MODERN SPELLING.

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXIII, Issue 4471, 25 September 1922, Page 4

MODERN SPELLING.

(By Dr. C. W. Kimmins, formerly Chief Inspector of the London County Council Schools.) Jt has always been the English custom to belittle the standard of educar tion in vogue and to take an unnaturally roseate view of that of the days of our childhood. The present outcry is that a serious epidemic of bad spelling is in our midst. But why single out spelling for special condemnation ? It has not suffered more than any other subject of the school curriculum. A small proportion of our children will never spel] accurately, and cases are not unknown of distinguished university men wiho share this incapacity. Script writing, which is becoming increasingly popular in our schools : , and is rapidly spreading to the schools of other countries, is having a most beneficial effect on spelling. This type of writing approximates more closely to printed matter, so that the visual comparison of the written with the printed word is immediate, and any error is corrected because “it doesn't look right,” During the past few years I have been carrying on an investigation on the Sense of Humour in Children, and in connection with this research I have read many thousands of essays by children from 8 to 14 years of age. Quite apart from the extraordinary power pf graphic description possessed by young children, I have been much impressed by the wonderful range of their vocabulary. The comaprison of the spelling of a child with the very limited vocabulary of former days with, that of one with a vast choice of words should naturally be confined to words pf the same type, especially as wherje there is the alternative of the short or long word the child will invariably choose the latter. The following extracts taken at random from essays written by young children ofl 9, 10, 11, and 14 years of age, respectively,’ illustrate the child’s love of long words: (a) "We sat in a portion pf the baths se.t aside for on,-lookers at the Swimming Gala watching with much merriment the comical antics of the competitors.” (b) "The shopkeeper, with much efficiency, strode away and returned with a collection ofl trains. The man examined them, muttering criticisms

as be did so.” (c) “The heroic little coachman put himself in the path of the human avalanche (his mistress) and was •swept into the gutter.” (d) “As I walked along soliloquising upon the drabness of the general outlook my reveries were interrupted by melodious strains which issued from a very ancient-looking personage.” If the number pf different words used by the average child of 13 to-day could be compared with that of the average cihild of the same age of 10 years ago the result would be startling.