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.