Mower County transcript. [volume] (Lansing, Minn.) 1868-1915, 1879-06-19

feature. and the remarkable success that
has been achieved in rendering ii lncom-
except through years o.
not study, but the examining of the mem
ory with the arbitrary forms OF words
which have nological excuse Tor .oe1ng.
A bank safe lock constructed with the
same ingenuity would make the fortune
Of its inventor. There is no key. NO
burglar could find out the combination,
and only long years OF industrious pore |
ing would gain access to the treasure
within. t... 49,
'><Lsnguage is simply tool with when
to acquire knowledge, yet one Is ooiseo
to waste half dozen or more "f the oest
wears of life in learning howto use this H.
strument, and then is hardly ever sure that
he uses it right. Is it not surprising that
in this age of wonderfully perfect
mechanism, when ordinary lahor is light
ened by the invention of innumerahle
machines that do their work with almost
human intelligence and more than
human precision and speed, this tool OF
language, which unlocks all Knowledge
should be left in its preseD, cumbersome,
illogical and imperfect state! Our an
cestors of 5000 years ago had no other
plow than forked stick with which they
rudelv scratched the bosom Of the earth,
while to-day we have agricultural ma.
chimes that do the work of hundred
men and horses; yet this implement OF
language is in many respects, il not otto
retGer, inferior to that used by the Aryan
Hindus thirty centuries ago. In the DO.
main IF mechanics we Invent new tool
better than the old, every day; the lnstru-
ment that was thought good yesterday Is
thrown aside for the better one To-Day,
which IN its turn will be superseded by a
more perfect: yet tbs most important ln'
strument of language remains rs rude IN
construction, so far as its orlhography Is
concerned, as the weapons OF tile savage
! Stone Age. Improvements come ana
| improvements go, but this spelling sch"ol
goes on forever. English speech is Sec
0nd to no other in its power to express
buWan !he9ght ARa o. II is ddRt6A9e,s ?s1bSS
ken wherever the Briareus arms of trade
have reached, and destined, perhaps, to
become the universal language OF the
civilized world, it seems the more unfor'
tunate that it shonld he so heavily hand
icapped IN its written form.
There are about forty sounds in the
English language, TO represent which We
have but twenty six letters. This serious
detect is probably due to the fact that VT
received our alpha bet and our spoken
language from different sources, and that
the alphabet was devised to represent q
language differing from ours very materi
ally in the number and quality Of it
sounds. 1t was therefore found necessary
to combine these letters in order 10 ex
press certain sounds and IN these comb
nations caprice has been followed rather
than method and rule.
Everybody agrees that the style OF
spelling that has grown into use is abom.
Unable, and few people believe that a
reform IS practicable. Various plans Of
phonetic spelling have been put forth
most of which have been based upon the
principle, which is indlsputahly the true
one, of having separate letter for each
sound in the language. This method in
volved the necessity Of employing q
dozen or more new letters which are un
familiar to the eye, and which make a
page Of printed matter appear about
as unattractive and unintelligible to the
unaccustomed reader as q page Of q
Welsh prayer book. This objection OF
learning new characters, as we'll as the
expense to printers Of making so radical
a change, has prevented phonetic spelling
from making much progress, and the ad
vocates of spelling reform have now very
generally come to the conclusion that the
change must he made gradually, and thai
for time :he old lett ers must be used.
! By this plan the twenty-six letter. o,
the roeman alfabet viii be employed fol
thare moest uzueal soundz, and the re
naming soundz vii be denoted by die
grafs-that il by tn le!erz combieni; az
sh for the ferst sound in ship, til for tha
In then, &c tor that in eel, cts. Theze
and all luther cOmbinaishOns Ov letter.
viii be employed under rule; so that, II
the same pozishon, serten Letter or die
graf will aulwayz reprezent the same
sound. This il the case in the Jermar
language, and Jerman children lern tn
reed and spell rite away after !erning the
alfabet; becauz in in GERMAN the letter. 9ni
by the adopshon ov simplified spelling.
1t looks queer beca1z it IL new but it IL
perfectly legibl and eezy tn reed.
The last paragraph is printed accord
ing to the plan of phonetic spelling de-
vised by Mrs. Eliza Boardman Burns, of
New York, and is very similar to a plan
suggested about the same time it was pub.
lished, 1876 but quite Independently BY
Mr.. E. Jones, of Liverpool, England.
Airs. Burns has been an earnest, energetic
and successful worker in the special field
of pbonetics for nearly thirty years, as a
teacher of photography and Of phonetic
spelling. She has proved, in teaching
her own and hundreds of other children,
tue practical utility and great advantage,
OF teaching children TO read by the pho.
netlc method; they learn with greater ease
and rapidly, their pronunciation is m ore
accurate and they make the transition
to the ordinary spelling with compare
lively little difficulty. Children taught
ln this way become better readers in a
shorter tine than when they attack in
the beginning Of their studies the mons
trous photography which COMO unds their
infant reason. c..