good taste and common sense. Lord Lytton declared :- "A more lying, roundabout, puzzle-headed delusion than that by which we confuse the clear instincts of truth in our accursed system of spelling was never concocted by the father of falsehood. How can a system of education flourish that begins by so monstrous a falsehood, which the sense of hearing suffices to contradict?"

In December, 1876, and after a long debate, the London School Board, by a vote of 26 to 6, passed a resolution declaring it desirable that the government should be moved to issue a Royal Commission for considering the best manner of reforming and simplifying our method of spelling. Steps were taken to secure the co-operation of other Boards in a joint petition to the Department of Education. Favorable replies were received from over 100 school-boards, including those of Liverpool, Birmingham, Wolverhampton, and others.

To give greater force to the movement, a call was issued for a general conference in London of all persons interested in the matter. It met on the 27th of May. The call was signed by 78 persons such as I have named above, Prof. Max Müller heading the list. The report of the meeting was published in the London papers, the Times devoting nearly two columns to it. The Society of Arts offered its rooms for the accommodation of the Conference. The Rev. A. H. Sayce, Deputy Professor of Comparative Philology, Oxford University, was president of the meeting. Resolutions were passed declaring the importance of taking some steps to amend our spelling, and a deputation was appointed to bring the matter to the attention of the Governor.

The necessity for some revision of English orthography has been urged frequently of late years at meetings of the National Society for the Promotion of Social Science, of the London Philological Society, and of the College of Preceptors. The National Union of Elementary Teachers at their meeting of April last year, passed a resolution declaring reform to be desirable and calling upon the Government to appoint a commission to investigate the matter.

In America our most eminent philologists are decidedly in favor of reform. Prof. Whitney, of Yale, Prof. March, of Lafayette, and Prof. Haldeman, of the University of Pennsylvania, have each published essays or addresses in support of phonetic spelling, as did also the late Prof. Hadley, of Yale. The Legislatures of Massachusetts and of Connecticut have appointed committees to consider the feasibility of printing state papers in a reformed spelling. The American Philological Association, including all four most eminent philologists, has for several years, impressed, in one way or another, the necessity of an improved mode of spelling. Last year at the Centennial, an International Convention of the advocates of Spelling Reform was held, and a permanent organization was effected, known as the Spelling-Reform Association. Of this Association, Prof. March, of Lafayette College, is President. The Vice Presidents are Prof. Whitney, Prof. Haldeman, W. T. Harris, Superintendent of Schools, St. Louis, C. K. Nelson, of St. John's College, Annapolis, E. Jones, Liverpool, and Eliza Burns, New York. A page is occupied by the Association in the New-England Journal of Education.

Thus stands the movement to-day in England and in the United States. Many, and most eminent scholars are active in support of a change in the spelling of the English language, and the public is more and more inclined to give ear to the discussion.

There is no subject in which teachers are more directly concerned than this, of simplifying English orthography. It is a change demanded pre-eminently in the interests of education. We have it in our power to wield a strong influence either for or against the movement. Hence it is quite unnecessary to make any apology for asking you to devote some of your time at this meeting to the consideration of this important subject.

I am not before you as an ardent spelling-reformer. The prejudice · which remains to be overcome will not justify any sanguine expectations. Neither do I ask you to waste time in discussion upon any particular scheme or schemes of phonetic spelling. One of the most hopeful features of the movement to-day is the fact that particular plans or schemes are not now in the foreground. The field of battle is not whether Pitman's, or Ellis's, or Jones's, or Dr. Hill's, or some other plan shall be adopted. The spirit of the fanatic and the bigot, so far as it ever existed in this discussion, is gone, or at least, is out of sight. No particular solution of the problem is persistently pressed upon our attention to-day. The men who now are foremost comprehend the difficulties, the importance, and the magnitude of the problem they are about to attack. It is a question that concerns millions of writers and speakers, and is designed to affect millions yet to come. It must contend with the deepest prejudice of our nature,—reverence for the form and fashion of our mother-tongue.

