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Les diagrammes suivanttt illustrent la mAthode. 1 2 3 1 2 3 4 5 1 "" ■ — , 6 an THREE (JREAT REFOKMS~HOW MAY WE HASTEN THEM ? By a. H. MacKav, B.A., B.Sc, LL.D., FfR.S.C., Supekintendent of > Education for Nova Scotia. (Printed in the Proceeclings of the '.Ith Annual Convention of the Oiitnrio Educat!< nal , Association in Session with iiie Dominion Educational Association, held in Tordnto in April, 1895.) One of the special functions of a Dominion Educational Association as compared with simply provincial conventions, is the eorrehition of movements leading to important reforms, which from their nature can not be carried out or even initiated in one province alone, or in one section of the English-speaking world. WEIGHTS AND MEASURES. One of these is the reform of our weights and measures in order to throw out of the coininoti schools (Elementary, or Public Schools, as you say in OntJirio), the compound rules so called. This not only would les.sen the tat'^fle of unnecessary Mathematics now forced on young pupils, but it would give time tor a more thorough training in accuracy and rapidity in the great mass of computation work more or less necessary to. the every day business of life. The M«thematicR of the non-'leeinial scales of notation can be acquired hy those w!io need it, in the High Schools, at an age when the whole enn be under- stood and assl.nilnted in one hundredth part of the time. This would cause a great saving of severe effort on the part of pupils, which could be utilized in some more practically useful way, as every one knows. But this chang'^ in the school work implies necessiiril}' a change in the system of weights and measures used in the whole country, and not only in one province but in every province of the Don)inion, and not only here but also necessarily in the British Empire and the United States. If the change could be introduced without much difficulty, every one would say at once, lot the change come. The additional simplicity of all common and even uncoiiimon calculations would be a tremendous boon especially to the world of trade and coimnercc, once the difficulties incident to the act of changing should pass away. Then again the decimal system would put the whole Enrjlish w orld of trade and commerce more in touch with the rest of the world, a matter which is becoming so strongly felt in business circles, that not a single great English trale congress is now held without a discussion of the necessity of the change. fd It is now thirty-one years since the metric system was legalized in Britain, twenty-nine years since it was legalized in the United States^ ■'^., lAiiM^MiMiHaaMi f*. ; / and nearly a quarter of a century since it was legalized in Canada. Our Governments have said to tlje people, " We give you full liberty to use the new and more simple system." l-Jut there is no one to show how it is to be done. The more civilized \\c become, the more bounden we become to ench other, the more difticnlt is it for the few to follow a different line from the multitude in matters havinsr a common relation to each. It becomes necessary, therefore, to organize for the simultaneous accommodation of all affected by such chanj^es of common conventions. So long as we are content with the old, the Legislature is not going to disturb us with the compulsoiy adoption of any tlung new for our benefit. For the Legislatures represent us. The last trade congresses held in Montreal, Canada, and in London, England, for example, revealed a growing anxiety in reference to the matter. English catalogues are beginning to give their quotations in the metric as well as in the old English system, for it is found that foreign buyers being better ac(|uainted with the metric system, order German or French goods at higher prices than the English, because they do not understand tlie English quotations so readdy. In all foreign exporting establishments it is necessary to have clerks under- standing and using the two systems. But these busii ess firms are not the |)eople to organize for the general introduction of a change of this kind. They may call for clerks who can do the foieign work as well as the home work. Tliev must accommodate themselves to the condi- tions they find. Their business is trade, not education. Whose is this work then ? Is it not the work of the educators ? But the '•.ducators cannot well begin by changing the customs in one provinto or state. The introduction must be .simultaneous, probably throughout the whole Empire, at the veiy least throughout a continent. I would, therefore, suggest that this Association should appoint a Com- mittee to co-operate with similar Committees which may be appointed by the National Educational Association of the United States, and the highest corresponding organizations in Great Britain and in the more important colonies. The object would be to co-ordinate a movement through the whole English-speaking world to impress on the Education Departments and ultimately on the Governments the advantages of a simultaneous change, and to prepare the people for the same, so that the incimvenience caused would be reduced to a mirnmuni. If the Dominion Parliament, for