The citizen. (Honesdale, Pa.) 1908-1914, 1912-04-17
THE LOST ART OF SPELLING.

The rising and even the risen gen.
erations cannot spell. Our school
children cannot SPELL our college
graduates cannot spell. The dean of
a postgraduate department of one
OF our universities complained a few
years ago that the men who came
before him to qualify to study a
profession could not spell. The
trustees of one of our large institu-
tions, which by its charter requires
all its officers to possess the degree
of Bachelor of Arts (even that of
BIS. not being accepted) find that
the aforesaid BIAS, when confront
ed by the severe mental effort of
writing necessary reports, cannot
spell. So insurmountable is the diff
ficulty, that the advocates of sim
plified spelling join forces with the
advertisers in search of trade
mark, and both of them affront our
eyes and insult our intelligence with
their horrid makeshifts.
The fault cannot be entirely that
of the English language. Fifty years
ago the case was different, as is
proved by the survivors from that
primitive period. Your grandmoth-
er-if you are lucky enough to have
one-may not know the difference
between the subjective and the OBJ
jective, but she can spell. Let us
see If we can find the reason.
Grandmother, when she was a
girl, may have lived in the country.
II so, she went to spelling-bees. If
she was educated in city schools she
took part in monthly spelling con-
tests, in which team contended
against team, class against class, the
teachers joining in the game. In
those benighted days, even the
boarders in summer hotels played
spelling games, and are said to have
enjoyed them. There was system
attic drill in what was recognized as
a difficult and valuable art.
In the memory of some of us who
are not grandmothers, spelling was
taught by a graduated system be-
ginning with the phonetic value of
the letters. The spelling-books-
recognize it now-were designed to
make learning easy. Long lists of
words of similar sound but with diff
ferent letters were given, and posi-
bly, with one or two exceptions or
variations sandwiched in. The ear
and the mind, from frequent repeti-
tiOn, grew accustomed to a certain
was never forgotten.
To-day ! take up the spelling-book
of child just out of the Kindergar-
ten and attempt to hear him his les
son. What do l see? A list of
Things to Use on the Table" He
spells bread" salt" and "kniyes." ."
He goes back, studies it again, and
again sticks at knives" Why
should knives be spelled as it is?
He cannot understand. The fact that
it is something to use on the table
does not help him. ! turn to the
preface of the book to see if / can
find what Rosetti would call the
fundamental brainwork underly-
ing the system, and learn that
spelling, forsooth, should be taught
by an association of ideas!" Now,
spelling is not an association of
ideas. 1t is an association of
sounds. If you teach it by associa-
tion of the idea of sound, we'll and
good. Why should the child be rob-
bed of the help which association of
sounds would give him? Why should
each word be made an exception and
have to be learned by a distinct
mental process? Why are the theo-
ries of Pestolozzi and Froebel thus
clumsily misapplied?
The trainers of the old-fashioned
memory-systems depended on the as
sociatiOn of ideas, and justly so, for
they taught lists OF unrelated words.
They would have been the last to de-
pend on it for the teaching of Eng
lish spelling. They would have
been the first to claim the help of
the linked chain of similar sound.
Let us thank our lucky stars that
we were educated before there was
an effort to make learning pictures
que. Those of US who wept over
Reading Without Tears" have reap
ed one advantage: we can at least
write a letter without looking in the
dictionary.-Mary Eleanor Roberts
in Lippincott's.