The history of the English Language

English language which demand-there are circumstances m its position which recommend-the most sedulous and persevering investigation. I will not here speak of what belongs to another part of our course-the general value and importance of linguistic inquiry-but I will draw your attention to the multifarious etymology of our Babylon’s vocabulary, and the composite structure of our syntax, as peculiarities о the English tongue not shared in an equal degree by any other European speech known in literature, and requiring an amount of systematic study not in other cases usually necessary. The groundwork of English, indeed, can be, and best is, learned at the domestic fireside—a school for which there is no adequate substitute ; but the knowledge there acquired is not, as in homogeneous languages, a root, out of which will spontaneously grow the flowers and the fruits which adom and enrich the speech of man. English has been so much affected by extraneous, alien, and discordant influences, so much mixed with foreign ingredients, so much overloaded with adventitious appendages, that it is, to most of those who speak it, in a considerable degree, a conventional and arbitrary symbolism. The Anglo-Saxon tongue has a craving appetite, and is as rapacious of words, and as tolerant of forms, as are its children of territory and of religions. But, in spite of its power of assimilation, there is much of the speech of England which has never become connatural to the Anglican people, and its grammar has passively suffered the introduction of many syntactical combinations, which are not merely irregular, but repugnant. It has lost its original organic law of progress, and its present growth is by accretion, not by development. I shall not here inquire whether this condition of English is an evil. There are many cases where a complex and cunningly-devised machine, dexterously guided, can do that which the congenital hand fails to accomplish; but the computing of our losses and gains, the striking of our linguistic balance, belongs elsewhere. Suffice it to say, that English is not a language which teaches itself by mere unreflecting usage. It can be mastered, in all its wealth, in all its power, only by conscious, persistent labor; and, therefore, when the entire world is awaking to the value of general philological science, it would ill become us to be slow in recognizing the special importance of the study of our own tongue.
But, in order that this study may commend itself to the popular mind, its value and its interest must first be made apparent to the thinking spirits by whom the current of public opinion is determined. Knowledge has its sources on the heights of humanity, and culture derives its authority from the example of the acknowledged leaders of society. Studies which are neglected or undervalued by the educated man, will have still less attraction for the pupil, and English philology cannot win its way to a form in American high- schools, until it shall have been recognized as a worthy pursuit by the learned and the wise, who are no longer subject to the authority of academic teachers.
But, great as is the practical importance of the knowledge of words, let it not be said that, for its sake alone, we encourage inquiry into the structure and constitution of our national speech. Find here textbooks on English language and speech development:
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