How to parse. ...

vi

HW0 T TO PARSE.

be regarded as thoroughly tested in his knowledge of
grammatical rules till he has applied them to connected narrative. As long as he is tested in nothing
but short sentences, you can never feel sure that his
accuracy is not merely mechanical.
Paragraphs 1-82 are of a much simpler character
than those that follow; and the pupil should be well
drilled in them before passing onward. The grammarlessons of three or four months may be very well spent
in teaching boys how to select the Subjects and Objects
of the different Verbs in a Sentence, and a month or
two more may well be given to Relative Sentences.
Indeed, if the majority of a class of boys, between 11
and 12 years old, can, after six months' training in
grammar, parse " jay " in: -
" The jay that robbed the other birds of their feathers was
afterwards punished for robbing then "I should, myself, think the six months spent to very
good purpose.
Paragraphs 82-162 are decidedly more difficult, and
constitute work for a higher class. The chapter on the
Subjunctive Mood is put last, out of its place, owing to
the extreme difficulty of the subject.
The chapter on Irregularities, Paragraphs 191-230,
is of a different nature from the former part of the book.
It is intended to prepare the pupil for Part II., and is
an attempt to apply the principles of scholarship to the
explanation of the irregularities of English Grammar.
These principles are few, and capable of brief enunciation, viz., (1) that every irregularity is a deviation from
a " regula " or rule; (2) that there must be some attracting force to produce this deviation; (3) that this attracting force is generally one of three causes, of which
the " confusion of' two constructions " is by far the most
common. Simple and brief though they are, these principles require, as every teacher knows, careful and constant inculcation before the pupil is imbued with them.
But when the pupil has once mastered them, he has
the key to unlock any idiomatic irregularity, in any