Bisbee daily review., 1916-01-26
ECONOMICAL SPELLING.

composed of small group of American scholars anc business set about to reform English spelling TheJ undertook hard task For in of dictionaries ant spelling books nothing is difficult to uproo thaz established orthography. Their efforts at first wer, greeted with unrestrained ridcue There is still srons prejudice against them feeling their work is eitho sacriIegious or farcia And yet they have really mad considerable headway.
 Brander Matthews, the leader of the movement, point out with pardonabe pride close of this decade nearly 200 newspapers and periodicals using the simpler spelling advocated by the board. Among then journals important the Independent the Literary Digest the Educational Review and the Publishers Weei; y The daily newspapers confessedly converted to the new spelling daily circulation of more than 4OOc, OOO More important sti general public is steadily becoming tolerant.N
 Opposition is mostly based a lack of knowledge of how language developed Language of is an or ganic thing that is constantly changing, and the real language consists of the spoken words not the letters that represent The trouble arises from chiefly from the fact the spoken keep changing while the writ ten sympols tend to remain unaltered. Thus in time spelling may develop peculiar forms having little obvious relation to sounds. And the English language is the worst example of this tendency in the world
 It is remarkable, indeed how slow the Anglo-saxons have been to get their awkward orthography All other races have tried to their orthography and some them have succeeded In Spanish and Italian book sign unailing index to the spelling. When the ihid learns the alphabet he is about half through easy him then apply the letters to speaks hears because the values of the letters are with rare exceptions, nvarable. With US learning the alphabet is but step of task that requires years, and indeed is finished Who even among authors editors, is always of his spelling?
 absurd that should represent vowel sound by many symbols. In Spanish the sound of is always the same In English represent it by in met, a many ay says ali in said ei in heifer and in leopard Nearly all our vowel sounds suffer the same fate Long is written in eighteen different Here they are; go in floor, in foam, in goes os Grosvenor oh in oh ot in depot in boulder ough in dough- of in flow owe owe ao in Pharoah in aut hautboy in faux pas in beau GO in yeo- man and ew in sew And yet critics children spellnb correctly
 Our use consonants is almost absurd. The sound of sh in ship we represent by in sugar and in saate and ce in ocean social and xii in anxious One of the most obvious absurdities the different consonants for the same sound work ard k in cake.
 The spelling board has not tried to remedy many of these defects, realizing that sweeping reform will take many decades contented itsel fwith many such simple dropping the final in catalogue and the final in programme making the Greek diphthong cycopa dia simple English vowel dropping the silent pain words like phonetic and turning into fxt
 Even present system, is, is inn provement Shapespeares spelling But really haven't made enough progress 400 years to do any brabging.
 The waste effort involved in present system is ncalculabe there broader considerations than merely making our chidrens education easier. Says Prof Matthews in recent article in the New York Times:
 "Our language is the native tongue of twice as many and born into any other Euro pean language English is the speech of two mighty
 It is steadily advancing the proud position of a world language-tha is say, bids fair to be the second tongue of every educated and in the wide world It has only defect its barbarous orhography With every simpification of spelling language easier children, easier for the foreigners abroad the foreigner who here to cast in lot ours We it easier for the nations to understand each other We make it easier the ideals of the AngoSaxon spread themselves throughout the world"
 SHELLS AND MILK.
 True, we cannot forbet the awful past" writes an American motherBegium and the sinking of the Lusr- ania But across the ocean comes the cry of hungry
 little baby and it touches hearts. No matter whose