in the voice and manner of
speech. And, further, the immense personal equation shows itself in
the beauty and power of the vocal expressiveness, which carries shades
of meaning, unguessed delicacies of emotion, intimations of beauty, to
every ear. In the other case, the thought is clouded by unavoidable
suggestions of ignorance and ugliness, brought by the pronunciation and
voice, even to an unanalytical ear; the meaning is obscured by
inaccurate inflection and uncertain or corrupt enunciation; but, worst
of all, the personal atmosphere, the aroma, of the idea has been lost
in transmission through a clumsy, ill-fitted medium.

The thing said may look the same on a printed page, but it is not the
same when spoken. And it is the spoken sentence which is the original
and the usual mode of communication.

The widespread poverty of expression in English, which is thus a matter
of "how," and to which we are awakening, must be corrected chiefly, at
least at first, by the common schools. The home is the ideal place for
it, but the average home of the United States is no longer a possible
place for it. The child of foreign parents, the child of parents
little educated and bred in limited circumstances, the child of
powerful provincial influences, must all depend on the school for
standards of English.

And it is the elementary school which must meet the need, if it is to
be met at all. For the conception of English expression which I am
talking of can find no mode of instruction adequate to its meaning,
save in constant appeal to the ear, at an age so early that unconscious
habit is formed. No rules, no analytical instruction in later
development, can accomplish what is needed. Hearing and speaking;
imitating, unwittingly and wittingly, a good model; it is to this
method we must look for redemption from present conditions.

I believe we are on the eve of a real revolution in English
teaching,--only it is a revolution which will not break the peace. The
new way will leave an overwhelming preponderance of oral methods in use
up to the fifth or sixth grade, and will introduce a larger proportion
of oral work than has ever been contemplated in grammar and high school
work. It will recognize the fact that English is primarily something
spoken with the mouth and heard with the ear. And this recognition will
have greatest weight in the systems of elementary teaching.

It is as an aid in oral teaching of English that story-t