PREFACE
The main ideas underlying the treatment here found of English orthography were embodied in an article which appeared in the Atlantic Monthly for June, 1907. The title it there bore was “Confessions of a Spelling Reformer.” This it was the original intention to give to the present work. But with the changes which were required in recasting the article upon which it was based, with the great expansion of many of the points considered in it, more than all with the extension of its scope so as to include many new topics, the personal element which had characterized it none too prominently in the first place sank into almost complete insignificance. Hence followed the inappropriateness of the title. Here, accordingly, it has been confined to the opening chapter, and for it has been substituted that which the volume now bears.
As published in the magazine, the article referred to was of a length so unconscionable that I have always been confident that the editor, however carefully he concealed his feelings, groaned inwardly at the space he obliged himself to give up to it. Still, long as it was, much which had been prepared for it was cut out before transmission. It was felt that there is a point beyond which the patience of the most long-suffering of editors will not stretch. A few passages which were then omitted were later made to do service in a presidential address given at the annual meeting of the Simplified Spelling Board. These have been restored here, though in a much enlarged form, to their old place. With them also has been reinstated a good deal of other matter which had been struck out before the article was forwarded for publication. I have also made use of several paragraphs which had appeared a number of years ago in contributions to the Century Magazine. In addition, it is to be said that one whole chapter in the volume has been printed before, though very much abbreviated, in Harper’s Magazine. But in spite of the extent to which I have drawn upon matter previously published, fully two-thirds of the contents of the present treatise has never up to this time appeared in print. This is true in particular of what in my own eyes is the most important chapter in the book—that on the Orthographic Situation.
The subject of spelling reform is not, strictly speaking, a soul-stirring one, nor is any possible treatment of it likely to contribute to the gayety of nations. If any of the chapters contained in the present volume be of the slightest interest in itself, that on the orthographic situation is assuredly not the one. On the other hand, if there be anything of value in the work, that same chapter has, as I look at it, far the most value. There is in it, indeed, nothing original. The numerous facts it contains are to be found scattered up and down the pages of various volumes—particularly in the introductions to the larger dictionaries, and in orthographic and orthoepic essays produced at various periods. But so far as I know, this is the first attempt ever made to collect and combine and, above all, to put in a form, easily comprehensible by the general reader, the widely scattered facts which go to show the precise character and characteristics of English orthography, and to bring out with distinctness the real nature of the deep-seated disease under which it labors.
At all events, whether or not I have been anticipated in the presentation of these facts, such knowledge of them as can be gained from this volume or from some better source is essential to the comprehension of the subject or to any proper consideration of it. Designedly and avowedly incomplete as is the survey of the subject here taken, it is sufficiently detailed to give any one who cares to understand it a fair degree of familiarity with the situation which confronts him who sets out to effect a genuine and not a spurious reform. It is furthermore sufficient to give him a fair conception of the sort of work that will have to be done before the anarchy which now prevails in our spelling can give way to even the semblance of order.
Assuredly there was ample need of a work of this sort being prepared, and the only regret that need be entertained is that it has not fallen to some one better equipped than myself to prepare it. For I reiterate in this preface what I have said in the body of the work itself: that there is no one subject upon which men, whether presumably or really intelligent, are in a state of more hopeless, helpless ignorance than upon that of the nature and history of English orthography. No serious student of it can read the articles which appear in newspapers, the communications sent to them, or the elaborate essays found in periodicals, without being struck by the more than Egyptian darkness which prevails. In nearly every one of these mistakes of fact not merely exist but abound. Most of the assertions made lack even that decent degree of probability which belongs to respectable fiction. Even in the very few cases where the facts are correct, the inferences drawn from them are utterly erroneous and misleading. Many of these articles, too, contain mistakes of apprehension so gross that one comes to feel that in the discussion of this particular subject the limits of human incapacity to understand the simplest assertion have been reached. Statements of this sort will be resented with all the venomousness of anonymous personal vituperation. They have not been made, however, without full examination of scores and scores of articles which have come out in opposition to spelling reform. No difficulty will be found, if the occasion demands, to substantiate their correctness beyond the shadow of a doubt.
The various chapters contained in this volume follow one another in logical sequence. But I have also sought to make each of them, in a way, independent of the others, and therefore complete in itself. This has necessitated, in a very few cases, the repetition of statements important only for the immediate understanding of the particular subject. I may venture to add that I have taken great pains to make the numerous details scattered through the volume absolutely correct, so that he who quarrels with the conclusions reached may have no cause to question the facts upon which they are based. If in the immense mass of these found here I have made anywhere a slip, I shall be grateful for the detection of it, and none the less so if it come from the most hostile source. In this subject it is the exact truth of which we are in pursuit, and a real though not a fancied exposure of error is to be welcomed gladly.
The movement now going on for the simplification of English spelling has in the few years of its existence attained a success which has never been even remotely approached by any similar attempt in the past. This has been due, in part, to the fact that an effort for reform has for the first time had behind it the support of an organized propaganda. Previous undertakings of the sort have been mainly the work of individuals. It has likewise been due, in part, to the general spread of knowledge as to the nature and history of words belonging to our speech and the changes of form they have undergone. Something also is due to the growing dissatisfaction, a consequence of this increase of intelligence, with the anomalies and absurdities of the present spelling, and the loss of time and labor, the waste of money, and the mental injury which the acquisition of these perverse and perverted forms involves. In our country, also, this feeling of dissatisfaction has been strengthened by the consideration that something must be done to remove from the path of that mighty army of foreigners landing yearly upon our shores the greatest of the stumbling-blocks in the way of the acquisition of the English language, necessary as the knowledge of it is to any comprehension by them of the laws and institutions and political ideas of the land they are henceforth to make their home.
Flourishing as the present movement assuredly is, it of course may fail ultimately, as have several which have preceded it. It certainly will fail if the propaganda does not continue to be vigorously pressed. It will fail if proposals are adopted and methods are followed which, while pleasing sciolists, do not recommend themselves to scholars. That experiment has been too often tried to leave us in any doubt as to the result. But whatever be the success or failure which may attend the present movement, none the less am I confident that the English race will not be content to sit down forever with a system of spelling which has nothing to recommend it but custom and prejudice, nothing to defend it but ignorance, nothing but superstition to make it an object of veneration. An orthography which defies the main object for which orthography was created cannot continue, with the advance of knowledge, to be endured forever; for speaking with absolute reverence, it can be said of it that, not being of God, it cannot stand.
ENGLISH SPELLING AND
SPELLING REFORM
CHAPTER I
CONFESSIONS OF A SPELLING REFORMER
It was my fortune in 1906 to be wandering in lands where English is not spoken, when the President of the United States issued his famous order in regard to spelling. Little, therefore, of the comment it occasioned met my eyes, either at the time or long after; little of the clamor it excited reached my ears. But after my return to my own country I had the opportunity to look over no small number of the productions which came out in opposition to it or in criticism of it, whether they appeared in the form of reported interviews with prominent persons, of leaders in newspapers or letters to them, or of elaborate articles in periodicals. Most of these written pieces were anonymous; but some of them came avowedly from men of recognized eminence in various fields of intellectual activity.
