PREFACE
The main ideas underlying the treatment here found of English orthography were embodied in an article which appeared in theAtlantic Monthlyfor June, 1907. The title it there bore was “Confessions of a Spelling Reformer.” This it was the original intention to give to the present work. But with the changes which were required in recasting the article upon which it was based, with the great expansion of many of the points considered in it, more than all with the extension of its scope so as to include many new topics, the personal element which had characterized it none too prominently in the first place sank into almost complete insignificance. Hence followed the inappropriateness of the title. Here, accordingly, it has been confined to the opening chapter, and for it has been substituted that which the volume now bears.
As published in the magazine, the article referred to was of a length so unconscionable thatI have always been confident that the editor, however carefully he concealed his feelings, groaned inwardly at the space he obliged himself to give up to it. Still, long as it was, much which had been prepared for it was cut out before transmission. It was felt that there is a point beyond which the patience of the most long-suffering of editors will not stretch. A few passages which were then omitted were later made to do service in a presidential address given at the annual meeting of the Simplified Spelling Board. These have been restored here, though in a much enlarged form, to their old place. With them also has been reinstated a good deal of other matter which had been struck out before the article was forwarded for publication. I have also made use of several paragraphs which had appeared a number of years ago in contributions to theCentury Magazine. In addition, it is to be said that one whole chapter in the volume has been printed before, though very much abbreviated, inHarper’s Magazine. But in spite of the extent to which I have drawn upon matter previously published, fully two-thirds of the contents of the present treatise has never up to this time appeared in print. This is true in particular of what in my own eyes is the mostimportant chapter in the book—that on the Orthographic Situation.
The subject of spelling reform is not, strictly speaking, a soul-stirring one, nor is any possible treatment of it likely to contribute to the gayety of nations. If any of the chapters contained in the present volume be of the slightest interest in itself, that on the orthographic situation is assuredly not the one. On the other hand, if there be anything of value in the work, that same chapter has, as I look at it, far the most value. There is in it, indeed, nothing original. The numerous facts it contains are to be found scattered up and down the pages of various volumes—particularly in the introductions to the larger dictionaries, and in orthographic and orthoepic essays produced at various periods. But so far as I know, this is the first attempt ever made to collect and combine and, above all, to put in a form, easily comprehensible by the general reader, the widely scattered facts which go to show the precise character and characteristics of English orthography, and to bring out with distinctness the real nature of the deep-seated disease under which it labors.
At all events, whether or not I have been anticipated in the presentation of these facts,such knowledge of them as can be gained from this volume or from some better source is essential to the comprehension of the subject or to any proper consideration of it. Designedly and avowedly incomplete as is the survey of the subject here taken, it is sufficiently detailed to give any one who cares to understand it a fair degree of familiarity with the situation which confronts him who sets out to effect a genuine and not a spurious reform. It is furthermore sufficient to give him a fair conception of the sort of work that will have to be done before the anarchy which now prevails in our spelling can give way to even the semblance of order.
Assuredly there was ample need of a work of this sort being prepared, and the only regret that need be entertained is that it has not fallen to some one better equipped than myself to prepare it. For I reiterate in this preface what I have said in the body of the work itself: that there is no one subject upon which men, whether presumably or really intelligent, are in a state of more hopeless, helpless ignorance than upon that of the nature and history of English orthography. No serious student of it can read the articles which appear in newspapers, the communications sent to them, or the elaborateessays found in periodicals, without being struck by the more than Egyptian darkness which prevails. In nearly every one of these mistakes of fact not merely exist but abound. Most of the assertions made lack even that decent degree of probability which belongs to respectable fiction. Even in the very few cases where the facts are correct, the inferences drawn from them are utterly erroneous and misleading. Many of these articles, too, contain mistakes of apprehension so gross that one comes to feel that in the discussion of this particular subject the limits of human incapacity to understand the simplest assertion have been reached. Statements of this sort will be resented with all the venomousness of anonymous personal vituperation. They have not been made, however, without full examination of scores and scores of articles which have come out in opposition to spelling reform. No difficulty will be found, if the occasion demands, to substantiate their correctness beyond the shadow of a doubt.
The various chapters contained in this volume follow one another in logical sequence. But I have also sought to make each of them, in a way, independent of the others, and therefore complete in itself. This has necessitated, in a very few cases, the repetition of statements importantonly for the immediate understanding of the particular subject. I may venture to add that I have taken great pains to make the numerous details scattered through the volume absolutely correct, so that he who quarrels with the conclusions reached may have no cause to question the facts upon which they are based. If in the immense mass of these found here I have made anywhere a slip, I shall be grateful for the detection of it, and none the less so if it come from the most hostile source. In this subject it is the exact truth of which we are in pursuit, and a real though not a fancied exposure of error is to be welcomed gladly.
The movement now going on for the simplification of English spelling has in the few years of its existence attained a success which has never been even remotely approached by any similar attempt in the past. This has been due, in part, to the fact that an effort for reform has for the first time had behind it the support of an organized propaganda. Previous undertakings of the sort have been mainly the work of individuals. It has likewise been due, in part, to the general spread of knowledge as to the nature and history of words belonging to our speech and the changes of form they have undergone. Something also is due to the growing dissatisfaction,a consequence of this increase of intelligence, with the anomalies and absurdities of the present spelling, and the loss of time and labor, the waste of money, and the mental injury which the acquisition of these perverse and perverted forms involves. In our country, also, this feeling of dissatisfaction has been strengthened by the consideration that something must be done to remove from the path of that mighty army of foreigners landing yearly upon our shores the greatest of the stumbling-blocks in the way of the acquisition of the English language, necessary as the knowledge of it is to any comprehension by them of the laws and institutions and political ideas of the land they are henceforth to make their home.
Flourishing as the present movement assuredly is, it of course may fail ultimately, as have several which have preceded it. It certainly will fail if the propaganda does not continue to be vigorously pressed. It will fail if proposals are adopted and methods are followed which, while pleasing sciolists, do not recommend themselves to scholars. That experiment has been too often tried to leave us in any doubt as to the result. But whatever be the success or failure which may attend the present movement, none the less am I confident that theEnglish race will not be content to sit down forever with a system of spelling which has nothing to recommend it but custom and prejudice, nothing to defend it but ignorance, nothing but superstition to make it an object of veneration. An orthography which defies the main object for which orthography was created cannot continue, with the advance of knowledge, to be endured forever; for speaking with absolute reverence, it can be said of it that, not being of God, it cannot stand.