A Revival of the Teaching of English Grammar

For some years I have been confident that a revival of the study of English grammar was certain to come. There are two reasons for my confidence. The first is the importance of the subject itself. The second is the fact that some years ago the pendulum of educational thought began to swing away from the teaching of grammar, and its return is as certain as the operation of natural law.

The speaker was Dr. Oliver Farrar Emerson, author of The History of the English Language and an assistant professor of rhetoric and English philology at Cornell University. The occasion was the monthly meeting of the Michigan Schoolmasters' Club in Ann Arbor. And the time was November 1896.

Emerson's talk (printed in the March 1897 issue of The School Review and available here) offered a three-point plan for "this newer grammatical teaching"--something "more accurate, more interesting, and more effective" than the "dry and deadening processes of memorizing rules and definitions, and the unreasoning application of set formulae."

What's remarkable about Emerson's report is its relevance to grammar instruction in our own time, which (thanks largely to back-to-basics pressure from legislators) is again enjoying something of a comeback.

In Emerson's day, the science of linguistics was in its infancy. Now it's a major field of study with several flourishing branches. And yet linguistic research has had only a modest effect on the teaching of grammar in our schools. Many of today's most popular writing handbooks are direct descendants of the grim prescriptive guides of the 19th century. And while I wouldn't describe anybody's teaching as "dry," "deadening," and "ineffective," some of our students just might.

With the revival of the study of English grammar in our own time, Emerson's recommendations may be worth dusting off and reexamining. Here are the key points of his proposal.

1. The Nature of Language and the Principles of Its Development
   

   In the first place, English grammar should be taught with reference to the nature of language and the principles of its development. That this has been done to any considerable extent in the past, no one who knows the subject intimately will seriously maintain. The teaching of English grammar has usually been little more than the presentation, in the least interesting form, of certain dogmatic statements laid down by various so-called grammarians--I will not take their names in vain, for I am sure they have been well-meaning, though often ignorant men. . . . In fine, the teaching of our mother tongue has been almost, if not quite, untouched by the newer discussions and discoveries of the science of language. . . .

   The teaching of English grammar should take account of the fundamental principles of linguistic development. The teacher should know and emphasize the fact that grammar is the description of a more or less unstable and changing medium of expression; that language is not hedged about by any divinity, but is merely a human institution, subject to human infirmity and human caprice; that what is grammatically correct in one age may not be in the next; that changes proceed along certain lines and under certain influences, a full understanding of which could not fail to make the study of grammatical relations more interesting and more effective.

2. The Historical Development of the Language
   

   In the next place, the subject should be taught with respect to the historical development of the language. . . . In the first place, the teaching of historical English grammar would show a reason for what is now simply asserted. Present usage depends on past usage. It is neither set up by schoolmasters nor is it inherently best. It is a development under various influences. Now I am sure that much of the dryness of the subject would disappear if some attempt were made to explain how things came to be. . . .

   More than all else, a proper regard for the history of the language must show the importance of separating the usage of different periods, and the impossibility of explaining the usage of one period by influences belonging wholly to another era. English grammar in the schools of today should be a description of the usage of this century, as distinct in many respects from that of the seventeenth or even eighteenth century.

3. The Spoken Form of English
   

   Not only should English grammar be taught with reference to the nature of language and the history of English, but it should also take account of the spoken, as distinct from the written, form. . . .

   The best reason for the recognition of the spoken, as distinct from the written, language is in the enlivening and vivifying of grammatical teaching which would result. Instead of memorizing numerous rules and definitions, and applying them in a more or less lifeless manner to the conventional written form, the pupil could be taught to observe speech about him, to study its forms as the scientist studies other natural phenomena. I cannot believe that English studied in this way need be less lacking in interest and pleasure than the study of the other phenomena in nature and of life.

You'll find the complete text of Emerson's address at The Teaching of English Grammar.

More About English Grammar:

• What Is Grammar?
• Why Does Grammar Matter?
• The Standard of Usage in English, by Thomas R. Lounsbury (1908)