example, pas.sed an Act this summer making it advantageous to use the metric instead of the old system, the Educa- tion Departments of our provinces could have matters so arranged that within one mouth the whole system could be practically well-known 1 Canada, nil liberty 10 one to the more it for the bavins: a organize Imnfi^es of ! old, the loption of esent us. I London, ice to the bations in xind that iin, order I, because . In all aii have sufficient As the I cubical 16 f/rarn. I conve- natural , the ori- 3h elboiv. one way I simple le of all 3 course be com- I, Huch a il consi- le High rd-labor a High 1, which ly, and or ele- Such a a body ^orld as , The such a zations. ng ? I ith the cimens might xUing, which hodox iccom- Id the should rob of the power of using his sole accomplishment ? Simplest vanity ! and he is therefore ready to die with his head to the field and his feet to the foe, or in any other position in which he may fall. He will die a martyr for tlie proper collocation of letters in a word. His fetish is Webster, or Worcester, or the Imperial, or some other little god, who was raised to the rank of a letter constellation by his servile worship of numerous and les.ser fetishes, including the ancient anonymous scholar (?) who first spelled sovereign with a "g," because he didn't know better ; of the man who thought he might as well stick an ' 1 " into what is now our " could," in order that it might bristle a little more like its fellow privates " would " and " should," who were regularly equip- ped with a silent gun, and a host of others. Now every one under- stands it is necessary for us to have some authority to follow ; but when it comes to saying that we should follow the blunders made by ignorant people at different ages for ever and ever, because they are English now, without considering whether they might not be changed with a great deal of advantage to all concerned, this is a position none of us will take. A standard is necessary. But never let us cease seeking for a better standard, when the only one we have is grossly defective from so many points of view. Is it so very defective ? If you ask that question (as many whose attention ha.d been called to the matter for the first time have asked), you must pardon my reference to what many will consider very com- monplace facts. We cannot by a simple effort of memory recall what the acquisition of correct spelling cost us. For this reason. Good spellers commenced to spell accurately from the beginning of their reading career. The difficulty of spelling is all merged in their con- sciousness with the essential difficulty of all youthful learning in general. Or they were impressed rather with their success as com- pared with that of others ; so that their impressions in connection with spelling may be those of success and pleasure. But when we observe the same operation going on at the present day, we see that the greatest genius in the orthographic line spends a very considerable portion of time, and utilizes for the trifiing matter of the collocation of letters millions of brain cells. This produces the inevitable mental symptoms of cram. The effort is doubly injurious, first as a time-destroyer, second, as a useless if not positively injurious mental wear. The latter I believe is positively injurious when we consider the more important mnemonical strata which by the same effort could be made a permanent part of the ever thinking and acting personality of the human soul. But I leave the psychological question for the time problem which of itself is enough to settle the fact that the evil is far too expensive to bo tolerated for a sinjjie hour longer than necessary. Dr. Morell hns stated that "eightuen-nineteenths of the n)un who fail in the civil service examinations fail in spelling, and all of us who have not failed in government examinations know very well what a co.st of time and patience it is to have to recall the spelling of words we want to use, I am not ashamed to say that 1 sometimes do not know how to spell a word until I put it down in writing, and it commends itself to a sort of organ — 1 cannot call it sight or thought, it is something between the two, and an enormous amount of time is wasted in that way by all classes." He then goes on to show that the loss of the scanty time for education and its injurious mental effects are a great deal worse than the expense. Will not those who have not previously given attenti(m to this sub- ject, feel now the truth of the remark made by Richard Morris, Lecturer on English Language and Literature, at King's College, London, and author of several classic works on Historical English Grammar, when he stated that "adults who by some good Ibrtune or other have become proficients in the subject, and have managed to master the intricacies of our orthography, and have become what is rarely found, good spellers, no longer have a tiue appreciatioTi of tlie obstacles they have surmounted. All the severity of the previous t()il is forgotten and they feel little or no compassion for the young learners who are daily undergoing the drudgery and weariness imposed upon them by the mistakes and blunders of past generations." When the Roman