The Art of Writing Speaking the English Language | Page 7

special attention to acquiring it.
The "visualization" method of teaching spelling now in use in the schools is along the line of training the eye to observe every letter in a word. It is good so far as it goes; but it does not go very far. The reason is that there is a limit to the powers of the memory, especially in the observation of arbitrary combinations of letters. What habits of visualization would enable the ordinary person to glance at such a combination as the following and write it ten minutes afterward with no aid but the single glance: hwgufhtbizwskoplmne? It would require some minutes' study to memorize such a combination, because there is nothing to aid us but the sheer succession of forms. The memory works by association. We build up a vast structure of knowledge, and each new fact or form must be as securely attached to this as the new wing of a building; and the more points at which attachment can be formed the more easily is the addition made.
The Mastery of Irregular Words.
Here, then, we have the real reason for a long study of principles, analogies, and classifications. They help us to remember. If I come to the word colonnade in reading, I observe at once that the double n is an irregularity. It catches my eye immediately. "Ah!" I reflect almost in the fraction of a second as I read in continuous flow, "here is another of those exceptions." Building on what I already know perfectly well, I master this word with the very slightest effort. If we can build up a system which will serve the memory by way of association, so that the slight effort that can be given in ordinary reading will serve to fix a word more or less fully, we can soon acquire a marvellous power in the accurate spelling of words.
Again: In a spelling-book before me I see lists of words ending in ise, ize, and yse, all mixed together with no distinction. The arrangement suggests memorizing every word in the language ending with either of these terminations, and until we have memorized any particular word we have no means of knowing what the termination is. If, however, we are taught that ize is the common ending, that ise is the ending of only thirty-one words, and yse of only three or four, we reduce our task enormously and aid the memory in acquiring the few exceptions. When we come to franchise in reading we reflect rapidly, "Another of those verbs in ise!" or to paralyse, "One of those very few verbs in yse!" We give no thought whatever to all the verbs ending in ize, and so save so much energy for other acquirements.
If we can say, "This is a violation of such and such a rule," or "This is a strange irregularity," or "This belongs to the class of words which substitutes ea for the long sound of e, or for the short sound of e."
We have an association of the unknown with the known that is the most powerful possible aid to the memory. The system may fail in and of itself, but it more than serves its purpose thus indirectly in aiding the memory.
We have not spoken of the association of word forms with sounds, the grouping of the letters of words into syllables, and the aid that a careful pronunciation gives the memory by way of association; for while this is the most powerful aid of all, it does not need explanation.
The Mastery of Regular Words.
We have spoken of the mastery of irregular words, and in the last paragraph but one we have referred to the aid which general principles give the memory by way of association in acquiring the exceptions to the rules. We will now consider the great class of words formed according to fixed principles.
Of course these laws and rules are little more than a string of analogies which we observe in our study of the language. The language was not and never will be built to fit these rules. The usage of the people is the only authority. Even clear logic goes down before usage. Languages grow like mushrooms, or lilies, or bears, or human bodies. Like these they have occult and profound laws which we can never hope to penetrate,---which are known only to the creator of all things existent. But as in botany and zoology and physiology we may observe and classify our observations, so we may observe a language, classify our observations, and create an empirical science of word-formation. Possibly in time it will become a science something more than empirical.
The laws we are able at this time to state with much definiteness are few (doubling consonants, dropping silent e's, changing y's to i's, accenting