han 'confessions of provincials.'" This may be understood as
modifying the idea expressed earlier in the same paper, that the proper
function of writing "is truthfully to represent the present speech." But
the difficulties to be encountered in an effort to make the present
speech homogeneous will baffle the wisdom of the reformers. I will not
answer the question now--I will only ask it: What is the present speech?
Who is to determine that? "The scholars formally recognize that there is
and ought to be a standard speech and standard writing." I do not quite
seize the idea embodied in the above-quoted sentences about writing as
we think we pronounce and about "confessions of provincials." We may
agree that there ought to be, probably, a standard speech, both spoken
and written. That we have the standard written speech must be confessed,
or did have until Professor March and his colaborers began the
publication of their ideas in "bad spelling." The spoken speech is far
from homogeneity. Some of the most pretentious scholars assume that we
have a standard of pronunciation. That the standard is not adhered to,
and is therefore, to all intents and purposes, no standard at all, is
evident. The learned or college-bred use one pronunciation, and for that
class that is the standard. Those who are deficient in education do not
follow that standard. As the educated seem to drift naturally to centres
of population, there is assumed to be a city standard and a country
standard of pronunciation. The professor tells us that the country
standard must be abolished, the city standard adopted, and then the new
era will open out in beauty. Or does he mean, as his words are open to
this meaning, that a spoken word is not _the_ word unless it is spoken
in accordance with the city or college-bred standard? But sound is
sound, by whomsoever uttered, and if the word is mere sound a provincial
can make words as well as any one else. The proposition is, _the_ word
is the word spoken and not the word written, unless the word is spoken
by a provincial. To be _the_ word, it must be intoned and articulated in
accordance with the intonation and articulation of the _literati_. If
this is the logical outcome of the position taken by the "spelling
reformers," then we know our soundings.

We speak of _progress_ in connection with intellectual, moral,
religious, social and political matters and civilization. In the use of
the word we discard its true meaning