E-text prepared by MFR
and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team
([http://www.pgdp.net])
from page images generously made available by
Internet Archive
([https://archive.org])

READING:
HOW TO TEACH IT.

W. M. Hunt.

GIRL READING.

Reading:
How To Teach It

By
Sarah Louise Arnold

Supervisor of Schools, Boston, Mass., and author of “Stepping Stones to Literature,” “Waymarks for Teachers,” etc.

Silver, Burdett and Company
Boston New York Chicago

Copyright, 1899
By
Silver, Burdett and Company

GREETING.

The teacher of children must know how to guide her work so that the seemingly trivial beginnings shall tend toward a goal whose attainment is worth striving for. Hers is a day of small things. The child does not see the end from the beginning, but the teacher must, and the constant recognition of the desired object must influence her simplest lesson.

These pages are written in the hope of helping teachers to appreciate the true import of the familiar task. They attempt to interpret and to dignify the commonplace routine. They have grown out of thoughtful experience, and are sent forth with good will, to their service.

Sarah Louise Arnold.

Boston, Mass., July, 1899.

CONTENTS.

Consider what you have in the smallest chosen library. A company of the wisest and wittiest men that could be picked out of all civil countries, in a thousand years, have set in best order the results of their learning and wisdom. The men themselves were hidden and inaccessible, solitary, impatient of interruption, fenced by etiquette; but the thought that they did not uncover to their bosom friend is here written out in transparent words to us, the strangers of another age. We owe to books those general benefits which come from high intellectual action. Thus, I think, we often owe to them the perception of immortality. They impart sympathetic activity to the moral power. Go with mean people, and you think life is mean. Then read Plutarch, and the world is a proud place, peopled with men of positive quality, with heroes and demi-gods standing around us, who will not let us sleep. Then they address the imagination: only poetry inspires poetry. They become the organic culture of the time. College education is the reading of certain books which the common sense of all scholars agrees will represent the science already accumulated. In the highest civilization, the book is still the highest delight.

Ralph Waldo Emerson.

READING: HOW TO TEACH IT.

CHAPTER I.
WHY DO WE READ?

The power to read is so ordinary a part of our mental equipment that we rarely question its meaning or its origin. All common things pass us unchallenged, however marvellous they may be. We take little note of our sunrises and sunsets, the hill range which we see every day from our window, the clear air which infuses new energies into our lives with every new morning. Common institutions, however precious—the home, the school, the church, the state—are received by us as a matter of course, just as children receive without surprise the most valuable gifts from the hands of their friends. We need not marvel, then, that this power, which has so long been a part of ourselves, should remain unquestioned, or that we learn to read without giving a thought to the motive which impels us to learn. It may be well for even the most thoughtful among us to pause for a moment to question why everybody learns to read; to ponder the returns from the effort, the time, and the pains spent in the mastery of the art.

It is evident that our estimate of the value of reading will depend upon our kind of reading; or, in other words, the kind of knowledge which we gain from reading. For example, you and I may turn to the daily newspaper for a certain knowledge to direct our everyday plans. We wish to go to the city on the morrow:—this evening’s paper warns us of an approaching rain; we therefore provide ourselves with an umbrella before starting on our journey. Or we desire to hear Nansen’s lecture:—the newspaper apprises us of the time, the place, the subject, the cost of tickets, the place where they are to be sold, the arrangement for extra trains. Or, again, we plan a trip to Florida:—the ways and means of going, the departure and arrival of trains, the choice of routes, the cost of the journey, the hotels which we may expect to find, together with a thousand other items,—all these are learned by means of time-tables, guide-books, and printed pamphlets, which we carefully read before going. Without this information which has been written down for us, and without this power on our part to read it, our journey would be to us like that of a traveller in an unexplored country, except as our friends give us the result of their experience. The business man consults the paper to learn of the quotations of stocks and bonds, the arrival or departure of ships, the scarcity or abundance of crops. The enthusiastic bicyclist learns of the proposed runs of the club through the obliging columns of the paper; his guide-book supplies the directions which take him safely to his journey’s end, or the descriptions which interpret to him the places through which he rides. Can we imagine ourselves as bereft of this power of reading the printed directions which are every day consulted by us for our ordinary convenience? How limited, how hindered our lives would seem to us with this power withdrawn!

Through the various agencies to which we have referred, and similar sources equally familiar to us, we share the experience of others and add to our limited life that which they have learned for us. Our power is multiplied, our convenience is assured, our happiness is increased by means of the work which has been done by others. The fruit of others’ thought and experience is stored ready for our use as soon as we have mastered the art of reading. Therefore, in order that we may add to our own power by sharing the experience and wisdom of others in the management of our everyday, practical affairs, we have learned to read.

And, furthermore, as members of a community we need to know what others are doing. We cannot live to ourselves alone. Ordinary intelligence demands a knowledge of contemporary events. A strike in the Fall River mills, a freshet in the Connecticut Valley, a cyclone in Iowa, a frost in Florida, a famine or a pestilence in India, a war in Cuba, the threatened partition of China, the accession of Hawaii, are matters which pertain to us also. In these days of rapid transmission of intelligence, the world has become one great family, and in proportion as one recognizes his responsibility to the brotherhood of which he is a member, he will be interested to know the deeds of other men, the happenings in other communities. These exert a direct influence upon our own environment. Therefore we read to obtain knowledge of the life about us, in countries near and remote; and in proportion as our interest is wide and intelligent does such reading become a necessity to us.

Moreover, an intelligent judgment of the events of the present involves a knowledge of the past, which to so large a degree determines the present. What men have done, what they have discovered, what they have thought, in the ages that are past, enables us to interpret the present. A complete knowledge of our own time is the possession only of the man who can read the past. The history of any nation, the development of any art or science, the growth of any religion can be known only to him who reads. The student of his own times must turn to the life of the yesterdays for answers to the problems which are confronting him. The experience of the past has been chronicled in books in order that we may share the blessings of that experience. How narrow seems the life of the person who is without the power to read even the outlines of that history! We have but to imagine the books of the past as closed to the entire world, and the power of reading as cut off from every one, to realize the individual loss when the power of thus reading is withheld. It is a recognized truth that the broader one’s life, the greater his consciousness of the necessity for general knowledge such as is gained from books.

A fourth type of reading is suggested by the ministrations of literature. If we imagine ourselves as seated by the study table reading our favorite poem, we shall recognize that it has been through the reading of literature that much of our highest inspiration has come to us. It is the poet who brings to us true insight into our own experience, who interprets for us the great problems of life. With what joy and exultation we recall our magnificent hymns! What waves of emotion sweep over us as we read the lines in which the master hand has recorded the deepest experiences! For enjoyment, for culture, for spiritual help we turn to the higher order of books. In the truest sense, this reading directs our lives, interprets our experiences, and determines our ideals. We cannot imagine ourselves as defrauded of this birthright. How meagre would our lives at once become if every vestige of the treasures of literature was removed from our experience:—the army without the battle hymn, the home without the poem, the struggle without the psalm of courage, the mortal defeat without the inspiring shout of spiritual triumph! In attempting thus to picture a life without the inspiration of literature, we realize our dependence upon its teachings. The higher our conception of living, the fuller our realization of the help which comes to us through literature.

Our motives in reading, then, may be recorded in an ascending series: To obtain practical guidance in everyday affairs; to enrich our lives with the experience of our neighbors; to share the wisdom resulting from the experience of the past; to gain pleasure, insight, and spiritual direction. Any one of these motives would be sufficient to warrant us in teaching reading; through any one of these results we are fitted to become better members of the community. But can we draw the line, giving to our children the lower results only, where so much might well be given?

We have asked why we read, and the question which naturally follows is: “What shall we read?” We must be able to read ordinary facts affecting our everyday life, expressed in the terms of that life. Such reading involves little growth. Its purposes are exceedingly practical in the ordinary sense of the term. There is little widening of our horizon, little deepening of our experience in consequence of such practice. Second, we should read such books and papers as will serve to inform us of contemporary events,—such events as really have a bearing upon our present environment or the life of the future. This reading gives us knowledge of other peoples and places, widening our horizon, and urging us back to study, with clearer eyes, the environment which has been constantly about us. Only thus can we truly see the life which is nearest to us. Third, the reading of the past leads us to the pages of history in which the best has been chronicled. As has been said, the knowledge of the present can be obtained only through the interpretation of the past. That life is narrow indeed which confines its range to the present alone. And fourth, we must be able to read and interpret literature, a reading which requires a fuller power than any which has been heretofore described, and involves a higher type of teaching.

In the thought of many parents and friends of the school, the immediately practical aim of reading is the only one considered. Because reading facilitates buying and selling, coming and going, and is ordinarily accepted as a mark of intelligence, it is considered as an essential in our school courses. But the higher our conception of life, the higher will be our conception of education; and with the higher conception of education comes the acceptance of the higher aim, even in our simplest teaching. We may learn to read in such a way that we never rise beyond the first result of our attainment. This will almost assuredly be the case if the so-called “practical” aim is the only one considered; but if, from the beginning, the teacher’s hope and that of the parent are that the child may grow into fuller power, we shall find his life strengthened and inspired by the loftier aim, by the surer accomplishment of the greater result. “Seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you.” The old saying is far from being interpreted in these days of hurrying to obtain the immediate and the practical,—but it is forever true that as our aim becomes higher, the type of our work becomes nobler, while the character of the results justifies our endeavors. The greater will include the less, but the lower aim may never lead to the higher. Can we dare to withhold from our children the comfort, the inspiration, the strength, the guidance that has come to us through the higher type of reading? Is it not a necessity that, from the beginning, they shall be taught to look forward to such power of acquisition as shall open to them the treasures of experience which have been written down for them in the best books?

