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Silent and Vocal Reading.

it is this "terrible familiarity " that has prevented our seeing till quite lately that reading is the art of getting meaning by signs that appeal to the eye, not the art of reporting to otners the meaning we have thus arrived at. "Accustoming boys to read aloud what they do not first understand,” says Benjamin Franklin, "is the cause of those even set tones so common among readers, which, when they have once got a habit of using [them], they find so difficult to correct; by which means, among fifty readers we scarcely find a good one." (Essays, Sk. of English Sch.) It seems to have escaped even Franklin's sagacity that reading aloud is a different art to the art of reading, and a much harder one. The two should be studied separately, and most time and attention should be given to silent reading, which is by far the more important of the two. Colonel F. W. Parker, who has successfully cultivated the power of "looking straight at" things, gives us in his Talks on Teaching the right rule for reading. Changing," says he, "the beautiful power of expression, full of melody, harmony, and correct emphasis and inflection, to the slow, painful, almost agonising pronunciation that we have heard so many times in the school-room, is a terrible sin that we should never be guilty of. There is, indeed, not the slightest need of changing a good habit to a miserable one if we would follow the rule that the child has naturally followed all his life. Never allow a child to give a thought till he gets it" (p. 37). Now that the existence of a thought in children is allowed for, we may expect all sorts of improvements. Reading, as a means of ascertaining thought, is second only to hearing, and this art should be cultivated by giving children books of questions (e.g., Horace Grant's Arithmeti

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Memorising poetry. Composition.

for Young Children), and requiring the learner silently to get at the question and then give the answer aloud.

$ 13. Easy descriptive and narrative poetry should be learnt by heart at this stage. That the children may repeat it well, they should get their first notions of it from the master vivâ voce. According to the usual plan, they get it up with false emphasis and false stops, and the more thoroughly they have learnt the piece, the more difficulty the master has in making them say it properly.

§ 14. Every lesson should be worked over in various ways. The columns of words at the end of the reading lessons may be printed with writing characters, and used for copies. To write an upright column either of words or figures is an excellent exercise in neatness. The columns will also be used as spelling lessons, and the children may be questioned about the meaning of the words. The poetry, when thoroughly learned, may sometimes be written from memory. Sentences from the book may be copied either directly or from the black-board, and afterwards used for dictation.

15. Boys should, as soon as possible, be accustomed to write out fables, or the substance of other reading lessons, in their own words. They may also write descriptions of things with which they are familiar, or any event which has recently happened, such as a country excursion. Every one feels the necessity, on grounds of practical utility at all events, of boys being taught to express their thoughts neatly on paper, in good English and with correct spelling. Yet this is a point rarely reached before the age of fifteen or sixteen, often never reached at all. The reason is, that written exercises must be carefully looked over by the master, or they are done in a slovenly manner. Anyone

Correcting exercises. Three kinds of books.

who has never taught in a school will say, "Then let the master carefully look them over." But the expenditure of time and trouble this involves on the master is so great, that in the end he is pretty sure either to have few exercises written, or to neglect to look them over. The only remedy

is for the master not to have many boys to

teach, and not to be many hours in school. Even then, unless he set apart a special time every day for correcting exercises, he is likely to find them "increase upon him."

§ 16. The course of reading-books, accompanied by large illustrations, may go on to many other things which the children see around them, such as trees and plants, and so lead up to instruction in natural history and physiology. But in imparting all knowledge of this kind, we should aim, not at getting the children to remember a number of facts, but at opening their eyes, and extending the range of their interests.

§ 17. I should suggest, then, for children, three books to be used concurrently, viz., a reading book about animals. and things, a poetry book, and a prose narrative or Æsop's Fables. With the first commences a series culminating in works of science; with the second, a series that should lead up to Milton and Shakespeare; the third should be succeeded by some of our best writers in prose.

§ 18. But many schoolmasters will shudder at the thought of a child's spending a year or two at school without ever hearing of the Heptarchy or Magna Charta, and without knowing the names of the great towns in any country of Europe. I confess I regard this ignorance with great equanimity. If the child, or the youth even, takes no interest in the Heptarchy and Magna Charta, and knows nothing of the towns but their names, I think him quite as

No epitomes.

well off without this knowledge as with it-perhaps better, as such knowledge turns the lad into a "wind-bag," as Carlyle might say, and gives him the appearance of being well-informed without the reality. But I neither despise a knowledge of history and geography; nor do I think that these studies should be neglected for foreign languages or science and it is because I should wish a pupil of mine to become, in the end, thoroughly conversant in history and geography, that I should, if possible, conceal from him the existence of the numerous school manuals on these subjects.

We will suppose that a parent meets with a book which he thinks will be both instructive and entertaining to his children. But the book is a large one, and would take a long time to get through; so instead of reading any part of it to them or letting them read it for themselves, he makes them learn by heart the table of contents. The children do not find it entertaining; they get a horror of the book, which prevents their ever looking at it afterwards, and they forget what they have learnt as soon as they possibly can. Just such is the sagacious plan adopted in teaching history and geography in schools, and such are the natural consequences. Every student knows that the use of an epitome is to systematise knowledge, not to communicate it, and yet, in teaching, we give the epitome first, and allow it to precede, or rather to supplant, the knowledge epitomised The children are disgusted, and no wonder. The subjects, indeed, are interesting, but not so the epitomes. I suppose if we could see the skeletons of the Gunnings, we should not find them more fascinating than any other skeletons.*

* Books for a beginner should contain a little matter in much space,

Ascham, Bacon, Goldsmith, against them.

§ 19. The first thing to be aimed at, then, is to excite the children's interest. Even if we thought of nothing but the acquiring of information, this is clearly the true method.

and, as they are usually written, they contain much matter in a little space. Nothing can be truer than the saying of Lakanal, “L'abrégé est le contraire de l'élémentaire: That which is abridged is just the opposite of that which is elementary." When shall we learn what seems obvious in itself and what is taught us by the great authorities? "Epitome," says Ascham, "is good privately for himself that doth work it, but ill commonly for all others that use other men's labour therein. A silly poor kind of study, not unlike to the doing of those poor folk which neither till, nor sow, nor reap themselves, but glean by stealth upon other's grounds. Such have empty barns for dear years." (School Master, Book ij.) Bacon says (De Aug., lib. vj., cap. iv.), "Ad pædagogicam quod attinet brevissimum foret dictu.

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imprimis consuluerim ut caveatur a compendiis: Not much about pedagogics. . . My chief advice is, keep clear of compendiums.” And yet "the table of contents" method which I suggested in irony I afterwards found proposed in all seriousness in an announcement of Dr. J. F. Bright's English History: "The marginal analysis has been collected at the beginning of the volume so as to form an abstract of the history suitable for the use of those who are beginning the study."

I would rather listen to Oliver Goldsmith: "In history, such stories alone should be laid before them as might catch the imagination : instead of this, they are too frequently obliged to toil through the four Empires, as they are called, where their memories are burthened by a number of disgusting names that destroy all their future relish for our best historians." (Letter on Education in the Bee: a letter containing so much new truth that Goldsmith in re-publishing it had to point out that it had appeared before Rousseau's Emile.) A modern authority on education has come to the same conclusion as Goldsmith. teaching in history will not give dates, but will show the learner men and actions likely to make an impression on him. Der erste Geschichtsunterricht wird nicht Jahreszahlen geben, sondern eindrucksvolle Personen und Thaten vorführen." (L. Wiese's Deutsche Bildungsfragen, 1871.

"The first

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