ABSTRACT
The notion that linguistics is a science has been dealt with; what remains is to show what the proper study of language once was, and may be again — that is, to reintroduce rhetoric. Rhetoric, founded on a true understanding of the relation of thought to language, was once one of the foundation stones of liberal education. The generally wrong-headed approach to language of the academic linguists has helped perpetuate a similarly wrong-headed view of rhetoric, the art of using language effectively. The fall of rhetoric in the estimation of teachers, or at least of "educators," is like that of Lucifer in Paradise Lost, a fall from a height all but supreme to the lowest depths. Rhetoric is a vital partner of literary fiction, and the decline of one is closely linked to that of the other. Nothing less will restore rhetoric's reputation.
