14 DECEMBER 1951, Page 4

In reference to my note last week on learning to

spell, if spelling can be learnt, I am told that Archbishop Temple, at a Speech Day at a Yorkshire school, told the boys they need not worry if they couldn't spell correctly, adding "But you must know how to punctuate, for if you cannot punctuate yoti cannot think." I agree with the latter dictum as much as I disagree with the former. In Tudor days everybody spelt as he chose, and by no means the same way every time, even where his own name (e.g. Shakespeare's) was concerned. But bad spelling today is, and ought to be, the badge of an uneducated person. The trouble is that so many persons who, apart from this particular deficiency, are perfectly well educated are appalling spellers, JANUS.