ENGLISH AS A VEHICLE FOR THE HUMANITIES. [To THE EDITOR
OF THE " SPECTATOR."] SIR,—On the subject of the Report of the Committee appointea by the President of the Board of Education, you end up your remarks with a good suggestion, that volunteers and others might he found to advance the good cause of the English language by means of school lectures. And you imply that a valuable qualification of these lecturers would be that they should be " good speakers," viz., for set public speaking. By this expression " good speakers "—understood in a wider sense —you touch what is extensively the weak spot with regard to " English " in all English education. For it is unfortunately the case that many teachers in elementary schools, in secon- dary, and even in public schools, do not speak English well, and do not even speak " good English." To nothing in English education is less attention paid than to these two serious arts, yet neither art is acquired except by vigorous care and patience.
In the case of schools that are exceptionally good, as tested by examination results, the staff may not include one person speaking good English. The teaching profession, especially in elementary schools, is drawn from an order of capable young people generally accustomed to speak in early life a "local dialect " English. They continue, even after a university education, to betray the solecisms (not to say barbarisms) of their dialect; and even fancy these solecisms a grace. But it is not solecisms of word and phrasing only; for they retain the dialect vocalization in which every vowel is sounded as a diph- thong, a combination of the pure vowel and the characteristic vowel dominant in their dialect. That is to say, the ear has never been awakened to the grace and charm of pure English vocalization. The same is true of intonation, balance, &o. Keen children in such a school may be quickened to a suspicion that there is such a thing as pure English by noting that their teachers do not speak it. But the generality of children, prone to unconscious imitation—and peculiarities are most easily imitated—aro more likely to catch from their teachers modes of vocalization and of intonation from which they never become cured. In every school a "good speaker "—one that " speaks " well, and speaks "good English" in the classroom and in conversation—is the desideratum; that is, if the pupils are to be infected with the love of good English. Good English is itself an education, being inseparable from good taste, choice- ness in expression and choiceness in thought.—I am, Sir, &c.,
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