THE HAMILTON ASSOCIATION. IO7 



on the profane However, the task of learning to spell is 

 perhaps equaled only by the endeavor to equip others in this portion 

 of a " primary " education. To spell in accordance with the fashion 

 of to-day is considered an essential of education, and yet you cannot 

 find one person in ten who would risk writing an ordinary letter to 

 the daily press without the aid of a dictionary to assist him in deter- 

 mining the correct spelling of his native tongue. The dictionary has 

 become, to the majority of people, a book to set forth not meanings, 

 but spellings ! The present alphabet to say the least is defective. 

 " Digraphs," as Dr. A. J. Ellis, of Oxford, says, " must be looked 

 upon as single letters quite as much as single letters^themselves ; for 

 they have not the value of a combination of letters, but of one letter. 

 Viewed in this light, the English alphabet will be found to consist, 

 not of twenty-six letters only, but of two hundred ! And almost 

 every one of these two hundred symbols varies its meaning at times, 

 so that after having learned one meaning for each of them, the reader 

 has not learned all their meanings ; and having learned all their 

 meanings, he has no means of knowing which one he is to apply at 

 any time." 



Look at the combination " ea " Observe the changes in sound 

 it undergoes in': bead, dead, breast, beast, sheath, death, beard, 

 heard, sheaf, deaf, lead (to conduct), read (past tense), plead, lead 

 (metal), read (present tense)^ head, fear, bear. It will be noticed 

 that the substitution of an initial letter changes the sound of the 

 combination, as is also the case when the final consonent is changed. 

 Again : steam, steak, team, tear (to rend), beam, bear, peach, pear, 

 ear, earl, pear, pearl, lean, leant, mean, meant. Mr. Eizak Pitman 

 is authority for the statement that this combination (" ea ") occurs 

 in 160 monosyllables, and in a large number of polysyllables, how 

 many he does not say. From this it will be seen that a child or 

 foreigner, learning to read the English language, has to commit to 

 memory the pronunciation of all these words separately, for the 

 spelling will furnish no satisfactory clue. An old verse has it, 

 " Consistencie's a Jewell." It can hardly be claimed for our 

 spelling that the bard had it in mind, evenly remotely. The late 

 distinguished Professor Gregory of Edinburgh University, who will 

 be remembered for his chemical attainments and his translations 

 of Liebig's works, contributed the following, in which he ingeniously 

 contrived to spell by what I might term analogy, that is, he employed 



