LB 1573 
 .T4 
 Copy 1 
 
£' 
 
 IE. 
 
 Glass. 
 Book. 
 
t- 
 
 THE TRUE PHILOSOPHY 
 
 TEACHING THE YOUNG TO READ 
 
 THE ALPHABET, SPELLING, AND ELEMENTARY SOUNDS 
 OP THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 
 
 AN ENTIRELY NEW SYSTEM, 
 
 ESPECIALLY ADAPTED FOR DULL AND BACKWARD SCHOLARS. 
 
 J&*sfflitt& for tfo us* ai .Spools ana Jamilita. 
 
 A MANUAL FOR TEACHERS, PARENTS, AND GUARDIANS. 
 
 BY PROF. JOHN DICKINSON TEFFT. 
 
 NEW YORK: 
 PUBLISHED BY TIBBALS & CO., 
 
 No. 118 Nassau Street. 
 
 1858. 
 

 By toaa*«r tr*m 
 
 Pat. 0«c« L.iU» 
 
 A»i W 1&A4- 
 
 <£ /) 
 
 J 
 
TO THE 
 
 SCHOOL TEACHERS 
 
 AND PEOPLE OF THE UNITED STATES, GREAT BRITAIN, 
 *ND BRITISH AMERICA. 
 
 Friends op Humanist: 
 
 On you the interests of science and the general diffusion 
 of knowledge depend. You hold stations far more import- 
 ant to your respective nations than their governmental func- 
 tionaries ; for it is by you that your professional characters, 
 your magistrates, your legislators, the judges of your courts, 
 your ambassadors to foreign nations, and the official digni- 
 taries of your governments are trained up, and receive, 
 through a nation of freemen whom you have enlightened, 
 their distinguished appointments. The illumination which 
 you disseminate is both the corner-stone and palladium 
 of the liberty, the independence, the prosperity, the felicity, 
 and the glory of your happy countries. To you the eyes of 
 their children are directed, as the parents, the trustees, the 
 guardians of all their most valuable rights, of all their 
 fondest and proudest hopes. Lodged in your hands and 
 subject to your influence are the destinies of your rising 
 
 ill 
 
IV DEDICATION. 
 
 empires. Knowledge has the sovereign control of 
 power. The head rules the whole body. The mind sets in 
 motion and regulates the machine. It is by intellectual 
 energies that man rises to the dignity of his nature, that 
 nations achieve their independence, triumph over the obsta- 
 cles to their prosperity, smooth the path of general and 
 individual happiness, obtain and secure immortal glory. 
 But before men of intelligence and science, it belongs not to 
 me to expatiate upon the importance of knowledge to the 
 individual, or of its general diffusion to the prosperity and 
 felicity of nations. Nor is it necessary to state to men of 
 your information the grade in which primary instruction, in 
 reading and spelling and the best mode of teaching it to the 
 best advantage, necessarily ranks, as in its early and thor- 
 ough acquirement depend in a great degree the acquisition 
 of all or many other useful sciences. And it is believed that 
 the facilities set forth in "The Philosophy op Teaching 
 the Young to Read " are such as will lessen the toils both 
 of the teacher and pupil to that degree that more than one- 
 half the labor, the time, and expense formerly had in learn- 
 ing to read will be saved, to be devoted to other studies or 
 employments; and that when this system shall be fully 
 appreciated, none will be found in all your vast empires 
 unable to read, who are not deprived of the common facul- 
 ties of the human mind, or forbidden the liberty of doing so. 
 And it is thought it will save more treasure and be produc- 
 tive of more happiness in the instruction of youth to all 
 coming time than all the gold of California or Australia. 
 
DEDICATION. V 
 
 Friends op Freedom: 
 
 I present for the illumination of your sons and daugh- 
 ters " The Philosophy op Teaching the Young to Read." 
 It is the liberty, the independence of the mind from scholas- 
 tic shackles which I bring. Have the kindness to accept it 
 as a legacy of love bequeathed to you and your children 
 forever. 
 
 With the respect of veneration and the devotions of 
 friendship, 
 
 Your younger brother, 
 
 John D. Tepft. 
 
 Remsen, Oneida Co., N. T., 
 September, 1858. 
 
INTEODUCTIOK 
 
 All the systems heretofore and dow in use to teach 
 the young to read may be considered as indirect. 
 Every observant teacher has keenly felt the want of a 
 direct System of Instruction, when he has beheld the 
 helpless condition of those who are learning to read. 
 No scholar, let him be young or old, rich or poor, bond 
 or free, native or foreign, can of himself study to effect 
 for a long time after he begins the study of the English 
 language. He ever needs a System of Direct Instruc- 
 tion for a considerable time before he is truly able to 
 help himself. More than one half of a scholar's time is 
 worse than thrown away by not teaching him in a 
 direct manner. Yea, more than this, we break down 
 the very energies of his soul by requiring him to do 
 that which he is unable to perform, and is known by all 
 to be an impossibility for him to accomplish, and, by 
 not giving him direct instruction when he can receive 
 and appreciate no other. Hence the dislike for going 
 to school so generally manifested by children. Here is 
 where almost every child takes the first great lesson in 
 immorality. They cannot do what the teacher and 
 parents are required by custom to exact of them, and 
 
Vlll INTRODUCTION. 
 
 they are compelled to resort to all manner of duplicity, 
 tricks, lies and hypocrisy, in order to get along and be 
 considered anything by those they are trying to please, 
 and after they have done all in their power and worried 
 half their young life away, they are frequently called, 
 dull lazy blockheads, and the like, which only serves to 
 sink them still lower. Hear it, ye parents — have you not 
 sent your little son or daughter to school and in a few 
 short months seen his whole moral nature changed? 
 The blame lies in the system of instruction which is 
 pursued, and not in the teacher or school. I do most 
 religiously believe, that a direct system of instruction, 
 introduced into our schools, would be next to the 
 preaching of the Gospel for promoting good morals. 
 Truly none but children would submit to such an ab- 
 surdity as is generally imposed on young pupils atten- 
 ing our schools, sitting months and years holding books 
 in their hands to little or no purpose but to paralyze 
 their physical and mental energies. It would require a 
 guard much larger than the united force of the armies 
 and navies of the United States, Great Britain and 
 France, to keep men in our schools in the position we 
 keep our young scholars. Let us free our children from 
 this long sanctioned oppression, and the present and all 
 future generations will rise up and call us blessed. In 
 order to teach children to name and distinguish natural 
 objects we first call their attention to each separate ob- 
 ject; we then tell them its name and point out to them 
 its distinctive features. In this way they are soon en- 
 abled to call the name and to distinguish each object 
 brought to their observation. My theory for teaching 
 the young to read is based on this principle. In teach- 
 ing the letters, the letter is first presented to the eye, 
 
INTRODUCTION. IX 
 
 when the teacher declares its name and points out to 
 the attentive beholder its distinctive features. In teach- 
 ing words, the word is first presented to the eye, it is 
 then pronounced by the teacher, when the scholar reads 
 it by its letters and syllables and pronounces it, the 
 teacher aiding him to do so whenever he fails to accom- 
 plish it. In teaching the vowel and diphthongal sounds, 
 a variety of exercises are had on the same principle in 
 connection with teaching the words, which enables the 
 learner to become acquainted with the elementary 
 sounds of the English language, an attainment to which 
 our schools have never yet arrived. 
 
 My aim is the communication of important truth 
 never yet divulged, for the advantage of the present and 
 succeeding generations. And if this New System does 
 not disencumber the Old Indirect System of instruction 
 of a huge mass of scholastic rubbish, falsehood and non- 
 sense, and show itself to be a plain, simple, rational and 
 consistent system of instruction of incomparably more 
 easy attainment, let it be condemned without benefit of 
 clergy. I claim nothing for the authorship of this work, 
 but beg the indulgence and charity of a Christian public 
 towards it in this respect; but for the truth and infinite 
 importance and necessity of the system I yield nothing. 
 I make my appeal not to that stupid bigoted class of 
 prejudiced men, who always start at novelty and forth- 
 with brand as heresy every deviation from long re- 
 ceived notions, but to the candid who rejoice at im- 
 provement, and to the truly learned who, while they are 
 disposed to scrutinize and are competent to judge, will 
 not condemn without being able to assign a reason. 
 
 I have long wished that some able pen, protected by 
 commanding influence, would take this subject in hand ; 
 
X INTRODUCTION. 
 
 but having waited in vain more than twenty years for 
 a writer of this description to make his appearance, and 
 finding that every new system of instruction retails the 
 trumpery and falsehood of preceding authors, my 
 patience is finally exhausted, and with all my embar- 
 rassments about me, I proceed in obedience to Tetjth, 
 and without stopping to make apologies, to pursue a 
 hitherto untrodden path, relying upon the good sense of 
 my fellow citizens to accept this proffer of my labors, 
 which have no other object than the dissemination of 
 truth, the honor of my country, and the benefit of the 
 present and succeeding generations. 
 
