Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

system suddenly, To tear up written. language by the roots would be undesirable, even were it possible. The Society proposes for present adoption only such changes as are immediately practicable, the present alphabet to remain unaltered, and no alteration is suggested that could be confusing or misleading. Here are THE TEN RULES

Proposed by the Philological Society.

1. e. Drop silent e when fonetically useless, writing er for re, as in live, single, eaten, rained, theatre. etc.

2. ea.-Drop a from ea having the sound of e, as in feather, leather, etc.

3. 0. For o having the sound of u in but, write u, as in above (abuv), tongue (tung), etc.

4. ou. Drop o from ou having the sound of u in but, as in trouble (trubl), rough (ruf) and the like, from our unaccented into or, in honour, etc. 5. u, ue.-Drop silent u after g before and in nativ English words, and drop final ue: guard, guess, catalogue, league, etc.

a,

6.-Dubl consonants may be simplified when fonetically useless; bailiff (not hall, etc.), battle (batl), written (writn), traveler, etc.

7. d.-Change d and ed final to t when so pronounced, as in looked (lookt), etc., unless the e affects the preceding sound as in chafed, etc.

8. gh, ph.-Change gh and ph to ƒ when so sounded enough (enuf), laughter (lafter), etc., phonetic (fonetic), etc.

9. 8.-Change s to z when so sounded, especially in distinctive words and in ise: abuse, verb (abuze), advertise (advertize), etc.

10. t.-Drop t in tch: catch, pitch, etc.

You will find these rules in the article furnished to Webster's International by Dr. March, to which I have already referred, and which it will pay you to read carefully, as illustrative of the method. In this connection I will also give you the key to the changes made in the sevenpage list of amended spellings proposed:

[blocks in formation]

The ten rules cover all the words in the half-dozen pages following the article in Webster, and the key indicates the manner of their application. As any one may see, so much is easily practicable.

It will be objected, of course, that this is only the entering wedge, and the real trouble will come later. This is true in so far as progress cannot be expected to stop short of a perfected, scientific, phonetic system; but this generation will not see that accomplished. Besides, the difficulty of mastering a complete phonetic system is greatly overestimated by those who have not tried it. Every short hand writer surmounts this obstacle with the addition of a full set of entirely new symbols, learns in a few months to write his language at least twice as rapidly as with the script alphabet, and escapes all spell ing drudgery once for all. I never heard of a single student of phonography who failed to master the mere symbolism. the basis of such experience, is it not safe to say that a teacher would find little difficulty in meeting the present requirements of this reform?

On

A recent experiment of my own bears directly upon the ease with which pupils. will acquire a phonetic system based on a known alphabet. A book printed in the ordinary character, with added symbols providing for all the sounds of the language, and which gave all verbs regular forms, added a new sexless pronoun, and made other supposed improvements, was presented to me by the publisher of The Journal. Finding it easy reading, I concluded to test it upon a thirteen-year-old grammar-school pupil, who had no preparation other than what you had given her in the city schools. The test was a severe one, the phonetic alphabet supplemented by unknown words and strange grammar; yet the result was thoroughly satisfactory. After a few hours' study she was able to read with considerable fluency, interrupted only by the unknown. words-the phonetic characters giving no trouble whatever. So much for the difficulty of mastering a phonetic system that makes use of the knowledge we already have! Making every allowance, I risk nothing in saying that teachers would be able to use such an alphabet after a week of study, and that pupils would read as well after using phonetic text-books from September to Christmas, as they would if kept at work on the present alphabet; while from that time forward they and

if kept at work on the present alphabet; | lesson? "First," continues Mr. Wren, while from that time forward they and you would be rid of the spelling nuisance for the balance of your lives, and future generations would know it no more forever! Is that not, indeed, "a consummation devoutly to be wished"?

This reform is at the door, and will enter whether we will or no; it is only a question of giving it a cheerful welcome, or hanging like a dead weight upon the wheels of progress. You will feel happier by accepting to day what to-morrow you must. Step into line with the procession or fall behind-that is your only choice.

Only one more word: if any of you are disposed to come to the front in this matter, do not be deterred by the venerable bugaboo of "authority" which will be industriously paraded by those who are well represented by the ball which hung on the safety-valve of the old boilers. There is no authority in matters of practical science but that of reason and common sense. Act in accordance with these, and you will have the consciousness of right-doing to support you now, and the honor and blessings of generations to

come.

