The Hawaiian gazette. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu, Hawaii]) 1865-1918, 1877-11-28
English Grammar ''.->o Called.
BY RICHARD GRANT WHITE.

a. All it's me- SAID Mr.. Squeers, and mes
the first person singular, nomlnative case. agree
ing with the verb it's, and governed by Squeers
understood; as, acorn, hour; but when the
is sounded, the only Is written, as u hand Il
heart, j highway" This delicious passage is
like almost all Of It's authors writing caricature,
but curieature full of life and truth. The rea-
son oi It's being so exqusitely Imaginable is not
because Of its representation OF the ignorance of
the sch0ulmaster, the union of the pedagOgue
and the ignOramus having been often presented
before, but because 1t presents 10 compact and
rdiculOusly impressive form. confused memories
left in most minds by the study of that absurd
and utterly useless ''hranch' Of education, Eng
fish grammar.
The useessness of the study of what is called
English grammar is shown by the fact that none,
or nearly none, of the great writers and speakers
I of English before the present century. ut least
] were at all Instructed in that by pedagOgues
much-vaunted branch OF education. Our great
! poets, philosophers. statesmen, Orators-rnen
! whose words are the glory and the priceless heri-
/ tnge of the English race, aud whose use of Ian
| guage we feebly emulute--knew nothing of Eng
/ lish grammar, except that they spoke in grammar,
for the grammar came. Is there any use in
teaching method or speaking aud writing the
4 Eugsh language correctly that was utterly un
hHu"h w NhduSCI' A7pChSCli AOf'u0J,
Shakespeare. Ben johnson. Bacon, Fletcher
Milton, Pope, Dryden. Locke Addison Steele,
Fielding. Goldsmith Sterne. Burke johnson
and tn the EGgllsh translaturs Of the Bible nd
what English. short OF that of Shakespeare and
the English Bible is 10 be compared with John
Bungnn s-a man ignorant OF not only English
grammar but of any grammar at all ? have stop
ped in the citation OF my examples with the
writers of the last century merely because, in
regard to those of the present, am less sure
about their school boy experience in learning
Their mother tongue, and because it was about
the beginning Of this century that The grammai
fever broke out. But hat mental malady never
ragged much in Eugland ut least in the class oil
those who receive lhe higher education; and il
is probable at least that Walter Scott, Byron
Wordsworth, Southey, Macauey, Carlyle, anC
I'iackeray received special instruction in
English grammar. This assertion may surprise
some who know that grammar schools have
long been known in England. They have exist
ed there for ceuturles-irOm the time of Edwart
VI. OF least There grammar school Il
Strstford on Avon, TO which Shakespeare prob
ably went; and he makes Jack Cide bring it as
grevous accusation against the Lord Say that h.
, most tratorously corrupted the youth of thu
realm in erecting grammar school," But thes
grammar schools had nothing 10 do with Eng
4
Latin grammar. Then, grammar" meant, with
out more words, Latin grammar. The peopl
that produced Shakespeare and Bacon and Tn
, transators of the Bible would as soon hav
! thought of setting up schools TO teach yOun
ducks to swim, as II school 10 teach English boy
the art Of speaking and writing the English Ian
guage correctly. In The Merry Wives of Wind
, sor" Shakespeare makes the Clergyman, Sir dug
Evans, ask little William Page "some question
IN his accdence," at the request of his mothe
who says that his father complains that b
profits nothing in the world at his book an
his accdence is Latin his book simply his Lati
grammar The men whom JACK Cade tells Lor
Say it will be proved to his face lie has abou
him, and who usually talk of noun and vert
and such ubolnnable words as no Christian ca
can endure TO hear" talked only of Latin noun
n and verbs. The first English grammar that al
t acquainted with was written by Ben johnson
: who wrote it, believe after Shakespeare's tim,
+ and left unfinished. After that there we're Va
e rlous English grammars written, but they wei
h not for the use Of schools. knowledge of th
I construction Of language was obtained in Euf
g land until very recent period only through I'll
t medium of the Latin and Greek grammar
o America" has been the great field of labor
J. English grammar and the first great EnglIs
e grammar, the one by which schOolboydom hs
IS been chiefly oppressed, was written by an "An
Is rican.' Llndey Murray. the Philadelphia Quake
r The influence Of this look aud its congeners
IS our country upon our language has not been ha
If Ply. Our English has suffered from it. We hav
l. produced some writers who use the English la
Al guage with freedom and inborE mastery; bu
a the mass of our tree-and.iGdepeudent-p public
!. school educated American citizen0 would b
t. leve have written better and spok en- bette
4. more naturally, easily, forcibly, automatically,
/. English grammars had been unknown.