INTRODUCTION BY M. LITTRÉ. THE Author asked M. Littré to allow this work to be dedicated to him. M. Littré not only granted the request, but very kindly wrote the following introduction. "I have examined the proofs of your STUDENT'S FRENCH GRAMMAR which you have sent me. It has been with no little interest that I have considered, under the form given to it by a foreigner, a study so familiar to me. "I cannot claim to be a judge of the means which you have thought right to adopt in order to make your teaching penetrate the English mind, but I do claim to be a judge of the teaching in itself, and of the subject-matter. 66 Consequently I have carefully tested the principal parts of your work, and have been completely satisfied with the accuracy and correctness which I found there. The French which is taught should be authentic, and such French you teach. Some one will say: 'What! is it possible in the midst of so many grammars and guides to lose one's way, and to give for a genuine and real language, a language more or less doubtful?' There can be no doubt that such a danger exists. I have more than once heard foreigners who have been badly taught make singular mistakes between good and bad usage. "You have taken, to keep you in the right path, the only safe guide: viz., to give to your teaching a character really historical. Till lately, it has been usual to explain grammatical difficulties by mere reasoning, now we trust to history; in other words, we substitute for hypotheses more or less subtile, simple and undoubted facts. "Modern French is derived from Old French, and this guiding thread is one which should never be let go. It would be easy to quote many singular blunders from the works of cløver men, blunders which have arisen merely from their neglect of the older tongue, and from the attempts which they have made to explain in an arbitrary fashion pretended anomalies, of which we find the explanation in the ancient grammar. I say 'grammar' advisedly, for the time is now past when men looked upon the language of our forefathers as merely a vulgar jargon without rules. 66 Of course, the English student has no need to study the Langue d'Oil; but if he has shown to him—as in all important cases you show to him—the older forms and constructions, he will more easily and more surely seize those connecting links which strengthen the memory and form the judgment. This will be especially true if he knows Latin even to a small cxtent. "In the present state of European intercourse, we cannot encourage too much the study of living languages. I have derived the greatest profit and the greatest pleasure from my knowledge of English, and I think that the knowledge of French must similarly give great pleasure to those who make it a subject of study. It is a curious fact that we reckon an Englishman among our best writers of the eighteenth century. I mean Hamilton, author of the life of his brother-in-law, the Comte de Grammont. I have quoted him more than once in my Dictionary. "To facilitate the study of living languages by good grammars, is to encourage that study. Your grammar renders Your familiarity with this service to the French language. Molière has given you a true insight into our language, and your habit of quoting, by preference, good authors instead of arbitrary examples, has preserved you from suspicious novelties. In short, your respect for the historical development of the language has made your footing sure. “E. LITTRE. 66 · MENIL-LE-ROI, "SEINE-ET-OISE, |