696 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



there is a hill, they do not wait for geological agencies to level the 

 hill. They go at it with steam-shovels, drills, and dynamite. An- 

 other objection that is made to all simplifications of spelling is 

 that they remove the marks of derivation in words. In many 

 cases this is untrue ; in the others it is of no consequence. The 

 Italian sees the Greek <wtos and ypa<f>uv just as plainly in his foto- 

 grafia as the Anglo-Saxon does in his photograph. As for the 

 marks of derivation from Old French, the Teutonic languages, 

 Arabic, etc., the majority of persons do not see them at all, and 

 those who do and can interpret them are above the need of such 

 aids. It is with words very much as with men. The influence of 

 heredity makes it instructive to know the character of a man's 

 parents and grandparents, but men do not go to business every 

 day carrying charts on which their family trees are delineated. 

 So with words ; in every-day use only their present values concern 

 us, and their histories should be left to the dictionaries as family 

 trees are left to genealogical records. 



A general simplification of English spelling promises to be one 

 of the events of the near future. Articles in favor of it are ap- 

 pearing with increasing frequency in our leading magazines, the 

 latest being by Brander Matthews, in Harpers' Magazine for 

 July. The philologists as a body desire the change, and there 

 is not one linguistic scholar of any prominence who opposes it. 

 When publishing firms nowadays select editors to make or revise 

 our leading dictionaries, they get spelling reformers, for all the 

 men competent to do such work are of this class. The late Presi- 

 dent Porter, who edited the International Webster, has expressed 

 himself in favor of simplification ; Prof. W. D. Whitney, editor- 

 in-chief, and several of the other editors of the Century Diction- 

 ary, are active workers for this reform ; Prof. F. A. March, who is 

 in charge of the departments of spelling and pronunciation in the 

 forthcoming Standard Dictionary, is President of the Spelling 

 Reform Association, and many of the collaborators on this work 

 believe in logical spelling. In England, Dr. James A. H. Mur- 

 ray, editor-in-chief of the Philological Society's Dictionary, the 

 greatest lexicographic work on the English language ever under- 

 taken, is an unhesitating advocate of orthographic reform, as is 

 Prof. Walter W. Skeat, author of the Etymological Dictionary. 

 If English spelling were to be made phonetic next year, or in 1900, 

 a few persons might cry, " Give us back our silent letters," as the 

 mob cried, " Give us back our eleven days," when the calendar 

 was changed from old style to new ; but only a few months would 

 pass before all would be asking, " Why was this not done genera- 

 tions ago ? " 



