+9.+ Our knowledge of language opens up a new world to us. We
can communicate with those about us; we can open the storehouse of
the knowledge of the past as recorded in books, or as two of our writers
have expressed it:
Have you ever rightly considered what the mere ability to read
means--that it is the key which admits to the world of thought and
fancy and imagination--to the company of saint and sage, of the
wisest and wittiest at their wisest and wittiest moments--that it
enables us to see with the keenest eyes, hear with the finest ears
and listen to the sweetest voices of all time?--_Lowell_.
Strip man of his books and his papers, and he becomes a mere slave,
ignorant of his own resources, ignorant of his rights and
opportunities. The difference between the free citizen of today and
the savage of yesterday is almost entirely a thing of books. The man
who dislikes books can never be entirely happy, and he who loves a
good book can never be wholly miserable.--_Hillis_.
Have you never felt that struggle within and the sense of defeat when
you have tried to make some one feel as you feel, understand as you
understand, see some great truth as you see it, and could not find the
words with which to express your ideas?
+10.+ The mastery of words gives; first, _the ability to understand the
spoken or written thoughts of others_; second, _the ability to
adequately express our own thoughts_; and third, _the ability to think
clearly and to grow in our intellectual life_.
A connected chain of reasoning is impossible without the knowledge of
the words that express the development of the ideas and the varying
shades of meaning. To gain this mastery, you must know the words of our
language and their use. Words are the symbols of ideas and perform
certain functions in expressing our thoughts. This, simply stated, is
all that the study of English Grammar comprises--_the study of English
words and their use in the expression of thought and feeling_.