There is an apparent absurdity in saying of the ship General Williams, she is beautiful; or, of the steamboat Benjamin Franklin, she is out of date.  It were far better to use no gender in such cases.  But if people will continue the practice of making distinctions where there are none, they must do it from habit and whim, and not from any reason or propriety.

There are three ways in which we usually distinguish the forms of words in reference to gender. 1st.  By words which are different; as boy, girl; uncle, aunt; father, mother. 2d.  By a different termination of the same word; as instructor, instructress; lion, lioness; poet, poetess. Ess is a contraction from the hebrew essa, a female. 3d.  By prefixing another word; as, a male child, a female child; a man servant, a maid servant; a he-goat, a she-goat.

The last consideration that attaches to nouns, is the position they occupy in written or spoken language, in relation to other words, as being agents, or objects of action.  This is termed position.

There are two positions in which nouns stand in reference to their meaning and use.  First, as agents of action, as David killed Goliath.  Second, as objects on which action terminates; as, Richard conquered Henry.  These two distinctions should be observed in the use of all nouns.  But the propriety of this division will be more evident when we come to treat of verbs, their agents and objects.

It will be perceived that we have abandoned the use of the “possessive case,” a distinction which has been insisted on in our grammars; and also changed the names of the other two.  As we would adopt nothing that is new without first being convinced that something is needed which the thing proposed will supply; so we would reject nothing that is old, till we have found it useless and cumbersome.  It will be admitted on all hands that the fewer and simpler the rules of grammar, the more readily will they be understood, and the more correctly applied.  We should guard, on the one hand, against having so many as to perplex, and on the other, retain enough to apply in the correct use of language.  It is on this ground that we have proposed an improvement in the names and number of cases, or positions.

The word noun signifies name, and nominative is the adjective derived from noun, and partakes of the same meaning.  Hence the nominative or naming case may apply as correctly to the object as the agent. “John strikes Thomas, and Thomas strikes John.”  John and Thomas name the boys who strike, but in the first case John is the actor or agent and Thomas the object.  In the latter it is changed.  To use a nominative name is a redundancy which should be avoided.  You will understand my meaning and see the propriety of the change proposed, as the mind of the learner should not be burthened with needless or irrelevant phrases.