He addressed a circular to some hundreds of his friends, asking them to simplify the spelling of a dozen of our badly spelt words--I think they were only words which end with the superfluous _ugh_.

He asked that these friends use the suggested spellings in their private correspondence.
By this, one perceives that the beginning was sufficiently quiet and unaggressive.
Next stage: a small committee was appointed, with Brander Matthews for managing director and spokesman.

It issued a list of three hundred words, of average silliness as to spelling, and proposed new and sane spellings for these words.

The President of the United States, unsolicited, adopted these simplified three hundred officially, and ordered that they be used in the official documents of the Government.
It was now remarked, by all the educated and the thoughtful except the clergy that Sheol was to pay.

This was most justly and comprehensively descriptive.