phonetic form, with entire ease, in twenty-four hours. But it would gravel the general public."

If any further proof be desired, it may be found in the less diplomatic but more radical efforts of the Spelling Reform Association, of which the present board is an offshoot, from 1876 to 1902. They then offered a first list of nearly 3,000 words, and they devised and attempted to secure the adoption of a phonetic alphabet.

Some periodicals, and I think some schools, accepted even this extreme measure, and I have several papers printed in it. Text-books were prepared by members of the Board, in this strange form.

What was aimed at in 1876 is the aim in 1907. Aided by the $100,000, and the Scotch "canniness" of Mr. Carnegie, the method of attack is now changed from an open charge to an ambuscade.

The question for us to decide is not, therefore, whether we will favor a harmless and benevolent attempt to amend the spelling of a few uncouth and unusual words, but whether we are willing to surrender our entire heritage of English speech and literature into the hands of a self-appointed committee, with power to lead us blindfolded into the mazes of so intricate and extreme a phonetic wilderness as, to use their own expressive phrase, will "gravel the general public."

I have shown that the Simplified Spelling Board is responsible for the list of 300 words, and that the ultimate aim of that Board is to change the English language to an extreme phonetic form.

Such a change, as Mr. Richard Grant White has already shown is, ist, Unnecessary, and, Undesirable, 3d, Impossible.

It is unnecessary because our present spelling is no more difficult to learn than the new, and because, in the opinion of Professor Hugo Münsterberg, with whom I fully agree, it is easier now than it would be then.

It is unnecessary, also, because, although printing silent letters is somewhat expensive, any troublesome expense can better be saved by printing fewer circulars and books than by omitting silent letters from those we do print.

If the Spelling Board would refrain from printing and distributing its literature for a few years it could save enough to enable us to keep the 'ph' in 'phantom' without danger of national bankruptcy.

Unnecessary, finally, because we already have a better and completer phonetic language at our command than the Board could construct; I refer to our current stenography. For all cases requiring unnusual expedition and facility we' resort to short-hand. Its alphabet is vastly simpler and more graceful than that of the reformers. It can be written in one-half the time and printed in one-half the space required by theirs; and it is unobtrusive; ready to serve when called upon, but never insistent when not required. Then, if we need a universal code, there is Esperanto.

It is undesirable because in a great many instances it would conceal the derivation of words from the perception of the man of ordinary education. A single example must suffice. 'Bos'n' is less easily derived from boat and swain, than 'boatswain.'

It is undesirable also because its effect would be to render all books printed in our current spelling as hard to read as the new phonetic language would now be; because being put forward, with no authority to enforce its adoption, it would be used in some parts of the country and not in others. This, as Prof. John Nugent Cleary, has well said, would

"Destroy the unity of elementary education; Cause discrimination between persons educated in different localities; and induce a condition of general disagreement and disorder."

It is undesirable because it would increase the difficulty of learning the language. The new alphabet would contain many more letters than at present. The number of words spelled and pronounced alike would be increased. 'Two,' and 'too' and 'to,' for example would all be spelled 'tu,' after the analogy of the monstrous 'thru;' and this, as Professor Münsterberg points out, would seriously add to the difficulties of foreigners and children. Curious spellings are often easiest to remember.

Again, the new language would not remove the necessity of learning the old. Those who use it must still communicate with those who do not, and all must be able to read the literature of the present and the past.

To the children's present 'intolerable burden' there would then be added the burden of learning also four new and more intricate alphabets (the capitals and lower case letters of the printed and manuscript phonetic style proposed), and a second method of spelling.

The difficulties of children and foreigners would be further increased by the discrepancies which would be created between the spelling of ordinary words, and that of proper names, which latter, as they would require special legislative action, and for other manifest reasons, even the Simplified Spelling Board publicly acknowledges it is hopeless to attempt to change.

How great the confusion from this one cause alone would be, may be inferred from a single example. There are 1,180 names of places in Lippincott's Gazetteer, which begin with the word "New," as New York, New Jersey, Newfoundland, etc., and in the New York Directory alone there are nearly one thousand names of persons which begin in the same way.

Now the new spelling of 'new' is 'nu.' Will it lighten the burden and help the logical spelling of children and foreigners to force them to learn "nu," in their spelling books, and 'new' in their geographies?

Then, too, observe the inconsistencies which must arise between the spelling of the common and the scientific names of plants and animals. The scientific names are not to be changed. How would this look in our botanies: "Phlox maculata; spotted flox," "Nymphea, water-lily, so called because dedicated to the nimfs?"

The reformers cannot reach the uniformity they seek without changing the spelling of the Latin language also. They must change also our present manner of reproducing the spelling of Greek and other foreign words.

It is undesirable, again, because instead of saving money, it would entail expenses which I believe would be greater than its economies. Revised editions of dictionaries, cyclopedias, and text-books would have to be issued at frequent intervals. The introduction of a phonetic alphabet, which is a necessary prerequisite to a phonetic orthography would require the introduction of new type in many styles and sizes into every printing office, and the re-education of printers and proofreaders. All card catalogues would have to be re-made. There would have to be revised editions of the great bulk of the books constituting our English literature. This would cost millions of dollars. Professor Matthews tries to answer this argument by saying that the same thing is being done all the time as books wear out and are replaced by new. Is he not aware that much of this reprinting is now done from stereotyped plates? A revolution in spelling would require the distruction of all these plates and the making of new ones.

