of correspondence between its oral and its written form.  Still the discrepancies are few, when compared with the instances of exact conformity; and, if they are, as I suppose they are, unavoidable, it is as useless to complain of the trouble they occasion, as it is to think of forcing a reconciliation.  The wranglers in this controversy, can never agree among themselves, whether orthography shall conform to pronunciation, or pronunciation to orthography.  Nor does any one of them well know how our language would either sound or look, were he himself appointed sole arbiter of all variances between our spelling and our speech.

OBS. 3.—­“Language,” says Dr. Rush, “was long ago analyzed into its alphabetic elements.  Wherever this analysis is known, the art of teaching language has, with the best success, been conducted upon the rudimental method.” * * * “The art of reading consists in having all the vocal elements under complete command, that they may be properly applied, for the vivid and elegant delineation of the sense and sentiment of discourse.”—­Philosophy of the Voice, p. 346.  Again, of “the pronunciation of the alphabetic elements,” he says, “The least deviation from the assumed standard converts the listener into the critic; and I am surely speaking within bounds when I say, that for every miscalled element in discourse, ten succeeding words are lost to the greater part of an audience.”—­Ibid., p. 350.  These quotations plainly imply both the practicability and the importance of teaching the pronunciation of our language analytically by means of its present orthography, and agreeably to the standard assumed by the grammarians.  The first of them affirms that it has been done, “with the best success,” according to some ancient method of dividing the letters and explaining their sounds.  And yet, both before and afterwards, we find this same author complaining of our alphabet and its subdivisions, as if sense or philosophy must utterly repudiate both; and of our orthography, as if a ploughman might teach us to spell better:  and, at the same time, he speaks of softening his censure through modesty.  “The deficiencies, redundancies, and confusion, of the system of alphabetic characters in this language, prevent the adoption of its subdivisions in this essay.”—­Ib., p. 52.  Of the specific sounds given to the letters, he says, “The first of these matters is under the rule of every body, and therefore is very properly to be excluded from the discussions of that philosophy which desires to be effectual in its instruction.  How can we hope to establish a system of elemental pronunciation in a language, when great masters in criticism condemn at once every attempt, in so simple and useful a labour as the correction of its orthography!”—­P. 256.  Again:  “I deprecate noticing the faults of speakers, in the pronunciation of the alphabetic elements.  It is better for criticism to be modest on this point, till it has the sense