Waterbury evening Democrat., 1907-04-25
s1MpL1F1ED SPELLING.
Brander Mathews Thinks Those Who
 Oppose it Are Slow.

Washington, D. C., April 25.--"lf the class of people who now are oppos- ing the adoption of simplifled spelling always had had their way Ill the world, there never would have been any progress and we still would be hanging to tree branches by prehen- sile appendages.'
 That Is the caustic rejOinder which Prof Brander Matthews, of Colum- bia university. handed to those who have been having lot of fun at the expense of President Roosevelt, An drew Carnegie, himself and some oth- CTS who are advocating simpler spelling of the English language.
 Professor Matthews, who is a mem. Der of the so-called "Simplif1ed Spell ing Board" is one of the strongest advocates in this country of the pro posed orthographical changes. He came to Washington on some private business, but he took occasion to glory in the presidents spunk' for adhering to the simplified method of spelling, for. be it known, President Roosevelt employs the method in all the correspondence that issues from the White house and all of his speech. es are transcribed in the new simple" form. He is n firm believer in, and staynch advocate of, the new spelling, notwithstanding the fact that 1t was turned down by congress with a slam that was heard over the coun- try and that all of the newspaper paragraphers and jugglers of jingle seized upon 1t as legitimate prey. The president himself is a member of the simplified spelling board and Profes- sor Matthews points out that the thir- weight other members of the board include many of the great educators of the country and the editors of the six foremost dictionaries of the Eng fish language
 Any student of orthography knows" said Professor Matthews that the forms of the English lan- guage have been undergoing pro- cess of change since the time of Chaucer. All of these changes, the history of the language shows, have been toward simplifcation. Natural ly. the changes have proceeded along the lines of least resistance. It has been process of evolution promoted by reason and necessity. This evolu- tionary change will continue natural. ly to a very great extent. but assist ed by such movements as we have inaugurated. Of course. the elimini- nation of barbarous methods of spell ing is a slow process. but it certainly will be accomplished in time"
 My own view-and know 1t also is that of President Roosevelt--is that English eventually will become the language of the world. It is now spoken by nearly 15O.0O 900 people. In continental Europe 1t is spoken more widely than any language for eign to any particular country. except French. and 1t is making great strides toward supplanting Frencl, as "sec- ond language" If the incongruous and outlandish spelling of many of our English words can he reduced to a simple form-a form that readily may be undrstood by the continental European-English will supplant rap- idly the French as the language of diplomacy and of the world.-
 Almost daily changes are being made In the vocabulary and in the syntax of the language and there is no reason why changes fin the ortho- raphy also should not be made. Some of our phrases--colloquialisms. if you please-which are accepted and used as quite proper now would scarcely have been understood a few year, ago. What an outhurst of amuse- ment they would have cieated had they been injected into the language at one time The people have grown accustomed to them Indeed. they have attracted scarcely any attention except from language students. The people have adopted them as their own and I believe that. in due time. they will adopt the simplined form of spelling"