It is with no intention of conveying the slightest suggestion of disparagement of the authors of these various articles that I say that not one of them contained a single argument which every person who has paid even a superficial attention to the history of English orthography has not been familiar with from the time of his first entering upon the study. Even the jokes and sarcastic remarks of the newspapers were hoary with the rime of age. In the case of these latter something must be conceded to the inherent difficulty of the attack, without imputing the feebleness of it, or the lack of originality in it, to mere barrenness of brain. From the very nature of things it is hard to be jocose upon a subject of which one knows nothing at all. A difficulty of a like nature attended the production of the arguments which were put forth seriously. They brought forward no new ideas; they simply inspired recollections. It is only the fact that the writers of the more elaborate articles seemed to regard the reasons they advanced as novel, if not startling, contributions to thought, which to the mind of the veteran of orthographical wars imparted a certain languid interest to what they said. One comes, in truth, to feel a sort of respect for the continuous incapacity to comprehend the exact nature of the problem presented, which year after year of discussion does not impair, nor affluence of argument disturb.
As in a number of the pieces I was privileged to see I found my own name mentioned, I trust it will not be deemed a mark of offensive egotism—egotism of one sort it assuredly is—if I take the occasion of its appearance in these articles to state my views exactly on various points connected with the subject instead of having them stated for me inexactly by others. As confessions seem now to be the literary fashion, it has seemed best to put what I have to say in that form. The method of personal statement enables me also to bring out more distinctly not merely the views held by many, but also the reasons by which their course has been influenced. This consequently may serve as an excuse for a mode of utterance which in the case of one so obscure as myself would be otherwise out of place. Still, while the sentiments indicated may be entertained by numbers, they are here to be considered as nothing more than my own individual opinions. I do not pretend to speak with authority for any person but myself, least of all for any organization which has started out to carry on the work of spelling reform. Some, indeed, of the particular views I express may possibly, or, it may be, will probably, meet with the dissent of those who hold in general the same beliefs.
Now that the storm and stress which followed the President’s order is over, now that every one seems to have regained his equanimity, a fitting moment has apparently arrived to consider the whole subject itself without reference to the particular proposals of anybody or of any organization. This can be done at present with a certain detachment from the feelings which attended the heated controversy that then prevailed—at least, with as much detachment as is consistent with the possession of personal convictions. As this treatise, however, is avowedly egotistical, I may be permitted, before entering into the general discussion, to refer to a specific charge which has been regularly brought against me as well as against others. It is all the more desirable to do so because the consideration of it leads directly to the comprehension of what is really the great mainstay of the existing orthography. The charge is that in what I publish I do not use myself the new spellings, save, at least, on the most limited scale. I am inconsistent. My practice does not conform to my pretended belief.
Now it is very easy to retort the charge of inconsistency. No one can use our present spelling without being inconsistent; for English orthography is nothing but a mass of inconsistencies. Take one of the commonest of illustrations furnished by those opposed to any reform. You must not drop the u from honour, they tell us, because that unnecessary vowel shows that the word was derived immediately from the French, and only remotely from the Latin. On the contrary, you must retain the b of debt and doubt, though this letter hides their derivation from the French dette and doute, and gives the erroneous impression that they were taken directly from the Latin. Still, it is no real justification for one’s own conduct to prove that similar conduct is pursued by those who criticise him for it. Let me bring forward a few reasons which have influenced my own action, as doubtless they have more or less that of others.
There is, first, the printing-office to be consulted. This has generally an orthography of its own, and does not like to have it deviated from. There is next the publisher to be considered. Even if he is personally indifferent on the subject of spelling, he has a pecuniary interest in the work he is bringing out. Naturally he is reluctant to have introduced into it anything which will tend to retard its success with the public. As he usually has the means of enforcing his views, he is very much inclined to employ them.
But far more important, far more restraining than the attitude either of printer or publisher is that of the public itself. It is not simply indifferent: it is largely hostile. To many men a strange spelling is offensive; by the ill-informed it is regarded as portending ruin to the language. Necessarily no writer desires to limit his possible audience by running counter to its feelings in a matter which has no direct bearing upon the subject of which he treats. In my own case the public—most unwisely, as it naturally strikes me—is none too anxious under any circumstances to read what I write. Why, therefore, should I convert what is in my eyes a culpable lack of interest into absolute indifference or active hostility by rousing the prejudices of readers in consequence of insisting upon a point which has only a remote concern with the actual topic that may be under consideration?
These are reasons which I could fairly and honestly give. But, after all, the main one is something entirely different, something altogether independent of the feelings of others. With advancing years knowledge may or may not come; but altruism distinctly lingers. As we get along in life most of us lose the inclination to be constantly engaged in fighting strenuously for the progress of even the most praiseworthy causes. The desire wanes of benefiting your fellow-man, while encountering in so doing not merely his indifference, but his active hostility; of urging him to show himself rational while his proclivities are violently asinine. Even the far keener enjoyment of rendering him miserable by making evident to his reluctant but slowly dawning intelligence how much of an ignoramus, not to say idiot, he has shown himself in his acts and utterances—even this most poignant of pleasures loses its relish if indulgence in it can be secured only at the cost of much personal trouble. This is just as true of spelling reform as of any other movement. In fact, indifference to the propagation of the truth about it may be regarded as a species of that very altruism of which I have just disclaimed the practice. If a man seriously believes that it is essential to the purity and perfection of the English language that honor should be spelled with a u and horror without it; that honorable should be spelled with a u and honorary without it; that meter should have its final syllable in re and diameter and hexameter in er; that deign should terminate in eign and its allied compound form disdain in ain; that convey should end in ey and inveigh in eigh; that precede should end in ede and proceed in eed; that fancy should begin with f and phantom with ph; that deceit should be written without p and receipt with it; if, in fine, spelling in different ways words which have the same origin brings him pleasure, why not leave him in the undisturbed enjoyment of this mild form of imbecility? He will not be made happier by being made wiser.
