The Story of the National Spelling Bee:
Text from an Early 1930s Brochure

Editorial Note: This web page contains the full text of an early 1930s document chronicling the history of the National Spelling Bee. Some spellings and usage that appear herein are not standard today.

The National Spelling Bee was organized first in 1925. The Louisville Courier-Journal had conducted a Statewide match for the boys and girls of Kentucky graded schools. The Kentucky Education Association gave immediate and enthusiastic co-operation, and the preliminary phases of the match were so beneficial that luncheon clubs and other organizations in Louisville and various parts of the State put on separate matches to find their champion spellers.

The Detroit News also had found that the Spelling Bee was a successful educational enterprise, and it readily accepted the invitation of The Courier-Journal to enter a National Spelling Bee, in which graded school champions of all sections of the country might meet. The Akron Beacon-Journal, The South Bend News-Times and The Hartford Times were among the first nine newspaper sponsors in the 1925 National Spelling Bee.

Since 1925 the Spelling Bee has been extended into fifteen states. In 1929 there were twenty-one newspaper sponsors in States from Maine to Nebraska, each offering many local prizes among thousands of contestants.

Business men, editors and educators generally agree that graduates of high schools and colleges are less competent in spelling than in any of the fundamental subjects such as arithmetic, geography and English. The Spelling Bee introduces competition among individuals who aspire to grade championships, establishes class and school spirit in the contests between grade winners and school champions and instills ambition not only in the best spellers who win the Washington trips, but among the thousands of boys and girls who, falling short of championships, resolve to better their standings in the next match.

The sponsoring newspapers recognize the National Spelling Bee as a valuable educational project to be run only in strictest cooperation with school authorities. It has been said that propaganda teaches children what to think, while educators propose to teach them how to think. The Spelling Bee, as conducted by member newspapers, gives children an incentive to study a fundamental, uninteresting subject, but it neither tries to teach them what to spell nor how to spell.

Regardless of the manner in which prize money is distributed, there are two champions each year. One is the champion boy speller and the other the champion girl speller. If a boy wins the capital prize, his newspaper and community will welcome him home as the National Champion Speller. A girl might finish second, third or fourth in the match and still outspell all girl competitors. This would make her National Champion Girl Speller. Since no newspaper sponsors more than one speller in the finals, at least two newspapers welcome national champions each year.

Superintendents, principals and teachers realize that the Bee is an asset to them in their work. It helps the teacher, because it improves spelling by arousing interest among the students. It creates friendly, sportsmanlike rivalry among the schools. It stimulates parents to give their children schooling. It helps education generally by instructing adults, as well as children, in spelling. It promotes civic consciousness by pitting the champion of one community against the champions of others. It readily admits children of all ages, creeds and races, placing all on an equal, competitive basis.

Choice of written or oral work is allowed for all contests preceding the national finals, in which oral spelling shall be used exclusively.

Any pupil who has not passed beyond the eighth grade at the time of the holding of the bee in his school shall be eligible.

Each school may select its champion either by written or oral work or by either or both of these and daily grades.

Word lists for local contests will not be supplied by the national officials.

Contestants may pronounce words before or after spelling them or not at all.

Any speller failing to spell a word shall drop out of the contest, and another word shall be given to the next in line. Having started to spell a word, a contestant shall be given no opportunity to change letters once pronounced. A speller, having started to spell a word, may retrace, providing letters and their sequence are not changed in the retracing.

When the contestants have been reduced to two, the speller who first corrects a word misspelled by the other and then spells the next word on the list shall be declared the champion. If both misspell the same word, both shall continue in the contest. Should one err, and the other, after correcting the error, misspell the new word submitted to him, then the misspelled new word shall be referred to the first speller for correction, and if he succeeds in correcting the error and in spelling the next word on the pronouncer's list, he shall be declared the champion.

A contestant may request that a word be repronounced or defined. The pronouncer shall grant the request until the officials agree that the word has been made reasonably clear to the contestant.

Though some authorities prefer one spelling and some another of words spelled in two or more ways, the rule of reason dictates that any form acceptable to standard authorities shall be adjudged correct.

