Common sense points out, that the reading of phonetic words must be more easily learnt than the reading of the aphonetic words, of which our language is essentially composed.  The real question is simply this,—­Does the infant mind advance with such rapidity under phonetic teaching, as to enable it at a certain age to transfer its powers to orthodox orthography, and reach a given point of knowledge therein, with less trouble, and in a shorter space of time, than those infants do who are educated upon the old system?  If phonetic teaching has this effect, it is an inestimable boon, and if not, it is a complete humbug.[AM] It should also be borne in mind, that the same arguments which hold good in the case of infants will apply also, in a great degree, to adults who wish to learn to read, and to foreigners commencing the study of our language.  Whether any further use of phonetics is either desirable or practicable, would be a discussion out of place in these pages.

When any startling novelty is proposed, enthusiasts carry their advocacy of it so far as often to injure the cause they wish to serve:  on the other hand, too many of the educated portion of the community are so strenuously opposed to innovation, as to raise difficulties rather than remove them.  Has not the common sense of the age been long calling for changes in the law of partnership, divorce, &c., and is not some difficulty always arising?  Has not the commercial world been crying aloud for decimal coinage and decimal weights and measures, and are not educated men constantly finding some objections, and will they not continue to do so, until some giant mind springs up able to grasp the herculean task, and force the boon upon the community?  Were not steamboats and railways long opposed as being little better than insane visions?  Did not Doctor Lardner prove to demonstration that railway carriages could never go more than twenty miles an hour, owing to the laws of resistance, friction, &c., and did not Brunel take the breath out of him, and the pith out of his arguments, by carrying the learned demonstrator with him on a locomotive, and whisking him ten miles out of London in as many minutes?  When I see that among so intelligent and practical a people as the New Englanders—­a people whose thoughts and energies are so largely devoted to education—­one hundred and nineteen schools have adopted the phonetic system, I cannot but look back to the infancy of steam, and conclude, that there must be more advantages in that system than its opponents seem disposed to allow it to possess.

The Committee of Council on Education in England, to whom the funds set apart for educational purposes are, intrusted, authorized the printing of phonetic books for schools some years since; but authorizing books without training masters to teach them, is about as useful as putting engines into a ship, without supplying engineers to work them.  Besides which, their phonetic system was in itself confusing and objectionable; they have also informed the public, that the system, in various forms, is almost universally adopted in the elementary schools of Holland, Prussia, and Germany.[AN]