Customer Reviews

The War Against Grammar (CrossCurrents Series)

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In pellucid prose, author David Mulroy, a classicist at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, discusses the deleterious effect that a decades-long avoidance of formal instruction in grammar has had on American students: SAT scores are down; reading comprehension has declined; enrollment in most foreign languages has dropped; and students suffer in general from a "higher illiteracy." While students can, that is--some of them, at least--express themselves adequately, they are not proficient at explicating the literal meanings of grammatically complex texts. Asked to paraphrase the first sentence of the Declaration of Independence, for example, one of the author's students writes: "It doesn't matter where you came from. In the end we are all human beings. Humans are at the top of the food chain, but it doesn't mean we shouldn't respect nature. Because we have one earth, learn to preserve it."

The purpose of grammar, Mulroy explains, is twofold: "It preserves and perfects understanding of the great literature of the past, and it contributes to eloquent self-expression." He argues persuasively for a return to a concentration on formal grammatical instruction in schools, not out of some school-marmish obsession with sentence-ending prepositions or the like, but because grammar is a foundation for further understanding: "Intellectuals work with words. Questioning the value of basic grammar is like asking whether farmers should know the names of their crops and animals." He points out, too, what most of us probably take for granted, that the world benefits enormously from the existence of a standard English, which grammatical instruction helps maintain: speakers of English across the globe can communicate with one another easily, which was not true of English speakers mere villages apart in the medieval period.

Mulroy hits on a number of topics in his short book, among them the ancient liberal arts curriculum, the history of the classification of words into eight basic categories, educational practices in the middle ages, and progressive education. Happily, he also includes a section on sentence diagramming. This allowed me to pass a pleasant half hour diagramming sentences with my eight-year-old: intrigued by the game at first, she came to think me unusual in my interests, and facetiously suggested we try subtracting for pleasure next. She may mock, but then she's not likely to wind up thinking the Declaration of Independence was an early-American plea for nature preserves.

Reviewed by Debra Hamel, author of Trying Neaira: The True Story of a Courtesan's Scandalous Life in Ancient Greece

Do you know what a participle is? Can you identify the eight parts of speech, and diagram a sentence? If so, and if you went to American schools, you are dating yourself; you are probably not young anymore. And quite possibly, you don't think it makes much difference. David Mulroy disagrees. In _The War Against Grammar_ (Boynton / Cook Publishers), he reports upon a hiatus he took from his usual work, translating and teaching Latin and Greek poetry, so that he could research the history of grammar. He did not do so from purely academic interest; in 1996, at a public hearing on standards for public schools, he suggested that a good goal would be for high school seniors to identify the eight parts of speech. He was surprised that he had suggested anything controversial. The very National Council of Teachers of English had pronounced that instruction in grammar did nothing but take time away from more important studies.

Mulroy makes clear that there is a need for grammar study. Opposition to grammar education coincides with decreased literacy, lower SAT scores, and increased need for college remedial writing and reading courses. His fascinating history of the subject goes way back to the basics; it isn't surprising, given his own interests, that he turns to Ancient Greece. Dionysius Thrax in the second century BCE made the first division of words into the eight parts of speech, taken up by Roman and English grammarians in their turn. Oddly, the rise of the universities meant that logic, not grammar or literature, was king, but the humanists were able to insist on a Latin grammar book for all English students in the 1540s. Raised on it were Spenser, Bacon, Marlowe, and Shakespeare; it might be oversimplification, but there is probably some sort of cause and effect here. American education was in direct descent of this emphasis on grammar, until the advent of "progressive education" which shunned "formalism," instruction by rote. Instruction in grammar was held to be detrimental to the unconscious and automatic way students would express themselves. The definition of what a sentence is can be disputed, as can definitions of the parts of speech, and the conclusion has become that such formalisms need not be taught. This has become the way teachers of English teach English, or fail to.