letters were adopted for the writing of English, it was the undoubted intention to write the English as phonetically as the Latin. If that were done from the earliest times we would now have a perfect history of the development of the language in the literature of the past down to the present day. But although the lan- guage changed, the scribes preserved the same form of spelling, thus erasing so far as they had the power of doing it, all records of the course of evolution of the language, so that at the present day, I doubt if any one can tell when our vowel sounds "a", "e", and " i ", for example, diverged from their continental values. In fact, the phonetic s))elling of the middle-English " Ormulum " of 800 years ago, which probably made it an object of contempt to the contemporary scribes of the times, has turned out to be the best key in the hands of the phil- ologist to unlock the arcanum of ancient Saxon orthoepy, as well as that of early English. Were our language phonetic in its written form, our children could )onsivo to lie taught to rend anytliing ftbout which they couUl talk intollijrontly within two or thruo vveek« at tho longest. The nio.st uiipleusiint and nionotoiiouH work of their early years at school now, would then have vanished. Every .sound having its .sign and every .sign repre- senting its sound, tho task is simply mastering .some 40 .signs. But now the English language has at least '200 signs, some computations put them at o(J.'J. This is a larger alphahet thai» the most of us thought we had umstered. But that does not represent all of the labor we have gone through, for to make the matter ten times woise, when you get one of these nCT signs you can not say for certain which of the sounds it should have, unless you have heard it before and memorized the association. For instance, the sound of "e " in meet is represented by no less than 40 combinations of letters; of "a" in iiuite, by 34; of "o" in Tiffte, by 34, etc. On an average there are said to be 14 ditlerent ways of writing the 40 different sounds of our language. The word sci.ssors has been calculated to be capable of being s[)elled according to good English analogy in no less than of)G,otSO dilferent ways. The simple, euphonious and beautiful name of this queen city of tiie centie of Canada can be .spelled according to good analogies Phtliawelaugh- mnthough, Toronto. fSee phtkWie, aiue, co/onel, aiujlit, ?unemonics. ThamcH, th(iu ) Now the difficulty of spelling meets rs at the thresliold of school life. The short simple words first pn-sei.a'd to tli(! i)upil are so unpho- netic in their character that oven in our Nornial Schools there may yet be found .some who argue that the phonic method might be better by an infinitessimal degree for the easy advance of the child, .some, who contend that the phonetic method would have the advantage, others, that the "look and say " method might make a gain, and still others, that nothing after all is very much better than the old a, b, ab, e, b, eb, i, b, ib. Let us only look accurately into our own experience. I was one of the good spellei.s, as it were by nature. In a three days' examination on twelve different papers the Exandners had not a single mark scored against me for a word nusspelled. These were the days before I made much acquaintance with any other language than English. Since then nay eye has been accustomed to very many examples of cognate words in other languages, as a general rule, more phonetically spelled. I liave a sus|)icion that my eye has grown more tolerant of an un-English spelling now, especially if it deviates from the simpler forms of the same in other languages. But let me to my school. I remember companions who started with the notion that the letters i\\ of the alphabet represented certain soundH. Ah Hoon as this idea was established by a few exauiplcH.it was followcil by I'actH bearing the con- viction that these letters represented rather uncertain sounds Could was " Coll Id " ; but houl d was not " hood." A' nouy It was " enough " ; but douii h was not " dutt*." And he who 'jould not u-adily cram such facts at six years of aj;e, was, of course, a dutt'er. To the praise of my noble young chums be it said, such lapid changes of l)ase, and such con- tradictory affirmations were revolting to the innocent consciousness of youth. But the rod was over them, and the spelling book under them, e\\ it with a phth f " " To show that it is from the Greek and means consumption." " Couldn't we know it to be from the Greek and meant consumption without the phth ? " " Perhaps you could ; but you would have to turn up the dictionary for it." '■ And if you spell it with a phth you needn't turn up the dictionary, need you ? " " No, you blockhead, that is to say, if you knew Greek, the form of spelling would tell you that it was Greek." *• Do English people generallj' know Greek before they learn to spell English ? " " Of course not. What a foolish question ! " " Well, why did they make the word so that we have to learn Greek spelling before we learn English spelling ? " *' Why, because that is the right way to spell, who ever heard of it being spelled any other way ? And when you learn Greek it will strike you with great