The courier. (Lincoln, Neb.) 1894-1903, July 06, 1901, Image 2
VOL. XVI., NO. XXVII ESTABU1SHED.IN 1886 PRICE FIVE CENTS LINCOLN, NEBR., SATURDAY. JULY 6, 1901. THE COURIER, T EKTMXDIN THK FOSTOFFICE AT LINCOLN AS SCOXD CLASS MATTES. PUBLISHED EVERY SATURDAY BT TIE COURIER Millie 1ID PUBLISHING GO Office 1132 N street, Up Stairs. Telephone 384. SARAH B. HARRIS, : : : EDITOR Subscription Rates. Per annum il 50 Six months 1 00 Rebate of fifty cents on cash payments. Single copies 05 The Cockier will not be responsible for vol nntary communications unless accompanied by return postage. Communications, to receive attention, must be signed by the lull name ot the writer, not merely as a guarantee of good faith, but for publication if advisable. s ,o g OBSERVATIONS. 8 Farming. Allied for concerted offensive action against Crokerism at the next New York election are the Citizen's Union, the City Club, the Greater New York Democracy, the Brooklyn Democracy, the New York County Republicans, the King's County Republicans, the German-American Municipal League and the American-German Indepen dents. Mr. Croker is in Europe and professes to be entirely indifferent to the movement, gathering volume everyday, against himself and his ex ploitation of the citizens of New York. It may be that his "cold blood" is not assumed and that he is satisfied to permanently retire from New York where he has made enough to support himself in good style in Great Britain. All signs indicate that Crokerism will bo defeated at Vhe coming election. Tammany is overwhelmed, once in a cycle, by the plundered, deceived, disgusted citi zens of New York. It is indicated that such a rising of the voters is about to occur. And it is likely that Croker has read the writing, although he does not read much. It is idle wasting any objurgations on him. The tax payers of New York who have allowed Croker or Platte, or both together, to farm out the city for their own benefit for so many years, deserve to be plundered. Their excuse is that they are too busy to attend the primaries. Some of them say they -can better afford to be rob bed by Croker than to spend time enough in politics to drive out the robbers. Relying upon this preoc cupation, the machinists have en- joyed, ever since the renaissance of m Tammany after the disorganization w1 caused by the Tweed trial, undisput- I ed access to the treasury of New York city. But it is impossible to have the law on Croker, or on Dowie, or on any body who, unlike a gambler, extracts money from the public not by games of chance, but by politics or the fana ticism of the credulous. Dowie and Croker would have to work for a liv ing if it, were not for the credulity of their clientele. I believe there is a statute against taking advantage of a crazy man, or of an imbecile or of a drunken man; but against the pecu liar kind of idiocy manifested by the Dowieites, for instance, there is no recourse against the operator who induces the people to voluntarily donate him their property. No com mission of insanity would pronounce these people insane. On examination they reason as well as the average man, but the submission of their wills and of their property to an India rubber fakir like Dowie is a sign of insanity. If the sane survivors should at any time decide that it is expedient to shut up the people who give away their money to confidence men like Dowie, they must needs im prison them in tents, and it is doubt ful if in such a case there would not be more people on the inside than the outside of the tents. There are no more false prophets now than iu the time of the Pharaohs, so their kind is not increasing. The populace railed at them then. We rail at them now, but vituperation is not fatal to the object of it and the fakirs are not exterminated. They will continue to nourish until the far-distant day when they cannot find gullible fools to fool. The Cultivation of English. Mr. Alfred Ayers, an essayist in one of the month's magazines, says that lie knows from observation that in Germany, France, Spain and Italy the knowledge of the mother-tongue is reckoned the most desirable of all the polite accomplishments. Com plicated as the German grammar is, Germans of refinement speak it cor rectly. "How different in the most cultured English-speaking circles! True, one cannot, without attracting attention, use seen for saw or done for did, or put two negatives in a sentence; but one can misuse the auxiliary verbs continually, misuse the tenses, use adjectives where ad verbs are required, misuse the cases, use lay for lie, since for ago, without for unless, the indicative where the subjunctive is required, and so on and on without attracting attention, un less there chances to be a stickler for purity present." The last clause of the preceding sentence is purely subjunctive and sliould read: "Unless a stickler for purity chance to be present." But the subjunctive, because of this very carelessness, which Mr. Ayers so poignantly regrets, is passing out ot use. The simplification of the Eng lish 'anguage has been .accomplished by this angloaxon tendency to do everything in the shortest time and with as little fuss and feathers as possible. The German language is still burdened with gender. Even inanimate objects like dipper and ink stand have a gender, and which of the three dipper is can be known only to the native