w PS O >> PS c5 O PS 3. The word method — 4. The phrase method — 5. The sentence method — 6. The story method — Modern methods of teaching beginning reading — The basis of phonetics — Phonetic facts and prin- ciples — 1. The elementary sounds — 2. Phonograms — 3. Pho- netic principles — The blend — References 88 Chapter VI. Analysis of the Reading Process through an Investigation of Eye Movement Methods employed in the investigation of eye movement- Character of interfixation movements and return sweep — The fixation pause — The average number of pauses per line — 'The duration of the pauses — Perception time — The location of pauses — Age differences — Individual differences — Differences between oral and silent reading — References 108 * Chapter VII. Perceptual and Interpretative Processes in Read- ing The visual field — Ruediger's investigation of the visual field — The perceptual span — The effect of practice upon the per- ceptual span — The nature of the perceptual process in reading — Goldscheider and Mueller's investigation — Zeitler's investigation — Messmer's investigation — Cattell's and Erd- mann and Dodge's investigations — Dearborn's investigation — Huey's investigation — Conclusions regarding the nature of the perceptual process in reading — The inner speech in reading — The experimental study of the problem — Experiments in- tended to determine whether inner speech is an essential characteristic or merely a superfluous habit — Secor's investi- gation — Pintner's investigation — The significance of Pintner's results — O'Brien's investigation — References 131 Chapter VIII. Reading Ability — Its Development and Varia- tion Early studies of rate and comprehension — Recent investiga- tions of rate and comprehension — Waldo's investigation — CONTENTS xi PAGE Oberholtzer's investigation — Courtis's investigation — Starch's standard scores — Scores obtained through the Kansas Silent Heading Tests — Monroe's standard scores — McLeod's investi- gation — W. S. Gray's investigations — King's investigations — Summary — Individual variation — The development of rate in oral reading — The development of rate in silent reading — The development of comprehension — Relation between rate and comprehension — References 152 Chapter IX. Oral and Silent Reading — A Comparison Oral reading and tradition — Objective character of oral read- ing — Oral reading and training in expression — Recent criticism of oral reading instruction — Investigations intended to com- pare the efficiency of oral and silent reading — Pintner's inves- tigation — Pintner and Galliland's investigation — Mead's in- vestigations — W. S. Gray's investigation — Judd and Gray's investigation in Cleveland — Schmidt's comparison of oral and silent reading on the basis of eye movement — Needed readjustments in the teaching of reading — The place of oral reading — The place of silent reading — Necessity of clearly defined aims and carefully worked out methods for teaching silent reading — Whipple's investigation of skimming — References 179 Chapter X. The Content of Readers Early content chiefly religious — "The New England Primer" — Gradual secularization of reading materials — Webster's "Ele- mentary Spelling Book" — Early readers — Webster's reader — Bingham's readers — Lindley Murray's series — Pierpont's series — Cobb's series — Mid-century readers — The McGuffey read- ers — Late nineteenth and early twentieth century readers — Current readers — Special and supplementary readers — The future of the school reader — References 198 Chapter XL Standard Tests for Measuring Reading Ability Tests measuring mastery of words as phonograms — The Jones Scale for Teaching and Testing Elementary Reading — The Haggerty Scales for Reading Vocabulary of Primary Children — Gray's Standard Oral Reading Test — Tests measur- ing mastery of word meanings — The Thorndike Visual Vo- cabulary Scales — The Haggerty Visual Vocabulary Scales — The Starch English Vocabulary Test — Tests measuring com- prehension of sentences and paragraphs — The Thorndike Scales for Measuring the Understanding of Sentences and Para- graphs — The Thorndike-McCall Reading Scale for the Under- standing of Sentences — The Haggerty Reading Examination — xii CONTENTS PAGE Sigma 1. — The Kansas Silent Reading Tests — Monroe's Standardized Silent Reading Tests — Tests measuring mastery of word meanings and comprehension of sentences and para- graphs — The Haggerty Reading Examination — Sigma 3. — > Tests measuring rate and comprehension of reading extend- ing over a given unit of time — The Starch Silent Reading Test — Brown's Silent Reading Test — The Courtis Standard Research Test in Silent Reading — Test Number 2. — Gray's Standard Silent Reading Tests — Present status of test move- ment — References 226 THE READING PROCESS THE READING PROCESS CHAPTER I LANGUAGE Reading an elaborate form of language behavior. — To the casual observer reading appears to be a simple and commonplace performance. A little reflection, however, will convince anyone that this is far from true; and the farther the analysis goes the more one becomes conscious of the astounding complexity of the process. The printed word, so familiar and so natural to the eye of the accom- plished reader, is in reality a very intricate contrivance — a contrivance representing not only the unitary sound of the spoken word, but — through letters and groups of let- ters — its component sounds as well. The mechanism of the spoken word is even more elusive. In some myste- rious way it has come to stand for our ideas and mean- ings, and to stand for them so inextricably that were we to be deprived of its use we should cease to think and to speak — at least until we could find a substitute for it. And reading without thinking and speaking would in the very nature of the case be quite out of the question. To evolve this elaborate form of language activity was of course no easy task. Before man could enter upon this undertaking it was essential that he acquire some facility in thinking and in communicating with others. Before l 4 THE READING PROCESS Communication of feeling attitudes through animal cries. — But it must not be inferred that the absence of genuine language capacity precludes all possibilities of communication between animals. The only conclusion which we are warranted in drawing is that they have not reached the level of mental development on which it is possible to label experiences with symbols so that they may be rearranged indirectly — thought over — and com- municated to others independently of the situations giv- ing rise to them. The animal must, therefore, deal with his experiences directly in terms of concrete situations while man has the capacity to deal with them indirectly in terms of free ideas. Although he lacks the capacity of free ideational communication, the animal succeeds — and often in a striking manner — in communicating his feeling attitudes to other animals. The most common media of such communication are the so-called animal cries. These cries are largely instinctive emotional ex- pressions of such attitudes as hunger, fear, anger, surprise, and exhilaration. They differ from true language sym- bols in that they are direct and natural responses to experience — the latter being indirect and symbolic. They serve as media of intercommunication because they arouse in other animals — especially in the case of those related in structure and organization — similar emotional attitudes and responses. Although the communication of feeling attitudes through instinctive utterances is far re- moved from genuine language behavior, the two are not unrelated. Human language arises out of instinctive emo- tional expression, and it never becomes completely divorced from it. The exclamation plays an important part in LANGUAGE 5 human speech and without an ever present emotional coloring our words would lose much of their charm. Levels of language development. — Human language has in the course of its evolution passed through a variety of stages. In the first of these — essentially a pre-language stage — communication was on a purely emotional level. Attitudes rather than ideas were communicated from one individual to another. There was on this level no intrin- sic difference between human and animal language. Such differences as existed were quantitative rather than quali- tative. The range of human communication was, how- ever, even at this stage much greater than that of the animal because early man was endowed with a far more complex vocal mechanism and with a much greater vari- ety of reflexes and instincts than the highest animals. During the second stage of its development language was on the gesture level. In order to reach this, man took a step which the animal could not take. In other words, he began to raise communication to ideational and pur- posive levels. Hitherto he had reacted to the various situations in which he found himself in a purely spon- taneous emotional manner. Now he began to view such situations as objective and as subject to adjustment pro- vided certain steps were taken. If he was suffering pain, for instance, he could communicate his condition to another to the end that he might obtain relief. He could do this through the use of the gesture or natural sign which in the very nature of the case closely resembled the situation in which he found himself and the end which he desired. During the next stage man reached the final language 4 THE READING PROCESS Communication of feeling attitudes through animal cries. — But it must not be inferred that the absence of genuine language capacity precludes all possibilities of communication between animals. The only conclusion which we are warranted in drawing is that they have not reached the level of mental development on which it is possible to label experiences with symbols so that they may be rearranged indirectly — thought over — and com- municated to others independently of the situations giv- ing rise to them. The animal must, therefore, deal with his experiences directly in terms of concrete situations while man has the capacity to deal with them indirectly in terms of free ideas. Although he lacks the capacity of free ideational communication, the animal succeeds— and often in a striking manner — in communicating his feeling attitudes to other animals. The most common media of such communication are the so-called animal cries. These cries are largely instinctive emotional ex- pressions of such attitudes as hunger, fear, anger, surprise, and exhilaration. They differ from true language sym- bols in that they are direct and natural responses to experience — the latter being indirect and symbolic. They serve as media of intercommunication because they arouse in other animals — especially in the case of those related in structure and organization — similar emotional attitudes and responses. Although the communication of feeling attitudes through instinctive utterances is far re- moved from genuine language behavior, the two are not unrelated. Human language arises out of instinctive emo- tional expression, and it never becomes completely divorced from it. The exclamation plays an important part in LANGUAGE 5 human speech and without an ever present emotional coloring our words would lose much of their charm. Levels of language development. — Human language has in the course of its evolution passed through a variety of stages. In the first of these — essentially a pre-language stage — communication was on a purely emotional level. Attitudes rather than ideas were communicated from one individual to another. There was on this level no intrin- sic difference between human and animal language. Such differences as existed were quantitative rather than quali- tative. The range of human communication was, how- ever, even at this stage much greater than that of the animal because early man was endowed with a far more complex vocal mechanism and with a much greater vari- ety of reflexes and instincts than the highest animals. During the second stage of its development language was on the gesture level. In order to reach this, man took a step which the animal could not take. In other words, he began to raise communication to ideational and pur- posive levels. Hitherto he had reacted to the various situations in which he found himself in a purely spon- taneous emotional manner. Now he began to view such situations as objective and as subject to adjustment pro- vided certain steps were taken. If he was suffering pain, for instance, he could communicate his condition to another to the end that he might obtain relief. He could do this through the use of the gesture or natural sign which in the very nature of the case closely resembled the situation in which he found himself and the end which he desired. During the next stage man reached the final language 6 THE READING PROCESS level. On this level the medium of communication — be it gesture or sound — no longer resembles the situation or the idea. It has become a symbol. The fact that sound rather than gesture symbols were selected is not without significance. A highly developed gesture language would have been quite possible. However, as has been repeat- edly pointed out by leading authorities, sound was a far more desirable medium of communication than the ges- ture. Not only were the vocal reflexes so abundant and so highly developed in man that they placed at the service of language an almost unlimited number of highly dif- ferentiated sound symbols, but they represented marked advantages in other respects. They could be used with- out interfering with normal activities of various kinds. They could be used in the dark and at distances where physical gestures were quite useless. Finally, the human voice is peculiarly responsive to changing emotional states. It could express these as no other medium pos- sibly could. Language development in the child. — The develop- ment of language in the case of the child is in a sense much like the racial development of which we have just spoken. Long before the dawn of true language, the child develops a vocal behavior of considerable extent. His earliest sounds and cries are purely reflex and instinc- tive emotional reactions to a variety of situations such as hunger, anger, pleasure, and pain. As time goes on, many of these sounds become more or less dissociated from the original situations, but the child — largely for the sake of the pleasure which such vocal play affords him — con- tinues to use these expressions in the most varied com- LANGUAGE 7 binations. Gradually, too, he comes to add further to his stock in trade by imitating those about him. All this time he is of course — contrary to popular opinion — on the lowest language level, for his utterances are anything but true language symbols. Presently, however, his behavior begins to change. It becomes more objective. He points toward and reaches for fairly definite things. For this purpose he uses his voice often quite as freely as his arms. He has entered upon the gesture stage, and in spite of the fact that his media of communication are rather clumsy, he succeeds in a remarkable manner in making himself understood. All this time his stock of words continues of course to in- crease, and, more important still, he comes to learn that they serve him far more effectively than cries, gestures, and other forms of direct behavior. Hence, words come to take the place of these increasingly, and in consequence the child finds himself on the highest language level. His words — although still comparatively few — have be- come true language symbols. Before him lie, however, almost unlimited possibilities. All his life he is to add to his ever increasing stock of symbols. The meanings, too, — for which the symbols stand — are destined to undergo change upon change. He has, indeed, entered upon a conquest the significance and the vastness of which are not readily appreciated. A word of caution is in order at this point. We have spoken rather freely of rarial and individual levels of language development. Such classifications are at best a means rather than an end. They are always more or less artificial and arbitrary. It must not be inferred, there- 8 THE READING PROCESS fore, that the boundaries between these stages are clearly defined or that the stages themselves are mutually ex- clusive. Language development was continuous and pro- gressive — each level often representing all that had gone before. Emotional expression couched in more or less conventional forms, as well as gestures of a great variety, play an important part in human language. Has it ever occurred to the reader how shallow and lifeless human speech would be if it were not for the glow which comes from a rich emotional coloring and for the emphases and picturesqueness which are introduced by the ever varying vocal, facial, and bodily gestures of the speaker? And what is this emotional coloring but a more or less spon- taneous feeling reaction to the meaning and significance associated with the symbols of our speech? And the gestures, are they not obvious attempts to reenforce the communication of ideas in a direct manner? The nature of meaning. — It now becomes our task to inquire more closely into the nature of the meanings which are associated with the symbols of genuine lan- guage behavior. The crucial difference between the words of a human being and those of the parrot lies — as has been repeatedly stressed — in the fact that the former are associated with meanings and ideas while the latter are not. Accordingly, man is able to use his words as instru- ments of thought and communication while the parrot can do little more than play with them. In considering the nature of meaning, two problems present themselves to us: We must inquire how words acquire mean- ings, and we must examine the processes which enter into the recognition and interpretation of words and sentences. LANGUAGE 9 How words acquire meanings. — In endeavoring to answer the question raised by the first problem — how- words acquire meanings — we cannot do better than quote several prominent authorities. Watson — writing from the standpoint of behavioristic psychology — takes the posi- tion that vocal habits (words) cannot become language habits (symbols) until they have become associated with bodily habits (reactions to situations), or until they have become substitutes for these. In other words, he holds that the symbols of a language derive their meaning and their significance from the fact that they have in some manner become associated with our experiences with things and our reactions to real situations. By the time the child is prepared to form genuine language habits, it has acquired much experience with things and many bod- ily habits. "The use of the hands, arms, fingers, and organs of locomotion has been more or less perfected" — "hundreds of habits of response to objects" having been formed. It "has learned to respond by appropriate acts to its doll, bottle, small boxes, and to hundreds of other objects." "These habits of response to objects," Watson holds, "are essential to the formation of language habits." He aptly illustrates the way in which these reactions become associated with the vocal habits (words) of the child: The stimulus (object) to which the child often responds, a box, for example, by movements such as opening and closing and putting objects into it, may serve to illustrate our argu- ment. The nurse, observing that the child reacts with his hands, feet, etc., to the box, begins to say "box" when the child is handed the box, "open box' 7 when the child opens it, "close box" when he closes it, and "put doll in box" when that act is executed. This is repeated over and over again. In the process 10 THE READING PROCESS of time it comes about that without any other stimulus than that of the box which originally called out only the bodily habits, he begins to say "box" when he sees it, "open box" when he opens it, etc. The visible box now becomes a stimulus capable of releasing either the bodily habits or the word habit; that is, development has brought about two things: (1) a series of functional connections among arcs which run from visual receptor to muscles of throat, and (2) a series of already earlier connected arcs which run from the same receptor to the bodily muscles. When the box is presented now, which set of arcs will function? Evidently either (1) or (2) or both simultaneously. It is at this time that the influence of the environment upon shaping language habits comes again clearly to the front. The object meets the child's vision. He runs to it and tries to reach it and says "box." The box happens to have been put beyond his reach. The nurse, seeing the child's efforts to reach it and hearing the word "box," hands it to the child. This situation being repeated day in and day out, not only with this object but with hundreds of others, brings it about that the arcs running from receptors to throat muscles offer the least resistance so far as concerns the neural impulses aroused by the box. Frnally, the word is uttered without the movement of going to the box being executed. There has been a substitution (mechanical process) of a language habit for a bodily habit. One other step and the process is complete. We found in our studies on the maze that every cul-de-sac represented what we might call a simple unit habit. These simple habits when perfected rise serially. When learning is complete, we can put the animal down anywhere in the maze, and after a few trial movements the remaining part of the journey is executed without a break. Something similar of course occurs in all complete systems of bodily habit and in language habits as well. Habits are formed of going to the box when the arms are full of toys. The child has been taught to deposit them there. When his arms are laden with toys and no box is there, the word habit arises and he calls "box"; it is handed to him and he opens it and deposits the toys therein. This roughly marks what we would call the genesis of true language habit. 1 1 Watson, J. B.: Behavior, pp. 329-330. LANGUAGE 11 Judd — who writes from the standpoint of functional psychology — takes a very similar position. He holds that words gain their significance or meaning through "direct association with bodily reactions" — reactions or responses called forth by the varied stimuli of the environment of the individual. The reactions thus associated with words are, however, in his estimation, not infrequently greatly reduced forms of the original. He gives the following illustration of the manner in which these associations take place : When I seize an object I get at first an impression of that thing; if the impression is disagreeable, I react by pushing it away. The end of the whole process is the pushing away. Later as I become acquainted with the thing, I push it away without examining it in detail; that is, without a complete impression of it. Finally the merest suggestion that the thing is there will arouse the reaction. The reaction can now be detached from the thing and can be attached to some substitute for the thing. Thus the word danger sounded in my ear causes me to jump. The word danger is a substitute for an impression or an idea of a dangerous thing. The words rough and smooth arouse in me contrasting experiences without any necessity of first handling some rough or smooth thing. The words have in all these cases taken meanings to themselves; that is, they have taken on connection with interpreting forms of behavior. It is not alone in the sphere of emotional interpretation that words become independent of the experiences from which they first derived their meaning. Take for purposes of illustration such words as up and down. These words were at first inter- preted to us in childhood by someone who pointed upward or looked upward when he used the word up. Sometimes the word was associated with the observation of a flight of stairs or a ladder. Ultimately all these experiences were condensed into a few faint tendencies to roll the eyes upward or downward, and the adult thus appreciates in an easy way, through a mere tendency to move, the meaning which the child had to learn 12 THE READING PROCESS through many experiences and much effort. Furthermore, the rolling upward of the eyes has, in the course of mental develop- ment, attached itself not only to tall things and high things but also to such matters as abstract values, as when we say that prices have gone up. Again, we say that a man's career is downward. Words thus come to have a value of their own without going back to things for their interpretation. 