The Means and End(s) of Spelling Reform in the Victorian Press

In March of 1847, Thomas De Quincey was granted many column inches in the Edinburgh Magazine to sum up his frustration with the growing tide of critics, teachers, and other parties calling for spelling reform. Laypeople and professionals alike had noted the endless exceptions to rules of pronunciation and spelling and accordingly had suggested changes ranging from minor adjustments in phonetic consistency to complete overhauls of the alphabet. Linguistic scholars also lamented the ways that the evolution of spelling obscured words' etymological histories and relationships. Observing these debates, De Quincey declared that "it is work for a separate dictionary in quarto to record all the proposed revolutions in [English] spelling," adding sarcastically that "even in the last century, and in the present, what a list of eminent rebels against the spelling-book might be called up to answer for their wickedness . . . if anybody would be kind enough to make it a felony!"¹ De Quincey's allusion to a "separate dictionary" is an acknowledgement that Samuel Johnson's Dictionary of the English Language had, since its first publication in 1755, been the authoritative reference that provided both friends and foes of spelling reform with a center of gravity for their discussion, along with endless examples for illustrating their points.² But De Quincey's outrage was most likely prompted by a more recent controversy: the national debates over whether to adopt Isaac Pitman's Stenographic Sound-Hand, which had been published just a decade earlier, as the orthographic standard. Stenographic alphabets and variations had been introduced in an attempt to ease the difficulties of reading, writing, and teaching English. But Pitman's system was ingeniously founded upon a phonetic rendering of speech. As the Practical Teacher recalled, "Very early in his phonography labours Sir Isaac advocated the phonetic principle, 'a sign for a sound,' by which he rightly contended that the absurd anomalies of English orthography could be removed."³ The commercial success of that system, coupled with a personal commitment to the cause of education, prompted Pitman to go further by advocating more general spelling reform: he pushed for everyone, including printers and teachers, to adopt a consistently phonetic orthography. He was soon joined in this effort by others, especially Alexander J. Ellis, author of A Plea for Phonetic Spelling (1848). This tract was routinely cited in debates about spelling reform for the next several decades.⁴ De Quincey's screed suggests that by the late 1840s, pressure for reform had gathered enough strength that individuals in the literary community felt compelled to weigh in. After detailing the ways in which illustrious authors ranging from Milton to Pope had been attacked by Pitman, Ellis, and their sympathizers for spelling that was inconsistent, phonetically irrational, or otherwise wayward, De Quincey concludes "that the whole world lies in heresy or schism on the subject of orthography."⁵ Nevertheless, Queen Victoria declined to condemn spelling reform. In fact, she knighted Isaac Pitman in 1894 in recognition of his tireless efforts to render English orthography more manageable, accessible, and, above all, teachable.

The honor accorded to Pitman obscures the complete failure of Victorian-era attempts at spelling reform. The task only grew more imposing as educational reform kept pace throughout the century. At least one Spelling Reform Association was founded in 1869, anticipating the much better-known and better-organized English Spelling Reform Association formed in 1876. A year later, Parliament passed the Elementary Education Act of 1870, the first in a series of laws that provided for government-run schools and prohibited child labor, gradually transforming primary education into the "work" of childhood.⁶ The challenge of educating every British citizen prompted the school boards and Parliament, as well as individual pedagogues and parents (not to mention students), to seek economy and efficiency wherever possible and to confront the limitations of existing strategies and technologies. The most popular argument for spelling reform, most commonly understood as a shift to phonetic spelling, was that it would save time currently being wasted on teaching spelling, by either abbreviating the period that students spent in national...