nding? You call one civilian
colonel and another major; which have you paid the higher compliment? You
are uncertain whether a given officer is a colonel or a major, and you
wish to address him in such fashion as will least offend his sensitiveness
as to rank and nomenclature; which title--colonel or major--is the less
perilous? You are told that a major has command of a battalion; does that
tell you anything about him? You are told that he has command of a
squadron, of a brigade, of a platoon; do these changes in circumstances
have any import for you? If not, you have too faltering a grasp upon
military facts and terminology.

The best remedy for such shortcomings is to be insatiably curious on all
subjects. This of course is the ideal; nobody ever fully attains it.
Nevertheless Exercise M will set you to groping into certain broad matters
relevant to ordinary needs. Thereafter, if your purpose be strong enough,
you will carry the same methods there acquired into other fields of
knowledge.

You may object that all this is as much mental as linguistic--that what is
proposed will result in as large accessions of general information as of
vocabulary. Let this be admitted. Deficiencies of language are often,
perhaps almost invariably, linked with deficiencies of knowledge.
To repair the one we must at the same time repair the other. This may seem
a hard saying to those who seek, or would impart, mere glibness of phrase
without regard for the substance--who worship "words, words, words"
without thought of "the matter." There is such a thing as froth of
utterance, but who has respect therefor or is deceived thereby? Speech
that is not informed is like a house without a foundation. You should not
desire to possess it. Abroad in this world of ours already are too many
people who darken counsel by words without knowledge.

EXERCISE M

A second lieutenant is the commissioned officer of lowest grade in the
United States army. Name all the grades from second lieutenant to the
grade that is highest.

An admiral is the officer of highest grade in the United States navy. Name
all the grades down to that which is lowest.

Name as many as possible of the different ranks of the clergy in the Roman
Catholic Church, in the Church of England.

Give ascendingly the five titles in the British nobility.

Name the different kinds of vehicles.

Name the different kinds of schools.

Name all the different kinds of boats and ships (