pleasure to see how simple the spelling and meaning of Phthisic would have been had you only known Greek before you learned to spell." " Do all English people, then, learn Greek after they learn to spell so as to be struck with this great pleasure ? " " Of course not. But why do you ask ? " " Well, — I was only thinking. But how many do learn Greek ? " " Perhaps 20,000, according to the Encyclopsedia." " And how many learn English ? " " About 100,000,000." " And how many 20,000 are there in 100,000,000 ? " " About 5,000, of course. But what of that ? " " Is not that the same as if every one in a town larger than Pictou should be compelled to spend his time in learning English words with Greek spelling, so that one boy should have the pleasure of seeing, when he comes to study Greek, that .some of the English words he learned were spelled pretty much, although not exactly, like Greek ? " " You had better hold your tongue, Jim, you are a dangerous boy — to dare to question the proper way of spelling words, which I have by dint of careful labor for years become almost perfect in, in which I have attained more excellence than in any other subject. You con- ceited, radical little scamp ! — keep mum, and spell Phthisic" Had Jim been able to quote in retort, what a few years afterwards 10 II was stated by one of the most eminent scholars in the English world, A. H. Sayce, Professor of Philology in the University of Oxford, and author of the international text-book, " The Science of Languages," which of the two would have wilted ? Here it is, " English spelling has become a mere series of arbitrary combinations, an embodiment of the wild guesses and etymologies of a prescientific age, and the hap-hazard caprice of ignorant printers. It is good for little else but to disguise our language, to hinder education and to suggest false analogies." The late Connop Thirwall, Bishop of St. David's, author of the " History of Greece," and classical examiner at the Universities of Cambridore and London, says, " I look upon the established system of spelling (if an accidental custom may be .so called), as a mass of anomalies, the growth of ignorance and chance, equally repugnant to good taste and common sense." ' Listen to the Right Hon. W. E. Gladstone, a statesman as well as a scholar : " I often think that if I were a foreigner, and had set about learning English, I would go mad. I honestly could say I cannot conceive how it is that he learns to pronounce English, when I take into account the total absence of rule, method and system, and all tlie auxiliaries that people usually get when they have to acquire some- thing difficult of attainment." Mr«x Miiller adds, " that a child who believes what he is taught in learning to spell the English language, will hereafter be able to believe anything." While Lord Lytton, the novelist, dramatist and poet, with no lack of vim, uses these words : " A more lying, round-about, puzzle-headed delusion than that by which we confuse the clear instincts of truth in our spelling was never concocted by the father of falsehood. How can a system of education flourish that begins with so monstrous a falsehood which the sense of hearing suffices to contradict V' Now both custom and the law force us to consume years of a boy's life in what is to him a pure etfort of cram, without the first glimmer of philological interest which the older teacher fancies the boy must somehow feel because the teacher feels it himself. But it is impossible for the teacher to transfer his feeling to the boy until the boy has had some of the teacher's experience. But the spelling must be crammed before that is possible ; the cramming of what must be to all young children arbitrary agglomerations of letters in many cases lacking the advantages of the Chinese characters. And what is the time lost in this work. About ten years ago I took some very accurate statistics for the solution of this problem in the town 11 of Pictou, Nova Scotia, of whose schools I was then Principal. I pre- ])arecl blank forms for each department to contain the names of all the pupils of each. The teacher was instructed to obtain from each parent or j;uardian an accurate statement of the time taken by each pupil in the stuily of home lessons — of each home lesson. From these returns it was a very simple thing to calculate the percentage of home study absorbed in the department of orthography. From the time tables in each department, the percentage of time devoted to orthography in the school room was computed. The gross results were briefly as follows : Pupils from 5 to 7 years were spending 64 per cent f)f time on spelling. 