ing plans, or as specified, is to be of wrought steel, of quality hereinafter designated, all materials to be provided and put in place by this contractor. All work to be done in a neat and skillful manner, and is to guarantee the construction and workmanship with a bond equal to amount of tender for a term of five years, satisfactory to the proprietor and architects, to properly carry or support the loads it is designated to carry, namely its own weight, the weight of the several floors, roof and walls resting thereon, a 10,000 gravity tank, and the pressure of any wind which may not be designated a hurricane, and future three stories.

. . The floor beams are to be calculated for a maximum load of 150 lbs. to the sq. ft. (using C type IV of the Clinton Fire-Proof system, of Clinton, Mass.). The columns are to be calculated for a vertical load above mentioned and for horizontals and wind pressure and snow pressure, also roof. The whole to be calculated heavy enough for three additional stories on building should they be put on at any time, with connections at top columns to receive future columns. The columns on ground floor supporting front to be calculated in same proportion with all the rods necessary where shown. The whole of the columns to be one size throughout, those that carry more weight reinforced, and all columns to be kept as small as possible in proper construction. Each column to have 3-inch holes bored or punched every 4 ft. 6 in. in height on each corner (for use of other trades to fasten metal lath)."

The building was constructed under these specifications, not according to them; that would be impossible. But it is hardly necessary to say that the proprietors

interested were not safe-guarded. The wretched paragraphs quoted are no worse than a contractor finds in specifications almost every day, for they are composed, as a large number of engineers and architects. compose their specifications, by copying and combining sentences or paragraphs from various sources, instead of by writing them from fundamental knowledge of the construction desired. In such instances the client is protected infinitely more by the honesty, knowledge, and skill of the contractor than by those of the architect.

Very few railway specifications for complicated structures are so well written that a contractor cannot comply with them to the letter, yet give the company construction far inferior to what the writer of the specifications intended, and thereby gain for himself material advantage.

The lawyers and the courts are kept busy rectifying the blunders of other professional men who do ill what they are paid to do well. I know of one contractor who has grown gray in the business of constructing buildings, who has never completed a contract without a lawsuit, and who has never lost a lawsuit. This speaks ill for the work of the architects under whom he worked, yet they are probably no worse than their fellows. If it were not good policy to be reasonably honest, many another contractor might easily approach his record.

It would appear that we have given more attention to bad than to good English. This is not illogical, for, manifestly, if the bad be eliminated the good will remain; and if the evils arising from the abuse of the language be fully comprehended, there will certainly

be serious endeavor to improve the usage. The laws of the language are commonly violated from mere carelessness. Slang and provincialisms creep into the speech and destroy its force and elegance; the expression becomes slovenly and the thought obscure; and what constitutes good English is forgotten unless reasonable attention is paid to the speech.

Language itself is merely an instrument. Beautiful English does not constitute a meritorious discourse. The speaker or writer who uses language correctly and fluently but expresses no important thought is a failure; for the sole service good English can render is to convey the speaker's thought and purpose fully and accurately to the minds of his auditors. But this service alone will amply repay years of study and a life of care and attention to the use of the English language.

VI

The Standard of Usage

1

By Thomas R. Lounsbury 1

IN HIS life of Story, Mr. Henry James mentions the presence of the sculptor at a dinner given in London by the critic and essayist John Forster. During the course of it the talk chanced to turn upon a letter from Hampden to Sir John Elliot which had been read. The peculiar beauty of its expression struck ali present. Story observed that the English language seemed no longer to have its old elegance. This remark led to an outburst from the host. As soon," said Forster, "as grammar is printed in any language,

66

1 This essay is taken from The Standard of Usage in English, by Thomas R. Lounsbury, copyright, 1907, 1908, by Harper and Brothers, and is reproduced here by special arrangement with that firm. Thomas R. Lounsbury, 1838-1915, served actively for twenty-five years as Professor of English in Yale University, and is the author of important works in literary history and philology. This essay and the book from which it is taken are especially noteworthy as expressing in popular form the principles of usage recognized by authorities on language but violated often by purists and pedantic teachers, who, in their anxiety for correctness, tend to go to the other extreme and to curtail the legitimate resources and variety of the English language. Questions of usage are clear enough as to principle but difficult in practice: they are to be mastered not mainly by reference to grammars and rhetorics and dictionaries, but by observation of the practice of standard authors: it is much easier to make a positive statement, based on one's reading, as to what is good, than to make the negative one, as to what is not. All of which indicates that instruction in language is not only more profitable but also more likely to be sound if it is positive rather than negative in character.-EDITOR.

it begins to go. The Greeks had no grammar when their best works were written, and the decline of style began with the appearance of one."

Forster has not been the only one to take this view, nor was he the first to give it utterance. Extravagantly stated as it is, there is in it a certain element of truth. The early authors of a tongue have in their minds no thought of possible censure from any linguistic critic. Every one does what is right in his own eyes, restrained, so far as he is restrained, only by that sense of propriety which genius possesses as its birthright and great talents frequently acquire. But in later times, when grammars and manuals of usage have come to abound, there is frequent consultation of them, or, rather, a constant dread of violating rules which they have promulgated. Such a method of proceeding is not conducive to the best results in the matter of expression. When men think not so much of what they want to say as of how they are going to say it, what they write is fairly certain to lose something of the freshness which springs from unconsciousness. No one can be expected to speak with ease when before his mind looms constantly the prospect of possible criticism of the words and constructions he has employed. If grammar, or what he considers grammar, prevents him from resorting to usages to which he sees no objection, it has in one way been harmful if in another way it has been helpful. Correctness may have been secured, but spontaneity is gone. The rules laid down for the writer's guidance may be desirable, but they are likewise depressing. He thinks of himself as under the charge of a paternal government, and he is not happy; for our race, in its