OR, THEORETICAL AND PRACTICAL SYSTEM OF THE FRENCH LANGUAGE: TO WHICH ARE ADDED ELEGANT EXTRACTS FROM THE MOST APPROVED FRENCH POETS. BY GEORGE GÉRARD, A. M. FORMERLY PROFESSOR OF FRENCH IN WASHINGTON (NOW TRINITY) COLLEGE; PORTLAND: PUBLISHED BY S. H. COLESWORTHY. WM. J. REYNOLDS & CO: B. B. MUSSEY & CO. Educ T 1518. 48.415 625130 1870, Jan. 18. Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1848, BY S. H. COLESWORTHY, In the Clerk's office of the District Court for the District of Maine. PRINTED BY C. W. PENNELL & Co., 65 & 69, EXCHANGE STREET. PREFACE. THE following Treatise, combining both Theory, and Practice, is designed and eminently adapted, as the author believes, to afford new and increased facilities to the acquisition of the French language.-He is confident that half of the usual time, labor and expense of the pupil may be retrenched, by the adoption of a system of instruction similar to that contemplated in the succeeding pages. The plan, though concise, is comprehensive; embracing all the principles necessary for the tyro, the proficient, and the adept, and presenting a greatly improved paradigm of the verbs, both regular and irregular; and the whole so arranged and combined as to conduct the pupil, in the most pleasing manner, and by the shortest path, to the grand design aimed at by the author, viz: the correct and prompt speaking and writing of the French language; or, in a word, free conversation.-He has endeavored to unite in his book all the excellencies, to the exclusion of the redundancies and superfluities of other elementary works; many of which have great value for a single object: - some, for first principles in grammar; some, for conversational diversions, without first principles; others, for mere translations, &c. - This aims at the union of all these to the best advantage of the learner. The Rules for the proper use of each part of speech are followed by Exercises, taken principally from the well known Grammar (Paris edition) of M. Lévizac, the merits of which have been so justly appreciated. These Exercises, designed to be written by the pupil, are succeeded by questions whose answers are also to be written out by the pupil. The Orthography adopted in this work is that of the most modern date; and the phrases are generally drawn |