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There is another class or variety of words properly belonging to this division of grammar, which may as well be noticed in this place as any other.  I allude to those words generally called “Prepositions.”  We have not time now to consider them at large, but will give you a brief view of our opinion of them, and reserve the remainder of our remarks till we come to another part of these lectures.

Most of the words called prepositions, in books of grammar, are participles, derived from verbs, many of which are still in use, but some are obsolete.  They are used in the true character of adjectives, describing one thing by its relation to another.  But their meaning has not been generally understood.  Our dictionaries have afforded no means by which we can trace their etymology.  They have been regarded as a kind of cement to stick other words together, having no meaning or importance in themselves.[5] Until their meaning is known, we can not reasonably expect to draw them from their hiding places, and give them a respectable standing in the transmission of thought.

Many words, from the frequency of their use, fail to attract our attention as much as those less employed; not because they are less important, but because they are so familiarly known that the operations of thought are not observed in the choice made of them to express ideas.  If we use words of which little is known, we ponder well before we adopt them, to determine whether the sense usually attached to them accords exactly with the notions we desire to convey by them.  The same can not be said of small words which make up a large proportion of our language, and are, in fact, more necessary than the others, in as much as their meaning is more generally known.  Those who employ carriages to convey their bodies, observe little of their construction, unless there is something singular or fine in their appearance.  The common parts are unobserved, yet as important as the small words used in the common construction of language, the vehicle of thought.  As the apostle says of the body politic, “those members of the body, which seem to be more feeble, are necessary;” so the words least understood by grammarians are most necessary in the correct formation of language.

It is an easy matter to get along with the words called prepositions, after they are all learned by rote; but when their meaning and use are inquired into, the best grammarians have little to say of them.

A list of prepositions, alphabetically arranged, is found in nearly every grammar, which scholars are required to commit to memory, without knowing any thing of their meaning or use, only that they are prepositions when an objective word comes after them, because the books say so; but occasionally the same words occur as adverbs and adjectives.  There is, however, no trouble in “parsing” them, unless the list is forgotten.  In that case,