The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1889-06-29

sUPT. WILLIAM II. STEWART
presented the subject of arithmetic. Like
all other branches of study this is best pro-
NOTED by knowledge Of the laws that
govern the development of the faculties of
the mind. We must, then, know how the
mind grows, and understand sense
perception, conception, memory and recol-
lection, imagination, judgment and reason.
This brings us to these educational truths
knowledge is based on correct perception; ;
ideas must come before words; the child
must be led to discover all for himself;
self-activity is an essential law of growth:
we learn to do by doing; teaching is di-
recting the self-activity of the learner.
There are only two general laws in ar
lthmetlc-6eparating and uniting. This
should be clearly shown to the children.
The first necessity is that the child learn
thoroughly the oral language of arithme
tic. Until this is known it is of little use
to introduce figures or signs. Every op-
GRAFTON in the first steps must be verified
by the use of objects. The lecturer then
Illustrated his method by exercising a class
OF children from the Nineteenth ward
school. Such appliances as weights, mea-
sures, toy money. blocks, peas, beans, shoe
pegs, sticks and many other objects should
be used to get the idea of number and
parts Of numbers into the mind of the child.
To learn rule and work mechanically by
II is neither teaching nor learning arithme-
tic. In the higher branches also, objects
should be used until, as in the lower
grades, the idea is obtained when the me
chanical processes should be immediately
introduced. There should be much mental
practice in all the classes, and the teacher
should be able to produce mental examples
TO suit the occasion as it arises. Nothing
should be done for the pupil that he can do
for himself, and no careless work should
ever be allowed; accuracy is absolutely
necessary.
A discussion followed and several i'm
portant questions were asked and answered.
A CLASS OF CHILDREN
from the Nineteenth ward sang very
pretty song. They were encored and sang
again, and at the request of one of the
teachers sang third song. The applause
which they received showed how well they
were appreciated, and their singing gave
fair idea of the success achieved by Miss
Dean in her singing class.
PROF. EDWARD BENNRR
gave lecture on spelling. This is a diff
cult subject. Our English language is a
patchwork quilt, taken from all languages,
out it so happens that nearly three-fourths
come rom the Latin. Our language, like
many others, intends to be phonetic, and
after all that is said, it is mostly phonetic
So we should stay with that idea as long
as we can. The majority of cur words as
they appear on the page are Saxon. The
SaxonS and the NOrmans met as did their
language, and the spelling became mixed,
About the sixteenth century, when con-
siderable freedom Of thought was INDUCED
in, many different correct ways were given
to spell a word. The matter, then became
more mixed, the printers in those days
being the cause of much of the variety,
since they spelled to accommodate the
spacing of lines in many instances. So we
have nearly 1,60O words that are pronounced
nearly alike but have a widely different
meaning and are spelled different Here
the speaker gave several rules for spelling
certain classes of words, at the same time
remarking that rules were few and doubt
full. He recommended the study of etyno-
logy. In order to learn to spell well, other
languages must be studied, notably Latin
and French, not so much with a view to
learn to spell single words as to learn how
they should be spelled. When this is done
the learner becomes himself an authority
on spelling, having gone to the foundation
or history Of a word. 1t requires a vast
amount of learning to know how to spell
the English language correctly.
Several questions were asked. The lee
turer recommended that different kinds of
dictionaries be used in the study, also
Trench's works and Norris Historical
Grammar,
Adjourned till p. m.