1 These illustrations of the manner in which words come to assume significance make it clear that word meanings are intimately connected with our behavior. Indeed, they grow directly out of it. A word is obviously a meaning- less sound until it comes to stand for or to represent some habitual reaction or response to our environment. Once words have acquired this representative power, however, they become instruments of inestimable value. They enable us to consider our experiences in an indirect and economical manner whenever and wherever we desire. Accordingly, we come to live in a world of words to a marked extent. We conceive our experiences and our behavior in terms of words. We analyze, rearrange, and elaborate them in terms of words. And, what is more, we anticipate through words the behavior and the experi- ences which are to come — in short, we think before we act and we plan before we execute. The fact that word meanings grow out of the experi- ences of the individual — through association with his reactions and responses — is of tremendous significance for those intrusted with the education of children — and adults, too, for that matter. We have long been too much concerned with the teaching of words. The all important experience background has been too largely x Judd, Chas. H.: Psychology of High School Subjects, pp. 154-155. LANGUAGE 13 ignored or neglected. In consequence there has been — and still is — altogether too much parrotlike repetition in our educational institutions. In some cases this unfor- tunate condition may be readily corrected by providing for proper associations since the learner already possesses the requisite experiences. In other cases the experiences may be easily supplied. There are, however, many cases — especially in our elementary and high schools — in which the experiences cannot possibly be supplied because of the immaturity of the pupils. In other words, we are in such cases dealing with a content which is beyond the actual and — for the time being — beyond the possible ex- perience background of the pupils. For illustrations we need not go beyond the content of some of our school readers and the classics studied in the English classes of many of our high schools. Processes entering into the recognition and interpre- tation of words and sentences. — We have discussed at some length the manner in which words acquire mean- ings. As we progressed, it became increasingly evident that meanings arise out of our experiences — that they consist essentially of our habitual reactions and responses to real situations. We shall now consider the problem of the nature of meaning from a slightly different angle. The question before us is : What do we experience when we get the meanings of words and sentences? It has been too often naively assumed that we experi- ence on such occasions chiefly mental images — a sort of pictorial representation of the things and events read or talked about. The reader may have little difficulty in recalling how persistently some of his teachers stressed 14 THE READING PROCESS the necessity of imaging clearly whatever was being read. He may also recall discovering presently that he could read with greater speed and satisfaction when forgetting all about images and pictures. And his discovery was quite in keeping with the facts in the case. Any serious attempt to image the meanings of the words which are being read or spoken is not only an extremely slow and cumbersome process, but it is often quite impossible — particularly in the case of the more abstract words. For many of these words there could be — in the very nature of the case — little, if any, imagery in the sense in which structural and functional psychologists use the term. A critical examination of what actually happens when we recognize and interpret words and sentences shows that the phenomena — usually designated as mental imagery — are a later incident rather than the essence of meaning. Only when the meaning is allowed to unfold itself beyond the normal stage are these likely to appear to any extent. A rapid and efficient reader experiences little, if any, imagery as he goes along. Experimental investigations show that word presenta- tion is likely to be followed by a recognition of the word form as familiar and by a feeling of confidence on the part of the individual that he knows what the word means and that he could use it if necessary. If the pre- sentation is visual, it is almost invariably followed by some degree of mental pronunciation. The extent of this inner pronunciation varies of course greatly with indi- viduals. On the one extreme it is so prominent that it results in very obvious lip movement and on the other it is so much reduced as to be barely vestigial. It is safe to LANGUAGE 15 say, however, that this inner pronunciation plays an important part in the case of most readers. The reader may readily convince himself of its importance by trying to exclude it — through the repetition of a nonsense syl- lable — while reading several sentences or paragraphs. Such reading is extremely difficult for the average indi- vidual. Experimental investigations show, further, that word recognition is usually accompanied or followed by strong tendencies toward structural associations. Huey, who ex- perimented with a considerable number of subjects, found that the mental pronunciation of the word was apt to be followed by "a mental pronunciation of some phrase or other word that had been associatively connected, as when by gave sweet by and by, vertical gave vertical writing, etc." Quite frequently "there would be but a dim suggestion of some familiar line of poetry, leaving the reader with a vague and tantalizing feeling of some- thing w 7 hich he could not get." Connective and relational "words gave evidence of setting the reader's thoughts in some characteristic direction of expectancy, and doubtless the prepositions, especially, always had some very general influence in determining how the whole psycho-physical organism should face a coming related object." When words and phrases were exposed consecutively in context, "the readers took a more active attitude, the associations were less varied but more numerous, and there were other very characteristic differences." A reader who had looked blankly at the word A when exposed singly, and had gotten no associations, had a rich content of associations when A appeared as the first word of a new paragraph. 16 THE READING PROCESS Besides, his feelings of expectancy, curiosity, strain, the forward push that was marked in all readers of the context exposures, were even more prominent than the definite associations. The mere statement that the word to be exposed is part of a sense passage limits the trend of the association at the start. The limitation extends farther when the reader has caught the general topic dis- cussed in the passage, and still farther when the exposed word is presented upon a verbal and ideational background formed by the complete preceding context. In the spider story, for example, after the mention of web-weaving, the word top no longer suggested top of hill, flagstaff, spinning tops, etc., as when it was exposed in isolation, but now suggested the top of a post or gateway, with the spider situation in mind. The newly exposed word was usually mentally pronounced as before, and was fitted into the preceding, as one reader very often put it, the new word seeming to contribute toward a notion of sentence unity to which each additional element added a needed part. Immediately following this there was usually a filling out of the sentence or phrase so as to make sense with what came before, and when this did not actually occur, there was usually the forward push, forward tendency, tendency to fill out, as it has been variously described by the readers. All em- phasized the strength and comparative constancy of this feeling, and mentioned it as perhaps the most striking thing observed in the experiments. 1 The processes thus far enumerated — the recognition of word form as familiar, the feeling of confidence on the part of the individual that he knows what the word means and that he could use it if necessary, the inner pro- nunciation, and the tendency on the part of the word to enter into structural relationships with other words — doubtless play an important part in word recognition and interpretation. But there are other and more funda- mental processes. Our discussion of the manner in which words acquire meanings brought us face to face with the 1 Huey, E. B.: Psychology and Pedagogy oj Reading, pp. 153-156. LANGUAGE 17 fact that meanings come only as words become asso- ciated with or take the place of certain forms of our behavior. It is to be expected, therefore, that word recognition and interpretation should involve tendencies to recall and — if sufficient time be allowed — to rein- state these forms of our behavior. In other words, there is a tendency to react in the presence of the word as we would react in the presence of the real situation. It is here — in these tendencies to react in an appropriate man- ner — that we find the fundamental processes entering into the recognition and interpretation of words. Judd says: When I utter the word dog or hear the sound whicn comes from uttering that word, the partial or verbal reaction expands instantly into the general bodily attitude appropriate to the experience of seeing a dog. If I am afraid of dogs, the essential part of the experience will be a feeling of violent contraction of my internal muscles and a desire to run. If I am fond of dogs, I shall have a reaching out of all my muscles and a feeling of satisfaction. 1 Under ordinary conditions these reactions do not, of course, assume the proportions indicated above. If they did, word interpretation would be a rather strenuous and dramatic process. As a matter of fact, the mere tendency to react in an appropriate manner usually suffices for word interpretation. A certain amount of feeling reaction is doubtless always present. In some cases this may be so pronounced as to overshadow all other concomitants; in other cases motor and logical tendencies predominate. Much depends of course upon a Judd, Chas. H.: Psychology oj High School Subjects, p. 147. 18 THE READING PROCESS conditions — both objective and subjective. A traveler in a snake-infested region would doubtless react more freely to the word rattlesnake than a person far removed from the danger zone. Similarly, the word fire would elicit a very different response in a crowded theatre than in an open street. The influence of subjective states upon reactions and reaction time is well known. Other things being equal, individuals who have at some time or other had unpleasant experiences with rattlesnakes and with fire will react with greater feeling to these terms than others. The fact remains, however, that for most of our ordinary word interpretations— spoken or written — the reactions are little more than tendencies to action. And not infrequently these are so highly generalized as to appear trivial and unrelated to the situation in question. It remains to be pointed out finally that the unit of meaning is usually larger than the word. It is the more comprehensive thought group — most often the sentence. We are rarely concerned with words alone in our speech. When we are, the words represent in reality sentences or larger thought units. Word meanings are of course gen- uinely real ; only in themselves they are bundles of possi- bilities rather than complete thought units. They often vary in a striking manner in the midst of an ever chang- ing context. The value of words, as Judd has well put it, "lies in the fact that they carry experience for- ward, furnishing only so much content as is necessary to support thought." Huey's findings point in the same direction. He concludes: LANGUAGE 19 Of specific meanings beyond this general feeling of making sense, everything in my own experiments indicates that they are usually total meanings belonging to sentences or to unitary parts of sentences, but felt differently as this or that particular word is being dealt with; or we can say that the particular word's meaning is felt in a perspective of the total meaning. A rela- tion can hardly be felt apart from the terms or objects related, a particular manner or intensity of action or being can hardly be suggested by an adverb apart from the thought of the action or being itself. And likewise a substantive that is thought of naturally has, in this thought, something of the substantive's relationships. In short, it is total situations and performances that we think of and read of, and these are often complex, always with various aspects and various relationships of parts. No single word names or describes the whole. When a single word is presented, therefore, it suggests but a part or an aspect of this total meaning and is felt as inadequate and artificial unless given in its sentence context. With meanings, as with vocal utterance, the sentence meaning is the natural unit, and smaller divisions considered apart from this are felt as disjecta membra. 1 Social origin and function of language. — While lan- guage activity is at base instinctive, its development is dependent upon social stimulation. An individual grow- ing up entirely apart from other human beings would develop little beyond certain crude forms of emotional expression. Several individuals growing up together would of course — as did the race — develop effective modes of intercommunication, but the contribution of any one generation would be trifling since language sys- tems are the product of time. Once language is developed, it becomes conventional and is acquired through imita- tion. Under these circumstances instinctive tendencies toward expression, a social environment furnishing stimu- *Huey, E. B.: Psychology and Pedagogy of Reading, pp. 166-167. 20 THE READING PROCESS lation, and the capacity to imitate constitute the essential conditions for language development. The nature and the extent of the actual development depend upon the conventions^ — the language — of the social group in ques- tion. Whether an individual is to acquire the simple language of a primitive tribe or the highly developed lan- guage of a civilized people, or whether he is to learn to speak English, French or Spanish, or whether he is to acquire a conventional language at all is entirely deter- mined by his environment. Once language was developed it became an instrument of tremendous significance for the race. In fact without it, social evolution — as we know it — would have been quite out of the question. Language is the one bond which has held men together from the earliest times — ■ enabling them to effect tribal and national organizations, to develop common traditions and ideals, and to attain remarkable unity and homogeneity in spite of vastly divergent tendencies and interests. With the advent of writing, the power and influence of language were greatly enhanced. Spoken language has severe limitations. As an instrument of communication it is too transient and too severely restricted by space and time. Large bodies of people and people widely separated can be reached far more effectively through written language. Indeed, a truly progressive civilization would have been quite im- possible without some form of graphic language. Only through this medium is it possible to accumulate knowl- edge and to transmit it effectively from one generation to another. The invention of writing — and printing more recently — more than any other factor has made it pos- LANGUAGE 21 sible for each successive generation to begin where the preceding left off. SELECTED KEFEKENCES 1. Huey, E. B. — Psychology and Pedagogy of Reading; The Mac- millan Company, 1908. 2. Judd, Chas. H. — Psychology; Chas. Scribner's Sons, 1907, and Ginn and Company, 1917. Psychology of High School Subjects; Ginn and Com- pany, 1915. 3. Stout, G. F. — Analytic Psychology, I and II; The Macmillan Company, 1909. 4. Watson, J. B. — Behavior; Henry Holt and Company, 1914. 5. Wundt, Wilhelm M. — Voelkerpsychologie, I, Die Sprache; W. Englemann (Leipzig), 1900. CHAPTER II THE EVOLUTION OF WRITTEN LANGUAGE — PICTURE WRITING AND TRANSITION STAGES In the last chapter we discussed at some length the origin and nature of language. As we progressed, it be- came increasingly evident that the two outstanding lan- guage factors are symbols and meanings. To the latter we devoted considerable attention; the former it now becomes our task to scrutinize more closely. Since we are concerned with language primarily from the stand- point of reading, our interest will of necessity center about the graphic rather than the spoken symbol. With all this, it must not be forgotten that the relationship between the two is a very intimate one — especially dur- ing the later stages of language development. Stages in the evolution of graphic language symbols. — The story of the evolution of written language is a long and intricate one. The graphic representation of lan- guage^ — in all its marvelous complexity and variety — was not evolved overnight. It does not commemorate the inventive genius of any one individual, nor does it mark the peculiar contribution of a particular people or a given epoch. It is rather the outcome of a long process of evolution — a process beginning in the dim past and con- tinuing to the very present — contributions having been made all along the line by a great variety of peoples and 22 EVOLUTION OF WRITTEN LANGUAGE 23 agencies. That the contributions thus made should in many cases have entered upon a struggle for existence and that much should have been eliminated as time went on, is in accordance with expectation. In a sense, there- fore, the graphic symbols of to-day are the survivals which for one reason or another have stood the test of time. That only the best forms — from the standpoint of linguistic perfection and efficiency — have survived, we shall not contend. Yet we must admit that the trend of the development on the whole has been in the right direc- tion. This is all the more striking since the process has of necessity been largely an unconscious one. Conscious evolution in language — as in all other human institutions — comes at a comparatively late stage. It is, therefore, only in relatively recent times that man has begun to turn the searchlight upon his own linguistic behavior and to propose its scientific direction. Indeed, — as will appear from subsequent discussions — we have scarcely reached that point yet. Language occupies an intimate and pre- ponderant place in human behavior and so is not sub- jected readily to thoroughgoing changes — such as the adoption of a phonetic or even a partially simplified sys- tem of spelling. That such steps are not only desirable but ultimately probably quite inevitable, we shall point out later. Meanwhile, it will be our chief concern to trace briefly the evolution of graphic language from its simplest beginnings to its present varied and complex status. In so doing, we shall find it convenient to center our dis- cussion about the following natural developmental stages : I. The picture writing stage, in which the signs represent directly objects and ideas or objective and idea- 24 THE READING PROCESS tional situations. In connection with this the following substages may be distinguished : 1. The mnemonic , in which the sign is primarily a reminder; 2. The pictographic, in which the sign represents directly an object or an objective situation; 3. The ideographic, in which the sign represents directly an idea or an ideational situation. II. A transition stage, in which the sign refers not only to the object or idea which it represents but to its name as well. III. The phonetic stage, in which the sign refers to sounds or spoken symbols irrespective of their mean- ings. This resolves itself into the following substages : 1. The verbal, in which the sign represents a whole word; 2. The syllabic, in which the sign represents a syllable; 3. The alphabetic, in which the sign represents an ele- mentary sound. We shall discuss the first two of these — the picture writing and transition stages — in this chapter; the third — the phonetic stage — together with some account of the evolution of the printed page, we shall elaborate in the next. I. The picture writing stage. — In this stage — as indicated above — the signs refer directly to objects and ideas or to more complex objective and ideational situa- tions. The names of the things referred to do not enter into the situation directly. This does not mean of course that names as such are absent. Thinking, as pointed out elsewhere, always goes on in terms of symbols of some EVOLUTION OF WRITTEN LANGUAGE 25 kind — usually in terms of words, though gestures appear to play an important part in the case of primitive man. Accordingly, in spite of the fact that signs suggest at this stage objects and ideas rather than names, the thought processes which they arouse in the reader must go on in terms of symbols — the spoken word and the gesture. The situation, then, is something like this : The sign, be it picture or graph, portrays or suggests to the reader objective or ideational situations varying in complexity — a particular animal such as a buffalo, a concrete experi- ence connected with the hunt or chase, an abstract idea such as virtue, or complex situations involving both the concrete and the abstract; the reader reacts to these much as we do to a cartoon, a pictorial, or an illustration ; that is, he thinks (talks) the situation over in terms of lan- guage symbols of his own choosing — always within the limits of the situation of course — rather than in terms of words directly suggested by the signs as in the case of modern reading. This leads to the important observation that spoken and written language, although divorced during the early stages, are, nevertheless, intimately related — both being objective expressions of a common thought background. This will become increasingly obvious as we trace picture writing through its several levels of development. 1. The mnemonic. — There is ample evidence that man began his career as a writer and reader by devising mnemonics — objective or graphic signs serving as mem- ory aids or reminders. In all parts of the globe and among widely varying peoples there are found indica- tions of such. Indeed, in some instances relatively primi- 26 THE READING PROCESS tive forms of reminders have persisted among our own race to this very day. That writing and reading should have begun thus is not surprising when one considers their function in the highly complex life of to-day. Even now — aside from communication at a distance — we are Fig. 1. chiefly interested in recording thought in order that it may be made permanently accessible to ourselves and to others. Mnemonics naturally varied widely — all the way from crude drawing^ to elaborate objective forms such as the quipu, the notched stick, and the wampum belt, which are commonly cited as the best examples. The quipu (Fig. 1) was without question the most EVOLUTION OF WRITTEN LANGUAGE 27 interesting and the most elaborate of these mnemonic devices. It was in common use among many peoples, including the Peruvians, the North American Indians, the Hawaiians, the Chinese, and the Egyptians. Clodd gives the following interesting description of the Peruvian quipu : It consists of a main cord, to which are fastened at given dis- tances thinner cords of different colors, each cord being knotted in divers ways for special purposes, and each color having its own significance. Eed strands stood for soldiers, yellow for gold, white for silver, green for corn, and so forth, while a single knot meant ten, two single knots meant twenty, double knots one hundred, and two double knots two hundred. Such simple devices served manifold purposes. Besides their convenience in reckoning, they were used for keeping the annals for the empire of the Incas ; for transmitting orders to outlying provinces; for registering de- tails of the army ; and even for preserving records of the dead with whom the quipu was buried, as in old Egypt the biography or titles of the deceased were set forth in hieroglyph and deposited in the tomb. 1 The notched stick also had a wide geographical distri- bution and appears to have served much the same pur- poses. It was made of wood, and the facts to be recorded were inscribed upon its surface in the form of notches. As late as "a half century ago/' Hoffman states, "it was customary in Scotland for the baker's lad to bring the nick-sticks with his bread, a notch being made for each loaf he left. While the notches on his stick corresponded with those on the one left with the family, both parties were satisfied that the account was correctly kept." 2 The wampum belt was prevalent among the North Amer- 1 Clodd, Edmond: The Story of the Alphabet, p. 37. 3 Hoffman, W. J.: Beginnings of Writing, p. 141. 28 THE READING PROCESS ican Indians— especially the Iroquois. It was made of "beads or perforated shells arranged in various more or less conventionalized patterns on bark filaments, hemp, or deerskin strips or sinews." The patterns were "pic- torial symbols recording events in the history of the tribe or treaties between tribes." They were also "used to denote land boundaries or personal property." x 2. The pictograph. — But the growing needs of primi- tive man were too complex and too urgent to permit him to tarry long on the mnemonic level. We are, therefore, not surprised to find that he began to record his thoughts and his achievements in rude pictures long before the possibilities of the simple mnemonic devices had been fully exhausted. As time went on, these pictures assumed an elaborateness little dreamed of. They were inscribed upon almost every conceivable substance from the human body to the fagades of massive rocks and cliffs — the most common being the natural and artificial objects of every- day environment such as pebbles, stones, bones, skins, wood, copper, dwellings, monuments, pottery, textiles, tools, and fetishes. These pictures dealt with every phase of life — and the life of early man was not so devoid of content as civilized man is sometimes disposed to infer. He had his political and social organizations, his economic struggles, his problems of war and peace, his religious practices, his customs, his traditions, and his achieve- ments. In all of these he was tremendously interested, and consequently the pictograph is concerned with all of them. In its pure form the pictograph depicts and portrays ^lodd, Edmond: The Story of the Alphabet, p. 42, EVOLUTION OF WRITTEN LANGUAGE 29 objects and objective situations as they are, although of necessity in an abbreviated and schematic manner — a buffalo being portrayed by a picture representing the characteristic features of that animal, and a hunting ex- pedition by a series of pictures depicting the essentials of such a situation. Such direct pictorial representation is a comparatively simple matter as long as it concerns concrete objects and very elementary situations of every- day environment, but the moment that the picture writer comes face to face with abstract ideas and with the neces- sity of representing reasonably complex situations he gets into serious difficulty for these cannot be depicted so directly. A variety of devices — more or less obscure and indirect — at once becomes a necessity. Beyond the repre- sentation of simple objects it is, therefore, not so easy to find pure pictographs. Most pictographic representa- tions involve much that is ideographic as well. Mallery — who made an intensive study of the picture writing of the American Indian — distinguishes the follow- ing classes of pictographs: 1 (1) chronological, including pictures purposing to deal with ordinary time units — days, weeks, months, years, epochs — each unit being pic- torially represented by its most striking event and the pictures for the several time units being arranged in con- secutive order, usually on skins; (2) notices, concerning visits, departures, directions taken in going from place to place, conditions such as starvation or disease, and im- pending danger; (3) communications, such as declara- tions of war, professions of peace and friendship, chal- 1 Mallery, G.: Picture Writing of the American Indian. Tenth Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology. 30 THE READING PROCESS lenges, social and religious missives, and claims or de- mands; (4) totems, titles, and names, especially pictorial tribal and class designations, tattoo, insignia or tokens of authority, signs of individual achievement, property marks, and personal names; (5) religious, embracing symbols of the supernatural, myths, mystic animals, shamanism, charms, ceremonies, mortuary practices, death notices, and grave posts; (6) customs, relating to cult societies, daily life and habits, and games; (7) his- torical, referring to expeditions, battles, migrations, and sociological events; and (8) biographical, representing continuous records of events in life, as well as particular events or exploits. An excellent example of the use of the pictograph to depict a continuous series of events representing the cus- toms and practices of a people is given by Mallery — the illustration being a five page extract from a post-Colum- bian manuscript in the Mendoza collection, now in the Bodleian Library, published by Kingsborough. The first page "exhibits the customs of the Mexican at the birth of a male or female infant; the right and ceremony of nam- ing the children and of afterwards dedicating them and offering them at their temples or to the military profes- sion." The second page illustrates the bringing up of boys and girls from the ages of three to six. The third (Plate I) represents the training of children from seven to ten. The fourth shows the education of boys and girls from eleven to fourteen, and the fifth the adoption of an occupation and the laws and usages followed in marriage. 