Publisher's Synopsis
This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1867 edition. Excerpt: ...connexion. Both paths of study are worth pursuing for their own sake, and some steps may be made towards both, even while the language itself is being learnt. Only let it be accepted as a cardinal law of education, that before it can do any profitable work, the mind must have material to work upon. The study of Logic presents a close parallel to the study of Grammar. It would be possible to conceive a boy taught to argue from first principles. If, by enormous labour, he could instil into his mind the various rules of Aldrich, and regard them as a code of laws which he was bound to obey whenever a sequence of propositions presented itself to his mind, it is conceivable that he might produce the requisite conclusion from the premises before him, though he had never conducted an argument before in his life. Supposing that a system of this kind existed at our English schools, it is more than likely that a great deal would be urged in its favour. It is necessary, it would be said, to imbue the mind with true and proper rules, in order that it may be prepared to use them when the time comes. To argue, we should be told, is nothing, unless one argues from a comprehension of the rules of argument. The defenders of this system would be no more driven from their position by the fact that many people are logical without having been to Oxford, than the Grammar-writers of the present day are confounded by the circumstance that Euripides wrote excellent Greek without having ever heard of an optative mood. Putting aside that part of Grammar which depends on memory, the rest is simply a logical training. It would be hard to find a better practising-ground than Grammar for the logical studies of manhood or even of adolescence, simply because it is so...