The colored Tennessean., 1866-03-24
For the Colored Tennessean.)
FolSDlTEON OF EDUCATION. No. ?.
BY MRS. f. v. BURNS.

The thoughtful reader who perused
the article on < the True Foundation
'Of Education" in last weeks issue,
has, no doubt, reflected on the sub
ject, and various objections and ques-
tons relating to it will have arisen in
his mind. The most formidable OF
these is probably this one: Books
and newspapers are as they are They
will continue to he printed in the
present mode Of spelling for some
time to come, and people must learn
to read Them Quite true; and we
wish the colored people to read as
many Of them as possible, and in the
shortest possible time. Now it has
been proved by repeated and careful
experiments that the quickest way to
teach any person to read the common
print, is to teach them to read first
with Pitman's Phonetic Alphabet.
AS no amount Of reasoning on any
subject is SO convincing as actual
proof, / viii spend no time in argu-
ment, though there are many and
weighty reasons why the shortest path
to literature should pass through pho
netic reading. But | will proceed at
once to give proofs from the best
authorities in the land; educators of
large minds and long experience, who
have themselves studied and taught on
the phonetic system after years of or
dinary school teaching. Let me first
refer YOU to an address by Rev. Thorn
~ Hill, now President Of Harvard
University He says:
Phonetic printing isa attractive and
interesting to the majority Of chill
dren, and they learn to read it with
ont any compHlsion. FURNISHES the
means for very complete drill in ar
ticulation. The whole course of read
Ing is a drill i'll pronunciation and
enunciation. In other systems teach
ers can drill the pupil, bnt in this sys-
TEN neither teacher nor pupil can
avoid the drill Each word being
spelled precisely as it has to be pro
nOunced, nothing but the grossest
neglect, on the teachers part, can al
low any faulty pronunciation to go
uncorrected. Nothing can SO surely
take the foreign accent out OF the
speech Of children.
"A child who reads the phonetic
print well, can, in few hours, learn,
even without instruction, to read the
common print The transition can
he made at any time by simply giving
the phonetic scholar an interesting
story. such as one Of the Rollo books,
II common type.
III repeat, then, my assertion
founded upon five years constant
usage Of the phonetic mode of teach
ing, both in my private experience
and in the public schools Of Waltham,
Mass, that it is vastly superior to the
ordinary mode Of teaching children
to read" :
Next is the Il Annual Report OF the
Secretary Of the School Board of
Syracuse, n. Il" 1t remarks that
During the past year the system
Of phonetic teaching has been intro
duced into several Of our schools by
way Of experiment, and the results
proved 50 favorable, that the Board
at once adopted it for all the primary
departments.
Children taught By this method
learn the first rudiments Of reading
and spelling BY the sound only The
process is 50 simple, and the connec
ton 50 close between the sounds and
words they make when combined,
that the children learn very readily TO
read, and that, too, with distinctness
Of utterance never attained under any
other system. This latter result is 50
marked that it deserves particular
notice. Some Of the classes expert
mented upon were composed ofpupils
Of every variety Of parentage, Amer
lean, English, Irish and German yet
when trained for only few months
upon this system, they were found to
have 50 completely lost all their pecu-
liarities Of pronunciation, that the
most critical ear would find it difficult
to detect Internationally tsa a
Now read the report Of the Super
intendent Of Public Schools Of In
dianapolis aN
The success of the experiment,
tried in the Fifth Ward Primary
Schools has been all that could have
been expected This was fully tested