Evening times-Republican. [volume] (Marshalltown, Iowa) 1890-1923, 1900-11-07
OF SPELLING.

IGNORANT OF SPELLING. Il
Prof. J.. Scott Clark, who file the chair
OF English at the Northwestern Univer-
slty, Chicago. announced Thursday that
OF the 1911 who took the ntran exam
nations in that department but twenty
six passed. The examination consisted
of spelling $50 simple words and pune
.tuating one paragraph OF common Eng
lish.
While these students have been grind
ing owe Greek and Latin syntax, work.
ing hard problems in trigonometry and
mastering the mysteries of the natural
sciences they have been forgetting how
to spell. Prof. Clark blames their def
cheney upon the primary schools. For
their failure to punctuate and capitalize
properly the blame is brought hone to
the grammar schools. where such things
are supposedly taught.
One hundred and seven high schools.
academies and other secondary schools
arc represented by the 191 who have
just made.s such a spectacle of their de-
t~tciency in spelling and grammar. In the.
list of institutions represented liz includ-
ed nearly every high school in Chicago
and vicinity. Most of the students
brought diplomas m appear Well pre-
pared in all other subjects. But to such
simple things az grammar n spelling
they evidently paid little attention.
Resulting from this omission blu twen-
ty-six of them passed the examination.
in both punctuation and spelling. The
errors in spelling ranged all he way
from one up to ifty-eight out of $50
words, the average being twenty-eight.
The passing line was twenty errors. The
words on which they failed were such as
proceed. excitement, ammunition, dilap-
dated. similarity, development. success
full. appearance, temperance, diminutive
and especially.
They We're asked to capitalize and
punctuate correctly this sentence: few
high schools in the west give sufficient
attention to elementary English having
received a pupil from the grammar
school many pupils assume that he
knows how to spell p%unctuate and CAPT.
tnlize correctly" Forty-three out OF 19l
students showed that the assumption of
the principal In the test sentence was
warranted. The rest failed On 1t.
Referring to the results OF the exam
iination Prof, Clark said:
.It would be very unfair to infer from
these statistics that the secondary
schools from which our students come
are particularly responsible for this
serious and obvious defect in the pre-
liminary training Of our young people.
1t begins further back than that. grow
ing tut Of the wrong uss Of the wore
method and the phonetic method in first
teaching the child to spell.
Our grammar schools give time
enough to the subject to make good
spoilers Of most of their pupils, but the
trouble is with the method. Give us back
the analytic method. retaining the other
methods for beginners with m%onosylla-
bles. Burn most OF the spelling books
and drill each5 pupil only in those words
which he is likely to misspell, and we
shall have a spelling reform that is both
practical and useful. Let the teacher
discover the orthographical sins of each
individual pupil, then let each be drilled
only onEthe words on which he needs
drill. I do not believe in the soundness
of the excuses often rendered that this
or the other person can learn to
ispell."