CURRENT LITERATURE.
Essentials of English Grammar. By W. D. Whitney. (Henry S. king and Co.)—The author's book on the life and growth of language is n guarantee for his ability to treat tho difficult subject of English grammar. His object is not to teach the emrect use of English, whieh MI be acquired only by careful school and home training, but to fix the attention on those main fade of our language, of which many fairly well-educated persons remain in ignorance all their lives. Of course, having to learn a foreign language ninth, to some extent, sot our reflec- tive powers to work in the direction of such facts, and no doubt, as Mr. Whitney says, to a bright pupil his Lntin grammar coma by degrees to he something more than a more heap of dry bones. In this way we believe that the teaching of Latin has done a vast amount of good, which is not distinctly perceptible. It has tended to make the learner what Mr. Whitney calls " a reflective user of language." Ho appears to think that this good result may be secured more rapidly and more surely by a study of our own tongue, not indeed by such books as the .old-fashioned and merely formal grammar, but by having our attention directed, with an abundance of illustrations, to an analysis of the primary facts of tho English language, just as they are in themselves. It is this which Mr. Whitney has aimed at doing, not, we think, nnsuc- cesefully. There are few who will not get some now and clearer ideas from his book on a subject of groat and, as it will seem, of increasing interest.
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