3. The ideograph. — As indicated repeatedly, the picto- graph and the ideograph almost invariably go together a O oooooo h oooo oooo 771 9 OOOO ooooo ^ QpOOO x ooooo cc aa> Plate I. 31 32 THE READING PROCESS wherever picture writing is found — the former prevailing during the earlier and the latter during the later stages. The moment that primitive man goes beyond the mere portrayal of objects — the moment that he attempts to de- pict situations — he encounters the more or less abstract which cannot be readily pictured in a direct manner. Ac- cordingly, if the growth of his invention is not to be arrested, he must devise indirect means of representa- tion ; that is, where he cannot depict and portray, he must suggest and imply. The moment he does this, he resorts to ideography — however simple this may be in its begin- nings. For this reason few of the illustrations commonly cited as pictographs are pictographs pure and simple. Most of them represent much that is ideographic as well. There are signs of direction, of time, of condition, of action, of emotions, of attitudes, of relationships, and of a host of other more or less abstract situations and con- cepts. All of these primitive man managed to express rather well — although not infrequently quite awkwardly — even during the early stages represented by the North American Indian. These Indian tribes, in contrast with certain other primitive peoples who had advanced farther in ideog- raphy, showed, as Mallery points out, a marked tendency to use tangible and visible forms for the expression of the essentially abstract. In part this is to be accounted for by the fact that they had developed great facility in com- municating by means of gesture or sign language; indeed, so well does communication by means of gesture or sign language appear to have been developed that the aborig- inal North American had practically a universal Ian- EVOLUTION OF WRITTEN LANGUAGE 33 guage. It is only natural that such gestures should be represented pictorially — often, to be sure, by force of necessity in seriously abbreviated and circumscribed forms. Aside from the gesture, the Indian employed a variety of devices to suggest the more or less abstract. Thus old age was suggested through wrinkles and project- ing lips; youth by diminutive size; largeness through unusual size; the idea of bad through an abnormality; disease by common characteristics of the disease; swift- ness by a figure representing rapidity of motion; slowness by a figure moving slowly; peace and friendship by clasped hands; war by two arrows shot in opposite directions; abundance by meat stored in a pit; starvation by a figure with bare ribs; many by repetitions; much by a heap; possession by objects held in front; seeing by a figure with a line extending from the eyes; speech by a line or commalike form in front of the mouth; hearing by lines extending from the ears ; sickness in general by a figure leaning against a post; the mystic or sacred by a figure with waving lines above the head; kinship through a figure joined by a base line; life and death by a white circle and a black disk respectively; morning, noon, and evening by an upward curve with short lines attached at right angles to indicate the position of tne sun; ana so ad infinitum. Conventionalization and symbolization on the ideographic level. — The development of picture writing wherever found is marked by two characteristic ten- dencies — tendencies toward conventionalization and sym- bolization. In accordance with the former, objects and ideas — at first represented and depicted now in one way 34 THE READING PROCESS and now in another — come gradually to be regularly rep- resented by the same simplified and stereotyped forms. Among the Northern Indian tribes of North America this tendency was clearly in evidence though by no means fully developed. Among the Mexican and Peruvian Indians its development was marked — common objects and ideas being represented without exception by the same stereotyped signs. Conventionalization, in so far as it involves the simplification of the figure or sign, is really a step in the direction of symbolization since the direct relationship between the sign and the thing signi- fied is lessened. Symbolization is usually accomplished by the employment of such devices as the substitution of a part of the object or idea for the whole, and by repre- senting one object or idea by another. By means of the former — the substitution of a part for the wholes — animals may be represented by footprints, parts of the body, or other special characteristics. Thus the jaguar is often indicated by its spotted skin; the wild turkey by the imprint of its foot; the deer, elk, moose, and buffalo by hoofprints of various sizes or by the head or horns; a bear by the figure of its paws; and a horse by its hoof. In the same manner locomotion came to be indicated by the outline of the sole of the foot, or the lower part of the legs in the attitude of walking; running by legs in the act of running; negation by the simplified form of the outstretched arms; friendship by clasped hands; sorrow by tears falling from the eyes; traveling on foot and by water by footprints and pad- dles; the lassoing of horses by hoofprints and a slight indication of a lariat; night by a circle with a star in the EVOLUTION OF WRITTEN LANGUAGE 35 middle; eating by a piece of maize cake protruding from the mouth ; drinking by the symbol for water between the lips. By means of the latter — the representation of one object or idea by another — a tomahawk came to signify war; a pipe, peace; a crescent, a month; two arrows shot in opposite directions, a battle; the direction of the arrow's point, the direction taken by the enemy; trees with faint signs of buds, spring; a bee, industry; a roll of papyrus, knowledge; an ostrich feather, justice; a palm branch, probably because of the annual cutting of the lower leaves, a year; a jackal, because of its watchfulness, a priest; a vulture, because it was supposed to nourish its young with its own blood, a mother. II. The transition stage. — The transition from picture writing to phonetic writing represents, as all pre- vious linguistic advances, a long period of growth and development. The later stages of picture writing are not wanting in indications of impending changes. There is in evidence, for instance, a tendency to add slight deter- minatives to pictures and signs in order that they may be used to designate a greater variety of objects or ideas — a practice which would in the very nature of the case tend to lessen the immediate bond between the sign and the thing signified. In the case of such languages as the Egyptian, the Chinese, the Mayan, and the Mexican, these determinatives were commonplace, but they were in evidence also among the less developed languages of the Northern Indian tribes — particularly the O jib was. Espe- cially, as Hoffman indicates, did they use such marks or determinatives to indicate that a sign referred to the 36 THE READING PROCESS mystic or supernatural. For instance, "when animal forms" were "intended to denote totems or clans, the simple outline of the animal" was "portrayed, but when a manido or spirit form of such animal" was "intended, a line or bar" was "drawn across the thorax, or short lines might be attached to the back extending from the head down to the extremity of the tail" or both. This tendency was "sufficiently persistent and conspicuous to indicate that the jib was were on the verge of a transition from pure ideography to a modified form of ikonomatic (pho- netic-picture) writing." * Furthermore, conventionali- zation and symbolization resulted, on the one hand, in a reduction and even an obliteration of the resemblance between the signs and the things signified and, on the other, in the adoption of stereotyped forms — the same object or idea being again and again represented by the same simplified sign or symbol. It is only natural that such a process should in time lead to a closer relationship between spoken and written language. And this is ex- actly what happened. The sign came presently to sug- gest the name as well as the object or idea. Tozzer gives some very interesting illustrations from the Nahua manu- scripts — especially of place names. In every instance the syllables of the names thus given are "expressed directly by pictures of objects or acts, by position, or by color" and in each case the meaning of the picture and the sound or name are conveyed together : 2 1 Hoffman, J. W.: Beginnings of Writing, pp. 76-77. 2 Tozzer, A. M.: Value of Ancient Mexican Manuscripts in the Study of the General Development of Writing; Proceedings of the American Antiquarian Society, 1911, pp. 89-93. EVOLUTION OF WRITTEN LANGUAGE Cal-tepec (Fig. 2), the house on the mountain: Cat from colli, house; Tepee from tepetl, mountain. A-tepec (Fig. 3), the water on the mountain: A from atl, water; Tepee from tepetl, mountain. 37 Fig. 2. Fig. 3. Fig. 4. Coa-tepec (Fig. 4), the mountain of the serpent Coa from coatl, serpent; Tepee from tepetl, mountain. Fig 5. Toli-man (Fig. 5), the place where the rushes are cut: Toll from tollin, rushes; Ma, the root of the vefb meaning "to take something by the hand." However, as repeatedly indicated in our discussion, many things cannot be thus directly and objectively rep- resented. In consequence man is forced to resort to various indirect devices. At this stage of writing he 38 THE READING PROCESS resorted to what is commonly called rebus representation. This constitutes the distinguishing mark of the transition stage. Rebus writing makes use of the fact that there are in most spoken languages numerous homophones — words similar in sound but different in meaning. Ac- cordingly, when there is no picture to represent a word directly, the picture of another word — of the same sound but of different meaning — is used to repre- sent the sound of the former. Thus, as Tozzer points out, the town Tollan, "the place of the rushes," is easily represented by a picture of a cluster of reeds, tollin. Suppose, however, a town named Toltitlan meaning "near Tollan" was the one to be written. This would be more difficult to express. The Nahua overcame this difficulty by making use of the fact that the second syllable tlan of the word tetlan meaning Fig. 6. "near something" is also found in the word tlantli meaning "teeth." Accordingly, they were able to represent the name of the town Toltitlan meaning "near Tollan" or "near the place of the rushes" by adding the picture of teeth to the picture of a cluster of reeds (Fig. 6) — the picture of the teeth in this case losing its original meaning and suggesting or representing instead the sound for "near something." * Another excellent illustration — this time in connection with proper namesi — is often cited. The name of one of the early Mexican kings w T as Itzcoatl meaning "knife- snake." In one of the early manuscripts — the Le Tellier Codex-— the name of this king is represented pictorially 1 Op. cii. > EVOLUTION OF WRITTEN LANGUAGE 39 by a serpent, coatl, with stone knives, itzli, upon his back (Fig. 7) ; but in another manuscript — the Vegara Codex — the name appears in rebus form; that is, the different syllables of the name are represented by pictures the sounds of which are practically the same as those of the syllables. The first syllable, itz, is represented by a weapon armed or ornamented with blades of obsidian, itz(tli) ; and second, co, by an earthen pot or kettle, co(mitl) ; and the third, ail, by the sign for water, ail, placed above the pot (Fig. 8). Pictorially this com- bination would read "weapon-kettle-water"; in rebus fashion, that is phonetically, it gives fig. 7. the sound or word Itzcoatl. In the same man- ner, as Hoffman points out, we might represent the English word whiskey by the pictures of a whis(kbroom) or whis(kers) and a key. The application of the rebus principle appears to have been very common among the Nahuas of Mexico in pre- Columbian days. Not only was it applied to place and proper names but, as Brinton points out, the Nahuas "composed in it words, sentences, and £-g p treatises on various subjects." Furthermore, Fig. 8. as will appear later, these people were prob- ably in the act of evolving an alphabet when the Spaniard arrived. The newcomer naturally has- tened this process so that the well ordered syllabary and alphabet in evidence in post-Columbian manuscripts must be in large part ascribed to extraneous influences. Not only did the missionary thus hasten the systematiza- tion of the syllabary and the arrival of an alphabet, but 40 THE READING PROCESS he utilized in a very interesting manner the native's ability to read in rebus fashion, not merely as a medium of communication but as a means of memorizing Latin formulas. Pater Noster, for example, was represented by a flag, pan(tli) ; a stone, te(tl) ; a prickly pear, noch(tli) ; and another stone, te(tl) (Fig. 9). The Mayas of Yucatan represented an even more ad- vanced stage of civilization than the Nahuas. However, much less is known regarding the actual status of their written language. Unfortunately their manuscripts — r?n tf> C1T3 which were lacking neither in number pi te noch- te nor m elaborateness — met with delib- Fig 9 erate and wholesale destruction at the hands of the invaders. Moreover, the Maya language and such manuscripts as survived have received much less attention from the scholarly priest of the early days than did those of the Nahuas. This ac- counts in part for our lack of information. While it is generally conceded that the Mayas had reached the rebus stage, the actual extent of their achievements within this is in doubt. The Landa alphabet published in 1864 seemed to show that they had passed the rebus stage and had actually developed an alphabet of twenty-seven characters. This together with a certain number of syl- lable signs and a few ideograms was supposed to afford a key to their writings. However, as Brinton points out, subsequent "experience has proven the utter fallacy of any such hope" and the real key, if such there is, remains still to be determined. EVOLUTION OF WRITTEN LANGUAGE 41 SELECTED REFERENCES 1. Brinton, D. G. — Essays of an Americanist; David McKay, 1890. 2. Clodd, Edmond — The Story of the Alphabet; D. Appleton and Company, 1900. 3. Hoffman, W. J. — Beginnings of Writing; D. Appleton and Company, 1895. 4. Huey, E. B. — The Psychology and Pedagogy of Reading; The Macmillan Company, 1908. 5. Mallery, G. — Picture Writing of the American Indian; Tenth Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology, 1888-89, Govern- ment Printing Office, 1893. 6. Taylor, Isaac — The Alphabet, I and II; (London), Kegan Paul, Trench and Company, 1893. 7. Tozzer, A. M. — Value of Ancient Mexican Manuscripts in the Study of the General Development of Writing; Proceedings of the American Antiquarian Society, 1911, pp. 80-101; and Annual Report of the Smithsonian Institution, 1911, pp. 493- 505. CHAPTER III THE EVOLUTION OF WRITTEN LANGUAGE — THE PHONETIC STAGE III. The phonetic stage. — The distinguishing characteristic of the phonetic level of graphic language development appears in the fact that signs have come to represent sounds quite irrespective of their meaning. All previous development tended toward this end. The sim- plification of signs as well as their repeated use under given circumstances resulted in the more or less conven- tionalized sign; the gradual convergence of spoken and written language led to a very intimate association be- tween graphic signs, meanings, and spoken words; and finally, by the use of the rebus device spoken words with a variety of meanings came to be designated graphically — either on the word or on the syllable basis — by means of pictures or signs of things having similar sounds but different meanings — the latter being ignored. This brought written language to the very threshold of the phonetic level — the rebus being to all intents and pur- poses for the time being a phonogram. All that remained to be done now was to perfect the process. It was neces- sary that signs — both spoken and graphic — should be completely abstracted from the complexes involving both signs and meanings. This being accomplished, it was possible to select certain graphic signs to represent invari- 42 EVOLUTION OF WRITTEN LANGUAGE 43 ably certain sounds — words, syllables, and letters. And this is exactly what happened. However, the process was a long and intricate one and by no means all the lan- guages which entered the race reached the final goal. 1. The verbal phonogram. — The phonograms of the early phonetic stage are for the most part verbal and syllabic. That is, the signs which have come to represent sounds may stand for whole words, for syllables, or for both words and syllables. The principle of the rebus, however, is such as to facilitate syllabification. Few, if any, polysyllabic languages remain, therefore, long on the verbal level. The Chinese language as an example of the verbal level. — The Chinese language represents the most re- markable instance of a language remaining permanently on the verbal level. In part this is no doubt due to the fact that it is a monosyllabic language and that syllabifi- cation in our sense of the word would be quite out of the question. In any event, the development of this lan- guage — upon reaching the phonetic level — has taken a radically different course from that of most others. Al- though compelled to steer clear of many of its intricacies, it will be of interest for us to note some of its salient features. To begin with, the colloquial and the written languages are quite distinct. The former consists of a number of related dialects which differ about as widely among them- selves as the several Romance languages — French, Span- ish, and Italian. Of these the Pekingese or Mandarin — the official language — is the most prominent. The writ- ten language, on the other hand, is uniform throughout 44 THE READING PROCESS China and resembles one dialect about as much as another. In spite of its vast vocabulary — some 44,000 words — the Chinese language has a very limited number of sounds, simple verbal sounds in the case of the dialects and simple phonograms in the case of the written lan- guage. The Pekingese, for example, is said to have only 420. This means of course that any one sound must serve many different meanings. In other words, the Chi- nese language contains an unusually large number of homophones — words of like sound but different meaning. Fortunately the average Chinaman can get along very nicely with a vocabulary of from 4000 to 5000 words. But even then there are on an average some ten meanings for each sound, and some sounds must in the very nature of the case be taxed much more heavily than others. The word man, for example, serves some 600 different mean- ings. Difficult as the situation may appear, the Chinese have dealt with it in an altogether interesting and in- genious manner — in the case of both the dialects and the written language. In connection with the spoken language, a variety of devices are employed to bring out the different meanings of the homophones. One of the most important of these involves the use of different tones — the even upper, the even lower, the rising, and the falling in the case of the Pekingese — the meaning varying with the modulation of the voice. Another common device is to employ the homophones in pairs — the meaning depending upon the combination. These pairs are made up in various ways, but very frequently the first member of the pair merely EVOLUTION OF WRITTEN LANGUAGE 45 serves to determine the second by indicating which of the several meanings is intended. Thus in the case of milk- skin meaning cream, the word milk designates very spe- cifically the particular kind of skin — there being many different kinds of skin. The written language, although differing from the dia- lects, represents, nevertheless, much the same problems and characteristics. An elaborate system of picture writing appears to have been developed at an early stage — the written characters of to-day being very obviously worn down pictures. The pictograph had come to repre- sent most of the common objects of everyday environ- ment and along with it came the ideograph — two trees side by side implying a forest; three trees, density; the sun above the horizon, dawn; sun and moon combined, brightness; woman and child, good; several persons under a roof, a home. At this point the Chinese took another normal step in advance. They selected — doubtless grad- ually — a considerable number of signs or characters already in use in connection with picture writing and converted them into phonograms by causing them to stand for spoken words. The words thus borrowed from the spoken language were of course for the most part homophones. How these homophones were made to bring out the different meanings for which they stood in the case of the colloquial has been indicated. Fortunately the homophones were less of a problem for the written language. All that was needed was some graphic device attached to each phonogram to indicate invariably — somewhat after the fashion in which the milk of milk-skin indicates the kind of skin — which of the several possible 46 THE READING PROCESS meanings was intended. The Chinese accordingly began to use their basic characters — pictographs and ideographs — as such devices. Among the different meanings of the homophone fang, for instance, were location, room, fra- grant, inquire, and hinder. To bring out these meanings, there was added to fang, location, the character for earth giving earth-fang ; to fang, room, the character for door giving door-fang; to fang, fragrant, the character for herb giving herb-fang; to fang, inquire, the character for words giving words-fang ; to fang, hinder, the character for woman giving woman-fang. By combining these two kinds of characters — the phonograms and the devices or determinatives — the Chinese are able to represent graphically practically all their words. The pronuncia- tion of the phonograms of the written language differs, however, so strongly from the pronunciation of the corresponding words used in the dialects and, in addition, written expression is so terse and abbreviated in char- acter that there can be no such thing as oral reading in our sense of the word. The reader of a manuscript simply interprets to his listeners as he goes along. The various methods of combining words and char- acters, it must be pointed out finally, have not only solved the problems presented by the homophone but that of absorbing the terminology of Western thought as well. There appears to have been no occasion what- soever to introduce new characters for this purpose. An elevator became a "rise-descend-machine" ; parliament, a "discuss-govern-country-assembly"; and the absolute, the "exclude-opposite." With all this, the Chinese written language is, to say EVOLUTION OF WRITTEN LANGUAGE 47 the least, a very cumbersome medium for recording and communicating thought. In order to become proficient in its use an individual must commit to memory an enor- mously large number of different characters. The expen- diture of time and effort demanded for the mastery of these characters is out of all proportion to that required for the mastery of a Western language. Such a written language constitutes obviously a very serious obstacle to popular education and the enlightenment of the masses. In spite of this, repeated efforts to modernize the system of writing through the adoption of an alphabet have uniformly failed. According to recent reports, however, official steps have finally been taken and the Pekingese dialect has been transliterated on the basis of an alphabet of some 39 characters. We are told that the characters were chosen from existing Chinese forms and that they will continue to be written in vertical order so there may be a minimum of departure from established practices. 1 2. The syllable as phonogram. — The syllabic level — on which signs stand for syllables rather than for whole words — is often reached very early during the phonetic stage and in the case of polysyllabic languages not infre- quently at the very outset. The rebus device, as indi- cated earlier, facilitates this step. A series of pictures — each suggesting the sound of a syllable — comes to stand for a polysyllabic word. Frequently — by what is known as the principle of aerology — only the first syllables of the names of the pictures are used to represent the sounds of the syllables of these polysyllabic words. As time goes on, the pictures thus used lose all other significance and so 1 World's Work, 38: 244-45. 48 THE READING PROCESS become pure phonograms; and they tend to become stereotyped in form and conventional in use. Unfor- tunately there are often many different signs or phono- grams for any one syllable. A carefully worked out syllabary — such as the Japanese Katakana in which each syllable of the language is represented by only one sign — is a late phenomenon in the evolution of written lan- guage and represents conscious selection rather than nat- ural growth. Most syllabaries have, therefore, been very cumbersome. Those of Egypt, Babylonia, and Assyria are good examples. And even Japan to this very day — in so far as it uses a syllabary at all — prefers to use the Hiragana, a syllabary representing some 300 signs, rather than the Katakana which represents only 47. The Japanese language as an example of the syllabic level. — Little is known of Japanese writing before the eastward expansion of Buddhism during the sixth cen- tury a.d. At this time the Japanese came in close con- tact with Chinese civilization — including the system of writing. They mastered the latter in a comparatively short time and adopted it as their own. They had now two quite distinct languages — the colloquial Jap- anese and the written language of the Chinese. They were not content to rest here however. Almost imme- diately they set to work to devise a written system of their own. And by the close of the ninth century they had actually evolved two syllabaries — the Katakana and the Hiragana — their colloquial having been resolved into 47 syllables. The Katakana represents 47 signs — one for each syllable — these being abbreviated forms of the Chi- nese square characters; the Hiragana which is most com- EVOLUTION OF WRITTEN LANGUAGE 49 monly used contains some 300 signs — several for each syl- lable — the characters having been derived from the Chi- nese cursive forms. Once these syllabaries had been evolved, the Japanese had in their possession instruments by means of which they were able to write their colloquial almost as readily as we do our own. Unfortunately, however, the Chinese system had gained such a strong foothold by that time that the use of the syllabaries was relegated largely to women and to popular writers — scholarly works and offi- cial documents being invariably couched in Chinese. With all this, some of Japan's most treasured literary works appear in the vernacular. As time went on, pure Chinese came to be supplanted by the so-called Sinico-Chinese in which the borrowed Chinese characters are incorporated into the Japanese sentence much as Greek and Latin words are absorbed in English. There was this important difference, however — and here is the rub. When we borrow foreign terms we represent them by means of letters of our own alphabet. The Chinese characters which entered into the Sinico- Chinese were not represented by means of the syllabaries. They remained ideographs — each retaining its distinct Chinese form. They merely underwent inflection by the use of Japanese particles selected from the syllabaries. Sinico-Chinese 1 — in which most of the important works of to-day appear — is, therefore, a mixture of Chinese charac- ters and Japanese syllables. The former supply the chief ideas — as the nouns and the stems of verbs — while the latter are used to transcribe the particles and termina- tions and to clear up the meanings of the Chinese ideo- 50 THE READING PROCESS graphs to those who are not thoroughly familiar with them. The Japanese student faces, therefore, if anything, a more prodigious task in learning to read and write than does the Chinese — being compelled, as he is, to master both the Chinese characters and the syllabaries of his own vernacular. The necessity of assimilating the termi- nology of Western thought has made the task still more difficult. Almost without exception the new terms have been borrowed from the Chinese — the characters being combined to express the new ideas in the case of both the vernacular and the written language, — democracy becom- ing "people-power" ; philanthropy, "universal love- heart"; photograph, "copy-truth"; phonograph, "gather- voice-contrivance" ; electricity, "lightning-spirit" ; geol- ogy, "earth-substance-science." It is not surprising, therefore, that there should be in evidence a growing dissatisfaction with the present sys- tem — -its inadequacy being felt most keenly by those in- terested in the education and enlightenment of the masses. Even now the necessity of reaching the masses — for political, social, and economic reasons — compels the leading newspapers and journals to publish their articles in the vernacular or in Sinico-Chinese accompanied by what amounts to practically interlinear translations. Thoroughgoing reform is, therefore, only a matter of time. 3. The letter as phonogram. — The syllabic phonogram, as we have seen, marks a great advance over the word phonogram. However, it is only a step in the right direc- tion. The final goal is reached only when syllables have been further analyzed and each elementary sound has EVOLUTION OF WRITTEN LANGUAGE 51 TABLE I Syllables of Japanese Language — Arrangement Based on the Five Vowels and Their Combination with Certain Consonants Vowels K S T N H M Y R W A a . ka sa ta na ha ma ya ra wa I i ki shi chi . ni hi mi yi 1 ri wi a U u ku su tsu nu fu mu yu ru wu a E e ke se te ne he me ye 1 re we a o ko so to no ho mo yo ro wo 1 Duplicates. 