Moreover, the recasting of a literature into phonetic form is a different thing from making occasional new editions of a few standard works, without revision or change.

There is also a vast treasure of manuscripts which cannot be reproduced except by photography, and which to those unused to our present spelling would become more and more difficult to read. Then, too, our present spelling is indelibly engraven upon innumerable tablets of bronze and marble. It appears in artistic beauty in the decoration of countless walls, and in connection with costly paintings. Would Mr. Matthews think it an easy matter to change the spelling upon the tomb-stones in a hundred thousand cemeteries?

Yet otherwise, side by side in the same family lot, how incongruous must the new and the old appear. On the father's

319

headstone "William the Son of Thomas;" on his son's monument, "John the Sun of William."

Who will be the first American to win distinction by erecting a memorial of granite with this inscription "Tu mi Muther?" Phonetic English is undesirable again, because it would be at the best a machine-made, inflexible and monotonous code, rather than a natural and magnificent language, the outgrowth of our history and of the social, religious, political, poetical, and oratorical aspirations of the race; and because, it would, as already shown, mutilate our grammar, hamper our rhythm, spoil much of our poetry, render much of our music impossible, and destroy our freedom of expression.

It is undesirable, finally, because it would open a linguistic chasm between the United States on the one hand, and England, Canada, Australia and other English speaking countries on the other; for it is not to be supposed that those nations will adopt the recommendations of a New York City spelling club.

But, besides being unnecessary and undesirable, the proposed plan is impossible.

First, because there is no agreement, even among the advocates of the phonetic plan, as to the pronunciation of English words. More than two thousand words of "disputed pronunciation'are given in the Standard Dictionary, with their different pronunciations, as spelled in phonetic style by their several advocates.

Among the fifty or sixty gentlemen who have here officially indicated their own pronunciation, are six of the present members of the Spelling Board. They do not agree in the pronunciation of so simple words as 'Christianity' and 'Caricature.'

This is fairly illustrative of disagreements running through the disputed 2,000 words. This list of disputed pronunciations is twice as long as the list of disputed spellings, and the number of ways of pronouncing each disputed word is greater than that of the recorded variations in spelling. The Standard Dictionary recognizes three different pronunciations of 'conduit,' five of 'courteous,' seven of 'breviary,' nine of 'dandelion,' and fourteen of 'violoncello.'

This takes no account of sectional or dialectic pronunciation, such as prevails in New England, Virginia, and the West, nor of the foreign variations included under the word 'brogue'; nor of illiterate mispronunciations, nor of our everyday indolent slurrings or imperfect pronunciations; such as 'independunt' for 'independent. To reduce all these varieties of pronunciation to one standard is at present impossible. But until that is done, we cannot have a phonetic language.

If it is so important, which I deny, for spelling and pronunciation to be in phonetic accord, it can, in many cases, be done more cheaply, easily, and rationally by making the pronuncia

tion conform to the spelling, than by changing the spelling to conform to the pronunciation. Would it not be easier and more rational, for example, to teach our children to pronounce ''been," "been," and so bring it into harmony with with 'seen'. ; and back to its earlier historic sound, than it would be to change the spelling of 'been,' to 'bin;' which departs from its historic sound, obscures its derivation from 'be;' adds an exception to our rules of grammatical structure, violates the analogy with 'seen;' adds another troublesome pair of words of different meanings, but of the same spelling, and involves the expense of a change in all our text-books?

The tendency of pronunciation is to deteriorate. The stronger vowels are weakened through laziness. Consonants are elided. 'To-morrow,' becomes 'tuhmorrah;' 'singing' becomes 'singin';' 'steelyard' becomes 'stilyerd;' 'handkerchief' becomes 'hankerchif.' Correct spelling is a continual protest against slovenly speech. It is a constant plea for accurate and nice distinction of sound. To establish the principle that spelling must conform to popular pronunciation would be to destroy the unity and dignity of the language.

The second reason for the impossibility of the success of this propaganda is that the people do not want it and will not accept it.

The great mass of newspaper and magazine criticism is adverse. I have been able to find only fourteen magazine articles in favor of it, and fourteen of these were written either by members of the Spelling Board or by those closely associated with them; namely: one in the Independent, by William Hayes Ward, a Standard Dictionary man and a member of the Board; one in Current Literature, by Edward J. Wheeler, a director in the Company which publishes the Standard Dictionary; one in Littell's Living Age, by Professor Skeat, a dictionary man and member of the Board; one each in Scribner's, The Century, and Harper's Monthly, by Professor Lounsbury, a dictionary man and a member of the Board; one by Mark Twain, a member of the Board; one in the Forum, by Professor March, a dictionary and revised spelling-book man and member of the Board; one each in The Century, Outlook, and Bookman, by Brander Matthews, a member of the Board; one in the Critic, by Jeannette Gilder, sister of Mr. Gilder of the Century Company; one by Calvin Thomas, in The Nation, a dictionary man and member of the Board; the fourteenth and last, is by William Dean Howells. So far, as my observation goes, also, all the periodicals which have adopted the new spellings are published or edited by the same gentlemen, or their friends.

It is impossible, finally, because the English is the growth of more than a thousand years; and has taken unto itself from time to time, the best of many other tongues. It is so com