the pursuit of all knowledge for its own sake is useful, a principle which, though often asserted, has rarely, I fear, convinced anybody of the usefulness of a particular study who was not already convinced of it before. We may rather claim that whatever contributes to a fuller and clearer understanding of the thought of the past, also aids us to understand the thought of the present; that by learning to understand our ancestors, we learn to understand ourselves. The mental training that results from the careful study, analysis, and comparison of the works of the great poets and thinkers of former times, as well as of the humbler manifestations of the reasoning and imaginative faculties of mankind, the insight into human nature which is afforded by the study of the thought and modes of expression of different ages, the enjoyment which is derived from the ability to appreciate understandingly, not superficially, what has interested and moved men at any time, these are matters of as great utility as any with which we might concern ourselves and none are of greater importance for the understanding and advancement of our civilization.

We need not fear, therefore, that by exercising only the functions of recorder and interpreter, philology will not perform a sufficiently useful service to mankind, and we may sympathize with the individual scholar who, conscious of the difficulty of the task he has set himself and in a modest sense of the limitations of his powers, shrinks from additional responsibilities. Nevertheless, we may well ask, if anybody is to act as guide or arbiter in matters of the language or literature of our day, who is better qualified to do so than the man who is most familiar with the foundations on which both rest? Who is better able to say what literary tendencies are most in harmony with the general trend of the times, what productions are most likely to survive and exercise a permanent influence for good or evil, along what lines literature should move to accomplish its purpose, than the man who has studied the history of literary tendencies in the past,

has noted their relations to life in general, has observed their causes and effects? Surely, as far as guidance and arbitrament in such matters are possible at all-and we shall not fail to recognize that their scope is limited-the philologist, other things being equal, is better equipped for this work than anybody else. Does it not then become a useful and thankful task for philology to apply the knowledge it has gained from the past to the questions of the present and the future? Or shall these be left to less competent persons, while the philologist with the superior smile of an unconcerned observer stands aside or returns to his cell to pore again over the dusty volumes of the past?

I propose to confine myself in the present paper to a discussion of the relations of philology to purism. This word I use in no derogatory sense; I mean by it all conscious efforts to purify, regulate, and generally improve a language. The philologist in his capacity as recorder and interpreter inquires only as to what was, what is, and how it came about; the purist inquires what ought to be. It would seem natural enough that philologist and purist should be one and the same person, that he who knows the history of the language and can explain how the various modern forms have come to be, should also be the proper authority to decide which of several contesting forms should have the preference, in what manner certain defects in the language can be best remedied and certain wants supplied. The fact, however, is that especially in modern times advanced philological thought has concerned itself but little with the living problems in language. The initiative has almost always been left to the amateur; the philologist has rarely taken active part in the work except, when the clamor of the reformers became too loud, to pour cold water on their efforts, or to castigate some particularly ignorant zealot. As a striking instance might be mentioned the fact that in a period when great efforts are made in Germany to rid the German language of unnecessary and undesirable foreign words, the best syste

matic attempt to find for them suitable words of German extraction has been made not by a philologist, but by an architect in the Prussian ministry of public works.1 Similarly a little volume, published in Germany about eight years ago that attacked somewhat fiercely and without displaying much philological knowledge or acumen certain prevailing tendencies in the written language, met with a perfect shower of philological criticism of the details of the author's assertions, though the justice and timeliness of the attack in general could hardly be questioned; and the principal German society for the promotion of purity and correctness in speech, while counting among its members some philologists of rank, owes much of its success to the initiative of persons without philological training. It is, of course, well known how within. the domain of English also the most useful contributions of philologists to the discussion of living problems of speech * have been generally called forth only by the well meaning but injudicious activity of less competent persons.

4

This attitude of reserve and even indifference which philology is inclined to assume toward such questions of the speech of our day is not difficult to understand. The reasons for it are manifold. Excessive devotion to what happens to interest the individual worker most, coupled with corresponding neglect of other things, is not peculiar to the pursuit of our science or of any science; in all fields of human endeavor it is the cause of much of what men have accomplished. It

'Verdeutschungswörterbuch von Otto Sarrazin, Regierungs- und Baurath im Königl. Preussischen Ministerium der öffentlichen Arbeiten. 2. Auflage. Berlin: 1888.-Attention deserve also the Fremd- und Verdeutschungswörterbuch von G. A. Saalfeld. Berlin, 1899, and the Verdeutschungswörterbücher des allgemeinen deutschen Sprachvereins dealing with special topics under the sub-titles of Speisekarte, Häusliches und geselliges Leben, Handel, Namenbüchlein, Amtssprache, Berg- und Hüttenwesen, Schule, Heilkunde. Leipzig and Braunschweig: 1890–98.

