OF ARTS AND SCIENCES. 29 



here given, if the learner should read in Scott an account of a feast at 

 a Saxon's table, he would have to guess live times at the pronunciation 

 of dais, and each time wrong. The written language is continually- 

 misleading thus, and it may be safely said that the sound of a word is 

 learnt, not through the aid of the vowels, but in spite of them. Our 

 language is full of rules, and still more of exceptions. A true alpha- 

 bet would require no rules, and it would admit of no exceptions. It 

 would always speak for itself. In our present alphabet, every letter 

 oftentimes misleads us, and every letter is sometimes lost. ' It is real- 

 ly deplorable,' as Sir William Jones, speaking of our alphabet, says, 

 ' that our first step from total ignorance should be into gross inaccu- 

 racy, and that we should begin our education in English with learning 

 to read the five vowels, two of which, as we are taught to pronounce 

 them, are clearly diphthongs.' — Works, 1st ed.. Vol. L, p. 183. 



" The truth is, that there is such an absence of rule, principle, and 

 analogy in our language, as now written, that it is not to be wondered 

 at that so few learn to read well, and that nolody learns to spell.* 

 ' Such is the state of our language,' says Sheridan, a man certainly not 

 prejudiced against his native tongue, ' that the darkest hieroglyphics, 

 or most difliicult ciphers that the art of man has hitherto invented, were 

 not better calculstted to conceal the sentiments of those that used them 

 from all that had not a key, than the state of our spelling is to conceal 

 the true pronunciation of words from all except a few well educated na- 

 tives.' Such are the difficulties of our language, that with most foreign- 

 ers beyond the period of early youth the acquisition of a tolerably correct 

 pronunciation is quite impossible ; and, in regard to proper names, no 

 person, whether native or foreigner, who has not heard them, can be 

 sure of their pronunciation. t 



" The IMPORTANCE of the reform is not less apparent than its neces- 

 sity. Our language is one of the simplest, richest, and most compre- 

 hensive and expressive of languages, and ought to be one of the easi- 



* Men who have most to do with the press, and who are therefore most likely 

 to know how to spell, have to confess that they wear out a dictionary in looking 

 for the spelling of words. Can a man he found who never doubts about the spell- 

 ing of a word ? 



t Take the instance of the new name, Cochituate, proposed for Long Pond. 

 No person, on reading it, can be sure whether the o in the first syllable is long or 

 short, whether ch in the second is sounded like k, like sh, or like tch, whether u 

 is M or 00, and whether ate sounds long or short a, or short i, or short e; and there 

 is a doubt about the accent. 



