and will not mind
antiquated spelling in the future any more than they do now. The
printer, therefore, must not flatter himself with the prospect of a
speedy reprinting of all the English classics in the new spelling.
English is certain to have some day as scientific a spelling as German,
but the change will be spread over decades and will be too gradual to
affect business appreciably. On the other hand, he need not fear any
loss to himself in the public's gain of the annual hundred million
dollar tax which it now pays for the luxury of superfluous letters. Our
printer's bills in the future will be as large as at present, but we
shall get more for our money.

It will indeed be to the English race a strange world in which the
spelling book ends with the alphabet; in which there is no conflict of
standards except as regards pronunciation; in which two years of a
child's school life are rescued from the needless and applied to the
useful; in which the stenographer has to learn not two systems of
spelling, but only two alphabets; in which the simplicity and directness
of the English language, which fit it to become a world language, will
not be defeated by a spelling that equals the difficulty of German
grammar; in which the blundering of Dutch printers, like _school_, false
etymologies, like _rhyme_, and French garnishes, as in _tongue_, no
longer make the judicious grieve; and in which the fatal gift of bad
spelling, which often accompanies genius, will no longer be dependent
upon the printer to hide its orthographic nakedness from a public which,
if it cannot always spell correctly itself, can always be trusted to
detect and ridicule bad spelling. But it is a world which the English
race will some day have, and which we may begin to have here and now if
we will.

THE PERVERSITIES OF TYPE

That searching analyst of the soul, Edgar Allan Poe, found among the
springs of human nature the quality of perverseness, the disposition to
do wrong because it is wrong; in reality, however, Poe's Imp of the
Perverse is active far beyond the boundaries of the human soul; his
disturbances pervade the whole world, and nowhere are they more
noticeable than in the printing office. This is so because elsewhere,
when things fall out contrary to rule, the result may often be neutral
or even advantageous; but in the printing office all deviations, or all
but a minute fraction, are wrong. They are also conspicuous, for, though
the s