Allerhand Sprachdummheiten von Gustav Wustmann. Leipzig: 1892. For the literature on the subject cf. Litbl. f. germ. u. rom. Phil., XIV, 82 ff. Allgemeiner Deutscher Sprachverein.

For instance, most of the writings of Dr. Fitzedward Hall.

is only legitimate specialization, if to the scholar that devotes his attention primarily to the investigation of the older stages of a language, or even to that of the origin of living speechforms, questions of purity and propriety of speech are comparatively uninteresting. To him all actually occurring forms of speech, good or bad, correct or incorrect, old or new, may present equally interesting problems; indeed, a form recorded but once or twice, but representative of a class that has otherwise disappeared, embodying a peculiar phonetic change or owing its origin to a particular kind of analogy, may seem more worthy of attention than a living form used every day by millions, but paralleled by many analogous forms. In this connection, however, it should not be overlooked that if we would obtain an adequate conception of the history of a language or of its actual state at any period, questions of fitness and propriety of speech cannot be wholly disregarded. In all historic stages of language-development certain forms have for one reason or another been preferred to others, and the question of the survival or extinction of a form as well as the degree of its influence on other forms has always depended on its natural fitness and on the frequency and the kind of use that it enjoyed. If, then, the philologist must pay due attention to these matters in dealing with the language of a former period, how can he escape this responsibility in respect to the language of to-day if he pretends to know it equally well? The question is really merely whether or not it is his duty to speak up and by the weight of his authoritative opinion try to influence the course of language in what seems to him the right direction.

There are a considerable number of scholars that honestly doubt the wisdom of interfering at all with the natural unhampered development of language. If they had the power to stop at once every incorrect usage, free the language from every cumbersome or in any way objectionable form and in general remedy its defects by their decree, they would not exercise this power. They would argue that language is

the most democratic of human institutions; that it owes its very origin to free mutual agreement; that only by its free adaptation by every individual to his own purposes can its needs be discovered and its real wants supplied; that even if an absolutely uniform and perfect language could be devised, the natural conditions for change and differentiation of usage would still be present and in a short time the old defects would make themselves felt again. How far this line of reasoning may be carried may be seen from the opposition that philologists have made to a recent attempt to regulate the pronunciation of the German stage. It seems as though it would be apparent to every one that marked differences in the pronunciation of the actors must seriously interfere with the artistic effect produced by a play, except, of course, when these differences are really intended for some legitimate purpose. Imagine a Faust speaking his native Swabian and Mephistopheles replying say in the dialect of Berlin. This has of course long been recognized, and the German stagepronunciation is comparatively uniform, but slight differences still exist. That these might be removed, a commission was appointed to agree upon a standard stage-pronunciation, and as the stage has already had considerable influence upon the pronunciation of the cultivated classes and the schools, it was hoped that in this way further progress toward uniformity of pronunciation would be made. While a number of philologists supported the movement, it must be confessed that those whose names carry the greatest weight, are not thoroughly in sympathy with it, and as far as the intended influence upon the schools is concerned, the movement has met with strong opposition.1

1Deutsche Bühnensprache. Ergebnisse der Beratungen zur ausgleichenden Regelung der deutschen Bühnensprache, die vom 14. bis 16. April 1898 im Apollosaale des Kgl. Schauspielhauses zu Berlin stattgefunden haben. Im Auftrage der Kommission herausgegeben von Prof. Dr. Th. Siebs in Greifswald. Berlin, Köln, Leipzig: 1898.-Cf. also the opinions expressed by Professors Brenner, Erbe, Kluge, Paul, and Seemüller, and published in the Wissenschaftliche Beihefte zur Zeitschrift des Allgemeinen Deutschen Sprachvereins, No. 16. Berlin: 1899.