California Dept. Of Public Instruction
Published: 2017-07-11
Total Pages: 704
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Excerpt from The Western Journal of Education, Vol. 7: January, 1902 It is no disrespect to the splendid literatures which are embodied in the French and the German tongues and. No lack of appreciation of the services of those great peeples to civilization and to culture, to point out that of modern languages the English is easily the first and the most powerful, for it is the greatest instrument of communication that is now in use among men upon the earth. It is the speech of an aggressive people among whom individual liberty and personal initiative are highly prized. It falls short, no doubt, of the philosophical pliability of the Greek and of the scientific ductility of the German; but what is there in the whole field of human passion and human action that it cannot express with freedom and with a power all its own? Turn Othello into German or compare the verse of Shelley or of Keats with the graceful lines of some of their French contemporaries, and learn the peculiar power of the English speech. In simple word or sonorous phrase it is unequaled as a medium to reveal the thoughts, the feelings, and the ideas of humanity. One's hold upon the English tongue is measured by his choice of words and by his use of idiom. The composite character of modern English offers a wide field for apt and happy choice of expression. The educated man, at home with his mother-tongue, moves easily about in its Saxon, Roman, and Latin elements, and has gained by long experience and wide reading a know ledge of the mental incidence of words as well as of their artistic effect. He is hampered by no set formulas, but manifests in his speech, spoken and written, the characteristic powers and appreciation of his nature. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.