Q. How were letters originally written? A. From the right hand towards the left. Q. What did writing, for a long time, con'tinue to be ?

A. A kind of engraving, on pillars and temples of stone, and plates of lead.

Q. When was paper invented?
A. In the fourteenth century.

Q. On what were books written previous to this?

A. On the leaves and bark of certain trees; and on the skins of animals, polished into parchment.

Q. What are the comparative advantages of Writing and Speech?

A. Writing is a more permanent and extensive method of communication; but speech has a great superiority in point of energy and force for tones, looks, and gestures are natural interpreters of the sentiments of the human mind.

STRUCTURE OF LANGUAGE.

Q. Are the essential parts of speech the same in all languages?

A. Yes. There must always be some words to denote the names of objects, their qualities, and what we affirm of them.

Q. What is the most simple and comprehensive division of the parts of speech?

A. Into substantives, attributives, and connectives.

Q. What are substantives?

A. Words which express the names of objects.

Q. What are attributives?

A. Words which express any attribute, property or action of substantives.

Q. What are connectives?

A. Words expressive of the connexions, relations, and dependencies which take place among them.

Q. How were substantives formed?

A. In the most general manner, expressive of a very extensive genera or species of objects; as tree, man, house, river.

Q. What method was devised for specifying the individual object intended?

A. The introduction of the Article.
Q. Have all languages the Article ?

A. No. The Latin has none; the Greek has but one, the definite; but the English has two, A, and THE-the indefinite and definite. Q. How did the Latins supply the place of the Article?

A. By the introduction of pronouns; which, however, was a defect in their language, as Articles contribute much to clearness and precision.

Q. What affections belong to substantives?
A. Number, gender, and case.

Q. How does number distinguish them?
A. As one or many of the same kind, call-

ed Singular and Plural; and is found in all languages.

Q. What is gender?

A. The distinction of sex; and is either Masculine or Feminine. Most things not thus naturally distinguished, are said to be of the Neuter Gender; though, in most languages, men have ranked a great number of inanimate objects under the distinctions of Masculine and Feminine.

Q. What is Case ?

A. A variation in the termination of nouns, to express the relations which objects bear to one another.

Q. Do all languages agree in the use of Cases?

A. The Greek and Latin use them; but the English, French and Italian do not; or, at most, use them very imperfectly.

Q. In place of the variations of cases, how do these modern tongues express the relations of objects?

A. By Prepositions, prefixed to the name of the object.

Q. What are Pronouns ?

A. They are Representatives or Substitutes of Nouns.

Q. Were these of early invention ?

A. Probably not. Their places were supplied by pointing at the object when present, and naming it when absent.

Q. What are Adjectives?

A. Terms of quality; they are found in all

languages, and are the simplest of all that class of words which are termed attributive.

Q. Which is the most complex of all the parts of speech?

A. The Verb.

Q. How many things are at once implied in the use of the Verb?

A. Three; the attribute of some substantive; an affirmation concerning that attribute; and time.

Q. How early were Verbs formed?

A. They must have been coeval with men's first attempts towards the formation of language; for no perfect sentence can be formed without a Verb expressed or implied.

Q. What was probably the radical Verb, or the first form of it?

A. The Impersonal Verb; as "it rains ;" "it thunders."

Q. What do the tenses of Verbs imply?
A. The several distinctions of Time.
Q. What are the three great divisions of
Time?

A. The past, the present, and the future.
Q. Are these Tenses subdivided?

A. The first and last are, in order to represent things past, as more or less distant; and things future as more or less remote, by different gradations.

Q. What other distinction, besides Tense, do Verbs admit of?

A. The distinction of voices, the Active and Passive, as "I love," or "I am loved;"

and of moods, which are intended to express the perceptions and volitions of the mind under different forms.

Q. What language is most regular and complete in the Tenses and Moods?

A. The Greek; the most perfect of all the known tongues.

Q. What are auxiliary Verbs?

A. Words, like prepositions, of a general and abstract nature, implying different modifications of simple existence, without reference to any particular thing.

Q. Of what have they taken the place?

A. Of varieties in the termination of the Latin verb. They render language more simple and easy, but more prolix and less graceful.

Q. What is an Adverb ?

A. An abridged mode of speech, expressing by one word, what might be resolved into two or more words, belonging to the other parts of speech.

Q. What is the use of Conjunctions? A. Conjunctions connect sentences or members of sentences.

Q. What is the use of Prepositions?

A. They show the relation which one substantive noun bears to another.

Q. Are these connective particles of great importance?

A. Yes. As they point out the relations and transitions by which the mind passes from one