tionaries, and rhetorics is to record what is good use, not to say what words ought to mean because of their derivation, form, etc."

President Merrill E. Gates, of Amherst College, and Professor J. J. Halsey, of Lake Forest University, both vote in favor of "tireless." The former of these scholars says of the word:

"It is difficult to suggest in its stead a word which carries precisely the associations which this word carries, or does precisely the work which this word will do.”

And the latter says:

Dictionaries are not infallible; scholars, at least, must decide for themselves. You are right. It ought to be found there, and will yet assert its place."

Among the elegant writers who say that they are willing to be counted as approving the use of this word "tireless," there are Messrs. George William Curtis, Phillips Brooks, Edward Everett Hale, Thomas W. Higginson, Charles Dudley Warner, George W. Cable, Thomas Bailey Aldrich, William C. Prime, and Leonard Woolsey Bacon; Rose Terry Cooke, Margaret J. Preston, Annie Trumbull Slossom, and Agnes Repplier. Mr. Higginson says of the word:

"It must be in my own writings certainly, though I can't tell where; and I am confident that you will find it in Emerson and Lowell. The only citation I can think of is one I will verify when I can get to the College Library (for I only quote from memory meanwhile),

'Sweep toward heaven on tireless wing,'

in Motherwell's Poems, published in England and America about 1845. This carries it back nearly half a century."

Mrs. Cooke says of the importance of this word, in its definite meaning: "I must say that I do not know any other single word that expresses just what 'tireless' does express. Untiring' is a word of limit, 'tireless of capacity. 'Untiring' suggests a possibility of fatigue; 'tireless,' an incapability of fatigue."

In other words, "untiring" is a measure of performance, while "tireless" indicates a quality or characteristic.

Of her own use of the word, Mrs. Cooke adds:

"As a writer of so-called poetry, I am under obligation to the word in question; for what Voltaire calls the 'restraint of rhyme '—or rather of rhythm-makes a word of two syllables often a necessity, where a word of three syllables could not be used."

Instances of the use of the word by other good writers than those already cited are not wanting, but the testimony in the case is already

sufficient.

The question as to the propriety of "tireless" may now fairly be counted at rest, since the use of the word is justified by necessity, by good usage, and even by analogy. The purists themselves will hardly contend against it hereafter.

Purism in speech is worthy of respect for its high purpose; but Professor William D. Whitney has said wisely on this point: "There is a purism which, while it seeks to maintain the integrity of language, in effect stifles its growth. To be too fearful of new words and phrases, new meanings, familiar and colloquial expressions, is little less fatal to the well-being of a spoken tongue than to rush into the opposite extreme." And of the overwhelming force of good usage in this sphere, the Professor declares: "A great author may, by his single authority, turn the trembling scale in favor of the admission to good usage of some popular word or phrase, born of an original corruption or blunder, which had hitherto been frowned upon and banned; nay, even his mannerisms and conceits may perhaps become the law of the language. The maxim Usus norma loquendi (‘Usage is the rule of speech') is of supreme and uncontrolled validity in every part and parcel of every human tongue, and each individual can make his fellows talk and write as he does just in proportion to the influence which they are disposed to concede to him."

And so it comes to pass that the word "tireless" can henceforth pass unchallenged from lip to lip and from page to page.- The Sunday-School Times.

A Dictionary for the People.

BY A PROOF-READER.