It is as undesirable as it is impossible to try to feed the minds of children only upon facts of observation or record. The immense product of the imagination in art and literature is a concrete fact with which every educated being should be made somewhat familiar, such products being a very real part of every individual’s actual environment. … Do we not all know many people who seem to live in a mental vacuum—to whom we have great difficulty in attributing immortality, because they apparently have so little life except that of the body? Fifteen minutes a day of good reading would give any one of this multitude a really human life. “The uplifting of the democratic masses depends upon the implanting at schools of the taste for good reading.”

Charles W. Eliot.

CHAPTER II.
LITERATURE IN THE SCHOOL-ROOM.

Learning to read is an important part of the children’s training, but learning what to read is quite as important. A child’s mastery of the printed page may leave him with the key to that which is base and ignoble in literature, or it may open to him that which is noble and inspiring. His newly gotten power may unlock to him the dime novel, or the Iliad. Whether he turns to the one or to the other depends largely upon his early associations. It is determined especially by his early teaching.

To present the right standard or pattern is one of the functions of the teacher. This is equally true whether the lesson be the form of a Latin verb, the shape of a vase, the polite fashion of address, or the choice of books. To set the copy was of old the teacher’s part, and it must still occupy a prominent place in our work. For the sake of giving the children right ideals, we must place before them the best in literature, such literature as will supply not only standards in language, but ideals in character. Their experience, like ours, must be reënforced by the teachings of others—the lessons which have been treasured in books—and these lessons must begin in childhood. It is a mistake to postpone good literature until the child has mastered word forms and the technique of reading. His love for the good must exist before he begins to read at all, and must be stimulated and strengthened by means of his reading. At the same time that he becomes master of the mechanics of reading, he should be endowed with the desire to choose that which is good to read. The work of the teacher, therefore, is to establish ideals, to quicken desire, to strengthen right tendencies, to lead to wise choices. These belong to the teaching of reading, and should assume quite as important a place as does the mastery of words, or fluency in expression.

As has been said, good literature should not be postponed until the children can read it for themselves. A study of our own experience will assure us that the teachings of our childhood have made the most lasting impression upon us. It is the childhood association which moves us most strongly to-day. As the twig is bent the tree is inclined. There comes a time in the tree’s history when its inclination is fixed. It is the young tree which is shaped by the skill of the nurseryman. The best of poems should be read and recited to little children. “Tell me a story,” or “Read to me,” is the oft-repeated plea in the home. It indicates the child’s desire, and his need as well. Let us be taught by the children. Here is our opportunity to present to them the story that is worth telling, the poem that is worth reading. “Tell it again,” we hear, after every recital, and again and again and again the loved story is repeated. Should we not be assured that the oft-heard word is worthy of this frequent repetition? If the child asks for bread, shall we give him a stone?

In the home, long before the child enters school, he should become familiar with true stories, fairy stories, exquisite songs, beautiful poems, adapted to his intelligence, suited to his interest. If this good work has been done at home it should be continued by the teacher. If it has been neglected by the home friends, it necessarily becomes a part of the teacher’s work. The child’s mind should be furnished with the best stories and poems before he begins his primer. So shall he long to master the art which shall open books to him for his own reading, and every step which his baby feet take in the path to his desire shall bring him consciously nearer to the longed-for treasure.

Through the first years of the school life, telling stories, reciting poems, or reading to the children should be a frequent exercise. This may occur in the time of the reading lesson, in the language lesson, or the morning talk. The benefits derived from this practice are two-fold. The stories and the poems give to the children new material for thought; they also help them to acquire a taste for good things which will cause them to choose instinctively that which is good when they are left free to choose. Children who have been accustomed to the stories of the Iliad, will read and re-read this treasure in later life with an advantage which could not have been theirs had not the heroes of the old story been the companions of their childhood’s thought. We can hardly imagine that boys accustomed to such associations will be satisfied with the cheap and pernicious pages of the dime novel. A mind well furnished with good things will appropriate good to itself. It is the empty head which becomes filled with that which is cheap and mean. The children of a certain city were once asked without previous notice to write down something which they had memorized. Those who had not been taught in school to memorize choice selections, wrote pages of curious and uncouth rhymes, which they had learned in various ways. The exercise proved conclusively that they must be helped to choose wisely. The choice will never be between the good and nothing, fulness and emptiness: it will always be a choice between the good and the bad.

Let us read to the children, then. Let their own desires guide our selection in the beginning. The true story, the fairy story, the poem, may be read or recited in turn. The children’s plea for repetition will teach us what their present choice is. If we are wise we shall be instructed by their comments and questions.

Three rules should guide our choice of literature: First, give the children what is good. Second, give them what we like. Third, give them what they like.

The first rule needs no interpretation. With so much that is precious waiting to be taught, we cannot be satisfied with any lesson material worthless in itself. Life is too short and its time too sacred to admit of such harmful dallying.

The second rule is always a safe one. We must teach that which belongs to us. We cannot give to the children what is not ours to give. The poem or story which we enjoy because it answers to something in our nature, we shall be able to teach to them. We may repeat, but we cannot teach, that which has not entered into our own lives. Therefore, if we do not love and appreciate what is good in literature, our first duty is to teach ourselves, in order that we may be prepared to teach the children.

The third rule necessitates a study of the children as well as a study of literature. Songs and stories which are entirely suited to one class may fail to interest another. Those which we like may not attract the children. Hence, we must watch them through our story-telling or our reading, and judge, by their attention, their comments, their silence, their indifference, where their interest lies. We must begin with that which appeals to their child life, their present interest; but we shall not end there. We must lead them to a fuller enjoyment and to a wider interest, by giving them always a little more than that for which they ask.

There is much in the pages of the best literature which is already suited to children’s understanding. Let us choose that first. But we shall dare to add much which they do not fully understand as yet, knowing that the future will interpret to them that which is now hidden. It is a mistake to cut literature to the children’s comprehension. Let us trust that they will feel in some measure the beauty which they cannot understand, and that their future experience will unlock the door which is now shut to them.

The writer remembers a class of children—children who came from rude homes, whose lives were narrow and hindered, who, nevertheless, listened with intense interest to the poems which their teacher read to them. It happened that she once selected for the morning reading the first stanzas of Longfellow’s poem, “My Lost Youth.” They listened eagerly until the book was closed, giving evidence of appreciation with every return of the rhythmic refrain. “Is that all?” they asked. “No,” was the reply, “but you would not understand the rest.” “Oh, read it to us, even if we don’t,” they urged. “We love the sound of it.”

The writer has often heard primary classes reciting Wordsworth’s “Daffodils” with great delight. Without doubt the child’s interpretation differs from that of the man,—understanding is the fruit of experience,—but even thus early the children enter into the spirit of the poem, rejoice in the beauty of the daffodils, and are happy in the rhythmic recitation. The beautiful words are treasured in their memories, to return again and again to gladden their hearts, just as the bright vision was repeated in the experience of the poet.

Give to the children, then, not only the child thought which fits the childish experience, but also the treasure which grows in beauty as they grow, and becomes rich as they become wise.

It is well for the teacher to cultivate the art of telling stories to children. The story that is told has an element of life which is not found in the story that is read. There is no barrier between the story-teller and his audience; the book often makes a gulf between the reader and his hearers. Practise story-telling. Let the children’s indifference teach you wherein you fail; your unconscious tutors will show you what to omit and what to magnify. Their training will help you in other directions. If you yield yourself to the teaching of the children, you will be repaid by a new readiness in story-telling before less kindly and less candid critics. Do not forego this privilege.

It is well to read and re-read the poem or story until it becomes the child’s own possession. The term “Memory Gem” has been adopted into our familiar school phrases. Whether the phrase remains or not, it is to be hoped that the exercise which it names will always have a place. It has an advantage beyond simply reading or hearing the poem. The poem which has been committed to memory and recited again and again, becomes the child’s own. It will recur to him at his play, at his work, in school and out. No other thought treasure is so dear to us as that which is learned in childhood, and which accompanies us through life. Through such indirect teaching, we may remain an influence for good even when our names have been forgotten. By means of such tuition the child becomes familiar with the vocabulary of good literature, and is prepared to read, understand, and enjoy that which would otherwise have been beyond his reach. By all means continue the “memory gem,” but be assured that the selections are truly gems.

A poem or story may be presented to a child as a message from the author to him. Whittier’s “Barefoot Boy,” for example, serves not only to describe the barefoot boy, but to tell the children something about the poet himself. If they read it with this thought in mind, they will be desirous of learning something about the poet. This study of the author should not precede the study of the poem. They will care to learn about Whittier because he has written this charming poem for them; now, facts about his life will be filled with meaning; they will rejoice in the story of his boyhood experience, and will return to “The Barefoot Boy” with a keener interest, because it has become real to them through their study of the poet’s life. For little children (and is it not true of grown-up children as well?) this is the natural order of teaching. We care to know about Scott because we delight in “Marmion” and “Ivanhoe”; we do not first learn about the author, and then decide to read his works.

Other things being equal, our selections for reading and for memorizing should be from the world’s best writers. We should at least be sure that the children’s course of reading gives them some sense of companionship with a few men and women who have blessed the world through their books. Hans Christian Andersen, Alice and Phœbe Cary, Mary Howitt, Longfellow, Whittier, Lowell, Robert Louis Stevenson, and Eugene Field have written some of their best thoughts for children as well as for men and women. Some of these names should stand for real personalities, nay, for friends, to the children, before they leave school.

One question is often asked by teachers: “Shall I give myths to the children, and how? and can I give them if I do not believe them nor like them at all myself?” Somewhere, sometime, somehow, the children should become familiar with the classic myths. The “sometime” should be in childhood, or the myths will never fulfil their true mission. They should come at the time when children delight in the marvellous, the fanciful, the grotesque. Rightly used, they help to develop the imagination, a power which is left sadly to itself in school life. They serve as a basis for future reading. A knowledge of them is necessary to the interpretation of the best in literature. By all means give them to the children, but give them in their best form. They should not be mutilated by any attempt to embody them in words of one syllable. Let the child’s reading of the myths wait until he is able to read some version couched in the purest English. Meanwhile, read them to him again and again, sometimes without note or comment, for explanations are often bungling attempts to explain that which can never be explained. Let the child absorb into himself what the story conveys to him. Answer his questions plainly, if you can. Tell him you do not know, if you do not; but do not spoil his visions by attempting to teach vaporized theories.

