nstinct,
and knowledge of correct, as well as forceful, expression{.}

Granted, then, that we are all eager to better our knowledge
of the English language, how shall we go about it?

There are literally thousands of published books devoted to the study
and teaching of our language. In such a flood it would seem that we
should have no difficulty in obtaining good guides for our study.

But what do we find? We find spelling-books filled with lists of words to
be memorized; we find grammars filled with names and definitions of all
the different forms which the language assumes; we find rhetorics filled
with the names of every device ever employed to give effectiveness to
language; we find books on literature filled with the names, dates of
birth and death, and lists of works, of every writer any one ever heard of:
and when we have learned all these names we are no better off than when we
started. It is true that in many of these books we may find prefaces
which say, "All other books err in clinging too closely to mere system,
to names; but we will break away and give you the real thing." But they
don't do it; they can't afford to be too radical, and so they merely modify
in a few details the same old system, the system of names. Yet it is a
great point gained when the necessity for a change is realized.

How, then, shall we go about our mastery of the English language?

Modern science has provided us a universal method by which we may study
and master any subject. As applied to an art, this method has proved
highly successful in the case of music. It has not been applied to
language because there was a well fixed method of language study in
existence long before modern science was even dreamed of, and that
ancient method has held on with wonderful tenacity. The great fault
with it is that it was invented to apply to languages entirely different
from our own. Latin grammar and Greek grammar were mechanical systems
of endings by which the relationships of words were indicated.
Of course the relationship of words was at bottom logical, but the
mechanical form was the chief thing to be learned. Our language depends
wholly (or very nearly so) on arrangement of words, and the key is the
logical relationship. A man who knows all the forms of the Latin or
Greek language can write it with substantial accuracy; but the man who
would master the English language must go deeper, he must master the
logic of sentence stru