This is the age of dictionaries. Within a decade there have been published, in America or in England, Worcester's New Dictionary, Stormonth's Dictionary, the Imperial Dictionary, the Encyclopædic Dictionary, Skeat's Etymological Dictionary, Fallow's Supplemental Dictionary, Nuttall's New Dictionary, the first volumes of those monumental works, Murray's New English Dictionary, and the Century Dictionary, while another great dictionary will soon be published by an American firm, and here, just from the press, is Webster's International Dictionary, the successor of the familiar “Unabridged." The question, Who buys all these dictionaries? must be answered with truth. Nobody buys them all; but a great many people buy some one of them. The scholar, the man of letters, the bookworm, gets the New English Dictionary, the Encyclopædic, the Imperial, or the Century Dictionary, if he can afford it. A great many gentlemen who do not wish to have their libraries incom

plete also buy one of the great, many-volumed lexicons; and the plan of publishing them in parts, each sold at an insignificant sum, enables many persons to purchase them who have no special use for a dictionary. The one-volumed dictionaries go into the offices, the schools, the homes of the bulk of the reading population; and they probably wear out sooner than the higher-priced books.

The writer greatly admires, not to say covets, the encyclopædic dictionaries; but he uses the one-volumed kind; and it is from the standpoint. of a dictionary user, not from that of the philologist, that this review is written. Where a man uses a dictionary in his daily work he likes to have it in such a form that he can seize the whole language with a single pounce, as it were, and not have to study the back of the book to see if it is the one he wants. A great many people use a dictionary occasionally, for the purpose of ascertaining the spelling, pronunciation or definition of a word, and they may well afford to take their time to it; but those who use a dictionary most frequently, use it for verification, and they need to do their work quickly. And so the form of this one-volumed, marginal-indexed International Dictionary predisposes the dictionary user to regard it favorably. These were features of the old Webster, and they have not been changed.

We note with pain, however, that in at least one instance the new dictionary, as well as the old, fails in definition-viz., in the dressmaker's definition of the word dart, for which we must look to the Century and the Encyclopædic. This was atoned for, however, by finding an enlarged vocabulary of such words as passementerie, faille, jabot, etc., with the proper accents. The man who uses the dictionary needs an especially large collection of these words, which are in common colloquial use, but concerning the spelling of which he is often in doubt. The International is very helpful in these respects. Its vocabulary, for instance, contains such words as Jacqueminot and Marechal Niel (names of flowers), Mohicans (which the reader at last learns is pronounced Mo-he-cans), Marseillaise (an easy word to misspell), Mugwump (we look in vain for its antithesis, "stalwart " or "spellbinder"), cycle (bicycle or tricycle), bulldoze, boycott, and even White Caps; dude and dudish; mascot. Nihilist and Socialist (but not Anarchist) are brought down to date in their definition. We are sorry to see that the International has given us no word to distinguish typewriter (fem.) from typewriter (neut.). It has rejected a host of words which have been proposed for this purpose. the risk of seeming forward we will suggest another; call the lady a typer. And as a proof-reader is nothing if not critical, we may here mention a few defects we have stumbled upon. The words lienor and javelle-water are omitted; the difinition of tit (a small horse, etc.,) is incomplete; the spelling visitor and saber is preferred in the "Orthography," and visiter

At

and sabre are used in the "Guide to Pronunciation"; coos and woos are recommended in "Orthograghy," and spelled cooes and wooes where they occur in the vocabulary; bric-a-brac is printed without the accent.

The conscientious follower of Webster in spelling has always labored under the incubus that, after all, some of the Websterian words did look odd in print; and though he may have been ready to defend many of the changes, or reversions, introduced by the great lexicographer, he could scarcely be enthusiastic over all of them. The International is conservative in the matter of orthography, and has even, in many cases, abandoned the spelling of individual words preferred in the Unabridgedrecognizing that the work of a dictionary and that of a spelling reform association are radically different. In nearly all cases there is a pleasing absence of dogmatism in the recommendations; and the disfavored as well as the preferred spelling is generally given. Among the changes we note that foundry is now preferred, while foundery was favored in the Unabridged; girth is now preferred to girt; wintry to wintery; hindrance to hinderance; woeful to woful; Alsatian to Alsacian; mussel to muscle (shell-fish). Liliputian is spelled right in the new, as it was not in the 1879 edition of the old; and phobe, which was misspelled (phæbe) and misplaced in the old, is correct now. Bur is still preferred to burr, and cooly to coolie; the barbarous-looking clubbable is a new word; the hateful kidnaped is still retained, while the newcomer fellowshiped is shipped to us in the same boat with the less-offensive worshiped; glycerin is preferred to glycerine, but keg has at last displaced cag; the hideous ocher is retained, but euchre and ogre are left unmolested.