Spellings, keyed in Funk & Wagnalls dictionaries with capital "P" or capital "S" or capitals "SS" will not be accepted. To meet the accepted form in many schools, however, the spelling of "through" as "thru", of "though" as "tho", of "although" as "altho" and of "thorough" as "thoro" shall be adjudged correct.

Any questions relating to the spelling of a word shall be referred to the judge immediately.

Any protest must be made to the judges promptly. No protest can be entertained after the contest has terminated.

The judges in the Spelling Bee are in complete control of the contest from the moment the first word is pronounced. Their decision shall be final on all questions.

Rules for the National Spelling Bee are the result of five years' teaching experience in conducting district and final matches in States from Maine to Nebraska. They represent the recommendations of nationally recognized authorities on spelling. They bespeak the lessons learned in five years of spelling match direction.

The National Spelling Bee is a beneficial stimulant to the study of spelling. It is not a system of teaching. The project gives an incentive to children to study spelling regardless of the method of teaching in use. The enterprise does not hold a brief for any method of teaching spelling, because framers of its rules knew that local conditions would demand varying systems of instruction under school administrations as widely separated as those in a nation-wide project. Rules may be molded to meet any local requirements.

By the time school champions have been selected the Spelling Bee has done its work of increasing general interest among pupils in a dull subject. The great bulk of students have registered improvement. Either daily grades may be used to determine the school winner or written or oral matches may be held or combinations of any two or three of these plans. After selection of school champions, the work of the Spelling Bee mainly is to select the best of the excellent spellers, so that the promised awards, which spurred the throng of pupils on to better work, may be distributed equitably, as promised.

Recognition was given the fact that in dealing with children 14 years old and under (rarely do grade spellers reach the ages of 15, 16, and 17) organizers of Spelling Bees must impose as few restrictions and technicalities as possible on the contestants. To prevent contestants' being informed by the audience's unconscious but audible gasps as to how a given word is not spelled, a rule was drawn to prevent a contestant from changing letters once pronounced in spelling a given word.

Retracing and changing of letters formerly was permitted. Now retracing is permitted but no letters once pronounced may be changed, after a contestant once has started to spell. For example: A contestant who starts to spell "rarefy" thus, "r-a-r-i-", may not retrace and change the "I" to "e" in the second attempt. It would be permissible for a child who had started "r-a-r-e" to retrace and to repeat. This is the only semblance of a technicality in the rules.

Local matches may continue written eliminations after selection of school champions or may use oral work. The oral match is the more popular in newspaper finals, but there is no bar to the use of written matches, if sponsoring newspapers and educators agree on them.

Every student in the school should participate in the Spelling Bee. Four divisions may be used in each school. All pupils up to and including the fifth grade may form a first; pupils of the sixth grade, a second; pupils of the seventh grade, a third, and pupils of the eighth grade, a fourth division.

Hold four matches, one for each of the divisions with all pupils of each grade entered. Individual competition with one line of spellers should be used here. Spell down each division until ten spellers remain. If some divisions do not have ten pupils, as may be the case in some rural schools, select as many as possible and form a team of them. Other divisions would select a similar number of their best spellers, and the smallest team would be the unit for the school. For instance, if one division could muster only eight spellers, though the three other divisions might have enough pupils for teams of ten spellers, each division would select a team of eight.

The four division teams then would be assigned outside work of ten or twenty words a day, coaching themselves in spelling. The principal may select a date to match the fifth and sixth grade teams in a spelling bee. Teams should occupy opposite sides of the room; that is, there should be two lines of spellers. Spell down the two teams until six spellers, irrespective of grades, remain. A similar match should be held between the seventh and eighth grade teams, not necessarily on the same date. The best six spellers, irrespective of grades, would be selected in this match.

The best twelve spellers in the school then would be ready for the school finals. The principal may select another date to bring these twelve together. Use individual competition, merging spellers of all grades in one line. Grades and teams lose their identity here, and it is an individual competition for school honors. Spell down all except one. The survivor is the school champion.

When one line is used in a bee, start with the right end of the line and spell toward the left.

