This could be subtitled ""Through Greater Knowledge of the English Language"" for its aim to activate three vocabularies (active, reserve, passive (recognition)) is based on words, their background and history, meaning, use -- and spelling. From its instructions for word watching and word building for vocabulary growth, and the value of flash cards and pocket dictionaries, the emphasis is on reading, for a wide scope of interests provides a natural development of vocabulary. There is a section on the origins of our language, its modernizing and present day cosmopolitanism and flexibility; another on dictionaries, their variations and how to use them; one on spelling and what can be done to improve weakness in this area. There is detailed material on prefixes, roots, suffixes, and on semantic changes, connotations and ambiguities, metaphors and other variations in style, on diction (standard and non-standard speech), and eventually on censorship. An over-all rounding out of language-speech problems, this offers a study-work book for the serious self-improver.