It is natural, therefore, that the position of the man who has got along in years should tend to be rather that of a looker-on than of a participant in the strife. He feels more and more disposed to content himself with approving and applauding the work of the younger and better soldiers. My own attitude is, indeed, very much the same as that once described to me as his by my dear and honored friend, the late Professor Child of Harvard. He sometimes did and sometimes did not employ in his correspondence the reformed spellings which were recommended by the English and American philological societies. It may be added, in passing, that these changes, with the weight of the greatest scholars of both countries behind them, were in general treated with almost absolute indifference; or, if considered at all, met usually with the same unintelligent opposition as have the lists put forth by the Simplified Spelling Board. “If I am writing,” said Professor Child, “to one of these educated ignoramuses who think there is something sacred about the present orthography, I always take care to use the altered forms; but when writing to a man who really knows something about the subject, I am apt not to take the extra trouble required to conform to the recommendations made by the two philological societies.”[1]
In not following my faith by my practice, I am perfectly willing to concede that my course is not merely inconsistent, but unmanly. I shall not quarrel with any one who calls it pusillanimous, and even mean. Intimations to that effect have been made to me more than once in private letters. These reproaches I recognize as deserved, and I therefore receive them with meekness. But one of the reasons given above for my action, or rather inaction—the hostility of readers to new spellings—points directly to the one mighty obstacle which stands in the way of reforming our orthography. It is, in truth, all-potent. Singularly enough, however, it is so far from receiving consideration that it hardly ever receives much more than mere mention.
The regard for our present orthography is not based at all upon knowledge, or upon reason. It owes its existence and its strength almost entirely to sentiment. We give it other names, indeed. We describe the motives which animate us in big phrases. We talk of our devotion to the language of our fathers, while displaying the amplest possible ignorance of what that language was. We please ourselves with the notion that in denouncing any change we are nobly maintaining the historic continuity of the speech. As a matter of fact, we are governed by the cheap but all-powerful sentiment of association. We like the present orthography because we are used to it. When once the point of intimate familiarity with the form of a word has been reached, it makes thenceforward no difference to us how wide is the divergence between the pronunciation and the spelling which is ostensibly designed to represent the pronunciation. As little difference does it make if the form with which we have become familiar not merely fails to indicate the origin of the word, but on the contrary suggests and even imposes upon the mind a belief in an utterly false derivation. Such considerations do not affect us in the slightest. We simply like the spelling to which we are accustomed; we dislike the spelling to which we are not accustomed. No one who familiarizes himself with the articles in newspapers and magazines written by the defenders of the present orthography can entertain the slightest doubt on this point. The arguments advanced amount to nothing more than this, that any new spelling employed is distasteful to the writer because it breaks up old associations.
Because hostility to change springs not from knowledge, not from reason, but almost entirely from sentiment, it must not be inferred that the obstacle it presents to reform is a slight one. On the contrary, it is peculiarly formidable. So far from being a feeble barrier to overcome, it is of the very strongest, if not the very strongest. The fact that in numerous instances it is based upon foundations demonstrably irrational does not in the least impair its influence. In any matter of controversy we can fight with assurance of success against beliefs which the holder has honestly, even if mistakenly, adopted, because he deems them to be in accordance with reason. Appeal can then be made to his intelligence. But not so in the case of a belief based primarily upon sentiment. This is constantly exemplified in controversies about politics or religion. But nowhere is the fact more conspicuous than in the matter of English orthography. To spell differently from what we have been trained to spell irritates many of us almost beyond the point of endurance. We can manage to put up with variations from the present orthography prevailing in past centuries when we come to learn enough about the subject to be aware that such variations existed. The writers of those times had not reached that exalted plane of perfect propriety on which it is our good fortune to live and move. But no contemporary must venture to free himself from the cast-iron shackles in which we have inclosed the form of our words without subjecting his action to our indignant protest.
It is vain to deny the strength of the feeling of association. Even to those who have ascended out of the atmosphere of serene ignorance in which it flourishes most luxuriantly, a new spelling is always apt to come with something of a sense of shock. No matter how fully we recognize the impropriety and even absurdity of the old form, none the less does the sentiment of association cling to it and affect our attitude toward it. As this treatise sets out to deal somewhat with my own impressions, I may be pardoned the employment of a personal exemplification of the point under discussion. German is, for practical purposes, mainly a phonetic tongue. In modern times anomalies which once existed have been largely swept away. It is merely a question of a few years when they will all go; for, Germany being a nation of scholars, scholars have there some influence. In studying the language as a boy I learned some spellings now rarely used. For instance, thun and todt appeared then in the forms here given. Now I see the one without the h, the other without the d. I recognize the propriety of the action taken in dropping the unpronounced letters. But, while my judgment is perfectly convinced of its correctness, for the life of me I cannot get over a certain sense of strangeness when I come across the words in their new form—at least, it was some time before I could.
How much, indeed, we are all affected by this influence of association one illustration will make convincingly clear. In the sixteenth century there existed an occasional tendency to spell hot with an initial w. It was an effort to represent the pronunciation of the word which had begun to prevail in certain quarters. It did not drive out the present form, but it existed alongside of it. It was a spelling to which Spenser was particularly addicted. There are many instances of the use of it in the Faerie Queene, of which the following may serve as examples:
To pluck it out with pincers firie whot.
—Book I, canto x, st. 26.
He soone approached, panting, breathlesse, whot.
—Book II, canto iv, st. 37.
Upon a mightie furnace, burning whote.
—Ib., canto ix, st. 29.
Now, at the present day, anybody would be either amused at the appearance of such a form as whot if one so spelled the word ignorantly, or outraged if he did it purposely. But all of us in the case of whole are doing precisely the very thing we should condemn in the case of whot. In the former of these words the initial letter has now no more excuse for its existence than in the latter. Whole, by derivation, is precisely the same word as hale. The only real difference between these forms is the difference of vowel sound caused by dialectical variation. They are both related to heal and health. The closeness of the tie between them all is brought out distinctly in the phrase “whole and sound.” For centuries, too, the word had the spelling hole. At a later period, like hot, it took unto itself an initial w; unlike hot, it continued to retain it. Consequently, we find exemplified in the two words the same old influence of which we have been speaking. The very persons who would be horrified, and properly horrified, at giving to hot the spelling whot, would be equally horrified at taking away from whole a letter which, besides being never heard in pronunciation, disguises the derivation; and the recognition of this latter at a glance is insisted upon by many as essential to the proper representation of the word as well as to their own personal happiness. Here, as elsewhere, it is sentiment that rules us, not sense.
It is unquestionably a distinct objection to the introduction of new spellings that they have the temporary effect of breaking up old associations. They consequently distract the attention of the reader from the idea the word conveys to the word itself. This would to some extent be true, even were he strongly in favor of the changes made. Necessarily this is much more the case when he is bitterly opposed to them, and honestly, no matter how unintelligently, fancies that the fate of the language is bound up with the continuance of some particular method of spelling. It is true that the frequent occurrence of a new form on the printed page soon dispels the sense of strangeness with which it is greeted at first. But to produce that effort speedily, the reader must have an open mind. An open mind, however, is just what the ordinary believer in the present orthography lacks. He not only conceives an intense prejudice against the new form itself, but he is sometimes unwilling to read the book or article containing it. This, I have already intimated, is my main reason for not adopting in practice several spellings which in theory I approve. Some of the old ones to which many are devoted are too much for even the large charity I entertain for the most undesirable citizens of the orthographic commonwealth. But with others I put up because it is only by using them that one can succeed in getting a hearing from those who most need to be made conscious of the extent of their linguistic ignorance and the depth of their orthographic depravity. It is the unbelievers that require conversion, and not those who are already firm in the faith. Accordingly, for the sake of a temporary communication between the multitude which still continues to sit in linguistic darkness and him who seeks to enlighten them, the old spelling may be properly used as a sort of material bridge over which to trundle orthographic truth.