 I conclude this introduction by saying, that teachers 
 will find the examples showing the manner of classing 
 schools, the manner of teaching the alphabet, the 
 words, the vowel and diphthongal sounds, also the 
 various reading exercises, both of words and sentences, 
 to be full, plainly showing the teacher their perfect 
 adaptation in different schools and classes, so as to gain 
 the greatest amount of time in teaching and save an 
 equal amount of time in learning, which is an import- 
 ant feature in this system. To which will be added 
 the method of teaching the pauses and marks used in 
 writing and printing, also a variety of reading exercises 
 for young and advanced reading classes ; together with 
 a short history of the discovery of the Direct System, 
 showing its progress and triumph for more than twenty 
 years in schools taught by myself and others. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PAGH 
 
 Investigation of the present Method of Teaching, . . 13 
 Discovery and Subsequent Progress of the Author's 
 
 System of Direct Teaching, 43 
 
 Classing Scholars in School, and what Books to be 
 
 used, 66 
 
 Method of Teaching the Alphabet, . . . .75 
 Exercising the First Class of Word Readers, . .81 
 Exercises Applicable to the Second Class of Word 
 
 Readers, 95 
 
 Exercises for Third Class, composed of Spellers and 
 
 Word Readers, 98 
 
 First Reading Class, 104 
 
 Second Reading Class, . 107 
 
 General Remarks and Criticisms, 113 
 
 " Phonic Method," 118 
 
 Appendix, 133 
 
 3d 
 
THE TRUE PHILOSOPHY OF TEACHING. 
 
 INVESTIGATION OP THE 
 
 PRESENT METHOD OF TEACHING. 
 
 The faculty of reading is considered one of 
 the most important attainments of the hnman 
 mind. Its value is so great as a medium of 
 conveying knowledge, that it becomes almost 
 as useful to the well being of man as the sense 
 of seeing or hearing. In such high estimation 
 is it held in civilized communities that no 
 time or expense within our power is withheld 
 from its attainment. State governments and 
 corporations are constantly making large in- 
 vestments for educational purposes. Normal 
 schools are established at vast expense for the 
 education of teachers, and teachers' associa- 
 tions are formed in almost every State and 
 community, in order to advance the cause of 
 education. And yet, after all this vast outlay 
 
 2 13 
 
14: THE TRUE PHILOSOPHY OF 
 
 and effort, there is none satisfied with the re- 
 sult. It has become apparent to all, that it is 
 not because there is not sufficient encourage- 
 ment given or not enough labor bestowed, but 
 it is generally considered for the want of effi- 
 cient teachers. Very well, then, I think we 
 have nearly got at the cause why we have no 
 better success ; but before we make teachers 
 to be the scape-goats for this enormous sin, 
 let us examine this subject, and see if they are 
 the cause of this vast disappointment with 
 which they are charged. And here permit 
 me to say I have been a school teacher more 
 than thirty years, and I believe the teachers 
 that have been and still are employed are as 
 faithful and devoted to their calling as any 
 other class of men in the community. The 
 cause of their inefficiency, then, arises from 
 other causes than a want of faithfulness on 
 their part, or a sufficient amount of learning 
 and ability in general. Cannot the cause be 
 found in some erroneous method or system 
 had in our schools, which we have astonish- 
 ingly overlooked, and the effects of which we 
 are beginning so deeply to feel and deplore? 
 If a man should build a locomotive that could 
 not take a train of cars faster than five miles 
 an hom% with a suitable number of men to 
 
TEACHING THE YOUNG TO READ. 15 
 
 manage it, when the same men, with another 
 locomotive, without working as hard as they 
 did on the first, could make it draw a like 
 train thirty or forty miles an hour, would he 
 not think, with much propriety, there was a 
 defect in its construction ? "Would he foolishly 
 charge the men with laziness and want of 
 skill after he had seen their success in work- 
 ing the last engine, even when he could not, 
 by any means, increase the speed of his? 
 Most certainly he would not ; but with untir 
 ing zeal, he would reconstruct his, and endea- 
 vor to improve upon the principles of the last 
 locomotive, so that, if possible, he might make 
 one to excel it. So should we not charge 
 those foolishly who are laboring faithfully to 
 carry out a system of education which we 
 have put into their hands, if it does not work 
 the results we could wish. All the systems 
 of education to teach the young to read are 
 indirect. It is not because we have had no 
 direct method in our schools to teach the 
 young to read that we have succeeded no bet- 
 ter. Do not children spend years in our 
 schools to learn indirectly what might be 
 taught them in a direct manner in much less 
 than half the time ? From more than thirty 
 years' experience in and observation on the 
 
16 THE TRUE PHILOSOPHY OF 
 
 indirect system of teaching, and from an expe- 
 rience of more than twenty years during that 
 time in a direct system, 1 am fully prepared 
 to answer in the affirmative. Let is now go 
 to school with the young beginner, and follow 
 him through all his course of toil and suffer- 
 ing in learning to read, and see if we can find 
 what hinders him in his course, what it is that 
 so discourages him, and so nearly breaks his 
 heart. 
 
 Do you shudder at the proposition? Are 
 you afraid, even in imagination, to enter the 
 old prison-house from which you have long 
 since escaped ? Is it the sweltering summers, 
 or the frosty winters that you are terrified at, 
 or is it the hard benches on which you sat so 
 many years, that so disturbs your mind ? No, 
 no! this is scarcely a grain in the balance. 
 You were thinking of something harder than 
 all these ; you were thinking of the task of 
 holding a book in your hands, and vainly at- 
 tempting to study it till it became rotten, and 
 fell to pieces. You were thinking how you 
 had requirements laid upon you by parents 
 and teachers, which it was impossible for you 
 to perform. How you were compelled to act 
 the hypocrite and knave ; how you felt your 
 heart crushed because you could not perform 
 
TEACHING THE YOUNG TO READ. 17 
 
 what was required of you ; how you hated 
 your school because you could not advance 
 yourself to meet the expectations of your 
 friends. But, for the present, dismiss your re- 
 collections of the past, and let us enter the 
 school-room, and see if all who go to school 
 have the same cause of complaint. 
 
 The first thing taught in our schools is the 
 alphabet. This is usually done in a direct 
 manner ; where it is so taught, children learn 
 it rapidly ; a few of the easiest spelling lessons 
 are generally taught in the same way, and the 
 young scholar succeeds well so far. We then 
 give him a spelling or a reading book, and as- 
 sign him lessons therein, requiring him to study 
 the same ; but this he cannot do. He at once 
 feels himself abandoned and betrayed. It is 
 here we discourage and crush the young mind. 
 It is here our school system is so woefully defi- 
 cient. It is here the pupil is left with no 
 strength of his own to aid him onward. It is 
 here he is left to grope his way in darkness, 
 learning only by indirect dictation and absurd 
 fooleries, while he can see nothing that is beau- 
 tiful or lovely to cheer him onward. It is here 
 his mind becomes soured and disordered for 
 want of proper aid to help it to rise and ex- 
 pand itself in useful knowledge. We will sup- 
 2* 
 
18 THE TEUE PHILOSOPHY OF 
 
 pose Mm to have an easy spelling lesson as- 
 signed hini ; he is called np to spell — very few 
 teachers now hear the lesson read — the book 
 is closed, and the pupil is taught to spell words 
 which he cannot read or pronounce in a spell- 
 ing book. Do we not know that we can teach 
 children to spell who do not know their letters ? 
 Do we not know that it is perfectly useless to 
 teach scholars to spell if they do not know 
 their letters, or cannot read the words which 
 they spell % Do we not know that it would be 
 just as consistent, while teaching them the let- 
 ters, to give them a lesson in the alphabet to 
 study, and then have them close their books 
 and repeat it in the order in which it is writ- 
 ten, correcting them when they miscall it, as 
 to teach them to spell words which they can- 
 not read. They would, of course, be able in 
 a short time to call all the names of the letters 
 correctly, but it would be of no practical use 
 to them whatever. Neither is the practice of 
 spelling words that the scholar cannot read of 
 any practical use. Formerly, scholars had 
 some help from their teacher to teach them to 
 read their spelling lessons ; but there never 
 has been any system in our schools, or any tho- 
 rough practice or method to aid children to 
 learn to read words as a whole, and in their 
 
TEACHING THE YOUNG TO EEAD. 19 
 
 elementary parts. This should, however, b6 
 made the most prominent branch of primary 
 instruction in all our common schools. In- 
 stead of reading the spelling lesson to the 
 teacher, scholars now are required to pro- 
 nounce the word after the teacher — words 
 which they never have read or pronounced in 
 a book, and words which they would not know 
 nor could not possibly make out from any skill 
 or knowledge of their own, if they should see 
 them in any book whatever, and then spell it, 
 or guess at spelling it. The practice may look 
 a little more absurd if we should write out a 
 short example of it. But first let me observe, 
 that scholars cannot read short words correctly 
 any better than they can long words, until they 
 have been shown how they can never read 
 any word right and know it to be so, unless 
 they have heard some one read it that did 
 know how often enough to enable them to 
 remember it, or had a teacher that helped 
 them to read it till they learned how and 
 what to call it. Few, even after they have 
 gone through our schools, know enough about 
 the principles of pronunciation contained in 
 our books, to enable them to pronounce a 
 word correctly, from the principles there laid 
 down. They, of course, are never able to 
 
20 THE TRUE PHILOSOPHY OF 
 
 speak a word unless they have heard some 
 other one speak it first. Consequently, a 
 scholar has to he taught how to read each and 
 every word by imitation, or from a know- 
 ledge of the vowel and consonant sounds, 
 which he cannot learn at first sufficiently to 
 use them without the aid of his teacher. 
 Then, as we at first learn to read words by 
 invitation, consequently we can learn nothing 
 of them at first by our own effort to study 
 them, and scholars should never be required 
 or allowed to make a sham-show of studying, 
 and never have a lesson assigned them to 
 study till they have been exercised suffi- 
 ciently in reading words to enable them to do 
 so understandingly. But to the time-honored 
 practice of learning to spell. We will sup- 
 pose the class to have an easy lesson assigned 
 them to study six words, viz : 
 
 cat 
 
 dog 
 
 gun 
 
 hog 
 
 rat 
 
 Pig 
 
 which they know they will be called on to 
 spell, and which, if it was in their power they 
 would study, for children naturally like to do 
 something. But as this class of beginners 
 
