PROGRESS OF ROMANCE PHILOLOGY 253 



day. He borrows processes of investigation from physiology and 

 from acoustics and examines closely the mechanism of the voice; 

 he analyzes sounds and determines the conditions under which they 

 are produced; also, he inquires into the best ways of denoting these 

 sounds to the eye. Wherever it proves useful, he takes advantage 

 of the phonograph, and he will use this instrument more and more 

 as it is brought nearer perfection. Thanks to the researches of the 

 phoneticians, we may learn how one sound passes over into another, 

 changes which the linguist observes but does not explain. In par- 

 ticular, we see that in the transmission of language from one indi- 

 vidual to another for example, from parents to children the 

 likelihood of change is very great, for we know that it is only after 

 innumerable corrections that children finally are taught to speak like 

 those with whom they are in daily contact; and this observation 

 throws a clear light upon the origin of the present variety in Romance 

 speech. More and more, linguists must train themselves to utilize 

 the delicate and ingenious methods of the phonetician. 



Real scholars are disinterested persons. As a rule, they pursue no 

 purely practical ends, and consider themselves sufficiently paid for 

 their pains when they have succeeded in increasing the sum of acquired 

 knowledge. They act upon the axiom which is found at the beginning 

 of Aristotle's Metaphysics : "All men have a natural desire for 

 knowledge." I am quite sure that most of those who carried Romance 

 philology to the heights it has now attained never thought that their 

 discoveries would have practical applications for the modern lan- 

 guages; and yet there is no doubt that many of the results obtained 

 through the efforts of the philologists will not remain mere scientific 

 curiosities, but will have some influence on the teaching of the 

 Romance languages and upon the way these languages are written. 

 As to teaching, we can easily understand that the introduction of 

 historical matter into grammars, even those of elementary grade, 

 will supply the explanation of many an apparent anomaly, and will 

 make the subject less dry. Grammar will become more interesting, 

 because an appeal will be made to the intelligence rather than to the 

 memory. As to orthography, the benefit will be no less real. Every- 

 body has been struck by the irregularities which are so numerous 

 in the most widespread languages, in French as well as in English. 

 The fact is that the official spelling is a mixture of notations intro- 

 duced at very different periods and in an absolutely unsystematic 

 way. Some spellings aim to represent the prevailing pronunciation; 

 others and these are in the majority reproduce an antiquated 

 pronunciation; finally, some pretend to indicate the etymology. 

 Many propositions have been made to do away with these inconsist- 

 encies, or, at least, to reduce their number by means of a general 

 revision, but the advocates of change have always encountered the 



