PREFACE.
The present book is intended to facilitate the study of the Hebrew language. Considerately do we say study of the Hebrew language, and do we avoid the term study of the Hebrew grammar. For it is not so much the science of grammar that students are usually pursuing, as it is the mastery of the language. Hebrew grammar is, in our schools and colleges, only an auxiliary science.
It is true, a rational instruction in any language must be based upon a grammatical foundation. Grammar underlies also the system carried out in the present manual; but only the main points of grammar, so arranged and illustrated as to meet the wants of the Hebrew learner, are here stated. Encumbering details or grammatical niceties are purposely omitted. For such details would only confuse the minds of the learners and impede their progress.
The minutiae of the subject can be explained orally by the teacher, whenever occasion calls for such explanations. Whatever is not taught in the schools and is not contained in this book, may safely be left to the student, in the continuance of his studies, will find it out for himself.
Yet small as this volume is, and as much as we restricted ourself to the essential facts of the language, rejecting much burdensome superfluity of detail, we are still more afraid of having given too much of grammar than too little of it.
