Learning of grammar of foreign languages.
A few words remain to be said, in conclusion, on the bearing of a scientific study of grammar upon the practical task of teaching and learning foreign languages. The grammar of a language is not to be confined within the rules laid down by grammarians, much less is it the creation of grammarians, and consequently the usual mode of making the pupil learn by heart certain fixed rules and paradigms not only gives a false idea of what grammar really is, but also throws obstacles in the way of acquiring it. The unit of speech is the sentence; and it is with the sentence therefore, and not with lists of words and forms, that the pupil should begin. When once a sufficient number of sentences has been, so to speak, assimilated, it will be easy to analyse them into their component parts, to show the relations that these bear to one another, and to indicate the nature and varieties of the latter. In this way the learner will be prevented from regarding grammar as a piece of dead mechanism or a Chinese puzzle, of which the parts must be fitted together in accordance with certain artificial rules, and will realize that it is a living organism which has a history and a reason of its own. The method of nature and science alike is analytic; and if we would learn a foreign language properly we must learn it as we did our mother-tongue, by first mastering the expression of a complete thought and then breaking up this expression into its several elements. (A. H. S.)
See PHILOLOGY, and articles on the various languages. Also Steinthal, _Charakteristik der hauptsächlichsten Typen des Sprachbaues_ (Berlin, 1860); Schleicher, _Compendium of the Comparative Grammar of the Indo-European Languages_, translated by H. Bendall (London, 1874); Pezzi, _Aryan Philology according to the most recent Researches_, translated by E. S. Roberts (London, 1879); Sayce, _Introduction to the Science of Language_ (London, 1879); Lersch, _Die Sprachphilosophie der Alten_ (Bonn, 1838-1841); Steinthal, _Geschichte der Sprachwissenschaft bei den Griechen und Römern mit besonderer Rücksicht auf die Logik_ (Berlin, 1863, 2nd ed. 1890); Delbrück, _Ablativ localis instrumentalis im Altindischen, Lateinischen, Griechischen, und Deutschen_ (Berlin, 1864); Jolly, _Ein Kapitel vergleichender Syntax_ (Munich, 1873); Hübschmann, _Zur Casuslehre_ (Munich, 1875); Holzweissig, _Wahrheit und Irrthum der localistischen Casustheorie_ (Leipzig, 1877); Draeger, _Historische Syntax der lateinischen Sprache_ (Leipzig, 1874-1876); Sweet, _Words, Logic, and Grammar_ (London, 1876); P. Giles, _Manual of Comp. Philology_ (1901); C. Abel, _Ägypt.-indo-eur. Sprachverwandschaft_ (1903); Brugmann and Delbrück, _Grundriss d. vergl. Gram. d. indogerm. Spr._ (1886-1900); Fritz Mauthner, _Beiträge zu einer Kritik der Sprache_ vol. iii. (1902); T. G. Tucker, _Introd. to a Nat. Hist. of Language_ (1908).