Hardly more profitable than the magic squares but indicative, too, of the same mental initiative, was the scheme formed by Franklin for a new alphabet and a reformed mode of spelling. In the new alphabet, the first effort was to arrange the letters in what was supposed to be a more natural order than that of the old alphabet by beginning with the simple sounds framed by the breath with no or very little help from the tongue, teeth and lips, and proceeding gradually forward from sounds, produced at the back of the mouth, to the sound produced by closing the lips, that is _m_. The _c_ of the old alphabet was omitted, _k_ being left to supply its hard sound, and _s_ its soft, and _k_ being also left to supply the place of _q_, and with an _s_ added, the place of _x_. _W_ as well as _q_ and _x_ was also dismissed from service, the vowel _u_, sounded as _oo_, being relied upon to perform its function. _Y_ also went by the board, _i_ taking its place, where used singly, and two vowels, where used as a diphthong. _J_ was superseded by an entirely new symbol, shaped something like a small _h_, and sounded as _ish_, when used singly, but subserving various other offices, when conjoined with _d_, _t_ and _z_. As a whole, the new alphabet was so systematized that the sound of any letter, vowel or consonant was always the same, wherever it occurred, or whatever its alphabetical collocation. Nor did the new alphabet contain any silent letters, or fail to provide a letter for every distinct sound in the language. The difference between short and long vowels was compassed by a single vowel where short, and a double one, where long. For illustration, "mend" remained "mend" and "did," "did," but "remained" reappeared as "remeened," and "deed" as "diid." Typographical obstacles prevent us from bringing to the eye of the reader a specimen of the reformed alphabet and spelling as they looked on a printed page. They, of course, issued from the mind of Franklin as stillborn as his reformed Episcopal Prayer Book. His only proselytes appear to have been Polly, who even wrote a letter to him in the strange forms, and his loving sister, Jane, who was delighted to have another language with which to express her affection for him. Our world is one in which some things are made but others make themselves, and, however arbitrary their character, will not allow themselves to be made over, even at the behest of such merciless rationalism as that of Franklin.