Graded Lessons in English | Page 8

Instruction."
See "Suggestions for COMPOSITION EXERCISES," p. 8, last paragraph.

LESSON 14.
CLASSES OF WORDS.
+Hints for Oral Instruction+.--By the assistance of the few hints here given, the ingenious teacher may render this usually dry subject interesting and highly attractive. By questioning the pupil as to what he has seen and heard, his interest may be excited and his curiosity awakened.
Suppose that we make an imaginary excursion to some pleasant field or grove, where we may study the habits, the plumage, and the songs of the little birds.
If we attempt to make the acquaintance of every little feathered singer we meet, we shall never get to the end of our pleasant task: but we find that some resemble one another in size, shape, color, habits, and song. These we associate together and call them sparrows.
We find others differing essentially from the sparrows, but resembling one another. These we call robins.
We thus find that, although we were unable to become acquainted with each individual bird, they all belong to a few classes, with which we may soon become familiar.
It is so with the words of our language. There are many thousand words, all of which belong to eight classes.
These classes of words are called +Parts of Speech+.
We classify birds according to their form, color, etc., but we group words into classes, called +Parts of Speech+, with respect to their use in the sentence.
We find that many words are names. These we put in one class and call them +Nouns+.
Each pupil may give the name of something in the room; the name of a distinguished person; a name that may be applied to a class of persons; the name of an animal; the name of a place: the name of a river; the name of a mountain; the name of something which we cannot see or touch, but of which we can think; as, beauty, mind.
Remind the pupils frequently that these names are all nouns.
NOUNS.
+DEFINITION.--A Noun is the name of anything+.
Write in columns, headed nouns, the names of domestic animals, of garden vegetables, of flowers, of trees, of articles sold in a dry goods store, and of things that cannot be seen or touched; as, virtue, time, life.
Write and arrange, according to the following model, the names of things that can float, fly, walk, work, sit, or sing.
Nouns. Cork | Clouds | +Model+.--Wood + floats or float. Ships | Boys |
Such expressions as Cork floats are sentences, and the nouns cork, ship, etc., are the subjects. You will find that +every subject+ is a +noun+ or some word or words used for a noun.
Be prepared to analyze and parse the sentences which you have made. Naming the class to which a word belongs is the first step in parsing.
+Model for Analysis+.--This is a sentence, because -----; cork is the subject, because -----; floats is the predicate, because -----.
+Parsing+.--Cork is a noun, because it is the name of a thing--the bark of a tree.

LESSON 15.
Select and write all the nouns in the sentences given in Lessons 28, 31, 34.
Tell why they are nouns.
In writing the nouns, observe the following rule.
+CAPITAL LETTER--RULE.--Every proper or individual name must begin with a capital letter+.
+To the Teacher+.--See Notes, pp. 167-169.
REVIEW QUESTIONS.
With respect to what, do we classify words (Lesson 14)? What are such classes called? Can you illustrate this classification? What are all names? What is a noun? What is the first step in parsing? What is the rule for writing individual names?

LESSON 16.
VERBS.
+Hints for Oral Instruction+.--We propose to introduce you now to another class of words. (The teacher may here refer to the talk about birds.)
You have learned that one very large class of words consists of names of things. There is another very important class of words used to tell what these things do, or used to express their existence.
When I say, Plants grow, is grow the name of anything? +P+.--No. +T+.--What does it do? +P+.--It tells what plants do. It expresses action.
+T+.--When I say, God is, what does is express? +P+.--It expresses existence, or being.
+T+.--When I say, George sleeps, sleeps expresses being and something more; it tells the condition, or state in which George is, or exists, that is, it expresses state of being.
All the words that assert action, being, or state of being, we call +Verbs+.
Let the teacher write nouns on the board, and require the pupils to give all the words of which they can think, telling what the things named can do. They may be arranged thus:--
Noun. Verbs. | grow, | droop, Plants + decay, | flourish, | revive.
Each pupil may give a verb that expresses an action of the body; as weep, sing; an action of the mind; as, study, love; one that expresses being or state of being.
+DEFINITION.--A Verb is a word that asserts action, being, or state of being+.
The office of the