grammatical, idiomatic English. I tried to make it clear to them that
literary English and colloquial English are two different things,
and that what they needed was plain, precise English as a medium of
exchange in business, and I said, incidentally, that such was the
English possessed by the major portion of the English-speaking race. I
said that although the American nation numbered eighty millions,
most of whom were educated and able to make an intelligent use of
their language in conversation or in writing, the percentage of great
writers and speakers always had been small and always would be so.

When I had finished, the son of a local editor, arose and replied
as follows: "Yes, madame, what you say of Americans is true. But we
are different. We are a literary people. We are only eight millions,
but we have hundreds and thousands of orators. We have the literary
sense for all languages."

Nearly thirty years ago, when I was a pupil in the Kansas City,
Missouri, High School, the stepson of a United States Circuit judge
made a brutally rude and insubordinate reply to a woman teacher
who said to him, in reference to an excuse which he had given for
tardiness, "That is not a good excuse." The young man turned an
insolent eye upon the teacher--a gray-haired woman--and replied,
"It's good enough for me. What are you going to do about it?"



I cannot conceive that a Filipino child would be guilty of such
insolence, such defiance of decency and order. But never have I met
an American child who would have the artless indiscretion to put
himself in the position of Domingo. The American child does not mind