Necessarily, violent hostility to new spellings has always to be reckoned with. It is by no means so intense or so wide-spread as it was once. The language employed is now much more guarded. Men have come to gain some comprehension of the boundlessness of their ignorance of the subject, and have learned in consequence the wisdom of putting restraint upon expression. Intemperate invectives will, indeed, continue to be heard for a long while yet. Rarely, however, will they proceed from any quarter where we have a right to expect real intelligence. Doubtless belated survivals of the previous era of good old-fashioned gentlemanly ignorance will occasionally thrust themselves upon the attention; but these ebullitions now surprise and amuse rather than irritate. A case in point comes to my mind. In the latter part of 1906 I chanced to be in London during the period when a violent controversy was going on between the Times and the publishers as to the prices at which books were to be offered for sale. Every morning the columns of the great daily were filled with letters on one side or the other of the matter at issue. Naturally the participators in this bibliopolic tournament did not invariably confine themselves to the special subject under discussion. Toward the very close of the year a particularly precious effusion on a side issue came from one of the correspondents.[2] His patriotic soul had been stirred to the depths by the fact, as he asserted, that English publishers had been guilty of using what he called American spelling in their books. They had indulged in this heinous crime from the ignoble lust of gain. He had declined, in consequence, to buy works he needed and desired because they were printed in this fashion. “It is a treason against our language and country,” he wrote, “and not merely an offence against taste.” Further, the writer of this extraordinary communication incidentally took pains to inform us that he had been the winner of a prize essay at Cambridge University. Presumably, therefore, he had reached an appreciable degree of mental development and was in possession of some intelligence, however little his utterances might seem to indicate it.
English scholarship has been too commonly distinct from scholarship in English; but in these latter days it creates some little surprise to find displayed publicly by a presumably educated man so gross a manifestation of all-pervading ignorance as is exemplified in the communication just mentioned. Undoubtedly there are still many who think just such thoughts, if it be proper to dignify sentiments of this sort with the name of thoughts. But it is really too late to give them public utterance—at least, with the writer’s name attached. That should be safely sheltered behind the bulwark of type. Better still, such opinions should be reserved for the circle of one’s private friends, either ignorant enough to sympathize with them, or too much attached to the speaker to expose them to the comment of a more intelligent, but also more unfeeling, world. Things, indeed, cannot be said now that could be said with impunity, and to some extent with applause, fifty years ago—and even twenty-five years ago could be said with safety. During the last half century men have been running to and fro, and knowledge has been increased. This is true in particular of the knowledge of English orthography, of its history and its character. So generally, indeed, have special students, and even occasionally highly educated men, become familiar with the fact of the differences between the spelling of the present and that of the past, and to a less extent, with the changes that have taken place at various periods and with the causes that have brought them about, that it startles one at first to discover that there are quarters into which not even a ray of this light has penetrated.
It is, however, no difficult matter to point out the grand source of erroneous beliefs of this sort. It all goes back to the sentiment of association. Unhappily this sentiment of association never receives check or correction, because we familiarize ourselves with the language of the past in the spelling of the present. In the matter of orthography, the dead author is considered to have no rights which the living publisher is bound to respect. His spelling is regularly altered so as to conform to that of the particular dictionary which has been adopted in the printing-house as a sort of official guide. This is done even when the writer himself has felt and expressed solicitude as to the form in which his words should appear. There was a period when a somewhat similar treatment was meted out to his grammar. The great works of the past underwent at one time more or less revision at the hands of the veriest literary hacks, who made changes in the language in order to reconcile it to their notions of propriety of usage. Idioms had their structure sometimes modified, sometimes improved out of existence. Sentences were recast in order to correct supposed errors, and bring them into accord with the rules laid down in the latest school grammar. This was particularly true of the latter half of the eighteenth century and the beginning of the nineteenth. Hence, editions of the classic authors of our tongue then appearing can frequently not be consulted with confidence by him to whom it is of importance to ascertain, in any given case, the words, forms, and constructions actually used by the writer.
This condition of things is no longer true of the grammar and expression. Modern editors, as a general rule, pay scrupulous heed to the exact reproduction of the words and constructions of the original, whether these accord or not with their ideas of propriety. But as yet there is little of this sensitiveness of feeling about the orthography. It may be conceded that the matter is not in itself so important for a certain class of readers. The expression, after all, is the vital concern. Accordingly, in a work designed for the use of the great body of men, it may not be desirable to reproduce peculiarities of orthography so numerous and so variant from present use as to interfere with ease of reading, or distract attention from the thought to the form of the words in which the thought is clothed. While, therefore, the reproduction of the exact spelling of a classic work is essential to the educated man who desires to be acquainted with the history of the speech, it is of but subsidiary importance to perhaps a majority of ordinary readers. Even an author so late as Shakespeare would hardly have been the popular writer he is had the mass of men been compelled to read him in the spelling in which his works originally appeared. Something has undoubtedly been lost by conforming his orthography to that of the present time, but doubtless much more has been gained in the wider reading his works have received in consequence.
Considerations of this sort do not apply to works designed strictly for the specialist and the highly educated. But even in the case of the great mass of men they do not apply to works which have been published since English orthography fell under the sway of the printing-house. The variations from the existing forms are indeed increasingly numerous the farther we go back; but even where they most prevail they are not really large in number or serious in character. Certainly they would not present to an intelligent human being the slightest obstacle to ease of reading or of comprehension. Hence, we have a right to demand that the few variations which exist should be reproduced both in their integrity and their entirety; that an edition of an author belonging to these later periods should represent his spelling as well as his grammar. In the vast majority of instances—excluding avowed reprints—this is not now the case. In the matter of orthography, rarely do editors or publishers have any conscience. The works of the past, even of the immediate past, are presented to us not in the spelling of the past, but in that of the present.
Hence, there is no occasion for surprise that such pitiful exhibitions of ignorance are so constantly displayed by men from whom we should naturally expect better things. The large majority of even cultivated readers do not see the words used by any great author of the past in the way in which he himself spelled them. They see them only as the modern printer chooses to spell them for him. It is, therefore, not surprising that the existing orthography should come to seem to such men not the comparatively late creation it is, but as something which has about it all the flavor of antiquity. As an inevitable result, there has been further imparted to it the odor of sanctity. Ignorance is recognized everywhere as a mother of devotion. Nowhere has there been a more striking manifestation of this truth than in the case of our spelling. The adoring worship of it seems to be more widely diffused in England than in America—at least, it is there more shameless in the exhibition of its lack of knowledge, though that is saying a good deal. We have all of late been made familiar with the somewhat unfortunate remark of an English writer, that the spelling of Shakespeare was good enough for him. Now an assertion of this sort would be worthless as an argument, even were it based upon a foundation of ascertained fact. We do not deprive ourselves of existing facilities of any sort, because they were not only unused, but were unheard of in the time of Queen Elizabeth. No one now feels himself under the necessity of refraining from making a rapid trip to Stratford by rail because Shakespeare was compelled to journey thither slowly and laboriously over the wretchedest of roads.
