Letters an Emharrassment to Literature. 55 



years. Each child would save forty-eight hours in a year, which, 

 if we reckon each day as consisting of twelve working hours, 

 would give four days in a year, or thirty-two days during the eight 

 years spent at school. Each child would therefore save about one 

 month at school, twelve children one year, sixty millions of Ger- 

 man children five millions of years. These might be applied to 

 some better purposes than to find out whether we should write 

 lihe or Hebe.'''' 



These same considerations apply in English with tenfold more 

 force. If, therefore, the Germans will not tolerate even a moiety 

 of the few phonetic defects of their orthography, what satisfaction 

 can we expect from a half-and-half reform of our own? But our 

 reformers are inquiring not how little change will satisfy the peo- 

 ple, but how much they will suffer. They put too low an esti- 

 mate upon the public intelligence, and are far too sensitive about 

 being compared with Josh. Billings and other gentlemen who spell 

 better in jest than other people in earnest. Fortunately the pub- 

 lic is conservative enough to cling to the old system till a better 

 one is found. A reform that needs reforming must always be un- 

 satisfactory. Several systems of spelling by the aid of the old 

 alphabet, with or without modifications, are now before the public. 

 They exhibit evidence of careful study and economy almost he- 

 roic. But economy, carried to the pitch of saving a few new 

 symbols at the expense of saddling upon unborn generations 

 another irrational method of writing, becomes a groveling parsi- 

 mony. 



Mr. Bell's system of "Visible Speech" is the most thorough- 

 going attempt yet made to form a simple, exact, and universal 

 system of phonetic rotation. This was never intended for general 

 use, and, as Prof. W. D. Whitney has shown, is not perfectly 

 adapted to replace the alphabet ; but it has demonstrated the grand 

 possibilities of phonetic symbolism. 



Thanks to such men as Mr, Bell, Mr. Ellis, and Profs, Halde- 

 mann, March, and Whitney, we have at last a rapidly maturing 

 phonetic science, which is both the indispensable condition, and 

 the sure promise, of a rational alphabet. 



