FRENCH MANUAL . OF GRAMMAR, CONVERSATION, AND LITERATURE; CONTAINING 461 QUESTIONS ON GRAMMAR, WITH ANSWERS; 80 CONVERSATIONS IN FRENCH AND ENGLISH; 80 QUOTATIONS FROM EMINENT FRENCH WRITERS, BY PAUL BAUME PROFESSOR OF THE FRENCH LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE; FORMERLY OF THE ROYAL MILITARY COLLEGE, SANDHURST; MEMBER OF THE COLLEGE OF PRECEPTORS, ETC. NI TROP NI TROP PEU. SIMPKIN, MARSHALL & CO., 4 STATIONERS' HALL COURT, LONDON; PORTEOUS BROTHERS, GLASGOW. PREFACE. IN preparing this FRENCH MANUAL OF GRAMMAR, CONVERSATION, AND LITERATURE, I have endeavoured to produce a work that can be used with any French Grammar which may be in the hands of a learner. It is divided into Eighty Lessons, each of which may be prepared as a whole or in portions, according to the ability of the pupil. The lessons contain three sorts of exercises : 1stly. Examination questions on Grammar, with their answers. 2dly. Conversation on a special subject. 3dly. A quotation from some French work, with a biographical sketch of the author. As the plan of the work is entirely novel, it seems to me necessary to give some explanation of its system, and to state the principles kept in view in its construction. Istly, Examination Questions and Answers on Grammar,— The questions and answers contained in the first forty lessons are in English, and bear on the Accidence of the French Language. Those in the following forty lessons are in French, and deal chiefly with the difficulties of comparative French and English Syntax. A proper study of this part of the MANUAL, under the guidance of an efficient master of languages, cannot fail, from the compre hensive yet searching character of the queries, to remedy the deficiency in grammatical knowledge of which examiners so frequently complain in their reports. 2dly, Conversations on Special Subjects,-I have endeavoured to make this part of the lessons simple and natural, as well as interesting and instructive, the dialogues. running as they would do among the French of the present day. Conversational French, especially on familiar subjects, is of necessity very idiomatical. I have, therefore, thought it best to give a translation of the conversations at the end of the book. In doing so I had in view a double advantage. It precludes, for this part of the lesson, the necessity of referring to a dictionary, the use of which in the translation of familiar conversation is very difficult to most pupils. And, besides, the having the English of the conversations as part of the book facilitates immensely, both for the pupil and the master, the work of translation and re-translation by viva voce exercise; a kind of practice so thoroughly good in itself that one is not surprised at hearing it publicly advocated, by a distinguished Professor of the University of Edinburgh, for the study of even such dead languages as Latin and Greek. 3dly, Biographical Sketches and Quotations,-The biographical sketches and quotations, taken altogether, constitute a Systematic Reader and Elementary Course of French Literature. Eighty of the best prose writers and poets have been selected, and placed in the chronological order of their birth, beginning with Rabelais, born in 1483, and ending with our contemporaries, Guizot, Thiers, Hugo, De Musset, About, Taine, etc.; and in each case hints have been appended for the translation of difficult sentences, and historical and other notes added where necessary. With these quotations, which may be looked upon as so many examination papers, the pupil may very properly use any of the valuable school dictionaries now obtainable at so moderate a price as to make an ad rem vocabulary at the end of a Reader quite superfluous, even if such vocabularies were not open to serious objections, except possibly in very elementary works. Briefly stated, then, this FRENCH MANUAL contains an extensive series of examination papers on Grammar, with 461 Questions and Answers systematically and progressively arranged; a series of eighty familiar Conversations on distinct, generally familiar, subjects; and a Reader, or elementary course of literature, consisting of eighty biographical sketches of, and quotations from, the best French prose writers and poets, arranged in chronological order. Having now described this essentially modern work, I can only express a hope that it may be as well received by the public as my previous French educational works, the success of which has been very encouraging, and actually led to the production of this MANUAL. PAUL BAUME. a 2 |