Enough has been said of the teacher’s duty in the direction of developing taste. It is self-evident that no teacher can help a child to appreciate that which is beautiful, unless she herself appreciates it. The fountain cannot rise higher than its source. We must be that which we would help the children to become. Therefore, it is of the utmost importance that the teacher’s reading be carefully directed. I know of no way in which a teacher can better serve her children than by reading the best books. This reading will be, of course, in the line of her own tastes and interests. Every year, at the least, a new book should become a teacher’s possession. She should not only buy it to keep, but she should read and re-read it, until its contents become a part of herself. Every year should widen her horizon, and enable her to see more truly than she has seen before. Every book thus read and re-read becomes a definite force in her life, and unconsciously directs her teaching. The teacher who would guide her pupils in the fields of literature, must herself frequent the paths in which she desires their feet to tread.

If the crowns of all the kingdoms of the empire were laid down at my feet in exchange for my books and my love of reading, I would spurn them all.

—Fénelon.

CHAPTER III.
LEARNING TO READ.

The problem of teaching would be solved could the teacher know how her well-devised plan of action really affects her pupil. Patiently and persistently she follows her foreordained method, but who can know the critical moment when the mind opens to take in the new idea, and to delight in the consciousness of growth? Who can name or describe the Open Sesame that unlocks the world of books to the child?

A clear light is thrown upon our common problem by the charming description of one child’s experience. Hugh Miller, in his “Schools and Schoolmasters,” tells us how he learned to read, or, rather, learned to love reading. We quote at length:—

I had been sent, previous to my father’s death, to a dame’s school, where I was taught to pronounce my letters to such effect in the old Scottish mode, that still, when I attempt spelling a word aloud, which is not often,—for I find the process a perilous one,—the aa’s, and ee’s, and uh’s, and rau’s, return upon me, and I have to translate them, with no little hesitation, as I go along, into the more modish sounds. A knowledge of the letters themselves I had already acquired by studying the signposts of the place,—rare works of art, that excited my utmost admiration, with jugs, and glasses, and bottles, and ships, and loaves of bread upon them; all of which could, as the artist intended, be actually recognized. During my sixth year, I spelt my way, under the dame, through the Shorter Catechism, the Proverbs, and the New Testament, and then entered upon her highest form, as a member of the Bible Class; but all the while, the process of acquiring learning had been a dark one, which I slowly mastered, in humble confidence in the awful wisdom of the schoolmistress, not knowing whither it tended,—when at once my mind awoke to the meaning of that most delightful of all narratives, the story of Joseph. Was there ever such a discovery made before! I actually found out for myself, that the art of reading is the art of finding stories in books, and from that moment reading became one of the most delightful of my amusements. I began by getting into a corner at the dismissal of the school, and there conning over to myself the new-found story of Joseph; nor did one perusal serve; the other Scripture stories followed,—in especial, the story of Samson and the Philistines, of David and Goliath, of the prophets Elijah and Elisha; and after that came the New Testament stories and parables. Assisted by my uncles, I began to collect a library in a box of birch-bark about nine inches square, which I found quite large enough to contain a great many immortal works,—“Jack the Giant-Killer,” and “Jack and the Bean-Stalk,” and the “Yellow Dwarf,” and “Blue Beard,” and “Sindbad the Sailor,” and “Beauty and the Beast,” and “Aladdin and the Wonderful Lamp,” with several others of resembling character.

Those intolerable nuisances, the useful-knowledge books, had not yet arisen, like tenebrious stars, on the educational horizon, to darken the world, and shed their blighting influence on the opening intellect of the “youthhood”; and so, from my rudimental books—books that made themselves truly such by their thorough assimilation with the rudimental mind—I passed on, without being conscious of break or line of division, to books on which the learned are content to write commentaries and dissertations, but which I found to be quite as nice children’s books as any of the others. Old Homer wrote admirably for little folk, especially in the “Odyssey”; a copy of which, in the only true translation extant,—for, judging from its surpassing interest and the wrath of critics, such I hold that of Pope to be,—I found in the house of a neighbor. Next came the “Iliad”; not, however, in a complete copy, but represented by four of the six volumes of Bernard Lintot. With what power, and at how early an age, true genius impresses! I saw, even at this immature period, that no writer could cast a javelin with half the force of Homer. The missiles went whizzing athwart his pages; and I could see the momentary gleam of the steel, ere it buried itself deep in brass and bull-hide. I next succeeded in discovering for myself a child’s book, of not less interest than even the “Iliad,” which might, I was told, be read on Sabbaths, in a magnificent old edition of “Pilgrim’s Progress,” printed on coarse, whity-brown paper, and charged with numerous woodcuts, each of which occupied an entire page, that, on principles of economy, bore letterpress on the other side. And such delightful prints as these were! It must have been some such volume that sat for its portrait to Wordsworth, and which he so exquisitely describes as

“Profuse in garniture of wooden cuts,

Strange and uncouth; dire faces, figures dire,

Sharp-kneed, sharp-elbowed, and lean-ankled, too,

With long and ghastly shanks,—forms which, once seen,

Could never be forgotten.”

In process of time I had devoured, besides these genial works, “Robinson Crusoe,” “Gulliver’s Travels,” “Ambrose on Angels,” the judgment chapter in Howie’s “Scotch Worthies,” Byron’s “Narrative,” and the “Adventures of Philip Quarll,” with a good many other adventures and voyages, real and fictitious, part of a very miscellaneous collection of books made by my father. It was a melancholy little library to which I had fallen heir. Most of the missing volumes had been with the master aboard the vessel when he perished. Of an early edition of Cook’s “Voyages,” all the volumes were now absent save the first; and a very tantalizing romance in four volumes, Mrs. Ratcliff’s “Mysteries of Udolpho,” was represented by only the earlier two. Small as the collection was, it contained some rare books,—among the rest, a curious little volume entitled, “The Miracles of Nature and Art,” to which we find Dr. Johnson referring, in one of the dialogues chronicled by Boswell, as scarce even in his day, and which had been published, he said, some time in the seventeenth century by a bookseller whose shop hung perched on Old London Bridge, between sky and water. It contained, too, the only copy I ever saw of the “Memoirs of a Protestant condemned to the Galleys of France for his Religion,”—a work interesting from the circumstance that, though it bore another name on its title-page, it had been translated from the French for a few guineas by poor Goldsmith in his days of obscure literary drudgery, and exhibited the peculiar excellences of his style. The collection boasted, beside, of a very curious old book, illustrated by very uncouth plates, that detailed the perils and sufferings of an English sailor who had spent his best years of life as a slave in Morocco. It had its volumes of sound theology, too, and of stiff controversy,—Flavel’s “Works,” and Henry’s “Commentary,” and Hutchinson on the “Lesser Prophets,” and a very old treatise on the “Revelation,” with the title-page away, and blind Jameson’s volume on the “Hierarchy,” with first editions of “Naphthali,” “The Cloud of Witnesses,” and “The Hind let Loose.” But with these solid authors I did not venture to grapple until long after this time. Of the works of fact and incident which it contained, those of the voyagers were my especial favorites. I perused with avidity the voyages of Anson, Drake, Raleigh, Dampier, and Captain Woods Rogers, and my mind became so filled with conceptions of what was to be seen and done in foreign parts, that I wished myself big enough to be a sailor, that I might go and see coral islands and burning mountains, and hunt wild beasts and fight battles.

These reminiscences are most suggestive. Do they not find a parallel in our memory of our childhood conquest of the art of reading?

Before planning her lessons in reading, the teacher will do well to review her own experience in reading, or to scan the difficulties which she has encountered in teaching other classes. A brief analysis of her experiences, both as a pupil and as a teacher, will reveal distinct lines of achievement in learning to read. These are illustrated in any act of reading.

“The old familiar sights of ours

Took marvellous shapes. Strange domes and towers

Rose up where sty and corncrib stood,

Or garden wall, or belt of wood.

The bridle post an old man sat,

With loose-flung coat and high-cocked hat.

The wellcurb had a Chinese roof,

And even the tall sweep, high aloof,

In its slant splendor seemed to tell

Of Pisa’s leaning miracle.”

To read,—that is, to get the meaning of these lines; or, if one reads aloud, to get and to give the meaning. One who truly reads “Snow-Bound” learns to see the scenes which Whittier so beautifully describes; to see them as he saw them, with tender affection, and to interpret the deeper meaning of the lines of “homely toil and destiny obscure.”

Manifestly this involves much. On the surface, and first attracting the attention of the teacher, appears the obvious necessity of knowing the words at sight. Familiarity with the forms of the words used is indispensable to reading. This involves knowing the sounds of the words, while the power to pronounce new words readily calls for knowledge of the laws of English pronunciation.

In the minds of too many teachers of little children, such mastery of word pronunciation is held as reading. But this is a grievous error, which leads to narrow and mechanical work, and obscures the high purpose of real reading. Reference to the definition of reading, and a study of the selection from “Snow-Bound,” will show us the proper value of this achievement and its relation to true reading. The words are the vehicle of thought, a means to an end. Their mastery is indispensable to reading, but the reader must compass, not the single word-speaking, but the meaning of the related words which express the author’s thought. Knowledge of the meaning of the words used, and especially the meaning of the words as Whittier uses them, is necessary to a clear understanding of the poem. The reader who would understand the poem must know something of farm life—the sty and the corncrib, the garden wall, the wellcurb, the sweep, and the other accessories of the farm which Whittier names or describes. Plainly, too, his knowledge must extend further—to a Chinese roof, and Pisa’s leaning miracle. To such knowledge, observation of common life must minister, coupled with the study of books and pictures. In other words, the reader interprets Whittier’s “Snow-Bound” by virtue of his own experience, reënforced by the experience of others as written down in books, or pictured with brush or pen. To the formal word-mastery, then, must be added study of the meaning of new words, or recalling such experience as explains the old. The content, as well as the form, of the word must be studied.

