Sincerity is not only effective and honorable, it is also much less difficult than is commonly supposed. To take a trifling example: If for some reason I cannot, or do not, choose to verify a quotation which may be useful to my purpose, what is to prevent my saying that the quotation is taken at second-hand? It is true, if my quotations are for the most part second-hand and are acknowledged as such, my erudition will appear scanty. But it will only appear what it is. Why should I pretend to an erudition which is not mine? Sincerity forbids it. Prudence whispers that the pretense is, after all, vain, because those, and those alone, who can rightly estimate erudition will infallibly detect my pretense, whereas those whom I have deceived were not worth deceiving. Yet in spite of Sincerity and Prudence, how shamelessly men compile secondhand references, and display in borrowed foot-notes a pretense of labor and of accuracy! I mention this merely to show how, even in the humbler class of compilers, the Principle of Sincerity may find fit illustrations, and how honest work, even in references, belongs to the same category as honest work in philosophy or poetry. V The Value of English to the By John Lyle Harrington 1 LANGUAGE is an instrument, a medium for the exchange of thought. If, in individual instances, both speaker and hearer employ words in the same sense and arrange them in the same manner, the expressed ideas will be perfectly understood, whether the language be in accordance with good usage or not. But, if 1 This address was first delivered by Mr. Harrington in 1907 to the Technological Society of Kansas City, the Engineering Society of the University of Missouri, and the Civil Engineering Society of the University of Kansas. It was printed in pamphlet form and afterwards included in the stimulating and idealistic volume of Addresses to Engineering Students edited and published by Messrs. Waddell and Harring ton at Kansas City, which is familiar to many students in technical schools and should be to all. The address is reprinted here by kind permission of the author. 66 John Lyle Harrington was born in 1868, educated at the University of Kansas and McGill University, Montreal, and is now practising as a consulting engineer in Kansas City. He has devoted a good deal of unselfish effort to the betterment of engineering education. The seriousness with which practical engineers view the problem of English instruction is shown by the following sentence printed by the editors of the Engineering Addresses before this essay: Upon whether its teachings be followed or ignored may depend the success or failure of any technical student to attain in after life the highest rank in the engineering profession. Possessing a mastery of the English language, he may or may not rise to eminence; but without it, he certainly cannot. Any engineering student who wilfully neglects the study of his own language deserves the failure to attain eminence which assuredly will be his fate."-EDITOR. thought is to be conveyed without loss to a larger audience, the medium must be substantially perfect. Words must not only be used in accordance with their accustomed and generally accepted meanings, and with all the shades and niceties of those meanings, but they must be arranged in accordance with the accepted construction of phrase, clause, and sentence; and the whole argument or thesis must be so ordered with regard to the sequence and the relations of the various ideas that the hearer shall be compelled to understand. Discourses in which thoughts, though they be ever so clearly expressed, are not arranged in logical order, will fail in their purpose, because the argument is confused and the mind of the hearer is occupied with the language instead of the substance of the thought. You will recall Sam Weller's remark regarding Mr. Nupkins' eloquence that "his ideas come out so fast they knock each other's heads off and you can't tell what he is driving at." Like any other instrument, the value of language is in direct proportion to our knowledge of it and our skill in its use. If we understand it fully and use it skillfully it will serve our purpose well, but if we are novices and bunglers, only disappointment will result. Language, though it will not supply the place of thought, is a most essential instrument to every man. To him who is without important thought to express, it is not a very valuable tool. The laborer does not require it in handling the pick and shovel; it is only in his social relations that he has much need for speech. It is not important that the stoker speak fluently, or that the mechanic be an able orator or writer. But as we proceed from the lower to the higher and more intellectual occupations, the need and the value of knowledge and command of language rapidly increase. The politician, we sometimes think, makes skillful use of language to hide his thought, or to dissemble. Indeed, in all walks of life there are times when words are well employed to obscure the thought. But the physician must be skillful in the use of language in order to direct and control his patients, as well as to write, and to understand the writings of his fellow physicians. The clergyman needs it to please, to inform, to convince, and to persuade his auditors. But the technical man, that is, the engineer, the architect, and the applied scientist of every kind, finds a sound, accurate knowledge of the language essential to him in every part of his work. A wide and precise knowledge of words is required in his reading as well as in his general writing; in his business and professional conversations even more than in those of a social nature. But, in the preparation and interpretation of technical correspondence, specifications, and contracts, the use of perfect language reaches the highest degree of importance. The lawyer alone needs to be so much of a precisian, and he attains that end by very awkward and cumbersome means. The technical man of the highest order is not only at cultured gentleman, versed in all the amenities of polite society, familiar with the best literature in his own language and probably in that of one or two others, able to read many branches of learning understandingly and to discuss them intelligently; but, in addition, he has special knowledge of mathematics and the applied sciences, and he is not only able to understand what is written or spoken but can express his own thought regarding them readily, accurately, and logically. The successful technical man, it has been well said, must know much about everything and everything about something, but his ideas and knowledge are of small value except in so far as he can convey them to others; for, since he does not often labor with his hands, he must instruct and direct those who do. Thus, language is his most important tool, and it certainly behooves him to see that it is always in good order. His reputation as a gentleman and as a professional man depends very largely upon his knowledge and use of English. Technical men are peculiarly prone to offend in the use of their mother-tongue, because they have not, as a rule, read deeply in classical literature nor been instructed thoroughly in the construction of the language. Their higher education is generally almost entirely technical. Most of the engineering schools now require for matriculation substantially the same subjects that the colleges do, but some of the best still admit students with little more than a grammar school education, supplemented by the rudiments of the natural sciences and elementary mathematics. Cultural subjects are never required to any great extent, and they cannot be taught in the course. The curriculum is already well filled with scientific, mathematical, and technical subjects, and there is not room for a deep study of literature and the languages. The technical man who has a thorough knowledge of English has had the wisdom and patience to supplement his technical education by an arts course, has read widely of classic literature, or possesses the rare gift of lan |