TEACHING THE YOUNG TO BEAD. 21 
 
 know nothing about reading the words con- 
 tained in their lesson, never having heard them 
 read, and not. knowing anything about the 
 vowel and consonant sounds of the letters com- 
 posing the words, whether the vowels are long 
 or short, broad or flat, etc., etc, and after they 
 have looked at them for an hour or two, 
 making a great display of study, by looking 
 as grave as possible, moving their lips like a 
 lot of young apes, and mumbling over a thou- 
 sand unknown things. They are called up to 
 spell ; standing with books closed, and arms 
 folded up ready to echo the word and spell 
 when it is their turn. The teacher pronounces 
 the first word of the lesson, which is CAT, 
 the scholar at the head of the class pronounc- 
 ing the word after him, saying CAT; then 
 spelling, says Catt ; next, Kat ; next, Cait ; 
 how Cait? next, Katt; next, Cate; next, 
 Kate ; next, Katte ; next, Catte ; next, Caitte ; 
 next, Kaitte ; next, Caat ; next, Caate ; next, 
 Kaat; next, Kaate; next, C A (hesi- 
 tates) when the teacher asks him what his 
 mother drank at breakfast. The boy taking 
 courage, and looking very wise, exclaims, T. 
 That is is right, John, now you may go up to 
 the head. The teacher puts out the next 
 word, which is Gun, the scholar pronouncing 
 
22 THE TRUE PHILOSOPHY OB 
 
 it after him, saying gun, but not seeing his 
 way clear, looks imploringly at the teacher, 
 who, wanting to make it as clear a case as 
 possible for his pupil, repeats it over several 
 times very distinctly, and with long quantity, 
 
 saying G-u-n, G — u — n, G u n. At 
 
 length, the boy, knowing he must make a 
 guess at it, right or wrong, spells, saying, 
 
 G u n. That is right ; now pronounce 
 
 it, my good fellow. But the boy, in the excite- 
 ment of the moment, does not know how to 
 pronounce it, when the teacher repeats the let- 
 ters G-u-n, and asks the boy, half reproach- 
 fully, if he cannot tell what g-u-n spells; 
 the boy not being able, and the teacher wish- 
 ing to have his class master one word of the 
 lesson if possible, and thinking he would have 
 better success with this scholar than any of 
 the rest, asks him if he knows what his father 
 takes when he goes to kill a hawk ; the boy 
 not being used to hunting associations, but 
 having frequently seen his father butcher 
 hogs, concluded, on the whole, that the 
 teacher said hog instead of hawk, when the 
 light flashed upon his mind, and being 
 animated with the idea of being now able 
 to finish his word so as to suit the require- 
 ments of the teacher exactly, he triumph- 
 
TEACHING THE YOUNG TO BEAD. 23 
 
 antly exclaims, "Oh yes, a butcher Tcnife" 
 Now follows a tremendous roar of laugh- 
 ter, which startles the entire neighborhood 
 in which the school-house is located, and 
 the little boy, poor fellow ! is nearly annihi- 
 lated ; but tears coming to his relief, helps 
 reason to maintain her empire, and the 
 teacher finally being able to silence the up- 
 roar, and speaking a word of encouragement 
 to the afilicted scholar, tells the class they 
 must take that lesson over again. 
 
 In this horrible manner a large portion of the 
 scholar's time is consumed in school, paralyzing 
 his mind more than imparting useful instruc- 
 tion, and wasting and blunting the energies of 
 the thousands who are sent there for instruc- 
 tion. Yet all the exercises had in our schools 
 to teach scholars to spell are on this principle. 
 Some teachers give out a certain number of 
 words each day, requiring their pupils to 
 write them, after which their bad spelling is 
 corrected. In order to learn to spell in this 
 manner, scholars must first learn to read and 
 write, and be able to refer to their diction- 
 aries before they learn to spell, which, at the 
 slow rate that scholars learn to read and write 
 in our schools, could not be till they would 
 become quite grown up to manhood ; and as a 
 
24: THE TETJE PHILOSOPHY OF 
 
 teacher of this order never gives out more 
 than ten or fifteen words for a lesson, and 
 having but one lesson a day, according to 
 custom, a scholar would not have more than 
 six or nine hundred words to learn in a quar- 
 ter, and allowing they went to school steady 
 time the year round, they would have to go 
 to school from five and a half to seven and a 
 half years to learn to spell some twenty thou- 
 sand words, which, in all probability, would 
 bring them to the age of eighteen or twenty- 
 one years, before they would be through a 
 course of learning to spell, on this principle. 
 But the fact is, that scholars never have ex- 
 ercises enough in this method to teach them 
 to spell so as to do them much good, and the 
 lessons they do take in this way are generally 
 passed by without much attention, as scholars 
 at this age have their minds drawn out after 
 other studies, and have generally given up the 
 idea of ever becoming good spellers, the sea- 
 son for studying this branch of learning hav- 
 ing nearly passed away, and a multitude of 
 new ideas, hopes, and aspirations now more 
 fully occupy their minds. The idea of teach- 
 ing scholars generally to be good spellers, is 
 now entirely despaired of. The opinion for- 
 merly had on this subject was, that when our 
 
TEACHING THE YOUNG TO READ. 25 
 
 schools should be better sustained by the pub- 
 lic treasury, and teachers become more 
 learned, we should arrive at a degree in this 
 respect that would be tolerable. But having 
 had these accessions for many years, and cor- 
 responding efforts having been made, we find 
 the public mind is now without hope, and, 
 like the passengers and crew on an ill-fated 
 steamer, we are each trying to save himself, 
 while nearly all are going to swift destruction. 
 When once total despair seizes upon the mind, 
 it is most frequently indicated by silence, so 
 we have heard nothing, nothing, nothing on 
 this subject by way of encouragement for half 
 a century. It is true, we frequently hear re- 
 proaches cast upon the young for any defi- 
 ciency shown in this respect, and frequently 
 hear of persons losing good opportunities in 
 consequence of it, and have even known some 
 fail of obtaining the object of their greatest 
 affections for the same reason. But, after all, 
 we hear of no remedy ; none but the old cry 
 of laziness and inattention, to encourage us, 
 and bid us hope. And till now, for a long 
 time, we have not heard so much as that from 
 any public print. The following is from the 
 Observer and Democrat, Utica, Nov. 13, 1854 : 
 "Learning to Spell.— Bad spelling is dis- 
 3 
 
26 THE TEUE PHILOSOPHY OF 
 
 creditable. Every young man should be 
 a master of his native tongue. He that 
 will not learn to spell the language that 
 is on his tongue and before his eyes every 
 hour, shows no great aptitude for the duties 
 of an intelligent, observing man. Bad spell- 
 ing is therefore a discreditable indication; 
 it indicates a blundering man — a man that 
 cannot see with his eyes open. Accord- 
 ingly, we have known the application of more 
 than one young man made with great display 
 of penmanship and parade of references re- 
 jected for his bad spelling. Bad spelling is a 
 very bad indication. He who runs may read 
 it. A bright schoolboy, utterly incapable of 
 appreciating your stores of science, arts and 
 literature, can see your blunders. You will 
 find it hard to inspire that boy with any great 
 respect for your attainments. Bad spelling is 
 therefore a mortifying and inconvenient de- 
 fect. We have known men thrown into very 
 prominent positions so ashamed of their defi- 
 ciency in this respect, that they never ven- 
 tured to send a letter until it had been revised 
 by a friend. This was, to say the least of it, 
 sufficiently inconvenient. "We say again, learn 
 to spell. Keep your eyes open when you 
 read, and if any word is spelt differently from 
 
TEACHING THE YOUNG TO BEAD. 27 
 
 your mode, ascertain what is right. Keep 
 your dictionary before you, and in writing, 
 whenever you have the least misgiving about 
 the spelling of a word, look at it at once, and 
 remember it. Do not let your laziness get 
 the better of you." 
 
 Yery good advice, to be sure ; but there is 
 no remedy but to have your eyes wide open, 
 and dictionary before you, after you have 
 entered upon the active duties of life, which 
 goes to show that we do not learn to spell at 
 school. Again, from Hints on Education, 
 contained in Mr. Roswell C. Smith's intro- 
 duction to his quarto Geography, we have the 
 following. He says : 
 
 " Some instances of a superficial education 
 may be noticed here in illustration of the prece- 
 ding remarks. A superficial course is often pur- 
 sued in respect to reading. To read with force 
 and spirit, with ease and elegance, a person 
 must understand what he reads ; he must 
 have not only a general conception of the 
 subject, but a knowledge of each particular 
 word, otherwise it will be very much with 
 him as it was with Milton's daughters, who 
 were accustomed to read Greek to their father 
 when he was blind, without knowing the 
 meaning of a single word they uttered. A 
 
28 THE TRUE PHILOSOPHY OF 
 
 young lady of extensive but careless reading, 
 remarked that she did like to hear a certain 
 young clergyman pronounce the word * inge- 
 nious ' as ' ingen-uous,' it sounded so much 
 better." 
 
