[Editorial note: This article was originally published in Language 1(1).1–5, 1925. In celebration of the Centennial of the Linguistic Society of America and of this journal, we are reprinting one or two articles per each decade of Language, selected for their quality and importance to the field. Each article is accompanied by a new piece by colleagues who have expertise and unique insights on the reprinted articles, to offer commentary from both historical and modern perspectives. We acknowledge the offensive or potentially offensive nature of some of the language in this text, but the Editor has decided to reprint the article in its original form for the sake of authenticity.]