The Newtown bee., 1897-12-10
Local Affairs.
Humans Pedagogy.
REV o. o WRIGHT COMES TO THE DE-
TENSE OF SECRETARY HINE.

Mr. Hlnman's remarks concernlpg Sec
retary Hines talk at South Britain, on
How to teach children TO read, seem to
me more emphatic" than fair or reason
able. And, as was an interested listen
er, at that meeting, feel moved to say
that the Secretary of the State Board is
misrepresented by Mr. Humans article
in THE BEE, last week.
Mr. Hine was very particular to say,
and said it over and over, that he was not
welded to any one method, and that he
did not insist upon the "word method"
as against the ''letter method,'' or any
other method. He knew that some sue
cessful teachers preferred one, and some
the other, etc. He simply advised them
to try the word method, as being the
more natural, easier and shorter system
of learning to read. did not understand
from him that he did not expect children
to learn the alphabet at all, but that they
would most effectually learn their letters
by writing and printing them, by which
means they would also learn to spell.
It is very amusing to see the "word
method" referred to as "a new fad". l
used it 80 years ago when l taught g
class of 15 beginners in village school,
and it is now in common use almost
everywhere. 1t is only in a few belated
communities that it has not ceased to be
a novelty, long since.
The ''word method" is the normal or
natural method of learning to read.
word is the symbol of thought. 1t is the
name Of an object, it expresses some
quality, property or relation of some
thing, stands for an idea. We naturally
begin with the object or idea and then
we use sign to express it. We have to
learn the word. The best way to learn
it is in it's direct relation to the object or
idea. Now which is the easier to teach
child that ''cat" stands for cat, one
symbol for the object, or to teach him
first "c", then ''a'', then 't'', separately,
and then to join them together, and still
he must learn that the three letters
mean cat. The tc" means nothing
alone, it is a purely arbitrary thing-a
conventional sign, so of the "a", so of
the "t''. What can little child care
for these signs of sounds? They belong
to a later period of development and
study. But the object cat aud the word
that stands for the same reduces the
subject to its simplest, lowest terms.
Learning to read is learning words, and
the meaning they have in the connection
in which they are used. They are the
symbols of thought. To get the thought
we must learn the symbol.
The modern method in teaching all
languages is to begin with words which
mean something and to learn the gram
mar by the use of the words.
The best primers are based upon
Froebels kindergarten principles. The
child who is we'll taught not only learns
to read, write, and spell, but he gets at
the same time knowledge of many things,
form, color, number, elements of science,
facts in history, art, the sense of right
and wrong and the idea of God in it all.
A child ought to learn more in the first
six months at school, nov, than one
used to in the first six years.
And as G. Stanley Hall, Ph. D., says ::
"How to teach children to read, and
what they should read, are two of the
oldest and most complicated, as well as
most important problems of pedagogy"
10. o. Wright.