2 Duplicates. come to be represented by a phonogram commonly known as a letter. That this goal is reached only gradually in consequence of a long drawn out period of development is well attested by the history of such alphabets as are known to us. What is more, the fact that many peoples renowned for marked achievements along other lines have failed to evolve alphabets shows that the step is indeed a very difficult one. As in the case of syllabification, the principle of aerol- ogy appears to have played an important part in the development of the alphabet. Very frequently signs standing for syllables or words came to stand for the initial elementary sounds of such syllables or words. In this way an elementary sound might at first be repre- sented by a number of different signs. That this was actually the case is clearly shown by such alphabets as the Egyptian. As time went on, the number of signs was of course reduced. However, even to-day few alphabets have reached the point where each sound is represented 52 THE READING PROCESS by only one sign. Nor do most alphabets make adequate provision by means of separate characters for all the ele- mentary sounds represented by their respective languages. In part this is due to the fact that alphabets are largely the product of a more or less haphazard development rather than the outcome of conscious selection. More- over, it must be borne in mind that alphabets have not in- frequently been transmitted from one language to another with little or no adaptation. Finally, spoken language is constantly undergoing changes so that no alphabet can — without constant adaptation — continue to represent its sounds with absolute fidelity. Ancient systems of writing which reached the alpha- betic level. — The cuneiform and the Egyptian hieroglyph- ics are the most remarkable examples of the ancient systems of writing which in the long course of their de- velopment finally reached the alphabetic level. The cuneiform. — The cuneiform is the wedge shaped script used successively by the ancient nations inhabiting the Euphratean and neighboring regions. These wedge shaped characters were developed out of a rude picture writing by the Sumerians — the pre-Semitic inhabitants of these regions — in remote antiquity, possibly from 6000 to 7000 years before the beginning of our era. These people had not only developed a syllabary but they had utilized writing to a remarkable extent. When later the Semitic Babylonians conquered the Sumerians, they adopted much of the culture of the conquered people, including the cuneiform script. This they gradually adapted to their language — a language radically different from the Sumerian — but in spite of the fact that they in- EVOLUTION OF WRITTEN LANGUAGE 53 troduced many changes as time went on, their syllabary appears to have remained rather cumbersome and un- wieldy. Their inscriptions — extending from approxi- mately 4500 b.c. to the beginning of our era — appear in cuneiform. It is now known that they developed a lit- erature of considerable merit; that they had extensive libraries in towns and temples — the inscriptions being on clay tablets many of which have come down to us; and that women as well as men learned to read and write. The Assyrians likewise used the cuneiform script throughout the period of their national existence — dating from 1500 B.C. to 607 b.c. They simplified the Babylonian syllabary to a considerable extent, though there still re- mained some 500 characters. Sometime during the eighth century B.C. the Scythic tribes of Media came in contact with the cuneiform script of their neighbors, which they adopted — simplifying it subsequently to such a remark- able extent that only 96 characters remained. The out- come was, of course, a syllabary in the real sense of the term. Finally in the time of Darius the cuneiform passed into the hands of the Aryan Persians who developed what may be termed an alphabet of some 36 characters — whether through their own inventive genius or through external influences is not known. We may add that for many centuries of our era — in fact, down to the eighth century — the cuneiform script was practically forgot- ten, and it was not until sometime during the nineteenth century that scholars rediscovered the keys which enabled them to read the inscriptions. The Egyptian hieroglyphics. — The Egyptian script has an equally interesting though perhaps less fortuitous his- 54 THE READING PROCESS tory. At a comparatively early period in Egyptian civili- zation it had passed through the several stages which we have enumerated. Indeed, the oldest inscriptions thus far unearthed — inscriptions running back some 5000 years from the beginning of our era — show that the alphabet had arrived even at that early period. Strange to say, however, the Egyptians failed to utilize to any extent the advantages of their discovery. They continued to use, along with words properly indicated by means of letters, both syllabic signs and ideographs — the outcome being a very cumbersome system of writing. In the course of time three different kinds of alphabetic characters came into use — the hieroglyphic, the hieratic, and the demotic. The hieroglyphic characters were the lineal descendants of early picture writing forms — many of them preserving their original design to a remarkable extent. In time they came to be used largely for monumental and sacred purposes. The hieratic characters were simplified forms of the hieroglyphic and were used chiefly for secular pur- poses and in copying literary manuscripts. The demotic — coming into use about 900 B.C. — represented a further simplification and were in popular everyday use. The Egyptian alphabet consisted originally of 45 symbols but in time the number was reduced to 25. Origin of modern alphabets. — As Clodd points out, "we travel backward along clearly marked lines from our own alphabet to the Roman, and thence to the Greek, which tradition attributed to the Phoenician." Here, how- ever, we come face to face with queries which may never be fully answered. As is commonly known, the Phoeni- cians were not an inventive people, nor do they, for that EVOLUTION OF WRITTEN LANGUAGE 55 matter, appear to have claimed the distinction of having originated their own system of writing. They attributed it rather to the Egyptians. And for a time the findings of modern philologists pointed in this direction. As late as 1859 the French Egyptologist, Emanuel de Rouge, an- nounced — after a most painstaking comparison of the oldest Phoenician characters with the Egyptian hieratic forms — that the Phoenician alphabet was clearly of Egyp- tian origin. For a time De Rouge's conclusions were gen- erally accepted. More recently, however, the results of extensive excava- tions and investigations in Greece and especially on the island of Crete on the part of such scholars as A. J. Evans and Flinders Petrie have raised the whole question anew. These explorations show that there existed in the Grecian Archipelago a great civilization — a civilization which rivaled the Babylonian and the Egyptian and extended perhaps over nearly as much time as the latter. This civilization, now commonly known as the Mycenean — although its cradle appears to have been in Crete — came in close contact with Mediterranean peoples and with the great civilizations of the day. Of chief interest to us, however, is the fact that two systems of writing have been discovered in Crete — the one pictographic and the other linear and possibly to some extent alphabetic. The extent to which the linear script is indigenous appears to be an open question, particularly since some of the signs bear a rather close resemblance to Cypriote, Hittite, and Semi- tic forms. However that may be, the significant facts for us are (1) that there was in wide use among the Myceneans an 56 THE READING PROCESS elaborate system of writing long before their civilization was overthrown by the invasion of the Dorians — some- time during the twelfth century B.C. — and (2) that the commercial greatness of the Phoenicians followed upon this — extending from the eleventh to the fourth century b.c. This sequence of events gave the Phoenicians every opportunity not only to come in contact with the My- cenean system of writing but to appropriate it and to dis- seminate it among the Greeks in general. In any event, before the final Phoenician decline came, their alphabet had been perfected and widely disseminated among the Greeks. On the other hand it must be borne in mind that the Phoenicians — because of the fact that they were a dependency of Egypt for several centuries preceding their rise into prominence — also had every opportunity of coming in contact with the Egyptian system of writing and of appropriating the alphabet from this source. Finally, as Clodd points out, it is not improbable that the Phoenicians may have received elements from various sources. As a commercial people they were primarily interested in brevity, so much so that — from whatever source they may have received their cues — they ended up with an alphabet so simple and "of such signal value as to have been accepted by the civilized world of the past and to have secured, with but slight modifications, a perma- nence assured to no other invention of the human race. Therefore, the debt we owe these old traders is in no wise lessened because the current theory of the derivation of our alphabet is doubted." * From the eighth century down to 323 B.C. when Alex- 1 Clodd, Edmond: The Story of the Alphabet, pp. 177-178. EVOLUTION OF WRITTEN LANGUAGE 57 ander the Great sacked Tyre, the Greeks gradually "suc- ceeded to the sovereignty of the sea. Their factories and colonies were planted from East to West, from Odessa to Marseilles." In this way the Greek alphabet was spread. "The Latin and through it the alphabets of Europe and America" were derived from the Western or Chalcidian form. 1 The evolution of the book. — Once written language reached the phonetic level, it was of the greatest impor- tance that methods and means should be devised whereby thought could be easily recorded and rapidly duplicated. Primitive man, as we have seen, inscribed his records upon a great variety of objects — objects varying all the way from splints of bone to massive rock facades. Peoples reaching the higher levels of language development have almost without exception evolved more elaborate and more highly specialized materials. The Mayas of Yuca- tan and the Nahuas of Mexico — whose remarkable lin- guistic achievements were discussed elsewhere — had reached the point where they manufactured large sheets of paper — from the leaves of the maguey plant — which upon being folded were inclosed between two handsomely decorated boards. Tablets of a great variety were in use among many early peoples. The Egyptians — probably before the days of papyrus — used wooden tablets upon which they wrote with ink. The early Greeks and Ro- mans used tablets made of soft metals and of wax. The most remarkable tablets of which we have any records, however, are those which were in use among the ancient Babylonians and Assyrians. These were made of clay ^lodd, Edmond: Op. cit. 58 THE READING PROCESS somewhat after the manner of brick. The inscriptions — in cuneiform characters — were impressed upon the surface before the tablets were dried in the sun or in ovens spe- cially designed for this purpose. Many of these have come down to us in excellent condition. The roll was, however, by far the most important manuscript form in use among ancient peoples. The Egyptians began to use the papyrus roll — papyrus being manufactured from the papyrus plant which grew in the shallow regions of the Nile — at remote times, possibly at a period antedating 4000 B.C. A number of sheets of papyrus — usually not more than twenty — were pasted to- gether end to end to form the roll, the width of the roll varying from four to twelve inches. The text was writ- ten on the inside — the side on which the fibers ran in a horizontal direction — in columns varying in width from two to two and one-half inches, the lines running parallel to the length of the roll. When it was read the roll was manipulated much as an ordinary camera film, the right hand attending to the unwinding and the left to the re- verse process — column after column being disclosed to the reader. At a comparatively early date the use of the papyrus roll spread to other nations— especially the Greeks and the Romans — among whom it came to be used not only for literary purposes but for commercial transactions as well. Among the Ionian Greeks and the Hebrews the roll appears to have been made more commonly of skins — the law of the latter people being to this day inscribed upon rolls of parchment. The Romans continued to use the papyrus roll until well into the fourth century a.d. when it was gradually super- EVOLUTION OF WRITTEN LANGUAGE 59 seded by the vellum codex. Among the Arabs, however, it continued to be used down to the ninth and tenth cen- turies when paper took its place. The codex which gradually superseded the roll is the common manuscript form of the Middle Ages and the immediate forerunner of the modern printed book. In general appearance it bore a close resemblance to the book — the sheets of vellum or parchment, manufactured from the skins of animals, being fastened on one side and placed between covers. As compared with the roll, the co- dex represented certain advantages which were no doubt partly responsible for its rapid adoption once it became known. It was more economical. Not only were the sheets used on both sides, but it was possible to effect erasures and use the parchment over and over again. Moreover, the page arrangement greatly facilitated ready reference. Finally, the codex became at an early age iden- tified with the new religion — a fact which was greatly in its favor. The introduction of paper. — The Chinese appear to have manufactured paper from a very remote period — possibly as early as the second century B.C. Sometime during the eighth century a.d. the Arabs became ac- quainted with the process through Chinese war prisoners. They seem to have appreciated the advantages of the new writing material, for in a comparatively short time we find them manufacturing their own paper from a variety of materials. During the succeeding centuries the process gradually became known to the various Euro- pean peoples. By the fifteenth century paper had prac- tically supplanted vellum. 60 THE READING PROCESS It is difficult to appreciate fully the significance of this new writing material. It began to supply a relatively cheap and abundant medium for manuscript purposes at a time when the intellectual interests of Europe were growing apace. Moreover, we are warranted in believing that it prepared the way for one of the most momentous inventions of all times — the invention of printing. It is far more than coincident that printing was invented just at the time when paper had come into common use. Indeed, without an abundant medium upon which to print there could have been little incentive to produce such an invention. The invention of printing. — The Chinese are said to have practiced printing from engraved blocks during the early centuries of the present era. By the eleventh cen- tury they had invented movable types. But as far as we know the process did not spread beyond Japan. In any event printing from movable blocks appears to have been invented quite independently in western Europe about the middle of the fifteenth century. The invention as such has been generally attributed to Johann Gutenberg of Mainz, Germany. However, there have been many rival claimants — the most ably defended of these being Lourens Janszoon Coster of Haarlem, Holland. For the most part the supporters of the latter contend — and not without a certain amount of plausible evidence — that the Mainz printers had conceived their idea from earlier in- ventions on the part of Coster. However that may be, the significant facts, as Aldis puts it, are that the "devel- opment of the invention may be referred to the decade 1440-1450" and that "it was at Mainz that the art was EVOLUTION OF WRITTEN LANGUAGE 61 first developed to a practical issue" and, finally, that "it was from Mainz that this momentous invention spread throughout Europe." * The spread of printing. — The new invention was des- tined to spread rapidly. In large part, no doubt, this was due to the fact that printing met a genuine need of the times — so much so that the printer was readily received wherever he went. More immediately, however, the rapid spread was occasioned by the sacking of Mainz by Arch- bishop Adolphus in 1642. This dispersed the printers — first over Germany and then throughout Europe. Before the end of the fifteenth century, eighteen European coun- tries were printing books, according to Rawlings, — Italy heading the list with seventy-one cities in which presses were at work, Germany following with fifty, France with thirty-six, Spain with twenty-six, Holland with fourteen, and England with four. According to early Spanish authorities printing was introduced into America in 1535 — the first book being printed in Mexico City. The first printing establishment in North America, exclusive of Mexico, was organized in 1639 at Harvard College. It is still in existence, being known as the University Press. The second colonial press appears to have been established in Boston in 1676. The improvement of printing. — The simple Mainz press — modified slightly from time to time — continued to meet the needs of printing down to the beginning of the nineteenth century — a period of nearly three hundred and fifty years. Then followed a series of inventions which almost completely revolutionized printing. At the 'Aldis, H. G.: The Printed Book. 62 THE READING PROCESS beginning of the nineteenth century the maximum output of the hand press then in use was limited to two hundred and fifty impressions per hour. By the middle of the century — largely because of inventions which resulted in the application of steam and in the development of the cylinder press and the type revolving machine — it was possible with a proper grouping of machines to secure an output of as many as 20,000 impressions per hour. This advance had of course a far reaching effect upon news- papers and magazines. Those which had hitherto "been limited in their ability to furnish the papers rapidly increased their issues,. and many new ones were started." The inventions of the second half of the century — culmi- nating in such machines as the rotary web press and the linotype — have wrought improvements which fall little short of the miraculous. Not only do the large news- paper presses of to-day print with lightning speed — the latest double octuple press turning out 300,000 eight page, 150,000 sixteen page, or 75,000 thirty-two page newspapers per hour — but they cut, fold, paste, and count the papers as they are delivered in absolutely fin- ished form from the press. SELECTED REFERENCES 1. Aldis, H. G. — The Printed Book; (London), Cambridge Uni- versity Press, 1916. 2. Budge, E. A. W. — Egyptian Language; (London), Kegan Paul, Trench, Triibner and Company, Ltd., 1899. 3. Clodd, Edmond — The Story of the Alphabet; D. Appleton and Company, 1900, chapters 4-10. 4. Evans, A. J. — Scripta Minoa; (Oxford), Clarenden Press, 1909. EVOLUTION OF WRITTEN LANGUAGE 63 5. Francis, L. G. — "Egyptian Language and Writing"; Encyclo- pedia Britannica, 11th Edition, IX, pp. 57-65. 6. Giles, H. A. — China and the Chinese; The Macmillan Com- pany, 1902, chapter 1. "Chinese Language"; Encyclopedia Britannica, 11th Edition, VI, pp. 216-222. 7. Hoe, Robert — A Short History of the Printing Press; Printed and Published by Robert Hoe, N. Y., 1902. " 8. Hoffman, W. J. — Beginnings of Writing; D. Appleton and Company, 1895. 9. Huey, E. B. — The Psychology and Pedagogy of Reading; The Macmillan Company, 1908, chapters 8 and 12. 10. Longford, J. H. — Japan of the Japanese; Chas. Scribner's Sons, 1912. 11. MacCauley, Clay — Introductory Course in Japanese; Yoko- hama, 1906, pp. 1-20. 12. Petrie, M. M. Flinders — The Formation of the Alphabet; British School of Archeology in Egypt, III, (London), Macmillan and Company, Ltd., 1912. 13. Rawlings, Gertrude B. — The Printed Booh; D. Appleton and Company, 1901. 14. Rogers, W. R. — "Cuneif orm" ; Encyclopedia Britannica, 11th Edition, VII, pp. 629-632. 15. Rust, G. H. — The History of Printing; Department of Print- ing, Chicago Normal School, 1901. 16. Taylor, Isaac — The Alphabet; (London), Kegan Paul, Trench and Company, 1883. CHAPTER IV ENGLISH SPELLING — PRESENT STATUS AND PENDING SIMPLIFICATION It now becomes our task — after tracing the evolu- tion of written language from crude pictography to alphabets and printed books — to examine more closely the alphabet to which we have fallen heir. Theoretically an alphabet should represent one character for each sound in the language, and each sound should be represented by only one character. There should be no omissions and no duplications. Such an alphabet would be truly phonetic and would constitute the greatest possible boon for a language. Problems of spelling and pronunciation would scarcely exist since a normal individual would be able to spell a word upon hearing it and pronounce it upon seeing it. Such a language could be readily acquired by children and foreigners; and, furthermore, it would be economical for the printer and the reader since there would be no surplus characters. Unphonetic character of modern alphabets. — Unfortu- nately the alphabets of the more important modern lan- guages are not generally phonetic. The Spanish and the Italian come perhaps as close to it as any, while the English and the French deviate most widely. Of the latter, French represents without question the looser re- 64 ENGLISH SPELLING 65 lationship between symbols and sounds, but its spelling is simpler than that of English. Authorities are generally agreed that alphabets tend to grow less phonetic — unless consciously adapted from time to time as in the case of the Spanish and the Italian. Spoken and written language forms represent tendencies which are essentially at variance — the former changing continually; the latter becoming more and more stereo- typed and fixed. It must be borne in mind, too, that an alphabet may acquire irregularities in passing from one people to another. This is exactly what happened when the Roman alphabet became our own. Linguistic admix- tures — such as followed upon the Norman conquest — act in the same manner. The English alphabet. — Unfortunately the English alphabet has become quite incapable of representing the sounds of the language in an adequate and consistent manner. As a matter of fact it has never met our needs any too well. It was from the very beginning a better- instrument to represent the sounds of Latin than those of Old English. Nevertheless, it was for centuries a rela- tively phonetic alphabet — its present inadequacy being due largely to subsequent changes in the sounds of the language, especially those involving a progressive differ- entiation and displacement of vowel sounds. As consti- tuted at present the English alphabet although consisting of twenty-six characters represents only twenty-three sound symbols — k making c superfluous and q and x being of no intrinsic service. Our speech sounds on the other hand are variously estimated from thirty-eight to forty-four. In other words, we are attempting to repre- 66 THE READING PROCESS sent on an average approximately two speech sounds through each alphabetic symbol. Nor is this all, for it is the vowel situation which introduces the most serious complications. We have from fifteen to eighteen vowel sounds and only five characters to represent them. The consonant situation is far more satisfactory since the twenty-four sounds are represented by eighteen charac- ters exclusive of the three which are superfluous. Vowel characters representing several sounds, — As Professor Lounsbury 1 points out, "to make up for this deficiency of letters, two courses lay open to the users of English ; rather two courses were forced upon them" : It was possible on the one hand to represent two or more sounds by means of one character; on the other hand certain combinations of vowels, consonants and vowels, or consonants might be chosen to represent invariably certain sounds. Unfortunately the first course was for the most part adopted — there being only two instances in which combinations, made available by way of the second course, "have an invariable or nearly invariable value. One of these is aw found in such words as bawl and lawn" and "the other is ee seen in seen itself as well as in a number of other words." All other combinations or digraphs came to represent now one sound and now another. This being the case each of the several vowel characters has come to represent a variety of sounds. In consequence of which a is found in such 1 The illustrations of this and succeeding pages have been drawn for the most part from Professor Lounsbury's English Spelling and Spelling Rejorm — a book which should be read by every intelligent individual who speaks the English language. ENGLISH SPELLING 67 words as father, fall, ask, am, care, late, about; e in be, let, there, pervert; i in ice, ill, machine, bird; o in note, not, lord, wolf, work, do; and u in rule, but, full, urn. Vowel sounds represented by a variety of characters and combinations of characters. — Nor does this tell the whole story. If each of the several groups of vowel sounds — the different sounds of a for instance — were con- sistently represented by one and the same symbol or combination of symbols, the situation would be less in- volved. But such is not the case, for many of the vowel sounds may be represented by a variety of characters or combinations of characters. Thus the a in father is rep- resented by ua in guard, ea in heart, and e in sergeant; the a in am by ua in guarantee, and ai in plaid; the a in care by ai in hair, ay in prayer, e in there, and ei in their; the a in fall by o in song, au in taught, aw in saw, oa in broad, and ou in thought; the a in late by ai in hail, ay in day, ea in steak, ei in veil, e in eh, ao in grao£, and au in gauge. The e in be is represented by ee in meet, ea in bean, ei in se^e, ie in believe, ay in gi/ay, ae in aegas, and i in machine; and the e in let by a in any, ea in health, ai in said, ay in says, ei in heifer, and eo in leopard. The i in ice is represented by y in type, ie in die, ye in £?