PREFACE

Il n'y a guère qu'une année que je publiais une brochure intitulée Introduction ta the teaching of living langtMges^ without grammar or dictionary. Cela peut faire trouver étrange que je produise aujourd'hui des ^Entretiens sur la grammaire. Cependant, les personnes qui ont lu la brochure savent que notre système d'enseignement consiste à apprendre à parler une langue vivante sans le secours de la grammaire, et sans que jamais un mot d'anglais soit prononcé. Cela est rigoureusement imposé par le système, et nous ne reconnaîtrons jamais comme appartenant à notre école le maître qui s'écarterait un seul instant de l'un ou de l'autre de ces deux points fondamentaux. Mais quand les élèves parlent, lisent et écri vent, quand leur pratique de la langue les a mis en possession du génie de la France, et qu'ils sont devenus familiers avec ses idiotismes, le moment est venu pour eux d'étudier les lois du langage français.

Comme les personnes qui n'ont pas lu ma brochure pourraient crohre, sur son titre, qu'elle condamne absolument la grammaire, et m'interdisait d'écrire les JEntretienêj je reproduis le passage suivant de cette publication : —

VÎ PBÉPACB.

" At the point at which we hâve amved, it îs not amiss, ît is even useful, to study the grammar. I do this in my classes the third term of every year. It is one of the most înteresting parts of our work, both for my pupils and myself . I see them corne to the class, in spite of the heat of June, with a persistency which almost astonishes me, and which I admire ; they ask me for a lesson in grammar as one of the greatest of favors. It is easily understood. Thèse dear companîons of a year's journeying throngh France and among the French, are acquainted with our grammar before the day on which we open it. There only remains for us to examine the great questions, the points which are difficult even for the French. It is from that time a work of the intelligence, which is full of serions enjoyment. We do it, besides, in an original manner, in one which is not imagined by the existing gram- ^ mars. Thus we hâve studied this year the subjunctive in a volume of G. Sand. This appears strange to persons who are acquainted only with the routine, and who seem to ignore that the works of the masters hâve preceded grammars, that the epoch which one calls in literature the epoch of grammarians is already an epoch of décadence, because the grammarians soon forget the masters and know only the grammarians whom they study and copy. Thèse people seem to ignore that the grammars come only after the books, as the generalization comes after the facts of observation ; and that it is to the books one must resort con- ^ stantly, since that is the only source.

" It is then only the great writers who can make us comprehend this élégant and incomparable beauty of

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our language. * The French/ said to me one day Pro fessor Hadley of Yale, that illustrioas savant wbom America Has recently lost, ^ is perhaps the most beautîful of the liying languages, and assuredly the most élégant, thanks to its subjonctive. We English hâve almost entirely lost ours, and with it the délicate shades of thought.* Welll I defy any teacher to make us realize thèse shades, this use so délicate of the subjunctive, from the grammars : they know nothing of the niceties of the language. We must leam to feel them, to appreciate them, and to love them from the great masters.

" As for the question of the participle, interminable, almost unintelligible, and an affair of memory in the grammars, it has been reduced to a single rule, and I bave seen my pupils résolve promptly with this one rule, once thoroughly understood, ail the cases of the Grammaire des Grammaires by Girault-Duvivier. I affirm that the pupils who bave understood this rule, employ the participle more correctly, beyond comparison, than the young people of the best collèges and schools of France. For there, one is shamefuUy ignorant of the participle, because there, as hère, one is acquainted only with the absurd and powerless method of the grammars. One does not even consider that man is a being endowed with intelligence, and without ceremony he is treated as a parrot.

" I will perhaps some time give this portion of my teaching to the public; my pupils bave frequently urged me to do so this summer, and I can excuse myself for not having fulfilled this duty, only by saying that I am not, as yet, entirely prepared. Every origi-