SKETCH OF PROFESSOR S. S. HALDEMAN. 399 



sonian Institution, he entered the competition for a prize of one hundred 

 pounds offered by Sir Walter Trevelyan, President of the Phonetic 

 Society of Great Britain, for the best essay " On a Reform in the 

 Spelling of the English Language " ; to contain among other features 

 " an analysis of the system of articulate sounds, an exposition of those 

 occurrino- in English, and an alphabetic notation, in which as few new 

 types as possible should be admitted." The result of this effort was 

 a work on " Analytic Orthography," which, even before it had been 

 revised in accordance with the suggestions of the donor of the prize, 

 was preferred to the essays of seventeen competitors, all learned Euro- 

 pean philologists, and which was published in 1860. Five years after- 

 ward appeared a work on " Affixes : in their Origin and Application 

 exhibiting the Etymologic Structure of English Words," which was 

 pronounced, by a writer in the " Contemporary Review," " a collection 

 more rational, complete, and exhaustive of the component parts of our 

 language than we have had any good right to hope for within the 

 present century." 



Professor Haldeman was one of the founders of the American 

 Philological Association, and was its first vice-president 1874-'76, and 

 its president 1876-77. He contributed many papers to its " Transac- 

 tions," the first of which, on the " German Vernacular of Pennsyl- 

 vania," was afterward extended, under the light of new studies, at the 

 request of the Philological Society of London, into "Pennsylvania 

 Dutch ; a Dialect of South German, with an Impression of English," 

 which was published in 1872. His last published philological work, 

 " Outlines of Etymology," had in view the teaching of this as other 

 sciences are taught, and appeared in 1877. 



To this department of Professor Haldeman's activity belong his 

 labors in behalf of reform in the spelling of the English language, in 

 connection with which he presided at the International Convention on 

 the subject held in Philadelphia in July, 1876, when the Spelling Re- 

 form Association was organized, and he was made one of the vice- 

 presidents. His address to the American Philological Association 

 at the close of his presidency in 1877 was devoted mainly to this 

 reform. 



Of his attainments in philology, Professor March says : " Professor 

 Haldeman was in early life and by his mental constitution a scientist, 

 and he took hold of the facts of speech in that spirit. He had a deli- 

 cate ear and flexible organs of speech, and could pronounce with ease 

 the most unutterable scientific vocables. His scientific habit enabled 

 him to watch and describe the movements of the organs in producing 

 all sorts of sounds, and to give the physical processes or causes of the 

 changes in the sounds of words from age to age. He devoted much 

 study to these subjects, seeking living speakers of every nation and 

 tribe, and imitating and recording their peculiarities. He applied his 

 knowledge of the lws of letter-change to etymology chiefly, so far 



