Southern standard. (McMinnville, Tenn.) 1879-current, 1881-12-03
PROF. J. P. CLARK'S CRITICISMS.
"Higher lessons in English"

A book which bears the above title has
gained some notoriety in Tennessee. Judg
ing from the title of this book person
would suppose that pupils in our schools
can learn in it something higher, and better
and more useful than they have ever learned
in any other book. But the book seems to
have many defects, and it is to be hoped
that it will be revised and corrected in the
next edition. A few of the errors of this
book will now be pointed out:
On the cover, there is no mark of punctu-
alton after the title nor after the names of
the authors. Two periods are necessary on
the cover where there is no marks of any
kind. On the fourth page Of the preface
occurs this sentence: at continues the
work which grammar has started him in"
All rhetorcans tell us not to end sentence
with auy small, insignificant word but Mr..
Reed here closes sentence with q short
proposition, when it might be closed much
more elegantly in another way. Mr. Reed
is like the professor who told his pupils that
"a proposition is a very bad word to close
sentence with"
On the twentieth page of the book, the
authors ask these questions "What is the
subject of a sentence? What is the predi.
cate of sentence" Instead of answering
these questions, the authors, in their defni.
tons, have simply told what the subject
"names," and what the predicate "tell."
When an author places questions in the
margins of his book, or at the close of
lesson, requiring pupils to give definitions,
they ought to give such definitions with per
feet accuracy. In other words, they should
tell what thing is, not what it names, tells,
does, or looks ike. Messrs. Reed & Kellogg
have failed as completely to tell what the
subject and predicate are, as the boy did in
telling what camel is, when he said, "a
camel LOCKS like a dronedarr-- lithA
more So"
On the forty-third page, the authors seem
to say, that two or more words connected by
conjunctOns should not be separated by
cammas when all the conjuctions are ex.
pressed. This advice which they give is err.
roneous. The following sentence copied
from Ihompsons Seasons is punctuated cor
rectly though all the words are separated
by commas and no conjunction is omitted:
"On rocks, and hills, and towers, and wan.
derlng streams,
High cleaning from affair.""
There are also several verses in the Bible in
which the comma is used between successive
words, though no conjunction is omitted.
On the ninetieth page, the following sen.
tence is found: "If the interrogative word
is subject or modifer of it, the order is
natural" This sentence is wrong; the au.
thors have omitted the article "a" Another
error Of the same kind is found on the same
page.
On the ninety-third page this sentence oc-
ours: "Now, then, go you to breakfast"
This sentence is supposed by the authors to
be correct, as it stands among Others that
are correct. If anything is noac, it cannot
be then; if it is then, it cannot be now.
The book should give summary of the
rules of syntax for the same reason that it
has given summary Of TIE rules of capitals
and punctuation.
The most Objectionable feature of the
book is the manner in which it treats the
subjunctive mode. To conjugate this mode
by saying, "If be- If he be-" etc, is going
back fifty years, instead of advancing and
making "lligher Lessons in English" In
1910, Pierce published grammar in which
he omitted that manner of con jugating the
subjunctive mode, aud gave for the correct
con?ugation, "lf | am, If he is" etc. All
distinguished grammarians who have written
since that time, have either followed Pierce's
example, or have said that the subiunctive
mode and present tense should be coniuga-
ted like the indicative mode and present
tense. Take the following sentences as an
example: 'lf the weather is favorable, the
meeting will be held in grove" "If the
weather be favorable, the meeting will be
held in a grove" All correct writers will
decide that the former sentence is more ele.
CANT than the latter; yet, If we follow Reed
and Kellogg, we must use the latter sentence.
Reed aud Kellogg say, "The subjunctive as
a form of the verb is fading out of the Ian
guage.' 1t began to fade out more than
forty years ago. 1t is now time for it to be
entirely faded out; but Reed and Kellogg
seem to be trying to keepit from fading out.
There are many other errors and defects
in the work which cannot now be noticed.
j. p. CLARK.