SCIENTIFIC SPELLING 367 



II.— By Sir RONALD ROSS, K.C.B., F.R.S., D.Sc. 



The subject of spelling reform does not directly concern science, 

 but is of some indirect importance to it, as to other forms of 

 intellectual effort, on account of mischief caused by our present 

 irrational ' orthography ' — which distracts our children, im- 

 pedes the learning of English by foreigners, wastes about one- 

 tenth of the money spent on printing and writing, and assists 

 the disintegration of our pronunciation. Unavailing efforts at 

 reform have been made during some centuries. Years ago 

 Pitman and Ellis poured out large sums on the cause, and scores 

 of reformers have invented scores of systems which they 

 advocated as substitutes for the one in use — all quite fruitlessly. 

 More recently, however, the creation of the science of phonetics 

 and the teaching of it in some schools and universities, the 

 establishment of the International Phonetic Association, and of 

 Mr. Carnegie's spelling reform committees in Britain and the 

 States, and especially the official adoption of some small 

 changes by Mr. Roosevelt in America, have suggested hopes of 

 better fortune in the future. Still more recently, books touching 

 the subject have been published by two distinguished men. Sir 

 Harry Johnston, whose article is printed above, has also given 

 us an interesting book on Phonetic Spelling (University Press, 

 Cambridge), in which he suggests a good scheme of international 

 spelling applicable to all languages, including the African 

 tongues which he has studied so well ; and the Poet Laureate 

 has written a witty and pregnant tract on the Present State of 

 English Pronunciation (Clarendon Press, Oxford), in which he 

 calls attention to some of the vulgar degradations of our speech 

 and suggests another phonetic scheme (applicable to English 

 alone). 



My own excuse for adding a note is that I wish to make yet 

 another suggestion, which, I believe, has never been made 

 before in spite of the immense amount of matter written on the 

 theme — and I think that during many years' attention to this 

 curious side-branch of human endeavour, I have studied every 

 important proposal which has been advocated. I should say 

 first that the failure of these proposals has been due, in my 

 opinion, to two causes. The first is that the Anglo-Saxon mind, 

 whatever its merits may be, is extremely illogical — so that its 

 illogical spelling is really an accurate expression of itself. This 



