thing said and not with the vehicle, and so it is that it distresses me
when the medium behaves in an unusual way and distracts my attention
from the thing it conveys. But if it is true--and I think it must be
true--that the extremely arbitrary spelling of English--and more
especially of the more familiar English words--greatly increases the
trouble of learning to read and write, I do not think the mental
comfort of one or two generations of grown-up people must be allowed to
stand in the way of a permanent economy in the educational process. I
believe even that such a reader as I might come to be very easy in the
new way. But whatever is done must be done widely, simultaneously, all
over the English-speaking community, and after the fullest
consideration. The local "spelling reform" of a few half-educated
faddists here and there, helps not at all, is a mere nuisance. This is
a thing to be worked out in a scientific way by the students of
phonetics; they must have a complete alphabet settled for good, a
dictionary ready, reading-books well tested, the whole system polished
and near perfection before the thing passes out of the specialists'
hands. The really practical spelling-reformer will devote his guineas
to endowing chairs of phonetics and supporting publication in phonetic
science, and his time to study and open-minded discussion. Such
organisations as the _Association Phonetique Internationale_, may
be instanced. Systems concocted in a hurry, in a half-commercial or
wholly commercial and in a wholly presumptuous manner, pushed like
religious panaceas and advertised like soap--Pitman's System, Barnum's
System, Quackbosh the Gifted Postman's System, and all that sort of
thing--do nothing but vulgarize, discredit, and retard this work.

Before a system of phonetic spelling can be established, it is
advisable that a standard pronunciation of English should exist. With
that question also these papers have already dealt. But for the sake of