The Salt Lake tribune. [volume] (Salt Lake City, Utah) 1890-current, 1907-04-26
SELECTING TEXT BOOKS.

public schools for the ensuing hive
wears. These ive-year.term contracts
for books form a very large business,
and one that is eagerly striven for by
the various publishing firms These
firms, too, are constantly improving the
appearance and the wearing qualities
of their books; and in many respects
the text book of the present is so lar
in advance of the text book of hfty
years ago that there is absolutely no
comparison between them, These, how
ever, are mainly in general appearance
and legibility. There is Improvement
in books in geography, and in books for
side reading; the improvement does
not, as a rule, apply TO books of mathe-
matics, and utterly fails when II comes
TO spoilers, The biographies, OF course,
are far in advance of those of the
former Time, because the earth is much
bettor known now than ii was then;
there are more subjects to write about,
and there is more intimate conncc-
tion and relation between one section
Of the world and another than existed
fifty years ago. People now go on an
ordinary vacation excursion, TO places
that Que would have hesitatcd fifty
years ago to start upon as the spectac-
ular Journey Of life time. Writing,
as q rule, is not taught any better
now than it was taught fifty years ago,
if AS well. The classic models for COM
position have detcriorated; although 1T
is hard TO see why this should be so;
with the vast bodies of classic litcra-
turc that have been opened to public
accessibility we should have in fact,
improved the styles of composition and
the range of information. The book
making art itself, however, has made
wonderful strides. In plainncss Of
print, i'm beauty and extent of illustra-
tions, in quality of paper and elegance
of binding, the prcsent-day book Is but
of sight ahead Of the book of the past,
but for substantial durability there is
If anything loss. Books come 10
pieces now with very little handling,
and arc frail by comparison with the
work of the older binders.
With regard to the new contracts to
he entered into by the Board in this
city, We presume that the rule will be
that changes will be as infrequcnt as
mas be, provided the books now on
hand arc reasonably satisfactory. In
making changes there will. of course,
L. 81, S.l IF
change, because that would he expeu
sive folly. The change, if made, will be
for an advantage III up-to.datc data
and excellence of treatment and adapt
alton to teaching purposes. 1t Will be
a heavy task that the committee deal
ing with this matter has TO face. Prob
ably many days will be required to go
through the list and make jndicious
selections to better the quality and use.
fulness of text books for use in the
schools. We believe that some of the
books now in use could be much i'm
proved, and others will probably do
about as well as any new ones that
could be selected.
Drill in spelling is weak in the public
schools everywhere Just now, by reason
Of the adoption of the phonic method
of teaching TO read. This phonic
method allows Of rapid progress in the
requirement of reading ability, but the
pupil, whc1. he undertakes to construct
the word, finds that the letters do not
meet the sounds; in fact, no letters in
the alphabet can exactly do this in all
the various sounds they represent In
practice. In order TO make The phonic
method etfectual, there should be a new
alphabet which would represent pre-
cisely the sounds. The difficulty with
that. however, is that just as soon as
that were done, there would have TO be
n dozen or a score of different forms
of phonic alphabets, because the
sounds of letters and of words as given
no means agree. Just Us soon as the
phonetic method was extended TO lis
logical conclusion, the speech of the
country would break up into dialects
which would have their corresponding
variations in reading and IN spelling
as we'll as in speech. The great diff
Guilty just now appears 10 be to bridge
over the chasm between the phonC
reading and the slphabetic spelling. II
the phonetic method of reading is to be
retained, phonetic alphabets would Ger
tainly be the logical sequence. Nc
one, however, has been able to propose
anv form OF letters to bridge over thi.
difficulty except, as above indicated, II
having phonetic alpbabets TO represent
the sounds as given III the reading. Bul
the objection to that in tending tt
create dialects and 10 emphasize varia
| tions in speech is so insurmountablc
that the phonetic. lettering has never
made any progress either in this coun
try or in England, although it has otter
! been proposed and many differen
schemes for phonetic alphabets hav,
been sprung upon the public, to sa,
. uothinp of the so.yalled tDeserct al