The Benton weekly record. [volume] (Benton, Mont.) 1880-1885, 1883-09-15
BURDET1E'S BOY.
He Shan't be Bothered With
Grammar.

From the Burlington Hawkeye.
Time flies. and the boy is learning te
talk so that other people can understand
| him.
''If you would let me have him fol about
one month"; said a pleasant-voiced and
! pleasant-taced school-mistress who came
down here from up the river last week, q
could break him of that careles habit OF
speaking.'
just because the boy had asked his
stern, darked-browed father: "Poppuls
whurs is mines fffin pole you peakin
mama um day 20 Which, by interpreta-
ton is, AS the pleasant voiced school-mis-
tress would have taught him to say
"Father, where is my tishing-rod of which
you were speaking to my mother with re-
ferenct to purchasing it for me at some
time in the immediate future?''
And her little serene highness shook her
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
school mistress wrinkled up into an inter-
rogation point.
''School MISTRESS the jester said, "on
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
a baby and you want to encourage him 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
remember MUST 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 'ad, 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 cannot
recall that all terminations in something
or other take the what-you-may-call af-
ter some kind of things; when he is so
trusting and has so much confidence in
Mr.. Davis that he is not only willing but
anxious to accept his statement that the
sum of the three angles of triangle 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 back 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 silent
inquiry of the pleasant faced eehoolmis-
tress, 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 prepos-
ferrous stories about the pictures. Oh, yes,
he can count. Hear him now counting
the pebbles he brought home from the
beach-one, free, seven, free, seven, ten,
free, five, seven, free; certainly, he can
count, by system of his own, too, which
is more than mos. people have"
''Don't make a prig of the baby, school
mistress. From the day On which they are
six years old they must, under the school
system of the States, begin to study, and
sit up straight, and behave properly, and
speak correctly, and from that time until
the grave hides them they live and speak
and act, verbally speaking, they be, and
! a., al
al surveillance. And | claim that at least
six years of the life of a man Or woman
should be free; free as the air; free to talk
as the brook runs, with untrammeled mu-
steal prattle and babble. Why, here, a
few weeks ago, came melancholy look
ing child, about four years old, and in
presence and hearing pointed to me, and
said to his mother
"'Mamma, of whom is that gentleman
speaking?'
E'Poor little prig.o MY heart bled for
him. That afternoon took the boy down
by the target and taught him to say,
Mamma, what is dot man speakin' to
you dDOuI anu ieCoilsLiu iuCtcu HE SGHcI-
al grammar on the same easy basis, and
look me in the eye-if that boy didn't tan
up like young Indian in two days, and
he gained seven pounds in two weeks.
''You see," the jester concluded, in an
apologetic tone, for he had done an un-
usual am1 unit of preaching that day-''you
see, we haven't very broad experience in
training children; We have only one chick
to cluck over and scratch for, but we are
bound he. shan't 60 to school until he is
through being a baby, and we know,
school-mistress, that he is the happiest
baby that ever mangled grammar.
1t Was all Right.