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The Rules of Common School Grammars

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 December 2020

Charles C. Fries
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Extract

Although the present-day popular views of grammar do not, in medieval fashion, find “divine inspiration in the eight parts of speech” and veiled references to the Trinity in “the three persons of verbal conjugation” yet they do look upon the rules of the common school grammars as the infallible measure of correct language, and the one defence against the forces of corruption that continually beset it. “Grammatici unus finis est recté loqui” still expresses the attitude of the ordinary public, of most school teachers, and of many men of letters. Even a hundred years of the historical method in linguistic scholarship has failed to affect in any marked degree the common grammatical ideas and ideals of the general public.

Type
Research Article
Information
PMLA , Volume 42 , Issue 1 , March 1927 , pp. 221 - 237
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1927

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References

1 “In the Middle Ages grammar was cultivated to the point of superstition. Divine inspiration was found lurking in the eight parts of speech because ‘octavus numerus frequenter in divinis scripturus sacratis invenitur,’ and in the three persons of verbal conjugation, created simply ‘ut quod in Trinitatis fide credimus, in eloquiis inesse videatur’.” Croce, Aesthetic, 465 (trans. Ainslie), quoted from Comparetti, Virgilio nel M.E., i. pp. 169-70.

1 See studies of the language errors of school children as summed up in The Sixteenth Yearbook of the National Society for the Study of Education, Part I, 85-110.

3 Quoted from Jul. Caesar Scaliger with approval by Ben Jonson, The English Grammar, Chap. I.

4 Otto Jespersen, Language: Its Nature, Development, and Origin. Book I is devoted to a History of Linguistic Science.

5 “In a work which professes itself to be a compilation, and which, from the nature and design of it, must consist chiefly of materials selected from the writings of others, it is scarcely necessary to apologize for the use which the compiler has made of his predecessors' labours; or for omitting to insert their names. . . . . It is, however, proper to acknowledge, in general terms, that the authours to whom the grammatical part of this compilation is principally indebted for its materials, are Harris, Johnson, Lowth, Priestly, Beattie, Sheridan, Walker, and Coote.”

Lindley Murray, English Grammar (1795), Introduction.

6 Richard Mulcaster, Positions (1581), p. 30.

7 Four typical expressions of this demand, chosen somewhat at random from many of a similar nature, are the following:

“I have long been persuaded that nothing has been so much wanted in our English schools as an Introduction to the English Language and Learning; since common experience but too much evinces how little our Youth understand of either, after the first seven Years of customary Education. An English Grammar-School, is a Thing unheard of in our Nation.”

Benjamin Martin, English Grammar (1754), Preface, p. v.

“. . . . most of my contemporaries, I believe, being sensible, that their knowledge of the grammar of their mother tongue hath been acquired by their own study and observation, since they have passed the rudiments of the schools. To obviate this inconvenience, we must introduce into our schools English grammar, English compositions, and frequent English translations from authors in other languages.”

J. Priestly, English Grammar (1761), Introduction, p. 10.

“The study of our own Tongue has hitherto been most shamefully neglected in our public schools, while the construction of the dead Languages, with all their idioms, has been assiduously taught. In this respect we certainly pay too great a regard to custom.” Monthly Review (1762), XXVI, 27.

“A grammatical study of our own language makes no part of the ordinary method of instruction, which we pass through in our childhood; and it is very seldom that we apply ourselves to it afterwards. Yet the want of it will not be effectually supplied by any other advantages whatsoever.”

R. Lowth, A Short Introduction etc., (1762), Intro., p. viii.

8 That a more definite standard of speech came into existence at the end of the eighteenth century is also indicated in the following:

“While we must insist upon the existence of a standard of speech at least as early as Henry VIII and probably earlier, it is not suggested that this had anything like the currency which the Received Standard has at the present day, nor can the general diffusion of this among the higher classes be assumed much before the end of the eighteenth century.”

H. C. Wyld, History of Modern Colloquial English, p. 103 (1920).

9 Compare the very similar list of grammars in my paper on “shall” and “will” (P.M.L.A., XL, 968-69). Some other 19th-century grammars have also been examined, though with much less care.

