THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE ITS GRAMMAR, HISTORY, AND LITERATURE WITH CHAPTERS ON COMPOSITION, VERSIFICATION, PARAPHRASING, AND PUNCTUATION BY J. M. D. MEIKLEJOHN, M.A. PROFESSOR OF THE THEORY, HISTORY, AND PRACTICE OF EDUCATION THIRTY-THIRD EDITION ENLARGED WITH EXERCISES, ADDITIONAL ANALYSIS, AND EXAMPLES [Thoroughly Revised] LONDON MEIKLEJOHN AND SON LTD. 11 PATERNOSTER SQUARE, E.C. 1920 [All Rights Reserved] PREFACE THIS book, it is hoped, will be found useful in Training Colleges, in Secondary Schools both for boys and girls, to candidates for Local and Matriculations Examinations, and to other classes of students. Only the most salient features of the language have been described, and minor details have been left for the teacher to fill in. Even in the text as it stands, the experienced teacher will easily be able to point his pupils towards those portions of the book which should be mastered first, leaving other portions of it (such as the Grammar of Verse, for instance) to be subjects of later study. The utmost clearness and simplicity have been the aim of the writer, and he has been obliged to sacrifice many interesting details to this aim. The study of English Grammar is becoming every day more and more historical-and necessarily so. There are scores of inflections, usages, constructions, idioms, which cannot be truly or adequately explained without a reference to the past states of the language-to the time when it was a synthetic or inflected language, like German or Latin. The Syntax of the language has been set forth in the form of RULES. This was thought to be better for young learners, who require firm and clear dogmatic statements of fact and duty. But the skilful teacher will slowly work up to these rules by the interesting process of induction, and will-when 462407 it is possible-induce his pupil to draw the general conclusions from the data given, and thus to make rules for himself. Another convenience that will be found by both teacher and pupil in this form of rules will be that they can be compared with the rules of, or general statements about, a foreign language-such as Latin, French, or German. It is earnestly hoped that the slight sketches of the History of our Language and of our Literature may not only enable the young student to pass his examinations with success, but may induce him to study the original works for himself. The sixty pages of exercises and examination papers will be found useful by both pupil and teacher alike. The Index will be of assistance in preparing the parts of each subject, as all the separate paragraphs about the same subject will be found there grouped together. I beg to thank very warmly those able Teachers who have been kind enough to give me hints and suggestions towards the improvement of this book; and I am also glad to note here the fact that Modern Teaching is every day tending more and more towards clearness and simplicity. J. M. D. M. The present edition contains a number of carefully selected examples of false, doubtful, or genuine syntax, with hints towards their correction or defence. These examples are taken from papers set at the London Matriculation, the College of Preceptors', the Civil Service, and various other public examinations. |