The Washington herald., 1916-01-31

Until q few years ago almost no
thought was given to training the voices
of our children for ordinary speech. II
we thought they had good singing voices
we gave them, II We could AFFORD 1t. the
advantage of studying under a vocal
teacher, but few mothers gave the slight
est heed to the quality OF the tones used
by their children in their speech.
That is all changing now. Newspaper
and magazine writer's are calling our
attention to our American defects of
speech so frequently that We are being
made to think, whether We will or no.
In a recent letter one of our members
spoke of the interest in this matter reused
in her by something she had been read
ing. She wrote:
Dear Aunt Chatty: I wonder why we
American mothers have never awakened
to the fact of our responsibility for the
uncouth and unmusical speech of which
we, as a nation, are justly accused. l
confess I never gave the slightest thought
to 1t until I read not long ago that the
great writer, Henry James, on visiting
America after an absence of twenty-five
years. was so shocked and Mortified by
our faulty diction and dissonant tones
that he said ;Se had no standing in the
international concert of culture"-what-
ever that may be. At any rate, under
stand enough of his meaning to see that
he criticises US for our unhappy and un-
cultured manner of speaking. Since 1
read that, I have been listening to the
queer, nasal tones and the careless.
faulty pronunciation of most people and
believe Mr.. James spoke the truth.
Now. ! want to ask you to give a
Mothers Club talk on this subject II
it is true that we as a nation are care
less of speech, is it not the place of
US mothers to see that that reproach
is removed? l have begun to train my
boys to well-modulated tones since my
attention was called to our faults of
speech, but 1 am ignorant of all but a
few rudiments of the matter. How can
learn about 1t, and where can / get
the information l need to help me train
my children7'
All that Mr. Henry Jones said abous
our manner of speech Is true. If one
listens to the speech of the people, the
high pitched, nasal voices. the slurred
and flatted vowels, the faulty enuncia-
ton of words In speaking become as
distasteful to the ear as are the un-
musical tones and bad diction of a poorly
trained singer.
I haven't space to give list of the
commonest faults of which We Ameri-
cans are guilty The fat in the words
calm, and palm, and psalm and the
burning of the middle West that goes
of like a mad telephone bell detached
from its clapper are among the most
usual OF them. A person with a sensitive
ear feels cold shivers, even at tenn
perature- of 75 degrees Fahrenheit, when
he is told to shut the doorrrrr'' in that
hard voice with a nasal twang like a
violincello out of tune! We are not all
to be accused of the glaring faults l
have mentioned, but the best and most
cultivated among us are still guilty of
mispronunciations. of dissonances, of
faulty tone production that does indeed.
as Mr.. James says, put us out of the
''internationl concert of culture
The worst of it is, with those of us
who are mature, many of our faults can
not be completely eradicated. We have
lost that fexibility of the vocal cords
that will enable us to change from a
faulty to a musical tone production. Our
only Hope for a purer national speech
process lies in our children, and for these.
we mothers are, as the club member
whose letter / have quoted suggests, TO
be held responsible.
Now, how are we to accomplish this
We can do much. even without special
training ourselves, by listening to the
pitch and the resonances of our children s
voices when they speak We will soon
find the shrill voice. the wrongly pitched
voice, exceedingly distasteful to our ears.
1t needs only little thought to show