The Birmingham age-herald., 1918-01-03
'The High School Has Joined the National Speech League and Declared State of War Against Poor English and Each Can Do Their Bit Says Miss Marguerite Weaver

better speech and are making great strides in this work. Last year a good speech league was organized in the school in order that all pupils might be benefited as well as pupils of the ex- pression department The work proved a success.
 This year the plans of work are of un usual interest. Miss Elizabeth Ransoth president of the league of the High
 school. opened our campaign this week by addressing the students, urging pa triotism for the use of the country language. She explained how each stu dent can do his bit for the school by using the best English, articulating more clearly, etc. Also MT. Clay Jackson, secretary of the league, volunteered and urged the boys and girls to enlist, else
 they'd be known as slackers He ex.
 plained that q spy could exist easily in
 our English classes, whose duty 1t will
 be to report all carelessness of speech.
 The captains and lieutenants of each
 English class handle the speech accord ing to military rules, and any pupil whd becomes i'll from swallowing "g's or slurring words or monotony from use of a limited vocabulary or drawing
 words shall be Sent to the base hospital.
 where specialists will be called to attend the case; even teachers may become nec- essary for the disease; upon recovery he
 goes hack in the trenches. MT. Jackson explained that recruiting stations are in all English classes, and students urged
 to enlist before the draft goes into ef- feet Another prominent pupil, Miss
 Mora Burruss. told of another phase of the plans. She suggested that the sol- diers be entertained with a playlet per taining to the Good Speech league. Playwrights of the school are urged to send in their material for approval
 Below is the pledge we are signing, said Miss Weaver, which reads
 T love the United States of America
 love my country's flag. I love my country's language. I promise: T will not dishonor my countrys speech by leaving off the last syllables
 of words
 T will say a good American yes and
 no in place of an Indian grunt, 'uin
 hun,' and 'nup-um,' or a German va or .yeh' or nope
 q will do my best to improve An1eri- can speech by enunciating distinctly and speaking pleasantly and sincerely. q will try to make my countrys lan- guage beautiful for the many boys and girls of foreign nations who come here to live.
 T will learn to articulate correctly one word a day for nine school months"
 From week to week." Miss Weaver says, Announcements will be made from the High school outlining our better speech work, and we may now regard
 ourselves, in active service. Pupils will endeayor to eliminate objectionable
 slang; to take new words into their vocabularies and to make good speech fashionable. Since the pupils of our schools are working with this, it be- hooves older people to have care. Surely we must progress It is distress ing to think of the number of grown rrI,c hlI19 rios rloda of .ain't it cute,' how grand 'tickled to death and so pretty How limited are our vocabularies, how poor, indeed, are we in the use of our native tongue. NSo, let us gird on the determination to do our bit in the patriotic struggle for our own language, correct our mistakes and work for better speech