By metaphor, language is put into the mouths of animals, particularly in fables.  By a still further license, places and things, flowers, trees, forests, brooks, lakes, mountains, towers, castles, stars, &c. are made to speak the most eloquent language, in the first person, in addresses the most pathetic.  The propriety of such a use of words I will not stop to question, but simply remark that such figures should never be employed in the instruction of children.  As the mind expands, no longer content to grovel amidst mundane things, we mount the pegasus of imagination and soar thro the blissful or terrific scenes of fancy and fiction, and study a language before unknown.  But it would be an unrighteous demand upon others, to require them to understand us; and quite as unpardonable to brand them with ignorance because they do not.

Most nouns are in the third person.  More things are talked about than talk themselves, or are talked to by others.  Hence there is little necessity for teaching children to specify except in the first or second person, which is very easily done.

In English there are two numbers, singular and plural.  The singular is confined to one, the plural is extended to any indefinite number.  The Greeks, adopted a dual number which they used to express two objects united in pairs, or couples; as, a span of horses, a yoke of oxen, a brace of pistols, a pair of shoes.  We express the same idea with more words, using the singular to represent the union of the two.  We also extend this use of words and employ what are called nouns of multitude; as, a people, an army, a host, a nation.  These and similar words are used in the singular referring to many combined in a united whole, or in the plural comprehending a diversity; as, “the armies met,” “the nations are at peace.” People admits no change on account of number.  We say “many people are collected together and form a numerous people.”

The plural is not always to be understood as expressing an increase of number, but of qualities or sorts of things, as the merchant has a variety of sugars, wines, teas, drugs, medicines, paints and dye-woods.  We also speak of hopes, fears, loves, anxieties.

Some nouns admit of no plural, in fact, or in use; as, chaos, universe, fitness, immortality, immensity, eternity.  Others admit of no singular; as, scissors, tongs, vitals, molasses.  These words probably once had singulars, but having no use for them they became obsolete.  We have long been accustomed to associate the two halves of shears together, so that in speaking of one whole, we say shears, and of apart, half of a shears.  But of some words originally, and in fact plural, we have formed a singular; as, “one twin died, and, tho the other one survived its dangerous illness, the mother wept bitterly for her twins.” Twin is composed of two and one.  It is found in old books, spelled twane, two-one, or twin.  Thus, the twi-light is formed by the mingling of two lights, or the division of the rays of light by the approaching or receding darkness.  They twain shall be one flesh.  Sheep and deer are singular or plural.