Excerpt from The Little Grammar

The little grammar attempts to set forth all the facts about English Grammar that have a function in shaping the language of young people. No one now believes that grammar books make children's speech. That process is one of gradual growth, mostly through unconscious imita tion. If all the language a child hears were faultless, there would be but little occasion for a textbook in grammar. Imitation, conscious and unconscious, would supply all the language that a child would ever need, whether he expected to be a day laborer or a novelist. Unfortunately we cannot eliminate grammar from school curricula, for no child hears expressive, elegant, faultless English all his days. Every child, every adult, finds it necessary occasionally to look forward as he speaks or writes, and to construct consciously the sentences that are to express his thought. Not only is this conscious prevision necessary, but a conscious revision is just as imperative - a revision to make What is said or written conform to the laws of good usage.

To say that is to say nothing new. The new thing is t try to make a grammar that will set forth only those laws of good usage that are really necessary as a guide to one who is looking forward as he expresses himself, or backward as he passes judgment upon what he has said. Such a book would be a functional grammar, for it would set forth the minimum essentials of grammar, only those grammar facts that have a function, - omitting all those that are merely interesting to a mature student of language. This book makes that attempt.

The author is conscious of breaking away from two well established traditions. First, the series of language books usually provided for children contains all the materials for language, composition, and, to a certain extent, literary studies. This involves the use of two or three volumes. Second, the books are large three or four hundred pages to the volume.

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