1900 the use of a really fonetic spelling would hav effected a threefold larger saving, or one of more than $100,000,000.
Responsibility of Leadership
The saving possible in 1920 is left to any enter-prizing investigator to ascertain when the figures of the present census ar available. It is bound to be an objectiv wel worth striving for in the interests of individual, as wel as of national, economy and efficiency. A bad habit of spelling that imposes a needless annual tax, for education and printing, running into the hundreds of millions of dollars, is a habit that should be broken by united and determind effort.
It is not necessary, however, that the entire population should unite in this effort. It wil be sufficient if it is made by those thru whose example spelling-habits ar formd, and whom the others wil follow. It is to these, the leaders of American thought and action, that the Simplified Spelling Board makes its appeal. And it includes in this category every one who, convinst of the advantages of a simpler spelling, speaks in its favor or uses any of the simpler forms; for each such person thereby constitutes himself or herself a leader in thought and action, whether in the clasroom, the scool, the college, the social or business circle, or the community.
Wil Aid Americanization
Statistics gatherd by the Government during the war reveald a percentage of illiteracy in English that was astounding to those who comfortably supposed that under a sistem of compulsory free education the number of nativ-born Americans who could not read or
