33/68 He makes but small pretensions to originality in theoretical matter. Most of the principles laid down, have been selected from our _best modern philologists_. If his work is entitled to any degree of _merit_, it is not on account of a judicious selection of principles and rules, but for the easy mode adopted of communicating _these_ to the mind of the learner."-- _Kirkham's Grammar_, 1825, p. It will be found on examination, that what this author regarded as _"all the most important subject-matter of the whole science" of grammar_, included nothing more than the most common elements of the orthography, etymology, and syntax, of the English tongue--beyond which his scholarship appears not to have extended. |