Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1867-09-26
BOOK NOTICE.

A few weeks ago, we made mention Of Colonel
Binghams English Grammar, with promise that
we should give it a fuller notice soon. That notice
we now proceed to give. -...,. ...aa.
The full title of the book is "a Grammar of the
English Language: for the use of Schools and
Academies; with copious parsing exercises ), by
VIM. Bingham, A. NJ, Superintendent of,the
Bingham School," This School is located at Me-
GAINESVILLE, North Carolina. The book was issued
month ago.
1t is the best school grammar Of our language
that we have seen. This is saying good deal,
when it is remembered that America has, thus far,
produced about five hundred grammars Of the Eng
lish language and we have seen good many Of
these There is no subject in the whole curriculum
of education, on which so much nonsense has been
written. .h''' +.
Ten or twelve years ago, Professor Norris we
believe, of Alabama, published his Grammar Of the
English Language and while it was perhaps ex-
treme in its innovations, it showed more thought,
good sense, and real knowledge of the subject, than
we had seen elsewhere in grammars. The extreme
radical character Of the book appears to have pre-
vented its success to any great extent The great
est obstacle to its success, however, was want of
sense on the part Of fteachers-the etters of prece
dents -veneration for Murray, and pitiable SER
vitude to whatever had gone before ' ---.'
We mention Morris's Grammar to say that, since
that day, we have found but little Independent
thought upon that subject and that the book be-
fore us, by Col. Bingham, embodies all Of such
thought that we have seen We shall take the
book by parts of speech; and speak Of its merits
and dement's in that order. ..
The Noun is presented with great clearness and
simplicity and, while there are several minor
points of nice interest to the scholar, we do not
give such here, for want Of space
The Adjectire is one of the best points in the
book. Adjectives are divided into two general
classes -De6nitives, which merely limit without
expressing q quality, as, "tory thieves, "eacl
man" mo water" "Me king, ID goose" and
Descriptives, which express also quality, as
"dark clouds" good boys" This is clear step
in advance and improvement on the grammars in
use among us. Our only objection to it is that it
does not add another general class-the Possessive
which might sweep the nonsense of Adjective Pro-
nouns exhaustively into their proper Part. Ofthis
class are such as these-'smy hat" 'her book," :"
''vour face" Col. Bingham classi6es these among
the Personal Pronouns; and in this we dissent ut
terly from his opinion The only sense in which
these words are pronouns is that they are derived
from. pronouns but if we apply that principle to
salty, it must be noun because derived from the
noun SALT
The Pronoun is one of the improvements of this
excellent book Pronouns are divided into Person
al and Relative. The old Adjective Pronouns are
already disposed of in speaking of the Adjective; !;
and as to the old Interegatiye Pronoun, nothing
short of imbeciy or idiotcy ever thought it to be
class of pronouns different from the relative.-
The reason why that classification appears in the
books of men who are not idiots is that it is put
in ,oithom thought simply copied from the older
grammars. We have already indicated our only
objection to our authors Personal Pronouns. As
to the Relative, he very justly prefers the name
Connective, but gives BOTH .-,....
The Verb presents some novelties. There are
three moods of the finite verb-Indicatiye, Sub
junctive, and Imperative; and the indefinite verb
(participals) has three -In6nitive, Partici-
pie, and Gerund. The Infnitive is noun, and in
that use has place among Nouns. The Participle
is an Adjective, and in that use has place las a
fourth class of Adjectives, we suggest) among Ad-