The purposes of the Grammar (if it has any purposes) are

First, to explain the principles of language;

Secondly, to provide for its usages, rules based on these principles.

What has been called Grammar, has fallen far short of this first purpose. Of course it has failed of the second-or has greatly embarrassed the scholar by arbitrary classifications, unmeaning definitions, and exceptionable rules, that make up in obesity, what they lack in utility and congruity.

The above work presents, not only a new mode of teaching, but, to some extent, a new theory of las guage. The truth of this theory seems not likely to be disputed. And if true, the cause of education and science is deeply concerned in its promulgation.

Some of the advantages proposed by Felch's Constructive System of Grammar are as follows:

1. The classification being altogether architective, the study of Grammar and Composition are made to be" one and the same process."

2. The science is so simplified, that the learner advances incomparably faster in both studies united than he could by the old method in one alone.

3. The new System is not only more simple, but much more critical.

4. It interests and satisfies the student's mind, instead of perplexing him with the shadow of knowledge without the substance; or binding his energies

5. It presents farther and clearer views of the structure of language.

A sentence expresses a proposition. The words of which the sentence consists, express the ideas of which the proposition consists. The relation between the words depend, therefore, on the relations betwee the ideas.

6. It thus prepares the way to exhibit the connection between the philosophy of Grammar and the phi losophy of intellect.

7. It connects Grammar more closely with Rhetoric, by showing that several varieties of style arise from varieties of syntactic structure.

In the " ultimate classification," every sentence is regarded as being based on "the essential noun an verb;" and as otherwise consisting of supplemental or modifying words or phrases, of which there ar several orders, exercising each a peculiar influence on the style of composition.

AMERICAN

ANNALS OF EDUCATION.

NOVEMBER, 1839.

ART I.-EDUCATION AND EFFORTS FOR EDUCATION IN RUSSIA.

THE movements of no nation of Europe are watched with more solicitude, by men who note the progress of public affairs, than those of Russia. England sends armies and ambassadors to arrest or stay her onward march to India; while all the great powers of Europe are combined by formal pledges, or by the secure bond of a common interest, to withhold for a while, the Turkish Empire from her grasp.

Her stature is truly colossal. She plants one foot on the frozen ocean, and has now a sure and available resting place for the other on the Euxine, while with either arm she reaches from the Baltic far over land to the frontiers of China. Kingdoms of which we are accustomed to think with awe, shrink into littleness in the comparison. Within this circuit, embracing a latitude of thirty degrees, and a longitude of fortyfive, dwell countless tribes, hordes of rude and savage men, whose brute force, guided by one resolute scientific will, may well alarm more cultivated nations.

The history of Russia clearly shows that the fears of her huge bulk and absorbing spirit, however exaggerated, are by no means groundless. The progress of this Empire in territorial aggrandisement and in population, has been steadily onward for three hundred years, from the date when the Russians threw off the Tartar yoke.