APPENDIX A LV 



letters are clues to the looric of its evolution. The process goes 

 on unconsciously and cannot be accelerated — even by a strenuous 

 President or a confident multi-millionaire. The pine tree will not be 

 hurried into dropping its leaves. The people are sovereign here, and 

 will not drop a word, or a letter even, at the bidding of anyone. As 

 Horace tells us, " Custom is the law and arbiter and rightful legislator 

 of language." 



Much complaint has arisen in recent years of the difficulty of 

 English spelling. How can it be otherwise if spelling is not taught 

 in the schools, and if the " letters Cadmus gave " are submerged in 

 phonic systems or other recent experimentation. Words are not arbi- 

 trary signs, but are embodied thoughts. They have life-histories reach- 

 ing back through innumerable years and teaching, often by these very 

 despised silent letters, about affiliations of races in the dim past beyond 

 the record of history. It is pleasing and instructive to trace these 

 embodied thoughts through their changes, and it is helpful in acquiring 

 a knowledge of other tongues as well as in understanding our own. 



Whatever sympathy we may have for those who have no time to 

 learn to spell, let us not pennit them, Procrustes-like, to cut down 

 the English language to the measure of their capacity. Rather let 

 them turn to some of the abandoned etymological spelling books and 

 learn words, not singly and separately, but in their groups and families ; 

 for English is not a jargon or a collection of Chinese ideographs, but 

 an organ of thought naturally formed in the course of long centuries 

 unconsciously by the English people. New words we must have for 

 the new things under our skies, but we must jealously- watch lest we 

 gradually and unconsciously drift away into a Canadian dialect either 

 in spelling or accent, and, even if we have as a Society no collective 

 mandate for the task, it will be well to inquire whether our manner 

 of speech is being kept as close as possible to the central standards and, 

 to adopt the great Cardinal's phrase, whether we as Canadians are 

 working with all diligence to keep the language pure and eloquent. 



The spheres of Science and Literature, though they may seem at 

 times to coalesce, are profoundly diverse. The former is fundamentally 

 quantitative — the latter is radically qualitative. Science is based upon 

 the principle laid àown by one of the greatest of her votaries: "All 

 things exiit in numher, iveiglit, and' measure." Yes! All things; 

 save the will and the spirit of man. All things; save love, joy, honour, 

 patriotism, and every other motive which stirs the human spirit to 

 action or gives value and dignity to the life of man. For such things 

 as these there is neither number, weight, nor measure; and yet in 



