e alone, but in business,--in
medicine, in law, behind the accountant's desk or the salesman's
counter,--he is master who can say what he means so that the person to
whom he speaks must know just what he means. Now it is a singular
truth that when we read any great author, the words which we do not
understand are remarkably few. Even in Shakespeare there are not many;
and the few are unknown by reason of a constantly changing vocabulary.
It was probably true then, as it would certainly be to-day, that the
large majority of audiences lost not a word of his fifteen thousand,
while they themselves used less than eight hundred. We know what
others say; yet we say nothing ourselves. What a vocabulary one could
accumulate, if from six to eighteen he added only two words a day!
Twelve years, and each year more than seven hundred words! It does not
look a difficult task. Children do more, and never realize the
superiority of their achievement. Nine thousand words at eighteen!
Shakespeare alone used more. Macaulay needed scarcely six thousand.

Dictionary.

How shall a vocabulary be accumulated? One method is by the use of a
dictionary; and many persons find it a source of great pleasure. The
genealogy and biography of words are as fascinating to a devoted
philologist as stamps to a philatelist or cathedrals to an architect.
"Canteen" is quite an unassuming little word. Yet imperious Caesar knew
it in its childhood. The Roman camp was laid out like a small city,
with regular streets and avenues. On one of these streets called the
"Via Quintana" all the supplies were kept. When the word passed into
the Italian, it became "cantina;" and cantinas may be found among all
nations who have drawn their language from the Latin. There is this
difference, however: that whereas eatables were to be had in the Roman
quintana, only drinkables can be found in the Italian cantina. When
the English adopted the word, the middle meaning, a place where wines
are stored, a wine-cellar, came to be a small flask especially fitted
for the rough usage of a soldier's life, in which a necessary supply
of some sort of liquid may be carried. So the name of a street has
become the much-berated canteen of the sutler and the much needed
canteen of the soldier. The dictionary is full of such fascinating
biographies. Still its fascination is not the reason why most people
study the dictionary: it is because such a study is necessary for the
person who hopes f