But in this instance an argument, worthless in itself, is made even more worthless, if possible, because the facts upon which it is presumed to be founded do not exist. Shakespeare flourished in a period when no eager desire existed for the maintenance of any strict orthographic monopoly. Within certain well-defined limits every one spelled pretty much as he pleased. Hence, the same word cannot infrequently be found in his writings, and in those of his contemporaries, with marked diversities of form. His usage, furthermore, differed in some cases entirely from any known to the modern world. But if his printed works fairly represent his practice, he evinced in many instances a perverse preference for what the semi-educated call American spelling. Let us test the truth of this last assertion by examining the attitude he assumed in a matter about which an orthographic controversy has been raging for centuries. This is the case of certain words which, according to one method of spelling, end in er, according to the other, in re.
As regards orthography, these words naturally divide themselves into two classes. In the first of these the termination is preceded by c. When this is the case the words fall under the influence of a general principle regulating pronunciation—so far as general principles can be said to regulate anything in English. According to it, c before the vowel e assumes the sound of s. The words of this particular class which Shakespeare uses are acre, lucre, and massacre. Were they made to end in er, they would have to come into conflict with the rule just mentioned. As a result they would mislead, as to their proper pronunciation, those who saw them for the first time. Under present conditions, they therefore cannot well undergo any change. The only way out of the difficulty would be to substitute k for c. Such a course we have taken, for instance, in the case of the word joke. This comes from the Latin joc-us with the same meaning. At its first introduction into the speech, in the latter part of the seventeenth century, it was spelled joque or joc. It finally gave up the c of the original and substituted for it k. On the other hand, in the adjective jocose, we retain the letter of the primitive which we have discarded in the noun.
This state of things is modern, because in Anglo-Saxon c had always the sound of k. Consequently, in æcer, the original of our word acre, there was neither difficulty nor confusion created by the employment of the letter. All this, however, was changed by the Norman Conquest. The pronunciation of c was in consequence affected, as it still is, by a following e. The result was that for a long time k was largely substituted in this particular word for the original letter. But in the fourteenth century the present method of spelling it came into fashion. It has remained in fashion ever since. The earlier form maintained itself for a while as of equal authority. It, indeed, died out slowly and reluctantly; but it died at last. In the collected edition of Shakespeare’s plays, which appeared in 1623, acre was practically the only recognized spelling. The word occurs in this work just seven times. In one instance only does the older form crop up. When Hamlet tells Laertes, “Let them throw millions of acres on us,” the word is spelled akers.[3] In a similar way Bacon in his Advancement of Learning uses lukar for lucre. But examples of practices such as these are exceptional.
Consideration of a like sort does not, however, apply to the words of the second class to be considered. There are several of these now found with the ending er or re which do not appear in Shakespeare’s writings. Conspicuous among those not used by him are fibre or fiber, miter or mitre, niter or nitre, sabre or saber, specter or spectre. But the words of this second class which actually occur are more numerous than those of the first class. The most common ones employed by him, about which variation of usage now prevails, are center or centre, luster or lustre, meager or meagre, meter or metre, scepter or sceptre, sepulcher or sepulchre, theater or theatre. It becomes a matter, therefore, of some interest to discover which of these forms must be chosen by the writer who professes that Shakespeare’s spelling is good enough for him. The evidence afforded by the printed page—in this case the only evidence that can be secured—is accordingly given in the following paragraph.
Take the spelling of the words just mentioned as it is found in the folio of 1623. Center appears precisely twelve times in that volume. It is never spelled with re. In ten instances it has the termination er. Once the form centry is found, and once centure. Meager occurs five times. In every instance it ends in er. This similar statement may be made of meter, which is used but twice. In both these cases it has the termination er. Scepter is a word found far more frequently. It appears just thirty-five times.[4] Not once does it have the ending re; it is invariably er. The case is not essentially different with sepulcher. Thirteen times it occurs; eleven times with the termination er, twice with the termination re.[5] About the theater Shakespeare may be supposed to have had some knowledge. The word itself appears but six times in his plays. But even in these few instances he seems to have felt a perverse preference for the spelling in er over that in re. The former occurs just five times, the latter but once. The only consolation left for him who combines devotion to Shakespeare with devotion to the ending in re is found in the word spelled lustre or luster. It appears exactly thirteen times. Seven times it is spelled the former way, six times the latter.
Spellings of this sort, it may be added, are far from being limited to Shakespeare’s age. They were followed by many writers much later. Modern editions, to which we are accustomed, do more, as already intimated, than hide the fact from our eyes. They actually prevent, for most of us, the possibility of discovering it. Hence, the prevalent lack of intelligence, with its consequent hardiness of assertion, not unfrequently accompanied with the feeling of distress and repulsion at any proposal for change. He whose heart is affected with sadness at the sight of the spelling theater for theatre or center for centre, and whose prophetic soul foresees disaster as the result of the general adoption of such forms, would find his grief alleviated and his fears dispelled if he could only extend his knowledge sufficiently to familiarize himself with the real practice of the past, instead of getting his notions about it from the falsifications of the present. Examine, for instance, in regard to the very usage under discussion, the first edition of Addison’s Remarks on Italy. This work was brought out in 1705 by Tonson, the most noted publisher of the time. The same variation which prevailed earlier in the use of these terminations still continued. But there continued also a distinct preference for er over re. Fiber, salt-peter, and scepter are found as here printed. Theater occurs seven times, six times as theater, and once—in poetry—as theatre. Amphitheater is used ten times in all. Once its plural is spelled amphitheatres; in the other nine instances it has the ending in er.[6] On the other hand, meager and niter, both of which are used once, and sepulcher, which appears five times, have the termination re. Or, take Gulliver’s Travels, which came out more than a score of years later. The first edition of the work was published in 1726 in two volumes. In it center is found just seven times. In every instance it is spelled with the ending er, not once in re. Meager, it may be added, occurs twice, and in both cases as here spelled.[7] But here again, as in most other works, modern reprints falsify the record.
In these instances it is easy enough to exaggerate the importance of the evidence furnished on this point; at least, it is so in the case of the Elizabethans. In any fair discussion of orthography, two things are to be kept in view. One is to ascertain the exact facts; the other is not to get from them erroneous impressions. Let us go back, for instance, to Shakespeare and his spelling of words with the endings er or re. It is not in the least desirable to attribute to him feelings which he never had, nor even dreamed of having. Like his contemporaries, he found two forms of these words in use. Like them, he attached no particular sanctity to either. He unquestionably felt himself at liberty to use both. All, therefore, that one can positively say in the case of these words is that if Shakespeare had any preference, it was manifestly in favor of the termination in er.
