From the Preface. THE value of right formation as compared with reformation is nowhere more noticeable than in acquiring accurate and ready use of one's own language. The systematic work of training children to speak correctly and to exercise care in the arrangement of their thoughts should be begun earlier than is now done in most courses of English. This belief has grown with close observation and careful experiment during twenty years of school supervision; it has been strengthened by criticisms of the literary and secular press on the results obtained by the present system, as well as by criticisms and suggestions of the educational press on the same subject; and it has been confirmed by the testimony of many superintendents of schools and teachers of English. An English sentence appropriate to the expression of child-thought presents no difficulty in the way of correct construction that the child cannot be made to meet and master. It is therefore unjust to the child, while professing to educate him, to abandon him during the formative part of his life to the uncertainties of his own undirected and (in this particular) untrained observation, to the chance that he will imitate correct rather than incorrect speech. or to the adventitious promptings of an occasional sensitive teacher. The purpose of this book is to guide the young learner in the correct use of language at the time when he is acquiring a vocabulary and forming habits of speech. Completing an expression partly made ("sentence building"); supplying a word of proper form ("filling a blank"); telling the relations and forms of the words in the sentence ("parsing"); pointing out the kinds of elements in the sentence and explaining their uses ("analysis"); correcting errors,-all these are useful in making the pupil thoughtful and careful, and for testing his knowledge of forms, their meanings and uses, but are of little value for fixing habits of correct speech. Such habits are attainable only by the exercise of expression wholly one's own. "One does not learn to fence without a sword. One does not learn to ride without a horse." A knowledge of forms, their meanings and their relations is necessary to an intelligent, correct use of language. The development of this knowledge, however, should be followed by much practice in original expression. Much of such work is provided in this book.