THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE IN ITS ELEMENTS AND FORMS. WITH A HISTORY OF ITS ORIGIN AND DEVELOPMENT. DESIGNED FOR USE IN COLLEGES AND SCHOOLS. Revised and Enlarged. BY WILLIAM C. FOWLER, LATE PROFESSOR OF RHETORIC IN AMHERST COLLEGE. NEW YORK: HARPER & BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS, PEARL STREET, FRANKLIN SQUARE. 1855. Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year one thousand eight hundred and fifty-five, by HARPER & BROTHERS, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the Southern District of New York. RADOVER THEOL SEMINAR AUG 3 1905 LIBRARY PREFACE TO THE REVISED EDITION. THE improvements in this revised edition consist, I. In the addition of a large amount of New and Valuable Matter, with the omission of certain portions of the old not deemed so important. II. In the annexation of Questions to most of the chapters, for the aid both of the pupil and the teacher. III. In the annexation of Exercises in Analysis and Synthesis to each of the eight parts. In the use of these exercises, the learner, by taking the language to pieces, and by putting its component parts together, in eight several ways, can become intimately acquainted with it, in all its elements and forms. To thorough practice in these exercises, namely, in decomposing the language, and composing it in accordance with established principles and rules, the author attaches great importance. IV. In certain portions of it being Recast, in order to make it better adapted to be used as a text-book in classes. In some cases, where the pupils are favorably situated, the whole book can be advantageously studied and recited. To do this for obtaining a thorough knowledge of the English language would not require near as much time as is often devoted to the acquisition of a superficial knowledge of the Greek, the Latin, or the French. But in other cases, certain portions of it can be selected by the teacher for recitation, while other portions the learner can read at his pleasure, and consult in the way of reference. Not long after the publication of the first edition, a gentleman, as well qualified as any other to appreciate the character of the work, said to the author, "Your work has been very favorably received by learned men and by the public generally. There is a wide opening for it, treating as it does of a subject which concerns all who speak and write the language. Why do you not, in the next edition, make it a national work?" Such a work I have endeavored to make it. In preparing it for publication, I have taken great pains in collecting and combining the materials. I have consulted the best authorities in the most extensive libraries in this country and in Europe. I have sought and obtained the aid and advice of learned men and of judicious friends. I have also derived advantage from those candid critics in the public prints who have pointed out errors or suggested improvements. In this edition, the sections furnished by Professor Josiah W. Gibbs, LL.D., are 79, 93, 95, 159, 162, 163, 167, 280, 302, 318, 358, 359, 364, 366, 370, 374, 381, from 383 to 422, and 539. I can not permit this edition to go forth from the press without expressing my grateful acknowledgments to those learned men, whether at home or abroad, and to those practical teachers, who bestowed their approbation on the first edition. I may also be allowed to congratulate the cultivators of English philology upon the increasing interest that is taken in the study of the English language; an interest which has evidently increased in five years, since the publication of the first edition of this work; an interest which, it is hoped, ere long may be commensurate with the increasing numbers who speak and write that language as their mother-tongue. W. C. F. Amherst, September, 1855. |