WHAT IS EDUCATION.

"WHAT is education?" asks Mr. Walter Wren, and his answer occupies some six pages of a pamphlet under fifty pages. This is better than "Jesting Pilate's" treatment of a similar topic, but it can hardly be intended to be taken as a serious inquiry, and to treat it seriously would show a lack of humor, or, at least, a deficient sense of proportion. The title should have run, "On Accuracy: an address to schoolboys." As such it is in every way commendable-pithy, pointed, anecdotal, practical. The anecdotes must be read in the original, and we who, like Rab, are "full of sairiousness," will pick just one bone. "The study of natural science should come before all others. The works of God are better worth studying than the thoughts of men." this a false and misleading distinction? Are not the thoughts of men as much the work of God as the material world; nay, more so, in a sense, as man was created in God's own image? And this is no verbal quibble. Must not the child's first lesson-or, if you like lt, the preliminary of all form teaching - be a language be a language

"comes geography, taught at first by the globe and maps only, no books." Is not a map a highly artificial product of human wit, and does not the power to understand it imply a comparatively advanced stage of intelligence? And unless the human elements of history, the glamor of discovery, adventure, and travel be added, will not a map be to a child an illegible palimpsest, a hieroglyph? A map is a brief epitome, a far-off copy of a landscape, and of the landscape itself does not Heine tell us: "Nature, like a great poet, can produce the greatest effects with the most limited means. Here she has only a sun, trees and flowers, water and love. True, if the latest of these elements be lacking in the heart of the spectator, the whole will be but a wretched daub, the sun a sphere of so many miles in diameter, the trees so much timber and firewood, the flowers so many whorls of stamens and pistils, and the water so much oxygen and hydrogen in combination."-London Journal of Education.

SING THE OLD SONGS.

N many a patriotic exercise in our public schools the absence of genuinely patriotic music is positively painful. Too often, on these occasions, the musical selections are such as show off the fine musical training of the school or perhaps the marked talent of a few picked pupils. Now classical music is all right. It is educative, and let our American children, by all means, have the culture of it. But let us lay aside this classical music on patriotic occasions and let the whole school join with a hearty will in the rousing old national songs that wake up genuine love of country in the little men and women who sing them. children, as a whole, have looked on with pride and admiration while the exercises were going forward, whether they joined in them or not, and are toned up thereby to an aspiring pitch of enthusiasm where a ringing patriotic song like "Hail Columbia" or "Rally Round the Flag,' would be a physical relief. Instead they have listened rather ruefully to the finely executed music with unfamiliar words, and have gone away silently all their music in them.

These

More than one such mistake occurs every year in the schools, and nobody

dares say anything for fear of losing some reputation as admirers of classical music, just as crowds go silently away from symphony concerts meaning nothing to them.

A nineteenth century public school is made up, ofttimes, of every nationality under the sun. These children snatch only a few months or years from the clutch of Necessity for attending school. Is it not wise to improve every opportunity with this miscellaneous collection of boys and girls who are here to day and there to-morrow, but who will be a permanent part of the future republic, to deepen every loyal impulse and lead their training toward good citizenship? They are in a stage where character is cooling in the mold, and everything that can be done to fashion and form them aright must be done quickly. How can this be done better, as far as loyalty to country is concerned, than to encourage this singing together in contagious enthusiasm such inspiring old songs as "Columbia, the Gem of the Ocean,' "Star Spangled Banner," and always, first and last, 'America?" Besides these, the old war songs have not lost their inspiring power. "Three Cheers for the Red, White and Blue," has stoutened sinking hearts and quickened lagging footsteps when all the preaching and precepts in the world would have failed to have done either. Old songs are like old houses:- they have acquired a sentiment, a history, a mellowness of feeling, from hallowed associations that communicate a heart-warming, enriching influence.-Primary Education.

46

A

WHAT GOD GIVES A BOY.

BODY to live in and keep clean and healthy, and as a dwelling for his mind and a temple for his soul.

A pair of hands to use for himself and others, but never against others for himself.

A pair of feet to do errands of love and kindness and charity and business, but not to loiter in places of mischief or temptation or sin.

