The sixth lesson is extended so as to include not only the words of the preceding fifth lesson, but also fortytwo more of the same class or family. It has also the following caption or motto: 'How many things have we about us? Where is each one, and what is it for? The seventh lesson is the following; and is headed, 'We are not all alike.' forehead black hair white hair gray hair flaxen hair curly hair eyesight gray eyes black eyes bright eyes pale cheeks rosy cheeks front teeth double teeth hand breadth This arrangement of words involves one important principle to which the author has not, so far as we perceive, laid claim. It begins at home; teaching the child, so far as these early lessons have any influence of the kind-to observe his own frame. It gives him, in short, an introduction to physiology. At least it gives the teacher important hints; and no person who understands anatomy and physiology, would be likely to neglect them. What teacher, for example, who is teaching a child to read and spell the words eyes, eyebrow, eyelid, eyelash, &c., would fail to tell him something of their curious structure and uses? And so of the words teeth, tongue, throat, spine, marrow, pulse, knee pan, &c. It is, moreover, curious to see a first book for children stripped Further Remarks by the Author. $499 of the common array of figures and capitals, marks for accent, &c., and to see the words undivided into syllables, just as they should be, and just as they appear in ordinary reading. There is no rational reason, we are confident, for dividing the syllables, in our spelling books. On this topic, as well as several others, the author of My First School Book,' has the following excellent remarks, with which we close our extracts. A word in regard to pronunciation. A mumbling, indistinct articulation, besides being bad in itself, is the cause of much bad spelling. Insist, therefore, upon that which is (as far as good taste will permit) distinct, sharp-struck and square-edged, so that the syllables and letters will appear at once to the mind. Vociferation, however, with the strained, unnatural pitch of voice sometimes practised in schools, will not answer. This is entirely unfavorable to good articulation. This book takes it for granted, that the teacher is accomplished in regard to pronunciation; and is able to teach this, and some other things, in a practical manner, vica voce-the only way in which a child can learn them. Arbitrary rules, marks, divisions, &c., although they may be very beneficial to an ignorant teacher, are nothing but a perplexity and injury to the young scholar. 'The absence of pictures among the lessons is owing to the fact, that many experienced teachers have expressed an opinion, that, in books for the earliest instruction of children, they are rather a hindrance than a help, diverting the eye from that which should receive undivided attention. Every word should be a living picture. Although the sentences are placed entirely after the columns, it is not intended to have the child proceed according to this arrangement. After he is able to master a few pages of columns, he may commence with the stories, &c., in the second part, and thenceforward have the variety of alternation every day.' We scarcely need to add that he who would understand fully the character of the work, must procure and examine it for himself; and this can be done by any individual for the small sum of fifteen cents and a few leisure hours. It is not a task to which only the learned few are equal; it is quite a common sense affair, and we believe will approve itself to the plain common sense of the community. 500 Necessity of the Living Voice. IMPORTANCE OF DEFINING IN COMMON SCHOOLS. NO. III. We have dwelt the longer on this topic because it seems to us to be one of great and fundamental importance. The fact is, we may teach all things-that is, furnish the keys to a knowledge of all things-through this medium; or, if we choose to do so, we may neglect this subject, and thus leave every thing untaught. Children may study forever, and recite lessons forever, and with mathematical correctness too; and yet, if there are no conversational exercises in defining, in the spirit of those mentioned in our two former numbers, they never will have much real practical knowledge. They may indeed be parrots, but they never will become men. In short, it is scarcely too much to say that our real knowledge in life will ever bear a pretty exact proportion to the amount of time which has been expended on us in early life, by parents or teachers, in the invaluable exercise of defining. Books there indeed must be; study there must be; it must be hard study too: nor have we any serious objections to occasional recitations, even in the old dry manner. But it will not do to rely wholly on any of these, or on all of them united. Without the living voice, in familiar conversation, explanation and illustration, they are almost powerless. Hence it is easy to see how a community may abound with learned men, and yet be destitute of wise men. But it is not mere knowledge--dry science-for the accumumulation of which conversational and defining exercises are so valuable. Here, too, we may lay the foundation of all morality; so far we mean as morality can be taught. We believe, in fact, that this is the only way in which the inculcation of morality and religion can be made every day things, instead of being regarded as they have hitherto been, to a most lamentable extent-in the light of a Sunday or holiday dress, convenient for occasional purposes, but to be laid aside when those occasional purposes have been fully subserved. We might also say, in addition to all this, that there is a great deal of elementary knowledge on what are called the common concerns of life, which in the usual course of things never will be taught except in this way; knowledge, too, for want of which as we have already more than hinted, some very learned men seem to the mass of mankind as little better than fools or pedants. One species of this sort of knowledge is a clear and correct eye-measure. Nothing but familiar practical exercises will ever enable the young to judge with sufficient accuracy of height, Example of Defining. 