The English Language

Does It Need Revision?

F. C. CHAMBERLIN University of Chicago

(From Times-Herald)

(The following.. Prof. Chamberlin, of the Chicago University gives the affirmative side of the question. In the March number will appear the negative side from Prof. Peck of Columbia College. Both authors have given permission for extracts from these articles to appear in PRIMARY EDUCATION.--ED.)

That our language, in common with other languages, has its useless parts, its unnecessary bulk, its needless complications, its weak constructions, its incompetencies and its inadaptabilities, scarcely needs to be urged upon observing and thoughtful people. But let us specify:

1. There are certain sounds to be represented. Granted for the moment that we wish to use these just as they have been heretofore used, it is glaringly manifest that we do not represent them in the simplest, most convenient and most elegant manner. An enormous amount of time and energy is wasted on a crude and wearisome spelling. The defence of this, so far as there is any, is closely akin to that offered by the Chinese for their ancestor-worship and like practices. Our crude spelling comes essentially from a forced retention of the ancestral debris of the language which in a healthy condition would have been moulted or sloughed off. The need of reform in spelling is too well known to need argument. If the demonstration of the evil were sufficient to remedy it, an improved spelling would have been attained long ago. Unfortunately our wretched practice is intrenched behind a most formidable prejudice. While this also is well known, it is perhaps not sufficiently realized that this tenacious prejudice is the chief obstacle to reform, and that it is the strategic point to be attacked and removed.

2. There is more sound than is necessary for the thought conveyed; or, in the written form, there is a needless waste of letters. From the economic point of view is there anything more absurd than the use of incomprehensibility to express the simple negative idea which is concealed somewhere in its cumbrous length. It is a train of five vehicles (three prepositions, an adjective and a substantive) loosely linked together to carry empty negation. There is a long list of words of like profligate length. When thoughts were few and there was need to make them cover as much time or space as possible, such words were convenient, but now there is more to be told than can be heard and more to be written than can be read, why longer dilute it with this needless wastage of sound and ink?

Not only is there great wastage of sound and of letters, but much uncouthness has been retained. Unmouthable words mar almost every page of the lexicon. In not a small percentage of our words neither the sound nor the written forms are either elegant or easy of utterance or fittingly expressive. Open the dictionary at random and, following down the columns, note the large percentage of words which are needlessly long, or difficult to speak, or ugly in form, or otherwise obnoxious to good phonic taste. Why should not every word in English be made equal if not superior to the best word in any other language? hesitate to borrow and improve upon foreign ideas in the mechanical world? Why should we in the linguistic?

Do we

3. There are worn out formalisms, loose constructions and needless complications. The syntax is nearly or quite as bad as the vocabulary and the spelling. Perhaps there is no better illustration of this than the useless sibilant appended to the so-called third person, singular number of the present tense, indicative mood. I am quite unable to find any need for it. The so-called third persons and singular numbers of other tenses and moods have no such appendage and suffer no discernible loss, but rather gain much in convenience. Our eccentric prejudices do not require us to say "he rans," though they strenuously insist. that we must say "he runs." We may say "I run," " run," we run, they run" with impunity, but great is our

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sin against "grammar (mere fashion) if we say "he run." These sibilants are grave obstacles to freedom in extemporaneous speech, except with the most practiced. They require a wasteful diversion of attention which should be concentrated on the thought and the essentials of expression. So it is with all the many functionless relics of ancient declensions, conjugations and obsolete syntactical devices. Why not trim off these dead limbs and let the tree grow into symmetry and beauty, and yield clear timber instead of knotty and punky slabs?

Serious rhetorical defects follow inevitably upon a cumbrous syntax. The free and effective arangement of thought is trammeled by the needless exactions of our unregenerate syntax.

The language needs rectification and refinement in all departments. It also needs enrichment to meet the growing demands of the age. So far as possible this enrichment should be secured by the more facile use of the words we now possess, which would be permitted if they were freed from their useless lumber and the trammelings of a tyrannical syntax.