A pair of lips to keep pure and unpolluted by tobacco or whisky, and to speak true, kind, brave words; but not to make a smokestack of, or a swill trough.

A pair of ears to hear the music of bird and tree and rill and human voice; but not to give heed to what the serpent says, or to what dishonors God or his mother.

A pair of eyes to see the beautiful, the good, and the true-God's finger-prints in flower and field and snowflake-but not to feast on unclean pictures or the blotches which Satan daubs and calls pleasure.

A mind to remember and reason and decide and store up wisdom and impart it to others, but not to be turned into a chip basket or rubbish heap for the chaff and the rubbish and sweepings of the world's stale wit.

A soul as pure and spotless as a newfallen snowflake, to receive impressions of good and to develop faculties of powers and virtues which shall shape it day by day, as the artist's chisel shapes the stone, into the image and likeness of Jesus Christ.

ESSENCE OF READING.

BY MARGARET DEWITT.

WE all read.

E all read. We are the most voracious readers. But it is to the oral expression of these thoughts of others, to the oral expression of our own thoughts that too little attention is given.

If there be one topic more than another that the general teacher feels she cannot fail in teaching, it is reading. Yet the delivery of men from pulpit to rostrum testifies that there has been failure all along the line.

Educational forethought, recognizing reading as "the key-note of all knowledge," gives it a most important place on every course of study and a liberal margin of time. But withal, our pupils are not good readers, and as a consequence, not good talkers.

Children enjoy reading, are pleased to read. When the child for the first time grasps the sense contained in a group of words, he experiences a mental elation easily distinguished from a mere recognition of words. It is to that mental elation the appeal must be made for the true expression of the thought.

Every teacher meets the difficulty of obtaining correct phrasing in sentences. The old time method of pausing for a certain period at a certain punctuation mark, has been so long relegated to the shades that few modern teachers know it even existed. It had its use. It taught us negatively.

We are now confronted with the critical

spirit, that seems to permeate all literature and has found its way into the schoolroom. It is considered as especially adapted to procuring fine effects in reading.

Children criticise each other, usually upon faults. Occasionally, under the wiser guidance of the teacher, they are led to see virtues. Observation questions whether the child may not be robbed of his realization of the beauty of a sentiment by his endeavor to know just why his fellow-pupil so expressed the idea.

To the thoughtful, then, must come the ever pertinent-How? How may I attain all that is best from my pupils in this transmission of the thoughts of others, and ground them aright in the power to transmit their own?

Madame de Stael, we are told, owed her reputation and popularity, as a conversationalist, to her ability as a listener. First, then, the teacher must be a good listener. No small skill is necessary to manifest the same degree of pleasure on the seventeenth rendition of "The boy sees a cat," as upon the first. But it is a duty you owe as much to Seventeen as to One. The full reward will come in the added zest and relish in the lesson.

The power of interest in the individual effort of a pupil, cannot be too highly estimated. It is not sufficient that you apparently hear, you must hear gladly. Every variety of intonation and cadence, by which the child gives you what he has gained from the printed page, must find vibration in your ear.

True, he may strike falsely. But mark you well, whether his concept is the result of reasoning or of rashness. Check no individuality. Furnish him with no previous example, if you wish for the best within him. Allow his personality to show itself wherever possible.

What matter, if one render with fire, fury and outspoken tone, the other with suppressed but concentrated energy, so that each portray what he has gleaned from the mass of words before him?

Gain expression. The essentials, voice. and articulation, may be directed better from that standpoint.

Phonic analysis, spelling and diacritical marking, all of which are begun in the primary grades and should continue during school life, will perfect articulation. Labored and studied efforts will thus be avoided. A word grows in beauty by the dress you give it. Leave

it bare, it is commonplace. Garb it, as the child will find it in that great book that should be his constant companion, the dictionary, and you invest it with a new interest.

Correct pronunciation in the teacher leads to correct pronunciation from the pupil. Elegancies of diction are not lost even upon tiny ears.

It has been so customary to give drill upon the vowel elements only, in the cultivation of the voice, that it seems an unwritten law. Consonants, however, fill so large a space in our words, that, to me, they should receive an equal share of attention.

