The Newberry herald and news. (Newberry, S.C.) 1884-1903, 1886-05-05
G.. ". WEIGH.
";."atiiu@ Makes the Ready Ean."

IN Jl!S department Lnlnk tnere is
large room for improvement, espe'
cial;y in our country schools. Teach
crS, as 4 general thing, in their ef-
fort to train their pupils to read cor
rectly and fuently, seem to lose
Sight OF The far more important OBJ
jcct. namely, to make the child in
tcrested in the subject matter of its
lessons. and to stimulate within it
desire 10 read from other sources than
! that Of the text book. Now, in town,
very few children need such slim.
ulus. From the libraries, picture
books, gaudy advertisements, etc,
they become fascinated enough with
the delightful accomplishment. There,
the trouble lies in educating them up
to q taste for N..olesome literature.
In the country, however, matters are
different. Here. the scarcity of
books and papers. bad lights at night,
and separation from the current
news Of the day, all serve as
daa3pcr to any latent desire to read.
u ith the same scEool advantages, IN
proportion 10 their ages. l believe
that an average town Toy or girl of
twelve years can read better and
more understandingly than the ave-
rage country boy of sixteen; and all
for the want of interest and practice
in the latter case. Apart from the
advantages to be derived from read
ING. in itself, it las been my ex-
perience and no doubt, the ex-
perience, Of every teacher, that those
pupils who have the greatest fond
ness for rcading-reading at home
are tie most proficient in their other
studies. The reason of this is quite
obvious. The mental powers arc
kept in constant exercise, a vocabu-
larry is acquired. and the nature Of
wor,!s and the structure Of senten-
ces are better understood, all of
which lead to q more ready compre,
hension Of grammar and mathemat.
les.
In one Of my grammar classes
there was boy. about sixteen years
old, who. after he had recited q few
lessons. astonished me very mnch by
the ease with which he mastered the
duties assigned. The text book |
used was Reed and Kellogg's |
Higher GRAMMAR and though this
boy was going through the work for
the first time. yet in the analyses of
sentences, he never failed to detect
the most delicate shades of meaning
involved. and exceedingly seldom
was it that he required any aid in his
diagrams. l felt that l was doing
the boy injustice in keeping him
hack with the class and 50 told him
one day that he might 60 on by him
self as fast as he was able. Nor was
his ability due to any special talent
for grammar alone, for he was
equally apt in every one of his other
studies. I naturally became very
much interested 10 this youth and
began to make inquiries as TO his
previous educational advantages. I
was tod that he was the oldest son
Of a widow in very limited circum-
stances, that lie had been to school
but little and very irregularly and
that he paid for his schooling him
self by working in brick-yard.
This indicated q pluck, determina-
ton to succeed, as rare in one Of his
chances. IS fountains in a desert,
still. it did not account for his singu-
lar ability. One day, however, l
learned that he was great reader;
that lie had been taking the youths
Companion for number Of years
and that he literally devoured, d.
gested and assimilated every line of
its contents. All here lay the whole
secret. The mystery was solved.
Here beheld his school, his teacher,
his text books. and the source of all
his inspiration. The paper was
about all that he lad to read, yet he
read and remembered. l spent the
night with him once and within his
mothers little log cabin before the
blazing hearth. On that January
evening, we talked Of Calhoun, Web
ster, Burr. Preston, Stevens, Toombs,
G iadStone and others and I found
him as conversant as an average
college graduate on the leading
topics and distinguished men of the
day. AS the conversation turned ,