PARTS AND MATERIALS OF OBJECTS

You begin to see the value of both special and general terms. This lesson will give you another good way for increasing your stock of special names. For a day or two you may consider the parts and the materials of certain objects. To learn what you need to know, you may find it necessary to question your parents and friends, the shoemaker, the blacksmith, and many other people. However, the asking of questions respectfully at a proper time is one of the best ways for getting information.

I shall not give you for study anything so complicated as a ship or an engine; for only persons who have studied those objects long and carefully could tell much about their parts. However, any one of you who wishes to do so may use the term engine or ship in place of one of those given in your exercises." This little rime shows at least that its writer knew something about a gun. How many Johns did John Ball shoot?

"John Patch made the match,

And John Clint made the flint,

And John Puzzle made the muzzle,
And John Crowder made the powder,
And John Block made the stock,
And John Brammer made the hammer,

And John Wiming made the priming,

And John Scott made the shot;

But John Ball shot them all."

*From "Golden Rod Books." By permission of the publishers, Uni

versity Publishing Company.

52

you

"Yes."

A good game for you to play now is called "Three KingIf have a large number of players, doms," or "Guessing." first divide into equal parties by choosing sides. Each side room and must send a guesser out of must have its own hearing. A word may now be decided upon to be guessed (each side in turn choosing a word). Suppose a certain shoe is agreed upon. All observe that it has cotton lining, iron nails, The guessers are brass eyelets, and leather soles and uppers. called back each into the room of the other party. A guesser may ask, "Does it belong to the mineral kingdom?” "Has it any part belonging to the vegetable kingdom?" "Then it belongs to "Yes." "Is it partly animal?" "Yes." These questions are all three kingdoms?" "Yes ;" and so on. The next step is answered in turn by the ones not guessing. to locate the object, if possible. "Is it in America?" and so forth. A good guesser will be very rapid in his questions, and will often locate an object in a few minutes. The side guessing the object first may choose a player from the opposite side, who must leave his own side and join the other; or, sometimes, merely the words guessed on each side are counted to see which side wins. It is not considered fair play to ask "Does it begin for child who can spell with A?" "with B?" and so on; could guess things that way, and this would imply no skill in think it easy to ask good questions? asking questions. Do

you

Not for everybody, I am sure.

any

Would you like to read a few lines showing how a man who loves and understands a steam-engine in all its parts has thrown his thought about it into rime?

The crank-throws give the double-bass, the feed-pump sobs an' heaves,
An' now the main eccentrics start their quarrel on the sheaves :

Her time, her own appointed time, the rocking link-head bides,
Till-hear that note? the rod's return whings glimmerin' through the

guides.

They're all awa'!

True beat, full power, the clangin' chorus goes
Clear to the tunnel where they sit, my purrin' dynamos.

Fra skylight-lift to furnace-bars, backed, bolted, braced an' stayed,
An' singin' like the Mornin' Stars for joy that they are made.

From "Mc Andrews' Hymn," by Rudyard Kipling.*

It is not necessary for you to understand all about an engine in order to enjoy the poetry of this "Song o' Steam."

Study the two following extracts from Oliver Wendell Holmes' "One-Hoss-Shay," and consider how thoroly he needed to know the parts and materials of a chaise in order to describe the "Shay." A listing of parts such as this is called enumeration, and is one sort of description. If possible, obtain the poem and read the entire story.

† So the Deacon inquired of the village folk
Where he could find the strongest oak,

That couldn't be split nor bent nor broke,-
That was for spokes and floor and sills;

He sent for lancewood to make the thills;

The crossbars were ash from the straightest trees,

The panels of whitewood, that cuts like cheese,

But lasts like iron for things like these;

The hubs of logs from the "Settler's ellum,”

By permission of Mr. Kipling and of his publishers, Charles Scribner's Sons.

+ Reprinted by permission of Houghton, Mifflin & Company, authorized publishers of Holmes' works.

54

And the wedges flew from between their lips,
Their blunt ends frizzled like celery-tips;
Step and prop-iron, bolt and screw,
Spring, tire, axle, and linchpin too,
Steel of the finest, bright and blue;
Thoroughbrace bison-skin, thick and wide;
Boot, top, dasher, from tough old hide
Found in the pit when the tanner died.
That was the way he "put her through."
"There," said the Deacon, "naow she'll dew!"

First of November, the Earthquake-day,—

-

There are traces of age in the one-hoss shay,

A general flavor of mild decay,

But nothing local, as one may say.

There couldn't be,- for the Deacon's art

Had made it so like in every part

That there wasn't a chance for one to start.
For the wheels were just as strong as the thills,
And the floor was just as strong as the sills,
And the panels just as strong as the floor,
And the whipple-tree neither less nor more,
And the back-crossbar as strong as the fore,

And spring and axle and hub encore.

And yet, as a whole, it is past a doubt

In another hour it will be worn out!

EXERCISES

I. Oral; Written for class; and later Written in wordbooks: Give (a) the parts and (b) the materials of:

7. sewing-
machine.

10. shoe

[or bonnet] 11. harness

[or wagon]

[or clock]

9. jackknife

12. bicycle

[or table]

II. Suggested: Let each pupil bring to class any one object he may select, and name there its parts and its materials.

III. Suggested: A game in which each pupil may read or recite the parts and materials of some object, while the rest of the class guess what is described.

IV. Suggested: Definitions of any sort rapidly read or recited by the teacher while the class guess the object defined.

I sift the snow on the mountains below,
And their great pines groan aghast;
And all the night 'tis my pillow white,
While I sleep in the arms of the blast.
That orbed maiden, with white fire laden,
Whom mortals call the moon,

Glides glimmering o'er my fleece-like floor,
By the midnight breezes strewn ;

And wherever the beat of her unseen feet,

Which only the angels hear,

May have broken the woof of my tent's thin roof,

The stars peep behind her and peer;

And I laugh to see them whirl and flee,

Like a swarm of golden bees,

When I widen the rent in my wind-built tent,
Till the calm rivers, lakes, and seas,

Like strips of the sky fallen through me on high
Are each paved with the moon and these.
I am the daughter of earth and water,

And the nursling of the sky;

I pass through the pores of the ocean an.. shores;

I change, but I cannot die.

From The Cloud," by Percy Bysshe Shelley.