It doesn't have to be this way. Mulroy gives many examples, in different languages, of the art of diagramming sentences. If you can break a sentence into its parts and know how the parts function, you can understand it. He admits that when he is stymied by a complicated sentence he wants to translate from Latin or Greek to English, he starts diagramming it. "Normally, the obscurity vanishes before I finish the diagram." He tells of the remarkable success of schools that insist that students master grammar. Schools in England have made grammar the centerpiece of a literacy drive. In America, there is even an Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar within the National Council of Teachers of English, but its members are a tiny fraction of those in the NCTE. Mulroy's classic structure for advocacy (problem, history, solution) gives his book a surprising immediacy and practicality. At the end, a reader will possibly think, "I can't have just finished a book about the lack of grammar in today's schools." Mulroy has made the erudite instruction surprisingly entertaining.

David Mulroy has written a defence of grammar as an element in the teaching of English in America. Do not be put off by the American connection, most of what he has to say applies equally to UK practice. His argument is that traditional grammar never went out of date but a new approach swamped traditional techniques with politically correct aspirations that saw teaching as social engineering and prohibited any attempt to set standards that could be declared superior to "cultural" variants. The new approaches sprang from exponents of academic linguistics and from a political stance that could be described as liberal left wing. Mr Mulroy outlines the classical principles on which traditional teaching is based and examines the claims made for the new linguistics and finds that English speakers are much less assured and articulate than they once were because they lack an appreciation of how the language is put together. Such knowledge is called grammar. It does not enable us to assemble a sentence to be spoken, it does explain why that sentence was not as effective as we might have hoped. Grammar is an instrument of criticism not an algorithm for constructing sentences. This is a scholarly, convincing argument and draws our attention to the failure of our schools to provide a proper education in our language. My only complaint is that he has taken seriously the Labour Party's ambition to include grammatical analysis in the National Literacy Strategy announced in 1999. This side of the Atlantic we have less confidence in political promises.

I will comment on the details.

I read this as homeschooler generally interested in teaching solid grammar. I have learned (the hard way) the truth behind how difficult it is to get grammar ingrained after a certain age. I believe he suggested 3 or 4th grade through 7 or 8th.

(I was in the first wave of the non-grammarian education back in the 60s, and I am a bit awed at how difficult it is to pick it up after the age of 40. After all, if I can memorize big swaths of poetry, pass the Boards, and rotate three dimensional figures in my head with the grace of a gazelle, you'd think I could get the concept of "gerund" to stick in my head.)

I was very amused to see a Peter Elbow book mentioned early on. I was assigned Writing Without Teachers my freshman year, and couldn't make heads or tails of it. (Other students called it Writing Without Elbows.) By pointing out the intellectual gack this educational philosophy produces, he immediately won my heart.

Another impression I had of the book was the really nice writing. It was neither too elaborate (I'm thinking Who Killed Homer) nor too dry, and I got the distinct impression this fella could have gone on and on if he had wanted to, but that the blessing of a narrow subject let him off the hook for 367 page book. He is endearing, as you feel he really cares about language and education and the advancement of the human race through the blessing of mutually understood language, as well as the simple joy of the Great Conversation.

On a more personal note, if you see red at the mention of homeschoolers or faith in a deity, you might make a pass on this book. He does mentioned he homeschools (or -ed) his son, and plops a (completely unneeded) reference to humans being God's only creation with grammar on the next to last page.

Full of tidbits of history (Columbia's Teacher's College started out teaching poor girls to cook and garden), carefully referenced, a full biobliography, a simple intro to types of diagramming, a few lovely quotes of his beloved Latin and Greek, it is all this in a single-sitting read. If you can stomach more sad news about "high illiteracy", and want a little more fuel for your cheerleading of grammar education, give this book a whirl. If you need reassurance in your homeschool goal of having children with their grammar down pat, this book will fit the bill. Perhaps some reader will start the grammar version of Mathematically Correct, and take on California!