 Tn the examination of nine teachers, all 
 of whom proved bad readers, though well 
 qualified in other respects, the cause was 
 traced directly to their ignorance of the use 
 of words. A person may be taught, it is 
 true, to pause at the stops and marks, and 
 may read thus in a measured pace, very much 
 like a person marching, or rather like the 
 players in Hamlet, who sawed the air most 
 unmercifully. If further illustration were 
 needed, the late reports in reference to certain 
 schools in New England, doubtless as good as 
 any in the land, would furnish it. Among 
 other things, the most lamentable deficiency 
 was observed in defining words, taken at ran- 
 dom from the books they were in the daily 
 habit of perusing. The grosser blunders in 
 reading obviously consist in an improper 
 knowledge of orthography, that is, either in 
 miscalling the words according to their ele- 
 mentary sounds, or in mispronouncing them 
 according to the common standard. This 
 branch of education, which may be considered 
 
TEACHING THE YOUNG TO BEAD. 29 
 
 the door or key of science, and therefore para- 
 mount to all others, has come of late into 
 great neglect. Spelling is learned much as 
 we learn our vernacular tongue, by observa- 
 tion and dint of memory. Teachers now-a- 
 days, pass over this exercise in a hurried 
 manner. It is carefully excluded from almost 
 every " programme " at public examinations as 
 in bad taste. Formerly it was thought to be 
 a great accomplishment, as it really is, to be 
 able to spell every word in the spelling-book, 
 and many a pupil could, with truth, boast of 
 it. Teachers then required all, both old and 
 young, at stated intervals, to study their spell- 
 ing lessons, and thorough work was made of it. 
 Indeed, it was made the most prominent pursuit, 
 but now it is cast into distance and shade. Such 
 an interest was excited that teachers, pupils, 
 parents, and friends would assemble in the 
 evening at the school-house, for spelling exer- 
 cises. But the old fashioned spelling schools, 
 ever objects of great interest to all concerned, 
 have long since become obsolete, and their 
 places are often supplied by the grandiloquent 
 lectures of some ignorant pretender to science, 
 setting forth his ability to teach grammar per- 
 haps in " twelve lessons," arithmetic in " twen- 
 ty," and geography in about the same number, 
 3* 
 
30 THE TRUE PHILOSOPHY OF 
 
 " without either book or map." This undoubt- 
 edly shows the state of things in a pretty clear 
 light, and virtually admits that the spelling- 
 book is laid aside in many of our schools, al- 
 though spelling-books of some kind are gene- 
 rally retained and seem to be kept more for 
 show than for any practical purpose, and 
 hence people seldom learn to spell till they go 
 into business or become authors. I was told 
 by a teacher who had been three years in one 
 of our public shools, that they had not, during 
 that time, taken a class through the spelling- 
 book. A lady in the same city told me that 
 two little girls of hers, of suitable age to spell, 
 had been to another public school several 
 months, and had not had but two spelling, ex- 
 ercises during that time. Thus we see the 
 schools afford no aid to enable the young 
 scholar to read words that he might be able 
 to spell and pronounce them correctly, nor any 
 exercise to teach scholars to spell but that of 
 guessing. And as we have not shown the ab- 
 surdity of this guessing system fully, I will 
 quote from Zachos' New American Speaker, 
 page 16, to show the infinite extent to which 
 it might be carried. He is sufficiently extensive 
 on the subject ; but I think some old guessers 
 might exceed it. In speaking of the element- 
 
TEACHING THE YOUNG TO READ. 31 
 
 ary sounds of the English language, lie 
 says: 
 
 " Indeed the greatness of the difficulty that 
 attends this subject can only be appreciated 
 by those who have directed to it a special at- 
 tention. The gainful toil and trouble of our 
 childhood is forgotten in the facility which 
 long drilling and constant repetition have 
 given to our maturer years. Yet the first 
 three or four years of instruction are chiefly 
 spent in teaching children the proper signifi- 
 cance and use of those signs of sound. "When 
 we consider that all this labor is owing to 
 irregularities that can be swept away in one 
 blow by the adoption of one simple law, viz., 
 that of having a single sign for each element- 
 ary sound, it seems a wonder that intelligent 
 beings should submit to such a monstrous per- 
 version of human labor. It is a subject I 
 cannot here enter upon ; but the reformation 
 proposed in this respect demands the earnest 
 attention and practical cooperation of every 
 one interested in the cause of education. 
 What shall we make of a system of represent- 
 ative signs, in view of anything rational or 
 convenient, which leaves one a choice of eleven 
 thousand six hundred and twenty-eight differ- 
 ent ways of spelling the same word ? 
 
32 THE TRUE PHILOSOPHY OF 
 
 " To make my assertion good, I will take the 
 word Constantinople. There are thirteen sim- 
 ple sounds in it, not counting the final e, 
 which is silent. A glance at the following 
 analysis, with respect to the signs of sounds, 
 will show that the analogy of common usage 
 will justify one in representing several of 
 these sounds by more than one sign, making 
 in all nineteen different signs for thirteen 
 sounds. These nineteen signs, according to 
 the Algebraic Theory of Combinations, can be 
 used to spell the word in eleven thousand six 
 hundred and twenty-eight different ways. 
 And this not throwing in any silent letters, 
 in which words abound, and which might 
 swell the present calculation to over a million. 
 As a curiosity, one of these combinations is 
 given — Kancdendonajple — -justified by the 
 analogy of the sound k in kick, a in all, c in 
 city, d in stopped, e in there, o in woman, a in 
 was. Not only is there scarcely a letter in the 
 language that represents one invariable sound, 
 but most of them stand for so many different 
 sounds as to place upon the present twenty-six 
 letters the labor of representing one hundred 
 sounds ! besides, twelve of these are often si- 
 lent, and have no significance in combination. 
 Such is this imbroglio and sense-confounding 
 
TEACHING THE YOUNG TO EEAD. 33 
 
 system of representative signs ! Nothing but a 
 dry routine, a constant drilling and stultifying 
 repetition can ever make a tolerable speller." 
 I think this calculation is enough to make 
 the cold sweat stand on a teacher's brow. 
 The idea of guessing a million of times to get 
 a word right, and the teacher consequently 
 saying the word NEXT, a million of times 
 has something in it that should cause the 
 teacher to consider well the evils of the sys- 
 tem. No wonder, then, that the cry is heard 
 from Maine to California, that we have be- 
 come a nation of poor spellers, and conse- 
 quently poor readers, if we may guess a mil- 
 lion of times to get one word right. No 
 wonder that many wish to reconstruct the lan- 
 guage in order to obviate this evil. No 
 wonder that boys play truant so much, and 
 hate studying in general, when they were so 
 sadly balked in the first study they undertook. 
 Had they been properly introduced to it, the 
 large and almost boundlesss energies naturally 
 in children would have enabled them to have 
 triumphed speedily ; and feeling themselves 
 conquerors in this, they would have possessed 
 an invincible courage that would have carried 
 them through all other studies triumphantly. 
 But unfortunately we have ever taken a 
 
34: THE TRUE PHILOSOPHY OF 
 
 wrong course to teach the young to read. 
 We have required them to spell words before 
 we taught them to read those words under- 
 standingly, causing them to guess almost to 
 infinity how to spell words which in most in- 
 stances they could not read in a book, or know 
 enough about to distinguish them from others 
 in the lesson. 
 
 And now the question arises : how do 
 teachers teach scholars to read if they do 
 not (as we have seen) teach them to read 
 and spell words in a spelling-book, till they 
 have become sufficiently acquainted with 
 them to pronounce them at sight ? If you 
 should go into the schools of our State, you 
 would see thousands of the juveniles who are 
 there learning to read, some engaged with 
 the green pictorial primer, some with the 
 first reader, and others with the second reader, 
 etc. The pupils, at first learning their letters, 
 and then reading a very few simple spelling 
 and reading lessons alternately, the spelling 
 lessons being destitute of any proper classifi- 
 cation, and containing so few words in the 
 aggregate, that they would be of very little 
 help to them were they ever so correctly 
 taught. But the fact is, teachers give very 
 little or no attention to the spelling lessons 
 
TEACHING THE YOUNG TO READ. 35 
 
 contained in those readers ; but spend their 
 time principally in dictating reading lessons to 
 their pupils. So that the story of the Fly and 
 the Spider, the Cruel Boy and the Robins, the 
 Boy and the Butterfly, etc., are read in the 
 hearing of the school, till they have all nearly 
 learned them by heart ; and when they read 
 those stories to their parents and friends, they 
 depend more upon their memories in reading 
 or rehearsing them, than upon any knowledge 
 of the words which compose the sentences. 
 And should their parents require them to read 
 in a book containing lessons equally as easy, but 
 which they had not previously learned, they 
 would be quite unable to do so, which plainly 
 shows that in order to make children good 
 readers, they should first be taught words. But 
 the universal practice is, that when they have 
 committed one book to memory, or nearly so, 
 they then take another, and so on, till each 
 scholar has a library of reading books of his 
 own. But should they continue on this prin- 
 ciple to read all the series of reading books to 
 infinity, they would still be poor spellers and 
 stammering readers. 
 