But the condition of the language, bad as it is, is more tolerable than our moral attitude toward it. If one were called upon to name the most declared servitude to prejudice to be found in Christendom to-day he might safely name our bondage to our irrational spelling, our uncouth words and our antiquated syntax. There is nothing more manifestly erratic than to spell "of" with an "f," but who of us can see it in its proper dress, "ov," without a wince of his "educated" sensibilities? Who would as lief hear "he sit" as "I sit," however much he may be convinced that both may well follow the same style? The simple fact is we have been persistantly and strenuously educated into prejudice in favor of inherited fashions in speech in utter disregard of real merit. Our prejudices are intense in proportion to their irrationality, as prejudices usually are. This schooling in prejudice seems to me to be a moral evil. It seems to me to degrade the intellectual nature by substituting irrational and biased modes of mental procedure for rational and free modes. It seems to me to degrade the moral nature by making us the bondmen of prejudice instead of intellectual freemen ready to turn from the worse to the better whenever the better shall be made manifest. Who of us can claim such free and manly possession of himself in the matter of language? Are we not, without exception, the victims of inculcated bias? And, what is worse, are we not heartlessly compelling our children to pass through the fire before this moloch of prejudice and reducing them to like servitude?

In this bondage to prejudice lies the root of the whole matter, as I see it. China could be quickly civilized if it were not for its inherited prejudices. We could quickly right the obvious faults of our language if we were purged of our bias. But this bias has been so thoroughly drilled. into us that there is little or no hope of escape for the present generation. What, then, is to be done?

1. Stop educating our children into these servile prejudices. Tell them the plain truth about the language. Teach them that there are certain fashions of spelling, of word formation, of syntax and of rhetoric which have prevailed in the past and are still rigorously observed, but which are not good in themselves and need modification. Teach them at the same time that "educated" (fashionated would better express the fact) people are intensely prejudiced in behalf of the old fashions, and that they think very ill of all who depart from them, however senseless these fashions may be; that it is therefore prudent for the time being to learn these fashions and to conform to them as we do to many other fashions of which we do not fully approve, but that they ought to be prepared to accept and help on reform when the time for reform shall be ripe, i.e., when the present prejudice-bound generation shall pass out of the way and the laudable spirit of the technical world shall have permeated the linguistic world.

2. Let us ourselves frankly acknowledge our prejudices and the absurdities of the situation into which a regrettable system of education has brought us. Let us do what we

can to remove our own shackles and prepare the way for a laudable evoulution of the language.

3. Meanwhile let us do such little trimming of excrescences here and there as our prejudice will permit and our courage will warrant, hoping that little by little the spirit of reform may displace subserviency to the old fashions, and the language at length become in reality a living language. Under the dominance of dead languages it has been practically dead for some centuries. Let us help to breathe into it a new life and impart to it something of the spirit of our times.

What Nansen Says

Nansen, in his popular lecture on his Arctic exploration, says of the polar night and the beautiful aurora:

"You get tired of the long polar days, and then perhaps you begin to long for the polar night with the stars again. But the fall comes, the sun sinks to the horizon again, and then at midnight you have a most wonderful sky. The sun sinks deeper, and the evening sky gets clearer and the ice world is dreaming in the light of the northern stillness. At last the sun disappears under the horizon, and then the dawn in the south grows fainter and fainter every day. But it is wonderfully beautiful, this twilight of the dying, disappearing polar day. It is like dreamland, painted in the imagination's most delicate tints. It is a far-away, faint, clear music; a distant, subdued melody. It is a sad scene of the dying day. But it grows darker and darker; the dawn grows fainter and fainter until the last trace of dawn disappears in the south, and then the north, dark, polar night has commenced and will prevail for five months without break. How wonderful when the still moon is soaring through the heavens for fourteen days and nights at a time. You may dream this in some unknown world, far away from the unrest and bustle of men and all the world's strife-away far from the madding crowd."

