Knoxville daily chronicle. [volume] (Knoxville, Tenn.) 1870-1882, 1882-04-13
BURDETT'S BABY.
Why He Won't Have it Bothered With
Grammar.
Burlington Hawkere.


Burlington Hawkeye
Time flies and the boy is learning
to talk so that other people can un-
derstand him.
eff you would let me have him for
about one month";" said the pleasant
voiced and pleasant-faced schools
mistress who came down here from
up river last week, 81 could break
him of that careless habit of speak,
ing"
Just because the boy had asked his
stern, dark browed father:
''Poppuls, whurs is mines fffin
pole you peakin' mama UNI day."
( Which, by interpretation is, as the
| pleasant voiced school-mistress would
have taught him to say: <e
sFather, where is my fishing rod of
which you were speaking to my moth
er with reference to purchasing it
for me at some time in the indefinite
future
And her little serene highness
shook his head and said no; he was
losing his baby talk, and learning to
speak English too rapidly as it was.
The pleasant face OF the schoolmis.
tress wrinkled up into an interroga-
ton point.
'''School-mistress," the Jester said,
son all matters of education, your
shapely head is not billy; it is as level
as new>mown lawn, but you don't
want to teach the baby grammar,
and you don't want him to speak
good English. You want him to be q
baby, and you want to encourage
him to indulge in baby talk In the
years to come, when the pudgy little
fists will dig great tears out of the
blue eyes, because the boy can't re.
member in just what points there
should and must be exact harmony
between the verb and the subject;
when he is confident that he will die
before he can remember how many
fellows besides lad, ante, con, in or
inter, are followed by the accusative;
when he knows the world will stand
still for just two hours after school
if he can't recall that all Examinations
in something or other take the what
you may call it after some kind of
things; when he is 80 trusting and
has so much confidence in Mr.. Da>
vies that he is not only willing but
anxious to accept his statement that
the sum of the three angles of tri-
angle is equal to two right angles,
without going to the board to prove
his truthfulness by demonstration !;
along in those days the memory of
his baby talk will come beck to us
like sweet music. He will have
trouble enough with the English
language and all the appurtenances
thereunto appertaining by and by"
''No," he responded, in answer to
a silent inquiry of the pleasant>faced
school mistress, "he does not know
his alphabet, thank heaven, and he
shall not be bothered with it. Yes,
he has alphabet blocks, and knows
all the letters on them and many pre-
posterous stories about the pictures
Oh, yes, he can count hear him now
counting the pebbles he brought home
from the beach, 'one, free, seven
ten, free, five, seven. free; certainl,
he can count, by asystem of his own
too, which is more than most peopl,
have"
Don't make prig of the baby
schoolmistress From the day OF
which they are six years old the,
must, under the school system of tn
States, begin to study, and sit a
straight and behave properly an
speak correctly, and from that tim
until the grave hides them they liy
and speak and act; verbally speaking
they be and do, and suffer undo
social and educational surviellanc,
And | claim that at least six year
of the life of man or woman shout
be free ; free as the air; free to tai
as the brook runs, with untrammele
musical prattle and babble. VIII
here, a few weeks ago, came melal
choly looking child, about four yea,
old, and in presence and hearin
pointed to me, and said to b
az mother:
d Mama of whom is that gentlemf
= speaking?'
" poor little prig! My heart biz
c. for him. That afternoon I took Il
u boy down by the target, and taug
him to say, Mama, what is dot nj
) speakin' you about! and reconstrut
ed his general grammar on the saI
:. easy basis, and-look me in the 9
he If that boy didn't tan up like
he he young Indian in two days, and
Cd Cd gained seven pounds in three weel
"You see" the jester concluded,
an apologize tone, for he had do
an unusual amount of preaching II
day, ''You see we haven't We
=: broad experience in training childr'
we have only one chick to cluck oN
's n and scratch for, but we're bound
md shan't go to school until he's throu
! II: : being baby, and we know, scho'
mistress, that he's the happiest ba
a. that ever mangled grammar"
RESCUED FROM DEATH.