One of the most operative means of bringing forward our improvements and of making mankind wiser and better than they are, is to convince them that they are capable of becoming so. Without this conviction they may indeed improve slowly, unsteadily and almost imperceptibly, as they have done within the period in which our histories are able to trace them. But this conviction, impressed on the minds of the chiefs and teachers of nations, and inculcated in their schools, would greatly expedite our advancement in public happiness and virtue. Perhaps it would in a great measure insure the world against any future shocks and retrograde steps, such as heretofore it has often, experienced.
I am well aware that some readers will be dissatisfied in certain instances with my orthography. Their judgments are respectable; and as it is not a wanton deviation from ancient usage on my part, the subject may justify a moment's retrospect from this place. Since we have arrived at the end of a work that has given me more pleasure in the composition than it probably will in its reception by the public, they must pardon me if I thus linger awhile in taking leave. It is a favorite object of amusement as well as labor, which I cannot hope to replace.
Our language is constantly and rapidly improving. The unexampled progress of the sciences and arts for the last thirty years has enriched it with a great number of new words, which are now become as necessary to the writer as his ancient mother tongue. The same progress which leads to farther extensions of ideas will still extend the vocabulary; and our neology must and will keep pace with the advancement of our knowledge. Hence will follow a closer definition and more accurate use of words, with a stricter attention to their orthography.
Such innovations ought undoubtedly to be admitted with caution; and they will of course be severely scrutinized by men of letters. A language is public property, in the most extensive sense of the word; and readers as well as writers arc its guardians. But they ought to have no objection to improving the estate as it passes thro their hands, by making a liberal tho rigid estimate of what may be offered as ameliorations. Some respectable philologists have proposed a total and immediate reform of our orthography and even of our alphabet; but the great body of proprietors in this heritage are of opinion that the attempt would be less advantageous than the slow and certain improvements which are going forward, and which will necessarily continue to attend the active state of our literature.