368 SCIENCE PROGRESS 



quality springs from mental indolence, which is unwilling to 

 face new thoughts, and leads to mental subservience, which for 

 ever finds rest in dogmas. Our spelling has therefore become 

 a dogma, which, like other dogmas of ours, the national intellect 

 does not possess enough energy to break through, however 

 exigent and obvious may be the reasons for doing so. The 

 second cause for the failure of spelling reform is that such a 

 large number of almost equally good new schemes may be 

 suggested that there is great difficulty in selecting the best one 

 — much more so in obtaining unanimity of choice ; and it is 

 absurd to suppose that the public will make any change until 

 this point is decided. Thus the old spelling easily holds its 

 ground in spite of all attacks. 



I classify all the previously suggested schemes as follows : 

 (i) The Deletory Scheme, which merely consists in dropping 

 useless letters, as in such spellings as ar, hav, wit, hed, peple, 

 beuty, etc. ; without making any other change. 



(2) The Emendatory Scheme, which consists in substituting 

 good for bad letters, without attempting any complete revo- 

 lution — as in such spellings as haz, woz, duz, luv, whot, etc. This 

 is generally proposed in addition to the previous scheme. 



(3) Old-Letter Homographies, which aim at rendering each 

 sound in one way, without the introduction of new letters. This 

 class is divided into two groups, (a) digraphic schemes, in which 

 most of the longer vowels are uniformly expressed by digraphs, 

 as in bait, beet, biet, boet, boot, etc., whether the digraphs are 

 based on English or continental values of vowels ; and (b) 

 diacritical schemes, which use marked or accented letters for 

 some of the vowels, such letters being supposed to be already 

 available for printing. 



(4) Neiv-Letter Homograph ies, which effect the same purpose 

 by using, in the place of digraphs or marked letters, new letters 

 in addition to those contained in our present alphabet. These 

 schemes may be either meant for English use only, such as 

 Dr. Bridges' system ; or may be international, such as Sir Harry 

 Johnston's one. 



The two first schemes could be employed at once — almost 

 without discussion, because the reasonableness of the proposed 

 changes in detail is unquestionable. They would produce a 

 very great amelioration of our spelling ; would entail no extra 

 cost for new letters, and would indeed save a vast sum of money 



