Language Arts & Disciplines Books

LECTURE I. INAUGURAL Wednesday, January 29, 1913 In all the long quarrel set between philosophy and poetry I know of nothing finer, as of nothing more pathetically hopeless, than Plato's return upon himself in his last dialogue 'The Laws.' There are who find that dialogue (left unrevised) insufferably dull, as no doubt it is without form and garrulous. But I think they will read it with... more...

INTRODUCTORY. During the past two years the present writer has devoted the intervals between official duties to collecting and collating materials for the study of sign language. As the few publications on the general subject, possessing more than historic interest, are meager in details and vague in expression, original investigation has been necessary. The high development of communication by gesture... more...

CHAPTER I.  INTRODUCTORY. The Rommany of the Roads.—The Secret of Vagabond Life in England.—Its peculiar and thoroughly hidden Nature.—Gipsy Character and the Causes which formed it.—Moral Results of hungry Marauding.—Gipsy ideas of Religion.  The Scripture story of the Seven Whistlers.—The Baker’s Daughter.—Difficulties of acquiring Rommany.—The Fable of the Cat.—The Chinese, the... more...

SPELLING The idea that there is one right way to combine the letters representing a certain sound or group of sounds, that is a word, and that all other ways are wrong and little short of shameful is a comparatively new idea among us. The English speaking folk held down to a comparatively recent time that any group of letters which approximately represented the sound was amply sufficient as a symbol of... more...

I came out at Haslingden town-end with my old acquaintance, "Rondle o'th Nab," better known by the name of "Sceawter," a moor-end farmer and cattle dealer. He was telling me a story about a cat that squinted, and grew very fat because—to use his own words—it "catched two mice at one go." When he had finished the tale, he stopped suddenly in the middle of the road, and... more...

CHAPTER I. THE HURON-IROQUOIS NATIONS. At the outset of the sixteenth century, when the five tribes or"nations" of the Iroquois confederacy first became known to Europeanexplorers, they were found occupying the valleys and uplands of northernNew York, in that picturesque and fruitful region which stretcheswestward from the head-waters of the Hudson to the Genesee. The Mohawks,or Caniengas—as... more...

I.—THE PROCESS BY COMBINATION. Two or more words may be united to form a new one, or to perform the office of a new one, and four methods or stages of combination may be noted. a. By juxtaposition, where the two words are placed together and yet remain as distinct words. This method is illustrated in Chinese, where the words in the combination when taken alone seldom give a clew to their meaning when... more...

Introductory The appended to this volume is (with the exception of the red lines and red lettering upon it) a reproduction of a portion of the map relating to the explorations and surveys of Dr. Strong, Mr. Monckton and Captain Barton, which was published in theGeographical Journalfor September, 1908, and the use of which has been kindly permitted me by the Royal Geographical Society. I have eliminated... more...

INTRODUCTION TREATISE ON THE SUBLIME Boileau, in his introduction to his version of the ancient Treatise on the Sublime, says that he is making no valueless present to his age. Not valueless, to a generation which talks much about style and method in literature, should be this new rendering of the noble fragment, long attributed to Longinus, the Greek tutor and political adviser of Zenobia. There is,... more...

I. THE TEACHING OF THE NOVEL All will agree that the novel is one of the most important forms of literature for high school study. The fact that almost every boy and girl who is at all interested in reading likes the novel, gives the teacher an excellent opportunity to stimulate the pupil's love for literature and to help him to discriminate between what is true and what is false; between what is... more...