for bridge, and when, after hours of solemn cogitation, they grimly exclude a word, they think that they cause a sensation in literary Paris. They cause no sensation. They do not purify the language. They have not been able in the many years of their social triumph to claim the authority of scholars. They are not entrusted with the power to punish the malefactors, who exult in the free and casual use of barbarous words. From the very first it was their business not to enrich but to impoverish the language. They admitted no word within the sacred covers of their dictionary that had not won their approval. Every line of their book was, and is, a reproach to the gayer work of Cotgrave, for instance, who eagerly welcomed to his pages all the ragamuffins and even criminals of speech that he could pick up at the street corner. And strange to say, the Academy, solemnly and publicly invested with authority, can claim no general respect for its dictionary. Its members, or some of them, meet and gravely sit as a jury upon offending words, which would, if they could, gain admission to the exclusive dictionary. There they stand like aliens, asking to be naturalised, but naturalisation is not easy, and the poor words may stand shivering without the portal for many a year. And even if they are invited to come in, they cannot be sure of their reception. The Academy can open the door, it cannot make those who enter welcome to others. Thus the Academy, in making its dictionary, is but wasting its time. The dictionary remains but a curiosity. Nobody would regret it were it suddenly snatched from us. With Littré or Darmesteter at his elbow, no scholar would trouble to consult the last discoveries of the Sacred Forty. The historians and dramatists, the politicians and marquises, who, with an infrequent poet or novelist, make up the forty, have not necessarily the skill of a lexicographer. And poor England, which is not blessed with an Academy, and which, as Matthew Arnold says, does its journey-work badly, may yet boast in the Oxford dictionary such a lexicon as France, with her Academy, is never likely to achieve. Why, then, should we encourage a mere imitation of the French Academy, when we know that our imitation could not possess, for centuries to come, the dignity, the prestige, the tradition, and the green-embroidered collar of its French exemplar? For, despite its many faults and its few merits, the French Academy is an ancient and an exclusive club. It was founded in the seventeenth century, and it consists of forty members-one in a million of the population of France. Need we ask anything of it but to exist beautifully? And would an English Academy ever be able, before the next ice age, to rival its useless elegance ? As for the English tongue, it needs no censorship, no correction from self-chosen critics. When Swift sought to establish a committee he failed; when he proved by the force of his great example how the English language should be written and kept pure, he succeeded so greatly that his prose needs no interpreter, and that his style after two hundred years is still an example which baffles the wise. And the best service that a man of letters can do to the language which he uses (let us hope) with all humility is to show in his own work with what care and restraint it may be handled. For example speaks with an eloquence denied to precept, and despite a hundred academies, the writer worth reading will still be master of his own words and his own syntax. Printed in Great Britain by WILLIAM BLACKWOOD & SONS LTD. BLUE RIDGE SCHOOL FOR BOYS HENDERSONVILLE, N. C. A select, accredited school of high standards, resultful methods, and of sound principles and ideals. Ideally located in the "Land of the Sky." Junior Depart ment. Non-Military. 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