Such has been my progress, and that of many of my cotemporaries. After being some years in that excellent school, the world, I recommenced my studies, endeavored, not merely to learn, but to understand, the _a_, _b_, _c_, of the English language, and in 1783 compiled and published the First Part of my Grammatical Institute. The favorable reception of this, prompted me to extend my original plan, which led to a further investigation of the principles of language. After all my reading and observation for the course of ten years, I have been able to unlearn a considerable part of what I learnt in early life; and at thirty years of age, can, with confidence, affirm, that our modern grammars have done much more hurt than good. The authors have labored to prove, what is obviously absurd, viz. that our language is not made right; and in pursuance of this idea, have tried to make it over again, and persuade the English to speak by Latin rules, or by arbitrary rules of their own. Hence they have rejected many phrases of pure English, and substituted those which are neither English nor sense. Writers and Grammarians have attempted for centuries to introduce a subjunctive mode into English, yet without effect; the language requires none, distinct from the indicative; and therefore a subjunctive form stands in books only as a singularity, and people in practice pay no regard to it. The people are right, and a critical investigation of the subject, warrants me in saying, that common practice, even among the unlearned, is generally defensible on the principles of analogy, and the structure of the language, and that very few of the alterations recommended by Lowth and his followers, can be vindicated on any better principle than some Latin rule, or his own private opinion. Some compilers have also attempted to introduce a _potential mode_, where they arrange those phrases that have the _auxiliary_ verbs, as they are called, _can_, _may_, &c. But all the helping verbs are principal verbs, and the verb following them is generally in the infinitive. _I can go_, _he may write_, _we shall see_, &c. are only a customary ellipsis of _I can to go_, _he may to write_, _we shall to see_; and are no more a potential mode than _I dare go_, _we saw him rise_.