and yields assent only where they are found.  And teachers, if they will not lead in the reformation, must be satisfied to follow after; for a reformation is loudly called for, and will be had.  None are satisfied with existing grammars, which, in principle, are nearly alike.  The seventy-three attempts to improve and simplify Murray, have only acted intransitively, and accomplished very little, if any good, save the employment given to printers, paper makers, and booksellers.

But I will not enlarge.  We have little occasion to wonder at the errors and mistakes of grammar makers, when our lexicographers tell us for sober truth, that =to act=, to be in action, not to rest, to be in motion, to move, is v. n. a verb neuter, signifying no action!! or v. i. verb intransitive, producing no effects; and that a “neuter verb =expresses= (active transitive verb) a state of being!!  There are few minds capable of adopting such premises, and drawing therefrom conclusions which are rational or consistent.  Truth is rarely elicted from error, beauty from deformity, or order from confusion.  While, therefore, we allow the neuter systems to sink into forgetfulness, as they usually do as soon as we leave school and shut our books, let us throw the mantle of charity over those who have thoughtlessly (without thinking thoughts) and innocently lead us many months in dark and doleful wanderings, in paths of error and contradiction, mistaken for the road to knowledge and usefulness.  But let us resolve to save ourselves and future generations from following the same unpleasant and unprofitable course, and endeavor to reflect the light which may shine upon our minds, to dispel the surrounding darkness, and secure the light and knowledge of truth to those who shall come after us.

Many philologists have undertaken to explain our language by the aid of foreign tongues.  Because there are genitive cases, different kinds of verbs, six tenses, etc. in the Latin or Greek, the same distinctions should exist in our grammars.  But this argument will not apply, admitting that other languages will not allow of the plan of exposition we have adopted, which we very seriously question, tho we have not time to go into that investigation.  We believe that the principles we have adopted are capable of universal application; that what is action in England would be action in Greece, Rome, Turkey, and every where else; that “like causes will produce like effects” all the world over.  It matters not by whom the action is seen, it is the same, and all who gather ideas therefrom will describe it as it appears to them, let them speak what language they may.  But if they have no ideas to express, they need no language to speak.  Monkeys, for aught I know to the contrary, can speak as well as we; but the reason they do not, is because they have nothing to say.