A history of the English Language

196.
Substitutes for an Academy.
Since the expectation of those who put their hopes in an academy must have been 
considerably lessened by the failure of Swift’s 
Proposal,
the only means left to them was 
to work directly upon the public. What could not be imposed by authoritative edict might 
still win adoption through reason and persuasion. Individuals sought to bring about the 
reforms that they believed necessary and to set up a standard that might gain general 
acceptance. In 1724 there appeared an anonymous treatise on 
The Many Advantages of a 
Good Language to Any Nation: with an Examination of the Present State of Our Own
. 
This repeats the old complaints that English has too many monosyllables, uses too many 
contractions, and has no adequate grammar or dictionary. But what is of more importance 
is that it seeks to stir up popular interest in matters of language, calls upon the public to 
take part in the discussion, and proposes the publication of a series of weekly or monthly 
pamphlets on grammar and other linguistic topics. In 1729 one Thomas Cooke published 
“Proposals for Perfecting the English Language.”
21
The reforms he suggests extend to the 
changing of all strong verbs to weak, the formation of all plurals of nouns by means of -
s
or -
es,
the comparison of adjectives only with 
more
and 
most,
and the like. Cooke was 
both an idealist and an optimist, but he did not put his faith in academies. The change in 
attitude, the belief that a standard was to be brought about not by force but by general 
consent, is revealed in the words of Sheridan: “The result of the researches of rational 
enquirers, must be rules founded upon rational principles; and a general agreement 
amongst the most judicious, must occasion those rules to be as generally known, and 
established, and give them the force of laws. Nor would these laws meet with opposition, 
or be obeyed with reluctance, inasmuch as they would not be established by the hand of 
power, but by common suffrage, in which every one has a right to give his vote: nor 
20 
That the idea of an academy was not dead is shown by Allen W.Read, “Suggestions for 
an Academy in England in the Latter Half of the Eighteenth Century,” 
MP,
36 (1938), 
145–56. 
21 
As an appendix to his
 Tales, Epistles, Odes,
etc. 
The appeal to authority, 1650-1800 255

---

would they fail, in time, of obtaining general authority, and permanence, from the 
sanction of custom, founded on good sense.”
22
The two greatest needs, still felt and most frequently lamented, were for a dictionary 
and a grammar. Without these there could be no certainty in diction and no standard of 
correct construction. The one was supplied in 1755 by Johnson’s 
Dictionary,
the other in 
the course of the next half-century by the early grammarians.