Goldsboro weekly argus. [volume] (Goldsboro, N.C.) 1885-1909, 1904-07-21
THE OLD BLUE-BACK SPELL
ING BOOK.

responsive note in the heart of every
man and woman, not over lineage of
thirty-five, in all this Southland.
Up to about twenty years ago, the
first lesson a child learned was itslit-
tie prayer, "Now, I lay me down to
sleep,n then, when a few years older,
the second lesson was the alphabet,
followed by ba, be, bi, DO, bu, by, in
the old BIue-Back Spelling Book.
Then alb, and other words of one
syllable were added day by day I'M
til q great event was reached, when
the little fellow, with a feeling of
great pride, put two syllables to-
gethef, and spelled, "Ba-ker," then
"Sha-dy'' and so on down the line
to reading matter near the bottom OF
the page.
In the journey from the first letter
in the alphabet to "Baker'' and
@'Shady," there were no pictures of
cats and dogs, and other things of
Ire character to cause the child to
think that it required no effort to
learn books, but while this journey
had been tiresome, the little n had
already begun to handle syllables,
and to learn the sound of letters, pro-
nouncing each syllable as the child
went along, SO hat one day when a
word of two syllables stood in the
way, with a self-reliance born of its
knowledge Of a, b., C and "ba," the
child did not hesitate to pronounce
Baker.
And thus the good work went on
from "Bakerto am-i-ty, ceremony
im-ma-te-ri-al-i-ty, and in-com-pre-
hen-si-bil-i-ty.
But a short time after the Civil
War, some Of the teachers began to
think that the Old Blue-Back, had
served its day and its several gener-
ations, and that a child should have
an easier way to learn to spell, until
finally some teachers said that the
old way Of teaching the alphabet to
children was all wrong, and that the
wo1d-method was the proper Way.
Consequently, the old Blue-Back was
laid aside, and mud-pies and the
word-meth0d took the place of a, b,
c's, and ba and be.
But after playing along this easy
road Of learning to read and spell,
many have found that the road is so
easy and the work so light that the
muscles and the mind do not grow
strong enough to travel the road
when it gets rougher with many
hard places in it.
It is interesting to learn, therefore,
that many of the schools have al
ready returned to the old path and
have adopted Webster's Old Blue
Back Spelling Book of blessed mem
Dry.
This is no doubta step In the right
direction. The old way of learning
to read and spell is much harder than
the new way of. partly learning to
read and spell. Furthermore the old
way is not so snowy and results do
not come so soon and Willie and
Mamie cannot show off to the school
visitors to such an advantage in a
short time, as in the new way, but in
the old way o~flearning the alphabet,
then words of one, two, and three
syllables places into the hands of
Willie and Mamie, tools to work
with, which will be of constant, use
all their lives, and will enable them
to accomplish much more than they
sWould have done had they been
Taught other methods of learning to
spell and read.
The ARGUS welcomes the return Of
bhe Old Blue-Back, with the boy up
she apple tree, the farmer whose OK
vas gored, and the bear and the
Two friends.