The dictionary user has always found the syllabication in Webster and Worcester of great convenience. In printing, especially, it is necessary to have some system for dividing words at the end of a line. The system of syllable division used in the Unabridged is radically altered in some particulars in the new dictionary. A chapter on the syllabic division of words is given, but its defence on the innovations will scarcely meet with ready acceptance. The most marked change is in disregard of the old dictionary's plan of diyiding words on their primitives; as leap, leap-ing; dance, danc-ing. The International divides sometimes on the primitive and sometimes not, according to what seem to us overrefined rules. Examples of its system are shown in the following sentences: We are instruct-ed and educat-ed by analy zing and dissect-ing, colla-ting and conclud-ing not to adopt, such confus-ing experimen-ting, such compromi-sing divid-ing of words. If pronunciation is of paramount importance in dividing words, why do we have dan-cing and yet antic-ipate and hop-ingly? Why pecul-iar and yet mil-lion and bril-liant? Why religion and yet dig-ital and reg-ister? And why should visitation be thus divided and habi tation and represen-tation thus? The only change which has been consistently carried out is that words ending

in ture, such as lecture, which the Unabridged divided lect-ure and the International divides lec-ture. This change will probably meet general approval, except from orthoepists. Very many words which were compounded in the old are made one word or two separate words in the new. This is certainly a desirable change, and it has been consistently followed, only two or three lapses having caught our eye. Base-ball is made one word on page 122, two words on page 1167; counting-room is printed as one word, drawing-room is compounded, and sitting-room appears as two words; boarding house, countinghouse, and treasure-house appear as here printed. Everyone is printed as one word; so are not some one and no one. But it seems impossible to combine consistency and custom, and we are thankful that what has been done in this matter has, on the whole, been so well done.

As to orthoepy, the system employed by the International seems to us simpler and better than the old one. The diacritical marks are not used in spelling the vocabulary words in the new dictionary, each word being respelled for pronunciation. This is a twofold gain. Everybody knows that good spellers remember words through their appearance on the printed page. When a word is misspelt it "doesn't look right." Now, anything that distracts the mind from fixing in the memory the letters of a word as ordinarily printed, in so far prevents people from becoming good spellers. Hence it is a considerable advantage to have the words printed in good, clear type, unencumbered with strange arbitrary signs. Again, in respelling fewer signs are needed, as k can take the place of c, etc. The writer once knew a man of fair education who had great difficulty in learning from his Unabridged that Chaldaic was pronounced as if spelled Kaldaic. We note with satisfaction that one is now at liberty to say akoostics instead of a-cow-sticks; that the telegraph operator may call himself a tele-grapher instead of a te-leg-rapher (the next edition will doubtless permit the dear people to say photo-graph-er, as they now say it without dictionary warrant); and, best of all, that we may say a no-table housewife instead of a not-able huzzif, which latter formerly had the approval of all the dictionaries. We are somewhat surprised that photograv-ure is to be pronounced with the accent on the last syllable but one, instead of on the final syllable; but, again, we are comforted at learning that we shall not be required to say literat-yure, but may glide easily into litera-ture, which will be almost as easy as literachoor!

The appendices maintain the supremacy of the old Webster in presenting a valuable mass of information of just the sort most needed by the dictionary user who doesn't own a library, or hasn't time to consult it. The man who has forgotten whether there are two or three p's in Culpeper, or one or two i's in Guadalquivir, or how H'Lassa is printed, will find those words correctly spelled, with a host of other hard names, in the Gazetteer. The list of Christian names is a very useful feature, and