SPELLING REFORM 269 



other elements of speech. Most of our vowels are sounded a variety 

 of different ways, the most common ways being inconsistent with the 

 sounds agreed upon in other modern languages. Spelling reformers 

 have been agitating this matter for fifty years, but we are apparently 

 no more ready to reform our alphabet now than when they began. 

 Some of them, accepting the existence of an unchangeable alphabet, 

 have persistently advocated the adoption of a strictly phonetic system 

 of spelling; but, if they have made any practical progress outside of 

 the volumes of proceedings of educational and philological conven- 

 tions, it has been limited to the few enthusiasts who were willing to 

 acquire the reputation of being peculiar and ill balanced. 



The movements in behalf of alphabetic reform and phonetic spelling 

 have been made in complete disregard of the conservation of energy. 

 The habits of the people must be recognized. A page of English printed 

 in an amended alphabet is, to even intelligent persons, simply unread- 

 able. It has to be slowly and painfully deciphered, like a page of Greek. 

 It may, like Greek, be read if one will be patient enough, but the diffi- 

 culties are crowded initially, and the man who is not a professional 

 philologist exercises his right of choice and rejects what he finds bris- 

 tling with difficulties. Let the page of English be printed now in 

 ordinary type, but phonetically. The word ' physics,' for example, is 

 spelled 'fizix.' This also, like Greek, may be deciphered, but the page 

 will require a great waste of energy with no reward beyond the mastery 

 of unnecessary difficulties. Let any business man conduct his corre- 

 spondence for a single week in such style. His customers are immedi- 

 ately convinced that the object of language thus expressed is to con- 

 ceal thought, and the pecuniary results may be readily inferred. Let 

 a publisher put forth a new book in phonetic spelling. On neither side 

 of the Atlantic would one reader in a hundred be found ready to buy 

 it, or patient enough to read it if curiosity has prompted the purchase. 



The recognition of these great obstacles to reform does not imply 

 that whatever is, is right, or that reform is impossible. Let us assume 

 that a cannon ball weighing half a ton is to be moved by a little child, 

 using nothing stronger than cotton thread. It may be suspended by a 

 steel chain from a support of known height, for example thirteen or 

 fourteen feet, thus forming a big pendulum whose period is readily 

 calculated to be about four seconds. Let the thread be attached to a 

 hook on the side of the ball. A jerk from even a baby's hand is suffi- 

 cient to snap it. But if a succession of gentle pulls be given at inter- 

 vals of just four seconds, each too faint to break the thread, a few hours 

 of such light work, patiently maintained, will be sufficient to make the 

 pendulum swing through a perceptible arc. The advocates of alpha- 

 betic and phonetic reform have been jerking the thread, and they will 

 continually fail to move the ball so long as they refuse to recognize 

 its formidable inertia. People who are accustomed to bad habits, 