/e, ei in height, ai in aisie, ey in eye, and ^y in buy; and the i in ill by y in system, e in English, e in pretty, o in women, u in business, ie in siet>e, and m in &m7df. The o in noie is represented by oa in boat, oe in toe, ou in shoulder, ow in snow, ew in sew, oo in /foor, eaw in beau, and eo in yeoman; and the o in not by a in w/iat. The u in rate is represented by the o in move, oe in s/^oe, oo in fool, ou in youth, ue in true, ui in /rm£, e^ in neuter, ew in sewer, 68 THE READING PROCESS ieu in adieu; the u in full by o in wolf, and oo in /oof; the u in fo/£ by o in love, ou in touch, oo in blood; and the it in ^m by 6 in her, i in /ir, o in wor/c, ea in learn, and the ow in flourish. The three diphthongs ai, ou, and oi are also irregular. The sound of ai is represented by i in hide, y in £?/pe, ie in lie, ye in Zt/6, ei in height, ey in ei/e, and 2/2/ in 62/7/ ; that of ou by ow in now; and that of oi by oy in 60?/. Irregularities in case of digraphs. — The many di- graphs, as Professor Lounsbury continues to point out, are characterized "by the same variableness, the same irregularity, and the same lawlessness," aw and ee consti- tuting the only exception. Thus ai is found in fail, pair, said, aisle, and plait; ay in lay, and quay; ea in beast, weather, heard, bear, heart, and great; ei in veil, seize, their, height, and heifer; ey in they, and key; eo in people, leopard, and yeoman; ie in chief, lie, and friend; oa in oar, and broad; oe in foe, shoe, and does; 00 in moon, wood, flood, door; and ou in £/iow, 2/ow, 80U l> ought, would, cough, and flourish; ow in down, and 6Jow. Di- graphs in which u is the first letter have their own peculiar irregularities. Thus u may have the sound of w as in the ua of language, the ue of conquest, the m of anguish, and the 2/0 of quota. It may be long as in the we of true, or it may be silent as in fatigue. Finally, ui is found in words varying as widely in pronunciation as guide, build, and fruit. Relationship between vowel sounds and vowel charac- ters in Spanish. — The reader will find it of interest at this point to note — by way of contrast — the utter simplicity of the Spanish vowel system as summarized below : ENGLISH SPELLING 69 The Spanish vowels are a, e, i, o, u, and occasionally y. Each vowel has one invariable sound. The sound of a is full, open as in far, father, farm, alarm. The sound of e is an intermediate sound between a in mate and short e in met, as in eh! weight. The sound of i is the same as in police, machine. The sound of o is as in for, order, lord, form. The sound of u is the same as short oo in wool, or u in hull, pull, push. All vowels should be clearly and distinctly sounded in all cases, except u in the syllables gue, gui, que, qui, when it is usually silent. When sounded in gue, gui, it is marked with a dieresis, thus : gue, gui. 1 The consonant situation. — Fortunately our consonant system is — in spite of numerous exceptions — compara- tively phonetic. "Were it otherwise, were there," as Professor Lounsbury puts it, "with the consonants the same degree of irregularity which exists with the vowels, the same degree of variableness in the representation of sounds, the same widely prevalent indifference to anal- ogy, knowledge of English spelling would not be delayed, as it is now, for no more than two or three years beyond the normal time of its acquisition ; it would be the work of a life time. Mastery of it, under existing conditions never fully gained by some, would in such circumstances never be acquired by anybody who learned anything else." 2 As it is, there is in Evidence in connection with our con- sonants a marked tendency for each character to repre- sent one sound only and for each sound to be represented regularly by the same character. Unfortunately there are six consonantal sounds for which our alphabet makes 1 Appleton , s New Spanish Dictionary, p. v. 3 English Svellina and Spelling Reform, pp. 160-161. 70 THE READING PROCESS no provision. These are the hard initial sound in then, the soft initial sound in thin, and the sounds represented by ng in bring, ch in church, sh in ship, and s in pleasure. The first two are invariably represented by th and so do not give rise to orthographic complications, but the reader is left without any adequate rule regarding pronunciation. In connection with the remaining four sounds confusion is inevitable. The combination ng has different values in singer and finger; ch represents not merely the ch sound in church but it appears in chaise, character, archangel, and choir; the sound of sh in ship is represented also by ce in ocean, ci in social, s in sugar, t in satiate, ti in nation, xi in anxious, sci in conscience, and si in vision; and the s in pleasure is represented by si in occasion, z in azure, and zi in glazier. Silent letters. — The prevalence of silent letters— letters which have been rendered useless through changes in pronunciation and in some cases letters which have found their way into our words by way of derivation or through error of one kind or another — constitutes another defect in our consonant system. Thus we have a g in gnaw, a k in know, a w in wrong, an I in could, a ph in phthisic, a b in climb, an n in autumn, a w in plow, an h in oh, a k in sick, a b in debt, a c in scene, a g in sigw, an h in g/ios£, a p in receipt, an s in island. Moreover, double con- sonants commonly represent a single sound. Accord- ingly, we have a useless d in arfd, a useless / in affairs, a useless <7 in e<7<7, a useless J in wiM, a useless ra in commerce, a useless r in arrive, a useless s in professor, a useless £ in battle, and so ad infinitum. Occasionally one character represents more than one sound. Thus the p ENGLISH SPELLING 71 of cupboard has the sound of b, and / in of has the sound of v. In some cases a simple consonant sound is repre- sented by a digraph. The sound of / in such words as philosophy is accordingly represented by ph and the sound of final t in such verb forms as looked by ed. Causes leading up to present irregularities. — It is scarcely necessary to adduce further evidence in support of the contention that our English spelling is irregular and anything but phonetic. We shall, therefore, turn our attention to some of the causes which have given rise to the present situation. In part these have already been referred to. We have seen, for instance, that the alpha- bet which we inherited from the Romans did not fully meet our needs at the start. It has also been pointed out that much confusion resulted from such linguistic ad- mixtures as followed upon the Norman conquest. More- over, it must be borne in mind that we have continued to borrow words to this very day — in fact, borrowing plays the same part in the growth of our vocabulary as com- pounding does in the case of the Chinese. Fortunately we have drawn most heavily upon Latin — a fact which accounts for many of the regularities found in our spell- ing. But we have by no means confined our borrowing to Latin. In some instances we have drawn freely upon such sources as the French, Scandinavian, Dutch, Italian, and Russian languages. That this promiscuous borrow- ing — in the absence of proper adaptation — should lead to orthographic irregularities was of course quite inevitable. But the chief cause of the irregularities in our spelling must be sought for elsewhere. Nor is it difficult to find. Before the advent of the printer and the compiler of the 72 THE READING PROCESS dictionary, spelling tended on the whole to keep pace with the changes in speech. It was, therefore, relatively pho- netic. With all this there were, as might be expected, many irregularities and much variation — each one spell- ing within certain limits much as he pleased. The stand- ards for a given period were of course largely determined by the professional scribes — on the whole a capable and scholarly body of men. With the coming of the printer the control of the standards passed into the hands of a body of men inferior in scholarship and primarily inter- ested in conventionality. Moreover, there were — during the early centuries of printing — no authoritative diction- aries to guide the printer. Consequently spelling — which was becoming more and more stereotyped under the in- fluence of the printer — varied much from place to place. Wten the compilers of the dictionary arrived on the scene in earnest — during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries — they were unfortunately not equal to the task before them. Their respect for tradition far outweighed their knowledge of English. Accordingly — instead of adequately tracing the history of words and selecting the simplest and most phonetic forms — they lent their sanc- tion to many of the irregularities which had already become dear to the hearts of men. In large part this was done under the guise of derivation — not infrequently false derivation — for men like Johnson were sticklers for tradition and standpatters rather than scholars. As Professor Brander Matthews points out: It was a grave mistake that the mismade spelling thus casually manufactured was accepted by Bailey, and after him by Dr. John- son whose Dictionary published in the middle of the eighteenth ENGLISH SPELLING 73 century gave it currency and authority, which his more ignorant disciple Walker only helped to extend and establish. And if the English language has to-day the worst spelling of any of the mod- ern languages, this is due largely to the weight of his ponderous personality. If he had only known just a little more about the his- tory of his own language, and if he had exerted his dominating influence against the more obvious absurdities and inconsistencies foisted into our spelling by the narrow pedantry of arrogant proof- readers, secure in a perilous half -knowledge — in short, if Dr. John- son had not only known more about English but had also cared more — our orthography would be less unsatisfactory to-day and it would be more easily set right. In his regard for Latin, and in his ignorance of English as it had been before the printers came, Johnson accepted comptroller, ignoring the older controller. He allowed sovereign and foreign (as though they had something to do with the Latin regno) instead of the older soverain (Milton's sovran) and forrain. He coun- tenanced debt and doubt, with the useless and disfiguring b, which was thrust in by earlier pedants. He kept a Latin p in receipt, though he left it out of deceit. He spelled deign one way and disdain another. He was willing to leave a needless and mislead- ing s in island, although it had been Hand in Shakespeare's time. He seems to have supposed that the older English agast would look more ghostlike if spelt aghast. He cast out the Shake- spearean dke for the labored ache. He kept up the accidental and perfectly useless distinction in the spelling of the final syllables of accede and exceed, of precede and proceed? Since the days of Johnson, English scholarship has thoroughly unraveled the many problems connected with the history and derivation of our words. In consequence we have to-day a motley array of dictionaries — diction- aries unsurpassed in excellence and completeness by those of any other language. In spite of this our spelling — although relatively uniform throughout the English- speaking world — has remained irregular and unphonetic. To be sure there have been many changes — some for the 1 Simplified Spelling, pp. 5 and 38. 74 THE READING PROCESS better and some for the worse — but through all these years there has been at work no recognized standardizing agency such as the French Academy and similar bodies in other countries, notably Spain and Italy. The best that our dictionary compilers could do, therefore, was to rep- resent the situation as it is, indicating the variations in spelling and sanctioning — as many have done consist- ently — the use of the simpler forms. Any further step would have brought upon them the anathema of the traditionalist. In consequence progress has been slow. Social bearings of present system of spelling. — The character of our spelling affects our interests from various angles. Ever since the beginning of the last century the English language has been gaining in influence, so much so, in fact, that it now far outclasses in numbers using it, its nearest competitors-— the Spanish, French, and Ger- man languages. That it is rapidly assuming an inter- national status is obvious. Indeed, we are not far amiss when we predict that there is but one obstacle — the unphonetic and irregular character of its spelling — to prevent it from becoming a world language in the course of the present century. Then, too, for decades to come we as Americans will be confronted with the problem of assimilating the immigrant. The extent to which lan- guage affords the key to Americanization is astounding — though all too little appreciated. Here, too, the character of our spelling stands in our way. Beyond this, the, character of our spelling reacts un- favorably upon the educative process. Not only does it impose upon normal English-speaking children an unrea- sonable spelling grind, but it complicates almost beyond ENGLISH SPELLING 75 comprehension — as will appear in the next chapter — the problem of teaching children to read. Nor is this all, but as Professor Calvin Thomas points out: Right at the threshold of life, when the young mind is beginning to ask for the reason of things, and when every principle of sound education requires that this propensity be developed and strength- ened by appropriate stimuli and discipline, just then we deluge the learner with an avalanche of irrationality. It is strictly true that the foolishness of our English spelling exerts a poisonous influence on our whole primary education. 1 Again in spite of the fact that we devote approximately one half of the time in our elementary schools to the language arts — reading, language, spelling, and penman- ship — the American child leaves this division of the edu- cational system on the whole meagerly equipped with skill in the use of language — in part at least because of the character of our spelling. Nor are these difficulties entirely obviated in succeeding divisions. Many a high school teacher of English is compelled to devote much of his time to the correction of the faulty spelling of the pupils. And as for college students, the writer is forced to conclude, after an intimate classroom experience with hundreds of senior college and graduate students, that few ever reach the point where they have really mastered a guide to pronunciation such as Webster's key or the scientific alphabet used in the Standard Dictionary. Spelling reform. — As indicated earlier, changes in spell- ing are by no means foreign to our language. But un- fortunately, because of the absence of a controlling influence, these have been for the most part haphazard — 1 The Amelioration of Our Spelling, p. 38. 76 THE READING PROCESS now for the better and now for the worse. Because of changes for the better, we now write set, dim, fish, public, era, fantasy, wagon, fruit, forgetfulness, honor, dog, music, instead of sette, dimme, fysshe, publick, aera, phantasy, waggon, fructe, forget fullness, honour, dogge, musique. On the other hand because of changes for the worse, we now write downfall, downhill, miscall, unroll, which appeared in Johnson's dictionary as downfal, dowris- hil, miscal, unrol; also we write kissed, blessed, looked, tossed although these appear in the original works of our earlier poets as kist, blest, lookt, tost. Reform in order to be effective must obviously be con- trolled and directed. As far as method of procedure is concerned, two courses are open — one radical and the other gradual. A radical reform would involve the adop- tion of a phonetic alphabet — one in which each of the forty or more sounds in our language would be repre- sented invariably by one and the same character. The scientific alphabet — also known as the N. E. A. alphabet — represents such a group of characters, although the added symbols are probably not sufficiently distinct in form. As Professor Krapp points out, "the advantages of such a reform, if it could be carried through, would be undeniably great. Our spelling would then be logical and systematic. Foreigners learning English would be relieved of one of the chief difficulties which now lie in their way. Both practically and theoretically such a system of phonetic spelling would approach the ideal of the relation which should exist between the spoken and the written word." * But as he continues to point out, 1 Krapp, G. P.: Modern English, pp. 174-175. ENGLISH SPELLING 77 such a reform is for a long time to come quite out of the question — in part because "the English-speaking race," as Professor Brander Matthews has put it, "is not logical" and "never has been captivated by any thoroughgoing scheme of reform. In law, in politics, in life generally the two nations who have English for their mother tongue have always revealed themselves as opportunists content to take their reform piecemeal, going forward tentatively and advancing very slowly." * More immediately a radi- cal scheme is out of the question because the problem is neither understood nor appreciated by the majority of the educated English-speaking public — not to speak of the masses. A preliminary educative campaign extend- ing over many years would, therefore, be quite indis- pensable. And the gradual introduction of the most urgently needed improvements may after all constitute the best method of waging such a campaign. History of reform movement. — In any event the reform movement — now well under way — is proceeding upon the principle of gradual improvement. The move- ment may be said to date back to 1875 when the American Philological Association appointed a committee to con- sider the problem of spelling reform. In 1883 the Philo- logical Association and the Philological Society (London) issued a joint report — a report which contained recom- mendations for a rather thoroughgoing simplification. Meanwhile spelling reform associations had been organ- ized both in this country and in England — their object being to promote the adoption of the recommendations made by the philologists. In spite of the able personnel 1 Cyclopedia of Education (Paul Monroe, Editor), Vol. V. 78 THE READING PROCESS of these organizations no practical reforms were achieved for years, partly because the proposals for simplification were somewhat too sweeping — to start with at least — and partly because the funds which these societies had at their command were entirely too inadequate to insure effective campaigns. The first practical step was taken by the N. E. A. in 1898 when it adopted the following sim- plifications : tho for though thoroly for thoroughly altho for although catalog for catalogue thru for through decalog for decalogue thruout for throughout pedagog for pedagogue thoro for thorough program for programme thorofare for thoroughfare prolog for prologue These spellings were henceforth used in the publications of the association and by a number of educational journals. The Simplified Spelling Board.— In 1906 the Simpli- fied Spelling Board was organized — its immediate object being "to promote by systematic and continued effort the gradual simplification of English spelling." The organi- zation began its work under auspicious circumstances. It drew its membership from such sources as "the Ameri- can Philological Association, the Philological Society (London), the Spelling Reform Association, the Modern Language Association of America, the National Educa- tion Association, the American Association for the Ad- vancement of Science, and other representative bodies of scholars and educators, as well as from the front rank of men of letters and men of affairs"; and it received the financial backing of Andrew Carnegie — which enabled it ENGLISH SPELLING 79 to carry on an effective educational campaign from the very outset. In 1908 a similar organization — the Simpli- fied Spelling Society — was formed in England. Policy of the Simplified Spelling Board. — The policy of the Simplified Spelling Board has from the outset been one of moderation. One of its chief aims has been to create a consciousness on the part of the American public regarding existing conditions and to direct attention toward the desirability of reform. At no time has the Board proposed sudden or sweeping reforms. It recog- nizes the fact that there are — in spite of great irregulari- ties — many rules and analogies in English. These it de- sires to extend. Accordingly one of its most immediate tasks has been to get rid of needless exceptions and silent letters. In general its recommendations have been based upon the following principles: (1) When current usage offers a choice of spellings, to adopt the shortest and simplest. Examples: blest, not blessed (1 sil.) ; catalog, not catalogue; center, not centre; check, not cheque, or checque; gage, not gauge; gram, not gramme; honor, not honour; license, not licence; maneu- ver, not manoeuvre; mold, not mould; plow, not plough; quartet, not quartette; rime, not rhyme; tho, not though; traveler, not traveller. (2) Whenever practicable, to omit silent letters. Examples: activ, not active; anser, not answer; bluf, not bluff; deflnit, not definite; det, not debt; eg, not egg; engin, not engine; frend, not friend; hart, not heart; helth, not health; promis, not promise; scool, not school; shal, not shall; suffraget, not suffragette; thru, not through; trolly, not trolley; yu, not you. (3) To follow the simpler rather than the more complex of existing analogies. Examples : aher, not acre; buro, not bureau; deciet, not deceit; enuf, not enough; masherade, 80 THE READING PROCESS not masquerade; spritely, not sprightly; telefone, not telephone; tung, not tongue; wize, not wise. (4) Keeping in view that the logical goal of the movement is the eventual restoration of English spelling to the fonetic basis from which in the course of centuries and thru various causes it has widely departed, to propose no changes that ar inconsistent with that ideal. 1 It will be observed that these principles do not involve any fundamental readjustment between alphabetic char- acters and sounds. Such a readjustment will be under- taken gradually as the public becomes prepared for the step— first, doubtless, in connection with the consonants. The initial move might well include, as the Board indi- cates, "making a definite choice of c or k for the sound unambiguously represented by k" and the substitution of s for c pronounced like s, of z for s pronounced like z, and j for g pronounced like j. Readjustments in the case of the vowels and diphthongs will be much more difficult and will doubtless represent "the last step to a completely simplified spelling." Activities of the Simplified Spelling Board. — One of the first steps of the Board was to send forth a list of 300 common words of which alternate spellings — one more simple and regular than the other — are given by the leading dictionaries. Those who were in sympathy with the movement were asked to use the simpler forms as far as practicable. Subsequently other lists have been prepared. The most recent contains the following 25 words — issued "in response to requests for a brief list of words in simplified spelling, especially suited for use in 'See "Selected References" (4). ENGLISH SPELLING Si business correspondence, to supplement the 12 words of theN. E. A.: ad bil(d) fil(d) liv(d) tel addrest buro fixt reciet telefone anser(d) det giv reciev(d) twelv ar engin hav shal wil askt enuf insted shipt yu The Board has also issued from time to time circulars and pamphlets designed to supply needed information. Recently A Handbook of Simplified Spelling has been prepared. This offers an account of the origin and his- tory of the movement, arguments in favor of simplifica- tion, replies to objections, rules selected for present emphasis, and a dictionary list of the words affected. The following rules — thus far adopted by the Board — will afford the reader a bird's-eye view of the scope embraced by the activities of the Simplified Spelling Board : Note. Words used as illustrations in the rules and exam- ples ar printed in italics, if new spellings ; in roman, if given as preferd or alternativ spellings by one or more of the leading American dictionaries (Century, Standard, Webster's) and not qualified as "simplified," "new," "obsolete," or the like. «, ce, initial or medial. Spel e. Examples: ciclopedia, esthetic, medieval, fenix, maneuver, subpena ; but : alumnae, striae, etc. Note, ae, ce, ar now usually written ae, oe. Other cases of ae, oe, medial, as in canoeist, Gaelic, subpenaed, etc., ar not affected. bt pronounst t. Drop silent b. Examples: det, dettor, dout, in- detted, redout. Note. Eetain b, if pronounst, in subtil(e). ceed final. Spel cede. Examples: excede, procede, succede. 