English so abounds in the sharp and sibilant s, that from the first year the child should be taught to soften and refine it. The disagreeable nasality that frequently accompanies ng, is overcome by carrying it up and down the scale. Sweett, of England, tells us that terminal. r is losing the smooth and burring sound so noticeable in the North and West and taking the liquid, pleasing vanish of our southern brothers.

[blocks in formation]

A SWEDISH boy fell out of a window and was badly hurt, but, with clenched lips, he kept back the cry of pain. The king, Gustavus Adolphus, who saw the boy fall, prophesied that the boy would make a man for an emergency. And so he did, for he became the famous General Bauer.

A boy used to crush the flowers to get their color, and painted the white sides of his father's cottage in Tyrol with all sorts of pictures, which the mountaineers gazed at as wonderful. He was the great artist Titian.

An old painter watched a little fellow who amused himself making drawings of his pot and brushes, easel and stool, and said: That boy will beat me one day." And he did, for he was Michael Angelo.

A German boy was reading a blood- | ory-although it has long since been and-thunder novel. Right in the midst of it he said to himself,Now, this will never do. I get too much excited over it. I can't study so well after it. So here it goes," and he flung the book out into the river. He was Fichte, the great German philosopher.-Christian Leader.

TRAINING OF TEACHERS.

BY FREDERIC BURK.

HE purpose of this article is not to

THE

deal with the problem of the preparation of teachers in its local aspects, but the illustrations are taken from schools in Massachusetts, upon the assumption that the problem as it is in Massachusetts is typical of general tendencies throughout the nation. A limited area of observation was chosen to warrant concrete and specific statement, and Massachusetts was selected for the historical reason that this State has been a leader in the systems of preparing teachers. More than one-third of the graduates of the normal schools in Massachusetts have passed through the courses in the first and last of the schools where the recitations that I have quoted were heard, and I venture to say that, with the exception of the graduates of one other school, practically all the normal school graduates in Massachusetts up to the year 1896 memorized similar definitions, and were drilled systematically in these pretensions of settled principles of education under the name of psychology and principles of education." The ruling tendency in the preparation of teachers proceeds on the assumption that a code of principles has been absolutely established upon the basis of the so-called introspective psychology, with its tastefully worded definitions and artistic classifications.

Now, this form of psychology was in the zenith of its popularity during the Middle Ages,-just after the time when a number of the sedate monks wearily withdrew from the mathematical disputes over the number of dancing demons a needle-point could comfortably accommodate, and fell to revealing, from their inner consciousness, the constructive principles by which God made the universe. The same view of psychology is the basis of much of the work done today in education,-in practice and the

abandoned in almost all other practical applications of the phenomena of mind. The teachers who promulgate these pretensions of the firm establishment of educational principles are honest and sincere to the core, and they are confident of the efficacy of the principles when properly applied according to the specific recipes which normal schools give their pupils. They believe what they say with the same fervid enthusiasm with which the ancients believed in the flatness of the earth. They come by these conceptions honestly and legitimately, for they were taught to accept them by their teachers as they are now retailing them to their own pupils. Thirty years ago this was the psychology of reputable colleges, and when the normal schools began to expand, it was considered proper, since teaching had to do with the training of the soul, to give instruction in the science which deals with the soul. Consequently a cargo of this old college psychology was shoveled into the normal schools. without much, if any, selection. The modern world has inherited this mediæval psychology as the horse has inherited his fetlock, not because he has any use for it, but simply because his ancestor had one.

But the cause of education is too important to the highest interests of the state, and of the individuals who compose it, to permit personal respect for good men and women to obscure the fact that the preparation of teachers is conducted upon a basis of the hallucinations of medieval mysticism,—on the assumption that the problems of mind have all been solved, and that classification and definition constitute the solution.

It was

a puerile confusion even in the Middle Ages, for Aristotle had pointed out, centuries before, that there is an essential distinction between the state of possessing wealth and the ability to define wealth. Of course, a large amount of the time devoted to this obsolete psy. chology is spent in making harmless definitions and classifications, which bear the same relation to modern psychology as those of Linnæus bear to modern botany. Except for the loss of time and energy that might be usefully applied, there can be no great objection to classifying judgments as those of "extent" and "content;" a farmer might, without injury to his product, separate his pea-pods for market into those which contain an even

« AnteriorContinuar »