Etymologists were atwitter. Orthographists were aghast. The Chief Justice of the Supreme Court was vexed. The British were appalled. For a few months in 1906, it seemed as if the entire English-speaking world joined the debate over Andrew Carnegie's latest venture for world peace: the simplification of the English language.

Carnegie believed that by building more common sense into the spelling of the English language, it would become "the lingua franca of the whole world." If everyone spoke the same language, he reasoned, world peace would come. As an added bonus, the printing industry would save "several millions a year" by dispensing with "useless letters."

In March of 1906, Carnegie formed the Simplified Spelling Board and funded it handsomely with $25,000 per year. The Board's first task was to persuade 50 distinguished American writers to promise to use the new spelling for twelve words -- program, catalog, decalog, prolog, demagog, pedogog, tho, altho, thoro, thorofare, thru, and thruout.

Among the writers to sign on were William Dean Howells, William Graham Sumner, Josiah Strong, and Mark Twain. Even the staid New York Times supported the effort, though one of its columnists suggested that the reform begin with "Androo Karnage." The Fonetik Speling Assosiashun ov Kulumbia University attracted a large following. Through the summer, the Simplified Spelling Board expanded its list of words to 300 and claimed a major victory when President Theodore Roosevelt ordered all government documents to be printed with the new spellings. Then the tide turned.

The English were amused if perhaps a bit offended at this assault on their language. "We ventur to think," mocked one London newspaper, "that even (or evn) Mr. Karnegi (or Karnege) and Prezident Ruzvelt (or Rusvelt) mite manage to get along very wel with the langwige that was gud enuf for ... Washingtun, Erving, Longfelo, Walt Witman, and uthers who have aded lustre to the Amerikan name." The Chief Justice of the Supreme Court was less amused. When the solicitor general submitted a legal brief with the president's new spellings, Justice Fuller made it clear that he preferred they be "dropt."

The House of Representatives delivered the knockout punch when, after raucous debate, the congressmen voted 142-25 to ban the new spellings from federal documents. The next day Roosevelt yielded. "I am sory as a dog," Twain wrote Carnegie. "For I do lov revolutions and violense."

Twelve years and $300,000 later, Carnegie was disappointed to find that the new spellings had not caught in, not even in the reports of the Carnegie Institution of Washington. Carnegie gave up, writing to the director of the Board, "I think I hav been patient long enuf" -- E-N-U-F -- "I have a much better use for Twenty-five thousand dollars a year."

The philanthropic steel titan counseled a name change for the organization (“reform” scares people, he insisted), and so the Spelling Reform Association became the Simplified Spelling Board.

Then, in 1906, came the organization of the Simplified Spelling Board, with an endowment of $15,000 a year from Andrew Carnegie

Let's Stop Reading Shame!

