The scraps of conversation I overhear every day in elevators, across counters, on the street, and in trolley-cars are of a nature to disturb those who view with complacency the great treasure we pour into education. The trouble with our English is that too much is taught and not enough is learned. The child is stuffed, not fed. Rules crammed into him for his guidance in self-expression are imperfectly assimilated. They never become a part of him. His first contacts with grammar arouse his hostility, and seeing no sense in it he casts it aside with the disdain he would manifest for a mechanical toy that refused to work in the manner promised by the advertisement. FOOTNOTE: [A] This gentleman again captured the Republican nomination for mayor of Indianapolis in the May primary, 1921. TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES: Italicized text is surrounded by underscores: _italics_. Obvious typographical errors have been corrected. Inconsistencies in hyphenation have been standardized. Archaic or variant spelling has been retained.