Creator
Roscoe G. Greene
Title
A Practical Grammar of the English Language.
Coverage
Portland, Me.
Publisher
Shirley & Hyde
Date
1829
Description
Greene (1796–1840) packed a lot into 44 years: as a grammar teacher, as Maine Secretary of State until his political downfall in 1835, as recipient of an honorary master’s degree in 1839, and as an accused fraudster posthumously exonerated. His grammar features inscrutable diagrams for moods of verbs: pupils were to have their fingers “follow the successive connections to each extremity”—whatever that means. The only other illustration shows a teacher hitting a child with a rod to illustrate the sentences I strike and I am struck.