words that are commonly used, and a consequent difficulty in using them accurately, but also a total ignorance of many other words, and an inability to use them at all; and these last are, as a rule, the very words which are absolutely necessary for the comprehension and expression of any thought that deals with something more than the most ordinary concrete notions. There is also a very common inability to appreciate the differences between words that are at all similar. Lastly, where the pupil has studied Latin, and trusts too much for his knowledge of English words to his knowledge of their Latin roots, there is the possibility of misderiving and misunderstanding a word, owing to ignorance of the changes of letters introduced in the process of derivation; and, on the other hand, there is the danger of misunderstanding and pedantically misusing words correctly derived, from an ignorance of the changes of meaning which a word almost always experiences in passing from one language to another. The result of all this non-understanding or slovenly half-understanding of words is a habit of slovenly reading and slovenly writing, which when once acquired is very hard to shake off.

Then, following on the difficulties attending the use of words, there are others attending the choice and arrangement of words. There is the danger of falling into "poetic prose," of thinking it necessary to write "steed" or "charger" instead of "horse," "ire" instead of "anger," and the like; and every teacher, who has had much experience in looking

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over examination papers, will admit that this is a danger to which beginners are very liable. Again, there is the temptation to shrink with a senseless fear from using a plain word twice in the same page, and often from using a plain word at all. This unmanly dread of simplicity, and of what is called tautology," gives rise to a patchwork made up of scraps of poetic quotations, unmeaning periphrases, and would-be humorous circumlocutions, a style of all styles perhaps the most objectionable and offensive, which may be known and avoided by the name of Fine Writing. Lastly, there is the danger of obscurity, a fault which cannot be avoided without extreme care, owing to the uninflected nature of our language.

All these difficulties and dangers are quite as real, and require as much attention, and are fit subjects for practical teaching in our schools, quite as much as many points which, at present, receive perhaps an excessive attention in some of our text-books. To use the right word in the right place is an accomplishment not less valuable than the knowledge of the truth (carefully recorded in most English Grammars, and often inflicted as a task upon younger pupils) that the plural of cherub is cherubim, and the feminine of bull is cow.

To smooth the reader's way through these difficulties is the object of the first three Parts of this book. Difficulties connected with Vocabulary are considered first. The student is introduced, almost at once, to Synonyms. He is

taught how to define a word, with and without the aid of its synonyms. He is shown how to eliminate from a word whatever is not essential to its meaning. The processes of Definition and Elimination are carefully explained: a system or scheme is laid down which he can exactly follow; and examples are subjoined, worked out to illustrate the method which he is to pursue. A system is also given by which the reader may enlarge his vocabulary, and furnish himself easily and naturally with those general or abstract terms which are often misunderstood and misused, and still more often not understood and not used at all. Some information is also given to help the reader to connect words with their roots, and at the same time to caution him against supposing that, because he knows the roots of a word, he necessarily knows the meaning of the word itself. Exercises are interspersed throughout this Part which can be worked out with, or without, an English Etymological Dictionary,1 as the nature of the case may require. The exercises have not been selected at random; many of them have been subjected to the practical test of experience, and have been used in class teaching.

The Second Part deals with Diction. It attempts to illustrate with some detail the distinction often ignored by those

who are beginning to write English, and sometimes by others also — between the Diction of Prose, and that of Poetry. It

1 An Etymological Dictionary is necessary for pupils studying the First Part. Chambers's or Ogilvie's will answer the purpose.