Added to such study, is the general training which gives us power to picture the unknown, interpreting a new scene through its relation to our old experience. The ready and trained imagination easily pictures the scene which the words conjure before the mind—makes real the homestead, snowbound and comfortfilled. Reading may be so taught as to develop this power, which takes hold on things unseen. No careful teacher omits such training.

Here, then, are different phases of teaching reading: mastery of the words as to form and sound; explanation of the meaning of new words, through observation or reading; lessons which tend to develop power of imagination.

The young child who leaves his home and his play to enter upon the life of the school-room finds a new world awaiting him, with manifold new experiences. Hitherto he has romped and rambled to his heart’s content. All his friends and playmates have in turn been his teachers, albeit theirs has been an unconscious tuition. His lessons have been in the line of his desires, or suggested by his natural environment. Longfellow pictures the little Hiawatha in the arms of his first teacher, the loving old Nokomis:

“At the door on summer evenings

Sat the little Hiawatha,

Heard the whispering of the pine-trees,

Heard the lapping of the water—

Sounds of music, words of wonder;—

Saw the moon rise from the water,

Rippling, rounding from the water,

Saw the flecks and shadows on it,

Whispered, ‘What is that, Nokomis?’

And the good Nokomis answered—”

…

The moon, the rainbow in the heaven, the Milky Way, the firefly, the owl and owlet, the beaver, the rabbit, the squirrel—these saluted the baby boy, and awakened his interest. “What is that?” he cried, with eager question. “And the good Nokomis answered.” The little Hiawatha “learned of every bird its language.” He was taught, not by old Nokomis alone, but by bird and beast, flower and field.

So with every child who enters the school-room upon that fateful first Monday in September. He brings with him, not an empty head, but a mind stored with the memories of varied experiences. Just as the little Hiawatha gazed, pondered, questioned, learned—so this child has seen, has heard, has questioned, has thought, has acted. What he brings to school, who can tell? What has he seen and heard? What has he liked and desired? What has he questioned and learned? How little we know of this unwritten history! And yet it determines the net result of all our teaching. For nothing which we attempt to teach finds lodgment in the child mind unless it is linked with some past experience and awakens actual interest. Much of our reiterated instruction falls upon deaf ears, fails utterly to awaken the dormant interest, because it is ill chosen. We must know something about the life of the children before we can wisely teach them.

The thoughtful teacher remembers this truth and directs her work accordingly. Instead of rushing with headlong zeal into the routine of reading, writing, and number—under the impulsion of the Course of Study, and the memory of classes which failed to “pass”—she makes haste slowly, and devotes the first days of the term to lessons which help to reveal the experience of the children. Observation of and talks about common things; conversations which lead the children to tell what they can do, or like to do; story telling; picture drawing;—these afford opportunity for expression, and serve to show the teacher something of her pupils’ attainments, and the line of their interests as well. Meanwhile, they are becoming accustomed to the school-room routine, and so emerge from the period in which they gazed, dumb and dazed, at the many marvels with which this new school world is crowded. They come to know the teacher as their friend, and they become free and confident in her presence. Thus the true atmosphere of the school-room is created—the only atmosphere in which wholesome and natural teaching and learning can thrive.

This is not a prodigal misuse of time. It is the part of thrift to so spend in the beginning, for the returns are evident in the ease and readiness with which pupils and teacher afterward work together—the value of every lesson being enhanced by the mutual good will and understanding.

The school differs from the home and the kindergarten in that its allotted tasks are evidently determined by a motive and plan outside the child’s comprehension. In many cases this must be so. The lessons which involve the mastery of the symbols used in reading, writing, and number, or the drill and practice necessary to attain skill in music or drawing or writing, have no self-evident goal for the child. So many lines, so many letters, so many problems, he attempts, because the teacher says so, and in his new universe the teacher is supreme. At home he has always chosen more or less; so, too, in the kindergarten his interest and choice determined the story or the game or the topic of conversation. He has delighted in building houses, modelling balls, weaving mats, playing games—and all, so far as he knew, for his own immediate pleasure and accomplishment. Other results, to him unknown, were of course secured. He builded better than he knew. But in every case he rejoiced in some immediate accomplishment which he desired.

In too many cases the decreed exercises of the school are meaningless and purposeless to the beginner. Such exercises easily degenerate into dull and fruitless routine, indifferent and profitless to teacher and pupil alike. To arouse desire and awaken conscious motive is the teacher’s most important work, and in teaching reading it should receive first consideration. She, therefore, after securing such freedom and coöperation as promise a fertile soil for her seed-planting, calls the children about her to explain the purpose of the lessons which will fill their days.

Perhaps she reads to them a story which they like, a new story which they have never heard. When she reaches the interesting climax she pauses to say, “I haven’t time to read the rest of the story now. How I wish you could read! Then you might take the book and read the story yourselves. Would you not like to learn to read, so that you could read stories like these?”

In Hugh Miller’s graphic description of his childhood experience in reading, this element of purpose and desire is strongly emphasized. “The process of learning and acquiring had been a dark one,” he says, recalling his struggles with letters and syllables. He “slowly mastered” these “in humble confidence in the awful wisdom of the schoolmistress, not knowing whither it tended,” when (as a member of the Bible Class—“in the highest form”) his mind “awoke to the meaning of that most delightful of all narratives, the story of Joseph. Was there ever such a discovery made before?”

Such testimony might be repeated a thousand times over, by our pupils of to-day—if they were able to describe their common experience.

It was the first vision of the goal that gave meaning, motive, and conscious gladness to Hugh Miller’s study. Such motive and such meaning should pervade the earliest lessons in reading, and should be consciously recognized by pupil as well as teacher. We repeat, then: the teacher’s first effort, after becoming acquainted with her children, is to awaken this conscious desire to read, and to secure intelligent coöperation in her exercises.

One teacher suggests writing upon the board some sentence which has been whispered to her by the children, and then calling an older child from another room to read the secret. This is done again and again, until the children are eager to share the power which their comrade possesses, and turn gladly to the tasks required of them, that they may the sooner reach their goal.

There is a wide difference between such teaching and the routine drill which does not enlist the child’s desire. The enthusiastic bicyclist would smile if asked to exchange his morning ride to the city for an hour’s exercise upon a fixed “bicycle exerciser” in the back hall. Nor could the most skilful pedagogue convince him that the exercise involved in making the wheel go round is as valuable as the spin which carries him to his destination, through the fresh morning air, along roads bordered with flowered fields. Yet the contrast is no more marked than that between the task of the syllable-pronouncer, who obediently performs his meaningless labor, and that of the child who, with conscious and earnest desire, sets himself to learn to read.

In order to give some sense of immediate achievement, the sentences of the first lessons should express thoughts in which the children are interested.

• This is Kate.
• Kate can read.
• Kate has a book.
• Read to me, Kate.
• Kate can read.
• I can read, too.
• Kate has a book.
• I have a book, too.
• See Kate’s book!
• See my book!
• Kate has a doll.
• I have a doll, too.
• Kate has a kitty.
• I have a dog.
• Kate likes her doll.
• I like my dog.
• See my dog!
• See Kate’s little kitty!
• Come, little Kitty.
• Come to me, Kitty.

The object of these preparatory lessons is to give some consciousness of the purpose of reading, and some sense of achievement. The sentences are the children’s, obtained in a conversation concerning Kate, who is an older pupil, or some pictured child. The sentence is the unit, and is read by the teacher. The children repeat the sentence after her reading.

Of course these first efforts are not reading. They simply represent the children’s memory of the teacher’s words and tone. Often, when asked to read alone, the child dashes at the wrong sentence with his pointer, which vainly wanders in search of the right one. But just as the frequent observation of the loved story in the picture book not only fixes the words in their order, but enables the young listener to find some of them upon the page, so, by repetition of these first sentences, the words are at last held in the mind, and are recognized in new places and under new relations. The attentive eye will recognize the new words, first in their wonted place in the sentence, then when isolated. At first the words selected for repetition and recognition are those which present fewest difficulties;—not by any means the shortest words—as a, is, too—but the meaningful words, the nouns and adjectives, and verbs which denote action. Kate, book, doll, dog, kitty—these are the first and easiest, in the lessons written above. Later, see and likes, with can read. Later still, I have, this is—while is and a will not be emphasized as units until the eyes have been trained to distinguish more readily, and the words have become familiar through constant repetition.

Such lessons should continue for several weeks, introducing the various dear and oft-seen objects of the child’s environment, and the actions with which he has long been familiar. The sentences should be worth reading, and grouped in coherent paragraphs. Drill in recognizing the words should follow the sentence reading, in every day’s lesson.

When the children can recognize at sight a vocabulary of one hundred to two hundred words, they should begin to compare them, and to place in groups those which are alike in sound. For example: book, look, and brook are known; red and fed; cat, hat, and pat; Fan, ran, can, and Dan. Placed in lists, their similarity is evident:

• book
• look
• took

• fed
• red
• bed

• cat
• hat
• sat

• Fan
• ran
• man

Some one volunteers to increase the list, adding took, bed, sat, and man. Here is the beginning of the analysis of words into their sounds, and with this lesson a new feature appears in our word study.

