fficulty to memorize as do the peculiarities of our present
system."

All the degrees of reformed spelling now in use are professedly but
transitional. They may gradually advance into a respectable degree of
consistency, but we expect that to be reached quicker by a coherent
survival among the warring elements proposed by the S.S.S., the S.S.B. and
the better individual reformers. Probably there is already more agreement
than disagreement among these elements.

While the others are fighting it out, the various transition styles will
do something to prepare parents to accept a more nearly perfect style for
their children, and perhaps take an interest in seeing the various
counsels of perfection fight each other.

A few words have already found their way into advertisements--_tho_,
_thru_, _thoro_ (a damnable way of spelling _thurro_), and the shortened
terminal _gram(me)s_, _og(ue)s_ and _et(te)s_; and these and a few more
have found their way into correspondence on commonplace subjects; and the
interest in the topic, especially among educators, is spreading. But most
of the inconsistencies will probably bother and delay children and
forreners until they are given something with some approach to
consistency.

* * * * *

After we fight to something like agreement on a system, how are we to get
it going?

It does not seem extravagant to expect that as soon as the weight of
scholarly opinion endorses a vocabulary from our present alphabet
consistent enough to afford a base for a reasonable spelling book,
spelling books and readers will be prepared for the schools, and adopted
by advanced teachers. Many are clamoring for such now. When the youngsters
have mastered these, which they will do in a small fraction of the time
wasted on their present books, they will of their own accord pick up
without troubling their teachers a knowledge of the present forms. This
they have always done when their teaching has been by the various phonetic
methods with special letters, and have done both in much less time than
they have needed for learning in the ordinary way. But they will prefer
the reasonable forms, and this demand the publishers will probably not be
slow to supply.

End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Unpopular Review, Volume II Number
3, by Various

*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE UNPOPULAR REVIEW ***

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