The Indian grammarians who devised this complete and scientific system must have had ears almost as sharp as those of the boy in the old story who was said to be able to hear the grass growing. They distinguished between a number of consonants containing a sound of N,--between "twangs" very slightly differing in sound; and they placed them also in the order of their utterance, beginning with an N uttered from the throat and ending with one spoken with the tongue close to the lips. Our language has two or three different N sounds, but our alphabet does not distinguish them. The French language also has several N sounds not indicated by the alphabet, so that one can not hope to speak French intelligibly, still less accurately, without practice with teachers who can render the different N sounds. The Spanish alphabet tries to indicate a second N by putting a mark over the N--thus, N. Then, too, we have three sounds for which our alphabet has but one letter, S; while the Sanskrit alphabet has three letters, one for each sound of S. In the alphabet, as in many other matters, the more enlightened nations of India put to shame the most advanced nations of the Western World. Did you ever notice how, in our script, or written characters, for the sake of clearness and to keep some letters distinct from others, we have gradually come to write some of them with tall heads above the upper line, or with long tails below the lower line? And still we are constantly mistaking an l for a badly crossed t, and a g for a j or a y; while some letters that do not go above or below the line, such as m, n, i, w, u, and r, are constantly confounded in rapid writing. We are so used to this confusion that we seldom think of it, and we fail to wonder why some arrangement is not generally agreed to, which would do away with it. By remembering this fact, you will avoid the mistake of thinking because our alphabet, written or printed, is so good, that it could not be better. There is great room for improvement in both departments; in the printed form, the difference between n and u, for instance, is none too great; while in writing hardly one person in ten thousand distinguishes them from each other,--which letter is meant must be guessed by the reader. But the men and women who set up type and correct proofs are much bothered by these defects in our alphabet.