out grammatical errors in a sermon of his, "when the English language gets in my way, it does n't stand a chance." No man can be convincing, writer or speaker, who is afraid to send his words wherever they may best follow his meaning, and this with but little regard to 5 whether any other person's words have ever been there before. In assessing merit, let us not stupefy ourselves with using negative standards. What stamps a man as great is not freedom from faults, but abundance of powers.

Such audacious accuracy, however, distinguishing as it 10 does noble speech from commonplace speech, can be practised only by him who has a wide range of words. Our ordinary range is absurdly narrow. It is important, therefore, for anybody who would cultivate himself in English to make strenuous and systematic efforts to enlarge his 15 vocabulary. Our dictionaries contain more than a hundred thousand words. The average speaker employs about three thousand. Is this because ordinary people have only three or four thousand things to say? Not at all. It is simply due to dulness. Listen to the average school-boy. He has 20 a dozen or two nouns, half a dozen verbs, three or four adjectives, and enough conjunctions and prepositions to stick the conglomerate together. This ordinary speech deserves the description which Hobbes gave to his State of Nature, that "it is solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and 25 short.” The fact is, we fall into the way of thinking that the wealthy words are for others and that they do not belong to us. We are like those who have received a vast inheritance, but who persist in the inconveniences of hard beds, scanty food, rude clothing, who never travel, and 30 who limit their purchases to the bleak necessities of life. Ask such people why they endure niggardly living while

wealth in plenty is lying in the bank, and they can only answer that they have never learned how to spend. But this is worth learning. Milton used eight thousand words, Shakespeare fifteen thousand. We have all the subjects 5 to talk about that these early speakers had; and in addition, we have bicycles and sciences and strikes and political combinations and all the complicated living of the modern world.

Why, then, do we hesitate to swell our words to meet 10 our needs? It is a nonsense question. There is no reason. We are simply lazy; too lazy to make ourselves comfortable. We let our vocabularies be limited, and get along rawly without the refinements of human intercourse, without refinements in our own thoughts; for thoughts are 15 almost as dependent on words as words on thoughts. For example, all exasperations we lump together as "aggravating," not considering whether they may not rather be displeasing, annoying, offensive, disgusting, irritating, or even maddening; and without observing, too, that in our reck20 less usage we have burned up a word which might be convenient when we should need to mark some shading of the word "increase." Like the bad cook, we seize the frying-pan whenever we need to fry, broil, roast, or stew, and then we wonder why all our dishes taste alike while 25 in the next house the food is appetizing. It is all unnecessary. Enlarge the vocabulary. Let any one who wants to see himself grow, resolve to adopt two new words each week. It will not be long before the endless and enchanting variety of the world will begin to reflect itself in his 30 speech, and in his mind as well. I know that when we

use a word for the first time we are startled, as if a firecracker went off in our neighborhood. We look about

hastily to see if any one has noticed. But finding that no one has, we may be emboldened. A word used three times slips off the tongue with entire naturalness. Then it is ours forever, and with it some phase of life which had been lacking hitherto. For each word presents its own 5 point of view, discloses a special aspect of things, reports some little importance not otherwise conveyed, and so contributes its small emancipation to our tied-up minds and tongues.

But a brief warning may be necessary to make my mean- 10 ing clear. In urging the addition of new words to our present poverty-stricken stock, I am far from suggesting that we should seek out strange, technical, or inflated expressions, which do not appear in ordinary conversation. The very opposite is my aim. I would put every man who 15 is now employing a diction merely local and personal in command of the approved resources of the English language. Our poverty usually comes through provinciality, through accepting without criticism the habits of our special set. My family, my immediate friends, have a 20 diction of their own. Plenty of other words, recognized as sound, are known to be current in books, and to be employed by modest and intelligent speakers, only we do not use them. Our set has never said "diction," or 66 current," or "scope," or "scanty," or "hitherto," or "convey," 25 or "lack." Far from unusual as these words are, to adopt them might seem to set me apart from those whose intellectual habits I share. From this I shrink. I do not like to wear clothes suitable enough for others, but not in the style of my own plain circle. Yet if each one of that 30 circle does the same, the general shabbiness is increased. The talk of all is made narrow enough to fit the thinnest

there. What we should seek is to contribute to each of the little companies with which our life is bound up a gently enlarging influence, such impulses as will not startle or create detachment, but which may save from humdrum, 5 routine, and dreary usualness. We cannot be really kind without being a little venturesome. The small shocks of our increasing vocabulary will in all probability be as helpful to our friends as to ourselves.

Such, then, are the excellences of speech. If we would 10 cultivate ourselves in the use of English, we must make our daily talk accurate, daring, and full. I have insisted on these points the more because in my judgment all literary power, especially that of busy men, is rooted in sound speech.

V. AN AVERAGE MASSACHUSETTS

GRAMMAR SCHOOL 1

CHARLES WILLIAM ELIOT

My subject is an extremely difficult one. I have to confess, at the start, that I cannot tell you what the actual work of an average Massachusetts grammar school is. My only resource is to take a particular grammar school in a city not one of the largest cities, nor yet one of the 5 smallest; not the best school in the city, nor yet the worst; a school with a good principal, a fair set of teachers, and a mixed set of pupils -mixed as regards nationality, religion, and social condition. The actual work of that one school I think I have got a fair idea of; yet I do not 10 pretend to be able to state it with any precision, for the reason - and this is a reason which applies to the larger number of our grammar schools throughout the State and the country that the work in the different rooms of that school differs considerably in the same grade. This differ- 15 ence is attributable to the difference in the teachers. One teacher is much more alert and stimulating than another, and therefore accomplishes more with her pupils. In spite of these difficulties, I have found the examination of the actual work done in this tolerably representative school to 20 be full of suggestions. Let me deal first with the question of school-time.

1 From Educational Reform, pp. 181 ff. The Century Company, New York, 1898.