in this age, be comprehended as the medium of thought.  Were this method to prevail, our present literal language would become a dead letter.  Of what avail is language, if it can not be understood?  And how can it be accommodated to the understanding, unless it receive the sanction of common consent?  Even if we admit that such a manner of unfolding the principles of our language, is more rational and correct than the ordinary, practical method, I think it is clear that such a mode of investigation and development, does not meet the necessities and convenience of ordinary learners in school.  To be consistent, that system which instructs by tracing a few of our words to their origin, must unfold the whole in the same manner.  But the student in common schools and academies, cannot afford time to stem the tide of language up to its source, and there dive to the bottom of the fountain for knowledge.  Such labor ought not to be required of him.  His object is to become, not a philosophical antiquarian, but a practical grammarian.  If I comprehend the design (if they have any) of our modern philosophical writers on this subject, it is to make grammarians by inculcating a few general principles, arising out of the genius of the language, and the nature of things, which the learner, by the exercise of his reasoning powers, must reduce to practice.  His own judgment, independent of grammar rules, is to be his guide in speaking and writing correctly.  Hence, many of them exclude from their systems, all exercises in what is called false Syntax.  But these profound philological dictators appear to have overlooked the important consideration, that the great mass of mankind, and especially of boys and girls in common schools, can never become philosophers; and, consequently, can never comprehend and reduce to practice their metaphysical and obscure systems of grammar.  I wish to see children treated as reasoning beings.  But there should be a medium in all things.  It is, therefore, absurd to instruct children as if they were already profound philosophers and logicians.

To demonstrate the utility, and enforce the necessity, of exercising the learner in correcting false Syntax, I need no other argument than the interesting and undeniable fact, that Mr. Murray’s labors, in this department, have effected a complete revolution in the English language, in point of verbal accuracy.  Who does not know, that the best writers of this day, are not guilty of one grammatical inaccuracy, where those authors who wrote before Mr. Murray flourished, are guilty of five?  And what has produced this important change for the better?  Ask the hundreds of thousands who have studied “Mr. Murray’s exercises in FALSE SYNTAX.”  If, then, this view of the subject is correct, it follows, that the greater portion of our philosophical grammars, are far more worthy the attention of literary connoisseurs,