And in his description of the Northern lights he says:

"But then, still more inspiring than all this are the Northern lights, which are of eternally shifting beauty during the whole winter. You could never tire of looking at this weird flow of light. It begins, perhaps, in a far-away, faint, pale yellow, spectral light in the western horizon. Like the reflection of some distant fire it now brightens and suddenly, perhaps, is half out, but at the touch of some magic wand the streams of light come nearer and nearer, and like a fiery serpent it writhes itself over the firmament, shining brighter and brighter as it approaches. One stripe is of gold, then of red, with spots of gold, another of yellow, and another of a ghastly greenish white. Now they grow stronger and again fainter, - peaceless, like the yearning soul of man. Suddenly the whole thing disappears and new streams form into fantastic shapes and figures, and again at times it is like silvery waves on which dreams travel in the unknown worlds. And now it begins again. Streaks of fire begin to wave in various directions-first in the west, bounding upwards higher and higher, and you will see it with one burst cover the sky everywhere, the whole heavens covered with a ruddy red, and yellow, and green, and white, and all bound higher and higher, and suddenly they meet to form a glorious crown."

never at rest

A Science Lesson

The other day, in a Chicago school-room, the teacher saw two boys, who sat near a window, looking very intently at something outside, instead of studying. She said, "Boys, what do you see outside that is more interesting than your lessons?"

"Oh," cried the boys, "a spider is spinning his web in the willow tree."

"Very well," said their teacher, "you may watch him. for five minutes, and see how much he will do in that time, and whether he spins back and forth or round and round. I will tell you when the time is up."

The boys turned to their working spider and the teacher to her working pupils, and all was still for a minute, when suddenly a loud, "Oh!" of dismay burst from the boys. "What is the matter boys!

"Oh, a sparrow eat him up!"

Thus ended the science lesson.-Juanita Stafford.

A Hard Lesson

Three French boys were studying a volume of Shakespeare in their own tongue, their task being to render it into English. They came to Hamlet's soliloquy, "To be or not to be," and here are their three renderings:

"To was or not to am."

"To were or is it not."

"To should or not to will."

you seen it? Did you ever see a larger flag? A smaller one? How many think this is beautiful? Why? Yes, the colors are pretty. What are the colors? How many colors? What part of the flag is red? How many red stripes are there? Which way do the stripes run? Are there other stripes? What color are they? Which way do they run? Let us count them altogether. How many stripes in all? How are they arranged? What part is blue? Where is the blue part? What is on the blue? How many stars are there? For what do the stripes stand? (Explain a little about the time when there was no flag and about the war, and the first flag, and the colonies which are represented, also the states.) Call the attention of the children to the beauty of the flag. Let them hold it.

Give them the idea that it is called the American flag and belongs to America or the United States government and that the school and post-office and such things which are of service to the people are a part of the government and are given to the people by the government. It is important especially in schools where the foreign element prevails to some extent to get the children to know that good things come from the government and that the government does something good even for them and in this relation that the flag is the mark of the government. they should try hard to be good boys and girls, to make good men and women and do something useful to make the country better and this in return for what has been done for them. I would not at first confuse them with the idea that they are a part of the government, but be sure to impress the idea that the government does good things.

Also that in return

A Chicago Teacher Interviewed

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Subject Nature Study

LEARN that you are very successful in getting material for nature study, even in a city. Will you answer some questions about the way you get it and how you create so much interest in nature study among your children? Ans. Certainly. But I make no claim as an expert or a scientist. I am only learning with the children.

What class of children do you have?

Ans. About the middle class. I have fifty in my room in the fourth school year.

Do they really care for nature study?

Ans. Yes; as soon as they learn to observe, they care. They bring in things that we older people never see.

How many of those fifty children are bored by Nature work? Ans. Not one.

Well, to begin. What do you do in September?

Ans. Seeds and seed dissemination and trees. I have learned all my nature in Chicago streets. I see six varieties of trees on my way to school. City teachers have the advantage of the parks, and our vacant lots are full of insects getting ready for winter.

How do you find caterpillars in the city?

Ans. In every vacant lot and on almost every weed. My own little city garden has furnished about forty and a perfectly delightful lot of fat green worms. Some of these worms buried themselves in the sand on my geography table.

How do you teach caterpillars?

Ans. All through September the children bring the caterpillar as they find it eating and the plant they find it Every child has his (or her) pasteboard box on his desk with the cover cut and netting put over it so as to watch the caterpillar.

on.

How large are these boxes?

Ans. About the size of one-pound candy boxes.