 Many seem to see this evil, but know not 
 how to remedy it. I was telling an intelli- 
 gent farmer not long since, my method of 
 
6b THE TRUE PHILOSOPHY OF 
 
 teaching children to read ; I mentioned a class 
 I had taught to read in three months, so that 
 they conld read in any easy reader, one as 
 well as another. He said his little girl learned 
 to read some lessons in Sanders' first reader 
 in four months, but she could not read any in 
 other books. Another farmer who was stand- 
 ing by, hearing the conversation, said, that 
 was just the case with his girl whom he had 
 sent to school three years ; she could read in 
 no book but her little reader, and his little 
 Johnny had heard her repeat the lessons so 
 much that he could say them almost as well 
 as she could, and he had never been to school, 
 and did not know his letters. Thus it is that 
 parents are betrayed, and their efforts to edu- 
 cate their children rendered almost useless, 
 through the indirect and inefficient course 
 taken in our schools to instruct them. And 
 after spending several years sending our child- 
 ren to school, and buying a multitude of 
 reading-books for them, and enduring a thou- 
 sand anxieties as to their success, they are 
 turned upon our hands a lot of stammering, 
 unaccomplished readers, and poor spellers. 
 Discouraged, disheartened, and their pros- 
 pects for becoming thorough scholars nearly 
 gone, unless we have a large amount of 
 
TEACHING THE YOUNG TO READ. 37 
 
 money to bestow upon their education, and 
 can afford to send them to school several 
 years longer. We have now had more than 
 twenty years' practice with a series of reading- 
 books in our schools. The manner in which 
 we have generally, and still are using them, is 
 productive of immense injury to the cause of 
 education. It was never the intention of the 
 first writer of a series of reading books, that 
 they should supersede the spelling-book. This 
 is evident when we read the preface and 
 notes in Mr. Cobb's spelling-book which I 
 take very great pleasure in placing before the 
 reader, not only to establish the above fact, 
 but also as the very highest evidence as to 
 what should be learned before proceeding to 
 reading lessons. And I would here beg the 
 reader to note with care, that Mr. Cobb did 
 not make those declarations to be heard of 
 men; but with untiring patience wrote out 
 with unsurpassed skill, and almost super- 
 human invention, a spelling-book which con- 
 tains more than thirteen thousand words, so 
 perfectly classified in all its features as to ren- 
 der it the most useful book that was ever 
 written for our schools to aid the learner in 
 this important elementary study. 
 Let us hear Mr. Cobb — Cobb's New Speller, 
 
38 THE TEUE PHILOSOPHY OF 
 
 page 16 — he says : " Orthography or Spelling 
 being the first step towards the attainment of 
 a good education, and particularly to a correct 
 knowledge of the English language, it is 
 highly important that every scholar should 
 attain this before he is permitted to proceed to 
 any higher branches of study. This branch of 
 education is obviously much neglected in 
 nearly all our schools. Teachers, whether 
 they know orthography and pronunciation 
 well or not, are apt to think these of little or 
 no importance, and permit their scholars to 
 pass to other lessons too soon. But this is very 
 injudicious ; a building cannot be elegant and 
 permanent unless erected on a good founda- 
 tion, and a thorough knowledge of spelling 
 and pronunciation can be obtained only by a 
 repetition of the letters until the association 
 of those letters and their sounds are deeply 
 impressed upon the mind of the scholar." 
 
 This is unchangeable truth, and the memory 
 of Lyman Cobb should ever be dear to every 
 parent's and teacher's heart for having written 
 it. And those who have been carried away 
 from it by false issues or theories, should, by 
 every consideration, speedily return to it as 
 the chief corner stone of all our success in 
 education. On the same page let us hear Mr. 
 
TEACHING THE TOTING TO READ. 39 
 
 Cobb still further, where he cautions teachers 
 against the impropriety of introducing scholars 
 to their reading lessons before they know the 
 orthography and pronunciation of words. 
 Those who are intrusted with the education 
 of youth should have it deeply engraven on 
 their memories. He says : 
 
 "The practice of teaching a child to 
 read or pronounce a reading lesson before 
 he knows the orthography and pronuncia- 
 tion of words, retards rather than facili- 
 tates his progress in correct reading. ~No 
 child should be required to attempt to read 
 or pronounce a reading lesson until he is 
 able to call or pronounce at sight the words 
 commonly met with in composition, and this 
 knowledge can be more easily acquired by 
 reading or pronouncing words in the spelling 
 columns of a spelling-book, judiciously and 
 analogically classed, than in detached reading 
 lessons. If the scholar be required to read or 
 pronounce words in a reading lesson before 
 he has learned to sound or pronounce them 
 separately in spelling columns at sight, he 
 will hesitate, and will most generally be con- 
 firmed in the habit of stammering while read- 
 ing; for although a child may know perfectly 
 well how to spell a word, and to divide it as it 
 
4:0 THE TKUE PHILOSOPHY OF 
 
 is in a spelling column, yet, when he sees the 
 same word in a reading lesson, the syllables 
 being closed up, it presents a new appearence 
 to him. It shonld always be borne in mind 
 that reading is the enunciation or pronounc- 
 ing of words by syllables^ and that, there- 
 fore, each syllable in every word should be as 
 distinctly enunciated or pronounced as if the 
 whole reading lesson were composed of mony- 
 syllables only. Hence the importance of pro- 
 nouncing words at sight in spelling columns. 
 Unless children do acquire a correct and dis- 
 tinct enunciation of each syllable in spelling 
 columns, they rarely or never acquire it in 
 after life ; for in the practice or business of 
 reading, the pauses, emphasis, cadence, etc., 
 occupy all, or nearly all their attention." 
 
 Thus one of the greatest educators of his 
 time faithfully sounded the note of alarm, and 
 did not fail to place it conspicuously in every 
 reading-book which he prepared for the 
 instruction of the young learner. But unfor- 
 tunately the friendly warning was unheeded, 
 the country took a wrong course in regard to 
 the well-intended use of a series of school 
 readers, and instead of using them as helps, 
 do now, to a great extent, use them as a 
 medium of teaching the English language. 
 
TEACHING THE YOUNG TO READ. 41 
 
 The system of instruction set forth in the 
 following pages does not differ from that of Mr. 
 Cobb, as to what should first be learned, but 
 its main feature consists in a direct method 
 of teaching hitherto unknown, that enables 
 the learner, from the outset, to rapidly acquire 
 a knowledge of the English language. It 
 enables the teacher to cooperate with the 
 scholar in enabling him to learn the words 
 and elements in a direct manner, so that the 
 teacher can give constant and direct aid to 
 the learner in all his efforts to learn the lan- 
 guage. All other systems leave the learner 
 nearly in a helpless condition, inasmuch 
 as he cannot help himself, and renders the 
 teacher of very little help to him. This sys- 
 tem is just the American idea, inasmuch as 
 it enables the scholar to learn as fast again 
 and as well again, and qualifies the teacher 
 to do more than twice the work that he can 
 perform under the old system. If this system 
 was introduced into all our schools it would do 
 more to Americanize the thousands who 
 come from the old world than all others com- 
 bined ; it would enable us more than any one 
 thing else to maintain our American charac- 
 ter, as hundreds of thousands would go into 
 our schools and learn to read our language, and 
 4* 
 
42 THE TRUE PHILOSOPHY OF 
 
 thus become like one of us. On this method 
 an industrious teacher could take one hun- 
 dred young men without any one to help him, 
 and teach them to read in four or six months. 
 There is not the least difficulty in teaching 
 children to read sufficiently to join a class in 
 Sunday-school in three or four months. Thus 
 in a few weeks, not only teaching children to 
 read, but introducing them much earlier than 
 usual to a school acknowledged by all to be a 
 great blessing to the community. This sys- 
 tem will teach children to be good spellers 
 and readers so young that they will have 
 much more time for other studies at school 
 than they now have, and their minds will be 
 more vigorous than those trained up under 
 the old systen. 
 
 Believing that a short account of the rise 
 and progress of the Direct System will be in- 
 teresting, and serve to place it in a more prac- 
 tical light before the public, I here give a short 
 sketch of it, showing, that if the theory is good, 
 the practice is equally so, which is not the 
 case with many theories presented for public 
 consideration. 
 
TEACHING THE YOUNG TO READ. 43 
 
 THE DISCOVERY AND SUBSEQUENT PROGRESS 
 
 AUTHOR'S SYSTEM OF DIRECT TEACHING. 
 
 In the month of August, 1831, 1 went into 
 a large school, where I found five quite inter- 
 esting boys, that were from eight to eleven 
 years of age, who had been to school from two 
 to three years, without learning their letters. 
 I used all the skill I was master of for some 
 considerable time, to teach them the letters* 
 but to my astonishment I found all my efforts 
 perfectly unavailing. I had formerly had the 
 reputation of succeeding tolerably well with 
 scholars of this description, and to be balked 
 on a lot of boys of sound mind, as they were, 
 seemed more than I was willing to submit to ; 
 it lay with considerable weight on my mind. 
 One evening, after retiring to rest, the subject 
 of teaching those boys to read came up before 
 me ; I had already tried every art I was mas- 
 ter of to no purpose whatever — indeed, I could 
 not safely say that I had taught them one let- 
 
4A THE TRUE PHILOSOPHY OF 
 
 ter. At last I thought upon a plan I would 
 enter upon the next day, and see what effect 
 it might have upon this class of hopefuls. In 
 the morning, I procured a new elementary 
 spelling-book for each of them. "When the 
 school was called to order, and we were ready 
 to begin the school exercises, I called out this 
 class of boys, had them stand in line like other 
 classes, gave each of them a spelling-book. 
 I told them I was going to put out words to 
 them in the spelling-book; that I wanted 
 them to be sure and keep their places, and 
 do their best to call their letters, and pro- 
 nounce the word after they had read it ; that I 
 would tell them when they failed to call the 
 letters right; that I wanted each scholar to 
 look at the words while being read. I told 
 them I thought they would soon learn their 
 letters in this way, if they would be good boys 
 to look on, and mind their places. I then 
 began with the syllable lessons, and read 
 through the first lesson on this principle. I 
 gave them a new lesson every time they read, 
 and I was soon very greatly encouraged. I 
 knew they were learning very fast, and they 
 knew it as well as I did. They read right for- 
 ward, never taking a lesson over. They soon 
 got so expert in reading in this way, that they 
 