This is a practical question, and should be settled by strictly practical considerations. Mere theory and sentiment should be banished from the discussion. Men do well to submit their propositions for reform with modesty; and the greatest promise for the future lies in the general conviction, that the best way will, in time, lie plain before us, if we but seek for it by earnest effort and discussion. That there is good ground for this faith, that the path will open if we but press forward, may be seen in this fact. Out of previous discussions one disputed point now seems established. The conviction seems clear and general that the reformed spelling must use the old letters. Even Mr. Pitman, in his Phonetic Journal, admits in substance that it is now apparent that our common letters, either singly or in combination, must be used as the symbols of the new spelling.

Dismissing all matters of detail and leaving to future discussion the solution of the various difficulties of a practical nature which suggest themselves, let me ask your attention now to the arguments, and they are all old ones, both for and against the proposed reform.

66 What! says our conservative friend, "is our national literature to be thrown away? Are our libraries, bursting with books and newspapers, to be counted as so much rubbish? Are the millions of dollars now represented in type and plates to shrink to the few thousands which would pay for these type and plates as mere metal? Are we to unlearn

what we have learned with so much trouble? Must we and our elder children take our seats in the primary school again? Is business to be obstructed and science put under arrest while we are learning the new language? Are we to surrender all the associations, and to sacrifice all that is historical in the grand old structure, the English tongue? Are we to deny coming generations the privilege of reading our English classics in their original form? Will you force the boys and girls of the future in England and America to have lexicon in hand, when they read Shakespeare, and Milton, and Burns, and Irving, and Longfellow, as when they now read Horace, and Virgil, and Cicero? Shall the future lose sight of its kinship with the glorious past of English literature?" No! No! Such arguments are more eloquent than reasonable. They are very extravagant statements of the difficulties. Such consequences are not to be encountered.

But at the outset, it may as well be admitted once for all, that the change must cost us something. Who ever heard of a reform that did not involve sacrifice? Reform is impossible without sacrifice. But the sacrifice need not be so great as many persons suppose.

It is certain that no reform can succeed that is not more or less moderate and gradual. The new spelling must be such that it can be read easily by all who have learned the old; and on the other hand it must be such that children when taught the new, can master, if desirable, the old without too much labor. Children must not be required to write in the old method, and adults need not be expected to write in the Whatever may be the character of the new system, the old and the new must remain in use side by side for a time. Of course there will be some inconvenience attending such a transition. How could it be otherwise? But it cannot be very great.

new.

The new spelling will look odd, indeed, and in this would be the greatest cause of our hesitation, rather than in the actual inconvenience. "But suppose our ladies should suddenly appear before us in the style of bonnet which they are to wear five years from now. Would we not exclaim 'Ridiculous!' and almost give them the cut direct?" Oddity is never an argument of force against the use of anything.

How about the matter of expense? It is true that in a few generations all that is valuable in English literature would appear in new editions and in the revised spelling. That vast stock of books which are worthless, or at least not worth the expense of putting them in the new dress, would be embalmed upon the upper shelves, opening only at the bidding of the antiquary or the etymologist. What of it? This change would not all take place in one year, nor in twenty years. And do you suppose capital would suffer from the change? Look at the number of new inventions which go into use every year supplanting old ones and rendering them useless. Consider how many machines and utensils are becoming dead stock every month, simply because something better is put into the market. Does capital suffer? Certainly it does. But who presents that as an argument against the selling of improved sewingmachines, reapers, and stoves? The answer is, the community is benefited by the new invention, and that is sufficient. Now in these

various departments of manufacturing the simple march of progress renders as much capital worthless as will be damaged by the reform in spelling. Type and presses will not be touched. Nothing would become valueless except the plates; and they would become so only by degrees,— a few in a year. But as a compensation for this, the saving in production would in a few years more than make good the loss of plates. So as to the matter of inconvenience and expense attending the reform very little indeed is to be said against it.

Now comes the objection that we shall forfeit our birthright in the glory of English classics. Ask yourselves wherein consists this glory of our mother-tongue of which we say so much? Does it lie merely in the appearance of the page? Or does it lie in "the thoughts that breathe and words that burn"? What is the English language? Is it that which we see? or that which we hear? Our language is that which we utter; it is speech, not spelling. The sacred majesty which we revere lies not in the written word, but in the spoken sound. Writing is but the handmaid of speech. Now it is not speech, but the mere symbols of speech that is involved. When you take from your book-case your copy of Shakespeare, if you should find all the silent letters omitted, providing your eye should be accustomed to the change, would he be to you any less the matchless, the divine Shakespeare that he is to-day? The spelling reform proposes to touch nothing that is sacred in the English language or in English literature.

