Richmond daily register. (Richmond, Madison County, Ky.) 1917-1978, 1919-04-22
GRINSTEAD'S SPELLER
IN LIMELIGHT
Louisville Times Editorial Dis
cusses Bood Adopted For Use
In SCHOOL, Of Kentucky.

The Louisville Times Is making an
editorial analysis of the new speller
adopted for the children of Kentucky,
the authors of which are Prof. Wren
]. Grinstead, of this city and Col. Phil
Grinstead, of Louisville. which is
to say the least Robt- w.
Bingham, who now owns the Times
and Couier-Journal. is conducting
them with the sole idea of being Of
some benefit and good to the people
of Kentucky. and what his papers say
on questions of public moment. like
the adoption of school books for chill
dren of Kentucky. are bound to carry
weight. The Daily Register publishes
below its comment upon the Grinstead
speller. It will be glad to afford Prof.
Grinstead all the space he desires. If
he should care to comment upon the
Times editorial. The Times said:
More About Spoilers
"At a great expense and after Ia
Dor of the most stupendous charact-
er." as the circus press-agents say,
The Times has obtained a copy of "A
Manual of Spelling for Elementary
Schools" the educational work by
Philip w. and Wren Jones Grinstead.
designed by the Governor and the state
Textbook Commission to guide small
Kentuckians through the, mazes of
orthography. Owing. perhaps to the
extreme modesty of its authors. it
was not easy to lay hand upon a CO.
py of this epochal work, but now the
little greenbacked volume, bearing up
on it's cover the imprint of a spray of
goldenrod and of the equally golden
Transylvania Book Company, lies upon
the editorial desk. e.
CHANGING through this book, The
Times finds thirty-two pages filled
with what are educational verities and
one hundred and ninety-two pages
perfectly blank. These are the pages
which the kindly commission took on
trust. knowing by the reputation OF
Phil and Wren that they would later
be filled with pearls of philology and
etymology. Inspection of the work
has not however, lessened The Times
admiration for its own speller, OF
which an Incomplete version was Civ
en- to an eager public the other day; in
fact The Times has determined to of
fer it's great work for sixteen cents
a copy, the price of the State spellel
for which that of Phil and Wren was
substituted at twenty-five cents ant
a half And only in The Times spell
er can you find the following word.
spelled in the following way: Cover
nor, P-a-r-d-o-n; sc h oo1- 1-children
goats; textbooks, j-o-k-e-s.
1t is difficult for a layman like the
Times, unskilled in pedagogy, to at
tempt to criticise. a work acceptable te
the State Textbook Commission. in.
dorsed by a prince of pediatrics like
william F. Klair, printed by com
pany headed by Thomas A. Combs, and
prepared by q Master of Arts and Doc
tor of Philosophy-for such. It appears
is Wren Jones Grinstead-and by
Fellow of Politics like Philip W. Grin
stead. But. having speller of its OWL
to propose and being professionally
Jealous, The Times ventures to point
out that to ask children to divide the
following words into sylables." as oul
rivals do no page A. is. to say the
least kidding the kids:
Bade, knelt, waist, knead boughs
scorce. rough. tough. pierce. eighth
twelfth, steak.
And, as on page IS. to ask 4th grade
children to inform the teacher wha'
are the other two English words beside
coercion" and suspicion" ending II
"cion" is to presuppose that the htti'
dears like the compi1ers. have memol
D,~k NIL
just to prove that they have not mem
orized the dictionary. misuse the OBJ
solete word '1ief." on page 17S.
The Times expresses the hope tina
when a child in the NTH grade Is urge'
to supp missing letter in "1umba CO.
in fienza, apopl exy and typh old. NJ
would at once know that the prfnte
had failed to leave out any see pag
1907. but it inclines to the belief tina
the fifth grader would become prompt
ly bewildered-
There are many more errors in tni
incomplete and erudite speller 10
children from to 12 that even the La
tin and Anglo-Savon vocabularies IN
cluded in it do not outweigh. But tn
important fact is that this and nv
and ope-half other subjects in tn
Kentucky elementary schools wer
changed outright by the Commission
that of these six and one-half subject
one and one-half were changed in pric
and that seventy-two and one-ahlf pc
cent of all the school subjects wer
changed in some way. while twenty
seven and one-half per cent were un
changed.
The whole business needs the airin
( it is going to gets
A CORRECTION