Such lessons in sentence reading as have been suggested, if continued long enough and with sufficient discretion on the part of the teacher, might enable a class to read independently—for, even without the teacher’s direction, obvious likenesses and differences in words are noted by the children, and rules are deduced therefrom. But the mastery of a large vocabulary is readily secured only through attention to the common laws of pronunciation, and familiarity with the sound units. Thus far every word has been presented as a new unit. Now the children should learn that these words are like many others in form, and that the pronunciation of one serves as a key to the many. Knowing book, all monosyllables ending in ook can at once enter their vocabulary of recognizable words; knowing Fan, all monosyllables with the an ending are known. The missing factor is the knowledge of the sounds of the separate letters which are initials in these group words—m-an, F-an, c-an, r-an, t-an, p-an. At this juncture these sounds should be taught.

There has been some question among teachers as to the time for teaching sounds of the letters. It is wise to defer this teaching until the children have acquired some little facility in reading, and understand its purpose, that their work may not be approached from the mechanical side solely. Again, the vocabulary which the children already know reveals groups of similar words and suggests the wisdom of analysis and classification. And, further, the too early attempt to study the lists of similar words and to select and emphasize them for use in reading, drives the children at once to their most difficult task. It is much easier to recognize Hiawatha and arrow, because they are long and different, and seem hard, than to name promptly the elusive can, ran, and tan, which seem so easy and yet are so nearly alike as to be formidable obstacles to the success of the untrained observer. The climax of objection is reached when we cite the tendency to make sentences solely for the sake of using certain words, thus destroying the element of thought value in the sentence. “Does the fat rat see the cat on the mat?” is far more difficult for a child than is “Hiawatha lived in a wigwam with old Nokomis”—for the reasons above named.

The mastery of words is an essential element in learning to read. Our common mistake is, not that we do such work too well, but that we make it the final aim of the reading lesson, and lead the children to feel that they can read when they are merely able to pronounce words. Perhaps lack of careful attention to the form of words is quite as serious a mistake, for it results in carelessness in reading.

The study of form and of sound should be associated, but attention to sound alone should precede any attempt to master the form as suggesting sound. Children should be taught to recognize and to distinguish sounds, to repeat them accurately, to speak them distinctly, before they are taught to copy the single characters which represent these sounds. To hear, to repeat, to compare, to distinguish sounds, should be the order of the instruction.

Careless speech and indistinct articulation often arise from imperfect hearing, or indifferent attention to what is said. Children should be trained in the early lessons to hear, and to repeat, exactly what is said. The repetition is a test of the child’s hearing. Begin with short sentences. Speak them clearly, in a moderate voice, requiring the children to repeat after once hearing. Gradually increase the length of sentence, but do not increase the volume of voice; speak distinctly, and expect the children to be attentive enough to hear an ordinary tone; teach them to respond in the same tone, with clear articulation. Continue this exercise until a long sentence can be accurately returned; then pronounce lists of words beginning with letters which demand careful articulation. When these have been mastered, draw attention to initial sounds, and then to the letters which represent them. Work with these until every letter suggests its sounds to the pupils, whether in a new or in a familiar word. With little children, the sound should be taught first in connection with initial letters always.

A successful device consists in allowing each pupil to represent a certain sound. If the sound is the initial sound in his own name, it will be easy for the children to remember. Thus—John can always suggest the sound of j, Mary the sound of m, Peter the sound of p, and so on. A class of children aided in this way will master the sounds of the letters in a very short time.

Having learned, through the initials, the sounds which various letters represent, the next step will be to analyze monosyllables into their sounds. Select first those containing short vowels, in order to avoid the difficulty of the silent letter. The preliminary drill with the initials will have made this step an easy one to take.

Whenever a type word is represented, as black, for example, the children should be taught to suggest other words which rhyme with the pattern, as crack, back, lack, etc. If in every such case the common element is studied and mastered, in a few weeks the children will become possessors of a large vocabulary, whose basis is the few familiar words which they have studied. Every type word will stand for a list of words similar in form.

This study of sounds should continue through at least the first five school years. After analyzing any word into its separate sounds, the children should be required to name other known words which resemble the one studied. This will tend to a habit of classification, and will enable the pupil to depend upon himself in his study.

Diacritical marks are a help in mastering new words, if the key words have been studied in connection with the marks. They are needed also in consulting the dictionary for pronunciation. They should be taught only when necessary to the pronunciation. In older classes, after the use of the dictionary becomes necessary, a complete list should be mastered. It is a mistake to insist upon diacritical marking when the children can pronounce accurately without. I remember hearing a teacher chide a pupil for reading a sentence before she had time to mark the vowels, but, since the child could and did read without such help, the marking was evidently unnecessary. It serves as a means to an end, and should be dispensed with when the end can be reached without such artificial aid.

As a matter of fact, every child refers a new word back to a similar word with which he has become familiar. Thus: black, once mastered, serves as a key to sack, crack, quack, etc. The only elements in these words are the final element ack and the initial sounds. If a child hesitates with a new word, help him to refer at once to the type word which he has already mastered. Instead of pronouncing the new word for him, insist upon his using for himself his own stock of knowledge. Help him only where he cannot help himself. If he forms the habit of referring the unknown to the kindred known, he will become independent in study. For example, to a six-years-old child the word blacksmith may, at first sight, appear formidable. Separated into its parts and referred to the simple words already mastered, the child conquers the newcomer, and adds it to his list of servants. He is endowed with new strength, because he has mastered something which seemed to him hard. Such conquests, often repeated, lead to strength and independence. In many cases, it is wise to leave a child to wrestle with a word which at first sight he fails to master. Of course this process is unwise if he has no experience to which he can refer for help. Guess-work will never take the place of thought, and a child should not be driven to guess at the pronunciation, but every attempt should be based upon something which he has been taught in former lessons. Such practice will lead to thoughtful self-help.

This work may be facilitated by many devices. We have seen classes hunting for new words beginning with a given sound, as eagerly as if they were playing hide-and-seek. Or with the utmost enjoyment they have made lists of words beginning with chosen sounds; or matched pairs of words which rhymed. But their most valuable exercise is that in which the old familiar word of their first vocabulary is made the key which unlocks the new.

Now, when a new word is presented, the teacher no longer pronounces it for the children, but asks instead, “What word helps you to pronounce it?” Bright is not a new word, because the children know light, remember the sound of br, and put their two bits of knowledge together to meet the new emergency. They do for themselves what the teacher has heretofore done for them.

A most helpful form of word study, which is suitable for desk work, is making lists of words containing the same sound. It strengthens the habit of classification, and helps in spelling and in the recognition of new words.

The most difficult work for children appears in words which are spelled alike and pronounced differently, or in words pronounced alike and spelled differently, or in the various equivalents of the same sound which our language affords. Chair, their, where, etc., suggest the problems of this nature. This work should be introduced not earlier than the third or fourth year. It should come in connection with the spelling lesson, and not with the reading. The mastery of these difficulties in English spelling doubtless requires many months of careful teaching.

It must not be forgotten that children are hindered and not helped by any attempt to spell, by sound, words which are unique in spelling. Through, for example, should be learned by sight, and not by sound. Beautiful, tongue, physique, may illustrate this group. The eye and not the ear must be depended upon in the mastery of such words. Care should be taken to develop the habit of accurate attention through the eye as well as the ear. Any attempt to mark the sounds in these words increases the labor without increasing facility. If the teacher makes a careful classification of the ordinary words which frequently recur in the reading lesson, she will discover the class which must be mastered by sight. Out of the remainder she can make lists which include the ordinary type sounds. The study of these lists will reduce the labor of word mastery to its minimum, and the habit of comparison developed through this study will go far to make the children independent in the pronunciation of new words.

It is self-evident that this plan can be pursued only when the words are amenable to common phonic laws. Cough, and its congeners, should be named as new wholes. So with all words which follow no rule, and must be pronounced by substitution. No time should be lost by attempting a method which has no excuse for being, in such cases. In its place, as a help to the mastery of groups of kindred words, it is invaluable. Out of place, it is bad.

For diacritical marks and correct pronunciation, the teacher is referred to the standard dictionaries. It should not be forgotten that the teacher’s pronunciation is a guide to the pupil. She needs a quick ear and the careful judgment which will render her a safe guide. The familiar rule should direct her practice: When in doubt, consult the dictionary.

Note the value of this word mastery. The pupil fast becomes independent of the teacher, and ready to master the page for himself. Note, also, that this power becomes his in proportion to the teacher’s purpose to make him self-helpful, and her skill in finding the connecting link between the new knowledge and the old.

Two elements of learning to read have been presented here: sentence reading and word mastery. Of the study of the meaning of the words and the development of the power of imagination we shall speak elsewhere.

Reading without purpose is sauntering, not exercise. More is got from one book on which the thought settles for definite end in knowledge, than from libraries skimmed over by a wandering eye. A cottage flower gives honey to the bee, a king’s garden none to the butterfly.

—Edward Bulwer.

CHAPTER IV.
THE STUDY OF THE LESSON.

In our emphasis of certain phases of the new education, there is a tendency to swing away from the use of the text-book, so that the children depend largely upon the teacher’s oral instruction and explanation. It often happens that the teacher, in her zeal, forgets that the growth of the children depends upon their own doing, and imagines that her thought and experience will suffice, without effort on the part of her pupils. This state of affairs exists in the reading class oftener than in any other. Time is often wasted in smoothing out difficulties which never existed as such to the children, and obstacles are explained away before they are recognized by the child as obstacles. Meanwhile the teacher is doing the work and the pupil is losing the opportunity to gain power by wrestling with his little problems himself.

It is essential that even the little children should be taught how to study to the limit of their ability. The study of the reading lesson may be made a most profitable exercise. Too much of the occupation termed study by both pupil and teacher is an indifferent conning of the book, a careless and hurried repetition of the text, or a thoughtless copying; all of which weakens the power of attention, and tends to make the lesson dull and uninteresting. Such loss should be prevented by careful direction of the young student. The study should be at first conducted under the personal guidance of the teacher, for, until the children grow into the power of learning to work by themselves, they need to be taught how to study as well as how to read. The time spent in the preparation of the lesson should be thoughtfully employed, the exercise resulting in helpful habits as well as in increased power.

