The Wellington enterprise. [volume] (Wellington, Ohio) 1867-188?, 1879-08-28
What An Editor Says Of Spelling Re.
form In Journalism.

What An Editor Says Of Spelling Re-
form In Journalism.
At the annual Convention of the
Spelling Reform Association in Phila-
per on " The Spelling Reform in Jour-
nalism' was read by S. N. d. North,
of the Utica IN. " Herald. The fol-
lowing is an abstract:
If language, as the satirist says, was
given to man to conceal his thots, the
English spelling must have been in
vented to prevent any thinking at al.
But if, as we believe, language has a
hier purpose-and that the hiest pur-
pose concevabl in q human invention
spelling shares that purpose, for it is
the vehicl by which language is abl to
transmit and preserve human thot.
Spelling can no more be fetered than
the language which it embodies, or the
mind that speaks thro the language.
Changes both of language and spelling
are as inevitabl as the development Of
the human race to which they bear
witnes. They ar dependent upon cir
cumstances; but they viii never cese
until humanity ceses to NOV forward or
backward. The development of Ian
guage is beyond the reach of human
law; but its spelling is q machinery with
adjustabl parts, wholly within the con-
trole both of law and reason This As
sociation seeks to govern these changes
in spelling; to direct and acselerate
them by the application of scientific
method to the evolution which neither
prejudic, nor habit, nor q fixed litera-
ture can permanently retard.
There is now but one serious impedi-
ment in the way of the rapid introduce
ton of reformed English spelling.
The general acceptance, among those
whose opinion carries waite, of the alb
stract principles of the Spelling Reform
Association, affords every encourage
ment to zelus perseverance. But, in
spite of it, the spelling reform drags.
The difficulty, like that which confronts
the wud-be swimmer, is to take the
first plung. No man likes to spell
foneticaly, while al his nabors are
spelling with a dictionary at their elbo.
No publisher cares to dres his books in
reformed spelling when his readers ar
still welded to deformed spelling. The
spelling Association may isue its bule-
tins; the professors may recomend; the
biologists may demonstrate the absurd
ity of this voluntary slavery; but still il
continues. Wher shal beginning be
madep 1t is left for American journal
inns to make it.
Language and journalism hav his
tory in larg part comon to both. Both
ar groths, expanding and changing, alb
sorbing and rejecting, in obedienc to
laws which govern the worlds progres.
The jurnalist has seen his profession de-
velop in two centuries from dispised
and illicit pursuit into the forth estate
of the realm. Yunger than the En-
glish language, jurnalism has cot up
with it and passed it, as a sistem regu-
lated and controlled by scientific princi-
Piles. Our printing presses are two hun
dred years in advanc of our spelling.
Printed language is subject to the same
arbitrary, acsidental, contradictory and
absurd rules which governed its or
thografy when England mentaned and
justified the censorship of the pres;
when Pryun was sentenced to a fine,
the pilory, the los of his ears, and i'm
prisonment for life, becoz he dared to
print in defianc of the licenser; when
the liberty of the pres was a utopia. of
political dreamers. But jurnalism,
which has conquered its way thro' the
royal icenser, thro' the parliamentary
prohibition, thro' the common law
maxim-"the crater the truth the
crater the libel" to a freedom which is
itself the most eloquent witness of the
advanc of civilization-jurnalis still
rests under an Intellectual bondage as
slavish and exacting as that legal dures
from which it has escaped. The time
has truly come when it OF to insist upon
emancipation from the English orthog-
rafy of the iliterate printers of the six
teenth century.
In any calculation of the probabili-
ties of the introduction of a reformed
English spelling, the newspaper pres
must be regarded as a chief agency.
While it remains hostile or Indifferent
which is the most effectiv hostility-the
spelling reform can never take firm hold
ether upon the book makers or the
school teachers. The latter especially
ar Handicapped by precedent, in bond.
age to iong-printed text books, and al
the mercy of the popular prejudic OF
indifference. Not so the pres. 1t may
dictate the spelling of the continent, il
it will. '
1t is not possible to overestimate the
influence, direct and indirect, which
this endles multiplication and circula-
ton of printed pages exerts upon the
community, penetrating to all classes
day after day, morning and evening,
week by week. ceselesly, perpetualy,
The indirect influenc of the pres, thro'
this constant occupancy of the public
eye, is vastly greter than its direct eff
feet upon the thot and opinion of the
world. The indirect infiuenc is largely
exerted upon the worlds current YER
nacular. Most of the changes in or.
thografy during the last century have
come about thro' the pres.
Recalling what the pres has already done
for the English language in this respec
whether wisely or unwisely, this i.
not the time to inquire-it is safe to as
ert that the spelling reform is a worl
within the compass of its powers. ant
that it is the natural agency becaus o
its wonderfully intimate and reflex rela
tions to the people thro' which tha
work must be accomplished. When /,
united pres has adopted the reformed
orthografy the problem is solved; for i
viii drive the rest of the world into it il
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