501 distance, weight, contents, &c. Indeed it is next to impossible to pass through life with any good degree of satisfaction, or with any good degree of usefulness, without knowing how much is an inch, a foot, a yard-an ounce, a pound, a ton—a pint, a gallon, a barrel-a second, a minute, an hour-a rod, a rood, a mile,-&c. Another species of knowledge which is likely to be passed over, unless it is communicated in a familiar conversational manner, is the knowledge of ourselves. By this it is not meant that anatomy, and physiology, and hygiene, and moral and intellectual philosophy cannot be taught, in any degree, without conversation. We do mean however, that they will never be applied to the individual, that is, made practically useful, without it. We do mean to say that without it all the study of books, and the set recitations in the world, unaccompanied by conversation, will in the case of children and youth, fall far short of doing the good they ought to do. But with this preamble-and it seemed to us indispensable— we proceed to give another example or two of the importance of conversational instruction. And first we will take for this purpose, a scrap we have this moment found in a newspaper before us. We do so to show how often it is that the commonest articles are far from being understood. 'We learn that the steeple of Park Street Church, according to a recent admeasurement, is two hundred and eighteen feet and three inches above the level of the side-walk.' Now to say nothing of the doubt in which many persons will be left who see this paragraph in various papers, what Park Street Church is meant, since there are churches by this name in several of our cities, there are several things in it which to thousands of persons will be of no more value than Latin or Greek, for want of that kind of elementary instruction which it is the object of these essays to encourage. Of this description are the words feet and inches. We know it will startle some-but we shall not be the first to affirm it, even in this journal-when we say that the majority of our community neither form nor attempt to form any adequate ideas of the height of this steeple when they read this sentence. And this, too, for a very natural reason; few have any correct ideas how much a foot or an inch is. Since we commenced writing this article we have read this very paragraph to an individual who was many years engaged in school keeping; and we believe with what is usually denominated good success.' After reading it we inquired; Now have you any idea how great a distance 218 feet and 3 inches is?' 'Not in the least,' was the reply. But do you make no comparisons? Do you not think within yourself, Why it is so many times as high as my fathers house; or so many times as high as a certain tree, said to be 30 or 50 feet high?' No; I have no such data, as to distance or height, to start from.' 'Do you not know how much an inch or a foot is?' Not clearly.' How much is the length of that?' we said, pointing to a small object near us. 'About two inches.' It was nearer three inches than two, and if my friend's foot was proportionably long, it would be a very long foot. Perhaps under these circumstances it is well that no attempt was made to form a correct idea of the height of the steeple of Park Street Church, for assuming the smaller measure as my friend's standard of distance, he would have conceived of it as about 300 feet high. But this is not all. Multitudes of our scholars, male and female, who have very large collections of testimonials to their scholarship, do not form any thing like an accurate idea of the meaning of many other words which occur in this single short sentence. Such are recent, admeasurement, level and side-walk. We have found advanced scholars who did not know whether admeasurement had any other meaning-more or less-than measurement. Others cannot give a satisfactory definition of the word level. They know its meaning, perhaps they will say; but they cannot express it in words. This may sometimes be the fact; but it is more generally the case that there is no knowledge at all on the subject. And side-walk is as little understood, except by the few who live or have visited our cities. We have one more common newspaper paragraph, to present as an illustration of the importance of our subject. 'A Boston paper says that Caradori Allan, the distinguished vocalist volunteered to sing for the benefit of the Orphan's Asylum of New York, and afterwards sent in her bill for $500.' Now how few-how exceedingly few-readers get any thing like an adequate idea of the meaning of this short paragraph? Is there one person in a hundred, out of the circles of fashion and frivolity in our cities and towns, who ever heard of Caradori Allan? Is there one in a hundred, in city or country, who knows the full meaning of the words vocalist and volunteered? And how few know any thing about the Orphan Asylum in N. York, or about sending in bills, &c. A teacher who was thoroughly bent on making every thing intelligible to his pupils, and who was not wanting in moral courage, in reading the foregoing passage in his school or requesting a pupil to read it, would pursue something like the following course of instruction in relation to it. |