It is proposed to commence, this evening, a course of Lectures on the
Grammar of the English Language. I am aware of the difficulties
attending this subject, occasioned not so much by any fault in itself,
as by the thousand and one methods adopted to teach it, the multiplicity
of books pretending to "simplify" it, and the vast contrariety of
opinion entertained by those who profess to be its masters. By many it
has been considered a needless affair, an unnecessary appendage to a
common education; by others, altogether beyond the reach of common
capacities; and by all, cold, lifeless, and uninteresting, full of
doubts and perplexities, where the wisest have differed, and the firmest
often changed opinions.

All this difficulty originates, I apprehend, in the wrong view that is
taken of the subject. The most beautiful landscape may appear at great
disadvantage, if viewed from an unfavorable position. I would be slow to
believe that the means on which depends the whole business of the
community, the study of the sciences, all improvement upon the past, the
history of all nations in all ages of the world, social intercourse,
oral or written, and, in a great measure, the knowledge of God, and the
hopes of immortality, can be either unworthy of study, or, if rightly
explained, uninteresting in the acquisition. In fact, on the principles
I am about to advocate, I have seen the deepest interest manifested,
from the small child to the grey-headed sire, from the mere novice to
the statesman and philosopher, and all alike seemed to be edified and
improved by the attention bestowed upon the subject.

I confess, however, that with the mention of _grammar_, an association
of ideas are called up by no means agreeable. The mind involuntarily
reverts to the days of childhood, when we were compelled, at the risk of