according to that of our ancient forebears: the gap between Ancient and Modern Greek must be eliminated by writing in a more archaic language than that which is spoken, so that readers will familiarize themselves with the ancient forms." Like Korais, he was confident that "poets and other writers will control the future development of the language" and that demotic speakers would follow their lead and start to 'purify' their own speech. The majority, however, now followed Korais in recognizing with regret that the gap between demotic and Ancient Greek was now too large to be bridged this way in one step. After all, demotic speakers had been exposed to Ancient Greek in church and school for centuries without any noticeable trickle down; the languages had simply grown too far apart for any such diffusion to be possible. It was hoped now that Katharevousa would be close enough to demotic for its 'purifying' influence to work. As Korais had written in 1804, "Root out from the language the weeds of vulgarity, yet not all at once by the forkful, but gradually with the hand, one after the other; sow Hellenic seeds in it, but these too by the handful and not by the sackful. You will be surprised how in a short while your words and phrases have passed from the book into the mouths of the people." Typical of the many prominent intellectuals who believed that this would work was the statesman and diplomat Spyridon Trikoupis, whose authoritative History of the Greek Revolution was written in Katharevousa. "In the introduction to his History Trikoupis attacked the archaizers and promoted Korais' 'middle way', which he followed in practice in his book... He expressed the hope that the spoken and written language would eventually become one and the same, arguing that the spoken language could not be properly cultivated if it was so widely separated from the written variety that mutual influence between the two became impossible."Katharevousa thus formed part of a reasoned strategy for empowering ordinary people by improving the language in which they spoke and thought, admittedly not to Ancient Greek standards but as close as was currently practicable. In its practical concern for the linguistic welfare of the whole population, it "represented the triumph of Enlightenment intellectuals over the Ancient Greek resurrection proposal". Drift towards the archaic During the next few decades, however, the Katharevousa in general use