Pronounce the word crisply with full accent on all syllables.

The pronouncer should stand between the lines when two lines are used. The lines alternate in spelling.

In district and county matches, a single line is recommended, so that individual competition may be stressed. It is not necessary to take time out of regular classes to conduct school competitions. The division teams may be selected during a daily or weekly assembly period. The division and grade matches make spirited competition that the whole student body likes. The school finals may be made a popular entertainment feature of a Parent-Teacher Association meeting either in the afternoon or night.

It is the duty of the sponsoring newspaper or the school superintendent or both to fix dates for district, county, and grand finals. School champions should be notified at what contest they are next to appear.

This method is suggested for selection of school champions when oral spelling is used. The national rules permit selection of school champions by written test or both oral and written work. Old-fashioned, oral spelling bees are recommended as outlined, but the object is to determine the best speller in each school rather than to lay down rules for selection.

The seventh-heaven of participants in the Spelling Bee is the Washington trip. If anything were more educational for contestants than participation in all stages of the match, it would be the trip to our Nation's Capital which goes to the winner of every newspaper's match. Several of the newspapers have adopted the plan of sending the boys or girls who finish second in their grand finals. These runners-up are regular members of the Spelling Bee party in Washington, even though they do not take part in the national match.

Reporter-companions or teacher-companions are sent to Washington as chaperons of spellers with all expenses paid by the newspapers. Many of the champions never have eaten on a train or have been on a sleeper prior to their trip to the National Spelling Bee.

Imagine the thrill of a boy or a girl, who takes the trip from Omaha or Detroit or Memphis or Milwaukee to Washington! Then, too, the trip is equally exciting to the Yankee boy or girl of Portland, Me., or Burlington, Vt., or New Bedford, Mass., who goes through Boston and Providence and New Haven and New York and Wilmington and Philadelphia and Baltimore on the way to the National Capital.

On leaving the imposing Union Station for a hotel, the newcomer to Washington is impressed with the wide, tree-lined streets. The city seems to be dotted with parks. Perhaps the newcomer gets a glimpse of the Treasury Building or the War Department offices or the Smithsonian Institute and, quite likely, the National Capitol. Here is a city with an atmosphere unique.

Members of the Spelling Bee party not only view these sights from long range, but they have actual contact with them during their stay in Washington. Spellers generally arrive in the Capital on a Monday in May, and before they start on sightseeing trips Tuesday they have met many youngsters like themselves from all parts of the country at the big Spelling Bee banquet.

Contestants are not in a mood to enjoy much sightseeing, however, until they have disposed of the big match. So on Tuesday morning they go through the business and residential sections, passing foreign embassies, and stopping at the magnificent Lincoln Memorial and the loft Washington Monument. A bus leaves the party at the entrance of the Memorial, and all have sufficient opportunity to marvel at the grandeur of the structure. A never-to-be-forgotten event is the elevator ride to the top of the Washington Monument which is only a short distance from the Lincoln Memorial.

The tour Tuesday morning relieves the spellers of a bit of the slight strain which all are bound to feel during the immediate hours preceding the final match. They return to the hotel in time for a rest, a little spelling practice, and a lunch before going to the auditorium of the Natural History Building of the National Museum to compete for $2,500 in cash prizes and the national championships in spelling.

On one of the tours, spellers learn just how Uncle Sam makes the product used for money. This visit to the Bureau of Printing and Engraving also shows the ease with which the Government prints its postage stamps. The Academy of Science Building has more attractions than Alice ever saw in Wonderland. An equal number of interesting things from all parts of the world may be seen in the Old and New National Museums. The lectures of the guides at the Pan-American Union Building are practical geography entertainingly presented.

What American boys and girls do not hope sometime to visit the White House? All spellers not only visit the White House, but they have their photographs taken with the President. A trip to the White House is followed by lunch at the Capitol Restaurant. There spellers see Representatives and Senators and both Houses of Congress. The gun factory and the Navy Yard are sights to converse about back home.

