FOREWORD [by William Will]
This book is an outcome of the Vernacular Circle of the Burns Club of London; and the Circle itself is, in turn, the outcome -- quite unconscious -- of a stream of tendency, coming apparently from nowhere, but instinctively seeking to fertilise the rich pastures of old forms of language and dialect, which display an increasing resistance to various processes of standardization.

I have selected the subject of my discourse this evening -- "The Present State of the Scottish Tongue" -- in a spirit which I am afraid is not regarded as characteristically Scottish -- in spirit of some humility.