history of resistance to this control. Once spelling was a matter of fashion or
even individual taste; and as the constraint grew, two pedagogues in the
thirteenth century fought a duel for the right spelling of the word, and that
maintained by the survivor prevailed. Phonic and economic influences are now
again making some headway against orthographic orthodoxy here; so with
definitions. In the days of Johnson's dictionary, individuality still had wide range
in determining meanings. In pronunciation, too: we may now pronounce the
word tomato in six ways, all sanctioned by dictionaries. Of our tongue in
particular it is true, as Tylor says in general, condensing a longer passage, "take
language all in all, it is the product of a rough-and-ready ingenuity and of the
great rule of thumb. It is an old barbaric engine, which in its highest
development is altered, patched, and tinkered into capability. It is originally and
naturally a product of low culture, developed by ages of conscious and
unconscious improvement to answer more or less perfectly the requirements of
modern civilization."
It is plain, therefore, that no grammar, and least of all that derived from the prim,
meager Latin contingent of it, is adequate to legislate for the free spirit of our
magnificent tongue. Again, if this is ever done and English ever has a grammar
that is to it what Latin grammar is to that language, it will only be when the
psychology of speech represented, e.g., in Wundt's Psychologie der Sprache,[5]
which is now compiling and organizing the best elements from all grammars, is
complete. The reason why English speakers find such difficulty in learning other
languages is because ours has so far outgrown them by throwing off not only
inflections but many old rules of syntax, that we have had to go backward to an
earlier and more obsolescent stage of human development. In 1414, at the
Council of Constance, when Emperor Sigismund was rebuked for a wrong
gender, he replied, "I am King of the Romans and above grammar." Thomas
Jefferson later wrote, "Where strictures of grammar does not weaken expression
it should be attended to; but where by a small grammatical negligence the energy
of an idea is condensed or a word stands for a sentence, I hold grammatical rigor
in contempt." Browning, Whitman, and Kipling deliberately violate grammar
and secure thereby unique effects neither asking nor needing excuse.
By general consent both high school and college youth in this country are in an
advanced stage of degeneration in the command of this the world's greatest
organ of the intellect; and that, despite the fact that the study of English often
continues from primary into college grades, that no topic counts for more, and