_first_ persons, those who hear the
_second_, and those who are the subject of conversation the _third_.

The first and second persons are generally used in reference to human
beings capable of speech and understanding. But we sometimes condesend
to hold converse with animals and inanimate matter. The bird trainer
talks to his parrots, the coachman to his horses, the sailor to the
winds, and the poet to his landscapes, towers, and wild imaginings, to
which he gives a "local habitation and a name."

By metaphor, language is put into the mouths of animals, particularly in
fables. By a still further license, places and things, flowers, trees,
forests, brooks, lakes, mountains, towers, castles, stars, &c. are made
to speak the most eloquent language, in the first person, in addresses
the most pathetic. The propriety of such a use of words I will not stop
to question, but simply remark that such figures should never be
employed in the instruction of children. As the mind expands, no longer
content to grovel amidst mundane things, we mount the pegasus of
imagination and soar thro the blissful or terrific scenes of fancy and
fiction, and study a language before unknown. But it would be an
unrighteous demand upon others, to require them to understand us; and
quite as unpardonable to brand them with ignorance because they do not.

Most nouns are in the third person. More things are talked about than
talk themselves, or are talked to by others. Hence there is little
necessity for teaching children to specify except in the first or second
person, which is very easily done.

In English there are two _numbers_, singular and plural. The singular is
confined to one, the plural is extended to any indefinite number. The
Greeks, adopted a dual number which they used to express two objects
united in pairs, or couples; as, a span of horses, a yoke of oxen, a
brace of pistols, a pair of shoes. We express the same idea with more
words, using the singular to represent the union of the two. We also
extend this use of words and employ what are called _nouns of
multitude_; as, a people, an army, a host, a nation. These and similar
words are used in the singular referring to many combined in a united
whole, or in the plural comprehending a diversity; as, "the armies met,"
"the nations are at peace." _People_ admits no change on account of
number. We say "_many_ people are collected together and form _a_
numerous people."

The plural is not