A visit to Alexandria, Va., and Mt. Vernon, the home of George Washington, offers all the entertainment a boy or girl needs for one day. The trip generally is taken Thursday morning with the return timed so members of the Spelling Bee party may have the afternoon to visit friends or to revel in the shopping district. Wednesday and Thursday nights are given to theater parties. More American heroes are resting in Arlington Cemetery than in any other burial ground in the United States. The tour that takes spellers to Arlington and the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier includes a stop at the Zoological Gardens. All of Friday morning can be spent in the zoo without tiring spellers - there are things to interest all.

The Franciscan Monastery and the Shrine of the Immaculate Conception, which spellers Visit Friday afternoon, have beauty and grandeur, which have inspired persons of all faiths. St. Alban's Cathedral, where spellers may see the tombs of Woodrow Wilson and Admiral George Dewey, is equally impressive.

Members of the Spelling Bee party see as much of Washington and its places of importance as it is possible to see in five days. Their week in the Capital supplies them with lifetime information of value.

The National Spelling Bee has been indorsed by James J. Tigert, former United States Commissioner of Education. It has had the active cooperation of S.D. Shankland and Joy E. Morgan of the National Education Association since its origin.

The Vermont State Department of Education cooperates with the National Spelling Bee, the Burlington Free Press sending the Vermont champion to Washington each year. The Kentucky Education Association makes The Courier-Journal State Spelling Bee the opening feature of its convention each April in Louisville. J. Herbert Kelley of the Pennsylvania Education Association has placed its stamp of approval on the bee.

Prof. Ernest Horn of the University of Iowa, national recognized authority on spelling, actively cooperates with the director of the National Spelling Bee. As a result of his interest and recommendations rules have been improved. He compiled a special, carefully graded list of many hundred words, based on his years of observation and experience, for use in national finals.

School superintendents in cities where the Spelling Bee has been sponsored by leading newspapers are staunch friends of the project. Parent-Teacher Association heads favor the Spelling Bee.

Leading newspapers in the East, Central and Southern parts of the United States have united on the Spelling Bee as a good-will project. They find the enterprise clean, dignified, conservative and educational.

The character of the newspapers back of the Spelling Bee insures absolute fairness in all phases of the match. The Courier-Journal of Louisville, KY., organizes and conducts the National Spelling Bee. The director of the National Spelling Bee is Donald McWain, who has been active head of the match for several years. Co-sponsors of the project include the Detroit News, Hartford Times, Atlantic City Press, New Bedford Standard, Memphis Press-Scimitar, New Britain Daily Herald, Akron Beacon-Journal, South Bend News-Times, Buffalo Evening News, Albany Evening News, Burlington Free Press, Portland Express, Waterbury Republican and American, Jersey Observer, Plainfield Courier-News, Carlisle Sentinel, Milwaukee Journal, Omaha World-Herald, Grand Rapids Press and Des Moines Register.

"I heartily approve the National Spelling Bee which has been sponsored by the newspapers of the Nation during recent years," J.W. Studebaker, superintendent of Des Moines schools, said. "I believe every school in this city has participated with real interest and genuine profit. I sincerely hope that it will be possible for our schools to enroll in the contest again this year."

Far removed from the Middlewest, near Cape Cod, is the New Bedford, (Mass.) school system, of which Allen P. Keith is superintendent. Mr. Keith's comment was:

"Spelling Bees have been conducted in our schools for several years under the auspices of the New Bedford Evening Standard. We make no special preparations for these contests in conjunction with classroom work, all such preparations being carried on outside of school hours by those who are ambitious to take part. We find the Spelling Bees stimulating and well worthwhile and expect to continue them as long as the children desire to take part."

Newspaper men, who lend their cooperation to school officials making Spelling Bees successful, are equally enthusiastic. John S. Knight, managing editor of the Akron Beacon-Journal said: "You are at liberty to refer any interested editors to me in connection with the 1929 Spelling Bee, for I feel that it is something that any newspaper can well afford to sponsor."

Copies of indorsements from educators and journalists who have had experience with the Spelling Bee may be obtained by applying to Donald McWain, director of the National Spelling Bee, The Courier-Journal, Louisville, Ky.