Why, for instance, is the plural of ox, oxen, and not *boxen the plural of box? … Why should it be a vulgar blunder to say he *knowed, though it is quite correct to say he bowed? Because we ought to speak so and so. No further answer is ever given. Learnt in that way, a language must appear a mere chaos. … While the other works of man are stamped with the seal of his genius, language, the first and noblest of all, and the chief characteristic which differentiates him from other living beings, seems some strange and monstrous building, swarming with traps and blind-alleys, planned at random and founded on caprice. … [Which is wrong, and therefore, you should read this book, etc.]

The present work … is intended to introduce the comparative method to students who have already some knowledge of both the English and German languages. An English reader will find it accessible if he has mastered the general outlines of the grammatical structure of German. So much indeed is necessary—for the comparative method does not pretend to teach the rudiments—but at the same time it is amply sufficient; and I venture to emphasize this point at the outset, lest the student should fear to be unequal to the task and should decline to undertake it for lack of knowledge, which, far from being required beforehand, is presented to him as it becomes necessary in each chapter of this Grammar. He must, too, bear in mind that the comparative study of the Germanic languages forms an independent whole in itself and does not necessarily presuppose a knowledge either of Sanskrit, or Greek, or even Latin, and that all the instances quoted in the following pages from foreign languages are intended to aid those who are already acquainted with them, not to disconcert those to whom they are unfamiliar. It must further be remembered that, while a teacher may sometimes be compelled to enter into minute details in order to provide for the wants of more mature students, the beginner may very well pass these over, or at any rate need not remember them. He must use his own tact and judgment in making a choice between the facts and ideas suggested to him, in dwelling upon those which will aid his memory and in overlooking such as might encumber it, and, in a word, in limiting his researches to the objects he has in view,—according as he intends merely to compare German and English, or to obtain a general idea of the complete history of the Germanic languages, or even to glance at the primitive features of the Indo-European mother-tongue. …

Although the immediate object of this work is the comparative study of Modern English and German, I may perhaps indulge in the hope that for some students it may also serve as a primer of the earlier languages, and enable them to translate, without further help than that of an appropriate glossary, such easy texts as may be found in an elementary chrestomathy of Middle English or Middle High German, of Old English or Old High German, or even of Low German or Gothic. This, for a tolerably experienced student, is by far the most valuable of all trainings, and he would hardly be likely to meet with any serious difficulties.
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Translated by the author from his own book in French. (with “slight modifications” making the book more suitable for English readers.) There are 4 Indexes, of total 18 pp., containing lists of German and English words and terminations. There is also a 4 pages long Bibliography.

The author has written a comparative grammar of Greek and Latin too.

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extra searchwords: Anglo-Saxon, Germanic roots, etymology, historical grammar