Watertown republican. [volume] (Watertown, Wis.) 1860-1906, 1879-02-12
cent purpose expressed in the act Of the
legislature. by virtue Of which this re-
mort IL made

CouJ pltIpOS0 0ApIOSSCu III t1o dCI vi Illc
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-
ten symbol. To this extent he has the
advantage of the pupil in our own
sch OILS, who is left no alternative but to
memorize the awkward and manifold de-
vices and com pinations 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 enterp Use, 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 q has at least six
! sounds, three, q two, four, four
making nineteen distinct sounds for six
| letters If we add the numbel Of sounds
expressed by combinations Of novels, we
shall find that we have not less than
| twentyfour 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
I'm atural. 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 rs.
In his dictionary, Noah Webster at
tempted to indicate the pronunciation
Of English words by system of diacrit-
ical marks applied to vowels, thereby
virtually multiplying the number of
novels belonging to tbe alphabet, and to
that extent recognizing the principle
sought to be practicalized by the advo-
Gates Of photographed reform. In some
or all of the readers adopted for use in
our public schools, a 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 a 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 lie tier u has one mean
ng in the word fate, but another in fast,
another in fail and another III fer; that
the letter is not sufficiently signified by
the use of the letter itself, but by null
titudinous and disheartening combina.
ton of signs, as illustrated in the words
ore, bl0ac, door, foe, seto d0ugh, bean, coal,
| ye0naan, court, and s3cOrd; that the letter
0 in the words done, come, son, etc, is not
at ALL that the sound Of q is spelled
without the use Of that letter in such
words as by, bug, bye, nay and rye: and
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 -eonstrue combinations
of letters, the pupil fares no better The
letters M in jail are not the same in said !;
the letters 60 in people are something else
in yeonadn, ana something elsO in piqeon,
while ough means in douqh, 90 in
though IF in tough, auf in trough, and on
in plough. The methods Of expressing
the sounds Of and Of pronouncing thai
letter, in the words bezieDe, receiUe, recent
| conceal, increase, c0ncede proceed, people,
and sleeUe, are necessarily an ineXplicable
puzzle to any child Or man. The two
letters e0 form one of the most frs quent
combinations IN our English words, but
they have one sound in the word head,
another in bead, another in heard, another
in heart, and another in real. 1t is alleged
by Que author that the sound of sh in the
word shall occurs n over 5000 English
words, and is represented in % different
ways. Some years since, record was
kept in one of the post Off es in this
state of the various combinations of
letters resorted to for spelling the word
Chacdg0, or letters addressed to that CITY,
and the total number was found to be not
less than eighteen or twenty; but the
most interesting fact about the matter is
that the erroneous spellings, phonically
considered, generally exceled the ap,
proved photography: Prof. VIM. T. Har-
ris, the distinguished superintendent of
public schools for the city of St. Louis,
is our authority for the statement that
the word scissors can be spelled in many
thousand ways, and have Romantic an
alogies to authorize each spelling.
Examples of these difficulties and dis
cordances might be multiplied indefn-
itely; they extend to all phases and COM
plications of the system. The pupil
readily realizes that he is to spell bv
sight, and not by sound; that the signs
of sounds are com aratively meaningless
and worthless; that he can write no
sound with Ger ainty Of accuracy, until
he has seen it written; that he can pro-
nounce no word with certainty OF accur
acy, until he has heard it pronounced :;
that he cannot hope to become master of
the language until he has conquered the
dictionary of words piece-meal, and he