Probe people on the subjects in which you are interested. Get all out of them you can; and you can always get something out of everybody. * * * * * Gilbert M. Tucker, in _The North American Review_ for January, speaks of “American English” in this way: “It will hardly be denied in any quarter that the speech of the United States is quite unlike that of Great Britain, in the important particular that here we have no dialects. Trifling variations in pronunciation, and in the use of a few particular words, certainly exist. The Yankee ‘expects’ or ‘calculates,’ while the Virginian ‘reckons;’ the illiterate Northerner ‘claims,’ and the Southerner of similar class, by a very curious reversal of the blunder, ‘allows,’ what better educated people merely assert. The pails and pans of the world at large become ‘buckets’ when taken to Kentucky. It is ‘evening’ in Richmond, while afternoon still lingers a hundred miles due north at Washington. Vessels go into ‘docks’ on their arrival at Philadelphia, but into ‘slips’ at Mobile; they are tied up at ‘wharves’ at Boston, but to ‘piers’ at Chicago. Distances are measured by ‘squares’ in Baltimore, by ‘blocks’ in Providence. The ‘shilling’ of New York is the ‘levy’ of Pennsylvania, the ‘bit’ of San Francisco, the ‘ninepence’ of Old New England, and the ‘escalan’ of New Orleans. But put all these variations together, with such others as more careful examination might reveal, and how far short they fall of representing anything like the real dialectic differences of speech that obtain, and always have obtained, not only between the three kingdoms, but even between contiguous sections of England itself!” LOCAL CIRCLES. [We request the president or secretary of every local circle to send us reports of their work, of lectures, concerts, entertainments, etc. Editor of THE CHAUTAUQUAN, Meadville, Pa.] “Days come and go much more pleasantly when our time is fully occupied.”—_Gessner._ * * * * * “The pleasantest society is that where the members feel a warm respect for each other.”—_Goethe._ * * * * * “It is a beautiful thought, that however far one shore may be from another, the wave that ripples over my foot will in a short time be on the opposite strand.”—_Humboldt._ * * * * *