4 ( ii 7 " 9 • t it 9 " 11 t< . ii 11 " 13 47 (( t • (i 37 (( 4( i( 2,1 «( ( ( (t That is forty-nine per cent, of the whole time of study at home, and in school for the first six years was absorbed in spelling lessons. Or over forty per cent, of the first eight years of school time. But making allowance for dther work done incidentally in connection with the spelling, such as the study of definitions, etc., and of incidental reading, expression and elocution in the higher classes, more than twenty-five per cent, of the first eight years of school work was absorbed entirely in overcoming the difficulties of orthography, such as do not now exist in simplified phonetic languages as German, Italian, Spanish, Danish, and even Welch. There is nothing more clearly proved to my mind than that the English child is handicapped to the extent of two years' work by the difficulties of our orthography as compared with the national- ities above referred to. What a tremendous boon would a relief of two years' work be to ou'. crowded course of study in our elementary schools 1 What a splendid opportunity would be given for the study of the correct and fluent use of the English lanjriiage under such circum- stances ! Now the most of our time is spent in drudgery which is not English language at all, but which is so closely connected with it as to create in advance a distaste for the study of the language itself by the unfortunate association. In the London schools, and in the schools of several of the larger cities of the United States, similar investigations have l>een made, all proving that the loss of time is from two to three years. Such, beyond the limit of any reasonable doubt, is the time lost in this one feature of our system. But there may often be worse than lost time in it. Of all tasks for young children, spelling with its polyglot affinities, its half phonetic, half hodge-podge orthography, is the first, as a general rule, to Vjeget a Il ' 12 distaste for school life. Those naturally crammers pass. And here we get a glimpse of another possible effect. I fear our spelling in the elementary stages of school life tends to sift from the great current of potential scientific scholarship in its earliest manifestations, the more original and inventive of its minds. The assimilator passes, the inventor is disgusted. No wonder we have no Shakespeares in these days of spelling drill. No wonder so many geniuses arise outside the ranks of the school-trained. Chinese culture may be very delightful to those once intoxicated with it, but the science-loving, common-sense Japs will inherit the earth. " But surely the evil of our system is exagger- ated by this presentation ?" I fancy some one says. That is just what 1 wish to be carefully examined. Max Miiller says : " English spelling is a national misfortune, and in the keen international race between all the countries of Europe, it handicaps the English child to a degree that seems incredible till we look at statistics." Again he makes a rough quantitative estimate : " Millions of children at school might learn in one year, and with real advantage to themselves, what they now require four or five years to learn, and seldom succeed in learning at all." Read the treatise of Dr. J. H. Gladstone, F. R. S., of the School Board of London, in which he deduces from English statistics conclusions as strong as these I have presented. I can quote but a line : " If English orthography repre- sented English pronunciation as closely as the Italian does, at least half of the time and expen.se of teaching to read and spell would be saved." This is strong testimony to the extent to which the English child in hi.s education, and the English language in its adoption by other races are handicapped by our spelling. Gladstone's researches have been very extensive and thorough. Apart from its spelling, the English language is the most concisely expressive, it is said, of all languages ; and by reforming its spelling, besides removing the tremendous difficulty of its orthography, it might be made seventeen per cent, more concise. Such considerations, I have no doubt, prompted the following expression from Jacob Grimm, the great German • philologist : " The whimsical orthography of the English language stands in the way of its universal acceptance." As compared with German, the report of the Faculty of the University of Mississippi to the State Legislature, in 1879, makes the following statement in clause 2 : — " Spelling hinders our people from becoming readers, (1) by the length of time it takes to learn ; (2) by the dislike of reading it induces. An average German learns, they say, in about one-third the time." In this connection I quote a few lines from an address of Pro- Hi id here we ng in the current of , the more e inventor se days of Q ranks of I to those ense Japs i exagger- just what tie, and in Europe, it lie till we estimate : with real years to Lse of Dr. which he le I have ly repre- at least would be English ption by jsearches ling, the of all ing the venteen •rompted German anguage ed with jsippi to n clause by the induces, ae." of Pro- fcs.sor F. A. March, published in a valuable circular from the Bureau -of Education at Washington under the National Government of the United States : " Three years are spent in our primary schools in learning to read and spell a little. The German advances as far in a twelve-month. A large fraction of the school time of the millions is thus stolen from useful study and devoted to the most painful drudgery. Millions of years are thus lost in every generation. Then it afi'ects the intellect of beginners." He goe.. on : " We ought then to tiy to improve our spelling from patriotic motives. If this do not move us, it may be worth while to remember that it lias been computed, that we throw away $15,000,000 a year paying teachers for addling the brains of our children with bad spelling, and at least $100,000,000 more paying printers and publishers for sprinkling our books and papers with silent letters." Were our spelling system perfectly phonetic, mechanical reading and spelling coulil be mastered in less than one year. It is perhaps not generally known that in foreign countries, and even in America and England, our language is taught in some schools at first from phonetic books. 