The Somerset herald. [volume] (Somerset, Pa.) 1870-1936, 1882-05-03
WHOLE NO. 1908.

now that he did not use before. and
words once used are discarded.
believe in writing words from pro-
nunciation. In other words, l be-
lieve in selecting a list of words and
pronouncing them aloud to your
class, but do not have the faith in
this plan that some teachers and a
good many authors seem to have.
A pupil may write every word as
enunciated by me; he may fail on
fifty per cent. of the same words
from your enunciation.
/ deem that there should be no
special direction of the mind to any
particular word, much less do |
think that the attention should be
called to every word by the mere
act of pronouncing it to your class.
| prefer this plan, but bear in mind
use the above also. discover for
instance that some pupil knows the
Psalm of Life by heart" / say to
him, "Will you 60 to the board and
write one, two, or mere stanzas of it
on the board, carefully and neatly"
Some other pupil knows all or part
of some other piece. / send him to
the board also. Their minds are di-
rected to no particular word; they
write from memory; if they mis-
spell at all they will do so now. Be
sides, think it very good plan to
have pupils commit striking
thoughts, passages from the poets,
etc, etc, and after a reasonable time
has elapsed to place them on the
board in view of the class. The
written drill in other studies also
affords many a good drill in SPELL
ing. Always look on your pupils
work and see that all misspelling is
corrected then and there. Drill,
drill, drill. Constant dropping of
water will wear away a rock" and
constant drill in good habits will
wear away bad ones. Your work
may seem to you to be accomplish
ed slowly, but it is accomplished.
The progress of the hour hand
around the dial plate cannot be de-
tected, but it not the less certainly
moves. You are now sowing the
seed which shall grow, blossom. and
bear fruit in the far distant future
mayhap when your hands are fold
ed in that last long sleep from which
none shall ever more awake-but
not the less certainly will the fruit
be borne.
Words are pictures. The proof
reader perhaps recognizes this fact
more clearly than other men. When
the proof-reader sees a misspelled
word it strikes him in much the
same manner that distorted pic
ture strikes you or me, but he has
the ability to correct the distortion
of the word-picture, while / at least
cannot correct the misplaced work
of the artists pencil. Our object is
to train the child, the boy, the youth,
to recognize the picture-words. As
l have already said, the hand of 4
ready writer glides over the paper,
tracing word after word and sentence
after sentence, but his mind is on
other things. He is not thinking of
his spelling, and yet he must spell
every word he writes, and he will
spell it just as he has learned it.
You do not see the hand hesitate for
ar instant; the pen may be weary,
bat it glides on, scratch, scratch, un-
til the work is finished, or until a
word occurs of which there is doubt
or ignorance; then there is a jar;
the hand stops in its course, the
mind comes back from several lines
ahead. The hesitation may be but
tempory. and if so the pen scratches
the paper al the faster, to make up
for lost time, or perhaps the mind
cannot settle on what is right; the
pen goes over the ear, the dictionary
comes into re9uisition; a mental
note is made of the word and for
gotten perhaps before the page is
finished. Childhood is gone, and,
as Solomon, or some other wise man,
says, at is hard TO learn an old dog
new tricks But here is the point
in all this-there is a conception OF
the proper form in the mind before
the word is written. Let proof.
reader get hold of a new word, and
he is as much puzzled as you or ]
would be. Let me illustrate this
point. / called one day at the office
of a newspaper published by friend
of mine in a distant part of this
State. had sent him numerous ar
ticies on a variety of subjects, and
some mistakes had been made in the
printing. My writing is not SO bad
as Horace Greeley's, and it is not
copperplate by any means. The
conversation turned upon penman.
ship, and he remarked:
Il must show you the cleanesi
copy and the best written. so far as
penmanship is concerned, that
have ever received in my editorial
experience; you know the man that
wrote it, too"
He drew from drawer a letter
written on the very thinest of thin
''onion skin" paper, with a jet black
ink and a finely pointed pen.
must confess that it was a marvel OF
penmanship. started TO read the
dozen or SO pages over silently, when
my friend stopped me by saying:
Hold. l want you to read that
aloud. There is a word that occurs
twice in that letter that has puzzled
the whole Office and every man in
town to whom ] have shown the let
ter" The letter was dated Madrid
and gave an account of bull fight
! The word referred to was 'toro.'
The question was, was it "toro" ol
''tovo?" No one knew, and they
had set it up both ways, trusting i
anyone knew which was right that
the wrong would beattributed to Tx
DEVIL mean the printers devil.
( / told him there was no doubi
about the word; it was Spanish
Spanish is an ofishoot of the Latin
and the word was evidently deriv.
alive of taurus" a bull. / added
that the word evidently meant a bull
pen, from the context. The wore
went out to the world on my say-se