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This work is a revision of the author's Elementary Grammar, first published in 1869. Part I consists of lessons in technical grammar, sentence-making, and composition. Great care has been taken never to define a term or to enunciate a principle without first preparing the mind of the pupil to grasp and comprehend the meaning and use of the term defined or the principle enunciated. Ideas are first developed by intelligent questioning and appropriate illustrations then clothed in words. Sentence making and composition are, it is believed, presented in a natural and attractive manner. Words are given for the pupil to use in sentences. At first, all the words are given, then a part of them. Having acquired some facility in the construction of sentences, the pupil is next taught to use groups of words, phrases, and clauses as single words. In composition, the pupil is first taught to tell what he sees in a picture, then to answer questions concerning the objects represented in it. The description and the answers following it make a composition. He is next taught to study a picture and to exercise his inventive powers in writing short stories suggested by it. This course of instruction is introductory to that given in Part II which contains a concise yet exhaustive statement of the properties and modifications of the different parts of speech, as well as carefully prepared models for parsing and analysis, rules of syntax, and plans for the description of single objects--a continuation of the composition work begun in Part I.
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