താൾ:56E278.pdf/4

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ഈ താളിൽ തെറ്റുതിരുത്തൽ വായന നടന്നിരിക്കുന്നു

ADVERTISEMENT.

The want of a very short and cheap Malayalam Grammar for use in purely
vernacular school has long been felt, and often expressed to me. I should
have been glad to see the want supplied by some one of those who having
more leisure for literary labour and research than I have, would have been
able to produce a work without the defects which I apprehend will be found
in my attempt; but as no one else came forward, and the demand was urgent,
I thought it well to do what I could.

As to method, I have adopted the natural or analytical method in pre-
ference to the artificial or synthetical one. It is now recognized that children
begin to think before they begin to spell, and that not the arbitrary symbols
that we call letters, but "thought expressed in speech', i.e., the sentence—is
the proper starting point of grammatical instruction. Take children's thoughts
as they express them in words, teach them to mark "what they say, and where—
of they affirm" (Paul’s 1st Epistle to Timothy, i.7) and you have introduced
them in a natural and, if properly treated, an interesting way, to the study of
practical grammar, that grammar which does not consist of barren technical
terms, but which is intended to accustom the child from the beginning to think
over the meaning of what he says or hears or reads, and to discriminate among
his words, so as to see how one word or one sentence bears upon the other.
Such teaching more than any other tends to produce that most valuable result
of culture, a habit of accuracy in conception and statement, and cannot be
omitted from any sound system of instruction, however elementary.

I have to express my best thanks to the various gentlemen who have
favoured me with suggestions. After the I st edition was set up in type, proofs
were circulated amongst various European and Native Malayalam scholars—
the Rev. Ch. Miller, the Rev. J. H. Bishop, M.A., Mr. J. R. Thomas, B.A.,
Mr. N. Subba Rao, B.A., Mr. J. P. Lewis, Mr. P. O. Pothan, Mr. T. Raman, etc.
All were good enough to express their approval of the plan of the work, and
several valuable suggestions have been received, which have had due attention.
L.G.

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