So we have to go considerably beyond the mere mechanical association
of letters.
Besides the two or three thousand common irregular words, the dictionary
contains something over two hundred thousand other words. Of course no one
of us can possibly have occasion to use all of those words; but at the same
time, every one of us may sooner or later have occasion to use any one of
them. As we cannot tell before hand what ones we shall need, we should be
prepared to write any or all of them upon occasion. Of course we may refer
to the dictionary; but this is not always, or indeed very often, possible.
It would obviously be of immense advantage to us if we could find a key to
the spelling of these numerous but infrequently used words.
The first duty of the instructor in spelling should be to provide such
a key. We would suppose, off-hand, that the three hundred thousand
school-teachers in the United States would do this immediately and
without suggestion--certainly that the writers of school-books would.
But many things have stood in the way. It is only within a few years,
comparatively speaking, that our language has become at all fixed in its
spelling.
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