If it be urged that the plays published after his death do not represent either his opinion or his practice, it is fair to say in reply that a like condition of things is revealed in the minor poems. All of these appeared in his lifetime. Over the printing of some of them he may have had no oversight. For the spelling of the words found in these he cannot, therefore, be held directly responsible. Still, the two most important of them—Venus and Adonis and The Rape of Lucrece—must, in going through the press, have passed under his own eye. In consequence, the spelling employed could not have failed to receive his tacit sanction at least, if even, what is more probable, he was not himself primarily responsible for it. Yet in these very two poems scepter[8] and sepulcher[9] are found so spelled in the original editions. A like statement may be made of this last word in the single instance in which it occurs in the Sonnets.[10] Further, the same thing may be said about his use of center[11] and meter.[12] Each appears but once, but it appears as just given. On the other hand meager, which is found five times in this form in the plays, has the spelling meagre[13] in its solitary occurrence in the poems. For neither one of these forms is Shakespeare likely to have felt any decided preference. Still, he could not have failed to see that there was no more reason for the spelling meagre instead of meager than there was for eagre in place of eager, or, to adopt the more common earlier orthography, egre.
Besides these words there were two others of the class considered, about which variation of usage existed or exists. Because of their single occurrence in his writing, their spelling can be regarded of importance only as indicating tendency. Othello, in his account of his life, speaks of “antres vast and deserts idle,” as it is found in all modern editions. But Shakespeare has no such form as antres. In the first folio it is antars; in the quarto of 1622 it is antrees, indicating a difference of pronunciation. The word itself is rare at any period. Its later use, so far as it has been used at all, is due to its appearance in a favorite play of the great dramatist. No one among his contemporaries seems, so far as is now known, to have felt it desirable or incumbent to resort to its employment; though later investigations may cause it to turn up at any time. But the form in which we know it is not due to Shakespeare himself, but to his editors. There seems little reason for denying him the privilege of spelling the word in his own way. There is still another term, now not uncommon, which is found but once in his writings. But the villainous stuff which Henry IV.’s ambassador told Hotspur was digged from the bowels of the earth to destroy brave men, was not salt-petre, as modern editions have it, but salt-peter in the original.[14]
These are all the disputed words of this class which are found in the poems of Shakespeare as well as in his plays, as also the number of times of their occurrence. Facts of this sort are familiar, at least in a general way, to all special students of our speech. But even from the highly educated they are hidden more or less, and in many cases hidden altogether. These see ordinarily nothing but modern editions of the greatest writers; and in modern editions modern orthography is substituted for the orthography which the authors of the past favored, or at least endured. The result is that the feeling of association which attaches to every word a particular form is never subjected to the counteracting influence which would spring from coming even into occasional contact with the earlier usage. The strength of this feeling has in consequence become abnormal. From it has further developed the singular belief of the orthographically uneducated that the present spelling is somehow bound up with the purity of the language, if not with its continued existence.
It is because I look upon this sentiment of association as the main bulwark of our present orthography that I have always taken the ground that it is only through a rising generation that any thorough-going reform can ever be accomplished. It is asking too much of human nature to expect a generation already risen to go a second time through the fiery ordeal of learning to spell. Individuals belonging to it will adopt proposed changes, especially those in whom conviction is reinforced by the energy of youth or of personal character. Of these there will be a regularly increasing number with the enlightenment which is sure to follow discussion of the subject. But the action of the great mass of even highly educated men will not be affected. This state of things would probably be true of the spelling of any language; but in one so defiant of all law as our own, the aversion to change would increase in proportion to the lawlessness. We are not disposed to give up what with so much toil we have acquired. Furthermore, there comes to be in the minds of many a certain fondness for the existing orthography because of its very irrationality, of its constant unfitness to fulfil its professed aim of representing pronunciation. Its uncouthness inspires them with the same sort of devotion with which the lower order of savage tribes regard their gods. The uglier they are, the more fervently they are adored.
In the case of a rising generation there are no such feelings to be encountered. The soil is virgin. No prejudices are to be overcome, no sentiments to be shocked, no customs to be changed. The reasoning powers have not been so blunted by association that the mind looks with favor upon what is defiant of reason. Furthermore, about the changed and correct forms would speedily gather the same sentiment which has caused the previous forms to be cherished by their elders. The younger generation will in time do more than look upon the new spellings as the only conceivably rational ones. They will wonder by what perversity their fathers came to tolerate the old ones in defiance of reason. If a child has been accustomed from his earliest years to use exclusively the forms vext and mixt, the spellings vexed and mixed will not only seem offensive to him when he becomes a man, but it will be difficult for him to comprehend the precise nature of the irrationality which could ever have insisted upon it as a virtue that the combination ed should have the sound of t.
A risen generation, accordingly, cannot reasonably be expected to adopt a new spelling. The most that can be asked of it is that it shall not put itself in active opposition, that it shall let the task of improving our present barbarous orthography go on unimpeded. This, however, is the very last thing it is inclined to do. The fathers have eaten sour grapes; they have no intention of keeping their children’s children’s teeth from being set on edge. Yet there is plainly to be recognized now the existence of a steadily increasing number of persons who are disposed to consider this whole question carefully. In the case of such men—upon whose co-operation the success of any movement must ultimately depend—it is all-essential that the changes proposed should recommend themselves by their manifest propriety or by the probability of their general acceptance. They may be unwilling to take the trouble to use these new forms in their own practice, even if convinced of their desirableness; but they will be ready to cast their influence in favor of their adoption by the members of that rising generation to whom the spelling of certain words in certain ways has not yet become almost a second nature.
The permanent success of any spelling reform, according to this view, depends upon its adoption by a rising generation. To have it so adopted, it must recommend itself to the risen generation as being both desirable and feasible. Unreasoning ignorance, intrenched behind a rampart of prejudice, can be ignored. Not so the honest ignorance of those whose training naturally inclines them to favor what has been long received, but who are not averse to consider the question in dispute fully and fairly. In any case the changes proposed, in order to succeed, must follow the line of least resistance; for they have to encounter that peculiarly formidable of hostile forces—the unintelligent opposition of the intelligent. The altered forms recommended for adoption must, therefore, have at the outset some support either in present or past usage, or they must be in accord with the operation of some law modifying orthography, which has always been steadily, even if imperceptibly, at work in the language.