Before we can teach our pupils how to study their reading lessons, we must have a realizing sense of their difficulties in reading. This means that we must know our children as well as we would have them know their lesson. A successful teacher of little children once told the writer that she allowed her pupils a period for free conversation every day. While they availed themselves of this privilege, she listened, in order to discover in what they were interested and about what subjects they talked freely to one another. Having learned this, she began her language lessons where the children’s interest was centred, led them gradually to new interests, and helped them to overcome their limitations.

Some such study of individual children, or at least of the varying classes of children, is indispensable to the teacher who would endeavor to train her pupils to overcome the obstacles in their way. It is vain for her to assume that all classes are alike, and that a mastery of the words at the head of the lesson will properly equip them all for the feat of rendering the thought which the lesson contains. Such easy assumption ends in failure. The children differ in attainment and in experience. We cannot take for granted either knowledge or ignorance on their part. We must study their experience in order to know their limitations and their needs.

A class of children of foreign parentage was engaged in reading a fairy tale which described the adventures of a wee robin on his way to sing a Yule song to the king. Evidently the children were not accustomed to imaginative tales, and, moreover, they had the dimmest possible notions of the wee robin, the gray, greedy hawk, the Yule song, and the king. Their reading was dull, monotonous, and indifferent, accomplished by dint of constant suggestion and explanation on the part of the teacher, and wearisome though patient repetition on the part of the children.

The exercise, though termed reading, was in reality simply a preparation for reading. It would have been greatly improved by a conscious recognition of its import by both teacher and pupils. They were studying the lesson together and aloud. Had it been thoughtfully studied in this way before reading was attempted, both exercises would have been more helpful to the pupils.

This same class was afterwards questioned in regard to home reading. Not one pupil was accustomed to read or to hear reading at home. In few homes were there any books, while story-telling was a practice of which they had never dreamed. Obviously these children had in their home experience a meagre preparation for reading, and the teacher’s duty was consequently a double one. In such an instance the reading lesson would be entirely robbed of its value if the proper study of the lesson were omitted.

For preliminary study, therefore, it is well for the teacher to use the period assigned to reading in talking with the class about the lesson, her object being not to tell what she knows, but to discover what the children know or do not know. To this end she will bend a listening ear to all mistakes, not to waive them away, nor to smile at the awkward interpretation, but to see from what limitation they arise. Knowing their source, she can help to correct them by removing the cause. Such attention to the errors or the questions of the children discloses two classes of difficulties: those which the children can overcome by thought or by observation, and others in which the teacher must of necessity furnish the necessary explanation. For example, a class in a primary school read, and with fair expression, the story of “a kid upon the roof of a house that railed at a wolf passing by.” The teacher, knowing her class, assumed their ignorance of the meaning of “railed”—was not surprised at the suggestion that “the kid fired a rail at the wolf”—and by her explanation made clear the meaning of the word. She was surprised, however, in the course of the study conversation, to discover that to the majority of the class “kid” stood for little boy. Nothing in the wording of the fable or in the children’s experience served to correct the impression. Again the duty devolved upon the teacher.

Obviously, in such cases the children must depend upon the teacher. To withhold aid at the right time is to make the study fruitless and the children indifferent or discouraged. On the other hand, by means of just such united exercises in study the children will learn to measure their own understanding and to point out their own limitations.

Fancy the class, described above, as having been taught to study, and therefore having wrestled alone with the fable. Upon coming to the recitation, some are conscious of their ignorance and say at once, “I do not know what ‘railed’ means.” They have studied to some purpose, have made themselves ready for their teacher’s explanation—and for helping themselves by means of the dictionary. The other difficulty presented by the slang use of “kid” would of course fail to present itself to their consciousness.

One result, then, of the preliminary study, with or without the teacher, should be to help the children to discover the “don’t know” line; the second should be to enable them to help themselves, if possible. Through careful and conscious study, they may be helped to realize the “sense” of what they read, and to judge for themselves when they fail to get the meaning of the sentence.

From the beginning, the children should be shown that every sentence is an embodiment of a thought, every word having its place in the expression of that thought.

“A saucy robin is eating the ripe cherries in the tree under my window,” the children read. The teacher studies with them for a moment. What does the sentence tell them? Who is eating the ripe cherries? What kind of robin? What is he doing? What is he eating? What cherries is he eating? Where is the tree? What word tells us what kind of a robin is eating? What words tell where the cherries are? What word tells who is eating the cherries? Even in primary schools such questioning is valuable, leading the children to realize that the words appear in the sentence, not by chance, but in order to express something; that every word has its work, that not one can be omitted, that a change in a single word changes the thought. Such exercises, thoughtfully conducted, will lead the children to look for the thought in the sentence, and will make its mastery a test of their success. If the sentence does not yield them a thought which they understand, let them question every word until they get its meaning. Thus they learn to recognize the line where their knowledge ends and their ignorance begins.

It is often the case, however, that the difficulty to be overcome is the pupils’ inability to pronounce words whose meaning may be familiar. If this is the case, they will need to bring all their knowledge of words to bear upon this new problem. “Sidewalk” is a long word, a new word—no one knows it. The teacher helps, not by pronouncing it and easing the children of their load. No. She says: “That word seems long, but it is very easy. You know the first syllable.” Yes, everybody knows “side.” “Now, who knows the second? Who can put them together?” The children rejoice in the sense of overcoming. They have gained some power to help themselves. Our teaching should compel as well as invite such thoughtful comparison of the old with the new, should lead the children to use what they have learned, in the mastery of the not learned.

The simplest lessons in preparatory study are thus justified: they lead to a conscious judgment of one’s attainment. Study means nothing if it does not lead to this judgment. The power once gained, the pupil is his own best teacher, his own strongest helper. Prize, then, all exercises which lead to this judgment. Instead of saying to the untrained pupil, “Read your lesson ten times,” when his present attainment or lack of attainment renders such repetition worse than useless, you will say, “Read the lesson and copy all the words whose meaning you do not know.” “Read and copy the words that you cannot pronounce.” “Read and copy the sentence that you do not understand.” “Read so carefully that you are sure you can read well to the class.”

The skilful teacher will think of a hundred devices to advance such study. The test of each device will be, “Does it help to arouse thought? Does it end in thoughtful study?”

Such study is necessary before reading whenever we may assume that the lesson presents any difficulty to the child, unless we prefer that the first oral rendering of the lesson shall be merely a studying aloud.

As a stimulus to, or a test of, study, it may be well to omit the oral reading occasionally, substituting for it an exercise in silent reading, whose thoroughness is tested by questions. After the usual study of the lesson the books are closed and the teacher calls upon the pupils to tell her what they have read. Older pupils may respond by giving the substance of the lesson. Younger children may be tested by more frequent and detailed questions after the reading of short paragraphs.

The above exercise is even more helpful if the children share in the questioning. They read with keener interest if their knowledge is thus put to the test.

Such exercises tend to emphasize to the pupils the truth that their reading is not for itself, but to make them masters of the thoughts expressed in their lessons. It becomes more real, more purposeful, in proportion as this is realized.

In this connection, it may be said that anything which adds purpose to the reading lesson gives motive to study. When pupils are asked to read to the class some selection unknown to the other pupils, they study and read with a zest quite unlike that manifested in the repetition of a worn-out selection which the others already know. For some good end, recognized by himself as worthy, the child reads now. The introduction of opportunities for individual reading, as early as may be, thus proves an incentive to study and a means of rapid advancement. Cuttings from papers and magazines and collections of children’s books prove most helpful at this stage, affording a prize for attainment, as well as an evident test of progress.

The foregoing has been written with special reference to beginners in reading. As pupils advance in their grades, the study of the reading becomes even more necessary and may be made the more profitable.

All that has been said of younger readers applies equally to older pupils. The test of the ability to study is the power to judge rightly where the limit of one’s knowledge appears.

As soon as the pupil can point out the obstacle which hinders his understanding, he is ready to be taught. A single word, a question, a suggestion from the teacher, removes his difficulty. He recognizes his need and desires help,—therefore listens attentively and intelligently.

At this stage he is enabled, also, to help himself, since he is prepared to use the dictionary and other reference books.

Older students should read with the help of the dictionary. They should, of course, be taught how to use it, just as they are taught to interpret any other book. Its use is discussed at length in another chapter.

And this our life …

Finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks,

Sermons in stones, and good in everything.

—William Shakespeare.

CHAPTER V.
LANGUAGE LESSONS AS A PREPARATION FOR READING LESSONS.

Two problems confront the teacher of little children in the ordinary school-room. Children coming from different homes, with various training and environment, do not always bring a common fund of knowledge. Unaccustomed to the strange surroundings and the new régime, they are not always free in telling what they know. The teacher needs to learn the “contents of their minds” (as the present phrase hath it), and this she cannot readily do unless the children converse freely and without self-consciousness. Talking lessons, or lessons whose object is purely to help them to free expression, so that they will reveal their experiences to the teacher, are very necessary at this stage. These lessons will have a further value if they help the children to new interests, and to new knowledge. They will also be more valuable if the teacher recognizes a definite purpose and forms a definite plan for the lesson.