82 THE READING PROCESS ch. pronounst like c in car. Drop silent h, except before e, i, y. Examples: caracter, clorid(e), corns, cronic, eco, epoc, me- canic, monarc, scalar, scool, stomac, tecnical; but : architect, chemist, monarchy. double consonant before e final silent. Drop last 2 letters. Ex- amples: bagatel, bizar, cigaret, creton, crevas, gavot, gazet, giraf, gram, program, quadril, quartet, vaudevil. double consonant final. Reduce double to single; but in -11 only after a short vowel, and in -ss only in monosillables. Retain gross, hiss, off, puss. Examples: ad, bil, bluf, buz, clas, dot, dul, eg, glas, les, los, mes, mis, pas, pres, shot, tel, wil; but not : al for all, rol for roll, needles for needless, etc. e final silent. In the following cases drop e: a) After a consonant preceded by a, short vowel strest. Ex- amples: bad (bade), giv, hav, liv, centiped (when so pro- nounst). b) In ar(e), gon(e), and in wer(e) when not pronounst to rime with there. c) In the unstrest final short sillables ide, ile, ine, ise, ite, ive, pronounst as if speld id, il, in, is, it, iv. Examples: activ, bromid, comparativ, definit, determin, engin, ex- amin, favorit, genuin, hostil, iodin, imagin, infinit, nativ, opposit, positiv, practis, promts, textil. Note. The ordinary use of e final after a single con- sonant is to indicate that the preceding vowel has a pronunciation different from that which it would nor- mally hav if the consonant in question wer final, as in bar, bare; hat, hate; her, here; them, theme; sir, sire; bid, bide; con, cone; run, rune. Hence the e final is retaind in such words as arrive, care, confuse, fine, mile, polite, ride, rode, and also in bromide, iodine, etc., when pronounst with the i of line, side. d) After lv and rv. Examples: involv, resolv, twelv, valv; carv, curv, deserv, serv. e) After v or z when preceded by a digraf representing a long vowel or a difthong. Examples: achiev, believ, deciev, freez, gauz, leav, reciev, sneez. ENGLISH SPELLING 83 /) In oe final pronounst o. Examples : fo, ho, ro, to, wo. Note. Eetain e in inflections -oed, -oes; as foes, not fas, hoed, not hod. ea pronounst as in head or as in heart. Drop the silent letter. Examples: bred, brehfast, lied, helth, hevy, insted, lether, plesure, welth, wether; hart, harty, harth. ed final pronounst d. When the change wil not suggest a wrong pronunciation, drop silent e, reducing a preceding double to a single consonant. Examples: anserd, cald, carrid, delay d, doubld, employd, examind, fild, followd, marrid, pleasd, pre- ferd, recievd, robd, signd, troubld, sneezd, struggld, traveld, worrid, wrongd; but not : bribd for bribed, cand for caned ; changd for changed, fild for filed, pried for priced, usd for used, etc. Note. The e is retaind only in cases where it has by con- vention a diacritic use, to indicate a preceding long vowel, or in the case of consonants, c sibilant or g pronounst j. ed final pronounst t. When the change wil not suggest a wrong pronunciation, spel t, reducing a preceding double to a single consonant, and changing ced, ssed, final, to st. Examples: askt, fixt, helpt, indorst, wisht; addrest, hist, past, shipt, stopt, stuft; advanst, announst, commenst, invoist, notist; acquiest, effervest; but not: bakt for baked, deduct or dedust for de- duced, fact or fast for faced, hopt for hoped, etc. (See note to preceding rule.) ei pronounst like ie in brief. Spel ie. Examples: conciet, deciev, inviegle, iether, reciev, wier, wierd. ey final unstrest pronounst like short y final. Drop silent e. Ex- amples: barly, chimny, donky, journy, mony, putty, trolly, vally, whisky. gh pronounst f. Spel f ; drop the silent letter of the preceding digraf. Examples: cof, draft, enuf, laf, ruf, tuf. gh pronounst like g in gas. Drop silent h. Examples: agast, gastly, gerkin, gost, goul. 84 THE READING PROCESS gm final. Drop silent g. Examples: apothem, diafram, flem, paradim. gue final after a consonant, a short vowel, or a digraf representing a long vowel or a dif thong. Drop silent lie ; tongue spel tung. Examples: catalog, dialog, harang, leag, sinagog; but not: rog for rogue, vag for vague, etc. ise final pronounst as if speld ize. Spel ize. Examples : advertize, advize, apologize, enterprize, franchize, merchandize, rize, sur- prize, wize. mb final after a short vowel. Drop silent "b. Examples: horn, crum, dum, lam, lira, thum; but not : com for comb, tarn for tomb, etc. ou before 1, pronounst like o in bold. Drop silent u, except in soul. Examples: holder, mold, sholder. OUgh final. Spel o, u, ock, or up, when pronounst as if so speld; spel plow. Examples: altho, boro, donut, furlo, tho, thoro; thru; hock; hiccup. our final, with ou pronounst as a short (obscure) vowel. Drop u. Examples: color, favor, honor, labor. ph pronounst f . Spel f . Examples : alfabet, emfasis, fantom, fori- ograf, fotograf, sulfur, telefone, telegraf. re final after any consonant except c. Spel er. Examples : center, fiber, meter, theater; but not: lucer for lucre, mediocer for mediocre, etc. rh initial. Drop silent h. Examples: retoric, reumatism, rime, rom (rhomb), rubarb, rithm. sc initial pronounst as if speld s. Drop silent c. Examples: senery, sented, septer, sience, simitar, sissors; but : scatter, scooner, sconce, etc. U silent before a vowel medial. Drop u. Examples : bild, condit, garantee, gard, ges, gide, gild. y between consonants. Spel i, Examples: analisis, fisic, gipsy, paralize, rime, silvan, sithe, tipe. ENGLISH SPELLING 85 Additional Simplified Spellings: aJcer, anser, burleslc, buro, campain, cedar, counterfit, delite, foren, forjit, frend, grotesk, Hand, ile, masherade, morgage, picturesk, reciet, siv, sorgum, sov- ren, spritely, tuch, yu, yung. 1 Progress of the simplified spelling movement. — Once the Simplified Spelling Board was organized, the simpli- fication movement made rapid progress. The list of 300 words was especially well received. It was promptly adopted for permanent use by such organizations as the public schools of New York City, the Modern Language Association of America, and the N. E. A. President Roosevelt adopted the list for his official correspondence and recommended that these simpler spellings be used by the Government Printing Office. State Teachers Associ- ations in all parts of the country indorsed the movement. "Leading periodicals and newspapers, including the Lit- erary Digest, Independent, Current Literature, Educa- tional Review, Quarterly Journal of Economics, Chicago Tribune, and Minneapolis Journal were prompt to ap- prove the work of the Board and to adopt some of its recommendations." Ten years later — 1916 — three hun- dred eighty universities, colleges, and normal schools were either using simplified spellings in their official pub- lications and correspondence or were permitting students to use them in their written work. One hundred seventy of these institutions including seventeen state universities had formally approved the movement for simplified spell- ing — in most cases by faculty resolution. Four hundred fifty newspapers and periodicals — circulating more than 16,000,000 copies — were using most of the simpler spell- 'See "Selected Keferences" (4). 86 THE READING PROCESS ings recommended by the Board in its first list and more than four hundred had adopted the twelve words of the N. E. A. The Simplified Spelling Society of Great Britain. — The Simplified Spelling Society of Great Britain has like- wise been waging an aggressive campaign since its organi- zation in 1908. During the period of the war its activities were of necessity seriously curtailed, but with the coming of peace plans have been made for more elaborate efforts. The Society is fortunate in counting among its member- ship many of the Empire's most distinguished linguistic scholars, educators, and men of affairs. On the whole the Society goes somewhat farther in its recommendations than the Simplified Spelling Board. It has gone so far, for instance, as to adopt a phonetic scheme of notation — using, however, only the letters of the present English alphabet. An Imperial Education Conference attended by officially appointed delegates from all the provinces of the Empire— held in London in 1911 — strongly endorsed the efforts of the Society. Recently a petition was circu- lated asking for the appointment of an Imperial Com- mission to consider the question of spelling reform. SELECTED REFERENCES 1. Collins, J. V. — "Language Reform and the Progress of English Peoples"; The Scientific Monthly, VI, 343-349. 2. Lounsbury, Thos. R. — English Spelling and Spelling Reform; (New York and London), Harper and Brothers, 1909. The Problem before Us; Simplified Spelling Board, Circular No. 19. 8. Matthews, Brander — "Spelling and Spelling Reform"; Mon- roe's Cyclopedia of Education, V, p. 391 ff. ENGLISH SPELLING 87 — — The Spelling of Yesterday and the Spelling of Tomorrow; Simplified Spelling Board, Circular No. 4. -The Spelling of the Poets; Simplified Spelling Board, Circular No. 19. 4. Simplified Spelling Board — Report of the Trustees; New York, 1918. Handbook of Simplified Spelling; New York, 1919. 5. Skeat, W. W. — The Problem of Spelling Reform; (London), Published for the British Academy by H. Froude. 6. Sweet, Henry — Primer of Phonetics; (Oxford), 1890. 7. Thomas, Calvin — The Amelioration of Our Spelling; Simplified Spelling Board, Circular No. 3. Simplified Spelling: A Letter to Teachers; Simplified Spelling Board, Circular No. 24. CHAPTER V TEACHING BEGINNERS TO READ Symbols and meanings. — Language, as has been re- peatedly pointed out, involves two main factors — sym- bols and meanings. Accordingly, in learning to read, a pupil must master the graphic symbols of his language and he must become familiar with their meanings — indi- vidually and in composition. Teaching beginners to read involves, therefore, two main processes — training in word mastery and training in thought getting. Form versus thought. — One of the first questions con- fronting the teacher of reading is: Which of these processes — word mastery or thought getting— should lead in a sound method of teaching beginners to read? His- torically, as we shall presently see, the emphasis was long placed on form or word mastery. The assumption was that a pupil must necessarily acquire general facility in word mastery before training in thought getting could be received advantageously. The older methods of teaching reading are, therefore, largely concerned with form. And, what is more, they are for the most part synthetic; that is, word mastery begins with drill on given elements — letters, phonograms, sounds — and thought get- ting is preceded by practice upon isolated word meanings. Logically — from the standpoint of the adult and subject matter — synthetic methods are quite consistent; but 88 TEACHING BEGINNERS TO READ 89 psychologically — from the standpoint of the pupil and his interests — they are essentially inconsistent. For some time the pendulum has, therefore, been swinging in the opposite direction; so much so, in fact, that it is now generally conceded that reading should be a thought getting process from the very beginning. The newer methods of teaching beginning reading are, accord- ingly, for the most part analytic-synthetic; that is, they proceed from the whole to the part and back again to the whole. There is in evidence a strong tendency to begin with a story — well told — or with some familiar situation and thereupon to lead the pupil to discover sentences, phrases, words, phonic or phonetic elements, and in time even letters. As fast as elements are discovered analyt- ically the pupil is taught to combine them synthetically. Thus connected stories are built out of sentences, sen- tences out of words and phrases, and words out of pho- netic or phonic elements. Such a procedure — although not strictly logical from the adult point of view — is entirely in accord with the needs and interests of children. Steps in the evolution of modern methods of teaching beginning reading. — As indicated above, the earlier methods of teaching beginning reading emphasized form and were synthetic in procedure while those evolved more recently stress thought and proceed on an analytic-syn- thetic basis. Some six methods — the alphabet, the pho- netic, the word, the phrase, the sentence, and the story methods — are usually enumerated as representative of the steps leading to modern practices. The first three are largely concerned with word mastery and the last three with thought getting. 90 THE READING PROCESS 1. The alphabet method. — The alphabet method was in almost universal use among all nations having an alphabetic system of writing until well into the nine- teenth century. Among English-speaking peoples it was in common use up to about fifty years ago, and in some instances much longer. In some European countries — notably Germany — it was superseded by other methods somewhat earlier. At its best the method offered little to commend itself. It was a poor instrument for word mastery since it stressed the names rather than the sounds or functions of the letters. Also, it was extremely formal and almost wholly synthetic and so afforded little contact with the needs and interests of children. They began by memorizing the names of the letters. This was followed by prolonged drill upon the spelling and pronunciation of a great variety of letter combinations, syllables, and monosyllabic words. As time went on, the syllabic mate- rials thus acquired were combined into longer and longer words — always, of course, through added drill. That pro- nunciation was mastered at all was doubtless largely due to the fact that teachers indirectly stressed the sounds or functions of the letters. 2. Phonetic methods. — Methods which approach word mastery through the sounds or functions of letters and groups of letters — variously known as phonetic or phonic methods' — did not come into common use in this country until about 1870. They had, however, long been advo- cated by educational leaders in various parts of the world and in isolated instances they had been used for centuries. During the earlier stages these methods were about as formal and synthetic as the alphabet method. TEACHING BEGINNERS TO REAL 91 They were to all intents and purposes spelling methods — only the words were spelled by the sounds rather than by the names of the letters. Such methods were obviously poorly suited to a language as unphonetic as the English. They were, therefore, modified in various ways as time went on. As long as the methods remained essentially on the spelling level — spelling by sounds, — the chief task was to find ways and means of designating the sounds graphically. It will be recalled that our alphabet repre- sents on an average little more than one character for every two sounds in the language and that our vowel characters are especially overtaxed — each one represent- ing on an average three or four sounds. In addition, many sounds in our language — particu- larly the vowel sounds — are represented by several dif- ferent characters or groups of characters. Then there are the silent letters. All these difficulties the early advocate of the phonetic methods encountered in full force. He dealt with them in various ways. In some cases he re- sorted to a scientific alphabet — an alphabet containing as many characters as there are elementary sounds in the language — so that the words to be mastered by the pupils were spelled phonetically. A more common practice, however, was to retain the present alphabet of twenty-six characters and the current spellings and to indicate the pronunciation of the words by means of a system of dia- critical marks such as that used in Webster's dictionary. These diacritical marks were not only used in connection with drills for word mastery but in connection with many of the words in the reading selections as well. While phonetic schemes of this kind are quite indispensable as 92 THE READING PROCESS keys to pronunciation in connection with dictionaries — and pupils in the upper grades should become thoroughly familiar with them — they constitute obviously extremely cumbersome and artificial devices for teaching beginners to read, much more so fortunately than the exigencies of the situation demand. Progressive leaders in the teaching of primary reading were generally conscious of these defects. At the same time they also appreciated very thoroughly the advan- tages and possibilities of phonetic methods. They, ac- cordingly, set themselves the task of eliminating the evils as far as possible. In consequence the phonetic methods of to-day — and there are many — are much simpler and far more natural than their predecessors. Words are no longer uniformly resolved into all their elementary sounds. As far as possible they are rather analyzed into the larger and more natural sound units. Frequently — especially in the case of the consonants — these sounds represent simple letter functions. More often, however, they represent the functions of combina- tions of letters — most commonly combinations of vowels and consonants. These sound units occur again and again in our language and blend very readily in the for- mation of new words. We shall discuss them more fully later on. 3. The word method. — The word method came into use in this country about the same time as the phonetic methods. Like the latter it had been advocated and used from time to time long before. In accordance with this method words are taught as wholes — the sound being associated with the total visual form as a unit. The TEACHING BEGINNERS TO READ 93 Chinese — it will be recalled — must acquire all of his words in this manner. In actual practice the word method works admirably at first but as the stock of words in- creases it becomes less and less effective since it depends purely upon memory and develops in the pupil no inde- pendent power over word mastery. It is, therefore, — as far as word mastery is concerned — primarily an auxiliary method. As such it plays, of course, a very important part in modern methods of teaching beginning reading. It is especially serviceable in supplying the initial stock of words and in mastering later sight words. 4. The phrase method. — The phrase method — like the sentence and the story methods — concerns itself with thought getting rather than word mastery. It represents primarily a point of departure. Its advocates contend that the phrase or the functionally related word group constitutes the natural speech unit and that the meanings of many words — especially prepositions and conjunctions — stand out only when they appear in composition. They hold, therefore, that the phrase rather than the word is the natural unit for presentation in teaching beginning reading. Such a method must obviously be supplemented with other methods for purposes of word mastery. 5. The sentence method. — The sentence method came into general use in this country after 1885. It is based upon the assumption that the sentence rather than the phrase or the word is the unit of speech and thought and that it should, therefore, constitute the starting point in teaching beginning reading. As advocated by Farnham, who popularized the method in this country, it was rather formal — though distinctly a thought method. The sen- 94 THE READING PROCESS tences which were used grew out of a conversation between teacher and pupils — the subject of the conversa- tion being unfortunately usually of little interest to the latter. The sentences which the teacher led the pupils to say were written on the blackboard. They were then repeated and rearranged in various ways until the pupils recognized them readily and were thoroughly conscious of the parts — the phrases and the words. In this way the pupils acquired in a rather incidental manner an initial vocabulary of sight words. As far as word mastery on a large scale is concerned this method represents obviously the same limitations as the word and phrase methods. It must, therefore, be supplemented by other methods. The sentence method — stripped of its one-time for- mality and unnaturalness — is used by many teachers as a point of departure. The sentences usually grow out of conversations which are of intrinsic interest to children and are recorded in their own language. 6. The story method. — The story method — the most recent of reading methods — places the emphasis most completely upon the thought element. In fact it is the culmination of the movement which has given us succes- sively the phrase and the sentence methods; and like these it constitutes, therefore, essentially a point of de- parture rather than a complete method. It is based upon the assumption that the child's interest is centered in the story rather than in any of its component parts — the word, the phrase, or the sentence. To begin with the teacher tells an interesting story. This becomes the subject of conversation and not infrequently dramatiza- tion. Later it is reproduced by the pupils — the teacher TEACHING BEGINNERS TO READ 95 writing or printing it on the blackboard as they proceed. In a comparatively short time the pupils are led through skillfully directed analysis and comparison to discover the parts — the sentences, phrases, and words. In this way they acquire very rapidly a considerable stock of sight words. Like all other thought methods the story method must be — and in actual practice is — supple- mented by some kind of phonetic method for purposes of word mastery. It remains to be pointed out that the so-called story method has many variations. Not infrequently the char- acterization or depiction of some familiar situation — one in which the child is interested and in connection with which he has had much experience — is substituted for the story. Sometimes the thought material which constitutes the point of departure comes by way of a song or a pleasing jingle. In any event — whatever the form or the content — the essence of the method appears in the fact that the teacher sets out with a reasonably complete thought unit — one of intrinsic interest to children — and proceeds thereafter in an analytic-synthetic manner. Modern methods of teaching beginning reading. — It is obvious from what has been said that modern methods of teaching beginning reading must be essentially com- posite. Almost without exception they represent ele- ments drawn from every step or method which we have enumerated. The best of these methods are invariably thought methods. They set out with a fairly complete and interesting thought unit — a story, a characterization of some familiar situation, a song, or a jingle. The pro- cedure is distinctly analytic-synthetic. The pupils first 96 THE READING PROCESS grasp and appreciate the whole. Then they become con- scious of the parts — the sentences, phrases, and words — while these are being rearranged in various ways. Finally they are led to combine the parts into new wholes. In this way pupils not only accumulate — in a more or less incidental manner — an initial vocabulary but they ac- quire a genuine interest in reading. If the initial vocabulary has been wisely chosen by the teacher, it will constitute an excellent point of departure for the phonetic work which must of necessity come in at this point in some form in any effective method of teaching beginning reading. That is, some of the words of this vocabulary will be of the kind which readily re- solve themselves into natural sound units. Pupils are led to discover these sound units much as they discovered the sentences, phrases, and words of the larger thought units. As fast as they become conscious of the sound units they are led to combine or blend them into word wholes much as they combined the words, phrases, and sentences into new thought units. The two processesr— thought getting and word mastery — are of course very different but they are governed by the same general principle — the procedure being in each case analytic- synthetic. If properly directed in their phonetic work pupils acquire in a comparatively short time the ability to master independently the great majority of the new words which they encounter in connection with their reading. This adds of course greatly to the pleasure of reading. If the phonetic work is neglected — as sometimes happens — pupils are compelled to acquire new words in a, purely haphazard fashion and to retain them by sheer TEACHING BEGINNERS TO READ 97 force of memory. That such a procedure will seriously interfere with the pleasure and the effectiveness of read- ing is obvious. An examination of current methods or systems of teaching beginning reading shows a tremendous variation in the emphasis given to phonetic work. On the one extreme there are the methods which represent highly elaborate phonetic schemes. For the most part these have been developed by teachers who have a thorough- going understanding of the English language and who appreciate the problem of word mastery in the technical sense. Unfortunately they do not always have as com- plete an understanding and appreciation of child nature and of the learning process. In consequence such meth- ods are often extremely formal and logical from the standpoint of the primary pupil. They compel him — far in advance of any apparent need — to memorize a vast array of phonograms and to combine them into innu- merable words many of which he may never have occa- sion to use. That such methods develop word mastery — provided the teachers are prepared to use them — is not to be denied for a moment. Indeed, they do it and in a very effective manner. The only difficulty is that they force upon the child an unnecessary burden and an arti- ficial regimen which tend to make the teaching of pho- netics for the time being an end rather than a means. On the other extreme there are the methods which have practically discarded all direct teaching of phonetics. In part — indeed, in no inconsiderable part — these have arisen in protest to the formalism of the methods on the other extreme. Not infrequently such methods have 98 THE READING PROCESS been developed and are being promoted by teachers whose appreciation of child nature far exceeds their understanding of the English language. In many cases they are enthusiastic and fairly successful teachers of primary reading — enthusiastic because they understand and appreciate child nature and fairly successful because they have at their command a considerable phonetic equipment which they use more or less indirectly and unconsciously. The weakness of such methods becomes most obvious when they fall into the hands of teachers who have little or no phonetic equipment and so are com- pelled to carry them to their logical conclusion. In such cases pupils must of course acquire new words by the word method — one by one as separate and distinct enti- ties—at least until they learn to spell. Thereafter they will in the very nature of the case resort to the alphabet method — the sounds or functions of the letters coming to their aid indirectly. Fortunately — although the extremes represent no in- considerable following — the majority of modern methods of teaching word mastery falls somewhere between these two extremes and approximates, therefore, a more whole- some procedure. Most of the leaders in primary educa- tion understand and appreciate children too well to sub- scribe to methods which are unnecessarily formal and artificial, and they have too keen an understanding and too thoroughgoing an appreciation of the function of in- telligence to condemn the child to approach word mas- tery on a purely trial and error basis. With all this the situation is far from satisfactory. Recent surveys of reading achievements have shown quite conclusively that TEACHING BEGINNERS TO READ 99 many children do not master the mechanics of reading in the primary grades — the situation being of course much more serious in some communities than in others. In consequence they are in the very nature of the case seriously handicapped in connection with much of the work which they are expected to do during the succeed- ing period. In some cases this condition is clearly due to