The Hawaiian gazette. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu, Hawaii]) 1865-1918, 1880-03-03
The New pepar.nre in the paslle sehools.

Many thousand years ago mothers and
nurses discovered how to teach babies to talk.
About other educational problems there may
be doubt. but this one is settled: the one thing
every human being, rich or poor, learned or
ignorant, can do really well is to speak the
tongue his mother taught him. Now if peda-
gogues, instead of making children 60 their
way, would only consent TO follow the example
set by the mothers and teach as they do, or, in
other words, would let children learn in the
way in which nature meant them to learn,
they might be successful, too; bat they con-
slider themselves wiser than nature, and there
fore they fail. A mother does not begin by
teaching her baby to spell before it learns to talk
She says, Il am mother say 'mother;'"
and the baby understands perfectly, and tries,
and after while says "mother," and is de-
lighted; and so learning to talk goes on with
perfect satisfaction TO every one. In view of
these well-known facts, common sense would
suggest making an effort to see if it is impos-
sible to teach reading and writing in the same
way; in perfect faith that if it can be done it
must be right, because it must be natural
That it can be done with entire success the
result of many different experiments has
proved The method is very simple. For ex-
ample, the teacher, ON the first day of school,
draws man on the blackboard, and then
taking little class of about dozen children
about her she asks them what she has drawn.
They say "a man." and are interested at
once She then writes the word "man," and
tells them that means imam too. They I'M
derstand Immediately, and after she has rub
bed it ont and rewritten it few times they
learn to recognize it wherever they see it.
Then while the impression is still fresh they
are sent to their seats to see how good a man
they can make on their states for themselves
This is the first writing lesson, and though
naturally the first attempts are not very sue
cessful, it is surprising how quickly children
learn to initiate any word they see written,
and with what never-failing interest and en-
joyment they will copy words and sentences
upon their states. Every word they read they
also write, and of course spell for children
would no more spell the word "man" wrong
when they wrote it, after having learned to
draw it in this way, than they would draw the
man himself without its head. Indeed, the
method of teaching spelling is the great fea-
ture of the system. If anything has been de-
monstrated by repeated failure, it is that
teaching to spell English by ear is impossible.
Nine out of ten of the people who speak the
English language to-day, if they are in doubt
how to spell word, write it down to see how
it looks that is, they spell by eye, although
the eye has never been trained to retain the
shape of words. The object system spends its
whole power on this training of the eye From
his first lesson, before he knows letter, the
child is taught 10 immitate the written shapes
he is taught to rely entirely upon the eve, and
after he has learned his letters, and can spell
orally, instead of drawing what were to him
at first arbitrary signs, the same system is
continued. Spelling is taught by dictation and
by exercises i'll writing original composition,
until at length the eye retains naturally and
without effort the form of every word that has
been seen.
Meanwhile, photography is learned Hav-
ing always seen sentences written beginning
with capital, it seems to the children law
of nature that all sentences should so begin,
and accordingly they never think of writing
otherwise. They learn in the same way what
q question mark is, and what it means, and
where it should be put, and so ON throughout.
Strangely enough, also, although the child
has never been taught his letters, and only
knows written words as signs representing
objects, he finds no difficulty in recognizing
the printed words when he sees them in a
book
Thus children who have learned to read
from script upon the blackboard, when they
are put into primers go on with so little diff
Guilty that the delay in the school work may be
neglected. Every one knows, however, that
the converse does not hold true, and that chill
dren who have first learned to read print do
not read handwriting naturally. AS time goes
on another strange phenomenon takes place.
Children begin to read new words at sight,
without knowing their letters, or at least the
names of the letters They appear to have come
to associate certain written signs with certain
sounds, and to generalize just as they do
when they learn to talk.