GOOD ENGLISH.
We should be as careful of our words as of our actions.
Cicero.
An accomplishment, in its accepted meaning, is "something acquired which perfects or makes complete; an attainment which tends to equip in character, manner, or person, and which gives pleasure to others."
Surely, then, the man or woman who desires to please cannot possess too many accomplishments; and, accepting the definition just given, is there any other accomplishment of greater importance than facility in speaking and writing one's native language with ease and with elegance? Is there any other single test of culture so conclusive as this? Is it not the matter, and, particularly, the method of one's speech more than anything else which impresses the person whom we meet for the first time, either favorably or unfavorably in regard to our acquirements? We may have but few opportunities during a lifetime to display our knowledge of geometry, algebra or astronomy; we may be for weeks in the company of other people without giving them an opportunity to suspect that we possess any knowledge of Latin or Greek, but as long as we live, and every day we live, we are giving evidences of facility or awkwardness in the use of our mother tongue.
How much time is wasted in practicing upon unresponsive musical instruments—unresponsive because not touched by sympathetic fingers! How much time is spent in acquiring a slight knowledge of French and German, which results, generally, in an ability to use a few simple phrases, and to translate easy sentences with the aid of a dictionary! How many young women, with no artistic ability whatever, spend weeks and months under the instruction of teachers in vain attempts to produce something in oil or in water-color worthy to be called a picture! How much more to the advantage of these young women would it be if a part of this time were spent in acquiring a better understanding of the use of English!
The writer once knew a girl who, after playing a selection upon the piano, left the room and burst into tears because she had been guilty of a slight blunder in her execution—a blunder not noticed by two of the twenty persons assembled in the parlor. This same girl, however, exhibited, habitually, a carelessness in pronunciation, and an ignorance of English grammar of which she should have been heartily ashamed, and which caused far more annoyance to her friends than her blunders in music.
Boys and girls should be trained to feel that it is as discreditable to them to confound the parts of speech in conversation, as it is to make discords in music, or to finish a picture out of drawing, or to be guilty of some inadvertence of manner. They should be made to feel that proficiency in music, French, German, or painting, or any other accomplishment, so-called, will not compensate for slovenliness of diction.