From: Albert E. Krahn:
>During my first twelve years of school, grammar was
>either taught poorly or not at all. There was little attempt to make sure
>students understood it. Mostly it was rushed through or ignored. This was
>between 1930 and 1948. In college, it was merely assumed that you had
>grammar earlier, but most students had not gotten any clear understanding
>of it. My earliest understandings came in a graduate-level class, and most
>of the students in that class were getting their first clear taste of
>grammar as well. It may have gotten worse in the 60s, but it wasn't good in
>the 30s, 40s, or 50s either.


This coincides with my experience in the NYC public schools of my childhood
(50s and 60s). I can't remember any "training" in grammar, just spelling,
punctuation (some), and vocabulary drills added to the literature - most of
which was pontificated (is that a word?) at us. I considered myself to be to
completely self-taught in grammar until graduate school (linguistics
course). I learned "parts of speech" by playing _Mad Libs_ with my brother
and my friends! I suppose if the game didn't amuse me, I might have never
learned the difference between an adjective and an adverb. I really didn't
know much about grammar until I stumbled upon sentence diagramming and
taught myself (I must be strange, because I found that fun, too!).

So it goes.

PED