[11] Sonnets, cxlvi.
[12] Sonnets, xvii.
[13] Venus and Adonis, l. 931.
[14] I Henry IV., act i., scene 3.
CHAPTER II
ATTITUDE OF THE EDUCATED
The unintelligent opposition of the intelligent! I have specified this as the most formidable of the active forces hostile to reform of English orthography. No duty is imposed upon those who have that end in view more arduous than that of propagating knowledge among the educated classes. It is hard to enlighten the ignorant man. But as regards this particular subject, his mind is practically a blank page. As he has not mastered the conventional spelling, he not only has no knowledge of it, but he is aware that he has no knowledge of it. But in the case of the educated man there is nothing of this open-mindedness. In his opinion he knows already everything about the subject that can be known or that is necessary to be known. It is only within a very recent period that he has begun to suspect his limitations. Only within a recent period has he exhibited any hesitation about exposing to the gaze of the public the scantiness of the intellectual wardrobe with which he is clad.
This imputation of ignorance of the subject has been much resented. Nowhere has the resentment been keener than where the ignorance is manifestly profoundest. To the fact itself not any opprobrium necessarily attaches. No educated man considers it discreditable to lack knowledge of the chemical constituents of the food he eats, or of the things he sees and handles every day. If, indeed, because of his familiarity with these objects, he fancies that he is competent to form a judgment about their properties and draws conclusions as to their use, then his course becomes objectionable. It is exactly so in language. Pronunciation, and the proper way of representing it in spelling, and the ways in which it has been represented at various periods—these are subjects which demand long and severe study before one has a right even to state facts. Naturally, still less has he a right to draw conclusions. He who presumes to sit in judgment upon the questions in controversy without having undergone this preliminary training, no matter if he possess ability, has little reason to complain if his pretensions meet with a good deal of contempt from those who have paid even a comparatively slight attention to the subject. That his utterances are received with favor by a public as ignorant as himself is no evidence of his fitness to discuss the matter in dispute. It is simply proof of the existence of that wide-spread belief in the community, that because a person may have attained deserved eminence in some field of literary activity, about which he knows a great deal, he is therefore entitled to speak with authority in some other field of which he knows little or nothing.
This unintelligent hostility of the intelligent is an obstacle peculiarly difficult to overcome, because it is based upon the combination of the minimum of knowledge with the maximum of prejudice. These characteristics frequently meet, too, in those who on other disputed subjects have the right to demand respectful attention to all they choose to say. To this class belong many men of letters—not by any means all of them, and far more of them in England than in America. Some of these have made themselves conspicuous by the violence of their utterances, some by the extent of their misapprehension of the question at issue, and some by the display of a store of misinformation so vast and varied that one gets the impression that no small share of their lives must have been spent in accumulating it. To many persons it does not seem to occur that before discussing English orthography it is desirable to equip one’s self with at least an elementary knowledge of its character and history. As the acquisition of this preliminary information is not deemed essential, there is little limit to the surprising statements made upon this subject and the more surprising facts by which they are fortified. The annals of fatuity will in truth be searched in vain for utterances more fatuous than some of those produced in the course of the controversy aroused by the President’s order. There is a strong temptation to substantiate this assertion by illustrating it from sayings and writings of those who took a part in it opposed to spelling reform. But it is not desirable to impart to the discussion of the subject a personal character by selecting such examples from the utterances of living persons. That the statement of the ignorance of men of letters is not unwarranted, however, can be shown as well by bringing in the testimony of the dead. In this instance it will be taken from an author of the past generation, of highest literary eminence.
Many will remember an essay of Matthew Arnold on the influence of academies, that panacea for all literary and linguistic ills so constantly held before our eyes. According to him they raised the general standard of knowledge so high that no one could wantonly run counter to its requirements and escape with impunity. The force of critical opinion would control the vagaries and correct the extravagant assertions of the most learned. In the case of our own tongue he adduced an illustration of the injury wrought to the language by the lack of such a central authority. It was taken from what he told us was one of those eccentric violations of correct orthography in which men of our race wilfully indulge. The offender was the London Times. That paper for a good part of the nineteenth century was addicted to printing the word diocese as diocess.
This act aroused Arnold’s indignation. It is clear from his words that resentment for the course of the London Times in this matter had long been rankling in his bosom. A lawless practice of such a sort could not have been possible, he felt, in a country where speech had been subjected to the beneficial sway of an academy. Only in a land where no restraining influence was exerted upon the performances of the educated class could such a violation of linguistic knowledge and literary good taste be permitted. Here are his words: