And to this Purpose _Grammar is necessary_; but it
is the Grammar _only_ of _their own proper Tongues_, and to those who
would take Pains in cultivating their Language, and perfecting their
Stiles. Whether all Gentlemen should not do this, I leave to be
considered, since the Want of Propriety and Grammatical Exactness is
thought very misbecoming one of that Rank, and usually draws on one
guilty of such Faults, the Imputation of having had a lower Breeding
and worse Company than suits with his Quality. If this be so (as I
suppose it is) it will be Matter of Wonder, why young Gentlemen are
forc'd to learn the Grammars of foreign and dead Languages, and are
never once told of the Grammar of their own Tongues. They do not so
much as know there is any such Thing, much less is it made their
Business to be instructed in it. Nor is their own Language ever
propos'd to them as worthy their Care and Cultivating, tho' they have
_daily Use_ of it, and are not seldom, in the future Course of their
Lives, judg'd of by their handsome or awkward Way of expressing
themselves in it. Whereas the Languages whose Grammars they have
been so much employed in, are such as probably they shall scarce ever
speak or write; or if upon Occasion this should happen, they should
be excused for the Mistakes and Faults they make in it. Would not a
_Chinese_, who took Notice of this Way of Breeding, be apt to
imagine, that all our young Gentlemen were designed to be Teachers
and Professors of the dead Languages of foreign Countries, and not to
be Men of Business in their own.
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