It ha.s been my aim in preparing this book to treat of the English language just as it is, to explain its constructions according to the logical relation of ideas as they exist in English thought, and not to introduce from the grammars of other languages terms, rules, exceptions, or explanations of things that have no existence in the English language.
I have tried to keep in mind that the grammarian's province is to collect and arrange the facts and principles of language as they are exhibited in the habitual usage of the majority of educated speakers and writers, and that it is not his province to make laws for the government of the language nor to try to make it conform to laws that grammarians have made, or have transferred from the grammars of inflected and, too often, dead languages.
The object of the study of English grammar is not, primarily, "to learn to speak and write the English language correctly," as we have so often been told, but to acquaint the pupil with the logic of thought and expression, to add to his enjoyment of excellent literary productions, to give him mind-discipline, literary culture, and readiness of speech, and perhaps incidentally to correct a few of his inaccurate expressions, and to hinder- the acquisition of others.
