Show KNOWING HOW TO SPELL by THOMAS ARKLE CLARK dean of men university of illinois A group of educated men in new york city congressmen senators newspaper reporters public caiola ls of distinction distinct n held a shellia sp ellia acon contest not long ngo ago the lie words being given out bv li y a statesman who use used un an old fash I 1 boned spelling N nit book it sue lucli as we were familiar with will sixty years cars ago in tile district schools of tile hie country it tale take long to hour floor tile the hale lot rind and they wont down own like a row of untrained but aul diers facing the ire fire of machine gu guns it s the simple truth la Is w we do dont know 0 v how to spell if a nilst misspelled ad word creeps into our correspondence we blame tile error upon our ste pliers it Is rather interesting to see alint common words floored the statesmen states nion si able lind and mortise moi tise and trim triin quil lity and initial words which one should expect eiery intelligent person to be able to manage were too much for them lien in my own experience there aro are a dozen simple words in common use which more etiore than half the high school graduates who come to college are likely to stumble on sophomore and laboratory and athlete find and truly and receive and dembar embarrassment ras and judgment are quite quile cl commonly too much for the young student accommodate and trans berred tire are more often misspelled than spelled correctly even in rall rail way stations I 1 see pullman accod ovations to in gold letters it seems now to be no disgrace not to know how to spell oil oh I 1 cant spell a healthy intelligent sophomore says to me and that with him seems to 0 o end it ile he admits the fact and feels no obligation ap parent ly to strengthen his orthographic weaknesses 1 I 1 had a brief note last week from a high school boy who managed in a short page to misspell seven even words pretty good I 1 thought considering the opportunity w aich lie he had in the old days there were two or three things which we did le learn in school quick arithmetical calculation tile the grammatical construction of son bences and spoiling spelling not to be able to work all the problems in itaas third part arithmetic was a disgrace it one could not diagram analyze and parse the words in any sentence which came along lie he was auit anathema heina and spelling was the chief indoor sport we drove miles on od i inter e 0 aings to demonstrate our ability in spelling contests ts I 1 was the pride of the community once when I 1 was fifteen tor for I 1 entered a spelling match at the burrill schoolhouse a dozen miles from home and spelled down seven school teachers it would not be so much of a task today I 1 suspect nor so much of an honor it still gives me a shock to get a letter from a man of standing and to find in it misspelled words it suggests carelessness inaccuracy inexcusable ignorance I 1 had always thought well of carson he Is a graduate of one of the great educational institutions of the country and tie he goes into good society I 1 had a MIL letter from him lost last week in which in three distinct places he speaks of tile the alum nae of an organization to which lie belongs carson know how to spell cc 19 1830 3 0 western newspaper paper union tin ton I 1 |