10 Examples are:

P. G., Grammatica Anglicana, 1594

A. Gil, Logonomia Anglica, 1619

Wallis, Grammatica Linguae A nglicanae, 1653

Cooper, Grammatica Linguae Anglicanae, 1685

11 For example: “Grammaire/Angloise/Contenant reigles bien exactes &/certaines de la Prononciation, Or/thographe, & Construction de/nostre langue; /En faveur des estrangiers qui en/sont desireux./Par George Mason/Marchand de Londres/1622/.”

12 “The English Grammar/Made by Ben Jonson/For the benefit of all Strangers,/out of his Observation of the English Language, now spoken/and in Use.”

13 Thus one reads on the title-page of An English Grammar by R.R. (1641): “very useful for all young Scholars, and others that would in a short time learn the Latin tongue.”

Compare also the more detailed statement in Milton's Grammar (1669): “Accedence Commenced Grammar supplied with sufficient Rules for the use of such as, younger or elder, are desirous, without more trouble than need, to attain the Latin tongue. . . . . It hath been long a general complaint, not without cause in the bringing up of youth, and still is, that the tenth part of man's life, ordinarily extended, is taken up in learning, and that very scarcely, the Latin Tongue, Which tardy proficience may be attributed to several causes: in particular, the making two labours of one, by learning first the Accedence, then the Grammar in Latin, ere the language of those rules be understood. The only remedy of this was to join both books into one, and in the English Tongue; whereby the long way is much abbreviated, and the labour of understanding much more easy.”

14 “As the End and Design of Speech is to qualify Mankind for Society, by enabling them to communicate their Thoughts to each other; so the doing this in the most intelligible and proper Manner is certainly of very great Importance. To teach this by Rules and Directions is the Business of Grammar, which, though the same in all Languages as to its general Principles, must adapt its particular Precepts to the Nature and Genius of the Tongue for which they are intended. In a word the English Language ought to be learnt by an English Grammar, such a one (give me leave to say) as is here presented to the Public . . . .” (J. Newberry, Grammar Made Familiar (1745), Preface, II.)

“. . . . and also for the exact use of our Language; which for want of Rule is subject to uncertainty, and the Occasion of frequent Contentions. And upon this account, it has been the practice of several wise nations, such of them, I mean, as have a thorough Education, to learn even their own Language by stated Rules, to avoid that Confusion, that must needs follow from leaving it wholly to vulgar Use.” (Richard Johnson, Grammatical Commentaries, 1706.)

16 For the beginnings of the grammatical apparatus used in the early English grammars one must turn back to the classical Greece of the fourth and even the fifth century before the Christian era—to the names of Protagoras and Prodicus, Democritus and Aristotle, the Stoics and the Alexandrian critics. In the second century b.c. there existed two hostile schools of Greek grammarians: (a) the “Analogists” insisted, first, that there was a strict law of analogy between the word and the idea for which it stood, and second, that there could be no exceptions to the grammatical rules they laid down; (b) the “Anomalists” opposed the “Analogists” by denying that there was any necessary connection between the word and the idea and they insisted that there could be no grammatical rules of any kind except in so far as they were consecrated by custom.

The outstanding figure of the “Anomalists” was Crates of Mallos who produced the first Greek grammar, a collection of facts gathered by the Alexandrian critics in their minute study of the differences between the language of Homer and the Attic writers and that of their own day. The immediate cause of Crates grammar was his lectures at Rome on the comparison of the Greek and Latin languages, delivered during his residence there as an official representative of the country.

Of the “Analogists,” Aristarchus stood out as the most important figure. Dionysius Thrax was a follower of Aristarchus, so that his famous grammar, published in the time of Pompey when the Romans were zealously studying Greek, assumes as a foundation the principles of the Analogist school of grammarians. Upon this grammar of Dionysius Thrax were modelled the Latin grammars of Rome which attempted (with only partial success) to translate into Latin the Greek technical grammatical terms. By the second century of the Christian era the Anomalist school of grammarians had virtually no influence upon the making of Latin grammars and the Analogists had thus practically won the dispute. In the books of grammar that were being produced “analogy” was recognized as the principle underlying language although the “rules” were acknowledged to have some exceptions. One outstanding name of those who wrote Latin grammars modelled upon that of Dionysius Thrax and the Latin grammars that followed his is that of Donatus of the fourth century a.d.

