30.  I am not of opinion that it is expedient to press this study to much extent, if at all, on those whom poverty or incapacity may have destined to situations in which they will never hear or think of it afterwards.  The course of nature cannot be controlled; and fortune does not permit us to prescribe the same course of discipline for all.  To speak the language which they have learned without study, and to read and write for the most common purposes of life, may be education enough for those who can be raised no higher.  But it must be the desire of every benevolent and intelligent man, to see the advantages of literary, as well as of moral culture, extended as far as possible among the people.  And it is manifest, that in proportion as the precepts of the divine Redeemer are obeyed by the nations that profess his name, will all distinctions arising merely from the inequality of fortune be lessened or done away, and better opportunities be offered for the children of indigence to adorn themselves with the treasures of knowledge.

31.  We may not be able to effect all that is desirable; but, favoured as our country is, with great facilities for carrying forward the work of improvement, in every thing which can contribute to national glory and prosperity, I would, in conclusion of this topic, submit—­that a critical knowledge of our common language is a subject worthy of the particular attention of all who have the genius and the opportunity to attain it;—­that on the purity and propriety with which American authors write this language, the reputation of our national literature greatly depends;—­that in the preservation of it from all changes which ignorance may admit or affectation invent, we ought to unite as having one common interest;—­that a fixed and settled orthography is of great importance, as a means of preserving the etymology, history, and identity of words;—­that a grammar freed from errors and defects, and embracing a complete code of definitions and illustrations, rules and exercises, is of primary importance to every student and a great aid to teachers;—­that as the vices of speech as well as of manners are contagious, it becomes those who have the care of youth, to be masters of the language in its purity and elegance, and to avoid as much as possible every thing that is reprehensible either in thought or expression.

CHAPTER IX.

OF THE BEST METHOD OF TEACHING GRAMMAR.

“Quomodo differunt grammaticus et grammatista?  Grammaticus est qui diligenter, acute, scienterque possit aut dicere aut scribere, et poetas enarrare:  idem literatus dicitur.  Grammatista est qui barbaris literis obstrepit, cui abusus pro usu est; Graecis Latinam dat etymologiam, et totus in nugis est:  Latine dicitur literator.”—­DESPAUTER. Synt., fol. 1.