Note D — BOOK I (continued 2)
Reading edition
"We learn languages," says Luther, "much better by way of mouth at home, in the street, than out of books. Letters are dead words; the utterances of the mouth, are living words, which in writing can never stand forth so distinct and excellent, as the soul of man bodies them forth through the mouth. Tell me where was there ever a language, which men could learn to speak with correctness and propriety by the rules of grammar. Yet let none think or conclude from all this, that I would reject the grammars altogether."