o
prevalent, that even fashion finds it difficult to reform it. The best
people, who are determined to broaden all their 'a''s, will forget in
moments of excitement, and fall back into old habits. It requires
constant vigilance to keep the letter 'a' flattened out. It is in vain
that scholars have pointed out that in the use of this letter lies the
main difference between the English and the American speech; either
Americans generally do not care if this is the fact, or fashion can only
work a reform in a limited number of people. It seems, therefore,
necessary that there should be an organized effort to deal with this
pronunciation, and clubs will no doubt be formed all over the country, in
imitation of the one mentioned, until the broad a will become as common
as flies in summer. When this result is attained it will be time to
attack the sound of 'u' with clubs, and make universal the French sound.
In time the American pronunciation will become as superior to all others
as are the American sewing-machines and reapers. In the Broad A Club
every member who misbehaves--that is, mispronounces--is fined a nickel
for each offense. Of course in the beginning there is a good deal of
revenue from this source, but the revenue diminishes as the club
improves, so that we have the anomaly of its failure to be
self-supporting in proportion to its excellence. Just now if these clubs
could suddenly become universal, and the penalty be enforced, we could
have the means of paying off the national debt in a year.

We do not wish to attach too much importance to this movement, but rather
to suggest to a continent yearning for culture in letters and in speech
whether it may not be carried too far. The reader will remember that
there came a time in Athens when culture could mock at itself, and the
rest of the country may be warned in time of a possible departure from
good form in devotion to language and literature by the present attitude
of modern Athens. Probably there is no esoteric depth in literature or
religion, no refinement in intellectual luxury, that this favored city
has not sounded. It is certainly significant, therefore, when the
priestesses and devotees of mental superiority there turn upon it and
rend it, when they are heartily tired of the whole literary business.
There is always this danger when anything is passionately pursued as a
fashion, that it will one day cease to be the fashion. Plato and Buddha
and even Emerson be