It is because it does not conform to either of these principles that, had I had anything to say about it, I should have objected to the recommendation of the spelling thru. My reasons for taking such ground would have had nothing to do with the abstract propriety or impropriety of the new form. Nor could exception be taken to it on the score of derivation. The original word, indeed, from which it came was thurh. Later this appeared at times as thruh. No fault could, therefore, be found with the alteration beyond the dropping of the sign of the no longer pronounced guttural. It is not principle, therefore, that would have come into the consideration of it, but expediency. I should have objected to it solely on the ground that it is a violent break with the literary past. Therefore, instead of following the line of least resistance, it would follow the line of greatest. It would be sure, in consequence, to excite bitter hostility and to repel support from the other recommendations made. Its adoption into the list would, therefore, not have seemed to me good policy. This is a view of the matter entirely independent of my personal indisposition to favor vowel changes in the spelling until a settled plan for the representation of the vowel sounds has been agreed upon and accepted. Yet it is fair to add that in consequence of the frequency with which the new form has been made the subject of attack, the sense of strangeness and the resultant hostility with which it was first greeted have now largely worn away.
It has been asserted that hostility to the very idea of reforming the spelling has largely its source in the erroneous beliefs, with the prejudices engendered of them, that have come to prevail in consequence of tampering with the orthography found in the works of the past, and reproducing them in the orthography of the present. In time, and with effort, the widely diffused ignorance so generated can be trusted to disappear. But even when this obstacle is removed, another of the same general nature still remains. It is, perhaps, full as formidable. There is no reference here to the difficulty inherent in the very character of our spelling—a difficulty that is far the most serious of all. This is, however, a subject which will come up for consideration by itself. The obstacle here in mind lies in the very nature of the men of our race. It is an obstruction by no means confined to them; only in them it is more pronounced than in the case of other nations with other tongues. The English-speaking people, in their attempts at carrying out any reform, are little inclined to act logically. They do not place clearly before themselves the exact nature of the evil they propose to attack, and then set out to extirpate it root and branch, according to certain well-defined principles. On the contrary, they work by the rule of thumb. They find a flaw here, a defect there. They then proceed to remedy it as best they can without disturbing and disarranging the rest of the structure. Accordingly, no symmetry is displayed in the character of the alteration made and no perfection in the result.
Still, about this method there are manifest advantages. Whatever changes are effected are effected with the least possible friction, and after the least possible struggle. They are brought about so gradually that the minds of men are comparatively little disturbed by the break with the past which has been made. There still remain relics of its absurdities with which they can console themselves for what they have lost. Consequently, the alterations, however much an object of dislike, cause nothing of that intense hostility which attends any scientific and, therefore, sweeping reform.
In this respect our race stands in sharpest contrast with that foreign one with which its connections have been closest—which has often been its enemy and occasionally its ally. The French mind, unlike the English, is by nature severe and logical. It cares little for precedent. It fixes its eyes upon principle. It is disposed to follow any reform it accepts to its remotest conclusion. It drops without hesitation long-cherished excrescences, brings order out of chaos, even if in so doing it is forced to disregard traditions and override cherished sentiments. We can see the attitude of the French mind as contrasted with that of the English best illustrated in comparatively recent French history. The Revolution was a period of storm and stress. Things were then attempted which would hardly have been thought of, far less tried, at any ordinary period. But the point here is that such things could never have been carried out by the men of the English race at the most extraordinary period. It is not merely that they would not have been done; they would not have been contemplated. To unify France, for illustration, it was essential, in the eyes of the revolutionists, that the ancient provinces should be obliterated, so far as their size would permit their entire effacement. They therefore cut up the land into departments. In these the old boundaries were disregarded. Sections of different provinces were brought into political union wherever practicable. New affiliations were to take the place of the old. The idea of federation was to be destroyed. The provinces were to be made to disappear as living entities from the minds of men. In place of them the department, a purely artificial creation, was to be constantly before their eyes. Men were no longer to be Normans or Bretons or Gascons or Burgundians; they were to be simply Frenchmen. In diverting the thought of the people from the provinces to the whole country, the reformers had no hesitation in uprooting the traditions and common associations which the inhabitants of these provinces had inherited from the past, and in running counter to sentiments which had been the outgrowth of centuries.
It is safe to say that in the time of most violent revolution, no idea of this sort would occur to the men of the English-speaking races. Even in the case of the counties of Great Britain, where the tie is by no means strong, it can hardly be conceived as undergoing consideration. But contemplate the reception that would be given to the project of breaking up the United States into a series of departments, or provinces, in which the present boundaries should be obliterated, and in which all the members should have, as far as possible, the same size or the same population! Now there would be with us no advantage worth mentioning in any such action. But suppose there would arise from it advantages which every one would admit to be of the most immense and far-reaching importance? Even in that case, imagine the favor any such proposition would meet with, and the chances there would be for its adoption. Yet this is something which revolutionary France not only set out to accomplish, but actually did accomplish. She accomplished it, too, not in the case of political entities which, as with us, had often only a few years of existence, and at best but two or three hundred, but in the case of provinces whose history went back to the very beginnings of modern Europe. She overrode all local ties, all provincial prejudices, in her resolution that her inhabitants should no longer be citizens of Provence or Normandy or Brittany, but citizens only of France.
Exactly the same thing may be said of another experiment then made. It is practically inconceivable to imagine the men of our race, on their own initiative, devising and setting up such a violent alteration of all existing practices as was involved in the introduction, in 1799, of the metrical system of weights and measures. There is no need of discussing here its abstract superiority or inferiority. The only point to be made prominent is that the English could not, or at least would not, have gone at the problem that way. Even if they had solved it to their satisfaction, they would not have thought of at once proceeding to put into practice the conclusions reached. The French mind, clear and logical, saw, as it believed, the advantage of a uniform system of weights and measures. One method, for illustration, of weight for gold and silver, another for drugs and chemicals, another for ordinary objects, struck them as having no justification in reason. They took advantage of a period when all ancient beliefs and customs were on trial for their life to reduce these varying practices to uniformity. They created a commission of men to study the subject. To them they intrusted the consideration of it, and instructed them to report the measures that ought to be taken. Once satisfied that their recommendations were worthy of adoption, they did not, as would have been done with us, pigeon-hole the report containing them. Instead, they enacted them into law and imposed them upon the whole country, whether men were willing to accept them or averse.
This is the way the French mind works, or, rather, is disposed to work; for the things accomplished then could not have been accomplished so suddenly, if even at all, in any ordinary period. But the English mind does not act in that way. Just as it is in the French blood to reduce everything to a system of orderly completeness, no matter what inconveniences may attend the process, so it is in our blood to love an anomaly for its own sake, frequently to extol it as something desirable in itself. This difference of mental attitude between the two races is made strikingly manifest in their treatment of this very subject of spelling. A difficulty of somewhat the same nature, though far less in degree, confronts the French as confronts the English. Their orthography is wretched. It is not by any means so wretched as ours. Still, it is bad enough to attract the attention of men of learning and of those engaged in the business of education. The evil was admitted. What should be the nature of the remedy? To what extent should, or rather could, reform of the orthography be carried? These are not revolutionary times, and things which are capable of being carried through in revolutionary times cannot even be attempted now. Therefore, one point assumed the place of prominence. This was not what it was theoretically desirable to do, but what, under modern conditions, it was practicable to do. Accordingly, as far back as 1903, the French government appointed a commission to consider the matter. It embraced some of the most eminent scholars. The committee made a report, which was submitted by the government to the French Academy. Disagreement arose, not so much on matters of principle as of detail. A second commission was appointed to prepare a final plan upon which the minister of public instruction could take action. Its report has been published and its conclusions promulgated. They are not binding, to be sure. Yet, with the weight of the government and the French Academy behind them, it is merely a question of time when any changes recommended will be adopted by all.
