[To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.]
Snt,—In order to encourage accuracy in his boys, Mr. Grenfell introduces script writing (which is much too slow for use in everyday life), and reasserts the importance of dictionary spelling.
In this matter he exhibits the popular intolerance of un- conventional spelling. To allow a boy to spell enough " enuf " must be a very wicked thing to do, but it has always seemed to me a small matter as long as his meaning is clear.
If, by some miracle, the English people decided to increase the usefulness of the English language by spelling it rationally, there would hardly be any question of boys having to learn to spell, and all the business of visual memory and trial and error methods of spelling would vanish. Mr. Grenfell would then have to rely on script writing to develop a " hungering and thirsting for accuracy." Surely, if his great idea is accuracy, every activity, whether it is doing or thinking, must bear some relation to it.
As for spelling matches, I can imagine nothing more intrin- sically valueless. If Mr. Grenfell could get ideas from his 1)(33's, instead of words spelt- according to authority, he would be spending their time more profitably.—I am, Sir, ste., St. Peter's School, Eastbourne. G. W. NELSON.
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