Dear Comrade:
We have finished our study of the different parts of speech and are
going to enter upon the work of sentence building. In the next few
lessons we will gather up all that we have been studying in these
lessons so far. This is a good time to give this work a thorough review.
Perhaps there have been a number of things in the lessons which you have
not thoroughly understood, or perhaps there have been some rules for
which you have not seen the reason. Now as we begin to construct our
sentences, all of this will fit into its place. We shall find the reason
for many of the things which may not have seemed thoroughly clear to us.
There _is_ a science in language as in everything else, and language,
after all, is governed by the will of the people. This has seemed so
self-evident to those who make a special study of the language and its
development that they have given this power a special name. They speak
of the "Genius of the Language" as though there was some spirit guiding
and directing the developing power of language.
There is a spirit guiding and directing the developing power of
language. That spirit is the creative genius of the people. It is the
same spirit that would guide and direct all phases of life into full and
free expression, if it were permitted to act. There being no private
profit connected with the control of the language, the creative genius
of the people has had fuller sway.
The educator sitting in his study cannot make arbitrary rules to change
or conserve the use of words. The people themselves are the final
arbiter in language. It is the current usage among the masses which puts
the final stamp upon any word. Think what this same creative genius
might do if it were set free in social life, in industrial life. It
would work out those principles which were best fitted to the advance of
the people themselves. But those who would profit by the enslavement of
the people have put stumbling blocks,--laws, conventions, morals,
customs,--in the way of the people.
Their creative genius does not have full sway or free sweep, but let us
rejoice that in language, at least, we are free. And let us, as we
realize the power of the people manifest in this phase of life,
determine that the same power shall be set free to work out its will in
all life. Some day the revolution will come. The people will be free to
rule themselves, to express their will, not in the realms of words
alone, but in their social and economic life; and as we become free
within, dare to think for ourselves and to demand our own, we each
become a torch of the revolution, a center of rebellion--one of those
who make straight the path for the future.
Yours for the Revolution,