Again, the simplest reading lesson develops the fact that, inasmuch as the children’s experiences have been varied, their corresponding fund of ideas is widely different. Any new lesson may present ideas entirely foreign to the experience of the children. The words which represent these ideas, therefore, will be unfamiliar. This state of affairs necessitates an act of teaching which should precede the act of reading. For example, a class of city children in the West attempt to read a story which deals with life by the sea. The sounding sea, the rolling waves, the whispering foam, the rugged rocks, the shining sands, the smooth pebbles, the brown seaweed, the white-winged ships, the brave sailors, are unknown quantities to these children—entirely foreign to their experience. Clearly, before they read this lesson, they must know something of the life and scenes which the lesson portrays. The teacher of children who live by the sea is not confronted by the same problem. Her children have played upon the beach, have gathered the many-colored pebbles, have built houses in the wet sand. Ships at sea are as familiar to them as are the clouds, or the birds; while many of them have played upon the decks of their fathers’ fishing-boats, and know the ropes and spars even as they know their own homes. These children have had an experience which fills the lesson with meaning. The inland children must be taught in the next best way. Since they cannot go to the sea, at least pictures of the sea may be brought to them. Shells and pebbles, sea-urchins, starfishes, and seaweeds will tell their story of the far-off beaches. Pictures of ships at sea, of rocks lashed by the waves in a storm, will help them to imagine the conditions which their lesson attempts to describe to them. But the wise teacher will make a connecting link, in some fashion, between the experience and interest of the child and the thought suggested by the story. Here, then, is the need of a language lesson which shall introduce or explain the reading lesson, preparing the child for the new thought, or recalling to his mind the almost forgotten experience.

The everyday experience in every city school-room will serve to reënforce this truth. Many a city child has never looked upon daisies and buttercups. Brooks and fields and trees are outside his little horizon. It is idle to have these children pronounce the words which stand for these objects unless the words call up pictures in their own minds, and this cannot be the case except as they have some experience with the real things. It is not impossible to bring the flowers and the birds and the trees within the experience of the children. No other work which we can ever do for them will tend more to their future happiness and growth; but, aside from that, no other work which we can do for them will contribute so generously to their growth in reading power. They cannot get the thought from the page unless the words stand for something at least akin to their own experience, and our first efforts must begin by occasioning the experience which is necessary to the interpretation of the printed page. As a means to good reading, then, language lessons are necessary for the purpose of developing ease of expression and freedom from self-consciousness, and leading to knowledge which will serve as a basis for the new thought contained in the lesson.

The subjects introduced in the earliest language lessons should be those with which children are ordinarily familiar. All country children are somewhat acquainted with the common animals: the rabbit, squirrel, cat, dog, cow, mouse, etc. They know something of the occupations of the people around them. They have watched the sunrise and sunset. They have seen the boughs of the trees waving in the wind. They have been awakened by the birds in the morning. They have cared for pet animals at home. Many city children have had something of this experience. All need to have it. In every lesson where these subjects are introduced, the teacher should be assured that the children already know something about them. A short conversation may suffice where the objects are already familiar; where they are strange, careful lessons should be arranged. The cat, rabbit, dog, squirrel, or mouse, can be brought to the school-room, cared for, observed, studied, discussed. These language lessons will not only give the children the knowledge necessary for understanding the lessons, but they will endow the subject with new interest, and add to the reading a sense of reality. Children who have been observing the squirrel will read with great zest the lessons which reaffirm what their eyes have seen, or answer the questions which they have asked, or tell some story which adds to the interest already evoked. The reading thus becomes an expression of the child’s actual experience or interest. It is no longer a something which he does simply because he is told. He sees at once the fruit of his labors. He reaches a goal which seems desirable from a child’s point of view. He recognizes the purpose and meaning of the story, and works to dig out the message which the sentences contain for him. Everything which serves to make the lesson real to the child’s experience, makes a permanent addition to his reading power.

A little careful study convinces us that there are two general fields which all readers must explore. The subjects which appear and reappear upon the pages of books have their source either in nature or in human experience. When we teach the child to read books, we must also teach him to apprehend that of which books treat. This teaching will necessarily include observation of nature and observation of human experience. To read “The Village Blacksmith” requires some knowledge of a blacksmith’s work and its associations: the horse and his shoes, the molten iron and its action, the sounding anvil and its use, the reason for the “honest sweat” upon the brow of him who “owes not any man.” Knowledge of nature and knowledge of human experience are surely needed in order to read the thought in this poem. He whose experience is richest will obtain the richest harvest from this field. Any act of reading will teach us this truth with regard to our own experience. It ought also to point the way for all teaching of children. A visit to a blacksmith’s shop is the best possible preparation for a study of “The Village Blacksmith.” If such a visit is impossible (is it ever impossible?), pictures and talks may help to supply the need. The language lesson in the one form or the other is necessary to the full interpretation of the reading. So of any poem or story which tells of the life of the farmer, the miller, the baker, the sailor, the fisherman, the shoemaker, the mother. The language lesson which serves to make the experience real to the children helps them to understand the reading lesson, and gives added power for the interpretation of all such lessons in the future.

Such language lessons should not be considered as something added to the school course. They are legitimate reading lessons, inasmuch as they prepare for the study of pages which would be meaningless to many pupils without such preparation. The teacher will of course choose her own time for such lessons. Often they are given in connection with the reading lesson itself. A wiser plan ordinarily is that which allots a specific time for the observation or the conversation which is necessary to explain the reading lesson. If the first period of the morning is set aside for oral language, the subjects for this period may be easily determined by the reading lesson, and selected to accord with and prepare for it.

A few illustrative lessons appear in another chapter. They are intended to serve as suggestions merely, for those to whom such lessons are to open a new field. It is believed that in the majority of school-rooms such teaching is already a common feature.

And to get peace, if you want it, make for yourselves nests of pleasant thoughts. Those are nests in the sea, indeed, but safe beyond all others. Do you know what fairy palaces you may build of beautiful thought, proof against all adversity? Bright fancies, satisfied memories, noble histories, faithful sayings, treasure houses of precious and restful thoughts, which care can not disturb, nor pain make gloomy, nor poverty take away from us; houses built without hands for our souls to live in.

—John Ruskin.

CHAPTER VI.
EXPRESSION IN READING.

How can children be taught to read aloud clearly, distinctly, and with feeling, so as to clearly convey the author’s thought and to give pleasure to the listener? “My pupils do not read with expression,” is a common complaint. “How can I help them?”

Manifestly the first requisite to reading with expression is the mastery of the thought on the part of the pupil, and this cannot be accomplished without mastery of the words. As has been said in another chapter, children should be trained to study in such a way that they can decide for themselves what words present difficulties to their understanding. When the pupils, after studying a lesson, are enabled to point to the exact words which are obstacles to their thought-getting, the teacher’s labors are minimized and her teaching is at once made definite. Such study, too, leads the pupils to more thoughtful reading. Since they must weigh every word in the sentence to discover its meaning, they become accustomed to dig for the thought, and to estimate their own difficulties. By this means they help themselves to the mastery of the thought, as far as the words in which it is expressed belong to their vocabulary.

But when a pupil points out to the teacher the words which mark the boundary of his understanding, it becomes her duty to make them clear to him. This is a fruitful exercise. The child desires to learn the meaning of the word which has blocked his way, and his need of it makes him its master forever after. It is only in this way that words are mastered. It is idle to explain a list of words for which children have no use in the expression of their thought. But after the study has revealed to the child his need of new knowledge, the word fits at once into his vocabulary and answers the new need. The teacher’s explanation not only suffices to make the reading plain, but it increases the child’s vocabulary for future use.

It should be borne in mind in such exercises that the word is not always made plain by simple explanation; illustration may be necessary, or some entire language lesson like those indicated in a previous chapter. The teacher should make mental note at least of these unfamiliar words, in order that she may so direct her language lesson as to supplement her teaching in reading. She is wise if she keeps a notebook at hand in which these lists may be recorded.

It will be seen from the above that the pupil is expected to master the words of the lesson as a means of getting the thought, before it is assumed that he can read with expression. But, having prepared himself through study, and having been assisted by the teacher’s illustration and explanation, there should be no hindrance to free and natural reading. We do, however, find expression hindered by various minor causes, some of which it may be well to discuss.

A frequent occasion of indolent or indifferent reading is the child’s feeling that the exercise is perfunctory, one of the tasks assigned at school as a school duty, but having in itself no excuse for being. He needs to realize that he is delivering a message, or telling a story which some one desires to hear. It has often been observed that children read their own productions with marvellously good effect, even when they stumble and hesitate in the normal reading exercises. The reason is easily discerned. In the one case they have something to tell, and desire to tell it. In the second case, the exercise is one in which they have no special interest. The teacher’s chief endeavor, then, should be directed toward inciting in the children a desire to communicate thought. This may sometimes be secured by having the class listen, with closed books, while a single pupil reads, the teacher insisting that he shall so read that every one who listens may understand and enjoy all that is read. Another help which has been suggested by many teachers is the practice of bringing from home different short selections, which the pupils are encouraged to read to the class. These selections may be brief and simple—some anecdote, some clipping from a newspaper, some phrase or line, some conundrum, which has interested the child. It will soon be discovered that the children will learn to read well only when conscious that their reading is the means of conveying the thought to their hearers.

The practice of consulting reference books, even with pupils in the lowest grammar grades, has a reflex influence upon the power to read aloud well, since it gives to the pupil something which he desires to read to the others and which he alone can convey to them. This desire to share what is read by becoming able to read well should be stimulated in every possible way.

Again, ease in reading, which is an important factor, is often prevented by the pupil’s self-consciousness, which renders him timid and awkward whenever he attempts to read aloud in the presence of others. This timid self-consciousness varies with different individuals, of course, and it also varies in different classes. The teacher is often responsible for this shrinking on the part of the children, although it may be an unconscious responsibility on her part. Undue criticism of the reader, which draws the attention of the class to his faults and makes him conscious of himself, often prevents the very thing which the teacher is striving to obtain. The pupil’s thought should be drawn away from himself and centred upon the thought in the sentence, the message which he is to deliver. The question should be directed toward that, rather than toward the pupil’s idiosyncrasies.

This is coupled with another serious consideration. It has just been said that the child cannot read with expression if he is thinking about himself. It is also true that he cannot read well except as his mind is centred upon the subject about which he is reading. The teacher’s efforts should be in the direction of picturing the scene which the child describes, so that it will become real to him, and that he may be enabled to paint it to the class. She not only will endeavor to refrain from drawing the pupil’s attention to himself by ill-chosen comments, but she will also help him to imagine the thing described and to fix his thought upon it. For the time being everything else is forgotten.

