Mineral Point tribune. (Mineral Point, Wis.) 1869-1938, 1879-02-12

/ IL lle purchase OF textbooks. the adj
vantage which naturally and properly
pertains to Ell purchases made in the
gross; ~ o. introducing and maintain
ing, under state authority and regula-
ton, the principle of competition on
the part of book publishers offering
textbooks for the use Of schools in this
state; and az by atiording to home
talent and home capital the same
opportunity for supplying our people
with acceptable textbooks, that is now
afforded to authors and publishers re-
siding without the state. In Offering
this bill for the consideration of your
honorable body, this commission does
not assume to claim that it is necessarily
complete in form, nor would the COM
mission desire to arrogate to itself a
legislative prerogatlve to such an ex-
tent as to prescribe arbitrarily the form
in which the purpose sought to be ac.
complished, should be embodied; but
simply and solely to express the convic-
ton that the measure proposed embod-
les the most practical method at pres
ent attainable for ehecting the benef-
cent purpose expressed in the act of the
legislature, by virtue of which this re-
port is made.
SPELLING REFORM.
! In comparison with the photography
| of most of the modern languages, that of
our own language is discreditably dis
cordant, disorganized, and deficient. In
| the Geographic languages characteristic
of people of less advanced civilization,
| the pupil is at least permitted the aid of
a certain degree of correspondence be.
tweenthe TIL ought expressed and its writ,
ten symbol TO this extent he has the
advantage of the pupil in our own
| schools, who is left no alternative but to
memorize the awkward and manifold de-
vices and combinations by which the
sounds of our spoken language are COM
mitted to paper. Nor is the task I'M
posed upon the English pupil ever com
| pleted. Years Of study in school, sup
plemented by years of patient care and
attention in business or professional
| life, rarely ensures perfect results in this
practically important department of per
sonal education. The aggregate loss
from this cause, in the results of human
effort and enterprise cannot be over-esti-
mated or sufficiently deplored. The
difficulties which invest this question, re
late almost exclusively to the vowels of
the alphabet, and in the use of silent and
supernumerary letters In our written
words, the vowel has at least six
sounds, three, ! two four, four
making nineteen distinct sounds for six
letters. If we add the number of sounds
expressed by combinations of vowels we
shall find that we have not less than
twenty-four sounds in all, for which our
alphabet provides but six signs. In a
paper once presented to the British par
lament by Edmund Burke, it was claim
ed that not less than nine different mean
ings, or sounds, could be found in Eng
glish words for the one letter q, while
the abuses of the five remaining vowels
were declared to be equally various and
unnatural. Sounds not represented by
any letter ofthe alphabet are expressed
by so many different methods as the in
genuity of man can invent and by COM
binations which no rule will explain,
and which no degree of patience and per
severance in study can thoroughly and
satisfactorily interpret
In his dictionary, Noah Webster at
tempted 10 indicate the pronunciation
of English words by a system of diacrit-
ical marks applied to vowels, thereby
virtually multiplying the number of
vowels belonging to the alphabet, and to
that extent recognizing the principle
sought to be practicalized by the adyo-
Gates of photographed reform. In some
or all of the readers adopted for use in
our public schools, similar eXpedient
is resorted to, by way of relieving pupils
from some part of the burden of learning
to read and spell by means Of signs
otherwise almost wholly illogical and ar
bitrary. In limited way, these devices
seem to modify, but not to remove the
obscurity ana confusion. The first les
son the child learns from his spelling
book, under ordinary circumstances, is,
that to reason is crime. He finds, for
example, that the letter Il has one mean
ing in the word fate, but another in fast,
another in fall and another III far; that
the letter is not sufficiently signitied by
the use of the letter itself, but by a null
titudinous and disheartening combna-
ton of signs, as illustrated in the words
ere 5io1C, door, foe, selc, dough, beGU coal,
ye0mdn e0llrt, aud Sp0rd; that the letter
in the words done, come, son, etc, is not
0 at all; that the sound of is spelled
without the use of that letter in such
words as 6B bQy bye, my and rye; and
that when that letter is actually employ.
ed to express a sound, it often means
something wholly different from itself,
as in the words is, tin, and If
In his efforts to cOnstrue combinations
of letters, the pupil fares no better, The
letters al in jail are not the same in said
the letters 60 in people are something else
in yeomalt, and something elso in pigeon,
while 0ugh means o in dough-, 90 in
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