continued long enougn at school to accomplish it,-for I cannot suppose it to have come down to this day. If it has, however, I should feel impelled to pronounce it one of the most stupid and useless exercises ever introduced into a school-compared with which, the committing to memory' indiscriminately of all the pages of an almanac would be agreeable, beneficial, and instructive.

"To say that it would be impossible to remember the definitions thus abstractedly learned, would be to assert what must be perfectly obvious to every one. And even if they could be remembered, they would be of little utility; for as the right application of a definition must depend entirely on the situation of the word to be explained and the office it performs in a sentence, the repeating of half a score of meanings as obscure perhaps as the word itself, conveys no definite thought, and serves rather to darken than illuminate the mind.

"As a book of reference a dictionary is useful, although it must be confessed that, even with the best, one often finds himself obliged to make his own explanation, in preference to any furnished by the lexicographer; and the teacher or the pupil who relies exclusively on his dictionary, without the exercise of much discretion, for the definition of whatever words he may find in the course of his studies, will not unfrequently fall into very awkward and absurd mistakes.

Experience and common sense must lend their aid the former to teach us what is practicable; and the latter, what is appropriate and useful."

The following extracts are from two other excellent American works on Education, the "Teacher's Manual" and "The School and the Schoolmaster."

"In the old-fashioned school a vast deal of time is spent to very little purpose, in the acquisition of spelling; it being commonly found, that the most adroit speller in the class cannot write half a dozen lines without orthographical blunders. What can be the cause of so signal a failure, with such an appearance of proficiency? The subject well deserves examination.

"The columns of the spelling-book are committed to memory; and, when the student can spell the whole orally, he takes it for granted that he is a proficient in orthography. But this by no means follows; for the number of words in the largest spelling-book does not exceed seven thousand, whereas there are upwards of eighty thousand words in the English language.

"The words in the spelling-book are selected and arranged, chiefly with a view to teach the elements of reading; and it does not contain half the anomalies of orthography. Indeed, the greatest number of these anomalies occur in the words in most common use, few of which are to be found in any spelling-book."

"It is found, by experience, that spelling well orally, and writing orthographically, are really different acquirements; and that a child, very expert in the former, may be very deficient in the latter. Nothing can show, more strikingly, the folly of the oral method of teaching spelling, than this fact, the truth of which is now generally acknowledged. Of the generation now on the stage of life, whose education has been confined to the district school, although, at least, one-third of their time was spent in drilling from the spelling-book, not one in ten can write a letter of even a few lines without blundering in orthography."

"An excellent plan of teaching SPELLING is, to give out sentences to be written containing the difficult words, or, rather, to give out the words, and require the pupil to make sentences including them. They thus become fixed in the memory so as never to be erased. The objection that will be made to this course is the time which it takes. When, however, it is considered that by this exercise not only is spelling taught, but writing and composition, and all of them in the way in which they ought to be taught, that is, in the way in which they will be used, the objection loses its weight. As spelling is usually taught, it is of no practical use; and every observer must have met with many instances of persons who had been drilled in the columns of spelling-books and dictionaries for

1

years, who misspelt the most common words in the language as soon as they were set to write them."

Notwithstanding all that has been said and written against the old and absurd practice of loading the memory of children, day after day, and year after year, with heaps of unconnected, and to them, unmeaning words, many teachers, particularly of schools in remote districts, continue to use spellingbooks and dictionaries "in the old way." And even in some schools of a superior class the practice is persevered in because, as the teachers will tell you, the parents of the children like to see them thumbing over their "spellings and meanings" in the evenings at home. Besides, as we have heard an intelligent and candid teacher, who admitted the absurdity of the practice, say, "It is an easy way for the teacher of keeping the children employed." Now this we admit, for however great the difficulty and drudgery may be to the children, it is doubtless an easy way for the teacher of keeping them employed.

That SPELLING may be learned more easily and more effectually without SPELLING-BOOKS must be evident from what we have said and quoted. And that a person may learn to spell without ever having had a spelling-book in his hand, is equally certain; for in teaching Latin, French, or any other foreign language, there are no spelling-books used; nor is the want of such a book ever felt. Nor do we ever hear that the persons who learn any of these languages find any difficulty in writing, that is, in spelling the words.

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ENGLISH VERBAL DISTINCTIONS.

"It is a shame for a man to be so ignorant of this little art, as to be perpetually confounding words of like sound and different signification; the consciousness of which defect makes some men, otherwise of good learning and understanding, averse to writing even a common letter.”— *Franklin.

CLASS FIRST.

WORDS PRONOUNCED EXACTLY ALIKE, BUT DIFFERING IN SPELLING AND SIGNIFICATION.

[The first word in each case indicates the pronunciation.]