"^^^ fApril 5, 



Clieke, Chaucer and Milton. In 1619, Dr. Gill, head-master of St. Paul's 

 school, publisht his " Logonomia Anglica," advocating an alfabet of 40 

 letters. In 1633, the Rev. Charles Butler printed an English grammar 

 fonetically. In 1668, Bishop Wilkins publisht his great work, the 

 "Essay towards a Real Character and a Philosophical Language," in 

 which he gave the Lord's Prayer and the Creed in a fonetic alfabet of 

 37 letters. In 1711, says Sayce, "the question of reforming English 

 spelling was once more raised, this time, however, in a practical direction. 

 Dean Swift appealed to ihe Prime Minister to appoint a commission for 

 the ascertaining, correcting and improving of the English tongue. His 

 appeal, however, was without efiect ; and the next to appl}^ himself to the 

 subject was Benjamin Franklin, Avho, in 1768, put forth "A Scheme for 

 a New Alphabet and Reformed Mode of Spelling, with Remarks and 

 Examples concerning the same, and an Enquiry into its Uses." 



It would seem that in this Hall, if anywhere, a reform advocated by 

 Franklin is entitled, even at this late day, to a fair hearing and an intelligent 

 understanding. Franklin's scheme, tho in some respects crude, has never- 

 theless the true ring, and is in many details accurate and scientific. It 

 embraces eight vowels and eighteen consonants. There are special signs 

 for a in hall, v in ffum, s7i, th, dh, nff. He considers that the alfabet 

 should be arranged in a more natural manner, beginning with the simple 

 sounds formed by the breath and with no help, or very little, of tongue, 

 teeth, and lips, but produced chiefly in the windpipe. He omits as un- 

 necessary c, q, x, n, y and j ; this latter he replaces by a special character 

 which is to follow and modify other consonants ; preceded by d it pro- 

 duces j in James; by t, ch m chevy ; by z, the French j in jamais, g 

 has only its hard sound. There are no superfluous letters, no silent let- 

 ters. The long vowel is expressed l)y doubling the short one. There are 

 no diacritical marks. In general principles the scheme is sound. Had 

 Franklin lived in the filological light" of the present decade, he would 

 have been a power in the good movement. He went, indeed, so far as to 

 begin the compilation of a dictionary and the casting of the necessary 

 new types. The latter were offered to Webster and declined by him on 

 the ground of the inexpediency of employing new characters. This was 

 in 1768. Eight years later he wrote to a lady : "You need not be con- 

 cerned in writing to me about your bad spelling ; for in my opinion, as 

 our alfabet now stands, the bad spelling, or what is called so, is gener- 

 ally the best, as conforming to the sounds of the letters and of the 

 words." 



The next great American reformer was Webster. It would be out of 

 place here to discuss Websterianisms. Suffice it to say that Webster had 

 a lasting influence upon our spelling. Had he been more of a scholar his 

 influence would have been vastly greater than it was. The trouble was 

 that he tried to occupy both ends of the see-saw at once. On one end he 

 sat as etymologist, on the other as analogist. He had "just enough of 

 that half-learning," says Lounsbury, "which enables a man, when he 



