rudimental attainment to which the humblest peasant aspires.

And is it not a discouraging consideration, that every individual must, at the very threshold of his career, encounter this almost insurmountable obstacle, which not only resists his early march, by a formidable array of conflicting rules and exceptions, but will be an evil genius through life, besetting and bidding defiance to his years of toil-for even the most learned lexicographers have been, and are still, at variance upon this endless theme. But a yet greater evil attends this unhappy state of things-I mean the injurious effect ultimately produced upon the mind, by the necessity of habitually guessing, at that which, after all the learned research of so many generations, is yet unsettled and in doubt, for want of some simple, but fixed principle, at all times tangible to the senses.

There is nothing more painful to a philosophic mind, than to be thus continually in doubt and suspense, upon trifling and unimportant points-especially when truth, to every appearance, can be so easily attained; and the mind, finding no satisfactory or immutable landmarks to guide its anxious efforts, turns from its labour with disgust. The cause of all this, as respects the subject in question, is obvious. Our common spelling is arbitrary and conventional. It has grown to its present state amid the conflicting idioms of various languages, from which the English is in a great measure derived. And from a misconceived and mischievous notion among the literati, an effort was early made, and has since been persevered in, to keep up

certain etymological distinctions in orthography, the tendency of which is, to exalt the literary or philological fame of a few laborious authors, at the expense of thousands, who have neither the qualifications to appreciate, nor the inclination to profit by such refined, grammatical distinctions. Under the capricious guidance of this learned bigotry, which stands more upon its own mere ipse dixit, than upon sound philosophy, reason, or experience, the art of spelling, to this day, presents a more formidable front than most other branches of a liberal education.

The learner is required, in spelling, to use letters which are not sounded in the pronunciation of words in which they are employed; or, if sounded at all, it may be in a manner different from that in which he has been previously taught to use them. This discrepancy produces a dislike in the mind of the pupil, which renders him indifferent to the subject, or forces him into an interminable conflict in his own mind, about the philological technicalities and absurdities, which abound throughout the grammars and dictionaries of the day. He is finally forced to the painful expedient of spelling sometimes right and sometimes wrong; and can only console himself with the reflection, that the same dernier resort is, to a greater or less extent, the common lot of all: for Johnson, Walker, Sheridan, Perry, Kenrick, Nares, and others, with all their rules, could not escape this crying evil.

It is by no means my intention to interfere with the established and popular system of spelling; in which, while there is indeed much to condemn, there are some

things to commend and admire. I am fully aware, that the spelling which I am about to introduce, for the special purpose of expeditious writing, can never supersede that which is now in common use, or interfere with it, any more than does algebra with the rules and practice of common arithmetic; for, though inseparably connected by analogy, each has its special province, independent of the other. Indeed these are parallel cases, in which is discovered a beautiful and almost necessary dependance, directly or indirectly, of one thing upon another, as the secondary upon its primary -each being confined, at the same time, to its own particular sphere.

As algebra teaches to solve in a more concise way, problems difficult and tedious in arithmetic, so does short spelling and short writing enable us to accomplish in hours, that which in the common method would require the labour of days. And, as an acquaintance with the use of numbers, in common arithmetic, facilitates the attainment of algebra, so is a knowledge of the power of letters as employed in common spelling, not only useful in the acquisition of short-hand, but in fact the basis upon which each individual may build a more simple and perfect structure, free from every perplexity and doubt.

For all the purposes of short writing, then, I shall recommend the adoption of a simple, yet infallible rule, by which thousands may be taught in a few hours, to spell precisely alike, almost every word of the English language. This system is not only worthy of adoption, but of admiration, inasmuch as the humblest schoolboy

may readily attain it without the pre-requisite of a grammatical education. For the truth of this assertion, which has certainly the appearance of a broad one, I appeal to the thousands who have attended my own personal instruction. The rule is simply this: “pronounce words rapidly, and spell them according to their sound;"-let them be written as they are spelled.

That my learners may profit to the fullest extent, by the instructions which I shall now give, it is earnestly enjoined on every one to commence practicing with the pen, at once, precisely as I shall direct: for if the pupil content himself with simply reading what I may lay before him, promising himself to commence writing at a more convenient season, or when he shall have seen further into the theory of the subject, he will not only trifle with my counsel, but wantonly misimprove the opportunity afforded him. Indeed, he would in so doing show as much want of judgment and economy, as would the individual who, having the offer of all the guineas that he could gather into a basket in a given time, from an extended row, should, instead of commencing at the first end of the series, determine to take a cursory view of the whole, and then leisurely fill the basket on his return-on his return, to his mortification, he might discover that another had made better use of the time allotted, and that the golden treasure had forever eluded his grasp. I hope that this hint may be sufficient to induce each individual of my numerous class to take hold with resolution, and persevere to the end.

It is to be presumed, that all to whom I am now

addressing myself, are tolerably well versed in the common method of spelling and writing with the letters of the English alphabet, as the visible representatives of sounds, of which syllables and words are composed. This being the case, I shall without farther comment, proceed to elucidate by the most familiar examples, that portion of my theory embraced in the fundamental rule already given.

The word envy, when pronounced rapidly, appears to be concentrated into the two letters n and v; and in short-hand it should be so written; that is, with the short-hand letters nv joined together, thus

As this is an important element in the theory of my system, each learner is requested to write the words which I shall propose a number of times, always pronouncing them distinctly, but rapidly, till they are familiar. He should write across the paper, as in common hand, and make the characters small and near together. By this course, he will learn at the same time, the true principle of short spelling and short writing, not only in theory, but in practice, and that too, faster than he could acquire either branch, by itself. Proceed in the same way with each word of the following catalogue, using the short-hand representatives of those sounds only, which appear to constitute the most prominent features in the respective words. These words, when rapidly pronounced as above directed, appear to be compressed into particular letters, which should be written till the spelling and writing are familiar. It would be well to write at least one entire line of each particular word on the following page.