M The Preface UCH progress has been made in the last few years in the teaching of English. Old ideas and methods have been thoroughly sifted; text after text has appeared; and the results of all this agitation are seen in better trained teachers, more natural and efficient methods of instruction, and a saner view of the entire subject. One by one we have been trying out the facts in English, as well as in other lines, and we are every day coming more surely to the conclusion that we must get back to fundamentals. We have been growing gradually into the conviction, that the pupils in the grades below the high school should have about two years of good training in English Grammar, that will ground them in the principles underlying the English sentence. Nothing less will prepare them for the subject of composition and nothing less will enable them to use English intelligently and effectively. In writing this book, with this thought in mind, the author has had presented to him two problems: 1. The course in grammar for the grades must not consist in food for babes. The book has been written with the idea in mind, that below the sixth or seventh year, no attempt is to be made to teach technical or scientific grammar. All grammar, as such, is to be eliminated from this period; and during the last two or three years of the course, the pupils are to receive a systematic training in the principles underlying the construction of the English sentence. This book, therefore, tries to present in a scientific way, those topics which are vital in the organization of the subject of grammar as set forth in the Introduction. |