It is evident from this one fact that the desire to make the spelling conform as far as possible to the pronunciation—the one object for which spelling was devised—is far from being confined to the men of the English-speaking race. Even when it cannot succeed in its main object, it aims to bring about uniformity by sweeping away the anomalous. The movement for spelling reform now going on with us is, therefore, no isolated undertaking. It is simply part of a world-wide movement in the interests of law and order. There is an intellectual conscience as well as a moral one. On this subject the intellectual conscience of the users of speech among all thoroughly enlightened nations has now been distinctly awakened. The only peculiarity about English is that the need of such an awakening is far more pressing than in other tongues, and the difficulty of discovering the right track to follow is far greater. Neither Italian nor Spanish requires any sweeping change. For all practical purposes, these tongues are phonetic. Irregularities can unquestionably be found, but they are neither numerous nor important. Above all, they do not affect the vital representation of pronunciation by giving, as with us, different signs to the same sound and different sounds to the same sign. Their deviation from the phonetic standard is confined to the retention of unnecessary letters. This is a matter that can be grappled with easily. On the limited scale it exists, it is not of much moment. Any variations from the ideal can be easily corrected if the project is once taken seriously in hand.
In German, the variation from the phonetic standard is greater than in the two tongues just mentioned. As compared with English, however, it is exceedingly slight. Even in those instances where it has different signs to represent the same sound, it does not, as is the case with our speech, make the confusion more confounded by giving to these same signs the representation of sounds altogether different. But the public mind is awake in Germany to the importance of this subject. Many of the more marked variations from the phonetic ideal have already been done away with by the action of the several governments. For, in Germany, a nation of scholars, the control of educational methods is immediately or remotely in the hands of scholars. These men, not satisfied with what has already been accomplished, are at work to do away with the anomalies that continue to exist. When once they come into accord over the measures to be adopted and the changes to be made, it is merely a question of time when their proposals will be carried into effect. The various governments will do the work of promulgation and enforcement. The reforms recommended will be embodied in the text-books and taught in the schools. That action once taken, the whole work itself has practically been done.
Unfortunately, none of the means just mentioned are practicable with us. The administration of education is nowhere in England or America really centralized, as it is in France and Germany. In those countries any changes which have behind them the best expert opinion can be carried through with comparative ease. The German government will venture on any educational experiments which have the united support of German scholars. In France the almost superstitious deference paid to the decisions of the Academy will cause any orthographic changes having the sanction of that body to be accepted by the great mass of the community. Individuals may growl, but they will submit. More than once the Academy has recommended reforms, and these have been adopted because they were so recommended. About the middle of the eighteenth century it altered the spelling of five thousand words. Perhaps it would be juster to say that it indicated, in the case of a number of these, what one should be adopted of several forms which were then in use. No one would think now of going back to those against which it then pronounced. When, therefore, the department of public instruction and the Academy work together in harmony, their union is irresistible. Once the reformed spelling is authorized to be taught in the public schools, the simpler forms can be trusted to work their way by that inherent strength of their own which comes from inherent sense. Of course, objection will be made; but it will manifest itself in little else but empty spluttering or impotent invective on the part of those who mistake custom and association for reason, and fancy that the life of a word is found in the form in which they are in the habit of seeing it clothed.
“They order these matters better in France,” are the words with which Sterne begins his Sentimental Journey. Any action of the sort just mentioned is impossible with the men of the English-speaking race. We have neither the machinery to use, nor the disposition to use it, if we had it. There is nowhere, either in England or America, any great centralized authority, literary or administrative, to which deference if not obedience is felt to be due. With us in the United States in particular, we have no national government which can authorize examination of the subject, still less enforce any action. As little respect is paid to the conclusions of scholars who have made the matter a special study. With a great body of men the words of the veriest ignoramus who is able to get access to the columns of a newspaper are as likely to be heeded as those of him who has spent years in the investigation of the character and history of English orthography. But if the ignoramus is merely an ignoramus in this subject, if he chances to be a man who has shown ability and gained deserved repute in some other distinct field of endeavor, the authority he has justly secured for himself in matters he knows a great deal about is transferred to any pronouncements he chooses to make in a matter he knows little or nothing about. In considering the construction or reconstruction of a bridge or building, every one is willing to defer to the judgment of experts. When, however, it comes to the consideration of spelling, there is no one who does not have the comfortable consciousness that on this question his opinion is distinctly more valuable than the conclusions reached by the wretched cranks who have taken pains to master the subject, and are necessarily hampered in the views they entertain by the knowledge they have been unfortunate enough to acquire.
Therefore, as contrasted with other nations and races, we are at a disadvantage. We have not the controlling influence of an academy. The government cannot well take the initiative. If one party embraced it, the other party would be fairly sure to set itself in opposition. This would not be necessarily because of any dislike to the project itself, but for the sake of making party capital. “If I were younger,” once remarked Gladstone, speaking of the spelling, “I would gladly take hold of this reform.” Had he done so, can any one doubt that whatever scheme he proposed would have had arrayed against it all those who were hostile to the views he advocated on other subjects, irrespective of any feelings they chanced to entertain on this particular one. Political machinery, so constantly used to effect reforms, is consequently barred. In every English-speaking country the general government cannot well take any action, except under the impulse of a popular demand too wide-spread and too powerful to be resisted. There is, furthermore, in this country a special difficulty. In America it is not the action of the general government that is of importance, but the independent action of the several states. Even if reform were carried through in some of them, there would always be danger of discordant measures being taken in others.
Only one resource, therefore, is left to the men of English-speaking countries. It is by the slow processes of discussion and agitation. The great mass of men must be convinced by methods which will convey to the general mind the truths that are known now only to the few. They must be made to see both the desirableness and the practicability of change before any wide-reaching results can be secured. They must be made to see the futility of the arguments by which men seek to bolster up the pretensions of the existing orthography; the waste of time and efforts involved in its acquisition, and even in its use. More than all—though this is a matter little touched upon—they must be made to recognize the actual mental injury wrought to the young by its present condition. The accomplishment of this is not merely a great work, but in English-speaking lands it is one peculiarly difficult. In other countries it is necessary to convince those who have more or less studied the subject; for in their hands lies largely the control of the machinery of education. But with us it is necessary to convince those who are unfamiliar with the subject, and who not unfrequently have had their ignorance strongly reinforced by prejudice. In the multitude of these is found no small proportion of the educated class.