By some this system will, no doubt, be discarded on account of its simplicity; while to others its simplicity will prove its principal recommendation.  Its design is an humble one.  It proffers no great advantages to the recondite grammarian; it professes not to instruct the literary connoisseur; it presents no attractive graces of style to charm, no daring flights to astonish, no deep researches to gratify him; but in the humblest simplicity of diction, it attempts to accelerate the march of the juvenile mind in its advances in the path of science, by dispersing those clouds that so often bewilder it, and removing those obstacles that generally retard its progress.  In this way it endeavors to render interesting and delightful a study which has hitherto been considered tedious, dry, and irksome.  Its leading object is to adopt a correct and an easy method, in which pleasure is blended with the labors of the learner, and which is calculated to excite in him a spirit of inquiry, that shall call forth into vigorous and useful exercise, every latent energy of his mind; and thus enable him soon to become thoroughly acquainted with the nature of the principles, and with their practical utility and application.

Content to be useful, instead of being brilliant, the writer of these pages has endeavored to shun the path of those whose aim appears to have been to dazzle, rather than to instruct.  As he has aimed not so much at originality as utility, he has adopted the thoughts of his predecessors whose labors have become public stock, whenever he could not, in his opinion, furnish better and brighter of his own.  Aware that there is, in the public mind, a strong predilection for the doctrines contained in Mr. Murray’s grammar, he has thought proper, not merely from motives of policy, but from choice, to select his principles chiefly from that work; and, moreover, to adopt, as far as consistent with his own views, the language of that eminent philologist.  In no instance has he varied from him, unless he conceived that, in so doing, some practical advantage would be gained.  He hopes, therefore, to escape the censure so frequently and so justly awarded to those unfortunate innovators who have not scrupled to alter, mutilate, and torture the text of that able writer, merely to gratify an itching propensity to figure in the world as authors, and gain an ephemeral popularity by arrogating to themselves the credit due to another.

The author is not disposed, however, to disclaim all pretensions to originality; for, although his principles are chiefly selected, (and who would presume to make new ones?) the manner of arranging, illustrating, and applying them, is principally his own.  Let no one, therefore, if he happen to find in other works, ideas and illustrations similar to some contained in the following lectures, too hastily accuse him of plagiarism.  It is well known that similar investigations and pursuits often elicit corresponding ideas in different