Back in Strawberry Hill, he is the Prince Charming among correspondents. One cannot love him as one loves Charles Lamb and men of a deeper and more imaginative tenderness. But how incomparable he is as an acquaintance! How exquisite a specimen--hand-painted--for the collector of the choice creatures of the human race! THE TEACHING OF ENGLISH By J. C. STOBART There is no doubt whatever about the need for it. Search high or low in our social world, you will find it full of laments and dissatisfaction. In the Services Commanding Officers complain that their subalterns, even though they have been through the Classical course at Public Schools and Universities, cannot write a clear report. Headquarters themselves issue their orders and regulations in barbarous, unintelligible jargon. Government Departments, manned by Greatsmen, wrap themselves in phrases of pompous obscurity, and Cabinet Ministers couch their decisions or agreements in terms of such ambiguity as to leave nobody certain of their meaning. It would, however, be unjust to attribute bad English entirely to upper-class education, classical or modern. The business man in his "esteemed favours," though he may be more terse and polite, is not always able to convey what he intends. He lays the blame, when he fails to do so, upon the faulty education of his clerks and stenographers. The masses of the public too often show in practice that they simply cannot understand printed rules and directions. It is naturally too much to expect a universal diffusion of taste or elegance in the use of our language; but even when we feel the need of fine words to express deep feeling we choose for an obituary lines like these: There's a lonely grave somewhere, Where our dear and brave boy sleeps; There's a little home in England, Where mother and all of us weep. or these: Who knew that when he went away, Departing from his door, How or when he would come back, Or whether never more? For he who went away in health, In battle soon waylaid, Which took him in the prime of life, To lie in a distant grave. No, there is little doubt of the need for teaching clearness and improving taste. As for correct and grammatical writing, one week's study of a popular daily newspaper yielded the following excerpts from a collection of two-score: In the last resort we have to depend upon a jury drawn from the people to convict the scoundrel who has tainted our public life, and unless that jury does not do its duty, unless it is backed by the public sentiment of the people.... The accused was ordered to pay £3, or a month's imprisonment in default. At Paignton, in Devon, a gigantic plum-pudding is made and distributed to the poor, which in 1897 weighed 250 lb. ... the officers closed on him. In throwing him to the ground the revolver dropped from his hand.