We want a book which will tell us, in proper order, and in the plainest manner, what all the elements of the science are.
33.

What does he know of grammar, who cannot directly and properly answer such questions as these?
--"What are numbers, in grammar?
What is the singular number?
What is the plural number?
What are persons, in grammar?
What is the first person?
What is the second person?
What is the third person?
What are genders, in grammar?
What is the masculine gender?
What is the feminine gender?
What is the neuter gender?
What are cases, in grammar?
What is the nominative case?
What is the possessive case?
What is the objective case ?"--And yet the most complete acquaintance with every sentence or word of Murray's tedious compilation, may leave the student at a loss for a proper answer, not only to each of these questions, but also to many others equally simple and elementary! A boy may learn by heart all that Murray ever published on the subject of grammar, and still be left to confound the numbers in grammar with numbers in arithmetic, or the persons in grammar with persons in civil life! Nay, there are among the professed _improvers_ of this system of grammar, _men_ who have actually confounded these things, which are so totally different in their natures! In "Smith's New Grammar on the Productive System," a work in which Murray is largely copied and strangely metamorphosed, there is an abundance of such confusion.

For instance: "What is the meaning of the word _number_?
Number means _a sum that may be counted_."-- _R.

C.Smith's New Gram._, p.7.

From this, by a tissue of half a dozen similar absurdities, called _inductions_, the novice is brought to the conclusion that the numbers are _two_--as if there were in nature but two sums that might be counted! There is no end to the sickening detail of such blunders.