substance than almost any school scheme or prospectus the reader is
likely to encounter. Let us (on the assumption of our opening
paragraph) inquire what is needed to carry it into execution. So far as
1 and 2 in this table go, we have to recognize that since the
development of elementary schools in England introduced a spirit of
endeavour into teaching, there has been a steady progress in the art of
education. Reading and writing are taught somehow or other to most
people nowadays, they are frequently taught quickly and well,
especially well, I think, in view of the raw material, in many urban
Board Schools in England, and there is nothing to do here but to
inquire if anything can be done to make this teaching, which is so
exceptional in attaining its goal, still quicker and easier, and in
bringing the average up to the level of the present best. We have
already suggested as the work of an imaginary English Language Society,
how much might be done in providing everywhere, cheaply and
unavoidably, the best possible reading-books, and it is manifest that
the standard of copy-books for writing might also be pressed upward by
similar methods. In addition, we have to consider--what is to me a most
uncongenial subject--the possible rationalization of English spelling.
I will frankly confess I know English as much by sight as by sound, and
that any extensive or striking alteration, indeed that almost any
alteration, in the printed appearance of English, worries me extremely.
Even such little things as Mr. Bernard Shaw's weakness for printing
"I've" as "Ive," and the American "favor," "thro," and "catalog" catch
at my attention as it travels along the lane of meaning, like trailing
briars. But I have to admit this habit of the old spelling, which I am
sure most people over four-and-twenty share with me, will trouble
neither me nor any one else who reads books now, in the year 1990. I
have to admit that the thing is an accident of my circumstances. I have
learnt to read and write in a certain way, and I am concerned with the