first mention of them suggests, it may be well to be more explicit here
concerning them. The pupil who cannot perform these exercises both
accurately and fluently, is not truly prepared to perform them at all, and
has no right to expect from any body a patient hearing. A slow and
faltering rehearsal of words clearly prescribed, yet neither fairly
remembered nor understandingly applied, is as foreign from parsing or
correcting, as it is from elegance of diction. Divide and conquer, is the
rule here, as in many other cases. Begin with what is simple; practise it
till it becomes familiar; and then proceed. No child ever learned to speak
by any other process. Hard things become easy by use; and skill is gained
by little and little. Of the whole method of parsing, it should be
understood, that it is to be a critical exercise in utterance, as well as
an evidence of previous study,--an exhibition of the learner's attainments
in the practice, as well as in the theory, of grammar; and that, in any
tolerable performance of this exercise, there must be an exact adherence to
the truth of facts, as they occur in the example, and to the forms of
expression, which are prescribed as models, in the book. For parsing is, in
no degree, a work of invention; but wholly an exercise, an exertion of
skill. It is, indeed, an exercise for all the powers of the mind, except
the inventive faculty. Perception, judgement, reasoning, memory, and
method, are indispensable to the performance. Nothing is to be guessed at,
or devised, or uttered at random. If the learner can but rehearse the
necessary definitions and rules, and perform the simplest exercise of
judgement in their application, he cannot but perceive what he _must say_
in order to speak the truth in parsing. His principal difficulty is in
determining the parts of speech. To lessen this, the trial should commence
with easy sentences, also with few of the definitions, and with definitions
that have been perfectly learned. This difficulty being surmounted, let him
follow the forms prescribed for the several praxes of this work, and he
shall not err. The directions and examples given at the head of each