after the method of the most approved grammarians, will soon learn how futile it is to try to please everybody. "High and reverend authorities lift up their heads on both sides, and there is no sure footing in the middle." The author can only say that he has tried to follow those philologists who seem most likely to influence current opinion. With regard to the exercises, the sentences for analysis have been chosen as far as possible with reference to fine literary quality. Special exercises have been prepared on the subjects that most frequently baffle students. The numerous exercises bearing on questions of good usage have been made practical. No sentences for correction have been admitted. Most of the exercises have been made fuller than usual, since it is much easier to shorten an exercise that is too long than to lengthen one that is too short. For assistance in preparing the book it gives the author pleasure to acknowledge his great indebtedness to Mr. Edward D. Farrell, Associate Superintendent of Public Schools in New York City, who has read both the manuscript and the proof and has made many valuable suggestions. The author is also indebted for helpful suggestions to Mr. Edward G. Coy, Headmaster of the Hotchkiss School; Mrs. Ella F. Young, Assistant Professor of Pedagogy in the University of Chicago; and Mrs. Sarah Ellen Andrew, Teacher of English in the Detroit (Mich.) Public High School. INTRODUCTION 1. Language.-Everybody has an instinctive desire to tell his thoughts and feelings to others; indeed, exchange of ideas is necessary in social life. One way of expressing thoughts is to make motions with the hands or other parts of the body, as children and deaf and dumb persons do. But the usual and very much better way is to make with the tongue and adjoining organs certain combinations of sounds which by common consent have certain meanings. These combinations of tongue-sounds, by which people express their thoughts and feelings, form Language (from Latin lingua, "tongue"). Combinations of sounds that stand for single ideas are called words. These are in turn combined into thought-groups called Sentences. 2. Why Our Language is Called English.—Our language is called English because it is the language that has been spoken for more than fifteen hundred years in England, whence it has been carried to America and other parts of the world by English colonists. 3. The Early Home of English.-But the English language did not have its beginning in England. It was carried there in 449 A. D. by people who migrated from the banks of the river Elbe and the southwest coasts of the Baltic Sea. These people were from three tribes, called Angles, Saxons, and Jutes. Of the Jutes who moved to England nearly all trace has been lost. The Angles and the Saxons drove the original inhabitants-the Britons-into the mountainous parts of the island, and in course of time founded the Anglo-Saxon race. They called their new country "Angleland," or "England;" themselves and their language they called "English." The wonderful way in which the English language has spread over the world is shown by the accompanying maps. The map on this page shows |