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Dr. Grover (Russ) Whitehurst Director, Institute of Education Sciences, Assistant Secretary of Education, U.S. Department of Education
Dr. Jack Shonkoff Chair, The National Scientific Council on the Developing Child; Co-Editor: From Neurons to Neighborhoods
Siegfried Engelmann Professor of Instructional Research, University of Oregon; Creator of Direct Instruction
Dr. Edward Kame'enui Commissioner for Special Education Research, U.S. Department of Education; Director, IDEA, University of Oregon
Dr. G. Reid Lyon Past Director, National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) at the National Institutes of Health (NIH)
Dr. Keith Stanovich Canadian Chair of Cognitive Science, University of Toronto
Dr. Mel Levine Co-Chair and Co-Founder, All Kinds of Minds; Author: A Mind at a Time, The Myth of Laziness & Ready or Not Here Life Comes
Dr. Alex Granzin School District Psychologist, Past President, Oregon School Psychologists Association
Dr. James J. Heckman Nobel Laureate, Economic Sciences 2000; Lead Author: The Productivity Argument for Investing in Young Children
Dr. Timothy Shanahan President (2006) International Reading Association, Chair National Early Literacy Panel, Member National Reading Panel
Nancy Hennessy President, 2003-2005, International Dyslexia Association
Dr. Marilyn Jager Adams Senior Scientist, Soliloquy Learning, Author: Beginning to Read: Thinking and Learning About Print
Dr. Michael Merzenich Chair of Otolaryngology, Integrative Neurosciences, UCSF; Member National Academy of Sciences
Dr. Maryanne Wolf Director, Center for Reading & Language Research; Professor of Child Development, Tufts University
Dr. Todd Risley Emeritus Professor of Psychology, University of Alaska, Co-author: Meaningful Differences
Dr. Sally Shaywitz Neuroscientist, Department of Pediatrics, Yale University, Author: Overcoming Dyslexia
Dr. Louisa Moats Director, Professional Development and Research Initiatives, Sopris West Educational Services
Dr. Zvia Breznitz Professor, Neuropsychology of Reading & Dyslexia, University of Haifa, Israel
Rick Lavoie Learning Disabilities Specialist, Creator: How Difficult Can This Be?: The F.A.T. City Workshop & Last One Picked, First One Picked On
Dr.Charles Perfetti Professor, Psychology & Linguistics; Senior Scientist and Associate Director, Learning R&D Center, U. of Pittsburgh, PA
Arthur J. Rolnick Senior V.P. & Dir. of Research, Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis; Co- Author: The Economics of Early Childhood Development
Dr. Richard Venezky Professor, Educational Studies, Computer and Information Sciences, and Linguistics, University of Delaware
Dr. Keith Rayner Distinguished Professor, University of Massachusetts, Author: Eye Movements in Reading and Information Processing
Dr. Paula Tallal Professor of Neuroscience, Co-Director of the Center for Molecular and Behavioral Neuroscience, Rutgers University
Dr.John Searle Mills Professor of the Philosophy of Mind and Language, University of California-Berkeley, Author: Mind, A Brief Introduction
Dr.Mark T. Greenberg Director, Prevention Research Center, Penn State Dept. of Human Development & Family Studies; CASEL Leadership Team
Dr. Terrence Deacon Professor of Biological Anthropology and Linguistics at University of California- Berkeley
Chris Doherty Ex-Program Director, National Reading First Program, U.S. Department of Education
Dr. Erik Hanushek Senior Fellow, Hoover Institution, Stanford University
Dr. Marketa Caravolas Director, Bangor Dyslexia Unit, Bangor University, Author: International Report on Literacy Research
Dr. Christof Koch Professor of Computation and Neural Systems, Caltech - Author: The Quest for Consciousness: A Neurobiological Approach
Dr. Guy Deutscher Professor of Languages and Cultures of Ancient Mesopotamia, Holland; Author: Unfolding Language
Robert Wedgeworth President, ProLiteracy, World's Largest Literacy Organization
Dr. Peter Leone Director, National Center on Education, Disability and Juvenile Justice
Dr. Thomas Cable Professor of English, University of Texas at Austin, Co-author: A History of the English Language
Dr. David Abram Cultural Ecologist and Philosopher; Author: The Spell of the Sensuous
Pat Lindamood and Nanci Bell Principal Scientists, Founders, Lindamood-Bell Learning Processes
Dr. Anne Cunningham Director, Joint Doctoral Program in Special Education, Graduate School of Education at University of California-Berkeley
Dr. Donald L. Nathanson Clinical Professor of Psychiatry and Human Behavior at Jefferson Medical College, Director of the Silvan S. Tomkins Institute
Dr.Johanna Drucker Chair of Media Studies, University of Virginia, Author: The Alphabetic Labyrinth
John H. Fisher Medievalist, Leading authority on the development of the written English language, Author: The Emergence of Standard English
Dr. Malcolm Richardson Chair, Dept. of English, Louisiana State University; Research: The Textual Awakening of the English Middle Classes
James Wendorf Executive Director, National Center for Learning Disabilities
Leonard Shlain Physician; Best-Selling Author: The Alphabet vs. The Goddess
Robert Sweet Co-Founder, National Right to Read Foundation

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The Children of the Code is a Social Education Project and a Public Television Series intended to catalyze and resource a social-educational transformation in how we think about and, ultimately, teach reading. The Children of the Code is an entertaining educational journey into the challenges our children's brains face when learning to read. The series weaves together archeology, history, linguistics, developmental neuroscience, cognitive science, psychology, information theory, reading theory, learning theory, and the personal and social dimensions of illiteracy.

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Background Research Notes: CODE REFORM (ATTEMPTS) HISTORY

Let's Stop Reading Shame!