'J'be}' then pass on to the ordinary English, and find the process to pay. Mrs. E. B. Burnz, of New York, .says : " The phonetic teaching in the Fisk school (at Nashville), as elsewhere, ])r()ved beyond all cavil, that with phonetic books as much could be accomplished in four months, in teaching to read, as by a year with the common method, and moreover, it showed that there is no difliculty experienced by children in passing from phonetic to the ordinary printed book." How much more satisfactory would the system be were the ordinary book not in existence ! Mr. William Colbouvne, of Sturminster, England, is quoted as follows : " My little Sydney, who is now a few months more than four years old, will read any phonetic book without the slightest hesitation ; the haidest names or the largest words in the Old or New Testament form no obstacle to him. And how long do you think it took me — for I am his teacher — to impart to him this power? Why, something less than eight hours ! You ma}' believe it or not, as you like, but I am confident that not more than that amount of time was spent on him, and that was in snatches of five minutes at a time, while tea was getting ready. I know }on will lie inclined to say : 'all that is very well, but what is the use of reading phonetic books f He is still as far oflf, and may be farther from reading romanic books.' But in this you are mistaken. Take another example, his next elder itrother, a boy of six years, has had a phonetic education so far. What 14 1^^ is the consequence ? Why reading in the first stage was so delightful aud easy a thing to him, 'hat he taught himself to read ronianically, and it would be a difficult matter to (ind one boy iti twenty, of a corresponding age, that could read half so well us he can in any book." Am I not then under the mark, when I say that two years of school work in Canada are uselessly wasted, and worse than uselessly wasted in spelling. But suppose soine one thinks, " what is said is all true, but it would be a pity to spoil the etymology of oiir language." I shall then pro- duce a greater authority than the thinker to settle his qualms. Max Miiller, Professor of Sanskrit and comparative philology at Oxford, England, author of " History of Ancient Sanskrit Literature," and of '"The Science of Languages," shall speak: "An objection often made to spelling reform is that it would utterly destroy the historical or etymological character of the English language. Suppose it did. What then ? Language is not made for scholars and etymologists, and if the whole race of English et3'mologists were really swept away by the introduction of spelling reform I hope they would be the first to rejoice in sacrificing themselves in so good a cause. But is it really the case that the historical continuity of the English language would be broken by the adoption of phonetic spelling, and that the profession of the Etymologist would be gone forever .' I say no, most emphatic-all}', to both 'propositions." On the same point, Profes.'-or Sayce, of Oxford, says: "We are told that to i-eform our alphabet would destroy the etymologies of our words. Ignorance is the cause of so rash a state- ment." Henry Sweet, President of the Philological Society, London, says : " The notion that the present spelling has an etymological value was quite popular twenty-five yeais ago, but this view is now entirely abandoned by philologists ; only a few half-trained dabblers in the science uphold it." The regent of the " Illinois Industrial University," Gregory, puts it in this way : " Small men will still decry, and ignorant men will deplore the movement to improve English spelling, but it has within it the force of truth and the energy of a great want." J. A. H. Murray, Past President of the Philological Society of England, and editor of the great Historical English Dictionary, the greatest com- [>endium of English language lore ever projected, says: '• The question of etymology was long ago settled and done with by philologists. It is pitiful to sec an expression of Archbishop Trench — uttered, when English philology was in its prescientific babyhood, and scarcely anything was known of our language in its earlier stages save the outward forms- in which it had come down to us in manuscript or print — quoted 15 against the rational reconstruction of om spellinij^. But it is also unfair to Dr. Trench himself, who then stood so well in the front of philolonry, that we may he perfectly sure that if leisure had been i,Mven him to keep pace with the progress of the science, he would now have been second to no one as a spelling reformer. For philology has long since penetrated the mere drapery and grappled with the study