“Here, again, we have a vast advantage over you and your system. So many of you are compelled, by want and the fear of want, to work so hard and so long daily, that parents and children are obliged to expend nearly all their vitality to secure the material necessaries of life. Your families are small and many of them are living all alone in the country. The language of parents, under such conditions, must necessarily be very poor and their vocabulary very limited. Children can learn very little good language from such parents. They hear much more bad grammar at home than they get good grammar from the book and school-house, in which it is indeed generally poor enough, too. It is not an easy matter for one to lay aside, in later years, the ‘barnyard’ expressions which he has learned in his childhood and youth. A person that never hears anything but good language, can not use poor language, for language must be learned.” “But we have many wealthy people who have all the time they want for the study of language, how about them?” asked Mrs. Uwins. “Those few of your wealthier classes, who hear better language and grammar at home, and who have plenty of time to devote for its acquisition, come in contact with so much bad language that they pick up about as much bad as good language. In this manner there is an immense amount of time and labor wasted here in the study of technical grammar and rhetoric, which would be unnecessary under a properly organized social condition.” “How do you teach _writing_, Mr. Midith?” asked Roland. “I have mentioned elsewhere how we learn to make our letters, and how we keep our record in our time-book when we are yet very young. Our next incentive for writing is our large daily newspaper, issued by every community, as I have explained in my previous narrative. At a very early age children are encouraged to write articles for the paper. All of us, young and old (except infants), are contributors to this paper; and all subjects of human inquiry are discussed. We enjoy complete freedom of speech and freedom of the press. We allow no censor over them. The children have a certain department of the paper allotted to them; and the older people are much interested in the children’s contributions, discussions and explanations. There is a wide, friendly, open field for emulation in these newspaper columns. These newspaper contributions are a great incentive for children, as well as adults, to learn to write well, to express their thoughts concisely, elegantly, forcibly and clearly. The editor makes such slight corrections as he finds in the children’s manuscripts, which are returned to the children, so that they can compare the printed column with the original manuscript. In this easy, practical way, our children learn writing, orthography, language, grammar, rhetoric, style and invention.