Girls are very stuck up and dignefied in their maner
and be have your. They think more of dress than
anything and like to play with dowls and rags.
They cry if they see a cow in a far distance and are
afraid of guns. They stay at home all the time
and go to church on Sunday. They are al-ways
sick. They are always funy and making fun of
boy’s hands and they say how dirty. They
cant play marbels. I pity them poor things.
They make fun of boys and then turn round and love
them. I dont beleave they ever kiled a cat or
anything. They look out every nite and say oh
ant the moon lovely. Thir is one thing I have
not told and that is they al-ways now their lessons
bettern boys.
From Mr. Edward Channing’s recent article in
science:
The marked difference between the books now being
produced by French, English, and American travelers,
on the one hand, and German explorers, on the other,
is too great to escape attention. That difference
is due entirely to the fact that in school and university
the German is taught, in the first place to see, and
in the second place to understand what he does see.
(This article, written during the autumn of 1899,
was about the last writing done by Mark Twain on any
impersonal subject.)
I have had a kindly feeling, a friendly feeling, a
cousinly feeling toward Simplified Spelling, from
the beginning of the movement three years ago, but
nothing more inflamed than that. It seemed to
me to merely propose to substitute one inadequacy
for another; a sort of patching and plugging poor
old dental relics with cement and gold and porcelain
paste; what was really needed was a new set of teeth.
That is to say, a new alphabet.
The heart of our trouble is with our foolish alphabet.
It doesn’t know how to spell, and can’t
be taught. In this it is like all other alphabets
except one—the phonographic. This
is the only competent alphabet in the world.
It can spell and correctly pronounce any word in
our language.
That admirable alphabet, that brilliant alphabet,
that inspired alphabet, can be learned in an hour
or two. In a week the student can learn to write
it with some little facility, and to read it with considerable
ease. I know, for I saw it tried in a public
school in Nevada forty-five years ago, and was so
impressed by the incident that it has remained in
my memory ever since.
I wish we could adopt it in place of our present written
(and printed) character. I mean simply
the alphabet; simply the consonants and the vowels—I
don’t mean any reductions or abbreviations
of them, such as the shorthand writer uses in order
to get compression and speed. No, I would spell
every word out.
I will insert the alphabet here as I find it in Burnz’s
phonic shorthand. [Figure 1] It is arranged
on the basis of Isaac Pitman’s phonography.
Isaac Pitman was the originator and father of scientific
phonography. It is used throughout the globe.
It was a memorable invention. He made it public
seventy-three years ago. The firm of Isaac Pitman
& Sons, New York, still exists, and they continue
the master’s work.
