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Show If"""""-I For tho lost 50 years T have heard tlio samo talk about the decadenco of Knglish np i in American colleges. t crops up in every J. t5UJllII, generation. Yet I feel sure that, on tho English whole, tho standard of (he Knglish spoken I in the United States is improving. This IS Q. is due largely to the increase in tlio num- ment is steady, though slow. There is one thing to be remembered By PROP. THOS. LOUNSBURY, about tho English language, namely, that I Yiit UnUtniir. its spelling is absolutely arbitrary it does JEZaaZIaZZaZ nt 11'cnd upon reason, as docs the spelling, spell-ing, of say, Italian and Spanish. An Italian or Spanish boy who cannot spell correctly is an idiot. Hut it is otherwise with the English-speaking boys. Excellence in spelling depends largely on knack, liko excellence in anything else. There have been a number of eminent men of letters who throughout their lives never learned to Bpell correctly Lord Byron, for example. , Aside from Uio question of spelling, tho excellence of a man's preparation in English depends not so much on his immediate schooling as upon his ancestor!. Training at homo is what really counts. ' That is where the English have the advantage over us. There havo been cultured families in England for many centuries. It is exceedingly hard for the teachers at a preparatory school to over- ' como thd influence of home training, when this training has had a bad effect on n boy. For instance, take tho case of a boy I who hears continually at homo tho phraso "I done it." i That boy will bo obliged to mako n conscious effort 'mmmmmmm j every time he contributes "I did" for "I done." And j ho will frequently slip back into the old way in mo- t incuts of excitement. i.kf4aaH One curious phaso of the situation in this conn- jmfU try is the fact that boys, whoso parents aro immi- $vv(r AFl ', grants, and who come to this country when very young, j aKflWPy have a hotter chance of learning good English than LpmFmrjk ! the native boys brought up in homes where bad Eng- wMj&ffiftffl j lish is spoken. This is due to the fact that such iin- SmMmk migrant boys have no bad English to unlearn. As coon ns they nrrivo here they at onco go to school jJjlfjjaatsiSj , and aro carefully taught good English hence they "J ( should grow up speaking that. aaaaeaaM |