PROCEEDINGS FOR 1900 XLV 
in America. It would be desirable, if it were possible, to recover these 
for speech and for literature ; and to some extent, at least, it could be 
done. Another class of words which have slipped in surreptitiously, 
some of them from the Far West, some from the Spaniards in the South, 
some from the employments of colonists and settlers, might well be 
sifted, so as to retain that which might enrich us, and dismiss whatever 
might seem debased or corrupting. 
In this respect we Canadians have a grave responsibility. We 
stand between the Mother Land and her independent daughter, and we 
are receiving influences from both sides, so that we can hardly be unaware 
of the dangers to which we have referred. There is a good deal in our 
actual usages which will not bear the test of a rigorous examination. 
When we hear members of Parliament and other highly educated per- 
sonages declaring, “I seen him” and the like, we feel a kind of shudder 
go over us, and we wonder what the language of Shakespeare and Milton 
and Tennyson is coming to. And there are things as bad in our forms 
of correspondence, such as the omission of the first personal pro- 
noun in sentence after sentence of our letters. For example, a corres- 
pondent tells us: “ Was glad to receive your letter,” “ Am sorry I did 
not write,” “ Will do better next time.” These and the like are simply 
most horrid vulgarisms. Such things are tolerable in telegrams, even 
commendable as saving money, but intolerable in English composition. 
I don’t deny their use in Latin. 
Much more might be said on this subject, and also on our general 
pronunciation, which is susceptible of improvement. Perhaps a refer- 
ence might also be made to the subject of spelling. In regard to the 
attempted reforms in the direction of what is called phonetic spelling, 
it is quite clear that the general voice of English literary men has pro- 
nounced strongly and decidedly against them, and there is little prospect 
of this decision being reversed for many a day to come, if ever. But 
attempts are made, from time to time, to simplify the spelling of words 
in common use, which appear to meet with a certain measure of success— 
with results not at all pleasing to an ordinary educated eye. 
Some time ago I received—probably all the fellows in the section 
of English literature received—a circular containing a list of some hun- 
dreds of words which we were asked to promise to spell in a shorter 
manner, by the omission of supposed unnecessary vowels and consonants, 
providing a certain number—a hundred or some larger number—would 
undertake to do the same. It was a most ghastly array of poor atten- 
uated things which had stripped off all their past history and were barely 
recognizable any more. I for one left my correspondent in no doubt. 