insufficient phonetic work; in others, possibly in the great majority of cases, it is obviously the outcome of too much diversity in phonetic procedure — one teacher using one method and another another. As a matter of fact the bearings of such diversity are about as serious as those of neglect. Phonetic methods — although each may be relatively proficient in itself — differ too widely to be used indiscriminately in school systems where pupils change teachers several times while learning to read. There is, therefore, without question room for much improvement in the teaching of phonetics; not only do we need more phonetic work in many instances but there is urgent need above all for greater uniformity in the phonetic methods used in given communities- cities, counties, and states. The basis of phonetics. — In the last chapter we dis- cussed at length the unphonetic character of our spelling. It was pointed out that there are many more sounds in our language than letters in our alphabet — there being approximately forty-four sounds and really only twenty- three letters since three of the twenty-six have no inde- pendent functions. The vowel situation was shown to be more serious than that of the consonants since there are from fifteen to eighteen vowel sounds and only five vowel 100 THE READING PROCESS characters. This means of course that any one letter must serve as a symbol for several different sounds — sometimes for as many as eight sounds as in the case of the letter a, We found that the situation is further com- plicated by the fact that a sound is not infrequently repre- sented by several characters or groups of characters — the a in care, for instance, being represented by ai in hair, ay in prayer, e in there, and ei in their. Then there are the silent letters. If it were not for these irregularities, the problem of phonetics— and con- sequently the problem of teaching word mastery — would be a comparatively simple one as is actually the case in such countries as Spain and Italy. There would be one letter for each sound of the language, and each sound would be represented by only one letter. In such a situa- tion the teacher's task would be limited very largely to training children in uttering and blending the sounds. There could be no associative difficulties since the sounds of the letters would be about as invariable as their names. As it is, however, the task of the English-speaking teacher is much more complicated. Not only must she train children in uttering and blending a greater variety of sounds than the Spanish or the Italian teacher but she must deal with a rather involved associative problem. In fact, she must teach children the sounds of our language and the phonograms — the letters and combinations of letters which represent them under given conditions. Fortunately the phonetic problem of the English- speaking teacher is not as impossible as might appear on the surface. Once she has mastered the forty-four sounds of the language and the phonograms which represent TEACHING BEGINNERS TO READ 101 them under given conditions, she finds to her great sur- prise that the vast majority of the syllables of the lan- guage — the monosyllabic words and the syllables entering into the polysyllabic words — are phonetic, in the sense that the relationship of the letters tends to indicate the correct pronunciation. As Burbank points out: Can is phonetic because each letter has its usual sound; cane is phonetic because the final e shows that a is long; car is phonetic because r shows that a has the so-called Italian sound; call is phonetic because the 11 shows that a has the sound of au in haul, or aw in law or bawl, which is the same as 6 in com; rage is phonetic because the final e shows that a is long and g soft. 1 When the relationship of the letters does not indicate the pronunciation — or is misleading — the syllables are unphonetic as in the case of done, have, give, whose, does, says. Burbank, who has made an exhaustive study of phonetics from the standpoint of the teacher of read- ing, points out that fully 86 per cent of English mono- syllables are phonetic in the sense indicated above. An analysis of the 2398 words of the Jones list — selected from the reading vocabulary of children of the first three grades and comprising a total of 3405 syllables — showed that monosyllables tend to be phonetic in about the same ratio, the percentages being almost identically the same. It is here — in the tendency on the part of English sylla- bles to conform to phonetic principles — that we find the basis for phonetic work in connection with the teaching of word mastery. Because of this phonetic consistency 1 Burbank, E. D.r "Phonetics in the Elementary Grades for Teachers of Normal Children." The Volta Review, Vol. XXII, No. 3, p. 3. 102 THE READING PROCESS which governs the words of our language in spite of their irregular spelling, children may in a comparatively short time — on the basis of certain facts and a given amount of consistent training — arrive at the point where they are able to master independently the vast majority of the new words which they encounter in connection with their reading. The unphonetic words — constituting less than 14 per cent — must of course be mastered as sight words. Phonetic facts and principles. — The teacher who is to direct children in word mastery should in the very nature of the case be well versed in the field of phonetics. This constitutes part of her indispensable equipment and so should feature prominently in her training. Without going into detail we shall enumerate at this point some of the most important facts and principles — the elemen- tary sounds of the language, the phonograms which rep- resent these, and the phonetic principles which govern them — with which the teacher should be familiar: 1. The elementary sounds. — While the number of ele- mentary sounds in the English language has been vari- ously estimated — the estimates varying all the way from thirty-eight to forty-four or more — the following list of forty-four sounds, which consists of nineteen vowels and twenty-five consonants, has been generally accepted : Vowels — a (mat), a (mate), a (fast), a (car), a (care), e (met), e (mete), i (pin), i (pine), o (not), o (note), o (for), u (cut), u (cute), u (hurl), oo (room), oo (book), oi (oil), ou (out); Consonants — b (bee), p (peep), m (may), w (we), wh (why), v (view), f (few), th (then), th (thin), d (do), t (ten), 1 (little), n (no), r (ray), z (zeal), s (so), j (joke), TEACHING BEGINNERS TO READ 103 ch (chin), zh (azure, fusion), sh (she), y (yet), g (gar- den), k (kill), ng (singer), h (hide). 2. Phonograms. — The forty-four elementary sounds enumerated above are represented by the following pho- nograms : Vowels — a, e, i, o, u, and w and y as end equivalents for u and i. In the earlier phonetic methods — as indi- cated elsewhere — the vowel phonograms were not infre- quently modified, either by a change in the form of the letter or by the addition of so-called diacritical marks, in order that the different sounds might be indicated di- rectly. At present these devices are rarely used. The short sounds of the vowels, which are by far the most numerous, are considered basic and are taught first — all other sounds being readily recognized through position. Vowel digraphs — oo, au, aw, ai, ay, ee, ea, ie, oa, oe, ow, ue, ew. With the exception of oo which represents the long and short vowel sounds in such words as room and book and au and aw which are used as equivalents for o in corn and for, the vowel digraphs are generally used as long vowel equivalents — the first letter having its usual long sound and the second being silent. Diphthongs — oi, oy, ou, ow. These are made by the union of two vowels. Consonants — b, c, d, f, g, h, j, k, 1, m, n, p, q, r, s, t, v, w, x, y, z. Consonant digraphs — sh, ch, tch, ck, ng, nk, th, wh. 3. Phonetic principles. — Burbank gives the following summary of the more important phonetic principles: 1 1 Burbank, E. D.: "Phonetics in the Elementary Grades for Teach- ers of Normal Children." The Volta Review, Vol. XXII, No. 5. 104 THE READING PROCESS I. Vowels are short except when modified by position: up, cot, cut, sat, scratch, notch, fetch, flung, with. II. Final e lengthens the preceding vowel: cube, plate, tube, shade, rose, size, glade, robe, mete. III. In most vowel digraphs the first vowel has its own long sound and the second vowel is silent: heap, rail, slay, roar, tie, hue, sleep, plea, hoe, own. IV. Vowels followed by r have their sounds modified, making the murmur diphthongs: stir, mar, clerk, churn, jerk, cur, dirt, her, sir, corn. V. There are four diphthongs made by the union of two vowels in each case: oi (oil), oy (boy), ou (out), ow (cow). VI. The c is soft before e, i, and y; otherwise it is hard. The g is generally soft before e, i, and y; otherwise it is hard : ice, city, fleecy, can, cut, cot, gem, gin, gipsy, got, gun, gang. VII. In open accented syllables the vowel is usually long: no- ta-tion, na-tion, di-ner, fry, so, ca-liph, me. VIII. The a before I usually has the same sound as au in haul or aw in law: all, ball, bald, malt, talk. IX. Long u and its equivalents have the sound of oo after r, j, and I preceded by a consonant, and after the sound of sh: rule, grew, June, jute, flute, flew, blue, sure, chute. X. The o after w usually has the sound of u : work, won, wont, word, worst, worth, worry, wonder, worship. XI. The a after w or wh, or its equivalent, usually has the sound of o : was, wash, what, squat, squad, warm, war, quart. XII. Silent letters: h before n: knee, knife, knit, know, knave; w before r: wrap, write, wreath, wrist, wretch; and in who, whom, whose, whoop, sword, answer; gh after a vowel: flight, sigh, straight, height, caught, through, plough, daughter, laugh; o after m or before t: climb, dumb, lamb, thumb, debt, doubt, subtle; t as in often, castle, hasten, listen, whistle; g before m and n final and initial before n : phlegm, sign, feign, reign, gnat, gnaw, gnash ; I as in could, would, calm, palm, salmon, almond, talk, walk, calf, half, folk. The blend. — Sounds may be combined in various ways to form larger wholes. This has given rise to two quite distinct types of phonetic methods. In accordance with TEACHING BEGINNERS TO READ 105 the first of these, vowel sounds are blended with final consonant sounds to form what are commonly known as simple word endings or family names — the more difficult of these being usually taught as sight phonograms. Thereupon initial consonant sounds are combined with these word endings to form monosyllabic words. Thus the sounds s, f, h, t, p, n, m, r, a, and i — once pupils have become familiar with them — may be blended into such word endings as an, at, am, ap, in, it, im, and ip. This done, a union may be effected between these word end- ings and initial consonant sounds — giving such words as j-an, t-an, p-an, m-an, r-an, s-at, f-at, h-at, p-at, m-at, r-at, h-am, r-am, s-ap, t-ap, n-ap, m-ap, r-ap, s-in, f-in, t-in, p-in, s-it, f-it, h-it, p-it, h-im, r-im, s-ip, h-ip, t-ip, n-ip, and r-ip. In the case of methods of the second type, the initial consonant sounds are blended with the sounds of the vowels following to form the so-called helpers. These helpers in turn are combined with the sounds of the final consonants to form monosyllabic words. Thus the sounds s, f, h, t, p, n, m, r, a, and i may be blended into such helpers as sa, fa, ha, ta, pa, na, ma, ra, si, fi, hi, ti, pi, ni, mi, and ri. Thereupon the helpers may be com- bined with the sounds of the final consonants to form monosyllabic words as follows: sa-t, sa-p, fa-t, fa-n, has, ha-t, ha-m, ta-p, ta-n, pa-t, pa-n, na-p, ma-t, ma-p, ma-n, ra-t, ra-p, ra-n, ra-m, si-t, si-p, si-n, fi-t, fi-n, hi-t, hi-p, hi-m, ti-p, ti-n, pi-n, pi-t, ni-p, ri-p, and ri-m. Both methods lead pupils to blend consonant sounds which usually go together — st, fl, br, gl, sk, sc, scr, cr, sm, pr, bl, fr, si, sp, cl, tr, gr, pi, sn, sw, dr, str, tw, tch, for example — and to use them as units in blending words. 106 THE READING PROCESS Phonetic methods of the first type have long been in use and are the most numerous to-day. Methods of the second type are comparatively recent and represent a more radical departure from the former than might ap- pear at first sight. Those who advocate the latter contend that it is easier and more natural to blend the initial consonant with the vowel following than to blend the vowel with the final consonant. In support of this they point out that we use do, re, mi, fa, sol, la, si, do in sing- ing to represent the various notes of the scale; that the first consonant sounds of children are blended with vow- els following; that the syllables of early languages — as shown by the Japanese syllabary, for example — generally conformed to this principle; and, finally, that we our- selves tend to conform in our speech — the written syllabi- fication of such words as hunter, render, and satisfac tion becoming hurt ter, ren der, and sa tis fac Hon. Those who have used these methods extensively contend that they make the least possible demands upon children — only from sixty to seventy phonograms being required for the mastery of the 86 per cent of phonetic words in our language — and, furthermore, that they require a min- imum of technical preparation on the part of the teacher. While excellent results are constantly being achieved through both types of methods, the relative merits of the two have not been determined experimentally as far as the writer knows. Such an evaluation would be distinctly worth while. TEACHING BEGINNERS TO READ 107 SELECTED REFERENCES * 1. Burbank, E. D. — "Phonetics in the Elementary Grades for Teachers of Normal Children"; The Volta Review, XXII, Numbers 3, 5, and 6, March, May, and June, 1920. 2. Huey, E. B. — Psychology and Pedagogy of Reading; The Mac- millan Company, 1908. 3. Klapper, Paul — Teaching Children to Read; D. Appleton and Company, 1914. 4. Sweet, Henry — Primer of Phonetics; (Oxford), Clarenden Press, 1890. Sounds of English; (Oxford), Clarenden Press, 1908. 1 Among the indispensable references of the student of phonetics and methods of teaching beginners to read are of course the many excellent Teachers' Manuals — too numerous to mention here — which accompany the different series of readers. CHAPTER VI ANALYSIS OF THE READING PROCESS THROUGH AN INVESTIGATION OF EYE MOVEMENT As will appear in succeeding chapters, various methods have been used in the scientific study of the reading process. One of the most interesting of these methods has approached the problem through an investigation of the manner in which the eyes move during the reading act. Contrary to popular opinion, the passage of the eyes across the page is not continuous. It consists rather of a series of movements and stops — the former being commonly designated as interfixation movements and the latter as fixation pauses. Upon reaching the end of a given line the eye returns — by means of the return sweep — to the beginning of the next. The intensive study of these movements and pauses — especially the pauses — has thrown much light upon the nature of the reading process. Methods employed in the investigation of eye move- ment. — A considerable period of time was required for the development of the methods and apparatus now commonly used for the investigation of eye movement. Professor Javal x of the University of Paris, who as early as 1879 called attention to the discontinuous character of the movement of the eye across the page from left to 'See "Selected References" (9). 108 EYE MOVEMENT IN READING 109 right, studied the eye movements of his subjects by means of a mirror. This was adjusted in such a manner that it reflected the images of the reader's eyes without obstructing his field of vision. In this way Professor Javal was able to observe the eye movements of his subjects during the act of reading. Although used ex- tensively by later investigators — notably Erdmann and Dodge at the University of Halle — the possibilities of this method were extremely limited since it did not ena- ble the experimenter to measure in an accurate manner the various aspects of eye movement, such as the number and the duration of the pauses and the speed of the inter- fixation movements and the return sweep. The best that he could do was to estimate roughly the number of pauses which the reader required on an average for the reading of a given line. The microphone method — improvised by Lamare * — represented the same limitations. In this case a microphone was fastened to the upper eyelids of the reader. This device magnified the sounds made by the movements of the eyes and thus enabled the experimenter to estimate in a general way the number of pauses which the eyes made as line after line was being read. Ahrens 2 — while investigating eye movement as related to handwriting at the University of Rostock in 1891 — hit upon a device which led to the development of a more ob- jective method. He succeeded in fastening an ivory cup to the cornea of the eye. By^means of a pointer fastened to this cup he hoped to record on a smoked surface tracings of the movements of the eyes. Although he se- *See "Selected References" (11). a See "Selected References" (1). 110 THE READING PROCESS cured no practical results, the attempt was suggestive. Some years later (1897-1899) Delabarre 1 working in the psychological laboratory at Harvard University, used a plaster of Paris cup much in the same manner but with- out positive results. In the course of the same year, how- ever, Huey 2 succeeded at Clark University — partly at the suggestion of Delabarre — in perfecting a similar appara- tus which proved to be very serviceable. In fact the elaborate investigations of reading which Huey undertook subsequently were carried on largely by means of this new apparatus. The plaster of Paris cup was constructed and fastened to the cornea in such a manner that the pupil was left unobstructed. The mechanism of the levers which were fastened to the cup was such that the move- ments and pauses of the eye were recorded upon a smoked surface and so could be studied after the reading was over. Although far superior to previous modes of ap- proach, this method, too, had its limitations. The dura- tion of the pauses and the speed of the interfixation move- ments and the return sweep could not be measured with anything like final accuracy. Furthermore, the eye worked under more or less unnatural conditions because of the mechanical attachment. Finally, the apparatus was too difficult to use, and the penalties of carelessness were so great that the method has never come into general favor. Meanwhile Dodge 3 was devising a new apparatus at Wesleyan University. He was convinced that photog- raphy must ultimately offer the most satisfactory mode *See "Selected References" (3). 'See "Selected References" (5). 2 See "Selected References" (8). EYE MOVEMENT IN READING 111 of approach. This would furnish the experimenter with a recording medium — reflected light — having no momen- tum and no inertia and one which would subject the eyes to no unusual conditions. He finally hit upon the plan of photographing the point of a bright pencil of light which was reflected from the cornea of the reader's eye and focused upon a photographic plate by means of a lens and caraera. The light which was thrown upon the read- er's eye from a small mirror was highly actinic and of low physiological intensity so that it did not in any way interfere with vision. The pencil of light reflected from the cornea behaved exactly like the eye — being now in motion and now at rest. Movements other than those of the eyes were excluded as far as possible by fastening the head in a carefully devised head rest. In order to get a simple and continuous record of the movements and pauses of the eyes — as represented by the movements and pauses of the pencil of light — it was necessary that the photographic plate move continuously and uniformly in one direction — downward in this case. Only in this way could the records of the successive pauses, interfixation movements, and return sweeps be spacially represented and distinguished from each other. When the photo- graphic plate moved downward — as indicated above — the pauses were represented on the records — Plate II — by ap- proximately vertical lines — the length of the lines indi- cating in a general way the duration of the pauses; the interfixation movements were represented by slightly diagonal lines to the right; and the return sweep by a longer and more diagonal line running in the opposite direction. The apparatus was also provided with an elec- Plate II Eye-movement Records 0. Oral 11 X. Interfixation s. Silent 2 „ Successive movement L. Left eye 3 lines y. Return sweep R. Right eye 4j 112 z. Refixation EYE MOVEMENT IN READING 113 trie time marker which intercepted the pencil of light at regular intervals — say fifty times per second. This device was of great value since it made possible the accurate measurement of the duration of the pauses and the speed of the interfixation movements and the return sweep — these being indicated by the number of interceptions in the lines representing them. Although Dodge originated the apparatus described above, he did not use it extensively for the investigation of reading as such. Dearborn 1 — working at Columbia University during the school year 1904-05 — was the first to use the apparatus on a large scale for this purpose. More recently the laboratory of the School of Education of the University of Chicago has been the scene of several elaborate investigations. During the school year 1913-14 Schmidt 2 investigated the eye movements of eighty-three individuals — twenty-one elementary pupils, seventeen high school students, and forty-five adults — for both oral and silent reading — the investigation being carried on by means of a modification of the Dodge photographic appa- ratus. Two years later C. T. Gray 3 completed an elab- orate study — carried on in part by means of a further modification of the Dodge photographic apparatus — which concerned itself with the reading ability of chil- dren. These studies 4 together with minor ones have brought to light many important facts regarding the "See "Selected References" (2). 2 See "Selected References" (12). 8 See "Selected References" (7). 4 BusweH's investigation — An Experimental Study of the Eye-Voice Span in Reading — was completed after this chapter had been written. 114 THE READING PROCESS nature of the reading process. Some of these we shall discuss in the remaining sections of this chapter. Character of interfixation movements and return sweep. — It has been conclusively established through a long chain of investigations that the eye can receive no distinct visual impressions during the time that it passes from one fixation point to another. Interfixation move- ments exist, therefore, largely for the purpose of carrying the eye from fixation point to fixation point. Their dura- tion is short — usually from 0.01 to 0.03 second. In the case of a given individual the differences in the durations of these movements are largely due to the fact that the eye must traverse varying distances in passing from one fixation point to another. In some cases the distances are three and four times as great as in others. Then there is of course marked individual variation — the move- ments of some being uniformly slow and those of others uniformly rapid. The durations of the return sweeps are — as might be expected on account of the greater dis- tances traversed — materially longer than those of the interfixation movements, extending ordinarily f rom OJTto 0.05 second. Both the return sweep and the interfixa- tion movements are accompanied by a divergent binocu- lar adjustment — the eyes moving gradually downward and outward in the course of any one movement. The fixation pause. — All but an insignificant fraction of the time in reading is spent in pauses. It is during these periods — periods of apparent rest on the part of the eye — that distinct visual impressions are received from the printed page. The pauses constitute, therefore, the period of perception par excellence — though it must be EYE MOVEMENT IN READING 115 borne in mind always that perception and assimilation as such are continuous processes which proceed essentially uninterrupted by movements and pauses. Because of their prominence and objectivity the pauses have been the chief concern of the investigator — having been stud- ied especially from the standpoint of their nature, num- ber per line, duration, and location within the unit of perception — be this the word, the phrase, or the larger whole. Although the pause appears to be a period of rest, the eye is probably never absolutely at rest. This is rather in accordance with expectation since perception is so domi- nantly motor in character. One of the most interesting and significant forms of motor activity observed in con- nection with the fixation pause is a convergent binocular adjustment during which the eyes move slowly upward and inward. This is of course the counterpart of the divergent binocular adjustment accompanying the inter- fixation movements and the return sweep. The average number of pauses per line. — The number of pauses which an individual requires in reading a given line is obviously one of the most important factors in determining his rate of reading. In general the larger the number of pauses the slower the rate and vice versa. There are, however, frequent exceptions since the dura- tion of the pauses also enters in as a determining factor. Detailed quantitative information regarding the number of pauses is comparatively recent since most of the earlier investigations were based upon a very limited number of individuals. Javal inferred on the basis of his mirror observations that there was uniformly one pause to every 116 THE READING PROCESS ten letters — about 5 pauses to a 90-mm. line. Dodge himself averaged 5 pauses in the case of an 83-mm. line and Erdmann 8 with lines as long as 122 mm. Two of Huey's subjects averaged 4.5 and 4.8 pauses respectively with lines 83 mm. in length ; in the case of 52-mm. lines one reader averaged 3.4 and the other 3.8 pauses. Dear- born's readers averaged from 3 to 7.1 pauses with ordinary newspaper lines — an average of from 1.9 to 1.0 word per pause; with lines not quite double this length from 7.5 to 9.4 pauses were required — an average of from 1.5 to 1.1 words per fixation. In general the results of Dearborn's investigation — the first to deal with a considerable num- ber of individuals — gave indication of marked individual variation. The Chicago studies which are based upon larger numbers of subjects show even more striking varia- tions. Schmidt's adult subjects — 45 in number — ranged from 4.7 to 10.8 pauses in reading 90-mm. lines silently — the average being 6.5 pauses. In oral reading the range extended from 6.5 to 11.3 pauses per line — the average being 8.2 pauses. The high school students- — 17 in num- ber — ranged from 5.0 to 9.6 pauses in reading similar materials silently — the average being 7.0. In oral reading the range extended from 7.2 to 10.2 pauses — the average being 8.6. The elementary pupils — 21 in number — ranged from 4.1 to 9.3 pauses in reading 90-mm. lines silently — the average being 6.3. In oral reading the range extended from 6.1 to 11.5 pauses — the average being 8.1. In other words, the adults read from 0.93 to 2.15 words per pause silently and from 0.87 to 1.52 words per pause orally — averaging 1.54 words per pause silently and 1.22 words per pause orally; the high school students read from 1.04 EYE MOVEMENT IN READING 117 to 2.04 words per pause silently and from 0.98 to 1.39 words per pause orally — averaging 1.43 words per pause silently and 1.16 words per pause orally; and the elemen- tary pupils read from 1.04 to 2.44 words per pause silently and from 0.86 to 1.62 words per pause orally — averaging 1.59 words per pause silently and 1.23 words per pause orally. 