of words' not as dead marks, but as living realities, and for these living realities it first of all demands, ' Write them as they are; give us facts and not fictions to handle."' The late Professor Whitney, of Yale, .says : "Of all forms of linguistic con.servatism or |)urism, orthographic purism is the lowest and the easiest. * * The real etymologist, the historic student of language, * * would rejoice above measure to batter ever}' ' historical item in our spelling during the last 800 years for a strict phonetic picture of the language as spoken at that distance in the past." Three years required to master English reading and spelling when only a few months would be necessary with a proper spelling ! Let our farmers, our laborers and artisans, think of the enormous tax put upon them by this system. Thousands of them cannot find sntticient time to get even a, good common school education, a fact largely due to our mode of spelling. Think of the time spent, the sacrifice endured by many of our poorer peo]>le, to send their children to school for a short time. But in wliat are they required to spend their time there ? First and foremost, in learning what is not of the smallest sensible value to them — for at least two yeais of their time — and what, in addi- tion, disgusts tens oi' thousands with everything associated with school education. What would not those two years allow us to do in our course of study ? More language drill — useful in its results : more natural science teaching — attractive in its suV)jects, perception-strength- ening in its influence, reason-training in its effects, Less slaver}', more love for study, fewer rebels, more recruits for advanced knowdedge. Nothing to lose, everything to gain. The first names in linguistic scholarship and philology in England and America, have declared in favor of reform, the first names in all ranks. But it may be urged that language is a natuial growth, and that no artifical effort can control it. All riffht. Then let it jjrow and remove the artificial and false .system of spelling *vhich partly represents the language and partly misrepresents it, leaving no record of its growth when it does grow. Then you may turn around and say, " Oh ! it was the spelling I meant. Spelling is a natural growth, and nothing . 16 ■artificial can control it." Indeed ! We all know that nothing is more artificial than spelling, and that it requires all the art of society aided by the prescriptions of law to preserve its present unnatural and injurious t'orin. All we want is that some authority to change a bad standard into a good may bo created. Such an authority must have as absolute a p(»wer to change for the better as the present authority to preserve foi' the worse or the past authorities to originate the " sanctified confusion " we are condemned to worship with the sacrifice of our substance and our children. Artificial uuthority has made the Italian and Spanish languages nearly perfectly phonetic. In IbT^), a powerful society was formed in Germany for the simplification of its spelling which even then was almost phonetic. In 1880, by ministerial decree, the simplified spel- ling went into effect in all the elementary schools, and in April, of 188.5, into all the higher schools. It is ten years since, but the huge inertia of the English people has not yet been overcome, although they are the peculiar people who have really something to reform, and much to gain from it. The French Academy has come in ahead of us, with the object, as it is stated, " of making the task of learning the language more easy by making its orthography more logical, and thereby to facilitate its use by foreigners." We, with a spelling much more illogical are not yet moving, and with an orthography much more formidable to the foreigner, neglect to utilize to the extent within our reach the unparalleled inducements to acquire the English language to-day. In the new Dictionary now being published under the direction of the French Academy, there are changes made in about 1,200 common words which are to go into use immediately. And these will to some degree change the " look "of the French page, but the}' will not make the literature any less legible to the reader who has had an hour's practice. There would be some inconveniences in the change of our orthography. But they would not be at all serious. It would not make the old literature illegble. It would in fact enable our young people to read with our old orthography at an eailier age than they can now, as aome of the experiments to which I have referred seem to prove. Within one year the new orthography would look all right to the most fastidious worshipper of our present silent letters. While the present system would look even more forbidding than that in vogue two or three centuries ago does now. Let us briefly review some of the advantages of the proposed reform. 1. Our present alphabet is defective, redundant, and inconsistent; 17 consistent and is not at all used as all alphabets were originally designed to be UHed, and as they now are practically used. 2. The spelling of English was always changing in its early historj' although unfortunately not in conformability with the changes in the language itself; and no good reason can ever be assigned why it should be permanently congealed into the rigid, everlasting form of a particular stage of development in the seventeenth century. 