REASON, SPELLING AND GRAMMAR.
[To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.] SIR, Mr. Frank Jones, in one of the spirited lectures which he has lately been delivering on the use and abuse of English, appealed for a general cutting down of the rules of grammar in teaching children. He pointed out that speech was invented by man for his own convenience, and that therefore man ought to be the master and not the victim of it. No rule should be laid before a child without an accompanying reason. The fact thsit Mr. Jones thought it necessary to say this suggests that a great deal of teaching is still done very irrationally.
I suppose that things have greatly improved since my childhood—but perhaps they have not. I distinctly remember trying to commit spelling and grammatical rules to memory by rote. I was never given a reason for anything. For example, a master in my first private school informed me that only very vulgar little boys spelt " handkerchief " without a " d." I made up my mind not to be vulgar ; but unfortunately I could not afterwards remember whether the vulgarity consisted in inserting a " d " or leaving it out. It was not till years later that I discovered of my own accord that there was such a thing as a kerchief and that you might have one to use either round your neck or in your hand, The discovery that my old enemy which had tripped me up so often was a kerchief to be used in the hand was a reveler tion. If the master had put me in possession of that simple fact I should obviously have been fortified against all further mistakes. For _I submit that the child is quite exceptional who wants to spell " hand " without a " d." Is it possible that this kind of thing still goes on ?—I am, Sir, &c., A.
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