Upon the grammar of Donatus and the work of Priscian, of about 500 a.d., were based the grammars of the Middle Ages. These are the type and source of the Latin and Greek grammars of Medieval and Modern Europe. The grammatical apparatus developed and available in the sixteenth century when the first practical grammars of the vernaculars arose was this which had been used for centuries for the Latin language—it is the dead hand of the old Analogist group of the second century b.c.

It is to be remembered that the fundamental ideas of this school of grammarians were opposed from the very beginning even with reference to the classical languages themselves. Present scientific views of language are more in harmony with the point of view of the old Anomalists than with that of the Analogists and their descendants. See Sayce, article on “Grammar,” Encyclopedia Britannica, 11th edition, and Jespersen, Language, 19-26.

16 “I have, wherever I could keep Company with those esteemed the best English Grammarians, receded as little from their Plan and Diction, as Method and Precision would admit.” (Anon. [(for J. Norman)], British Grammar, 1748.)

“At nemo eorum, quantum ego existimo, illa insistit via quae huic negotio maxime est accommodata; omnes enim ad Latinae linguae normam hanc nostram Anglicanam nimium exigentes, (quo etiam errore laborat fere omnes in aliis modernis linguis tradendis,) multa inutilia praecepta de Nomium Casibus Generibus, & Declinationibus, atque Verborum Temporibus, Modis & Conjugationibus, de Nominum item & Verborum Regimine, aliisque similibus tradiderunt, quae linguae nostrae sunt prorsus aliena, adeoque confusionem potius & obscuritatem pariunt, quam explicationi inserviunt. . . . . Recepta tamen apud Latinos artis vocabula, quanquam linguae nostrae non usquequa; accommodata, retinenda censui, partim quod significationis jam notae sint, partim etiam quod nollem praeter necessitatem quidpiam innovare.” (Wallis, Grammatica Linguae Anglicanae, 1653.)

“It must indeed be acknowledged that the Plan of the Latin Grammar, is not the best which might be contrived, especially for our English Youth, but as Custom and Authority have made it the Standard Rule of teaching them that Language, there seems therefore a necessity of making the Rules of an Introduction to an English grammar, as subservient thereunto as possible, (so far as the Nature and Genius of our own Tongue will admit) that whilst we are teaching the one, we may at the same time be laying a good Foundation for the other. And this I think the only reason for keeping, as close as we can to the Method and Rules there laid down; for otherwise, I should be the last to find fault with any Person for quitting the Old Track and setting out a better.” (Anon., A New English Accidence, 1736.)

“It is possible I may be thought to have leaned too much from the Latin idiom, with respect to several particulars in the structure of our language; but I think it is evident, that all other grammarians have leaned too much to the analogies of that language, contrary to our modes of speaking, and to the analogies of other languages more like our own.” (J. Priestley, English Grammar, 1761.) This very independence of Priestley was perhaps one reason why his grammar had so little influence.

17 Typical statements of (a) are:

“I cannot but think it would be of great Advantage, both for the Improvement of Reason in general (the Art of Speaking having such an Affinity with that of Reasoning, which it represents) and also for the exact use of our own Language; which for want of Rule is subject to Uncertainty, and the Occasion of frequent Contentions. And upon this account, it has been the Practice of several wise Nations, such of them, I mean, as have a thorough Education, to learn even their own Language by Stated Rules, to avoid that Confusion, that must needs follow from leaving it wholly to vulgar Use. Sure no Body need think long upon this Subject to be convinced, that if there go so much Art to right reasoning, there must go some also to right speaking, I mean to a clear and certain Expression of that Reason, which is the Business of Grammar. Certainly Chance can never equal Rule and Method in a thing of this Moment and Curiosity. The Subject therefore of this Treatise, is no matter of little Concernment, by which so much Good may be done in the World.” (Richard Johnson, Grammatical Commentaries, Preface, p. x—the pages of the preface are not numbered.)

“. . . . these [naming several grammarians] deserved well of their Country, for their laudable Endeavours to cultivate and improve their own Native Speech, which has long lain, and is at this Day too much neglected, notwithstanding the many brave, but unsuccessful Attempts, to bring it into request, by reducing it to order, and shewing the Beauties and Excellencies it is capable of.” (Anon., A New English Accidence, (1736), Preface.)