Does any child object to having this box on his desk? Ans. Not one.

Do they play with them?

Ans. At first it makes a confusion, before they learn how to manage with them.

What do you do with that confusion?

Ans. Educate it out of them.

How?

Ans. By insisting that the other work be done on time. But when a caterpillar begins to spin, why, we all look.

Doesn't the look of these things on the desk disturb you?

Ans. Why, no ! I have my own box.

What is the use of doing all this?

see.

Ans. Observation, comparison and learning to Besides, nothing will so humanize and civilize these children as getting to the heart of Nature, and we are just as close to Nature's heart in city streets as in the country. One of my boys, who is the keenest observer I ever saw, has never been in the country. Then again, the more you know of life the less you wish to destroy it. Besides these benefits, it gives a zest and interest to all school work, and it makes us all happier. This is a gem I gave to my school to-day :

"I'm sure we should all be as happy as kings,
The world is so full of a number of things."
What other objects do you study?
Ans.

Ants. Professor Jackman in his "Nature Study gave directions about making a box for ants. I followed that, and kept it in my room for the children to see. Anything else?

Ans.

Yes. I teach birds during their migration, and I have mounted specimens. We have a willow tree in our school yard and we observe the birds on that. Besides, our city park is a wonderful place to see birds. They stop in our city parks on their way north and south. What else do you find to study? Ans. Snails!

O, we have a beautiful time with snails. The children get them from Lake Michigan. They can be found in small ponds, too. Each child has a jar of water

on his desk to watch the snails. They were fed on lettuce and cabbage.

How did you know what to give them to eat? Ans. We tried everything till we found out. What did you find interesting about the snails? Ans. The way the land snails seal themselves up for the winter. We went out into the country to see this, but we could reach all these places by the street cars.

Is this all you study?

Ans. No; we watch turtles and see them bury themselves in the sand for the winter. We have minnows, too. We watch everything get ready for the winter - yes, even the trees. We find the twigs grow dryer and dryer till the sap is gone. You see Nature crowds so fast in the fall we have to "hustle" to keep up.

What do you do about the literature of nature study? Ans. We read the allied literature of everything we study. I keep a list of poems for nature work, labelled, to save time. I use myths and stories to help also. "Sharp Eyes" is always on my desk. I have worn one volume out and got another. The children love it, and "Eye Spy "too, and "Strolls by Starlight." I also keep on my desk Newhall's Tree Book and Matthews' Tree Book for their leaf outlines. Children bring leaves and compare them with the

Ans. Time varies. One boy said, "I wish my caterpillar would hurry up and spin. I'm tired of lugging leaves for it."

Well, what about your regular time for taking up nature study in your room?

Ans. O, I have that, of course, but that time gives the children a chance to tell their observations. I don't give lectures.

How much time each day do you give to nature study? Ans. Twenty minutes.

What do the children do with these boxes and their contents after the caterpillars have gone into winter quarters?

Ans. Each child takes home his box, and brings it back to me when the butterfly or moth appears. I have a jar of cyanide of potassium (a candy jar with a glass stopper to keep the fumes in) and I kill them painlessly, and show them how to mount them

Children have great respect for desk books. See how clean these arc, and so many little hands have handled them, too. I keep a scrap book divided into four seasons, and everything that I find helpful in my work I place under its appropriate season. See what I have here from PRIMARY EDUCATION! I have a note-book, too, in which I keep every lesson I have given, and I add to it from year to year. I try to be systematic, and if this work is to be of any use to the children they must learn to be systematic, too. They I try to mustn't go about this work in a haphazard way. have them describe clearly and accurately. Do you use a microscope?

Ans. Yes; I use that at home and give the results to the children. They use pocket lenses at school. You must be very happy in your work.

Ans. Yes; we all work and study together. These words occur to me so often when we are studying about "Behold, I show you a mystery!" I think the tendency of all this work is to draw us all closer to Nature and to Nature's God.

At the close of the interview the editor of PRIMARY EDUCATION passed into the street, and met another Chicago teacher. Teacher number two expressed an earnest desire to enter more fully into nature study, but said, apologetically, "You know it is so difficult for us city teachers to get any material."

the necessity for it. This is the need which is presented to the teacher.

