, 1865-09-19
POPULAR EDUCATION.
Necessity OF Orthographic Refor1n.-
No. 2.

Necessity Of ortherssaphlc nefonn.-
Editors Chicago Tribune:
LETTERS" "says Webster, "are marka or
characters, written, printed, engraved or
painted used as the representative Of sound
or Of m articulation Of the human organs Of
speech. By sounds md articnlations or clos
ures Of the organs are formed syllab1es aud
words. Hence . letter Is the first element Of
m7suen language, ns simple sound Is the first
element Of spoken language or speech. As
sounds are audible aud communicate ideas to /
others By tho ear; SO letters ara visible repre-
seutatires of sounds, and communicate the
thoughts Of others BY means Of The eye.,"'~
II the alphabet Of our. language: wera en-.
p1oyed in accordance With the foregoing def |
nition, the task Of learning TO spell. !. and read
would be light and agreeable, rather. than
odious and difficult. Reader, sou may not
recollect whether you found 1t troublesome to |
educators viii Inform you that TO teach your |
children TO read i one Of the most i1ksome aud |
perhaps the most unthankful Office In which !
any person can BE- eugNged; that as Il Is i:u-
ely managed 1t Is a dreadful task to learn to |
read, and, # possible, still more dreadfnl
l
"busIness Of the elementary schoo1-its most |
ttelio1s aud difficult work. It Is the princl- |
"pal occupation Of our public schools, q |
"drndgery begun with tho first opening In
"telljEcnce Of child, and continued without
n5te1 = sshda a1t the List day which
: Ofau the written Languages Of the nations
Of the carth-tho Chinese possibly excepted
the English i tho most difficult and Intricate
to spell Intelligent foreigners dcclafe that
it Is an easier task to learn to spsak md write
French; Spanish and German, than TO master
the horrible orthography OF our tongue. Eng
lish orthography violates all phonetic rules
Indeed It Is perfectly lnwless. Each word Is
spelled arbitrarily, and IN. defance q rules,
*, 900 contained in tho language. The co11se-
quence Is, that the pupil Is Obliged or expect
edto co1nnit to memory, the spelling OF eaefs
word. Think Of the herculean task of memo
rtzing 90 ,0o0 words, What bsatn Is equalto II:
The man or woman neTcr Iyed who could
spcllall tie words IN our language Ine ae-
Grec Of proficiency Of any person u orthoEfa. 1
ply depends-1st on tho retenttvencss Of Ills
memory, Cd on his application to tho spelling
book and dictionary, Sd to the number
Of years he derote5 to the pursuit,
4th to Lis subsequent pursuit Of profession.
ter, be will retain what be learned at school
and add TO 1t. II lawyer, recorder; clergy
mn or teacher, he may hold Ills own, gaining
something and losing something, according to
his teuac1ty Of memory md ambition forncc
racy. But ii. the indivldual belongs to tho
great industrial classes farmer, uechanic or
laborcr-the chances are strong that each
wear after leaving school his orthograpiy will
dcterioratc. BE will forget how to spell
uany words that he once knew, ind In writing
| he will narrow his catalogue Of words re-
stricting himself to those in most frequent use
and easiest to SPELL. and with these prccau-
| tions le viii still make bad work Of It, and
! subject himself to the laughter and ridicale OF
those who read his lettcss-if they happen not
to bare forgotten low to spcu those words.
| Tie root Of the trouble lies in the fact that
I or languaye is not spelled according to the
! are employed arbitrarily aaood cccentftcally.
| The sound Of tue fettera Is no Indication to
| the sound Of the word. =;
| The time which The great industrial classes
can spare TO their children to attend school,
| is wholly inadequate to the mastery Of our
shocking orthograply, and tie vast majority
Of pupils Of our common schools go hence
with nothing but smatteriug Of 1t, and that
| little they begin to forget after they leave
school. They learn to read somewhat easier
.tan to spell, because the eye assists tho
memory 10 rccall the nanc the teacher gave
10 an arbitrary group Of letters Foe all
practical purposes, the words arc nero hireo-
| glyphics-each must be remembered from tho
nnnc affixed to it BY the instructor. To pro-
naunce words as tic sounds Of the letters In
dicatc would be to mt:cal nincty:nlnc Of
them out Of every hundred. In reading q
book or newspaper, tho adult Is
able to recollect the pronunciation from
the general appearance Of the Wordss the
| eye Il powerful assistant Of the memory: 1t
t is much easier to remember mans face than
remarkably In recalling his name. Thus the
child can b. drilled to read more words than
1t can spell correctly but b3th aze tedious
processes andwould be wholly unnecessary, If
the Language were spelled properly: English
orthogmphy defeats the grand end and pur-
Is now spelled We might rs we'll throw away
| the alphabet, ns It sccr1s rnthcr to confuse
md pcrp1cx than 10 Instruct. No letter;
espc&ly no vowel, has my certain orrelfah1e
| ofic6 N duty to perform. We have twenty
lettsss each with Effp;asafSe fIp;arS,nnsnh1 namS
Sst Sns tnss nc de,e 60 porot daty
Is assigned to anr. In one word 4 letter has
its own sound, In another 1t usurps the fhu:-
| tions Of some other letter; in the next word
sound: often the same letter Is Eepeatea-lhe
two doing the duty Of one. In other cases
| two or thIec letters unite 10 usurp the func-
ticns Of letter which rcvenges Itself BY
usurping their offices In other words! Then,
again, a vocal SQUAD which has symbol OF
1 1T~"-N-
for several rocal sounds which have no sym
bo1s. There are al 1east twelve distinct vowel
sounds In our tongue, but wo have only fire
vowel characters to represent them.
The consonauts, twenty-ono In num-
three Of them being redundant, stand
for tweuty-four articnlat1ous. But In pluctfce
they arc multiplied into 1a5 confusing md ar
bitrary combinations called stligrap pha.n The
FIVE soweis arc also by the same process 1nnl,
fts,3fa1 ;nfr, 1ppr1 than I'm limit h0I]nq nnH
combinations Hence, instead of there being
but twenty-six symbols In the faugunEc, there
are In uke nearly three hundred! Tie whole
number Of distinct elementary sounds Il but
equivalent ia thrcc hundred clla.acters, In tha
shape Of dfgIaphs, diphth0ngs and inter-
changes, 10 represent them :! The proof Of
this astonishing assertion will appear In due
time. An experienced teacher, writing on the
tshorrorsr Of English orthogrnphs, says:
.1fyou onfy remember that each letter in tho al
| phuhci mar hayr ono or two tonuds aad that &cve-
fa letters baye haEadozcn meanings, or more, and
al, yoa On vii at once nc ees whai confs!on aue,, Law
| l.rkuess mast create N chtd's mind. Look at a
il any. ea!ma; &ass get,eE nains hat rates s
5tou1an gai.on; Leopard, dungeon; ftod, theoloSy,
zyt NJ tSe1 meanSns il ro,a Fao!s mode modest;
eas ea:e aaR tx! Kass sys;s haao nas
a. e Fsaa'sa sata e.. fseiof ossa s toeR e'.
signef; assignee, ind.et. in.neton, oper, lorer,
n nd l. e n On fSa w., s hD1 p 81
mere1y gHtss how to pronounce d word they hare
ory seen an never heasa and ynK = = 1nas ,, tne
dueut and good tcadcts-"
: This is fair average bnt very small sample
. Of the whole written language. Tbs force o1
:habit-the invincible pawcr Of usage-has In
great measure reconcl1ed us to the continu'