Let us suppose that a class is reading “Paul Revere’s Ride”:

“Meanwhile, impatient to mount and ride,

Booted and spurred, with a heavy stride

On the opposite shore walked Paul Revere.

Now he patted his horse’s side,

Now gazed at the landscape far and near,

Then, impetuous, stamped the earth,

And turned and tightened his saddle-girth;

But mostly he watched with eager search

The belfry-tower of the Old North Church,

As it rose above the graves on the hill,

Lonely and spectral and sombre and still;

And lo! as he looks, on the belfry’s height

A glimmer, and then a gleam of light!

He springs to the saddle, the bridle he turns,

But lingers and gazes, till full on his sight

A second lamp in the belfry burns!

A hurry of hoofs in a village street,

A shape in the moonlight, a bulk in the dark,

And beneath, from the pebbles, in passing, a spark

Struck out by a steed flying fearless and fleet:

That was all! And yet, through the gloom and the light,

The fate of a nation was riding that night;

And the spark struck out by that steed, in his flight,

Kindled the land into flame with its heat.”

Used by permission of Houghton, Mifflin & Co.

If the pupil is to make his hearers hear and see Paul Revere, he must see and hear him, too. His eye must be upon the belfry tower of the Old North Church; he must feel the loneliness of the quiet graveyard, the fearfulness of the silent way; he must catch the gleam of the light; must watch the impetuous mounting, hear the hurry of hoofs in the village street, and realize the fatefulness of the hour in which the land is kindled into flame. Every effort should be centred upon helping the children to feel, to imagine the picture, and to sense its depth of meaning. Say nothing now about holding the book in one hand, standing on both feet or throwing the shoulders back; but stir the class to feel as Paul Revere felt, and to tell the tale with enthusiastic pride. Let all the questions help to make the picture clearer and the feeling stronger. Read again, and again, and again, until the message becomes most familiar, but with every reading more eager than before.

This selection emphasizes the need of preparation for the reading lesson outside of the reading class. No one can read the poem well who does not understand the setting. The story of the Revolution is essential to understanding the poem. Why the British ships were in the harbor; why the country folk should be up and in arms; what preceded and what followed the fateful ride; the scene of the poem—the belfry, the church, the town, the river, the harbor—must be clearly in mind. The background of the poet’s picture must be drawn before the children attempt to read aloud the paragraph.

It is obvious that the picture will be most vivid in the minds of those pupils who are most generously endowed with imagination. The above exercise goes to prove the need of some attempt on the part of teachers to cultivate the imagination of the children. A close scrutiny of the failures in our reading lessons would lead us to believe that it is to a lack of this power that we may attribute much of our difficulty in teaching reading. As soon as the children picture the scene which the words describe, they read with interest and vigor. Their indifference and heaviness are largely due to the fact that the words suggest no picture to them.

This faculty might be developed, in some degree, by frequent conversations which necessitate the children’s picturing or imagining what they have read. The simplest primer will lend itself to this exercise. The habit of drawing the picture which the sentence suggests is a further stimulus. Reading fairy stories or stories of adventure may help to stimulate the imagination. An effective aid is derived from playing or acting the story told in the lesson. I remember seeing a primary class that played “Hiawatha” with great delight, different children taking the parts of Nokomis, Hiawatha, Wenonah, the Pine Tree, the Fir Tree, the Squirrels, the Rabbits; reciting their parts with eager pleasure, acting them in the most unconscious fashion, and never with any lack of expression. The children recited with ease and naturalness and vigor. They were lost in their play, which was very real to them. Not long ago I visited a school in which the children had begged the privilege of representing the dialogue which they were reading. They assigned the parts themselves, improvised simple costumes, and read their various parts with great animation. The members of the class who served as audience listened with rapt attention, very unlike that which is ordinarily accorded to a rendering of the reading lesson. Through the play, the lesson became vitalized, it was made real. It did not occur to the teacher to suggest inflections or pauses; such suggestions were quite as unnecessary as they would have been in any conversation with the children. These things take care of themselves when the children have once been overmastered by the desire to express the thought. Nor will it ever be necessary to dwell upon them if this desire is created. “Seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you.” In a parallel sense, if we once inspire in the children the desire to convey the message of the text, the accessories of inflection and tone will become theirs. It cannot be too strongly emphasized that these lesser phases of good reading will be secured if properly subordinated to one great aim—the desire to communicate thought.

It is not difficult to imagine a question at this point. “Would you not have any vocal exercises to help in securing expression?” By all means, but not as a part of the reading exercise. If the exercise shows that the children have certain needs,—if the teeth are closed, if the pronunciation is slovenly or the articulation poor,—special exercises should be planned to remedy such defects, but these should be given as exercises and not as a part of the reading lesson. Sentences which demand clear articulation may be pronounced in rapid succession, or sung to the scale; selections may be read from the farthest corner of the room. Exercises which stretch the muscles used in articulation, exercises which straighten the body or secure ease in posture; breathing exercises and their kindred,—all are helpful, as exercises, but they should not interrupt the reading. They may alternate with reading, and prepare for it, but they should be considered, as they really are, subordinate to the one essential, the creation of a desire to read.

“Would you ever read to children in order to help them to get the right expression?” is a question which is frequently asked. By all means. There is no other way in which children can form an ideal of good reading. Many children hear no reading in their homes. They are accustomed to monotonous speech and to careless articulation. It is necessary to read to them, and to read well, in order to show them what good reading is. A further advantage of reading to the children is to show them how much the teacher gets from a poem or story which has meant little to them. Such reading should not lead to servile imitation on the part of the children; rather the opposite. The teacher’s comments upon the reading in the class will readily fix the seal of her approval upon individual renderings. “Let me hear how that seems to you, John,” she will say. “Mary, let me hear you read. I should like to get your thought.” “Kate, is that the way you understood it? Let me hear you read it.” I have heard a teacher request one pupil after another to read, waiting until the interpretation which was like her own was given before she commended, and impressing upon the entire class her feeling that such reading alone was correct. As a matter of fact, every rendering which was given was as good as the teacher’s—some even were better. The reader must interpret the author’s message as it appears to him. His reading shows his interpretation. If the teacher reads to the class, she shows simply what the writer’s message has been to her. In the reading lesson she gives to the pupils the opportunity of expressing what they themselves have read.

In reading, as in everything else, ease comes with practice. The class should have two varieties of practice. They should read and re-read a few selections which demand variety in expression; and they should read many easy selections which require very little effort in mastering. If the exercise is difficult enough to demand study, it will necessitate hesitation if read at sight. Such attempts at sight reading, with too difficult matter, will result in the habit of stumbling. Children should have an opportunity to overcome by study the difficulties which would otherwise make them hesitate in reading. All sight reading, so called, should be easy enough to be read fluently at sight.

The old-fashioned custom of setting apart Friday afternoons for reading, recitation, and declamation should be revived. The exercise was admirable, giving the children confidence in reading and speaking which resulted in ease and fluency. It was a helpful adjunct to the reading class and deserves to be honored in the observance.

It may be well to suggest, in this connection, that the habit of reading with free and individual expression is seriously hindered by the practice of concert reading. If the teachers who pursue that practice were to attempt occasionally to read aloud in company with others, they would discover the difficulties under which the children labor. The practice works in direct opposition to the exercises which have been advised. It is impossible for the child to give his individual rendering in a concert recitation. He cannot even read at his individual rate; he must wait for his neighbor. His words drag, his voice becomes strained and unnatural, the exercise assumes the school-room tone, and the children adopt the swinging rhythm of the singsong. A few children lead; the others follow, or most of the others—a very few succeed in evading the reading altogether. All this is wrong. It is better for the child to read once alone than to read ten times in concert with others. It is true, however, that there is one place for the concert reading. When a poem or paragraph has been memorized by the entire class under the direction of the teacher, they may learn to recite it well in concert without the disadvantages described; but, as a reading lesson, the exercise has no place—it should be banished from the school-room.

One word more. In our attempts to teach children to read with expression, we may be helped by studying to learn what selections they like best to read, what it is that appeals to them. By following the line of their interest we may come to realize why selections which we have chosen are difficult for them, and through making a wiser choice may become more successful in our teaching. Here, as elsewhere, it is the intelligent study of the class by the teacher which enables her to apply her knowledge of the subject which she teaches.

The highest office of reading is not to open the eyes of the child to the evolution of the material world, nor to teach him to adapt its resources to his own subsistence; he needs no books for that. The greatest hunger of the human soul is not for food. It is that he may better understand soul motives and heart needs; that he may more freely give to the heart-hungry, and more freely receive from the soul-full; that he may live out of and away from his meaner self; that he may grow all-sided; that he may look with analytic rather than with critical eyes upon the erring; that he may relish the homely side of life, and weave beauty into its poverty and ugly hardships; that he may add to his own strength and wisdom the strength and wisdom of the past ages. It is that he may find his own relation to the eternal, that the child, equally with the grown person, turns to the songs which ravish the ear and gladden the heart.

—Mary E. Burt.

CHAPTER VII.
LESSONS TO SUGGEST PLANS OF WORK.

I.—Lesson upon the Cow.

To precede or accompany Reading Lessons which refer to the Cow (in lowest grades).

1. Find out what the children know about the cow.

Every new lesson should be built upon and fastened to the children’s past experience. If they have no knowledge of cows, we must introduce the subject accordingly. If they have always known them, the lesson will be merely a review, because the foundation will have been prepared. If the children live in the country and know the common animals, proceed at once to definite questions which will arrange their knowledge and help them to express it:

Where have you seen cows? What do you know about them—their size, color; the head, ears, legs, feet, tail?

How large are they, as compared with the horse, dog, cat?