ology, is "thrown out" at an object or idea, that is often literary in the best sense, because suggestive. There are times, of course, when such language is out of keeping; but where this gift of literary expressiveness is found, it must be tenderly dealt with. We know that teachers are only too prone, for "clearness'" sake, to change into a flat, commonplace, and narrow accuracy the free language that has a generous literary sweep. The speech

of childhood is full of literary surprises, which, while they may not pass muster under text-book rule, are to be more than tolerated on the score of their fresh and savory quality of rich connotation. Teachers must

bring to the literary work of children a breath of tolerance, a tact that is bred of sympathy with their vague strivings and subtle intentions; which alone can tell them when to insist on precision, and when to admit a reaching-out after the bolder effects of suggestive speech, ― speech that is to be gauged not by scientific, but by poetic standards.

We have already passed, by natural transition, to the subject of correction. Again let it be urged, as the principle of prime importance, that not every mistake is to be corrected. We must correct first those mistakes with which we are systematically coping in our language work, and those with which the children have systematically grappled in their earlier work, this on the supposition that the course of study provides for a progressive treatment of specific difficulties in each

grade. It is a good practice, when a new difficulty is attacked, to ask the children to go over some of their old work correcting mistakes of the kind now being considered. This puts them in the proper attitude toward the work of correction, and makes for that habit of self-correction which we must foster by every means at our command.

One way of doing this is to take for class discussion certain typical mistakes running through a batch of papers; to give a few special exercises on this common error; and then to hand round the papers of the batch for class correction, expecting that the class will discuss the errors, and correct them neatly in the margin as the teacher would do.

The duty of wise and impartial correction must not hide from us the duty and efficacy of commendation. The good things, the happy hits, the felicitous word or phrase (the use of a new word as an addition to the working vocabulary of the class), the taking conceit, the

rhythmical sentence, the ingenious plan, the expressive effect in alliteration or onomatopoeia, — these should be brought casually before the class and noted, with only a silent but meaningful recognition of the little workman whose work is being published. Occasionally the class may be asked to choose from a batch of selected compositions read by the teacher, the one that is the most interesting, that it may be read at the morning exercise of the school. The readiness to

appreciate, unselfishly and disinterestedly, the good work of classmates and coöperators can scarcely be too assiduously cultivated.

Finally, as we advance in the grades we must make the model play a greater and greater part. Sometimes before and sometimes after a task is assigned, the teacher may say, "Now, let us see how a great master does the sort of thing we are trying to do in our 'prentice way." Or she may take a model of her own workmanship, a model (it may sometimes be) which she has elaborated on the basis of the best examples handed in to her; a model, that is, which embodies her divination of the sort of ideal that the young, baffled craftsmen she is training had vaguely in their minds, and were trying to approximate.

CHAPTER XII

GRAMMAR AND LANGUAGE WORK IN THE GRAMMAR

GRADES

AMONG the greater unsettled questions connected with the study of English, none is more unsettled than the Grammar question. What place shall the study of formal English Grammar have in our curriculum? Shall it come into the Grammar Grades, or await the High School? What emphasis shall be put upon it? How far shall it be carried? What language lessons shall precede it?-and so on. In the recent reaction against the old-fashioned grammar grind, opinion has swerved to the extreme of excluding formal Grammar altogether from the Elementary School, and of ranking it as a High School study. This view still widely obtains; it is that, e.g., of Professor Carpenter, expressed in his recent "Principles of English Grammar." It is also that of the Committee of Ten, who hold that formal Grammar should not be taken up earlier than the thirteenth year; and that even then it should "not be pursued as a separate study longer than is necessary to familiarize the pupil with the main principles. Probably a single year (not more than three hours a week) will be sufficient." Moreover, the teaching of it "should

be as far as possible inculcated, and should be brought into close relation with the pupil's work in reading and composition."

On the whole, however, the present later trend of opinion rather favors the study of it in some form or other in the upper Grammar Grades. The tendency toward a recognition of the necessity of Grammar in the Elementary Grades is indirectly borne out by the elaboration of a substitute for the Grammar text-book in the form of the language lesson, which tends more and more to assume the character of nothing less than a new type of formal Grammar itself, — developed, it is true, in connection with the theory and practice of composition, but none the less Grammar on that account. On the completion of any of the typical series of language lessons recently published, the child is already in possession of all the leading principles of formal Grammar.

Reviewing briefly the salient arguments of the discussion, which will explain the present status of the subject, let us first ask, What was the meaning of the reaction against the study of formal Grammar of the Lindley Murray type? The main count against it was that it failed of practical results; failed as a communicable "art of speaking and writing the English language with propriety," to quote the Murray definition. The endless formalities of rule and precept were found to be wasteful burdens of knowledge unrelated to practice.