The Yolk of Tyranny
The girl who describes a prayer-book as a book with "guilt" edges is almost guilty of profanation. Tell her this, and so far is this sort of girl from being a hardened sinner that the strong likelihood is that she will never again commit this error. An appeal to her heart is always better than an appeal to her head. This fact was realised by the Israelite who said to a young maiden of this type who had written "sinagog" for "synagogue," "You must not spell the name of our temple like that. It is not only incorrect, but very unkind spelling."
"I will never spell so again," was the young maiden's answer.
Sometimes the defence of her spelling put forward by the girl of sentimental rather than logical bias is very remarkable. "'Court-material,'" said recently a young English damsel who had written "court-material" for "court-martial," "makes quite as much sense to me as 'court-martial.'"
The objection to this form is, of course, that it does not make quite as much sense to other people.
It may be asked now, Does the non-sentimental girl experience no difficulties in connection with spelling? Certainly she does. She was heard the other day saying that the word assassination had been a standing difficulty to her until another girl told her that it began with "two asses" as thus, ass-ass-ination. The non-sentimental girl has also been known to say, looking up from a book—
UNDER A BAD SPELL
"Hullo, here's 'wobble' spelt not with an 'o' but with an 'a'—'wabble.' Now I wonder which is the right spelling."