dame," he replied in a pained voice, "you surprise me. Those
gestures are not foolishness. They are talent. I thought they would
please you."

In my own early days I was once criticised by one of the young ladies
of Capiz for my pronunciation of the letter _c_ in the Spanish word
_ciudad_. I replied that my giving the sound of _th_ to the letter was
correct Spanish, whereupon she advised me to pay no attention to the
Spanish pronunciation, as the Filipinos speak better Spanish than do
the Spanish themselves. What she meant was that the avoidance of _th_
sounds in _c_ and _z_, which the Filipinos invariably pronounce like
_s_, is an improvement to the Spanish language. I imagined some of
that young lady's kindred ten years later arguing to prove that the
Filipino corruption of _th_ in English words--pronouncing "thirty" as
"sirty," and "thick" as "sick"--arguing that such English is superior
to English as we speak it. Here are some typically mispronounced
English sentences: "If Maria has seben fencils and see loses sree, see
will hab four fencils left, and if her moser gibs her eight fencils,
see will hab twel' fencils in all." Here is another: "Pedro has a new
fair of voots." Another: "If one fint ob binegar costs fi' cents,
sree fints will cost sree times fi' cents, or fikteen cents." It
would, I think, be hard to convince us that the euphonic changes in
these words are an improvement to our language.

Some four years ago, I was teaching a class in the Manila School of
Arts and Trades, and was giving some directions about the word form
of English sentences. I advised the class to stick to simple direct
sentences, since they would never have any use for a literary style
in English. Some six or eight young men instantly dissented from this
proposition, and insisted that they were capable of acquiring the best
literary style. Not one of them could have written a page of clear,
grammatical, idiomatic English. I tried to make it clear to them that
literary English and colloquial English are two different things,
and that what they needed was plain, precise English as a medium of
exchange in business, and I said, incidentally, that such was the
English possessed by the major portion of the English-speaking race. I
said that although the American nation numbered eighty millions,
most of whom were educated and able to make an intelligent use of
their language in conversation or in writing, the percentage of great
writers and