As a foreigner learning English in the 1960s, I was taught the 'open' and 'closed' vowel system, rather than 'magic e', meaning that when a vowel and a single consonant are followed by another vowel, the first vowel is long (sole, solo, hale, halo, tube, tubular). Two consonants, by contrast, keep the vowel short (hollow, hallowed, tubby).
Many hundreds of words conform to this system. Unfortunately quite a substantial number don't. Lots have a redundant -e (have, gone, are, imagine - cf save, bone, care, define). Many more don't have a doubled consonant after a short vowel (poppy - copy, ballad - salad, merry - very). So the system is not really all that systematic, thanks mainly to Sam Johnson who did not like to make words from Latin roots conform to English spelling rules.
It started well originally, but early printers (16th C) were paid by the line and often added extra letters (fisshe, shoppe). Most were dropped again in the 17th C, but those that escaped that cull have remained. And Johnson than made matter worse.
It would be very easy to make this area more orderly, and learning to read and write much easier than it is, but that does not seem to interest many people, and so the poor kids have to put up with lots of rote-learning word by word. Masha Bell