new
departure in literature. The present agitation is only a skirmish, and
ought not to be dignified by the title of a battle: whether we shall
have a battle on this skirmish-line remains to be seen.

In the January number of the _Princeton Review_ there appeared a paper
from the pen of Professor Francis A. March in commendation of the
"reform." The professor is one of the most active as well as able of
those who have spoken on that side, and, while he incidentally and
modestly crowns Mr. George P. Marsh as chief of the movement, his
fellow-soldiers, if they are wise, will bestow the crown upon him. In
the article referred to the professor emphasizes his earnestness by
securing the printing of his admirable paper in the peculiar orthography
he advocates. This orthography is practically the same as that advocated
and contended for by the American Philological Association and the
Spelling-Reform Association. Any criticism, therefore, of the peculiar
orthography of the professor's paper is a criticism of the adopted
orthography of the whole body of "reformers," so far as they are agreed,
for in some details they still disagree.

The readers of the professor's paper will notice that in a large number
of words the usual terminal _ed_ is changed to _t_. This is in
accordance with one of the rules recommended by the Spelling-Reform
Association and laid down authoritatively by the American Philological
Association. The phraseology of the rule is to make the substitution
where-ever the final _ed_ "has the sound of _t_." It is to the
professor's application of this rule that I now desire to call the
attention of the reader. The "reformers" write _broacht, ceast,
distinguisht, establisht, introduct, past, prejudict, pronounct, rankt,
pluckt, learnt, reduct, spelt, trickt, uneartht_, and assert that they
write the words as they pronounce them. In the rule given by the A.P.A.
for the substitution of _ed_ for _t_, _lasht_ and _imprest_ are given as
examples.

All of us are undoubtedly aware of the ease with which the sound
represented by _ed_ can be reduced to a _t_-sound in vocalization. But
even if the sound of _t_ is given at the termination of the words named,
not much is gained by the "reform" in the actual use of the words. On
the contrary, it adds another tangle in the skein which children at
school must untangle. It either forms another class of regular verbs, or
swells the already almost unmanageable list of irregular ver