, further,
the immense personal equation shows itself in the beauty and power of
the vocal expressiveness, which carries shades of meaning, unguessed
delicacies of emotion, intimations of beauty, to every ear. In the other
case, the thought is clouded by unavoidable suggestions of ignorance and
ugliness, brought by the pronunciation and voice, even to an
unanalytical ear; the meaning is obscured by inaccurate inflection and
uncertain or corrupt enunciation; but, worst of all, the personal
atmosphere, the aroma, of the idea has been lost in transmission
through a clumsy, ill-fitted medium.

The thing said may look the same on a printed page, but it is not the
same when spoken. And it is the spoken sentence which is the original
and the usual mode of communication.

The widespread poverty of expression in English, which is thus a matter
of "how," and to which we are awakening, must be corrected chiefly, at
least at first, by the elementary schools. The home is the ideal place
for it, but the average home in many districts is no longer a possible
place for it. The child of parents poorly educated and bred in limited
circumstances, the child of powerful provincial influences, must all
depend on the school for standards of English.

And it is the elementary school which must meet the need, if it is to be
met at all. For the conception of English expression which I am talking
of can find no mode of instruction adequate to its meaning, save in
constant appeal to the ear, at an age so early that unconscious habit is
formed. No rules, no analytical instruction in later development, can
accomplish what is needed. Hearing and speaking; imitating, unwittingly
and wittingly, a good model; it is to this method we must look for
redemption from present conditions.

I believe we are on the eve of a real revolution in English
teaching,--only it is a revolution which will not break the peace. It
will introduce a larger proportion of oral work than has hitherto been
contemplated in secondary school work. It will recognise the fact that
English is primarily something spoken with the mouth and heard with the
ear. And this recognition will have greatest weight in the systems of
elementary teaching.

It is as an aid in oral teaching of English that story-telling in school
finds its second value; ethics is the first ground of its usefulness,
English the second,--and after these, the others. It is, too, for the
oral uses that the secondary