“Thus have I labored to settle the orthography, to regulate the structures, and ascertain the signification of English words.” (Samuel Johnson, Preface of Grammar and Dictionary, 1755.)

“Whether many important advantages would not accrue both to the present age, and to posterity, if the English language were ascertained, and reduced to a fixed and permanent standard? . . . . To compass these points . . . . has been the chief object of the author's pursuits in life, and the main end of the present publication.” (Thomas Sheridan, Preface to Dictionary, 1780.) Typical expressions of (b) are:

“Considering the many grammatical Improprieties to be found in our best writers, such as Swift, Addison, Pope &c. a Systematical English Syntax is not beneath the Notice of the Learned themselves.” (James Buchanan, A Regular English Syntax (1767), Preface vi.)

“The principal design of a Grammar of any Language is to teach us to express ourselves with propriety in that Language, and to enable us to judge of every phrase and form of construction whether it be right or not. The plain way of doing this, is to lay down rules, and to illustrate them by examples. But, besides shewing what is right, the matter may be further explained by pointing out what is wrong.” (Robert Lowth, A Short Introduction etc. (1762), Preface, x.)

“It is manifest that some Rules for the Construction of the Language must be used, and those Rules reduced to some Kind of System. . . . .

“Thus I have given in Effect, and with its principal Difficulties, the whole Plan of a Speculative or Theoretic Grammar, with regard to the English Language.....

“This determined me, many Years ago, to attempt a Discovery of the Reason of every Part of Construction. . . . .

“Hence Use and Custom are considered as the only Rules by which to judge of what is right or wrong in Process. But is the Custom which is observed in the Application of any Language the Effect of Chance? Is not such Custom a consistent Plan of communicating the Conceptions and rational discursive Operations of one Man to another? And who will maintain, that this is, or can be, the Effect of mere unmeaning Accident? If then it be not so, it must be the Effect of the Reason of Man, adjusting certain means to a certain End: And it is the Business of Speculative or Rational Grammar to explain the Nature of the Means, and to shew how they are applied to accomplish the End proposed. If this can be done with sufficient Evidence, the most simple of the Elements of Logic will become familiar to those who engage in a Course of Grammar, and Reason will go Hand in Hand with Practice.” (William Ward, English Grammar (1765), Preface v, xvii, xxi.)

18 Ben Jonson, Discoveries, No. 129.

19 “It must be allowed, that the custom of speaking is the original and only just standard of any language. We see, in all grammars, that this is sufficient to establish a rule, even contrary to the strongest analogies of the language itself.”

Joseph Priestley, English Grammar, 1761.

“Most writers upon this subject have split upon one rock They lay down certain rules, arbitrary perhaps or drawn from the principles of other languages, and then condemn all English phrases which do not coincide with those rules. They seem not to consider that grammar is formed on language, and not language on grammar. Instead of examining to find what the English language is, they endeavor to show what it ought to be according to their rules.”

Noah Webster, Dissertations, 1789, p. 37.

20 See C. C. Fries, “The Periphrastic Future with Shall and Will in Modern English,” P.M.L.A., XL, 974, 975.

21 Henry Cecil Wyld, History of Modern Colloquial English, p. 18.

22 Gustav Gröber, Grundriss der Romanischen Philologie, Vol. I.

J. L. Moore, Tudor-Stuart Views of the Growth, Status, and Destiny of the English Language, Morsbach's Studien zur Engl. Philol., Heft XXI.

23 “Dante himself, though he defended his native tongue in the Convivio and the De vulgari Eloquentia, decided to write his epic in Italian, only because Latin was reserved for ‘the highest reaches of invention‘—the themes of tragedy; and his epic was a comedy, as the word was then understood.”

J. L. Moore, Tudor-Stuart Views, p. 2.

24 Though the Latin tongue be already discharged of all superfluities, exempt from custome, to chaunge it, and laid up for knowledge to cherish it: and of long time hath been smoothed both to the eye, and to the eare: yet in course of teaching it doth not naturally draw on the English, which yet remaineth in her lees unrackt and not fined, though it grow on verie faire,“ (Mulcaster, Positions (1581), p. 31.)

