The work as a whole exhibits more industry than literary taste, more benevolence of heart than distinctness of apprehension; and, like all its kindred and progeny, fails to give to the principles of grammar that degree of clearness of which they are easily susceptible.

The student does not know this, but he feels the effects of it, in the obscurity of his own views on the subject, and in the conscious uncertainty with which he applies those principles.

In grammar, the terms _person, number, gender, case, mood, tense_, and many others, are used in a technical and peculiar sense; and, in all scientific works, the sense of technical terms should be clearly and precisely defined.

Nothing can be gained by substituting other names of modern invention; for these also would need definitions as much as the old.

We want to know the things themselves, and what they are most appropriately called.