THE

YOUNG GARDENER'S EDUCATOR.

English Grammar.

Mr. B. It is a fact well known to all who have acquired eminence in any study, that to desire and apply is to attain, and that the attainment will be in proportion to the application; therefore, it is necessary for you to know that all writers on the education of gardeners recommend a knowledge of English Grammar as indispensable. From my own experience, I can affirm that such knowledge is particularly useful to gardeners, who are, in many places, required to communicate frequently with their employers on many subjects concerning the management and other affairs of the gardens. Be assured that correct grammar embellishes all communications, and that ideas, good in themselves, when clothed in bad grammar, lose half the impression that would otherwise be made by them. Without this knowledge, a continual diffidence will attend all your efforts to give expression to your thoughts either in speaking or writing. I am the more anxious to impress upon your minds the great advantage of acquiring this knowledge, as young gardeners too frequently neglect it. Whether it is that they do not see the benefit, or whether they are too indolent to exert their mental faculties for its acquirement, I know not; but I am sure that an acquaintance with the grammatical construction of the language is but too rarely made. It is a pity that such should be the case, more especially when a short and close attention will give a general acquaintance with the subject, which will extend to the more minute particulars of that branch of learning as reading and other studies progress.

Journeyman. I have often considered what an advantage it is to be born in the upper classes of society, where the young

learn to speak correct English from their earliest days. My lot was cast in an humble home where I have learnt inaccuracies and formed practices wrong in word, wrong in pronunciation, wrong in form: I have, therefore, not only to learn the right, but I have also to unlearn the wrong. But, whatever difficulties there may be, I am resolved, by your kind assistance, to surmount them.

Son. I am glad that I shall have an opportunity of renewing my acquaintance with Lindley Murray. It was his grammar which was taught at school; and although I got his twenty-two rules of syntax by heart, and was high in the class for parsing, I have now but a very faint and vague recollection of the subject.

Mr. B. What a boy learns at school is comparatively of small value, unless his own after-reading and study improve those advantages. Still, however, it may be said it is a great matter for the youth to have the first steps of his progress encouraged and facilitated by thus advancing, as it were, while another holds him by the hand, compared with him who educates himself from the beginning. Such a person may be regarded as entering upon a new country, under the conduct of a guide, instead of endeavouring to find his way through it by the aid simply of the road-book. Or, rather, he is in the situation of the man who begins the world with a fortune, which, though small, is yet sufficient to set him up in business, while others have to earn even their first shilling by their own ingenuity and industry. Undoubtedly, the person thus circumstanced has a somewhat gentler ascent to climb in the first instance than his competitors, still all must owe what they eventually arrive at principally to their own efforts. The examples of many men who have risen to eminence show their power of surmounting all difficulties in the pursuit of knowledge. A distinct general view or outline of all the essential parts of the study in which they are engaged, a gradual and judicious supply of this outline, and a due arrangement of the divisions according to their natural order and connection, are generally considered to be among the best means of enlightening the minds of youth, and of facilitating their acquisition of knowledge. For that purpose I shall endeavour to express my thoughts as plainly and as clearly as I can, so as to render the study of grammar both easy and interesting.

There are four parts in English, as in other grammars -Orthography, Etymology, Syntax, and Prosody. Orthography is derived from orthos, right, and graphe, a writing, that is right writing; and is that part of grammar which teaches the nature and form of the several letters, the

combination of letters into syllables, and syllables into words. A word is composed of one or more syllables; a syllable is any complete sound spoken at one effort, as man, book, come, gone, &c. A word of one syllable, as peace, is called a monosyllable; a word of two syllables, as peaceful, a dissyllable; a word of three syllables, as peacefulness, a trisyllable; and a word of four or more syllables, as peaceableness, is called a polysyllable.

A sentence is as many words put together as will make complete sense, or express a whole thought or a distinct division of a train of thoughts, as "I wish to learn grammar;" "If I knew the rules of grammar, I should be able to write and speak correctly;" "I take in the Young Gardener's Educator, and hope by reading it carefully that I shall become acquainted with several useful branches of knowledge of which at present I am sorry to say I know but too little."

A paragraph sometimes consists of one long sentence, but more commonly of several sentences put together in proper order, so as to form a distinct part of a letter or discourse. Paragraphs are often used to break into shorter portions a letter, discourse, or essay, which might otherwise fatigue the reader.

A section or chapter consists of a number of paragraphs put together, in order either to form one complete part of a whole work, or to give the reader a little time to rest or think. For instance, the instructions in grammar in the Young Gardener's Educator, which contain a number of paragraphs, are put together so as to form one complete lesson or chapter. As to Orthography, it is generally admitted that mere rules are wholly inadequate to the end; it is only by frequent reading and writing that any one can expect to master the anomalies of spelling.

Son. I have seen some notice of a new system of spelling which was thought would be a desirable improvement-it is called the Phonetic system. It is derived from the Greek word phone, a sound, because it is founded not upon letters but upon sounds, words being spelt for writing by analyzing their pronunciation.

Journeyman. I know a young man, a friend of mine, who must have learned what you call the phonetic system, for a letter that I lately received from him began in the following manner: "Dere John,-I receved yoor lettur and woz glad to here that yoo like yoor plase and that it is likely to be kumfurtable." He continued the same system of spelling to the end.

Mr. B. I believe a system of that sort was attempted to be

established, and that even some books have been printed and published; but it seemed such a retrograde movement, that it is now, I understand, almost entirely abandoned.

The second part, Etymology, derived from the two Greek works etumon, the root of a word, and logos, a discourse, is that part of grammar which treats of the different sorts of words, their various accidental differences, and their derivation or the tracing of words from their originals.

There are in English eight sorts of words, or as they are commonly called parts of speech, namely, the Substantive or noun, the Adjective, the Pronoun, the Verb, the Adverb, the Preposition, the Conjunction, and the Interjection. The words a and an (two different forms of the same word) and the are reckoned by some grammarians a separate part of speech, making nine parts of speech, and receive the common name of Article-a or an being called an indefinite, and the the definite article; but, as they in all respects come under the definite of the adjective, it is unnecessary to rank them as a class by themselves.

Son. But as the article is placed before a noun to point it out and to fix its exact meaning, it is retained by Murray as a distinct part of speech, and for very good reasons. As a or

an is an indefinite article, it does not define the particular meaning or application of the word before which it is placed; as if I were to say a book, a man, an apple, I would not be understood as meaning any particular book, or man, or apple. Also the a and an are reckoned but as one, because a becomes an when it is placed before a vowel, that is before a, e, i, o, and u short, as an urn, also before a neuter or an h that is not sounded, as an hour; if the h be sounded, the article a is only used, as a haven. The being, as you noticed, the definite article, defines the meaning and fixes it to one particular thing; as for example, if I were to enter a greenhouse, and say to my friend the gardener, give me a plant, he would most probably give me the first that came to hand; but if he had taken up in his hand one of a choice sort, and that I said give me the plant, he would understand me as asking for that particular plant. For this reason the definite article is sometimes called the demonstrative article, as when pointing to an individual we say "That is the man I intend to employ," or "This is the book I want you to lend me.”

Mr. B. As you noticed the vowels, it is necessary for the information of our friend (the Journeyman) to say that the twenty-six letters used in the English language are divided into two classes, vowels and consonants. Vowels are letters having a clear and distinct sound, and which may be uttered by themselves; they are six in number, a, e, i, o, u, and y;