Early in 1879, Professor Edward North assured us that the Italians and Spaniards have discarded _ph_ for _f_ in _philosophy_ and its fellows. Professor March gleefully records that "the Italians, like the Spaniards, have returned to _f_. They write and print _filosofia_" for _philosophia_, and _tisica_ for _phthisica_. Professor Lounsbury, in his elaborate articles in _Scribner_ lately, commends the Italians for writing _tisico_ and the Spaniards for writing _tisica_. These of course are commendations of those peoples for the simplicity of their orthography, and they are mentioned as worthy examples for us. Yet we are not advised by either of the three professors named that the Italians and Spaniards are for that reason gaining upon the English people in intelligence, educational progress and culture. No statistics are advanced disclosing the narrow percentage of illiteracy found in Italy and Spain, and a comparison made between that narrow percentage and the wide percentage already advertised as existing in English-speaking states. If "the difficulties of English spelling" be a serious cause of illiteracy in England and the United States, the simplicity of the Italian and Spanish spelling ought to be a cause of high proficiency in literary and educational attainments among the people of Italy and Spain. A commendation of those two nations for their taste in discarding "Greek orthography" to be effective ought to be supplemented with some evidence of the usefulness of that operation. Unless so supplemented, the commendation can have no weight as an argument. The Anglo-Saxon race has not been accustomed to follow the Latins in literary and educational matters. The past and present condition of those two countries affords no guarantee that their adoption of the so-called simpler spelling is commendable. There are persons whose corroboration of a statement adds no weight to it with their neighbors. It adds no force to the arguments of the "reformers" that the Italians and Spaniards endorse them.