TEACHING THE YOUNG TO READ. 4:5 
 
 could dispatch a page of spelling to a lesson 
 — they had now learned their letters perfectly. 
 They read through the book, taking a new les- 
 son every time they read. I now found I 
 should have to adopt this plan in all my school ^ 
 which I did, as this ABO know-nothing class 
 had got so that they could read better than a 
 small class I had been hearing read in the old 
 way, and were considered at the commence- 
 ment of the school as being fair readers. At the 
 end of six months this abecedarian class be- 
 came the medium spellers in school. One of 
 them was considered the third choice in our 
 spelling-schools. They could read very well 
 in the old English Eeader. This, to me, was 
 the end of teaching school on the old plan. I 
 thought at the time that there was ^principle in 
 this that was worth the attention of the world. 
 The next school I went into was what 
 is called in our town, the North School ; here 
 I taught on the new plan with like success. 
 During the process of this school I had a 
 scholar sent me from a distance, who was re- 
 presented to have been to school considerably, 
 but his teachers could not get him beyond a 
 knowledge of the letters. He was a son of 
 one of the ablest school-teachers of the coun- 
 try, and his father had made every effort 
 
46 THE TRUE PHILOSOPHY OF 
 
 known to teach him to read ; he was during 
 that winter teaching school in his own district 
 — the school-house being located within a few 
 rods of his own dwelling, so that nothing but 
 stern necessity made him send his son to a 
 strange school. I knew nothing of his case 
 till I read his letter of introduction. They 
 verily thought him a hard fellow. I com- 
 menced with him on my plan, and in three 
 weeks he had gone through the ab's, and the 
 following lessons, and had got to reading in 
 the Bot-a-ny table on the forty-first page in the 
 Elementary Spelling-book. When his father 
 came to see how he was getting along, he ap- 
 peared very much surprised and delighted ; 
 wished to know how I had done it. When I 
 told him, he said he should take him home, 
 for he could now teach him as well as I could, 
 which he did, for he early became a good 
 scholar and an able teacher. 
 
 Thus I continued with like success till the 
 winter of 1851, never failing in a single instance, 
 where I had a scholar under my instruction as 
 long as three or four months, to teach him to be 
 quite a good speller and reader in easy reading 
 books. During this winter (1851) I called the 
 special attention of the town superintendent 
 to a class of four little scholars, which had 
 
TEACHING THE YOUNG TO READ. 47 
 
 come into my school. I told him I should 
 make them readers in easy reading-books in 
 three months, which I did ; and on the last day 
 of the quarter, they each read a lesson before 
 the school and spectators who attended, with 
 as much confidence and propriety as could be 
 wished; and it should be borne in mind that I 
 did not let them see those lessons till the day 
 before they read them before the school, and 
 that they had not heard them read in school, 
 and that they read them from a knowledge of 
 the words. One of them read a piece entitled 
 The Lord's Prayer Versified, in Sanders' Se- 
 cond Reader, page 175. One read a piece 
 in the same book, on the 180th page, called 
 My Bible. The others read a piece in Cobb's 
 Reader, Ko 2, page 142, entitled My Mother, 
 containing fourteen verses, one reading the 
 first seven verses, and the other the remainder. 
 The manner of their reading greatly surprised 
 those who came in to see the school, as 
 they read without repetitions or stammering, 
 minding the pauses in a proper manner, and 
 keeping their places with their eye. I made 
 diligent inquiry as to the success of other 
 scholars of like age, who were beginners, and 
 I found none that had gone further than to 
 learn their letters, and be able to read the aWs, 
 
48 THE T&UE PHILOSOPHY OF" 
 
 while tins class had read the spelling-book 
 through once, and the second time to the 80th 
 page (Elementary Spelling-book), and had 
 read all the words in Sanders' Pictorial Pri- 
 mer, as spelling lessons, and had read Cobb's 
 Header, No. 2, as reading lessons, nearly 
 through. 
 
 In the winter of 1852, I was in a school of 
 large scholars, where I had no opportunity 
 with small scholars whatever. But in the 
 winter term, 1853, of that same school, which 
 term began on the thirteenth of September, 
 and continued till the first of April, the year 
 following, 1 was requested to take four small 
 scholars — one little girl, seven years old ; one 
 six ; one little boy, in delicate health, six years 
 old, and one boy seven or eight years old. 
 The last had been to school, as near as I could 
 learn, more than two years. He knew but 
 two of his letters, A and O, and W some- 
 times. This last boy did not come very steady 
 on account of sickness : he learned his letters, 
 however, during the winter, and could read 
 most of the words in Cobb's New Spelling- 
 book, when he had the words pronounced for 
 •him, and was occasionally aided to pronounce 
 the syllables. I have since heard that he 
 has learned to read. I saw him in Sabbath- 
 
TEACHING THE YOUNG TO READ. 49 
 
 school not long since, reciting his lesson with 
 great seeming satisfaction to his teacher. And 
 here, allow me to say, I think it is very likely 
 that little boy wonld never have recited a les- 
 son in a Sabbath-school, if it had not been for 
 the discovery of the direct method of teach- 
 ing the young to read. 
 
 The two little girls, and the other little boy 
 mentioned, knew their letters pretty generally, 
 but could read no more than a few of the syl- 
 lable lessons, and those but imperfectly. I 
 gave them lessons in the United States Spell- 
 ing-book, because I thought they would be 
 able to keep their places better. The little 
 boy that was hard to learn, read with them, 
 and also with the whole school, twice a day, 
 as I shall hereafter describe. "When they had 
 read about sixty pages in this spelling-book, 
 they could read the words with such dispatch, 
 that I told them I could let them read with 
 the whole school twice a day, if they would 
 get Cobb's New Spelling-book, which they 
 immediately procured, after which they had 
 six lessons or exercises in a day, in the two 
 spelling-books ; you will see how this was done 
 when you come to read the remarks on class- 
 ing schools. I utterly refused to let them at- 
 tempt to study, keeping their books on my 
 5 
 
50 THE TRUE PHILOSOPHY OF 
 
 table, except when they had their reading ex- 
 ercise ; but I soon found that they were read- 
 ing at home, and their parents sent me word 
 that if I wished they would get their little 
 scholars a reading-book. I returned answer 
 that I thought they did not yet need one. 
 Some time after this I met the father of the 
 little boy first named, when he saluted me by 
 saying, " Why don't you get my little boy a 
 reader, he can read almost as well as I can, 
 he is reading the Testament and newspaper, 
 and every book he can get hold of, and I think 
 you should get him a reading-book." I told 
 him that in order to teach a child to read, we 
 had to teach them to read words first, that all 
 the time I could devote to teaching his boy, I 
 thought it better employed in teaching him to 
 read words than to spend it in a reading-book. 
 He did not, however, seem to understand the 
 subject; thought his boy a smart little fellow 
 to learn ; considered none could go before him 
 if he had a good chance, and here, I must say, 
 the greatest secret of this little boy's success 
 was in his giving such close attention to the 
 exercise ; he would not let a word pass unless 
 he saw it ; he was the most attentive scholar I 
 think I ever had, and I never knew one, under 
 all circumstances, that succeeded better; he 
 
TEACHING THE YOUNG TO READ. 51 
 
 was so bashful at first that it was difficult to 
 get him to read, and the only way I could do 
 so was, to have his brother stand in the class 
 with him, and take the same exercises he did. 
 At the end of three or four weeks he had 
 gained sufficient confidence to read alone. 
 Two weeks before the school closed, which 
 was on the first day of April, I got readers for 
 the smallest girl and the little boy — it was 
 Town's Header, No. 2. There was a young 
 lady in my school, who had taught school con- 
 siderably ; I asked her to come forward and 
 hear the little scholars read their first lesson, 
 which she did ; the books were entirely new to 
 them. I gave them the lesson, and they read 
 it, keeping their places with their eye, and no 
 one had to show them in the least where the 
 place was, as is usual with beginners in the 
 old system. She expressed herself as being 
 much delighted, said she had never seen be- 
 ginners read in that way before ; could not 
 see how it could be possible, but the great 
 secret was, they knew how to read the words, 
 and so they could pronounce them in sen- 
 tences. 
 
 The other little girl was a little older, and 
 her mind, consequently, more matured ; she 
 had got along faster than the rest. 1 had, 
 
52 THE TEUE PHILOSOPHY OF 
 
 some weeks before, let her go into a reading- 
 class in Town's Reader, No. 3. She made good 
 work of it, and frequently read selections from 
 Sweet's Elocution, to the great delight of spec- 
 tators who visited our school. She attended 
 school very steadily after she commenced go- 
 ing, and went more days than the others. The 
 little boy went ninety-two days, and the small- 
 est girl attended less than ninety days. At 
 the end of the term they went to the Sab- 
 bath-school, where they have since regularly 
 attended. 
 
