This book was originally published prior to 1923, and represents a reproduction of an important historical work, maintaining the same format as the original work. While some publishers have opted to apply OCR (optical character recognition) technology to the process, we believe this leads to sub-optimal results (frequent typographical errors, strange characters and confusing formatting) and does not adequately preserve the historical character of the original artifact. We believe this work is culturally important in its original archival form. While we strive to adequately clean and digitally enhance the original work, there are occasionally instances where imperfections such as blurred or missing pages, poor pictures or errant marks may have been introduced due to either the quality of the original work or the scanning process itself. Despite these occasional imperfections, we have brought it back into print as part of our ongoing global book preservation commitment, providing customers with access to the best possible historical reprints. We appreciate your understanding of these occasional imperfections, and sincerely hope you enjoy seeing the book in a format as close as possible to that intended by the original publisher.
George Perkins Marsh was an American diplomat and philologist and is considered by some to be America's first environmentalist and the precursor to the sustainability concept, although "conservationist" would be more accurate.
Famed conservationist George Perkins Marsh is also known for his knowledge of the history of the English language, from its historical roots to the direction in which it seems to be heading. He examines our language from all angles, providing historical insight and fresh perspective on ideas that many readers may have taken for granted - the concept of the English language's unique "I", for example. Marsh demonstrates remarkable intelligence and understanding, but more remarkable than either is his ability to communicate advanced ideas to his readers. "Lectures" is in fact a compendium of collegiate lectures that will regardless be comprehensible to all readers.