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again, is a foreign legion-words that like soldiers of fortune have strayed from their native land to lend us a hand and enable us to express ourselves the more clearly thereby. Then, like De Amicis, let us hail the dictionary "Master, friend, all-wise counselor that answerest all questions; faithful companion of the student, dear and glorious teacher, we acknowledge thee!"

After this should one wonder at Daniel Webster's laconic reply to a lately elected member of the United States Senate who inquired of him what he would need in Washington-"Dictionaries, sir, Dictionaries!" Then, let us study the dictionary column by column, page by page, until we have increased our store of knowledge and acquired an adequate vocabulary of words to serve the purpose of expressing our thoughts.

VII

The Dictionary as a Text-Book

ALTHOUGH the United States is the home of the English dictionary, inasmuch as more dictionaries are made, sold, and used under the Stars and Stripes than anywhere else in the English-speaking world, it is curious that there exists but a very limited knowledge of how to draw from its pages the jewels of speech which be-gem our language. The average man, woman, or child, who consults the pages of a dictionary does so in a superficial sort of way. It may be that a discussion has arisen upon the correct way to spell or to pronounce a word; if so, the appeal is to the dictionary to settle the argument. Again, perhaps, but this rarely, it is a matter of what does the word mean or whence came it? Once more the dictionary is appealed to as the court of last resort, and in this respect, it may be said, the people of America fortunately differ from their friends across the water.

In America the supreme court of language is the dictionary. The people bow down to it and therefore obtain from it much more reliable information than the average educated Englishman, who seldom or never consults it. It is commonly known that in the spelling, pronunciation, meaning, and derivation of words in England the native is a law unto himself. Sometimes one meets the type who spells this way or pronounces that way because his father

and his grandfather did the same thing before him. But more often one meets the man, and woman too, I regret to say, who pronounces according to the vogue, and insists that he or she is correct. Alas! for them, the positivists are invariably wrong. In the great majority of cases they have no actual knowledge of orthoepy, and although they may have some rudiments of orthography they would condemn the more inoffensive simple speller to the gallows (if they had their way) for daring to spell "check" without the "q," and "labour" without the "u." They would hesitate to enter a theater because they are accustomed to the -re and would run out at once if they found that the final -me was dropped from their program. Yet this very class of educated person will talk of myden lyne, where the sound required is that of the word that designates the national beverage "a" as in "ale"-and talk of "goin' huntin,' or shootin'," because some ill-bred persons set afoot a society for the mispronunciation of English words. That we, too, sin in the same direction, notwithstanding our wealth of dictionaries, is in evidence in some quarters, as is shown by the corruption of our Anglo-Saxon' yes to "yep," "yer," and "yah," as if the original corruption, or refinement, were not enough. There are also pazzaza for piazza; eats used for food; complected for complectioned, and hundreds of other erroneous, and many other corrupted forms of words which are known to be incorrect, yet are fostered by certain classes notwithstanding the opposition offered to them by people of culture.

With the publication of the "New Standard Dictionary' in America, and the approaching completion of the New English Dictionary by Sir James Murray and his asso1 Gese, gise, or gyse, from gea, "yea," and swa, "so."

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ciates in England, let us hope that public attention will be directed once again to a subject which, although closer to the English-speaking races than to any other, is still persistently neglected by them. To preserve it in its native glory requires watchful care, for its correct use is the ineffaceable cachet to culture in social circles throughout the English-speaking world.

If it be possible to do so, my purpose is to get the public to look upon the dictionary as the beacon-light of knowledge to all men. It is not merely a word-book to be consulted fitfully, or, because of its bulk, to be used as a substitute for the worn-out screw of a piano-stool; it is the national key to human knowledge. With the dictionary as one's only text-book it is possible to impart an education that no set of text-books, be they even fifty in number, can impart. Therefore, it behooves all who are concerned in the education of the young to place this book on the same plane as the churchmen of old placed the English Bible. The dictionary should be placed on a lectern in every school throughout the land, and the teachers should be required to instruct their pupils in the art of how to use it intelligently.

The purpose of this chapter is to point to the benefits that can be derived from consulting the dictionary; how by conscientious application the teacher and student may both profit materially through studying its pages. To demonstrate the practical character of the study proposed can not be done better than by stating a case.

Take, for example, the study of English as a language in a public school. How shall the teacher proceed? First, by directing the pupil called up to turn to the word "English" in the dictionary used by the class. (Here it should

be stated, that only an unabridged dictionary2 should be used on the floor of the classroom.) The pupil proceeds

to read the definition slowly while his classmates copy down the statement which he reads. English is the language of England, or of the English peoples, wherever spoken. In this sense there are four periods of the history of the English language: (a) The period from the earliest Teutonic speech in England, A.D. 450 to A.D. 1150, the Anglo-Saxon period, lately often called Old English, Oldest English. This was the period of full inflection. (b) The period from A.D. 1150 to A.D. 1350, called Early English, during which the inflections were broken up (1150-1250), and large numbers of French words were introduced into the language (1250-1350). (c) The period from 1350 to 1550, the Chaucer period, the Old English of literature, now often called Middle English, in which the Saxon and Norman elements were shaped into a new literary language. (d) The period since 1550, called Modern English. It consists of the cultivated mixed speech of the English since the beginning of the Chaucer period, A.D. 1350.

Now, the entire class has before it a concrete statement of what "English," as far as it pertains to language, actually is. Having proceeded so far, the next word requiring consideration is "language." You, gentle reader, Tom Brown, Jack Smith, or Ben Tibbs, all have a general idea of what language is, of course; but can you express that idea concisely, yet comprehensively enough, for it to pass muster as your contribution to a Civil Service examination? If you can, then, you advance one step forward in the course of this explanation; if not, then you are required to step to the lectern and read to the class what the word

2 The work used in the exposition that follows is the "Standard Dictionary."

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