“ to myself, but the rising generation and posterity to use every proper exertion to make the public acquainted with it. The present edition consisting of only 500 copies, and being very incorrect, I shall, as early as possible, have a new and correct one. I will therefore, should you find the work worthy of your patronage, one to which you would feel willing to lend the influence of your name, thank you to send me your opinion as early as you can make it convenient.”

Jefferson’s reply, dated from Monticello, August 16, 1813, occupies six closely written pages of his handwriting, and contains his opinions on the development and history of language. It reads it part: “ Your favor of Mar. 27. came during my absence on a journey of some length. it covered your ‘Rudiments of English grammar,’ for which I pray you to accept my thanks. this acknolegement of it has been delayed until I could have time to give the work such a perusal as the avocations to which I am subject would permit. in the rare & short intervals which these have allowed me I have gone over with pleasure a considerable part, altho’ not yet the whole of it. but I am entirely unqualified to give that critical opinion of it which you do me the favor to ask. mine has been a life of business, of that kind which appeals to a man’s conscience, as well as his industry, not to let it suffer; & the few moments allowed me from labour have been devoted to more attractive studies, that of Grammar having never been a favorite with me. the scanty foundation laid in it at school has carried me thro’ a life of much hasty writing, more indebted for style to reading & memory, than to rules of grammar. I have been pleased to see that in all cases you appeal to Usage as the arbiter of language; & justly consider that as giving law to Grammar & not Grammar to Usage. I concur entirely with you in oppositon [ sic -- Ed. ] to the Purists, who would destroy all strength & beauty of style by subjecting it to a rigorous compliance with their rules. fill up all the Ellipses & Syllepses of Tacitus, Sallust, Livy &c. & the elegance & force of their sententious brevity are extinguished. ‘auferre, trucidare, rapere, falsis nominibus, imperium appellant.’ ‘deorum injurias, diis curae.--‘alieni appentens, sui profusus; ardens in cupiditatibus; satis loquentiae, sapientiae parum’.--‘Annibal peto pacem’.--‘per diem Sol non uret te, neque Luna per noctem’. wire-draw these expressions by filling up the whole syntax, & sense, and they become dull paraphrases on rich sentiments. we may say then truly with Quinctilian ‘aliud est Grammaticé, aliud ‘Latiné loqui.’ I am no friend therefore to what is called Purism, but a zealous one to the Neology which has introduced these two words without the authority of any dictionary. I consider the one as destroying the nerve & beauty of language, while the other improves both, and adds to it’s copiousness. I have been not a little disappointed, & made suspicious of my own judgment on seeing the Edinburgh Reviewers, the ablest Critics of the age, set their faces against the introduction of new words into the English language. they are particularly apprehensive that the writers of the United States will adulterate it. certainly so great & growing a population, spread over such an extent of country, with such a variety of climates, of productions, of arts, must enlarge their language, to make it answer it’s purpose of expressing all ideas, the new as well as the old. the new circumstances under which we are placed, call for new words, new phrases, and for the transfer of old words to new objects. an American dialect will therefore be formed; so will a West-Indian and Asiatic, as a Scotch & an Irish are already formed. but whether will these adulterate, or enrich the English language? has the beautiful poetry of Burns, or his Scottish dialect disfigured it? did the Athenians consider the Doric, the Ionian, the Aeolic & other dialects, as disfiguring or as beautifying their language? did they fastidiously disavow Herodotus, Pindar, Theocritus, Sappho, Alcaeus as Grecian writers? on the contrary they were sensible that the variety of dialects, still infinitely varied by poetical license, constituted the riches of their language, and made the Grecian Homer the first of poets, as he must ever remain, until a language equally ductile & copious shall again be spoken.

" Every langauge has a set of terminations, which make a part of it’s peculiar idiom. every root among the Greeks was permitted to vary it’s termination, so as to express it’s radical idea in the form of any one of the parts of speech; to wit, as a noun, an adjective, a verb, participle, or adverb: and each of these parts of speech ”