352 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



form to the language of the past as preserved by the types. Albeit, we do 

 not teach the language of Shakespeare or even of Addison, for the reason 

 they have become archaic. What is taken as the best English of to-day 

 contains a considerable number of expressions that are not found in 

 Macaulay or DeQuincey, even when the matter dealt with is the same. 

 "We take as models English that is less than a century old. In some 

 respects speech orally transmitted is more conservative than that which 

 has been handed down in books; it represents a less advanced type of 

 thought. The speech of the average man is not much influenced by 

 books or by any printed matter. He repeats over and over again the 

 formulas he learned in boyhood until language becomes his master 

 rather than his servant. He does not reflect upon the speech he uses, 

 but expresses the old familiar thoughts in the old familiar way; of 

 other thoughts he has but few. At school he may have studied formal 

 grammar, and wasted most of the time he put upon it. Grammar may 

 give us an insight into the structure of a language, but it does not 

 instruct us how to use it. If we take a boy into a shop, teach him the 

 names of the tools and let him look on while others handle them without 

 letting him do anything himself, he will never become a mechanic. 

 Even if he has learned to manipulate the tools and machinery of a 

 bygone era and refuses to change he is hopelessly handicapped. We can 

 not discuss modern scientific themes with Bacon's vocabulary. There 

 is an intersting passage in one of Herbert Spencer's essays that I have 

 quoted more than once because it bears upon the matter of teaching the 

 mother-tongue. Few men had a greater command of English and knew 

 better how to make themselves understood than he. In " Facts and 

 Comments " he gives his experience as follows : 



Down to the present hour I remain ignorant of those authoritative directions 

 for writing English which the grammars contain. I can not repeat a single 

 rule of syntax as given in the books, and were it not that the context has shown 

 me the interpretation of the word when I have met it in reading, I should not 

 know what syntax means. ... In the absence of punishment my lessons in 

 Latin grammar were never properly learned, and my progress was so slow 

 that I did not master all the conjugations. Still smaller was the knowledge 

 of the Greek which I acquired. In neither case did I reach that division which 

 treats of the division of sentences. ... Of the French grammar the same has 

 to be said — I never reached the end of the conjugations. Thus neither directly 

 nor indirectly have I received any of that discipline which is supposed to be 

 an indispensable means of insuring correctness of speech. 



This and much more to the same effect is interesting. But it would 

 be a serious mistake to assume that the study of grammar is necessarily 

 a waste of time. We might as well argue that because Franklin, Lincoln 

 and others became masters of English without living teachers, schools 

 are of no use. Spencer's remarks quoted above are followed by some 

 logical and lucid directions as to the proper place of formal grammar in 

 the ordinary school curriculum. If we learn to do by doing, we learn 



