training of the eye to the recognition, and of the hand to the reproduction of the forms of words.

In practical life we spell with the pen, not with the tongue ; hence to impress letters on the memory by saying them again Spelling and again is to pay dearly for what is worth little. with the pen The chief object being the training of the eye and hand, the chief means should be reading and writing, though oral spelling may, with some advantage, be employed as an auxiliary. Saying the letters compels looking at them carefully; the ear may help the eye to remember; and speech is more rapid though, here, less effectual than writing.

Oral spelling must, however, be employed with moderation and intelligence. It should be used as an aid to the training. of the eye, but never allowed to become a subOral spelling stitute for the training of the hand. The letters should not be repeated so often that the operation becomes mechanical or monotonous, and there should be no uniformity in the manner or the number of the repetitions. If, for example, the words chimney, lawns, boughs, buttercup, dawns, skies, daylight, sheaves, lowing, tinkle, whirl, and purple1 had to be taught orally, the teacher would pass quickly over chimney, buttercup, tinkle, and purple as being fairly regular, and over daylight as being compounded of two words certain to be already familiar. Lawns and dawns would be written on the blackboard with fawns and prawns, boughs with ploughs, and whirl with twirl; sky would be taken with skies, and sheaf with sheaves.

Word-building is as essential a part of the spelling as of the reading lesson. The aim of the exercise in both cases is to Word-build- teach the powers of the letters (in reading to iming press on the mind the sound corresponding to the symbol, and in spelling the symbol corresponding to the sound). When these have been mastered the exercise may

1 Printed at the head of Lesson 52 in the Third Ship Literary Reader.

be extended to such rules as our orthography admits of. Thus, when the rule for the doubling of the final consonant has been taught, children should be asked to add -ing and -ed to beg, plod, fan, fret, shrug, nod, rub, sup, hop, &c.; and -er to rub, slip, stop, sup, big, fat, hot, hat, red, sad, sin, tan, thin, wet, &c. When the rule for dropping the final e before affixes beginning with a vowel has been taught, children should be asked to add -ing and -ed to hate, fade, gape, scrape, wane, care, plane, rattle, settle, manage, require, excuse, escape, injure, &c. ; -er to large, close, fine, write, sure, wide, idle, feeble, &c.; able to change, peace, desire, cure, move, note, excite, admire, advise, &c. To impress the fact that the e is not dropped before an affix beginning with a consonant they should be asked to add -ment to abate, amaze, confine, engage, improve, manage, excite, agree, measure, &c.; -ful to peace, care, grace, hope, shame, tune, use, &c.; -ness to close, feeble, fine, like, gentle, forgive, polite, fierce, coarse, white, &c. ; -less to care, taste, base, grace, hope, shame, use, sense, noise, &c.; -ly to sure, sore, close, like, lone, polite, sole, safe, fierce, scarce, sincere, &c.

The principle of comparison should be freely applied. Children are the more likely to remember that knife begins with Comparison a silent k when they see that knee, knock, knack, and contrast knob, knead, know, and knave also begin with a silent k. The principle of contrast should also be freely applied. Words like conceive, deceive, perceive, receive, and seize should be taught with words like belief, relief, grief, and siege.

tion

Oral spelling (with the variations and aids indicated) is not without its use, but for the training of the eye and hand the Transcrip- teacher must trust chiefly to copying or transcription. The words or passages to be copied or transcribed should of course be selected with a definite purpose, according to a pre-arranged plan, and the extent to which children have benefited by the exercise should be tested by dictation. In copying or transcription good writing should always be insisted on, as a well-written word leaves on the

mind a clearer image than a scrawl. Supervision and correction should be thorough, as every mistake which is passed over leaves a confused or a wrong impression on the mind. Young children should generally write complete sentences. If their attention is confined to isolated hard words they will fail to become familiar with the common but by no means easy words which make the bulk of daily speech. Even older children. must write complete sentences when dealing with words similar in sound.

Dictation, often largely adopted as a method of teaching, is really only a method of testing spelling. A child who makes no mistakes learns nothing from it. Still, dictaDictation tion, employed, like oral spelling, with moderation and intelligence, is a useful and necessary exercise. It may be made an incentive for the careful study of all the hard words in a given 'piece,' and it shows what pupils and what words call for special attention.

Having selected the passage to be dictated, the teacher reads it aloud. A knowledge of the meaning of the whole A dictation will help the children to catch the sound of each separate word, and to decide between the different spellings by which the same sound is sometimes represented.1

exercise

The passage is then dictated in sections of from two to six words, according to the age of the children and to the sense. The teacher should speak clearly enough for every one who is listening to hear and understand, and there should be, as a rule, no repetition. Children will not attend the first time if they think that there will be a second time. The rate of dictation should be regulated by watching a good writer of average speed. 'Copying' must be prevented by every means, moral and mechanical.

After the dictation comes the correction. If this be not thorough, the exercise is worse than valueless. A misspelling

' Without hearing the context it would be impossible to decide whether to write 'I heard the canon,' or 'I heard the cannon.'

indicates a false impression of the form of a word, and this is deepened by iteration. Every mistake must, therefore, be discovered, and the correct spelling written a sufficient number of times to remove the false and imprint the true impression. The best method of correction is for the teacher to examine every exercise himself (the children, meanwhile, being usefully employed), but this is possible only with small classes. The method of mutual correction generally adopted is open to three objections the corrector's own right spelling may be confused or wrong spelling confirmed by the mistakes of the corrected; errors may be passed over; and there is a constant temptation for the child to look at his own exercise instead of the one before him. This temptation can be largely overcome by good discipline, and entirely obviated by a simple device. The child at the upper end of each row of desks takes his own book (or slate) and that of his neighbour to the lower end of the row; the remaining books (or slates) are then passed up two places.

A better plan than mutual correction is for each child to correct his own, but this can be followed only when the training in honesty and carefulness has been successful.

Whatever method is adopted for marking errors, all words misspelled should be written accurately several times. While this is being done some pleasant occupation should be found for the children who have no errors, and the teacher should go round the class glancing at each exercise, and more than glancing at the exercises of children likely to have many errors.

A note should be made of the words misspelled, and after a few days they should be dictated again, for it must be remembered that memory impressions are deepened by interest or by repetition, and, as spelling cannot often be made interesting, repetition is essential.

125

WRITING

PROGRESS in writing is evident at a glance, and parents generally are competent to judge of it; whereas progress in other

A school judged by the pupils' writing

subjects can be ascertained only by careful periodical examinations, which many parents are neither able nor willing to make. The average parent's estimate of a school, therefore, rests chiefly on the success with which writing is taught in it. And the ground of the estimate, though narrow, is firm, for the character of the writing is a sure sign of the character of the teacher. If there are nearly as many styles of writing as there are pupils, and most of the styles are bad, the teacher must be wanting in industry, or method, or the power of enforcing his will; and, on the other hand, if the children all write one style, and write that well, the plan must be good, the instruction skilful and persevering, and the discipline effective. There is no subject where success is so certain to follow intelligent effort, because writing is largely a mechanical exercise, and the dullard, who fails in subjects making greater demands upon the intellect, has in it an equal chance with the brightest-in fact, the best writers are often found in the lower part of a class.

Before beginning the first lesson, every teacher must decide (unless the decision be made for him by authority)

Preliminary 1. What style of writing shall be taught. questions

2. Whether, in the earlier stages, slates shall

or shall not be used.

3. Whether, after the earlier stages, books with engraved