PHILOLOGY AND POLITICS.

Dominion, Volume 2, Issue 431, 13 February 1909, Page 9

PHILOLOGY AND POLITICS.

too; it would appear-(says an EnglisH .exchange) has'her • spelling", reformers,, and they;, have, greater power than our own," for-they haveVmauaged'twice.in:the;last few' years to 'get their, projects consigned-to' aCommission. :■ The Englishman who compares •the.-tangled jungle of .English., orthography' •with.'the relative-; simplicity.and.order of the French ;may be tempted -to Tonder what -Frenchmen: have to ■ oomplain of, and what mpre/'can they want, but doubtless even ini the. matter of scientific spelling ■■'the' appetite, grows "with the 'eating. v What, however, is persistently, puzzling is the heat , and' the . ferocity /engendered in pushing and resisting the advance across what appears tho narrow strip ; of . territory separating • tho excellent, present : .' from. . theoretical . .'perfection. The V "Journal des Debats," -'for- instance, writes, approvingly, of a. pamphlet, ■''by.-!'an: ardent Conservative in spelling', M/Bea'unieiv whose main thesis'is that spelling reform is akin to and;springs from the samo dark and destestable. source as anti-clericalism and antiniilitarismyand that the. Radical .philologist is.! twin-brother'to.the Radical Socialist.. 11. Beaunier traces the agitation, back to/the machinations. of M.; Combes, in whose hands, or rather mouth, a labio-dental or a roughljreathing is nothing but a lever for subverting the.faithful, and who lins planted Social-, ism even in grammar. M. Beaunicr.is either a very straight, logician or a rather unsorupu-

lous tactician. , If he roally thinks that all ideas are so intimately, associated that political, views and philological views must run together, one must respect his ricbur, though one may doubt whether his philological man is much nearer the. man in tho street than other people's economic man! Wβ rather suspect, • liowover, that M. Beaunier is tho much more common arid commonplace kind of Tory who holds that there is no more .effective argnmont than ; an apt, question-begging epithet and a skilfully adjusted appeal to passion. ;.' y .■.'..■..:. ; .-.■,-...