or to the man with a marvelous memory. The German is slow, a tritle heavy and he takes his language as he does military ser vice, as something which cannot b2 changedi The impatience of the an glo saxon has cleared a lot of rubbish out of the way of the North Ameri can school-boy. Little German boys are still spending years learning the gender of objects, genders bestowed upon them during the Cesarean peri od of the Sprache, when the super stitious herders personified everything and referred to things respectfully as he or she and sometimes it. The dead hand would not have held live Eng lish rigid but the Germans speak the speech their fathers spnke conscien tiously and patiently. We escape our custom easily. In Germany it mar ries, buries, or consigns a youth to five years service in the army and his parents never think of combining with several thousand other parents to change the law. bo it is likely that German children for the next thousand years will spend their time trying to learn the gender of pots and pans, beer glasses, policemen and maidens. The descendant of the anglo-saxon has wiped out the three declensions (or is it four?), he is rapidly making the subjunctive case obsolete, and he is making more and more fashionable the simplest forms of the verbs. Only the most fasti dious use the subjunctive in speak ing, and of the few who use it in writ ing, their punctilious printers put it right back in the indicative. To this taste for simplicity and compactness the English language owes its use by all nations. If in tho process of sim plification the speech loses feminine endings, the subjunctive case and some irregular tenses, we can afford it. For the sake of the larger use of our tongue by the peoples of the'earth we are prepared to sacrifice a part of the indicative, and it is not unlikely that, before we get through, we shall be called upon to do it. Writers assume that our language is more jealously guarded by English men than by Americans, in spite of the fact that foreigners cannot tell how aa English proper name is pro nounced until it is vocally pronounc ed for him by a native or by some one whom the native has taught, so far has the pronunciation departed from the sound of the letters which ori ginally were indicated. Of course1 these changes have come about from the ground up. Scholars keep a lan guage from changing too rapidly. They act as a drag or anchor; they are not an active force in changing it. Changes come about by means of those who are playing the game from year to year. The umpire settles dis puted points for the time being. Her is not an agent in the development; of the game. An expression that was slang ten years ago has now a certain dictionary standing, if it was goo:I, picturesque, expressive slang. Mr. Ayres' plea for cultivating the Eng lish language contains sound advice and valuable hints. Some of the par agraphs are somewhat unfortunately composed, as: "There are a few words that by well nigh everybody are very much more frequently wrongly used than they are rightly used." "Mas tery in the use of any language is beyond the reach of all but a very few; proficiency, however, in the use of one's motlier-tongue is within the reach of most of us; and that pro ficiency, it has always seemed to mev is beyond compare the most to be desired of all the polite accomplish ments." Any discourse on language, how ever, is embarrassed by the writer' own technical imperfections in its use. Only a genius can play upon a language, express his ideas, and pro duce no discords, no examples of the very solecisms he is declaiming against. The editor of these pages frequently discourses about the de plorable English used by the public school children, although there are mistakes on this page that the chil dren would be ashamed to make. But there are so few geniuses Those that are born here do not stay here, and if it could not be said until a master said it, it would not be said at all. In the meantime the Lincoln teach ers might thir.k they were really teaching the pupils in the public; schools to speak, read and write the English language correctly, the pu pils would grow unwarrantably com placent, and the parents would cease to be dissatisfied; all this would happen and more besides if the editor of this paper ceased to apprise the people once a week that things edu cational, things political and things religious are going to the dogs. The Fourth of Julyi Small boys are quiet only when they are asleep Their noise is a serious inconvenience and trial to grown people all the year through, but on the Fourth of July they are a menace to life as well as to nerves. I know it" is the latest note in child stud7" that a boy's system demands noise, and that in entering a room of studi ous people with a wild whoop which sets the nerves a-quiver. he is but fulfilling a law of his nature which the child professors say it would be dangerous to interdict. It has been my unhappy fate to know and endure some of the children of professors of pedagogy, physiology, and child study (none of them residents of Lincoln.) Considering that they were only ex perimental apparatus and had had one system after another tried on their protesting little entities they were remarkably good children. But i i-il 1 i'l '"I I t A i A' 'A I a? ":i 4 M tit f. . ; , , rfi in t:t S i is l tn Ul i i U ".. a v I 1 fc. 1