Dear Comrade:
We are taking up in this lesson the study of the last important part of
speech. We have spent some little time on the study of these parts of
speech, but it has been time well spent. We cannot use good English and
construct sentences that express our thoughts without an adequate
knowledge of the words we use in sentence building. As soon as we finish
the study of the parts of speech, we will spend several weeks in
sentence building. This will give us a review of these lessons in which
we have studied separate words.
The English language is one of the most interesting of all to study. It
is the most truly international of all languages, for the English
language contains words from almost every language in the world. Did you
ever stop to think that we could have internationalism in language as
well as in other things? We can be as narrowly patriotic concerning
words as concerning anything else.
Nations have been prone to consider all those who do not speak their
language as barbarians. Germany, perhaps, possesses as strong a
nationalistic spirit as any country, and in Germany this spirit has
found expression in a society formed for the purpose of keeping all
foreign words out of the German language. They have published handbooks
of native words for almost every department of modern life. They insist
that the people use these words, instead of foreign importations. The
German State takes great pride in the German language and considers it
the most perfect of any spoken today. The rulers of Germany believe that
it is a part of their duty to the world to see that all other nations
speak the German language. In conquered Poland, only German is permitted
to be taught in the schools or to be spoken as the language of commerce.
The patriots in language seem to believe that there is some connection
between purity of language and purity of race.
In English, however, we have the beginnings of an international speech.
Our civilization is derived from various sources. Here in America we are
truly the melting-pot of the nations, and this is mirrored forth in our
language which is, in a way, a melting-pot also, in which have been
thrown words from every tongue. Those for whom nationalism is an
important thing will probably cling to the idea of a pure unmixed
language, but to those of us to whom Internationalism is not an empty
word, but a living ideal, an international language becomes also part of
the ideal.
There is a wealth of wonderful literature open to us once we have gained
a command of the English language. Pay especial attention to the
quotations given in each lesson. These are quotations from the very best
literature. If there are any of them that arouse your interest and you
would like to read more from the same author, write us and we shall be
glad to furnish you full information concerning further reading.
Yours for Education,