The English Language: A Brief History of Its Grammatical Changes and Its Vocabulary, With Exercises on Synonyms, Prefixes and Suffixes, Word-Analysis and Word-Building (Classic Reprint)

Educated people are not agreed that it is well for the student to spend years in the study of Latin and Greek, but all agree that theE nglish pupil should know his own tongue thoroughly. It is safe to say that there is a strong and growing inclination to give much less attention to the so-called classical languages and to concentrate attention upon English and other modern languages, and upon the studies taught in English. If Latin is to be pursued at all, we are told that it should be because of its connection with our tongue, and the instruction in it should be made directly tributary to the pupiF sadvancement in that tongue. Our language has its roots in the A nglo-S axon and in theL atin. The A nglo-S axon gives us our grammar and a large fraction of our vocabulary ;the Latin yields us a still greater number of words, and has modified our grammar. I f, as Ave think, one must know something of the sources of a language in order to know that language critically, then no one can be said to be well educated in English who is unacquainted with the changes which the A nglo-S axon grammar and words have undergone in becoming English, and who is unfamiliar with the meaning, and unskilled in the handling, of the prolific Latin roots from which, by the aid of prefixes and suffixes, such hosts of English derivatives have been formed.
(Typographical errors above are due to OCR software and don't occur in the book.)

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