156 VOICE, LANGUAGE, PHONETIC SPELLING. 



this language would be still more evident ; and we other 

 Europeans may esteem ourselves fortunate that the British 

 nation has not yet made this discovery." Similar testimony 

 was quoted from several other philologists and educationalists 

 of note, both British and foreign. 



The results of attempting to teach our present spelling 

 maybe summarized briefly as follows: — (1) In the elemen- 

 tary schools of the country less than one scholar for each 

 teacher employed, and less than two scholars for each school 

 inspected, reached the very moderate requirements of Stan- 

 dard VI. in reading and spelling. (2) To attain even this 

 mediocrity takes at least six or seven years of school life. 

 (3) A few years ago, in the United States, a Grovernment 

 inquiry revealed the fact that 25 per cent, of the teachers 

 themselves were seriously deficient in spelling. (4) As re- 

 gards the so-called higher classes, it is a well-established 

 fact that 95 per cent, of the Civil Service candidates that 

 fail are plucked for spelling. 



The immense waste of time and the almost complete 

 failure in national education are bad enough, but what is 

 worse is the actual mischief done by subjecting young minds 

 to such illogical training as the current spelling gives them. 

 Everything they have to learn in reading and spelling is 

 irrational ; one rule contradicts another, and each statement 

 has to be accepted simply on authority. The exercise of the 

 reasoning faculty is useless. As a simple example, consider 

 the different sounds expressed in the words on, one, done, 

 tone ; and the various sounds of ougJi in the nine words 

 hough, though, through, rough, borough, plough, cough, 

 hiccough, ought. 



How different are the results actually obtained by teach- 

 ing children a purely phonetic system of spelling ! To quote 

 one only : " By the use of phonetic spelling it takes at the 



