Creator
William S. Cardell
Title
Philosophic Grammar of the English Language.
Coverage
Philadelphia
Publisher
Uriah Hunt
Date
1827
Description
Having lost his father at sea before age one, Cardell (1780–1828) became a novelist specializing in sea stories for boys. In 1820, he founded the American Academy of Language and Belles Lettres, with John Quincy Adams as president and Justice Joseph Story as vice-president. Cardell was secretary. It collapsed after withering criticism in the North American Review. As for grammar, the “false principles” of his predecessors, in Cardell’s view, were “not dissimilar to those of Ptolemian astronomy.”