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CHAPTER VI

SCHOOL-BOOKS

The most worthless book of a bygone day is a record worthy of preservation. Like a telescopic star, its obscurity may render it unavailable for most purposes, but it serves in hands which know how to use it to determine the places of more important bodies. A. de Morgan, 1847.

W

HEN any scholar could advance beyond hornbook and primer he was ready for grammar. This was not English grammar, but Latin, and the boy usually began to study it long before he had any book to con. A bulky and wretched grammar called Lilly's was most popular in England. Locke said the study of it was a religious observance without which no scholar wast orthodox. It named twenty-five different kinds of nouns and devoted twenty-two pages of solid print to declensions of nouns; it gave seven genders, with fifteen pages of rules for genders and exceptions. Under such a régime we can can sympathize with Nash's outburst, "Syntaxis and prosodia! you are

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tormentors of wit and good for nothing but to get schoolmasters twopence a week."

It was said of Ezekiel Cheever, the old Boston schoolmaster, who taught for over seventy years, "He taught us Lilly and he Gospel taught." But he also wrote a Latin grammar of his own, Cheever's Accidence, which had unvarying popularity for over a century. Cheever was a thorough grammarian. Cotton Mather thus eulogized him :

"Were Grammar quite extinct, yet at his Brain

The Candle might have well been Lit again."

:

There was brought forth at his death a broadside entitled The Grammarian's Funeral. A fac-simile of it is here given. Josiah Quincy, later in life the president of Harvard College, wrote an account of his dismal school life at Andover. He entered the school when he was six years old, and on the form by his side sat a man of thirty. Both began Cheever's Accidence, and committed to memory pages of a book which the younger child certainly could not understand, and no advance was permitted till the first book was conquered. studied through the book twenty times before mastering it. The hours of study were long — eight hours a day and this upon lessons absolutely meaningless.

He

The

OR,

An ELEGY compofed upon the Death of Mr. Fohn Woodmancy, formerly a School-Mafter in Boston: But now Published upon the DEATH of the Venerable

E

Mr. Ezekiel Chevers,

The late and famous School-Mafter of Boston in New-England; Who Departed this Life the Twenty-first of August 1708. Early in the Morning. In the Ninety-fourth Year of his Age.

Ight Parts of Speech this Day wear Mourning Gowns
Declin'd Verbs, Pronouns, Participles, Nouns.
And not declined, Adverbs and Conjunctions,
In Lillies orch they stand to do their functions.
With Prepofition; but the most affection
Was ftill obferved in the Interjection.
The Subftantive feeming the limbed beft,
Would fet an hand to bear him to his Rest
The Adjective with very grief did fay,
Hold me by ftrength, or I thall faint away.
The Clouds of Tears did over-caft their faces,
Yea all were in moft lamentable Cafés.
The five Declenfions did the Work decline,
And Told the Prenoun Tu, The work is thine:
But in this cafe thofe have no call to go
That want the Vocative, and can't say O!
The Pronouns faid that if the Nouns were there,
There was no need of them, they might them fpare:
But for the fake of Emphafts they would,
In their Difcretion do what ere they could.
Great honour was confer'd on Conjugations,
They were to follow next to the Relations.
Amo did love him beft, and Doceo might
Alledge he was his Glory and Delight.
But Lego faid by me he got his skill,
And therefore next the Herfe I follow will.
Audio faid little, hearing them fo hot,
Yet knew by him much Learning he had got.
O Verbs the Active were, Or Pafiue fure,
Sum to be Neuter could not well endure:
But this was common to them all to Moan
Their load of grief they could not foon Depone.
A doleful Day for Verbs, they look fo moody,
They drove Spectators to a Mournful Study.
The Verbs irregular, 'twas thought by fome,
Would break no rule, if they were pleas'd to come.
Gaudeo could not be found; fearing difgrace
He had with-drawn, fent Mæreo in his Place,
Poffum did to the utmost he was able,
And bore as Stout as if he'd been A Table.

Volo was willing, Nolo fome-what ftout,
But Malo rather chofe, not to stand out.
Poffum and Volo wifh'd all might afford
Their help, but had not an Imperative Word.
Edo from Service would by no means Swerve,
Rather than fail, he thought the Cakes to Serve.
Fio was taken in a fit, and faid,

By him a Mournful POEM fhould be made.
Fero was willing for to bear a part,
Altho' he did it with an aking heart.
Feror excus'd, with grief he was fo Torn,
He could not bear, he needed to be born.

Such Nouns and Verbs as we defective find,
No Grammar Rule did their attendance bind.
They were excepted, and cxempted hence,
But Supines, all did blame for negligence.
Verbs Offspring, Participles hand-in-hand,
Follow, and by the fame direction stand:
The reft Promifcuoufly did croud and cumber,
Such Multitudes of cach, they wanted Number.
Next to the Corps to make th' attendance even,
Jove, Mercury, Apollo came from heaven.
And Virgil, Cato, gods, men, Rivers, Winds,
With Elegies, Tears, Sighs, came in their kinds
Ovid from Pontus haft's Apparrell'd thus,
In Exile-weeds bringing De Triftibus:
And Homer fure had been among the Rout,
But that the Storics fay his Eyes were out.
Queens, Cities, Countries, Iflands, Come
All Trees, Birds, Files, and each Word in Um.

What Syntax here can you expect to find?
Where each one bears fuch difcompofed mind.
Figures of Diction and Conftruction,
Do little Yet ftand fadly looking on.
That fuch a Train may in their motion chord,
Profodia gives the meature Word for Word.

Sic Maftus Cecinit,

Benj. Complon.

The custom was in Boston -until this century -to study through the grammar three times before any application to parsing.

Far better wit than any found in an old-time jest book was the sub-title of a very turgid Latin grammar, "A delysious Syrupe newly Claryfied for Yonge Scholars yt thurste for the Swete Lycore of Latin Speche."

The first English Grammar used in Boston public schools and retained in use till this century, was The Young Lady's Accidence, or a Short and Easy Introduction to English Grammar, design'd principally for the use of Young Learners, more especially for those of the Fair Sex, though Proper for Either. It is said that a hundred thousand copies of it were sold. It was a very little grammar about four or five inches long and two or three wide, and had only fifty-seven pages, but it was a very good little grammar when compared with its fellows, being simple and clearly worded.

The fashion of the day was to set everything in rhyme as an aid to memory; and even so unpoetical a subject as English Grammar did not escape the rhyming writer. In the Grammar of the English Tongue, a large and formidable book in fine type, all the rules and lists of exceptions and definitions were in verse. A single specimen, the definition of

a

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