The Art of Writing Speaking the English Language | Page 3

The slow-going Europeans still excel in nearly all fine and high-grade forms of manufacture---fine pottery, fine carpets and rugs, fine cloth, fine bronze and other art wares. In our language, too, we are hasty, and therefore imperfect. Fine logical accuracy requires more time than we have had to give to it, and we read the newspapers, which are very poor models of language, instead of books, which should be far better. Our standard of business letters is very low. It is rare to find a letter of any length without one or more errors of language, to say nothing of frequent errors in spelling made by ignorant stenographers and not corrected by the business men who sign the letters.
But a change is coming over us. We have suddenly taken to reading books, and while they are not always the best books, they are better than newspapers. And now a young business man feels that it is distinctly to his advantage if he can dictate a thoroughly good letter to his superior or to a well informed customer. Good letters raise the tone of a business house, poor letters give the idea that it is a cheapjack concern. In social life, well written letters, like good conversational powers, bring friends and introduce the writer into higher circles. A command of language is the index of culture, and the uneducated man or woman who has become wealthy or has gained any special success is eager to put on this wedding garment of refinement. If he continues to regard a good command of language as a wedding garment, he will probably fail in his effort; but a few will discover the way to self-education and actively follow it to its conclusion adding to their first success this new achievement.
But we may even go farther. The right kind of language-teaching will also give us power, a kind of eloquence, a skill in the use of words, which will enable us to frame advertisements which will draw business, letters which will win customers, and to speak in that elegant and forceful way so effective in selling goods. When all advertisements are couched in very imperfect language, and all business letters are carelessly written, of course no one has an advantage over another, and a good knowledge and command of language would not be much of a recommendation to a business man who wants a good assistant. But when a few have come in and by their superior command of language gained a distinct advantage over rivals, then the power inherent in language comes into universal demand--the business standard is raised. There are many signs now that the business standard in the use of language is being distinctly raised. Already a stenographer who does not make errors commands a salary from 25 per cent. to 50 per cent. higher than the average, and is always in demand. Advertisement writers must have not only business instinct but language instinct, 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