The Churchill Centre has a splendid biography of Robert Somervell, who taught the great man English grammar at Harrow, and who lived to read this:
[B]y being so long in the lowest form I gained an immense advantage over the cleverer boys. They all went on to learn Latin and Greek and splendid things like that. But I was taught English. We were considered such dunces that we could learn only English. Mr. Somervell--a most delightful man, to whom my debt is great--was charged with the duty of teaching the stupidest boys the most disregarded thing--namely, to write mere English. He knew how to do it. He taught it as no one else has ever taught it. Not only did we learn English parsing thoroughly, but we also practised continually English analysis. Mr. Somervell had a system of his own. He took a fairly long sentence and broke it up into its components by means of black, red, blue, and green inks. Subject, verb, object: Relative Clauses, Conditional Clauses, Conjunctive and Disjunctive Clauses! Each had its colour and its bracket. It was a kind of drill. We did it almost daily. As I remained in the Third Form three times as long as anyone else, I had three times as much of it. I learned it thoroughly.
Thus I got into my bones the essential structure of the ordinary British sentence--which is a noble thing. And when in after years my schoolfellows who had won prizes and distinction for writing such beautiful Latin poetry and pithy Greekepigrams had to come down again to common English, to earn their living or make their way, I did not feel myself at any disadvantage. Naturally I am biased in favor of boys learning English. I would make them all learn English: and then I would let the clever ones learn Latin as an honour, and Greek as a treat. But the only thing I would whip them for is not knowing English, and I would whip them hard for that.
Mr Somervell's inks are a good idea, but grammar needs a Churchill to make its big ideas clear to people in terms they can understand. As Wittgenstein' said, "What can be said at all can be said simply." Churchill's tribute makes excellent use of short words and short sentences. Grammarians should do likewise.