234 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY, 



that [)asscd over \is a few years ago 

 in relation to spelling, a feature or two 

 of which may be worth recalling. A 

 veteran school-teacher of New York 

 dropped a hurried line to a newspaper, 

 in which two or three words were 

 wrongly spelled. It was a dull season 

 for news and excitement, and so, in its 

 enterprise, journalism sat on this old 

 party, and his life was darkened. He 

 has since gone to that undiscovered 

 country where it is to be hoped that 

 Webster and Worcester have never 

 been heard of ; but he has left us strug- 

 gling with the beggarly elements of a 

 barbarous orthography, and no better 

 oif for the storm of reproach to which 

 he was a martyr. His fellow-teachers 

 came to the rescue with indignant let- 

 ters to the editor, and that remorseless 

 personage published them, bad spellmg 

 and aU, every time. "Behold," said 

 he, "the state of American education, 

 when its masters are unable to spell 

 their native language! " There seemed 

 no question that the highest achieve- 

 ment of the human mind was to put 

 letters together in exact accordance 

 with some authority ; and that to di-op 

 or transpose a letter, in the tens of 

 thousands of their arbitrary combina- 

 tions, that form the words of our lan- 

 guage, was an offense that should con- 

 sign its perpetrator to everlasting ig- 

 nominy. The thing was all going one 

 way until there arose a rebellious voice 

 in the East, which said to the editor : 

 " Let me take advantage of the present 

 spelling excitement to fatten a grudge 

 I bear against the literary world." The 

 soul that had been thus stirred to ut- 

 terance was that of Elizur Wright, and 

 he went on, in his pungent way, to 

 say : " A school-master who does not 

 spell correctly by somebody's system 

 should go abroad and stay there. But 

 just here it is that my indignation kin- 

 dles. Why do we have these illiterate 

 school-masters ? I do not stop to blame 

 weak or careless committees : the trou- 

 ble lies higher. The great masters of 



English literature, the lawgivers of 

 our language, are such bunglers or 

 charlatans in their own profession, 

 that they ought to be ashamed to fling 

 a pebble at the worst of spellers, or 

 even at the inventor of Egyptian hiero- 

 glyphics." After venting his wrath 

 upon the conservators of the present 

 "imperfect, unreasonable, stupid, false 

 plan of visualizing the vocal tongue," 

 he thus proceeds : 



" The misery of the matter is, that it 

 is difficult to get any but blockheads to 

 teach such a blockhead system. We do 

 uncommonly well when we get hold of 

 pedantic dances who can teach spelling 

 with a vengeance, and perhaps the shell 

 of grammar. Of course, I do not deny 

 that there are some literary saints, of 

 unquestionable genius, who devote or 

 doom themselves to a painful inculcation 

 into the memories of reluctant or rebel- 

 lious youth of all the incongruities, con- 

 tradictions, riddles, and sphinx-puzzles 

 of English orthography." And again : 

 " English orthography is congenial only 

 with stupidity ; and, after thirty or 

 forty years of occasional observation in 

 regard to it, I am of opinion that good 

 and successful teachers of spelling can 

 seldom write a page without misspelling 

 several words." 



And this is the writer's significant 

 cHmax : " Of another thing I have no 

 doubt at all, to wit, that learning to 

 spell is a discipline pernicious to good 

 mental habits. The minds of un- 

 schooled children are eager for facts 

 and the reasons of them; and they are 

 not satisfied with a reason till they see 

 its force. But, after they have been 

 schooled through the inconsequential 

 mysteries of the spelling-book, where a 

 reason has less chance of living than a 

 mouse in a vacuum, they are ready to 

 swallow any thing the book or the 

 teacher says, with a leaden quietude. 

 No thanks to the portico of our litera- 

 ture, if they do not continue to take 

 things on trust, as long as there is any 

 thing to be so taken." 



