The Montgomery advertiser., 1906-03-22

the Bible and Shakespeare are plenty good enough for them.
 The problem before us is to get the people familiar with the changes. It would be we'll to have books printed. such as everybody reads. and In good spelling. They would contain no fuss ing after perfection. Such works could be introduced into the schools and ear ly school books could be printed in them: In ten years everybody would be familiar with the new spelling. The tf1e would tben come when those who read would be as much surprised over the present system as we are at the spelling of Chaucer
 That English is to be the world lam guage. think. is beyond question. It is dominating the world because the Anglo-Saxon race is a colonizing race. It never adopts the language of q nation which it conuuers. although it may borrow few of it's words. A sim pie system of spelling would. of course, cause the language to spread more rapidly, for 1t is the easiest laneuage to speak. English Is practically q grammarless tongue. Almost every body can soon pick up enough of it for talking. It has no involved infections and no verbs made up of body of par- dignns. One may make himself under stood 1t easily. He can begin talk ing it and hit at something. If it could only be. written as easily as 1t Is spoken!
 Not EBpugh Characters.
 "0ne of the great dificulties in spelling English Is that there are not enough characters to express the forty sounds which 1t contains It Is lack ting in siens for sounds.
 'Speaking of the spread of English. there Is a development in the Far East which cannot be overlooked. That is the gradual formation of new language where the Euronean nations come in contact with the Orient. It Is new form of speech. pidgin English. so called-a combination of English with other languaTes. It is used for business and is adapted to the needs of commerce. It is store language. It had it's orisin in India and has eX- tended along the shores of Asia to Chi na and Japan and the borders of Rus sia. PidTin English represents a mode of communication between Asiatics and Eurnneans It is rapidiv becom- ing q dialect. which, must be recog- nized. One of these days it will pro- bably have a dictionary of its own I mention this. to show how FnRltsh Is taken up by all races. It Is time that something should be done to write it and print 1t. so that 1t may be readily and easily used. The simple spelling of FnRlish will make 1t readily under stood by all other peoples and hasten the day when 1t will be the worlds languase."
 Dr. March has compiled a history of smelling reform in this country in which is quoted an address of presi- dent of the American Pathological As snciation made in 1874 in which was the beeinninR of one of the periods in whic hfriends of revised orthography were particularly active. This is the way paragraph from that speech was printed, and It gives some idea of what an almost phonetic English mieht be:--
 'It is of no use for us to try to characterize with fitting epithets and adequate terms of obiurgatio the monstrous spelling of the English lam Euage. The time lost by 1t Is large part of the hole school time of the mass of men. Count the hours that each man wastes in learning to read at scool. the hours which he wastes thru life from the hindrance to easv read ing, the hours wasted at scool Tn lern- ing to spel. the hours snent thru life in looking up and perfectinR this knowledge of spellinR. in consulting dictionaries, a work that never ends: the hours he snends in writing silent letters. and nnuItiplv this time by the number of nersons who sneak Fn0lish and we shall hay q total of millions of years wasted bv each generation And yet literary amateurs fall in Iuv with these sauintinGs and lispin0s They trv to defend them bv pleading their advantage in the study of etv- mology But a changeless orthoerafv destroys the material for etymoloei"al study and writn records ar valuable to the filoloeist just in proportion as they ar. accurate records of speech as spoken from wear to year"
 Would Cheaper Books.
 One of the most exhaustive studies nf sreIlinR which was made was conn piled hv the Pennsvlviania Commssi m on Peforr'ed OrthoRranhv. If which Professor March was chairman.
 "If we trace the saving of money, runs that renort "to the peonle from the use of s'mple spelling in all print ing and writing 1t Is plainly very great. All books nav cost one-sixth less. The Fnclyclopa Adia Britannica would mako twenty volumes instead of twenty four and cost twentv-four dollars less. Newspap pers would save one column in six One-siXth would be saved in all writings. manuscripts of books and periodfcals of courts. deeds. wills and other legal documents, sermons of preachers. books of other men of business and in correspondence of all sorts. One-sixth of the labor in writ ing is well worth saving"
 Coincident with the work conducted by the committee of which pr. March was the head. another committee of the American Philosophical Society was at work, and reports of the two com mittees were simultaneously published. The report of the society declared:- aTt js evident that the great bulk of