pupils come to school with many of their habits of expression already
formed on bad models, our schools must give some attention to the special
work of pointing out common errors of speech, and of leading pupils to
convert knowledge of these errors into new and correct habits of
expression. This is the branch of English teaching in which this little
book hopes to be useful.

All the "Exercises in English" with which I am acquainted consist chiefly
of "sentences to be corrected." To such exercises there are grave
objections. If, on the one hand, the fault in the given sentence is not
seen at a glance, the pupil is likely, as experience has shown, to pass it
by and to change something that is not wrong. If, on the other hand, the
fault is obvious, the exercise has no value in the formation of habit.
Take, for example, two "sentences for correction" which I select at random
from one of the most widely used books of its class: "I knew it was him,"
and "Sit the plates on the table." A pupil of any wit will at once see
that the mistakes must be in "him" and "sit," and knowing that the
alternatives are "he" and "set," he will at once correct the sentences
without knowing, perhaps, why one form is wrong, the other right. He has
not gained anything valuable; he has simply "slid" through his exercise.
Moreover, such "sentences for correction" violate a fundamental principle
of teaching English by setting before the impressionable minds of pupils
bad models. Finally, such exercises are unnatural, because the habit which
we hope to form in our pupils is not the habit of correcting mistakes, but
the habit of avoiding them.

Correct English is largely a matter of correct choice between two or more
forms of expression, and in this book an attempt has been made, as a
glance at the pages will show, to throw the exercises, whenever possible,
into a form consistent with this truth. Though a pupil may _change_ "who"