A SENSIBLE REFORM

Every field of human activity has its peculiar innovation in this age of radical reform. The Fabians and their kin are busy penning their scholarly dissertations; and more humble intelligensia, essays for handbill and pamphlet. The artist folk, in timely appeal to the aesthetic boobery, sanctions and cherishes Armfield's "synthetic drama" and the futurist antics of Marinetti. The reader of the newspapers learns with astonishment that the aeroplane has been successfully adopted by criminals for purpose of escape, and that Trotzky is producing a series of communistic plays which he is forcing the hapless Russians to attend.

A reformation of the English language is now suggested. The construction "it is me" and "he don't" have been commended by Edward J. Tobin, superintendent of the Cook County, III., schools. Mr. Tobin, an individualist of a not unusual type, declares that it is of no value teaching children forms of expression outlawed by "common usage and a sense of good form."

Mr. Tobin should be commended for this wise assertion. By merely indorsing these two phrases (decreed incorrect by arbitrary standards) the citizens of the United States may claim great credit for themselves for their considerable advance toward perfect expression in language. Moreover, professors and literati, who have hitherto gazed haughtily down upon the rabble from the rarified heights of correct speech, would suffer a righteous degradation. Yet it is never too late to learn, and these latter might in time master the new idiom. It would certainly be amusing to hear the ingenuous members of English A rebuked for using "isn't" instead of "aint".