To give up what they have once learned

[This is from a letter to John Wilson on August 17, 1813, regarding the evolution of English words.]

About the middle of the last century an attempt was made to banish the letter d from the words bridge, judge, hedge, knowledge, &c., others of that termination, and to write them as we write age, cage, sacrilege, privilege; but with little success. The attempt was also made, which you mention in your second part, to drop the letter u in words of Latin derivation ending in our, and to write honor, candor, rigor, &c., instead of honour, candour, rigour. But the u having been picked up in the passage of these words from the Latin, through the French, to us, is still preserved by those who consider it as a memorial of our title to the words.

Other partial attempts have been made by individual writers, but with as little success. Pluralizing nouns in y, and ey, by adding s only, as you propose, would certainly simplify the spelling, and be analogous to the general idiom of the language. It would be a step gained in the progress of general reformation, if it could prevail. But my opinion being requested I must give it candidly, that judging of the future by the past, I expect no better fortune to this than similar preceding propositions have experienced. It is very difficult to persuade the great body of mankind to give up what they have once learned, and are now masters of, for something to be learnt anew. Time alone insensibly wears down old habits, and produces small changes at long intervals, and to this process we must all accommodate ourselves, and be content to follow those who will not follow us. Our Anglo-Saxon ancestors had twenty ways of spelling the word "many." Ten centuries have dropped all of them and substituted that which we now use.