366 SCIENCE PROGRESS 



of London than the latter differs from Scottish, Midland, or 

 Irish English. Even if some English words were differently 

 written to agree with local pronunciation in the United States, 

 their meaning would be rapidly grasped by any one who read 

 them phonetically. The probability is, however (in view of the 

 importance of the subject and of the language) that, especially if 

 the United States was well represented on this commission 

 (together with the Dominions) there would be universal accept- 

 ance of the standard. 



The argument as to the loss of historical etymology, etc., is 

 mostly rubbish. The spelling of English in the early 18th 

 century is appreciably different from the spelling of English at 

 the commencement of the 20th century, and that again differs 

 from the conventional spelling in the time of Shakespeare, or in 

 the reign of Henry VII. Still more marked is the divergence in 

 orthography between the period of Chaucer and the present day, 

 the fact being that the spelling of English has insensibly, but 

 continuously, altered as century succeeded century. There is 

 far more hope of its stability if a standard of pronunciation was 

 fixed and the spelling was made to conform logically with that 

 standard. 



I admit the trouble that will be caused by the change, but in 

 my book I have attempted to explain how in many ways that 

 might be avoided or lessened. 



On the other hand, the gain would be great. The logical 

 spelling of English is the one obstacle which stands in the way of 

 our tongue becoming a universal world-speech and knocking the 

 stuffing out of inventions like Esperanto, inventions which seem 

 almost as horrible to me as would be some artificially manu- 

 factured human being, something more wonderful and self-acting 

 than the manikins put before us by Maskelyne and Devant. 

 Much time and many tears would be saved the childhood of the 

 coming and of future generations by a simplification of spelling. 

 I have shown in my book that the new spelling is practically as 

 easy to write as the old ; it is far easier to print, and still more 

 easy to read. To convince the reader on all these points, I 

 would venture to refer him to my book on Phonetic Spelling. 