Probably no argument did so much twenty years ago to check the progress of reform, as the argument that phonetic spelling would destroy the historical and etymological character of the language. The answer to this is just beginning to work its way. Suppose phonetic spelling should destroy the historic character of our language. What of it? Did not the Reformation destroy the historic character of the English church? Did not the American Revolution destroy the historic character of the American colonies? Can any such sentimental grievance outweigh the practical advantages of these revolutions? If there is any value in the historic element it lies only in its power to call up pleasing associations in the minds of the learned, of those who are already more or less familiar with the sources from which our words come. The relative number of these persons is very small. These associations are an aristocratic luxury, and by no means a popular benefit. Such a satisfaction is a supremely selfish one, and most unjustly obtained at the expense of the convenience and advantage of the great public of writers and speakers.” 'Language is not made for scholars and etymologists; and if the whole race of English etymologists were really to be swept away by the introduction of spelling reform, I hope," says Max Müller, "they would be the first to rejoice in sacrificing themselves in so good a cause."

66

But is it true that the historical continuity of the English language, so far as that continuity goes, would be broken by the adoption of phonetic spelling? Would the trade of the etymologist be gone forever? The best philologists say "No," emphatically and unanimously.

If the etymological connection is seen between gentlemanly and gentle

manlike, why should not the connection just as plainly appear if the last syllable were written li instead of ly? If we feel that think and thought, bring and brought, buy and bought, belong together, why should we feel it less if we wrote thot, brot, and bot? Because the Italians write filosofo, are they less aware than the English that they have before them the Latin philosophus, and the Greek oooo? If we write ƒ in fancy, why not in phantom? If we can endure ƒ in frenzy and frantic why can we not in phrenology? A language which tolerates vial for phial need not shiver at filosofer. (Müller.) What has been lost in leaving out the u in such words as honor, doctor, and error? Does not the educated person know as well that they came to us through the French from the Latin as if the u were retained to tell the tale? In our word draft, phonetic spelling has almost supplanted the so-called historical spelling draught, and is the etymologist any the worse for it?

In the next place, as the science of etymology will be in no wise injured by a phonetic system, how will it be with the historic character of the language? Let me ask, What do you mean by historic spelling? In what sense can the present spelling of English be called historical?

We now write pleasure, measure, and feather; but not very long ago, in Spenser's time, these words were spelt plesure, mesure, and fether. Tyndale wrote frute. They had dett, where we have debt; the b having disappeared before the word was borrowed from the French. The b was likewise re-introduced in doubt. But the p was not restored in count, where it has the same right as b in doubt. Likewise the word receipt resumes the Latin p, but deceit does without it. Tung and yung, as spelt by Spenser, are more historical than our tongue and young. Why do we write scent when even Milton wrote sent? Why ache instead of Shakespeare's ake? These examples might be multiplied indefinitely. But enough have been given, I trust, to show that our present system of spelling cannot honestly be called historical.

How is it, then, in regard to its etymological character? Just as bad. If we are to write etymologically, we must write instead of sister, swister, which would be no more troublesome than sword. Wif-mann surely would be better than woman: godspel than gospel; and ortyard better than orchard. Could is written with an 7 in analogy to would and should. But while the is justified in would from will, and in should from shall,, Old English gives no trace of an l for could. The old form was coude. The l we use, therefore, is neither phonetic nor etymological. In the word whole the w is a misspelling,—the word in the Gothic and Anglo-Saxon having not the least trace of a w. If we wrote etymologically we should write bridegroom without the last r, since groom is a mere corruption of Anglo-Saxon guma, a man. Instead of purse we should write burse, as we do in disburse; and we should have an h before all such words as rain, ring, roof, roost.

But not only is there complete uncertainty in what we are pleased to call the historical and etymological character of our language, we are actually defending many downright blunders, under the delusion that we are preserving our English speech in its purity. The g in sovereign and in foreign has no business there, since the words have nothing whatever to