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Roman alphabet. He saw that the existence of ornamental letters for Irish did not prevent students from pronouncing Irish words as if they were made up of letters with English sound values, and he also saw that the possession of a common alphabet by different peoples did not prevent them from learning each other’s language. Dr. Bergin, whose knowledge of both old and modern Irish would prevent him from tampering injudiciously with the spelling of Irish, is even a more thorough reformer as a result of his increased knowledge and experience. These two men, assisted by othes whose names I am not at present at liberty to mention, have been working at this subject, and they have given us an alphabet, based on the letters of the modern Roman alphabet, which capable of expressing with sufficient accuracy for all practical purposes all the sounds of the Irish language. It has been tested by writing in different dialects and proved not wanting. The authors of it, however, being scientific men, do not offer it to the public as the last word to be said on the subject, and say that all Irish spelling must be stereotyped now and for ever on this system. Fortunately, Father Peter O’Leary’s splendid work for the Irish language, and paticularly his independent stand on the question of Irish spelling, has made it impossible for anybody to force a system of spelling on the nation against its will. We, for our part, who believe in this system, an content to submit it to the test of actual ex-