Since the aim of education is character building, and truthfulness is such a large block in its foundation, during school life, the teacher with a view to the ultimate influencing of his character, can do much toward surrounding the child with an environment to which if the activity of the child-mind responds, he will come to embody in his own ideal of life—the necessity of truth.

At first the child tries to realize the ideal of mother and teacher rather than his own. The child early comes to feel if he tells an untruth, he will be out of harmony with the ideal of right the mother or teacher has set up. There is conflict in the child-mind, made apparent by the flushed face, frightened eye, uneasy movements of the hands or whole body. This conflict is settled by an act of choice. The more often the right choice is made, the character is strengthened, the choice of right becomes a habit.

The so-called causes for either conscious or unconscious untruths are things which limit his choice. By studying these causes, they may be recognized in the child and he be so conditioned that the causes may be at least partly removed, and if not removed may be counteracted by other conditions favorable to truth-telling.

Among the things which limit the child's choice are: First, children do not distinguish between fact and fancy. They think things are true which in reality are only part and parcel of their imagination. An example of this is the child who said, "Thunder is barrels of flour rolling down the hills of heaven."

Second, and closely allied to this is the fact stated by an eminent physician that "there is a disturbance of perception produced locally in the cortex of the brain by which the person is unable to distinguish between the internal process and the external causal conditions."

Third comes the slightly higher stage where the child distinguishes between fact and fancy but does not see why the latter should not be told as well as the former. Here he begins to recognize truth but not the necessity for it.

An

Fourth, that untruths are such an easy means to an end makes this species the most common. To escape punishment, one boy says, "I'm late because my mother wouldn't tell me when the bell rang," although no bell rings. other to escape displeasure reads from memory with book upside down. To escape a difficult task, three little girls had the toothache in the same class. Other instances might be given where untruths were told because of indolence or bashfulnesss, or from a spirit of mischief. For the sake of attracting attention and gaining approbation, one, boy, in a science class where the pumpkin was discussed said, "I saw one as big as this room." When asked to repeat the story he said, "As large as my head." Children also tell long stories purely fanciful, evolved from their imaginations, sometimes apparently for their own amusement, but more often to attract attention or excite envy among their companions.

Fifth, there is an inherited perversion of the sense of right and wrong. A boy, I once knew, rarely told the

truth.

If asked why late at school, was as likely to say he was sick when it was his father. The father of this boy is constantly on the street spinning "yarns," He has no

credit. In the simplest matter his word is not trusted. It is possible the boy tells the untruths from imitation but more probably that the principle of heredity is involved. This kind of untruthfulness in the child, leads in later life to the unnecessary, unexplainable lie, told without thought, having grown habitual. Closely connected with this last is the home environment of the child, his home or street life. Here untruths told from imitation are common. A leader among his playmates tells a falsehood and others imitate his example.

FARNER

Sixth, physical defects are another cause to limit the choice of the child. If any sense is imperfect, the eyesight or hearing defective, children do not hear or see things as they are and the report is untruthful. When a teacher places work on the board, a sensitive child will often guess at it or say he doesn't know rather than tell that he can't see.

Seventh, some children tell the truth to their friends and untruths to their enemies. A boy who often brings confectionary to school is asked by one playmate, " Did you bring candy to-day?" "No," is the prompt answer. A favorite among his playmates approaches with the same question and the candies are produced.

Eighth, still others tell untruths to justify some noble end, to save a friend from punishment when he would tell the truth if punishment to himself were involved.

The teacher should so condition the child that he shall feel the necessity of truth that this feeling shall be a motive to action and each action in turn will have a reflex influence on feeling, making each choice for truth easier than the preceding one. Thus, his will becomes organized, each choice will be a step towards the teacher's ideal for the child that of absolute self-determination or freedom. First, in nature study, the teacher may lead the child to observe closely and tell exactly what he sees. This helps

him to distinguish between the true and untrue. No statement should be accepted unless the child can show it is true. Last fall, when the children gathered autumn leaves and only perfect ones were wanted, one child was heard to say to another, "We don't want that one. It is'nt