Higher Lessons in English | Page 4

Study of Words from their Offices in the Sentence, Analysis for the sake of subsequent Synthesis, Easy Gradation, the Subdivisions and Modifications of the Parts of Speech after the treatment of these in the Sentence, etc., etc. We confess to some surprise that so little of what was thought good in matter and method years ago has been seriously affected by criticism since.
The additions made to "Higher Lessons"--additions that bring the work up to the latest requirements--are generally in foot-notes to pages, and sometimes are incorporated into the body of the Lessons, which in number and numbering remain as they were. The books of former editions and those of this revised edition can, therefore, be used in the same class without any inconvenience.
Of the teachers who have given us invaluable assistance in this Revision, we wish specially to name Prof. Henry M. Worrell, of the Polytechnic Institute; and in this edition of the work, as in the preceding, we take pleasure in acknowledging our great indebtedness to our critic, the distinguished Prof. Francis A. March, of Lafayette College.
* * * * *
LESSON 1.
A TALK ON LANGUAGE.
Let us talk to-day about a language that we never learn from a grammar or from a book of any kind--a language that we come by naturally, and use without thinking of it.
It is a universal language, and consequently needs no interpreter. People of all lands and of all degrees of culture use it; even the brute animals in some measure understand it.
This Natural language is the language of cries, laughter, and tones, the language of the eyes, the nose, the mouth, the whole face; the language of gestures and postures.
The child's cry tells of its wants; its sob, of grief; its scream, of pain; its laugh, of delight. The boy raises his eyebrows in surprise and his nose in disgust, leans forward in expectation, draws back in fear, makes a fist in anger, and calls or drives away his dog simply by the tone in which he speaks.
But feelings and desires are not the only things we wish to communicate. Early in life we begin to acquire knowledge and learn to think, and then we feel the need of a better language.
Suppose, for instance, you have formed an idea of a day; could you express this by a tone, a look, or a gesture?
If you wish to tell me the fact that yesterday was cloudy, or that the days are shorter in winter than in summer, you find it wholly impossible to do this by means of Natural language.
To communicate, then, your thoughts, or even the mental pictures we have called ideas, you need a language more nearly perfect.
This language is made up of words.
These words you learn from your mothers, and so Word language is your mother-tongue. You learn them, also, from your friends and teachers, your playmates and companions, and you learn them by reading; for words, as you know, may be written as well as spoken.
This Word language we may, from its superiority, call +Language Proper+.
Natural language, as was said, precedes this Word language, but gives way as Word language comes in and takes its place; yet Natural language may be used, and always should be used, to assist and strengthen Word language. In earnest conversation we enforce what we say in words, by the tone in which we utter them, by the varying expression of the face, and by the movements of the different parts of the body.
The look or the gesture may even dart ahead of the word, or it may contradict it, and thus convict the speaker of ignorance or deception.
The happy union of the two kinds of language is the charm of all good reading and speaking. The teacher of elocution is ever trying to recall the pupil to the tones, the facial expression, and the action, so natural to him in childhood and in animated conversation.
+DEFINITION.--Language Proper consists of the spoken and the written words used to communicate ideas and thoughts+.
+DEFINITION.--English Grammar is the science which teaches the forms, uses, and relations of the words of the English language.+
* * * * *
LESSON 2.
A TALK ON THOUGHTS AND SENTENCES.
To express a thought we use more than a single word, and the words arranged to express a thought we call a sentence.
But there was a time when, through lack of words, we compressed our thought into a single word. The child says to his father, up, meaning, Take me up into your lap; or, book, meaning, This thing in my hand is a book.
These first words always deal with the things that can be learned by the senses; they express the child's ideas of these things.
We have spoken of thoughts and sentences; let us see now whether we can find out what a thought is, and what