Linguistics in General
Linguistics is interesting to scholars not only, but it should be attractive to all persons who, inclined toward general culture, aspire to enlightenment. Not that it is possible for any one person to master the science, but it is easily within reach of multitudes of persons wishing to profit intellectually and spiritually by a study of this subject.
At present the science is too closely identified with specialists; the lay mind has not found it very inviting. The average person regards it as ornamental or dry. Yet its board usefulness, its cultural uplift, and its special utilities must rely upon its universality of interest—upon a popular awakening to its educational facilities, to its intellectual benefits, and to the value of its leavening force as applied to finer ideals.
One great task of linguistics should be to clear away the popular misconceptions springing like mushrooms from the fantastic errors of specialists, and to displace absurd specu-
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