 During the summer following I kept school 
 in the same place, and had both small and 
 large scholars, when I had abundant opportu- 
 nity to see the triumph of the direct system. I 
 had scholars fresh from schools that knew no- 
 thing about it, who had nearly committed to 
 memory Readers No. 1 and 2, and came with 
 No. 3 in hand, thinking I was going to 
 teach them that in the same manner. I did 
 no such thing; I did not hear them read a 
 reading lesson till several weeks had passed. 
 All the time that reasonably belonged to them 
 in school, I employed with them in spelling- 
 book exercises, in reading, pronouncing, spell- 
 ing and keying words, till they learned that 
 words were composed of letters and syllables, 
 
TEACHING THE YOUNG TO EEAD. 53 
 
 that every word contained a vowel, that gave 
 character to the pronunciation of that word ; 
 that words of two or more syllables had an ac- 
 cented syllable which contained a vowel, that 
 gave character to the word in general ; that 
 the different vowel sounds were indicated by 
 figures placed over them in the spelling 
 columns, and also over standard words, which 
 would clearly indicate to them the character 
 of the vowel sound over which it was placed ; 
 and after teaching them the use and applica- 
 tion of the above, and how to read the vowel 
 sounds in words, without speaking the name 
 of the letter, I commenced hearing them in 
 their reading lessons. They were now more 
 than half their own schoolmasters. Instead 
 of guessing at a word as a whole, they now had 
 the secret of finding the proper pronunciation 
 of the same from a knowledge of the elements, 
 and being able to call words correctly in sen- 
 tences, they were now able to learn the mean- 
 ing of words by their connection with other 
 words in the same sentence. This school be- 
 came so interested in their spelling and read- 
 ing-books, that it was more a pleasure than a 
 task to instruct them. 
 
 During this summer, at the request of my 
 friends in Kemsen and Trenton, I visited seve- 
 5* 
 
54 THE TRUE PHILOSOPHY OF 
 
 ral of their schools, and gave them a lecture 
 on the direct system of instruction. It was 
 perfectly overwhelming wherever I went, and 
 no doubt seemed to exist as to its propriety 
 and advantage over every other system known. 
 I visited seven schools in this way and found 
 the teachers and trustees invariably anxious 
 to introduce it into their schools, but felt them- 
 selves in want of a manual containing suitable 
 instructions on the subject, to enable them to 
 do so successfully. I see but two obstacles in 
 the way of introducing the direct system into 
 all our schools at once : the first is in the teach- 
 ers themselves; they need to be better or- 
 thoepists. This, where they have a will, can 
 soon be accomplished. The other is a want of 
 suitable spelling-books. The most of our 
 spelling-books in use are too small, that is, con- 
 tain too few words ; there is no spelling-book 
 now in use that contains the number of words 
 that I could wish to meet the wants of this 
 system. I think we should have a spelling- 
 book containing twenty thousand words. In 
 such a book we would have a large pronounc- 
 ing vocabulary of modern geographical names, 
 retaining all that we now have in our best 
 spelling-books, besides somewhat enlarging its 
 spelling lessons. But the smallness of our 
 
TEACHING THE YOUNG TO READ. 55 
 
 spelling-books is not the only objection to 
 them. Their classification is such, or having 
 no classification at all, that it renders them un- 
 fit for our use in the direct method of instruc- 
 tion. Is it not a matter of the most profound 
 astonishment, that we have so many spelling- 
 books forced upon our schools, containing no 
 classification whatever — not a single mark 
 whatever contained in the whole book to indi- 
 cate the vowel sound of a single word con- 
 tained in them ? Books of this description are 
 more generally in our schools than any other, 
 and teachers emanating from schools of the 
 highest order seem more inclined to introduce 
 such books than any other, and not many 
 years ago, our State Convention of County 
 Superintendents recommended one of the lead- 
 ing books of this tribe, as the most suitable 
 spelling-book of any for the use of common 
 schools in our State. Are we thus to be driven 
 back to a state of barbarism by the same men 
 who, of all others, should save us from it ? Are 
 we no longer to have any means of knowing 
 how to pronounce our words correctly but 
 that of asking our school-teacher, who knows 
 nothing of the subject except what his nurse 
 has told him ? What will all the big diction- 
 aries and normal charts in our school districts 
 
56 THE TRUE PHILOSOPHY OF 
 
 avail us, if we are to be taught in this man- 
 ner? 
 
 At the close of my school, it was visited by 
 the Rev. Andrew Peck and Rev. Richard 
 Redhead. We spent the afternoon showing 
 them the exercises had in the direct method 
 of learning to read, after which the Rev. 
 Andrew Peck addressed the school. He com- 
 menced by saying that he acknowledged him- 
 self an entire convert to the system ; that he 
 believed it to be the greatest discovery of the 
 age ; that he thought if it were introduced 
 into our schools, it would do more for them 
 than all the improvements had therein for a 
 century past. This, together with similar tes- 
 timony, led me to believe that it would yet be 
 appreciated by the public, whenever it should 
 be suitably brought before them. 
 
 During the fall of 1853 I visited my bro- 
 ther, who resides in the town of Turin, Lewis 
 County. He had some knowledge of the 
 direct system, having visited my schools, and 
 conversed considerably with me on this sub- 
 ject, but had not till this time felt any very 
 great personal interest in it. On arriving at 
 his house, he said, " Well, John, I have 
 thought a great deal lately about your way of 
 teaching school." "Ah!" said I, "how is 
 
TEACHING THE YOUNG TO EEAD. 57 
 
 that, brother?" " Why," said he, " we have 
 sent our little Mary to school this summer, 
 and she has not lost but one day in six 
 months, and she knew all the letters perfectly 
 before she went, and she has learned scarcely 
 anything all summer. She can't read words of 
 two syllables, and she has held her book in 
 her hands trying to study it till the lower part 
 is all gone." " The old story," said I, truly. 
 " ]STow, brother, do you go to the school-house 
 and tell your teacher that I will give a lecture 
 on the new method of teaching the young to 
 read." It was arranged to be at the school- 
 house the next day at nine o'clock. There 
 was a good attendance of trustees and inhab- 
 itants, three school teachers among the rest, 
 and after hearing the lecture, they were so 
 well pleased with the system that they were 
 determined to adopt it as far as they were 
 able. They hired one of the teachers that 
 heard the lecture to teach their winter school, 
 who taught it on the direct system as near as 
 she was able, and at the end of the term, 
 which was four months, I received a letter 
 from my brother, stating that they had suc- 
 ceeded admirably; that little Mary had 
 learned to read so that she could read in the 
 Testament, and could spell very well in the 
 
58 THE TRUE PHILOSOPHY OF 
 
 spelling-book generally, which was Cobb's 
 New Spelling-book. 
 
 In the winter of 1854 I kept in my own dis- 
 trict. At the commencement of the term, the 
 superintendent called on me, and wished me 
 to show him my method of teaching. Ac- 
 cordingly, I showed him the exercises in full, 
 both in spelling and reading. At the close, 
 he addressed the school at considerable length, 
 expressed himself highly delighted with the 
 new method, said he should recommend it in 
 the schools throughout the town. In this 
 school I have a class of small scholars, my lit- 
 tle daughter, six years old, among the rest. 
 I had refused to let her go to school the sum- 
 mer before, because we had a teacher that 
 taught in the old way. The school was free 
 from any charges, and we had a good teacher 
 of the old stamp, the daughter of one of my 
 most respected and intimate friends, to whom 
 I made an apology for not sending my little 
 girl to school to his daughter. I could not 
 endure the thought of sacrificing her young 
 mind to such a system. She attended my 
 school forty-two days, during the term being 
 detained at home on account of sickness. She 
 knew nearly all the letters when she com- 
 menced going, but in that short space of time 
 
TEACHING THE YOUNG TO READ. .59 
 
 she learned to read most of the words in 
 Cobb's New Spelling-book, was able to key 
 most of them on the book, could read easy 
 reading-books generally, several of which she 
 read through after the school had closed, 
 among the rest a Sunday-school book entitled 
 "A Day in Mary Carrow's School." The 
 summer term following, this little girl went to 
 school ninety-eight days, to a young girl, 
 fifteen years of age, who taught in our district 
 on the direct system, after which I took her to 
 the Teachers' Institute, held in Ulica, where 
 she read before the Institute from books she 
 had never before seen, without miscalling a 
 word, and in articulation there was not her 
 equal in the Institute. 
 
 During the summer of 1854 I kept a select 
 school. There was a little girl whom I should 
 judge to be six or seven years old, who 
 attended this school. She had been sent to 
 school several months before, and did not 
 make much progress. She knew nearly all 
 the letters; but her parents began to think 
 she would be very hard to learn, and so they 
 sent her to me. After she had been in my 
 school three or four days, her mother called 
 to see how she was getting along. She had 
 heard I could teach children to read very fast, 
 
60 THE TRUE PHILOSOPHY OF 
 
 and she thought the way I necessarily did it 
 was to give them large lessons to study, and 
 in case they did not get them well, to punish 
 them severely. She verily thought I had no 
 other way to get along with scholars but this, 
 and she had been thinking how her little girl 
 was going to fare, and was very uneasy about 
 it, and well she might be. She thought her 
 little r "rl would be hard to learn, and would 
 requrra considerable time to learn to read. I 
 told her I thought her little girl would learn 
 to read without much difficulty ; that I should 
 net want her to study any at all during the 
 quarter ; that I should not allow her to have 
 her book only when she read the exercises, 
 and the rest of the time she could amuse her- 
 self about whatever she pleased to pass away 
 the time, provided she did not disturb the 
 school. After this she left me, seeming to be 
 better satisfied of the girl's safety, but she did 
 not believe I could teach her in this new way 
 very soon ; she thought there was not enough 
 study in it. This scholar went nearly all the 
 quarter, was unwell a few days, which kept 
 he ; out of school, but, like the rest who take 
 the direct system course, she learned to read. 
 I saw her in the Sabbath-school a short time 
 after my school closed. They told me she re- 
 
TEACHING THE YOUNG TO READ. 61 
 
 cited the lessons, and could read very well in 
 the Testament, and this her father assured me 
 to be the fact ; said she could read in the Tes- 
 tament very well, and that she went regularly 
 to Sunday-school. He seemed very much de- 
 lighted. 
 
