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16 spelling can be and ought to be improved. It constitutes a body upon whose united opinion the general public may confidently rely. Its membership is approximately 250.

Purpose of the Board

The chief aim of the Simplified Spelling Board is to arouse a wide interest in English spelling and to direct attention to its present caotic condition—a condition far worse than that existing in any other modern European language—in the belief that, when the peoples who speak English understand how imperfect for its purpose their present spelling really is, they wil be eager to aid an organized, intelligent, sistematic effort to better it, as it has been slowly betterd here and there by individual effort in the past.

The simplification of spelling is not an unconscious process, inevitable without human effort. Every changed spelling now in general use—and few words hav escaped some change in spelling, iether for the better, as fish from fysshe, dog from dogge, or for the worse, as rhyme from rime, delight from delite—was once the overt act of a single writer who was followd at first by a small minority. If there is to be substantial improvement in the future, somebody must be willing to point the way, to set the example, to propose the next step in advance.

This responsibility the Board has undertaken in the interest of the coming generations. Having among its members not only scolars and educators, men of letters, and men of affairs, but also specialists in linguistic sience, including the editors of leading dictionaries—British and American—it claims the right to be credited with some knowledge of the English language, of