The Wheeling Daily Register

SPELLING SCHOOLS,-The Intelligencer yesterday morning suggested that the Citizens' Relief Association get up spelling matches for the benefit, of charity as well as for the improvement and amusement of our people. We heartily concur in the suggestion, and hope the matter may be taken hold of by the proper parties, and a spelling match be inaugurated. Every little village, and, indeed every large city throughout Ohio is having a "spelling match."

They are held not only for social, but for benevolent purposes. They are taking the place of fairs and festivals, and are much more intelligent amusements than those named.

They are cheap and useful pleasures, and for the young folks furnish a better pretext for meeting together than either balls or parties. To the older persons there is much amusement in the rival effort to spell each other down. No one who has not entered a spelling class is able to realize the large number of words in the English language he is unable to spell correctly, and if the class teaches its members nothing more than that they may be possibly ignorant concerning what they thought they knew, it will be that much gained toward useful training. It is not always the best speller that comes off victorious. A person may write for hours and not spell one word incorrectly. Place them on the stand, however, and give them a word which they used in their composition and spelled correctly, and they will stammer, clear their throats, and then spell it wrong. Frequently one pauses when writing to discuss the way a word is spelled, and in nine cases out of ten, if the word is difficult, it will be misspelled. This is not because the party does not know how to spell the word, but because he cannot spell it at that time. He may have used it a hundred times correctly before, but at the time he is most particular, he is sure to fail. So in the spelling class. The word comes suddenly-sometimes is pronounced erroneously. Embarrassment ensues, and the party fails, to the merriment of many who would have failed had they been the speller.