3. The spelling of many languages has been reformed by the authority of learned academies or of governments, as ours is by similar authority restrained from undergoing reform. It is evident, that all rccjuired to reform our spelling is the creation or evolution of a rational authority for the purpose. 4. It would save at least two years of useless, if not injurious effort in our schools, and give so much more time for the cultivation of the useful, which all of us feel the need of. 5. It would shorten all printed and written matter to the extent of perhaps seventeen per cent., thus cheapening all our literature from the newspa] cr to the encyclopaedia by one-sixth. Every six dollar price would be reduced to five. G. It would make the written words the everlasting records of the changes taking place in the language, and thus give philology a chance in the future which has to a great extent been lost forever by the false and mischievous conceit of the past. 7. It would tend to make dialects and provincial accent disappear, and to facilitate the growth of a uniform pronunciation, since analogy would not bo misleading as at present. 8. It would enaV)le foreigners to learn the English language with infinitely more ease ; ai.d with its present potentiality for telegraphic and coniniercial coirespondence over all the world, would rapidly tend to make English the universal languaire. 9. It would be a great advantage to all English missionary enter- prises. 10. In a word : This reform would tend to make school life more happy and moral, school work more useful and extensive, literary products and efforts less expensive, and thertfore general learning more advanced and profound. And in the great rivalry of European and Asiatic powers, which is becoming keener and keener from year to year, it wo'dd give the English races the critical preponderance, as admitted by Grimm, which would determine the ultimate universality of their language, as well as in their supremacy in commerce, adven- ture, and arms. IS Next I may be askod : " Why liave we not this spelling reform already, when its n'lvtxntages are so great, and the array of nanies in its favor so authoiitntive ?" I would answer: For more than one reason. It has not been brought to the notice of our people. Even our lepresontatives and government officials, in the great majority of cases, have never yet happened to think of it. But the sjieeial difliculty is general agreement upon the most practical scheme of reform. Some are extremely radical, wanting no change until a complete phonetic one maybe made, which cnn emhrace all languages. Others, simply radical, will accept nothing less than a perfect phonetic system for English, which they would form by retaining all the useful letters at present used, and making new letteis for the remaining sounds. Ami still others who will grant nothing more than the omission of silent letters. This is another illustration of tlie necessity of n)aking an efl'ort to secure an authoritative deliverance which shall commanlic which the struorirle for the survival of the fittest involves. Evolution in the future is going to do business on improved principles as compared with the past. It will prevent, under the reign of science, the i-eproduction of the unfit, and so save all the loss of energ}' involved first in the rearing of the unfit, and secondl}', in the destruction of the unfit. So that under the guidance of the higher reason of man, evolutionary change may be huriied on with tenfold the old rapidity, and with an hundredfold less cost to existing organisms. If these abbreviated phonetic characters could also with but little deviation from the written forms, be capable of being set up in ordinary type for the printer, the discovery would be a far greater one for literature and society, than the fabled feat of the Theban Cadmus. This then brings me to the summation of all I have particularly to ■say. To enable our educational system to advance rapidly, and at the 20 m K me time with the minimum disturbance of, or cost tu, present HOciety» we must organize, and from the history of the past lay down lines which will produce the conditions we seek without aiitajjonizing unnecessarily any element of our present constitution. This can bo done. Should any one doubt it, even he need not say that we should not take the possibility of improvement into consideration. I then simply propose ai> present, that we should appoint a Standing Committee of this Association, to confer v^ith similar Committees from co-ordinate bodies of educators in all other English speaking countries, and that at least these three subjects be relegated to them to commence with : 1. The universal use of the decimal weights and measures ; 2. The simplification of English orthography ; and 3. The general intro- duction of a distinctly legible phonetic short hand. .) i jresent Hociety, lay down line* antagonizing This can bo hat we should >n. nt a Standing ninittees from ing countries, » to commence measures ; 2. general intro-