Higher Lessons in English | Page 3

enforce principles already
presented, and to prepare the way informally for the regular lessons that
follow. The lessons on these selections are, however, made to take a
much wider scope. They lead the pupil to discover how and why
sentences are grouped into paragraphs, and how paragraphs are related
to each other; they also lead him on to discover whatever is most
worthy of imitation in the style of the several models presented.
+The Use of the Diagram+.--In written analysis, the simple map, or

diagram, found in the following lessons, will enable the pupil to present
directly and vividly to the eye the exact function of every clause in the
sentence, of every phrase in the clause, and of every word in the
phrase--to picture the complete analysis of the sentence, with principal
and subordinate parts in their proper relations. It is only by the aid of
such a map, or picture, that the pupil can, at a single view, see the
sentence as an organic whole made up of many parts performing
various functions and standing in various relations. Without such map
he must labor under the disadvantage of seeing all these things by
piecemeal or in succession.
But if for any reason the teacher prefers not to use these diagrams, they
may be omitted without causing the slightest break in the work. The
plan of this book is in no way dependent on the use of the diagrams.
+The Objections to the Diagram+.--The fact that the pictorial diagram
groups the parts of a sentence according to their offices and relations,
and not in the order of speech, has been spoken of as a fault. It is, on
the contrary, a merit, for it teaches the pupil to look through the literary
order and discover the logical order. He thus learns what the literary
order really is, and sees that this may be varied indefinitely, so long as
the logical relations are kept clear.
The assertion that correct diagrams can be made mechanically is not
borne out by the facts. It is easier to avoid precision in oral analysis
than in written. The diagram drives the pupil to a most searching
examination of the sentence, brings him face to face with every
difficulty, and compels a decision on every point.
+The Abuse of the Diagram+.--Analysis by diagram often becomes so
interesting and so helpful that, like other good things, it is liable to be
overdone. There is danger of requiring too much written analysis.
When the ordinary constructions have been made clear, diagrams
should be used only for the more difficult sentences, or, if the sentences
are long, only for the more difficult parts of them. In both oral and
written analysis there is danger of repeating what needs no repetition.
When the diagram has served its purpose, it should be dropped.

AUTHORS' NOTE TO REVISED EDITION.
During the years in which "Higher Lessons" has been in existence, we
have ourselves had an instructive experience with it in the classroom.
We have considered hundreds of suggestive letters written us by
intelligent teachers using the book. We have examined the best works
on grammar that have been published recently here and in England.
And we have done more. We have gone to the original source of all
valid authority in our language-- the best writers and speakers of it.
That we might ascertain what present linguistic usage is, we chose fifty
authors, now alive or living till recently, and have carefully read three
hundred pages of each. We have minutely noted and recorded what
these men by habitual use declare to be good English. Among the fifty
are such men as Ruskin, Froude, Hamerton, Matthew Arnold,
Macaulay, De Quincey, Thackeray, Bagehot, John Morley, James
Martineau, Cardinal Newman, J. R. Green, and Lecky in England; and
Hawthorne, Curtis, Prof. W. D. Whitney, George P. Marsh, Prescott,
Emerson, Motley, Prof. Austin Phelps, Holmes, Edward Everett, Irving,
and Lowell in America. When in the pages following we anywhere
quote usage, it is to the authority of such men that we appeal.
Upon these four sources of help we have drawn in the Revision of
"Higher Lessons" that we now offer to the public.
In this revised work we have given additional reasons for the opinions
we hold, and have advanced to some new positions; have explained
more fully what some teachers have thought obscure; have qualified
what we think was put too positively in former editions; have given the
history of constructions where this would deepen interest or aid in
composition; have quoted the verdicts of usage on many locutions
condemned by purists; have tried to work into the pupil's style the
felicities of expression found in the lesson sentences; have taught the
pupil earlier in the work, and more thoroughly, the structure and the