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SMITH'S NEW GRAMMAR

ENGLISH GRAMMAR

ON THE

PRODUCTIVE SYSTEM:

METHOD OF INSTRUCTION RECENTLY ADOPTED

IN

GERMANY AND SWITZERLAND

Designed for Schools and Academies.

BY ROSWELL C. SMITH,

INTELLECTUAL

AUTHOR OF
" PRACTICAL AND MENTAL ARITHMETIC,” 27 66
AND PRACTICAL GRAMMAR,” AND “ INTRODUCTORY ARITHMETIC

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Second Edition.

PHILADELPHIA:

PUBLISHED BY MARSHALL, CLARK, AND CO

NO. 4 NORTH FIFTH STREET.

1834.

HARVARD COLLEGE LIBRARY

GIF

GEORGE ARTHUR PLIMPTON
JANUARY 25, 1924

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1832, by PERKINS & MARVIN,

In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of Massachusetts.

PREFACE.

THE following work was composed, as is indicated by the title, on what is styled in Germany and Switzerland the "Productive System of Instruction.' ." It is in these countries that the subject of Education has been deemed a matter of paramount importance. The art of teaching, particularly, has there been most ably and minutely investigated. To give a brief account of the different systems which have prevailed there, may not be irrelevant on the present occasion, as they assist in forming an opinion of the comparative merits of the "Productive System," on which this work is principally based.

"In reference to intellectual education, the persons who were instrumental in producing the reformation in schools, in the last century, in these countries, may be divided into four classes-the Humanists, Philanthropists, Pestalozzian and the Productive Schools.

"At the restoration of learning, in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, the classics were brought out from the libraries of the cloisters in which they had been buried. As they presented the only examples of exalted sentiments and elevated style which the secular literature of the age afforded, they were regarded as the only means of acquiring enlarged views and a liberal education; the study of them received the proud title of Humanity; and the zealous and meritorious men who employed this means for the revival of learning, were subsequently termed Humanists.

"The rigid Humanists maintained that the Greek and Latin authors are the only source of sound learning, whether in philosophy or rhetoric, in poetry or history, in medicine or law, and even in the elements of religion; all has come to us from Greece and Rome.' "The learning of the Greek and Latin languages is the only foundation of a thorough education;' the knowledge of the gramm r ought to precede all other knowledge; 'and philologists are the only thoroughly learned men.'

"The Humanists maintained the entire sway of the learned world until about the middle of the last century, when the school of the Philanthropists arose. Disgusted with the extravagant manner in which the ancient languages were extolled, they were led to examine into the foundations of their pretensions. While they yielded the palm to the ancients in all that relates to matters of taste and beauty, they maintained that this superiority arose from the fact, that the ancients derived their views directly from the inspection of nature and the observation of man, instead of occupying themselves, as we do, with the mere pictures of them drawn by others;-they pointed to the obvious truth, that the world is older and vastly more experienced than it was two thousand years ago; that in regard to all that relates to human knowledge, the present generation are really the ancients. They believed that much time was lost by the indiscriminate and exclusive use of the classics as the foundation of education, which ought to be spent in acquisition of practical knowledge; and that by this tedious and laborious task, without any perceptible advantage to the pupil, they were often disgusted with every species of intellectual effort. They also pointed out the moral corruption

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