Frostburg mining journal. [volume] (Frostburg, Md.) 1871-1913, 1899-06-24
To the Dear Children.

1t is very discouraging, children of
the schools, to note a bias on the part
of the newspaper "ignoramij" of this
town to disparage Llndley Murray,
an apostle of correct English-a sort
OF John the Baptist fOrerunning the
advent of those other great linguistic
evolutionistS. klrkham, Smith, Brown,
Harvey ct at.
But the issue is upon us, children.
Shall we respect the philosophy of
language, or shall we despise it?
To make the case palmer, the JOUR
NAL will submit few illustrations:
|, No longer than last week the
Forum enjoined its party with oracular
force
Send men who will not be blinded by the
halos that is supposed to be around COVER
nOrS, senators, &c.
From an earlier issue the following
is erroneous in the same degree
The innocent and unsophistcated may be
lleve in their sincerity, but for us who for
two months has followed, etc.
Both quotations are gross violations
Of Liudley Murray's law, never repeal
ed, that verbs must agree with their
nOmlnatives in number as we'll as in
person.
The Forum cannot comprehend this,
but, children, especially of the higher
grades, you can. If not, education,
public and private, is a failure.
), Again:
But men like the editor of the JOURNAL
who use their influence, that is, if thew have
any left to induce the corporations to refrain
from giving their employees the advantage
that all other classes of workingmen are Oh
tanning under the present wave OF prosperity.
Children, that's complete sentence,
as 1t appears in the F0rum. Can you
tell what the Forum did with the "men
like the editor of the Journal ?"
OF course. not.
Nor can the Forum explain the
mystery.
Nobody but the recording angel.
+, The next is on the same line:
We are afraid the scheme of the admins
tration at Washington in employing native
troops in the PHILIPPINES to wage war against
their own people during the rainy season.
The Forum started out all right to
say that 1.-The scheme" will turn ont
badly, but it got lost. And now, to
save its life, it couldn't tell hoao 1.-THE
scheme turned out, nor in schM roy.
That being the case, chidren-you
who are condemned by inconsidcrate
parents to IL weekly opportunity of
reading that paper-what clues have
you to go on to ascertain what it
meant
>, Next
During the last six months every branch
of industry has been increasing the wages of
lis employees, and most of them voluntary.
That is bad. 'Voluntary" is an add
Jective, but the Forum has made con
script adverb of it and forced it into ser
vice for which it was never fitted by
Lindley Murray nor any of his sue
cessors. The writer who would employ
''voluntary" to qualify any sort of has
been,' cropping in the realm of gram
mar, would gather grapes from thistles
and very naturally disparage the good
taste of the man who told him that there
is II wide difference between the bush
and the vine.
q, The JOURNAL will conclude with
this unfortunate series:
The mud has dried up and bicycles have
taken its place.
Children, is there one among your
hundreds who would willingly allow
himself or herself to be known as
the author of that statement
The JOURNAL has been Il critical
reader for at least IS years, but in all
its explorations through English liter
allure, now polyglot in its scope, it
has never encountered anything worse
than that. The smallest of your num-
Der, children, can readily see how the
mud, by drying, would resolve into
dirt and dust, but how bicycles could
take ''its place" under any con
ditiOn of things is incoucevable.
There is nothing in common between
mud and Bicycles that either should
take the others place on street or
road. More properly, perhaps, it can
not be said that they occupy the road
in the same sense. Mud, for the Time
is constituent of the road, the bicycle
never.
1t is eaSily seen that the F0rUm is at
sea anywhere IN The waters of rhetoric.
verblage, physics, etc.
Is il amy wonder 1t effects contempt
for Lindlry Murray?
la other realms of evolution could
1t not with equal rhaldry diSparage
Coprrnlrns. Franklin and jefferson
II Is an awful pity that the less than
half baked newspaper man is in the
land.
1t is pity equally awful that the
editors chair is often filled by IL man
who, if his requirements were subject
ed to II rigid technical inquiry. he
would be found with just the attain
ments which enable one TO hoe corn
intelhgently. hill potatoes cleverly
and pull weeds astutely.