This volume is intended to be a contribution to a special branch of the study of our own language. It proposes to trace in a popular manner and for general readers the changes of meaning which so many of its words have undergone; words which, as current with us as they were with out forefathers, yet meant something different on their lips from what they mean on ours.

First published in 1904, this book contains the conclusions of a series of lectures exploring the moral and historical value of single words. The author argues that, just as wisdom and knowledge are discoverable in books, so too are these treasures to be found in individual words themselves.