The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1869-03-27 00:00:00

BAD SPELLING.

The following article on " had spelling," from the Spectator,
may be useful (0 mahy readers e, 0 are more desirous of
being designated rapid than correct writers :

No amount of practice which schooltime will allow,
and no system of dictation, however careful. can cover
the area of the English language, and in English the
sound of words is not only no guide to their spelling,
hut is a direct source ~f error, while the principles ot
the art cannot he reduced to formulas. It is on'y by
reading that real accuracy can be attained, and at least
half of mankind will not voluntarily read. Even
readers, unites they take some lot-rest in etymology,
or have a liking for accuracy, or are moved by that idea
of caste—which, in England, is fortunately on the side
of correct spelling, and which protects our etymology
better than any academy could ,o--find the burden
So many words too much for their memories. A few
boys and girls acquire the art by some process which
seems intuitive, and spell perfectly years befoie they
can by possibility have read half the words they aro
ultimately required to use. The writer has known a
child ,d eight to whom a blundering spelling seemed
lan impossibility, who would spell with instant
readiiii sa words of which he had never previously
heard ; but that is a faculty, like the faculty for
rhythm, sometimes found in chil ren who are totally
devoid of what is technically called "ear."

The majority have to le am spelling as they learn
arithmetic, and a minority, uninterested in the study,
defy the efforts of their teachers, and to the end of
their dai s need dicti navies for any lengthy composi-
tion. Printers all know how very little the spelling
even of the best educated is to be trusted, and we have
reason to believe that if English journalists were
weeded by an examination in which etymological
accuracy was the sine qad non, the profession would
lose some very competent members. One occasional
contributor to this journal, a man whose education has
been iLf a singularly-perfect kind, and who is a
true scholar in his way, never sends in a con-
tribution without half.aetiozen eti mological errors,
and there are double•firsts who would rather
trust themselves in Greek than Eoglis4 without a
pocket dictionary. It is a curious proof of The accuracy
of this view, that the commercial schools which profess
to teach, and du teach spelling, do not turn 'at spellers
half as accurate as the public schools, which profess to
teach nothing of the kind, and that hundreds of
persons leirn to spell, or rather begiu to op 11 well
habitually, only in manhood, that is when the atten-
tion has at last been aroused.
Whether the extreme case, that of a man of high
culture, who absolutely could not learn to spell ever
happened, we are uncertain; but almost all men who
have to read much manuscript believe it, and &kindred
inability, that of recollecting dates and figures, cer-
tainly does exist. But an inability to spell, arising
from a certain failure if interest in words, is a distinct
characteristic of English minds, and one which it re-
quires extraordinary effort to eradicate, more especially
among women.