Richards Says Basic, English Will Aid Education, Press

Basic English, the supra-national language that C. K. Ogden and Harvard's Dr. I. A. Richards have been developing since the early '20's, can be applied in other fields than teaching foreigners some simple, universal language. Dr. Richards said yesterday that education, advertising, newspapers, and radio broadcasts night all be increased in effectiveness through the use of Basic.

The Orthological Committee at Harvard, together with other groups all over the world including Ogden in London, has been working for years on the transposition of standard texts, into the simplified English. The clear, unequivocal language makes it easy to get ideas across, says Richards. He suggests that it may be increasingly used by advertisers to replace the traditional flowery verbiage still in prevalent use.

Objections will be made to the use of Basic in schools, Richards declares. Parents and educators will claim that students' vocabularies will not be expanded if they read texts written in less than a thousand words. But vocabularies can be broadened, he maintains, by having children transpose selections of regular English into Basic, a process that requires a full knowledge of the function of each word.

The effectiveness of teaching through Basic can be proved by two examples, says Richards. The Chinese Air Force, being trained in California, spends five weeks learning English before they can be taught to fly by American instructors. The fact that they have learned to carry our orders necessitating split-second reactions in simple proof that Basic is an effective way of teaching English quickly.

Richards also pointed to the program at the Great Lakes Naval Training, Sation recently. The Bluejacket's Manual, Bible of the Navy, was put into Basic English, and a group of 15 to 20 sailors studied the simplified version. They made better scores than did those who used the standard text, and they learned it more rapidly.

Richards transcribed Plato's "Republic" into Basic nearly two years ago, and it is now being sold to service men in cheap editions. The simplified form makes Plato's ideas easier to understand, and more of it can be covered in an hour than in the original translations. Richards believes that technical books, income tax forms, and other generally turgid writing, can be improved through the use of Basic.

Basic English's original purpose of facilitating international communication is still most important, Richards affirms, but new application are being found which may expedite the use of our own language.