The daily morning journal and courier., 1903-10-23

stitute another important reason why
 our vecsa$us spelling Sud be made
 more simple and ra$onal With Eng
 land owning the Suez canal and the
 United State possessing that at Pana-
 ma, sEngli$ will rapidly become the ac-
 cepted world-language a universal me
 dium of ecschange in the international ecschanges of commerce and of thought.
 $all we be so urkind and so fooli$ as to
 ask the entire civilized world to adopt
 such spellings as t-h-o-u-g-h?
 In view of the fact that conservative
 Germany has established a reformed or biography during the past twenty five years, Sal we call it impossible for den-
 ocratfc America to make any improve
 ment whatever? Photographic in- provements are being adopted in France, Denmark and Norway. Must every irn- proved spelling be made in Europe?"
 Is the Anglo-sacson race alone incapa-
 ble of going forward?
 During the early part of the nine teenth century the Engli$- speaking
 world dropped the final k from music, logic and many similar words. Is 1t | impossible that the twentieth century l $all drop the useless letters from the twelve words for which the Na$onal Educational Aso$ason recommends a simplified spelling? I believe that a substantially uniform spelling is practi- cally so$al necessity; but we Sud not ecspect or desire an absolute uniformi- 1 ty, a Chinese uniformity. China is not ] a model for America. Those who write 1 in the new fa$on the twelve words al-
 ready referred to do not thereby advo-
 cate a general reform, but moderate
 and feasible simplificason of our spell ing. The spelling of each word is a fa$on, and these fa$ons do not grow up
 out of the ground or drop down from the sky. Men make them, and men can ] alter them, if change seems really 1 worth while. Engli$ is a living lam l guage; those who use it have Surely
 some power of rejecting the superfiuous. l regret that the University of sicago refused to lead in the movement for the
 moderate and; gradual ameliora$on of | Engli$ spelling. A little over three years ago the administrative board of l the University of $icago press recom-
 mended that the simplified spellings of I the Na$opal Educational asosa$on be
 adopted in the publica$ons of the uni= I versity. On January 3, 1900, this acSon i was approved In our general faculty
 meeting, which we call the University l Congrega$on, by a vote of 20 to 16, Then the university senate, a body l made up of the heads of the various de- l partments, disapproved of the acson of l the board of the university press. The
 matter was then brought up again in
 the University Congregation, and the
 simplified spellings were rejected by the
 close vote of 29 to 27. Thus great op- portunity to take the lead in this move
 ment was lost But in what other large ! university could the proposed step at I that time have received stronger sup | port? .@.. Professor Calvin Thomas has an ad- mirable article on "The AnaeIiora$on of | Our Spelling in the Publicasons of the
 Modern Language Aso$a$on of America I for 1902. In this he says among other 1 things: - a~ @@e z, We seem to be entering upon an era of assertive individualisrn, in this mat ter of spelling, and that is precisely what is needed. It is to be hoped that in! the necst few years variant speIlings I may continue to spring tip in a luc$uri- ant crop and compete with one another l for acceptance. Let editors and pGbliSers Sow that they have a mind of their own and dare to use it--not+ to the
 ecstent of attempting radical and sohe-
 matic reforms, but to the ecstent of try | ing experiments and adopting the more raSonal of competing forms. Let lite- rary men be brought to see by an infi-
 mite series of slight Socks, that spelling was made for man. and that change of spelling Is no more an attack upon literature than an improved musical mo- I ta$on, if we could invent one, would be
 an assault upon music and an insult to the memory of Beethoven. In this way we Sall gradually recover for our chill dren's children the lost criterion of com- \ mon sense.
 I agree with Professor Thomas that in the use of simplified spellings, indi-
 viduals may very properly go outside the twelve apostolic words sent out by
 the Na$onal aso$a$on; but unless this
 is done with some care and modera$on l believe that such individual ac$on is
 likely to harm the movement which we
 represent rather than to help it. I wiS
 to suggest that in certain words pro,
 gressive men may we'll adopt the goot
 spellings of Shakespeare and Milton tc
 replaces bad spellings of later genera aSons. The orthography of these o1del