GIVE THE PATIENT A CHANCE n 



heart and soul to bring the language out into the fresh 

 air. Unhappily, at the same time the League took pre- 

 cautions to prevent the patient from breathing. The rags 

 and the accumulated dust of centuries were also to be 

 carried out and kept in position. In the eyes of some 

 of the most devoted students and workers the rags and 

 the dust are as precious as the patient, more precious 

 indeed. 



Now we want to clear away the dust and the rags, 

 and give the patient a chance in other words, to treat the 

 language as of more importance than the spelling. 



I I am convinced that much of the opposition to reform 

 is due to misapprehension of the real objects of the reformers. 

 It is taken for granted that we mean, not to simplify the 

 old orthography, but to cast it aside and devise a new 

 one based entirely upon the English values of the letters. 

 In this connexion I may be permitted to quote a remark- 

 able assertion by a strenuous opponent of simplification, 

 Dr. Seaghan P. Mac Enri. In the New Ireland Review 

 for June, 1910, page 231, he writes : " Like all those who 

 advocate this so-called reform, Mr. Synan apparently 

 writes from the point of view of the person who has been 

 educated in English, has learned the English values of the 

 letters, and who cannot conceive that a letter or a com- 

 bination of letters can have any other value than that 

 assigned to it by the Englishman." We have here a 

 curious confusion of thought, for it is not the reformers, 

 but some of the opponents of reform, who "cannot conceive 

 that a letter or combination of letters can have any other 

 value than that assigned to it by the Englishman." Of 

 course letters are mere conventional signs. But some 

 people imagine that, while it is easy to give the true bljfs a,/ 



to such a word as p\$Mit, already in Middle Irish 

 shortened and no great harm done to jM^it, if you 

 extend the process of simplification and write fail, following 

 the example set by Stapleton more than two hundred and 

 seventy years ago, some magic power in the letters will 

 force you, whether you like it or not, to pronounce the 

 English word fail. The absurdity of this view is as 



