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"Sidney's prose is treasureable, not only for its absolute merits, but as the bud from which English prose, that gorgeous and varied flower, has unfolded."-- FRANCIS THOMPSON, "The Prose of Poets." The study of one's own language is the very heart of a modern education; to the study of English, therefore, belongs a central place in the education of English-speaking girls.

It has two functions: one is to become the instrument by which almost all the other subjects are apprehended; the other, more characteristically its own, is to give that particular tone to the mind which distinguishes it from others.

This is a function that is always in process of further development; for the mind of a nation elaborates its language, and the language gives tone to the mind of the new generation.

The influences at work upon the English language at present are very complex, and play on it with great force, so that the changes are startling in their rapidity.

English is not only the language of a nation or of a race, not even of an empire; and the inflowing elements affirm this.