“For our natural tung being as beneficiall unto us for our nedeful deliuerie, as any other is to the people which use it; and hauing as pretie, and as fair obseruations in it, as anie other hath: and being as readie to yield to anie rule of Art, as anie other is: why should I not take som pains to find out the right writing of ours, as other countrimen haue don to find the like in theirs, and so much the rather, bycause it is pretended that the writing thereof is maruellous uncertain and scant to be recouered from extreme confusion without som change of as great extremitie? I mean therefor so to deall in it, as I maie wipe awaie that opinion of either uncertaintie for confusion, or impossibilitie for direction, that both the naturall English maie haue wherein to rest, and the desirous stranger maie haue whereby to learn. To the performance whereof, and mine own better direction, I will first examine those means, whereby other tungs of most sacred antiquitie haue bene brought to Art and form of discipline for their right writing, to the end that by following their waie, I maie hit upon their right, and at the least by their president deuise the like to theirs, where the use of our tung, and the propertie of our dialect will not yield flat to theirs.” (Mulcaster, Elementarie (1582), p. 53, 54.)

“The profit of Grammar is great to strangers, who are to live in communion and commerce with us, and it is honourable to ourselves: for by it we communicate all our labours, studies, profits, without an interpreter.

“We free our language from the opinion of rudeness and barbarism, wherewith it is mistaken to be diseased: we shew the copy of it, and matchableness with other tongues; . . . .” (Ben Jonson, The English Grammar (1640), Preface).

25 “La principale fonction de l'Académie sera de travailler avec tout le soin et toute la diligence possible à donner des règles certaines à notre langue, et à la rendre pure, éloquente et capable de traiter les arts et les sciences.” (Statutes of Foundation of French Academy, Article No. 24.) Ferdinand Brunot, Histoire de La Langue Française, Tome III, 35.

“. . . . que la langue françoise qui jusques à présent n'a que trop resenti la négligence de ceux qui l'eussent pu rendre la plus parfaite des modernes, est plus capable que jamais de le devenir, vu le nombre des personnes qui ont une connoissance particulière des avantages qu'elle possède, et de ceux quis'y peuvent encore ajouter; que pour en établir des règles certaines il avoit ordonné une Assemblée, dont les propositions l'avoient satisfait: si bien que pour les exécuter, et pour rendre le langage françois non seulement élégant, mais capable de traiter tous les arts, et toutes les sciences, il ne seroit besoin que de continuer ces conférences, ce qui pourroit faire avec beaucoup de fruit. . . . .” Lettres Patentes pour la fondation de l'Academie. Pellison et D'Olivet, Histoire de l'Academie Francaise, avec une Introduction, des E'claircissements et Notes, par M.Ch.L.Livet, (1858), p. 31, 32.

26 The Florentine Academy dated from 1542.

The Academia della Crusca was founded in 1582.

The Salon de Rambouillet received through Richelieu the royal sanction in 1635.

27 For an account of the efforts to establish an academy in England see O. F. Emerson, “John Dryden and a British Academy,” Proceedings of the British Academy, Vol. X (1921).

B. S. Monroe, “An English Academy,” Modem Philology, VIII, 107-122. Ekwald Flügel, “Die Älteste Englische Akademie,” Anglia, XXXII, 261-268.

Joseph Hunter, “An Account of the Scheme for creating a Royal Academy in England, in the Reign of King James the First, Archeologia, XXXII, 132-249.

J. E. Spingarn, Critical Essays of the Seventeenth Century, II, 337.

Some of the expressions of proposals for an English Academy came from the following: Edmund Bolton, 1617; John Dryden, 1664, 1679; John Evelyn, 1665; S. Skinner, 1671; Defoe, 1697; Addison, 1711; Swift, 1712.

28 See typical statements from the grammars in note 17 above.

29 Treatments of the place of this attitude in the literary criticism of the past are contained in the following: Benedetto Croce, The History of Æsthetic; J. L. Miller, The Historical Point of View in Literary Criticism, in Anglistische Forschungen, Heft 35; W. H. Durham, Critical Essays of the Eighteenth Century, 1700-1725, Introduction; J. E. Spingarn, Critical Essays of the Seventeenth Century, Introduction.