of Rhetoric will be read, and speakers that transgress elocution and even grammar will be listened to, simply from their abundance of thought and power. One acquainted with the rules of Rhetoric may be incompetent to write a valuable essay, or even a good letter to a friend, for the want of mental ability. Rhetoric can not supply the place of intellect and heart, but only shows how to use both most efficiently. An able speaker or writer needs thought, emotion, and language.

ACQUISITION OF WORDS.

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CHAPTER III.

HOW TO ACQUIRE THE KNOWLEDGE OF WORDS. 10. Language learned in Childhood.-THE first requisite of Rhetoric is to acquire a knowledge of words.

This knowledge is obtained, to a great extent, in our childhood from our parents and early companions. We hear words pronounced, we mark their significance, we imprint them upon our minds; they thus become vehicles of thought for our own use. Who may have uttered those words first is of no practical consequence to us. Some of them may have been used by the Romans two thousand years ago, and therefore be said to be derived from the Latin; others may have been used by the Greeks; others by the Normans; others by the modern French; others may have been always used from the creation of man till now; but whoever used them before us, they are now words of our language, and we learn their significance and power by hearing them pronounced.

11. Language acquired by hearing and reading.—By the sense of hearing alone it is possible to acquire an extensive and choice vocabulary, and to become ready and expert in the use of language. There have been many eloquent speakers who have thus acquired all their knowledge of language. In past ages, and among

ignorant people, undoubtedly there have been many able orators who could not write their names, and who could not read the alphabet. But the most efficient aid of the hearing now is the printed page. Many obtain their knowledge of all but a few common words from books. The words used in good books are more choice and correct, and more numerous than are heard except from the best speakers.

12. The Number of Words in Use.—The number of words heard and understood by children and youth is generally small. As the boundaries and the minuteness of their investigations enlarge, the number of words used must increase, to express the new objects and relations discovered, and the new thoughts and emotions awakened. Our knowledge is proporional to the number of words that we understand, each conveying a different thought; and our power of producing thought and feeling in others depends on the number of words that we can properly and promptly use in our addresses to them. How can one who understands only a hundred words make an eloquent speech on a complicated subject, or write an instructive essay?

The number of independent words in the English language is estimated to be about forty thousand; though if we counted only those in ordinary use by well-educated speakers and writers, we should find not half so many; but if we reckon all that have been used by writers within the past two hundred years, we should find many more than that number.

13. Natural and Artificial Modes of learning Lan

METHODS OF LEARNING WORDS.

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guage. There are two methods of learning the meaning of words-the natural and the artificial.

The natural method is to listen to the words when uttered, and to observe what from their connection and from the appearance of the speaker, and from the consequences that follow, must be their meaning, and then ourselves, when occasion calls, to use the same words.

The artificial method is to study the meaning of words by the use of lexicons, grammars, and other books that define words, or to hear them explained by a teacher.

Both methods must be practiced to obtain so extensive a knowledge of words as good scholarship requires. Both may be combined by reading books written in a good style, and by never passing over an unfamiliar expression without obtaining a correct idea of the author's meaning by consulting a dictionary or some other aid.

CHAPTER IV.

SHORT AND EXPRESSIVE WORDS.

14. By examining the English language.closely, we observe that many of its words are short, consisting of one syllable only or two. Most of these words are derived from the Anglo-Saxon language, a language used by those early inhabitants of England who migrated thither from different parts of Germany, and were called by the general name, Anglo-Saxons. Nearly all the primitive Anglo-Saxon words were short, and the longer words in the language were compound terms. Many of the Anglo-Saxon words are no longer used, and many other terms similar to them in brevity and force have been introduced from other sources. Indeed there seems to have been a great tendency in the formative ages of the English language to reduce long words to shorter and more easily remembered terms.

A large stock of these short words are understood by nearly all who speak the English language, and are first learned by children, and by all who become acquainted with the language by actual use. The most common objects have short names. The most highly educated persons, as well as others, employ them. Therefore, if properly and skillfully used in