The Educational Writings of Richard Mulcaster

by Richard Mulcaster

But why may we not use all our four-and-twenty letters, even for four-and-twenty uses each, if occasion serve, seeing that the characters being known are more familiar and easier to be discerned than any new device—yea, even though the old resembled each other more, and there were but one new? It has been sufficiently declared already, that those men who first devised letters, reserved the authorities over them and their use to themselves for life, and to their successors for ever, to modify and use them as it should please them best by consent among themselves, as necessity arose. And why not so, where the invention is their own, and the right use of it? This general reservation is enrolled already in all reason and antiquity, and the particular consent for the writing of our language is given already by our general use, and will be registered also in a very good record, I hope, and that shortly. And will you make that sovereign which is but subaltern? Or will you take that to be immovable like a steady rock, which roams by nature, to serve the finder? There is no such assurance in sound for the establishing of a right as you conceive, nor any such necessity in letters to be constant in one use as you seek to enforce.

The philosopher says that nature makes one thing for one use, and that every use has its particular instrument naturally, but that our own inventions—nay, that even the most natural means—may through our application, serve for sundry ends and uses. And will letters stand so upon their reputation as not to seem to admit of our applying them to their own purposes, seeing that they are both our creatures, and by creation our bondmen, both to sound as we shall think good, and in as many ways as we may wish them to serve? No, surely, they do not think so, but they are most ready to serve as we appoint, both by creation and by covenant. The letters yield readily, but some letters seek to delay their dutiful obedience, holding that their substance is adamant, and that they were not born to yield so.

With the same pen we make letters and mar them; with the same we direct and destroy them; which are contrary uses, though meant to compass the same right end. And will letters seem to serve but for one use, being nothing but elves of the pen’s breeding? They will not, but prove their own dutifulness to the pen, their parent, by following his direction in very many points, as they yield to reason and reasonable custom in many of their powers, whereby they seem to argue against contention, they themselves being satisfied.

The number of things which we write and speak about is infinite, yet the words with which we write and speak are definite and of limited number. Therefore we are driven to use one and the same word in very many—nay sometimes in very contrary senses—and that is the case in all the best languages, as well as in English, where a number of our words are of very various powers, as in the sentence: “A bird flies light, wherever she may light,” and many others that need not now be mentioned. And will letters stand aloof, so as to sound always in but one way, and to serve always but one use, where their great-grandfathers, even the words themselves, are forced to be manifold—nay, are very well content so to be, because of their founder’s command to be pliable, and at the voluntary disposal of wisdom and learning? Letters must not stand aloof, but approve of the service allotted to them, be it never so manifold, seeing that without confusion, customary acquaintance will make the distinctions clear; as a disputer will sift out the difference of manifold words, so that the variety in their senses may cause no quarrel in the argument.

If through want of skill and mere ignorance, we do not write always in the same way, then knowledge is the helper, and he that will follow the right usage must have the desire to learn aright.

If distinctions are wanted then accent must be the means of avoiding confusion, or some such device which may serve the purpose without pestering the writing by anything too strange. For it is most certain that we may use our letters like all other things whose end is the convenience of man. Nor is it any abuse when those who use can give a reason that is sufficient to the wise, and not contrary to good custom. And though some may not be persuaded, yet when an act is passed by division of the house, it is law by parliament. Then the objectors must relent and follow, though they may not favour it. They must make the best of what they thought worst, when lawful authority restrains their will. A thing originally free, being once controlled by order, has lost its freedom, and must then keep the current appointed for it, being itself subject to man for his uses.

Our letters are limited in number, but their usage is certain even in their greatest uncertainty, and therefore I take it that we may rest content both with their number and with their use. So much concerning the complaint of our poverty in letters, and the confusion in their powers, which I do not wonder at, because I see it so in all things; and I see no cause why we cannot overcome the difficulty by our own inventions and devices, where we are to take account of nothing but our own consent, guided by the judgment of the wisest men, and imitation of uncorrupted nature.

If there be need, the increase in the number of our letters is not refused to us any more than to other people, but the need is denied, because we entered upon other people’s most perfect inventions, and though this came later in time, yet it was so much the surer, because all things necessary were devised to our hands, and because our need can be no new need. Whatever we need to write we are able to write, and when we have written it we are able to read it. If there be any fault, the remedy must be, not to seek what we have not, but to mark what we have, seeing that we have sufficient.