1 The duration of the pauses. — Aside from the possible exception of their number, the duration of the pauses is the most important factor in determining the rate of reading. In general, the shorter the pauses, the more rapid the rate of reading and vice versa. Since the meas- urement of the duration of the pauses requires a rather highly developed technique — much more so than the measurement of their number, — the data on duration are rather recent. Even Huey's technique gave only approxi- mates. Dearborn was the first to secure extensive data. In reading an ordinary newspaper passage the average duration of the pauses of five of his subjects ranged from .160 to .401 second. It should be borne in mind at this point that there is a rather well defined limit — deter- mined in part by the reaction time of the eye — below which the duration of pauses cannot be expected to fall. Dodge quotes visual reaction time averages ranging from .151 to .181 second. Compared with these the lower limit of Dearborn's range is rather exceptional. Schmidt's adult subjects ranged in the case of silent reading from .214 to .470 second — the average being .308; in oral reading the same subjects ranged from .230 to .520 sec- ond — the average being .380 second. The high school 1 An Experimental Study in the Psychology of Reading, pp. 39-41, 118 THE READING PROCESS students ranged in the case of the silent reading from .244 to .414 second — the average being .311; in oral reading they ranged from .306 to .512 second — the average being .372 second. The elementary pupils ranged in the case of the silent reading from .264 to .438 second — the aver- age being .314; in oral reading they ranged from .300 to .524 second — the average being .398 second. 1 C. T. Gray's results show somewhat lower durations — the averages for the silent reading of some 45 individuals ranging from .174 to .364 second. 2 Much depends doubt- less upon the rate at which individuals in connection with a given investigation are told to read — the more rapid the rate, the shorter the durations tend to be. Prob- ably the most striking fact -brought out by the several investigations is the tremendous individual variation — the pauses of some being more than three times as long as those of others. Perception time. — The perception time in the case of a given unit of reading material — such as a line or a paragraph — is obviously the product of the average num- ber and the average duration of^the pauses required in reading it. It is essentially the reading time minus the time expended in interfixation movements and return sweep. Since the duration of the latter is short and rela- tively constant, the perception time furnishes on the whole an excellent index to the rate of reading. Indeed, the perception time averages and ranges obtained through the study of eye movement are in striking agreement with the reading time averages and ranges which have 1 An Experimental Study in the Psychology of Reading, pp. 39-41. * Types of Reading Ability, pp. 92-93. EYE MOVEMENT IN READING 119 been secured through other modes of investigation. The perception time averages of Schmidt's adult subjects — expressed in terms of the number of seconds expended in connection with the fixation pauses of 90-mm. lines — ranged from 1.14 to 3.68 seconds for silent reading — the average being 2.01; for oral reading the range extended from 1.70 to 4.06 seconds — the average being 3.13 sec- onds. The perception time averages of the high school students ranged from 1.37 to 3.36 seconds for silent read- ing — the average being 2.23; for oral reading the range extended from 2.36 to 4.17 — the average being 3.20 sec- onds. In the case of the elementary pupils the percep- tion time averages ranged from 1.19 to 2.96 seconds for silent reading — the average being 1.97; for oral reading the range extended from 2.21 to 4.45 seconds — the aver- age being 3.23 seconds. In other words, the adult sub- jects perceived from 2.7 to 8.7 words per second when reading silently — 4.9 words on an average — and from 2.9 to 5.9 words per second when reading orally — 3.2 words on an average; the high school students perceived from 3.0 to 7.3 words per second when reading silently — 4.5 words on an average — and from 2.4 to 4.2 words per sec- ond when reading orally — 3.1 words on an average; and the elementary pupils perceived from 3.3 to 8.5 words per second when reading silently — 5.1 words on an aver- age — and from 2.2 to 4.5 words per second when reading orally — 3.1 words on an average. 1 The amount perceived by different individuals during a given unit of time — a second in this case — is obviously extremely variable — some perceiving more than three times as much as others. 1 An Experimental Study in the Psychology of Reading, pp. 39-40. 120 THE READING PROCESS The variation is of course most marked in the case of silent reading. The fact that reading rate is largely determined by the number and the duration of the pauses raises the ques- tion: Which of these factors — the number or the dura- tion — is more influential in determining reading rate? Such correlations as have been computed between these factors and perception time indicate that the number of the pauses is the more influential of the two — the correla- tion between the average number of pauses and the average perception time per line being almost invariably materially higher than that between the average duration of the pauses and the average perception timer - As a rule then, the individual who requires few pauses is more apt to be a rapid reader than the one who uses short pauses. But there are exceptions. Some individuals who require a relatively large number of pauses use such short pauses that they are able to read more rapidly than those who require a small number of relatively long pauses. Since the reading rate of an individual may ordinarily be materially improved through practice, the question arises: Which of these two factors — the number or the duration of the pauses — yields most to training? In general, experimental evidence shows that improvement in the rate of reading is, during the early practice stages, accompanied by a reduction in the duration of the pauses. However — as indicated earlier — the possibilities for such a reduction are decidedly limited since the lower limits of the duration of pauses are rather arbitrarily determined by the reaction time of the eye. Moreover, as C. T. Gray points out in discussing the results of his investigation, it EYE MOVEMENT IN READING 121 is quite possible for individuals to reduce the duration of the pauses to such an extent that reading ceases to be efficient. e S <£ . 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A P CO S s » •c3 « S CD ft Pi d CD 03 o .^ ^ p ft O CD ft rTl 03 c3 CD 03 CD P ^ ir? ^3 C3 ^ ft^ 3 -s % § S fl p 03 CD JZ rP ^ -r r* CD TJ R ^ += CD II CD rP S"^ P | P^ ft 8 § 3 CD~ rT P P CJ j p p CD r— 1 CD 03 CD P 03 - P GO ^ 03 o3 P T3 CD © P » ,P O ft 1 ^ 1^ o tu ft CO 03 ^ S rP 03 CD ,-P r^ ft M M K M . v^I . \0nI . ^0<1 . >v0Q ^^IQ^CC COi> i^- 00 00 05^0 235 236 THE READING PROCESS The scales are accompanied by carefully worked out directions regarding the most advantageous methods of procedure in giving the tests to individuals and to classes. Certain short cuts are recommended in cases "where only a measure of the general drift of achievement is desired/' Thorndike also points out that "if it is desired to retest a group for improvement later, the X or Y words alone may be used in the first measurement, or the integral steps may be used in the first and second measurements, and the half steps in the third." Furthermore, a test may be carried on with only a part of the words of each group — the balance being reserved for later use. The scoring is relatively simple and objective — a pupil's score being the number of the step in which he succeeds with not less than 80 per cent of the words. The Haggerty Visual Vocabulary Scales. — Haggerty * - — using the method employed by Thorndike — determined the relative difficulties of approximately 1000 words em- bracing twenty-seven different classes. He then arranged 774 of these in sixteen groups! — each "representing a dis- tinct degree of difficulty." The lowest was assigned a value of 5, the next 10, and so on up to 80. This scaled list of words, — intended largely to extend the Thorndike Scale A "and to provide duplicate scales for further test- ing"— was designated the Indiana-Thorndike Vocabulary Scale. Haggerty thereupon selected certain words from each group of the scale and constructed his visual vocab- ulary scales — Scale R and Scale R2. The two are of approximately equal difficulty and may, therefore, be used interchangeably, or, when it is desired to measure *See "Selected References" (4). TESTS FOR MEASURING READING ABILITY 237 improvement, one may be used at the beginning of a practice period and the other at the close. When desired, further scales may be formed from the original list. These tests are administered and scored much like those of Thorndike. The Starch English Vocabulary Test— This test dif- fers from the preceding in that it does not depend upon definitely standardized and evaluated word lists. It con- sists of two lists of 100 words each — these having been chosen at regular intervals from Webster's "New Inter- national Dictionary." This method of selecting words, Starch * holds, "yields a fair and representative sampling of the entire English vocabulary." The test is, therefore, especially adapted to determine the range of the word meanings which an individual has mastered. The direc- tions given the pupils are as follows : Make a check mark ( V ) after each word whose meaning you are sure of and which you could use correctly. Write the meaning after such other words as you are familiar with but of whose meanings you are not quite sure. Then you will be asked by the examiner to write the meaning after any of the difficult words that you may have checked so as to make sure that you did not check any that you did not know. If you cannot give a meaning, cross the check mark off. Words which are similar to common words but which have entirely different meanings will especially be called for, such as, belleric, canon, to cree, Mut, peavy, etc. A pupil's score is the percentage of words the meanings of which he indicates correctly. Tentative standards — thus far announced by Starch — are as follows: 'See "Selected References" (11). 238 THE READING PROCESS SCHOOL GRADE OR YEAR SCOR Elementary 4 30 a 5 33 2 ^ 7]1 1 1 I i i t i 1812 l . 1 2nd 3rd 4th 5th 6th 7th 8th Chart VI. Progress of 2654 Pupils in Quality of Silent Reading Present status of test movement. — The long and varied list of reading tests which we have reviewed bears strik- ing testimony to the activity and the ingenuity of inves- TESTS FOR MEASURING READING ABILITY 259 tigators. The whole testing movement is of course still in its infancy. Ten years ago there were no reading tests. The tests and scales which are available to-day consti- tute, therefore, in all probability a mere beginning. But their use represents a marked advance over the empirical procedure which it is rapidly supplanting. Indeed, so serviceable are these tests that they have become quite indispensable to teachers and supervisors in dealing with the various reading situations confronting them, such as determining differences in reading capacity, measuring the progress of pupils from grade to grade, comparing the achievements of individuals and groups of individuals, and evaluating methods of procedure and principles of practice. SELECTED REFERENCES 1. Brown, H. A. — The Measurement of Ability to Bead; N. H. Department of Public Instruction, Bureau of Research, Concord, 1916. Silent Beading Tests; N. H. Department of Public In- struction, Bureau of Research, Concord, N. H. The Measurement of the Efficiency of Instruction in Reading"; Elementary School Teacher, XIY, 477-490. 2. Courtis, S. A. — Standard Besearch Tests in Silent Beading; Detroit, Mich. "The Problem of Measuring Ability in Silent Read- ing"; School Board Journal, May, 1917. 3. Gray, W. S. — Gray's Oral Beading Test, and Gray's Standard Silent Beading Tests; School of Education, University of Chicago. "Studies of Elementary School Reading through Stand- ardized Tests"; Supplementary Educational Monographs, I, No. 1. -"Methods of Testing Reading"; Elementary School Journal, XVI, 231-246. 260 THE READING PROCESS "A Study of the Emphasis on Various Phases of Read- ing Instruction in Two Cities" ; Elementary School Journal, XVII, 178-186. "A Cooperative Study of Reading in 11 Cities of Northern Illinois"; Elementary School Journal, XYI, 250 265. -"Reading in the Elementary Schools of Indianapolis"; Elementary School Journal, XIX. Haggerty, M. E. — "The Ability to Read: Its Measurement and Some Facts concerning It"; Indiana University Studies, No. 34. Haggerty 's Visual Vocabulary Test for Grades 1 and 2; Bureau of Cooperative Research, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis. -"Scales for Reading Vocabulary of Primary Children" ; Elementary School Journal, XVII, 106-115. -Haggerty Reading Examination, Sigma 1 and Sigma S; World Book Company. Jones, R. G. — The Jones Scale for Teaching and Testing Elementary Reading; Cleveland, Ohio. "Standard Vocabulary"; Fourteenth Yearbook of the National Society for the Study of Education, Pt. I. Judd, Chas. H. — "Measuring the Work of the Public Schools" ; Cleveland Foundation Survey Report, Russell Sage Founda- tion, New York. "Reading Tests"; Elementary School Teacher, XIV, 365-373. Kelley, F. J. — The Kansas Silent Reading Tests; Bureau of Educational Measurements and Standards, State Normal School, Emporia, Kan. "The Kansas Silent Reading Tests"; Journal of Educa- tional Psychology, VII, 63-80. 'Reading"; Monroe, Be Voss, and Kelley — Educational Tests and Measurements; Houghton Mifflin Company, 1917. Chapter 3. McCall, W. A. — "Proposed Uniform Method of Scale Con- struction with Application to a New Reading Scale"; Teachers College Record, XXII, No. 1, 31-51. How to Measure in Education; The Macmillan Com- pany, 1921. TESTS FOR MEASURING READING ABILITY 261 Monroe, W. S. — Standardized Silent Reading Tests; Bureau of Educational Research, University of Illinois, Urbana. "Monroe's Standardized Silent Reading Tests"; Journal of Educational Psychology, IX, 303 ff. "A Report of the Use of the Kansas Silent Reading Tests with Over 100,000 Children"; Journal of Educational Psychology, VIII, 600-608. -Measuring the Results of Teaching; Houghton Mifflin Company, 1918. Chapters 2 and 3. 10. Otis, A. S. — "Considerations concerning the Making of a Scale for the Measurement of Reading Ability" ; Pedagogical Seminary, XXIII, 528-549. 11. Starch, D. — Silent Reading Tests; University of Wisconsin, Madison. English Vocabulary Test; University of Wisconsin, Madison. -"The Measuring of Efficiency in Reading"; Journal of Educational Psychology, VI, 1-24. -"Reliability of Reading Tests"; School and Society, VIII, 86-90. 12. Thorndike, E. L. — Improved Scales for Word Knowledge or Visual Vocabulary — Scale A2 and Scale B; Teachers Col- lege, Columbia University, New York. "The Measurement of Ability to Read"; Teachers Col- lege Record, September, 1914, and November, 1916. -* Improved Scale for Measuring the Understanding of Sentences and Paragraphs — Scale Alpha and Scale Alpha 2; Teachers College, Columbia University, New York. -"An Improved Scale for Measuring Ability in Read- ing"; Teachers College Record, November, 1915, and Janu- ary, 1916. -and McCall, W. A. — ThorndiJce-McCall Reading Scale for the Understanding of Sentences; Teachers College, Columbia University, New York. 13. Uhl, W. L.— "The Use of the Results of Reading Tests as a Basis for Planning Remedial Work"; Elementary School Journal, XVII, 266-275. INDEX Abell, Adelaide, 153, 177 Age and accomplishment, influ- ence of upon various aspects of reading process, 123-126 Ahrens, 109, 129 Aldis, H. G., 60-61, 62 Alphabet, evolution of, 35-54 character of a phonetic, 64 Egyptian, 54; English, 65-77 Chinese, 47; Landa, 40; Phoe- nician, 54-56 Alphabets, ancient, 52-54; origin of modern, 54-57; unphonetic character of modern, 63-64 American Indian, picture writing of, 29-33 Animal communication, 4 Animal cries, as expressions of emotional attitudes, 4 Apparatus, the Dodge photo- graphic, 113 Bain, 145 Baldwin, 146 Ballet, 145 Bawden, 146 Blend, in phonetics, 104-106 Bobbitt, Franklin, 224 Book, evolution of, 57-62 Brinton, D. G., 39-40 Brown, H, A., 259 Brown's Silent Reading Test, 251- 253; tentative standards ob- tained through, 253 Budge, E. A. W., 62 Burbank, E. D., 101-102, 103-104, 107 Buswell, G. T., 113, 129 Cattell, J. M., 134-135, 140, 142, 150 Chinese, recent alphabet, 47; lan- guage, 43-48 Clever Hans, seeming language behavior of, 3 Clodd, Edmond, 27-28, 41, 54-56, 62 Codex, the, 59 Collins, J. V., 86 Comprehension, development of, 176 Consonant digraphs, English, 103 Consonant sounds, not repre- sented by English alphabet, 69- 70 Consonant system, English, 69-70 Consonants, English, 103 Conventionalization, on ideo- graphic level, 33-36 Coster, Lourens Janzoon, 60 Courten, H. C, 147, 150 Courtis, S. A., 158-160, 177, 259 Courtis Standard Research Test in Silent Reading, 253-255 Curtis, H. S., 147, 150 Dearborn, W. F., 113, 116, 117, 121, 127, 129, 141-142, 150, 155, 178 Delabarre, E. B., 110, 129 Digraphs, irregularities in English, 68 Diphthongs, English, 103 Dodge, Raymond, 110-111, 113, 117, 129, 146 Egger, 145 Eliot, Chas. W., 212 English spelling, social bearings of present system, 74-75 English syllables, phonetic charac- ter of, 100-102 Erdmann and Dodge, 109, 116, 129, 135, 140, 142, 150 Evans, A. J., 55, 62 263 264 INDEX Family names, in phonetics, 105 Feeling attitudes, communication of, through animal cries, 4; com- munication of, on prelanguage level, 5 Fixation pauses, 108, 114-118; average number per line, 115- 117; average duration of, 117- 118; location of, 121, 123. Ford, P. L., 224 Fovea centralis, 132 Francis, L. G., 63 Galliland, A. R., 182-183, 197 Gesture stage, in development of child's language, 7 Gestures, as symbols on second level of language development, 5-6; in human speech, 8 Giles, H. A., 63 Goldscheider and Mueller, 138- 139, 150 Graphic language symbols, stages in the evolution of, 22-24 Gray, C. T\, 113, 118, 120-121, 125-126, 129, 133, 136-137, 149- 150, 181-182, 197 Gray, W. S., 163-171, 176, 178, 181, 184-185, 186-187, 197 Gray's Standard Oral Reading Test, 230-233; average class scores obtained through, 232 Gray's Standard Silent Reading Test, 255-258; rate scores ob- tained through, 256; compre- hension scores obtained through, 258 Gutenberg, Johann, 60 Haggerty, M. E., 238, 260 Haggerty Reading Examination, Sigma 1, 244-245; grade stand- ards obtained through, 245; Sigma 3, 249; grade standards obtained through, 249 Haggerty Scales for Reading Vo- cabulary of Primary Children, 229-230 Haggerty Visual Vocabulary Scales, 236-237 Hardy, Geo. E., 211, 224 Helpers, in phonetics, 105 Hiragana, Japanese, 48 Hoe, Robert, 63 Hoffman, W. J., 27, 35-36, 39, 41, 63 Homophones, 38, 44, 45-46 Huey, E. B, 15-16, 18-19, 21, 41, 63, 107, 110, 116, 117, 121, 129, 142-143, 144, 149, 151, 154-155, 178, 181, 224 Ideograph, the, 30-33; in the Chinese language, 45 Individual differences in reading ability, as revealed by the in- vestigation of eye movement, 126-127; due to native capacity, 173 Inner speech in reading, 144-150; experimental study of, 145-150; elimination of, 148; reduction of, 149-150 Interfixation movements, 108; character of, 114 Irregularities in English spelling, nature and extent of, 65-74; causes of, 71-74; social bear- ings of, 74-77; movement to eliminate, 77-87 Japanese language, 48-50; sylla- bles of, 51 Javal, Emile, 108, 116, 129 Johnson, C, 224 Johnson, Doctor, influence of, upon English spelling, 72-73 Jones, R. G., 260 Jones Scale for Teaching and Testing Elementary Reading, 227-229; average scores ob- tained through, 228 Jones word lists, analysis of the, 101 Judd, Chas. H., 11-12, 17, 21, 130, 151, 178, 185-186, 197, 260 Kansas Silent Reading Tests, 161, 245-246; median scores obtained through, 346 Katakana, Japanese, 48 Kelley, J. F, 260 INDEX 265 King, Irving, 171-172, 178 Klapper, Paul, 107, 224 Krapp, G. P., 76 Lamare, 109, 130 Language behavior, reading a form of, 1; genuine, limited to the human race, 2 Language development, in the child, 6; continuous and pro- gressive, 8; levels of, 5-6 Language, evolution of spoken, 1-20; evolution of written, 22- 62; social origin and function of, 20 Letters and letter complexes, dominating, 139; characteris- tic, 141 Letters, determining and indif- ferent, 139 Literature, of childhood, 218; in- creasingly liberal definition of, 219 Longford, J. H., 63 Lotze, 145 Lounsbury, Thos. R., 66-71, 87 MacCauley, Clay, 63 Macula lutea, 132 Mahoney, J. J., 224 Mallery, G., 29, 30, 40 Matthews, Brander, 72-73 McCall, W. A., 260 McGuffey readers, 209-210 McLeod, L. S., 162, 178 Mead, C. D., 183-184, 197 Meaning, nature of, 8-20 Meanings, how acquired by words, 9-13 Messmer, O., 139-140, 151 Methods of teaching beginners to read, 88-107; alphabet, 89; an- alytic, 88; analytic-synthetic, 89- 95; current, 97-99; modern, 89- 95; phonetic, 90-92; phrase, 93 sentence, 93-94; story, 94-95 synthetic, 88; thought, 89 word, 92-93 Mnemonics, 25-28 Monroe, W. S., 161-162, 178, 261 Monroe's Standardized Silent Reading Tests, 246-248; stand- ard median scores obtained through, 248 Nahua, manuscripts how made, 57; rebus writing in manuscripts of, 36-40 N. E. A., spelling simplifications adopted by, 78 New England Primer, 198 Notched sticks, as mnemonics, 27 Oberholtzer, E. E., 177, 178 O'Brien, J. A., 129-130, 150-151 Oral reading, and tradition, 179; as related to training in ex- pression, 180-181 ; development of rate in, 174; improvement in lower grades, 165; objective character of, 180; place of, on school program, 190-193; recent criticism of, 181 Otis, A. S., 261 Paper, introduction of, 59-60 Paulhan, 146 Perception time, in reading, 118 Perceptual process in reading, 137- 144 Perceptual span in reading, ef- fect of practice upon, 136-137 Petrie, F., 55, 63 Philological Association, Ameri- can, 77 Philological Society, of London, 77 Phonetic facts and principles, 102- 104 Phonetic methods of teaching be- ginning reading, two types of, 104-106 Phonetic stage, in evolution of written language, 42-57 Phonetics, basis of, 99-102; vary- ing emphases given to, in cur- rent methods of teaching begin- ning reading, 97-99 Phonograms, letters as, 50; repre- senting English sounds, 103; syllables as, 47; words as, 43 266 INDEX Pictograph, the, 28-30 Picture writing, 22-35; among Chinese, 45 Pintner, R., 148-150, 182 Printing, improvement of, 61-62; introduction in America, 61; invention of, 60-61 Quantz, J. A., 135, 153, 178, 181 Quipu, as a mnemonic, 26-27 Rate and comprehension in read- ing, early investigation of, 152- 155; recent investigation of, 155-173; relation "between, 177 Rawlings, Gertrude, 63 Readers, objective and subjective, 140 Reading, differences between oral and silent, 127-128, 178-197; needed adjustments in teaching of, 189-196 Reading ability, variation in, 126, 173 Reading materials, 198-224; criti- cism of nonliterary, 211-213; drawn from special fields, 220, 224; gradual secularization of, 201 ; literary character of re- cent, 218; nonliterary character of some current, 219; religious character of early, 198 Rebus writing, during transition from picture writing to phonetic writing, 37-40 Reeder, R. R., 199-200, 206, 225 Return sweep, in eye movement, 108; character of, 114 Ribot, 145 Rogers, W. R, 63 Roll, the, 58 Romanes, G. J., 152, 178 Rouge, de, Emanuel, 55 Ruediger, W. C, 132-133, 151 Rust, H. G., 63 Schmidt, W. A., 113, 116-117, 121- 123, 127-128, 129, 151, 186-189, 197 School readers, Bingham's, 205; character of basic series of, 223; character of mid-century, 209 ; Cobb's, 208; current, 217-220; early, 204-209; future of, 222- 224; late nineteenth and early twentieth century, 210-217 ; Lindley Murray's, 206; McGuf- fey's, 209-210; Pierpont's, 207; special and supplementary, 220- 222; Webster's, 205 Secor, W. B., 148, 151 Simplified Spelling Board, 78-84; activities of, 80; jorganization and membership of, 78; policy of, 79; rules adopted by, 81-84 Simplified spelling movement, progress of, 85 Simplified Spelling Society of Great Britain, 79, 86 Silent letters, 70-71 Silent reading, careful and nor- mal, 158, 175; comprehension in, 168; development of rate in, 174-176; place on school pro- gram, 193-194; relation between rate and comprehension in, 170 Skimming, investigation of, 196 Spelling reform, 75-85 Starch, D., 160, 178, 261 Starch English Vocabulary Test, 237-238; tentative standards ob- tained through, 238 Starch Silent Reading Test, 250- 251; standard scores obtained through, 251 Stout, G. F., 21 Strieker, 145 Stumpf, 146 Sweet, Henry, 87, 107 Syllabic level, in evolution of phonetic writing, 48-50 Symbolization on ideographic level, 34-35 Symbols and meanings, 88 Tablet, the, 57-58 Taylor, Isaac, 40, 63 Test movement in reading, pres- ent status of, 258-259 Tests, measuring mastery of INDEX 267 words as phonograms, 226-234; measuring mastery of word meanings, 234-238 ; measuring comprehension of sentences and paragraphs, 238-248 ; measuring mastery of word meanings and comprehension of sentences and paragraphs, 248-249 ; measuring rate and comprehension of reading extending over a given unit of time, 249-258 Thomas, Calvin, 75, 87 Thorndike, E. L., 261 Thorndike Scales for Measuring the Understanding of Sentences and Paragraphs, 239-240; stand- ards of achievement obtained through, 240 Thorndike Visual Vocabulary Scales, 234-236 Thorndike-McCall Reading Scale for the Understanding of Sen- tences, 240-244 Transition, from picture writing to phonetic writing, 35-40 Uhl, W. L., 261 Unit of perception, in case of rapid readers, 123 Visual field, in reading, 132; Ruediger's investigation of, 132- 133 Vowel characters representing several sounds, 66-67 Vowel digraphs, 103 Vowel system, English, 66-69; Spanish, 69 Vowels, English, 103 Waldo, K. D., 155-157, 178 Watson, J. B., 9-10, 21 Webster, Noah, 225 Webster's Elementary Spelling Book, 202 Webster's Reader, 205 Wells, G. P., 225 Whipple, G. M., 136, 151, 196, 197 Word and sentence recognition, 13-19; processes entering into, 13-19 Word meanings, processes enter- ing into recognition and inter- pretation of, 13-19; source of, 9-13 Writing, ancient systems of, 52- 54 Written language, evolution of, 22-62 Wundt, William M., 21 Zeitler, J., 139, 151 Treatment Date: Nov. 2004 PreservationTechnoiogies * WORLD «„, *.« M P.,p H „ eR U v ?T~ 1 7 ' Thomson Park Drive Cranberry Township, PA 16066 (724)779-2111 >H