them to deal with the subject. The corresponding use of Latin plurals
taking singular verbs, as _Morals_, should be brought under rule.

4. The question of the use of _ae_ (_æ_) and _oe_ (_[oe]_). Our Society
from the first abjured the whole controversy about reforms of spelling,
but questions of literary propriety and convenience must sometimes involve
the spellings; and this is an instance of it. On the main question of
phonetic spelling the Society would urge its members to distinguish the
use of phonetic script in _teaching_, from its introduction into English
_literature_. The first is absolutely desirable and inevitable: the second
is not only undesirable but impracticable, though this would not preclude
a good deal of reasonable reform in our literary spelling in a phonetic
direction. Those who fear that if phonetics is taught in the schools it
will then follow that our books will be commonly printed in phonetic
symbols, should read Dr. Henry Bradley's lecture to the British Academy
'On the relations between spoken and written language' (1913), and they
will see that the Society's Tract II, on 'English Homophones', illustrates
the unpractical nature of any scheme either of pure phonetics in the
printing of English books, or even of such a scheme as is offered by 'the
Simplified Spelling Society'; because the great number of homophones which
are now distinguished by their different spellings would make such a
phonetic writing as unutilitarian as our present system is: moreover, if
it were adopted it would inevitably lead to the elimination of far more of
these homophones than we can afford to lose; since it would enforce by its
spelling the law which now operates only by speech, that homophones are
self-destructive.

5. Mr. Pearsall Smith has returned to the question of dialectal
regeneration mentioned in Tract I, in which we invited contributions on
the subject. In response we had a paper sent to us, which we do not print