DICTATION EXERCISES. BY E. M. SEWELL, Author of "Amy Herbert," "A First History of Rome," "History of AND BY L. B. URBINO. SIXTH EDITION. NEW YORK LEYPOLDT & HOLT F. W. CHRISTERN. BOSTON: S. R. URBINO. 1870. Eduet 758.70.800 RARVARD COLLEGE LIBRARY GEORGE AEUGELATON Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1865, by S. R. URBINO, In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts. PREFACE. IT is now generally acknowledged, that English orthography is to be taught by the eye rather than the ear. The following exercises are founded upon this principle; yet there is no royal road to learning. Dictation Lessons may be very helpful if constantly repeated, and rules will be very useful if thoroughly understood and remembered; but to go through an exercise once, and then consider the work accomplished, is a mere waste of time. The Dictation Exercises should first be given to the pupil to read and study till the look as well as the sound of the words has been well imprinted on the mind. They should then be read aloud by the teacher; and, if the whole of the exercise is considered too long for dictation, the words printed in italics should be written down as they occur, the faults corrected, and the exercise repeated again and again, till it is perfect. This process may appear tedious; but it certainly cannot be as much so as the old system of column spelling. The very few rules, which are all that can be given in aid of English spelling, ought, in like manner, to be carefully explained, and the pupil should be made to see how they apply to the words introduced into the exercise. When once they are well fixed in the memory, a large number of the difficulties which so continually perplex young people in their first attempts at correct orthography will be found to be over come. Above all things, in teaching spelling, the sight of a word wrongly spelt should as much as possible be avoided. Exercises containing crroneous spelling are very undesirable; since, every time a word misspelt is placed before the eye, it leaves an impression which serves to confuse the child on future occasions. Parents often amuse themselves with the bad spelling of their children's letters, and it may indeed be amusing, at five or six years of age: but the consequences are very much the reverse at fifteen or sixteen, when a boy has perhaps to undergo a public examination, and finds his prospects for life injured because of his incorrect orthography; or when a girl is called upon to write a note and finds herself reduced to some petty deceit to hide her ignorance. We often hear it said, that correct spelling is to some persons an impossibility. The writer of the following exercises begs, speaking generally, to deny this assertion. It may be a great difficulty, but - except under some peculiar and rare physical or mental condition it is possible to all persons who will give themselves the trouble required to attain it. In instructing a child, no more mischievous assertion can be admitted than that - often so lightly made - "I never could spell." If translated into "I never would spell, because I was too indolent or too careless to make the effort," it would, in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, be nearer the truth, and the confession consequently prove more beneficial to the character. We resign ourselves to what we cannot do: we are ashamed of what we will not; and, with the sense of shame, there is hope that the energy may also be roused which will enable us to do better. THE AUTHOR. |