LESSONS IN LANGUAGE AND GRAMMAR BOOK II BY HORACE S. TARBELL, LL.D. AND MARTHA TARBELL, PH.D. DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION BOSTON, U.S.A. GINN & COMPANY, PUBLISHERS The Athenæum Press PREFACE. THE term "language" in the title of this book has reference to the use of language in oral and written composition, and to those forms of training which tend to give facility and accuracy in such work. This training is secured by exercises in description, narration, reproduction, and essay writing, or exposition. The special application of the skill thus acquired to the writing of letters, and to the preparation of such papers as the secretary of a body is expected to prepare, is provided for with unusual definiteness. A brief study of Longfellow during each of the four years immediately preceding the high school is undertaken as an introduction to further work in literature, and as an indication of a valuable and attractive form of literary study. The study of some of the fundamental laws of good writing in the Chapter on Style, although a grade of work usually attempted only in high schools, has been proved by experience to be within the power of grammar school pupils, very attractive to them, and productive of much abiding improvement. The Chapter on Grammar is intended to be a clear and logical presentation of so much of grammar as can be profitably studied below the high school. This Chap ter presents the laws of grammar in a form helpful to composition. That the young writer may have from the first a considerable degree of self-dependence, he is taught to punctuate what he writes. To one who would write well, punctuation is nearly as essential as spelling or penmanship. No writing can be considered complete until it is punctuated. Failure to punctuate properly is like failure to spell correctly. It implies ignorance or carelessness so obtrusive as to annoy the reader and to render of less value whatever may be written. To put thought on paper is not much more difficult than to express thought orally. Each form of expression has its difficulties and its advantages. Training in oral speech precedes that in written speech, and from our greater familiarity with the oral form of expression it seems the more natural. There is much to be gained, however, from the use of the pen. If the writer fails to express his thought clearly at first, he can change and improve what has been written. The painstaking correction of one's own forms of expression is a chief condition of improvement. Acknowledgments are due to many who have assisted the authors by suggestions, and by relating their experiences in the use of the books on composition and grammar now popular. Miss Stella C. Allen, of Providence, selected most of the illustrative sentences. Miss Charity Dye, of Indianapolis, author of "The Story-Teller's Art," prepared the exercises on Variety in Chapter V, Section V. Miss Mary A. S. Mugan, of Providence, prepared the |