ABSTRACT
It may seem strange that there should exist any necessity for advocating the claims of the English language to a place among the subjects of English education. But this is not more strange than true. None of our better schools, with certain notable exceptions, dream of giving any attention to it. There is a gross want of adequate treatises dealing with it. No encouragement is given to the studying such treatises as these are: consequently, the Englishman grows up in mere ignorance of his native tongue. He can speak it, because he has heard it spoken around him from his earliest years. If he has been born and bred in what is called well-educated society, he speaks it ‘with propriety.’ He shudders duly when he hears it spoken with impropriety. But his accuracy is of a purely empirical kind. If society were suddenly to countenance and adopt some outrageous solecism, there would be nothing for him but to submit. The language might be changed just as manners are. Propriety in the one case is pretty much what it is in the other. In a word, the ordinary knowledge of English is altogether one of facts, not of principles; is thoroughly superficial, not fundamental. English is an unknown tongue in England. Something is known of French, of German, of Latin, of Greek – of most languages, with this remarkable exception.
