Part 1 (1/2)

Practical Exercises in English

by Huber Gray Buehler

PREFACE

The art of using one's native tongue correctly and forcibly is acquired for the h ie as of habit As regards English, then, the first duty of our schools is to set before pupils excellent models, and, in all departments of school-work, to keep a watchful eye on the innuo to form habit Since, however, pupils come to school with many of their habits of expression already forive so out co 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” hich 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 so 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 kneas him,”

and ”Sit the plates on the table” A pupil of any ill at once see that thethat the alternatives are ”he” and ”set,” he will at once correct the sentences without knowing, perhaps, why one for valuable; he has sih his exercise

Moreover, such ”sentences for correction” violate a funda before the impressionable minds of pupils bad models Finally, such exercises are unnatural, because the habit which we hope to for lish is largely a matter of correct choice between two or more forms of expression, and in this book an attees will show, to throw the exercises, whenever possible, into a fore_ ”who”

to ”who why, he cannot repeatedly _choose_ correctly between these for his own habit of correct expression

This book has been prepared primarily as a companion to Professor AS

Hill's ”Foundations of Rhetoric,” in answer to the request of many teachers for exercises to use with that adement of Professor Hill the task would not have been undertaken, and to him above all others I a it He has permitted me to draw freely on his published works; he has provided me with advance sheets of the revised edition of ”Principles of Rhetoric;” he has put at leaned from his own experience; he has read theany responsibility for shortcoested many improvements I am also indebted to Mr EG Coy, Headestions, and to ue, Mr JE Barss, for assistance in the proof-reading

The quotations froeht of that work I ahton, Mifflin & Co, and Messrs

Macmillan & Co for permission to use brief quotations from their works

HGB

LAKEVILLE, CONN, _September_, 1895

CHAPTER I

OF GOOD USE

Why is it that for the purposes of English coood as another? To this question we shall get a general answer if we examine the effect of certain classes of expressions

PRESENT USE--Let us exaes in the authorized version of the English Bible--a versionJames in 1611:--

”For these two years hath the famine been in the land, and yet there are five years, in the which there shall neither be _earing_ nor harvest”

(Gen xlv 6)

”O ye sons ofwill ye love vanity, and seek after _leasing_?” (Psa iv 2)

”Noould not have you ignorant, brethren, that oftentimes I purposed to come unto you, but was _let_ hitherto” (Rom i 18)

See also Gen xxv 29; Matt iii 8; Acts viii 3; 1 Thess iv 15

An ordinary reader of our ties, because the words ”earing,” ”leasing,” and ”let” convey to hisidea Two hundred and eighty years ago, when this translation of the Bible was s; but ”earing” and ”leasing” have since dropped out of co; consequently an ordinary reader of the present time must consult a dictionary before he can be sure what the passages one out of use are called _obsolete_ There is not much temptation to use obsolete words; but the temptation sometimes comes