712 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



ing thirteen numbers : 1. Constitution of the 

 United States ; 2. Articles of Confederation ; 

 3. Declaration of Independence ; 4. Wash- 

 ington's Farewell Address ; 5. Magna Char- 

 ta ; 6. Vane's " Healing Question " ; 7. Char- 

 ter of Massachusetts Bay, 1629 ; 8. Fun- 

 damental Orders of Connecticut, 1638 ; 9. 

 Franklin's Plan of Union, 1754 ; 10. Wash- 

 ington's Inaugurals; 11. Lincoln's Inaugu- 

 rals and Emancipation Proclamation; 12. 

 "The Federalist," Nos. 1 and 2 ; 13. The 

 Ordinance of 1787. 



A gossipy little book is From Lands of 

 Exile, by Pierre Loti (Gottsberger, 90 cents), 

 consisting of letters written by a French 

 naval officer from Annam and neighboring 

 stations, with a story about " An Old Salt " 

 and his daughter. 



A rival of Volapiik for the office of the 

 universal language is presented by Alexan- 

 der Melville Bell, in his pamphlet entitled 

 World-English (N. D. C. Hodges, New York, 

 25 cents). World-English is the English 

 language unburdened of its chaotic spelling, 

 and with this change Prof. Bell deems it 

 better suited than any other language for 

 international use, on account of its gram- 

 matical simplicity and its already wide dif- 

 fusion. Another use for this simplified form 

 of the language which he urges is in teach- 

 ing children and foreigners to read the pres- 

 ent form, or "literary English," which he 

 does not seek to displace. Prof. Bell recog- 

 nizes the same sixteen vowel-sounds as the 

 American Philological Association does in 

 its scheme for the phonetic writing of Eng- 

 lish, for, although he omits two of them 

 from his list, he distinguishes them in his 

 exemplifications. He clings to the peculiar 

 English uses of the vowel-letters, which 

 makes the step from a foreign language to 

 World-English harder, and that from the lat- 

 ter to " literary English " easier, but he dis- 

 tinguishes the unrepresented vowels by the 

 aid of diacritics, in agreement with the usage 

 of other languages. He thus avoids new 

 letters in representing the simple vowels, 

 but introduces one for the diphthong known 

 as "long ?",'' while " long u " (as in mute) he 

 resolves into yu. He proposes no less than 

 nine new letters for unrepresented conso- 

 nants, three of these being the initial sounds 

 in lohen and hue, and the sound of r when 

 not before a vowel — refinements of notation 



which the Association does not deem neces- 

 sary. In the case of the " obscure " sounds 

 of unaccented vowels, however, he agrees 

 with the Association in not deeming a spe- 

 cial marking necessary. If wc must have 

 new letters for six or nine consonants, by all 

 means let us take Prof. Bell's, for they are 

 the simplest and neatest yet devised. Six 

 of them are simply c, s, z, i, d, and u, with 

 the tail of p added ; the others are slight 

 modifications of w, n, and r. He retains k 

 rather than c for the final consonant in pack. 

 He makes an odd slip in one place, in giving 

 nation and vicious as words containing the 

 sound of ch in church ; he also marks the u 

 in January like that in February. He says 

 that "the terminations in certain, fountain, 

 foreign, cottage, courage, language, etc., are 

 regularly contracted to -in, -ij, and are so 

 written in World-English," but we believe 

 most persons pronounce these syllables more 

 hke -en and -ej. Prof. Bell uses no capi- 

 tals in World-English, and marks the accent, 

 when this is not on the first syllable, by a 

 vertical line after the vowel of the accented 

 syllable. In the case of a diphthong, he 

 puts the mark between the two letters, 

 which is somewhat confusing. The above 

 objections refer only to details, and the 

 scheme as a whole is much preferable to 

 the mixture of Roman letters and " visible 

 speech " symbols which Prof. Bell proposed 

 in " Science " in 1883. The appearance of 

 World-English, Volapiik, and the various 

 other plans for simplifying our mediums of 

 communication, are signs that language is 

 coming to be regarded as a tool that may be 

 improved without disrespect to our grand- 

 fathers. 



In an essay on Science in Secondary 

 Schools, which received a prize of fifty dol- 

 lars, recently offered by "The Academy," 

 Charles R. Dryer, M. D., says that the best 

 branch of science with which to break up 

 the memorizing habit acquired by the pupil 

 in the primary school, and introduce hirh to 

 observation and induction, is physical geog- 

 raphy. After this should come physics and 

 chemistry combined, then biology, and last 

 geology. In biology and geology, he advises 

 proceeding from the known to the unknown, 

 to study first what is nearest, rather than 

 what is structurally the simplest. The spirit 

 which he would have dominate science teach- 



