PROBLEMS IN STUDY OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE 233 



since the subject is apart, and presents its own set of problems, 

 not specifically confined to the English language. 



Word-order, formal stylistics, the limits of prose rhythm, the 

 aesthetic value of vowel and consonant combinations, minor foreign 

 influences, slang and technical jargon, the comparative vocabularies 

 of different writers or schools or periods, sexual and social distinc- 

 tions in phraseology, the complicated and delicate syntax of vulgar 

 English as opposed to the idiom of the polite, artificial influences of 

 every kind, the speech of children, the rise and spread of individual- 

 isms, brogues and broken English of all sorts, such are some of 

 the problems on which one would like to dwell, but which I must pass 

 by with a bare mention. 



It is impossible, however, to close without adverting to one or two 

 questions of immediate practical interest. We are always tempted 

 to regard philology as a thing apart, and we are" of course quite justi- 

 fied in taking this attitude among ourselves. Linguistics as an inde- 

 pendent discipline philology for philology's sake needs no 

 defense or assertion in an assembly like the present. But we must 

 not forget that, in one of its aspects, linguistic study may nay 

 must be pursued as ancillary to the study and practice of litera- 

 ture and artistic expression. Applied Philology is not, strictly 

 speaking, a part of my theme. Still, the interests of Pure Philology 

 are too closely bound up with this to allow us to shut our eyes to 

 the facts. If the student of literature, or the student of style, or the 

 aspirant to the honors of writing or speaking, cannot command 

 the services of good philology, he will have recourse to bad, and 

 the world is full of false brethren and redolent of science falsely 

 so called. The study of language and the study of literature must 

 go hand in hand. No doubt every one of us will lean more or less in 

 this or that direction; but it is vitally necessary that every linguist 

 should cultivate the study of literature, and equally essential that 

 the professional literary scholar should build upon a sound and 

 stable foundation of philology. To divorce the two disciplines, 

 and still more to set one up in opposition to the other, will be 

 disastrous to both. These are commonplaces, no doubt, but, in this 

 country at all events, they are truisms which it is our duty to 

 proclaim till the rising generation in our universities shall cease 

 to regard them as paradoxes. 



