Year: 1876

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are accustomed to hearing the best Ian
guage at the fireside and In the nursery,
they will be prepared, by q partial
familiarity with the higher forms Of ex-
preston, 20 execute their tasks at school
with readiness and success that other
wise they could not possibly command.
Every discerning teacher can see in the
pupil just the grade and amount of in.
telligence in the home Of which the
pupil is the representative, and in
ninety nine cases out Of every hundred
1t will be found that the premium
scholar comes from the refined and cul-
tivated household, and that the parent
tar more than the teacher deserves the
credit for the, honor his child has won.
Long before children understand the
technical meaning of vast number of
words, they can gather from the man.
ner in which they are used a tolerably
correct idea Of their Significance, SO that
q child of ten, who might not be able to
define the words used in conversation
by his elders in the social circle, would
yet gather from that conversation a
great many ideas, vague in a degree,
but ever growing clearer and more de-
finite, until, by and by, he would with
out effort express them In the phrase he
has been accustomed to hear. For this
reason it is an admirable plan to permit
children to be silent listeners at the
table and in the parlor when guests are
present and intelligent conversation is
going on. 81 uolgt1siELa! a.ii let 0alil q


1nQuisitiveness is so marked a char
acteristic of mental activity in a child
that, with the slightest encouragement
in that direction, the little one will be-
gin at very early age to ask the mean
ing of words. Every question of this
sort should be answered In such way
as to invite unlimited recurrence of such
reachings out toward knowledge. As
has been already intimated, the more
familiar q child can be made with the
sound and meaning of words it is to
meet and wrestle with in the speller and
reader, the easier will be its conquest
of the drudgery which makes the first
years Of school life so mOnotonous and
wearisome. A very good method Of in
Producing children to an acquaintance
with the finest expression is to take
some story, as the Lady of the Lake, or
Evangeline, and, choosing one or two
stanzas at time, read it over to the child,
explaining the meaning Of the words
used, and then, in the simplest Ian
guage, giving free translation. In
this way many of the poems of Milton
and Scott and the plays of Shakespeare
may be made to afford infinite pleasure
and instruction to children scarcely able
to read, and taste may be formed, even
in childhood, for the higher styles of
literature. This taste, once formed, it
will be easy enough to develop and con-
firm. 1t is not desirable that children
should talk like 'grown folks" but
nothing else than good can come to them
from hearing their mOther-tongue
spoken with perfect pronunciation, with
grammatical purity, with an exact and
nice use of the meaning of words.
Cicero says that the finest of the Roman
orators learned to speak the Latin tongue
in their cradles, from their mothers, and
that they were SO instructed from in
fancy in the arts of perfect pronuncia-
ton and, elegant utterance that in
maturity they had nothing TO unlearn,
and could by no lapses fall into vulgar
or incorrect expression.