 In the winter of 1855, 1 taught school in 
 Remsen village, where I had from sixty to 
 eighty scholars that attended daily, among 
 whom I had a class of thirty abecedarians and 
 word readers. In this class I had one boy 
 who had been sent a distance of fourteen miles 
 expressly to attend my school. He was about 
 ten years old, had been to school some years ; 
 could not read at all, but knew his letters. 
 He belonged to a family that were noted for 
 learning, and boarded with Dr. "W. Griswold, 
 a distant connection of his. After arriving 
 in town to go to school, the doctor, seeing 
 his ignorance, and being an old school- 
 teacher himself, kept him in his office a con- 
 siderable time, where he endeavored to in- 
 struct him to read, that he might be able to 
 enter upon his course something better than a 
 beginner. But all to no use, as he assured me 
 when he came to the schoolroom with him, 
 saying he was unable to make the least per- 
 ceptible impression on him, and did not be- 
 
 6 
 
62 THE TRUE PHILOSOPHY OF 
 
 lieve it in my power to teach him to read and 
 spell. Nothing discouraged, I put him in the 
 abecedarian and word-reading class. Here I 
 kept him, being obliged to use constant force 
 to secure his attention to the reading exer- 
 cises, which were reading words in Cobb's New 
 Spelling-book in six parts. Six weeks after 
 this I saw the doctor, when he assured me he 
 begun to think I would teach his boy to read. 
 Three months after this, Mrs. Griswold visited 
 the school, out of curiosity, to see how I man- 
 aged to teach her boy to read. She acknow- 
 ledged herself convinced of the propriety of 
 the system, and was much delighted to hear 
 the boy read so fluently. Soon after this I 
 saw the doctor, when he told me the boy had 
 become an independent reader, being able to 
 read any of his medical works, etc., and still 
 this boy had not a moment of extra training 
 during the school. 
 
 In the summer of 1855 and winter of 1856, 
 I taught school in Trenton village. During the 
 summer term I had two scholars, two boys, 
 six years of age. One knew his letters when 
 he entered the school, and the other was a lit- 
 tle more advanced. The latter was very small 
 of his age, and ran away from a school taught 
 by a young lady of superior education, and 
 
TEACHING THE YOUNG TO READ. 63 
 
 much experience in teaching, and entered my 
 school after it had been some time in progress 
 He was a boy of bad habits, and I endeavored 
 not to receive him ; but after hearing the cause 
 of his leaving the other school, I concluded to 
 take him. And here, for the purpose of show- 
 ing the material I had to work in this in- 
 stance, and the various expedients resorted to 
 to teach young children to read, permit me to 
 tell what frightened this young lad from his 
 school. He had a lesson in Sanders's Green 
 Primer that contained the word pig, which he 
 pronounced hog, and the teacher, after labor- 
 ing a long time to have him pronounce it pig, 
 and failing to make him do so, at last con- 
 cluded to hang him up with a cord, after 
 which he still persisted in calling it hog as be- 
 fore. After this last expedient had failed, he 
 was let down, when he took the first opportu- 
 nity to run away. What led this young tyro 
 astray in this instance was the picture of a 
 hog on the same page, and not a pig, as he 
 afiirmed, to which he referred the word for 
 pronunciation ; and here I will say I hope the 
 author of that work will insert the unmistak- 
 able picture of a pig instead of a hog, to save 
 our young scholars from a like fate. In less 
 than sixty days after this, those two boys 
 
64 THE TETJE PHILOSOPHY OF 
 
 could read well in Sanders's No. 3, and went 
 to Sunday-school, and read and recited in the 
 Testament with the rest of the school. 
 
 At the commencement of the winter term, 
 I had two scholars, one Yankee boy, six years 
 old, and one German boy, seven years old; 
 the first knew most of the letters, the latter 
 none. They both learned to read the Testa- 
 ment in less than four months, and went to 
 Sabbath-school regularly. They read words 
 only in the spelling-book while in school. 
 The boy who had the misfortune to be hung, 
 and the other mentioned in connection with 
 him, attended about four months during the 
 winter term, at the close of which they could 
 read in Sweet's Elocution with much pro- 
 priety. 
 
 Numerous other examples might here be 
 given from this school and others. This 
 school averaged during the winter term, five 
 months, fifty-three and a half scholars per day; 
 had no assistant. During December, Janu- 
 ary, and February, I had from sixty-five to 
 seventy-five scholars per day; twenty in 
 grammar, eighteen in geography, thirty-five 
 in arithmetic, forty in writing. One young 
 man, eighteen years of age, from a distance, 
 attended this school eight months for the ex- 
 
TEACHING THE YOUNG TO BEAD. 65 
 
 press purpose of learning to read. He became 
 a fair reader. He also, during that time, went 
 through Mitchell's Geography and the ground 
 rules in arithmetic. 
 
 In the fall of 1857, 1 attended the Teachers' 
 Institute at Utica, where, as chairman of a 
 committee for reporting the best method for 
 teaching vocal reading, spelling and articula- 
 tion, I reported substantially — the Direct 
 System as set forth in this manual. The 
 report being an entirely new system, elicited 
 much debate. Prof. Johonnot, Commissioner 
 Fowler, and others, took the floor in its favor. 
 It was unanimously adopted. Subsequently 
 I have been requested by Commissioner 
 Fowler to attend the Institute to be held next 
 fall at Utica, to give the teachers of our 
 county Oneida a thorough drill in this method 
 of teaching. Our commissioner also informs 
 me that he is introducing this system into the 
 schools in his district to a considerable extent, 
 but sees the great want of a manual to enable 
 teachers to make the desired change. 
 
 Thus I have given a hasty sketch of the rise 
 and progress, thus far, of the direct system. 
 It is, of course, only now in its infancy, and 
 has as yet been a blessing to only a few ; but 
 if it is what I believe it to be, and claim for it, 
 6* 
 
66 THE TRUE PHILOSOPHY OF 
 
 I hope the time is not far distant when it shall 
 become a blessing to all throughout the world, 
 who have to learn the English language — 
 freeing parents and guardians from many ex- 
 penses now had to educate their children, and 
 saving them from years of toil and suffering 
 in learning to read, making the business of 
 learning to read pleasurable, and alike de- 
 lightsome to children, teachers, and parents. 
 
 CLASSING SCHOLARS IN SCHOOL, 
 
 AND WHAT BOOKS TO BE USED. 
 
 It will be observed that the following ap- 
 plies no further than spelling and reading 
 classes are concerned, and that this arrange- 
 ment applies to county school district schools, 
 where a teacher has scholars of every grade 
 in his school, from the abecedarian to those 
 in the highest branches taught in our schools. 
 From the arrangement here made, I think it 
 will be perfectly plain for other schools to 
 class their scholars on this principle. It will 
 be seen that scholars of very different attain- 
 ments can be in the same class with perfect 
 
TEACHING THE YOUNG TO READ. 67 
 
 propriety, the exercises being varied to the 
 capacities of each scholar, and yet in a man- 
 ner to be equally interesting to the smallest 
 and largest scholar in the school. The abe- 
 cedarians will necessarily have to be con- 
 sidered one class in school, although it is much 
 better for the teacher, and infinitely better for 
 the scholar to place them in the first class of 
 word readers, as in that class the teacher is 
 supposed to pronounce each scholar's word for 
 him, and to aid him to read the letters and 
 pronounce it for him whenever he is unable to 
 do so himself. Such scholars should invariably 
 be of sufficient age and mind to keep their 
 places, or capable of being readily taught to 
 do so. Here, if they keep their places (and 
 if they do not, they had better be out of 
 school), they will be able to see and hear the 
 letters named at the commencement of their 
 going to school, at least one hour each day, 
 besides taking an equal part in the exer- 
 cises themselves. But in a little time they 
 will be able to look over and take part in the 
 second class of word readers, and finally, with 
 the class of spellers, at which time they can 
 have an exercise in their letters, and in read- 
 ing words, from two to three hours each day, 
 which is a great advantage over the old 
 
68 THE TKUE PHILOSOPHY OF 
 
 method, as that would afford the young be- 
 ginner but abont four minutes a day in which 
 to learn his letters. Thus it will be profitable 
 to have the abecedarians merged into the first 
 class of word readers, as soon as possible, and 
 they may go in at once, if the teacher choose, 
 which is the better way. Hence we will con- 
 sider the abecedarian class and the first class 
 of word readers as one class. 
 
 The next, or second class, read words in the 
 same manner as the first class, the teacher pro- 
 nouncing each scholar's word, and the scholar 
 reading it on the book, the teacher encourag- 
 ing as many as can read their words correctly 
 to do so without his assistance. This, how- 
 ever, should not be done, unless the scholar is 
 able to do it with dispatch, pronouncing the 
 word before and after he reads it, so that all 
 the class may know what the word is before it 
 is read, and afterward. The third class in the 
 spelling-book comprises all the school, the 
 class being divided into three divisions. The 
 abecedarians, or first class of word readers, the 
 second class of word readers, and those who 
 are able to spell, without missing very often. 
 If scholars miss, they might as well keep their 
 books open all the time. The first and second 
 class divisions will have their books open all 
 
TEACHING THE YOUNG TO BEAD. 69 
 
 the time during the exercise ; the third division 
 will have their books in their hands, and will 
 close them when they are required to spell ; 
 they also will have a variety of exercises to 
 perform with their books open, in concert with 
 the first and second divisions, and when a 
 scholar in this misses his word in spelling, he 
 is required to open his book and read it, or the 
 word may better be read by the other divi- 
 sions of the class. And when any scholar has 
 found his way into the third division of this 
 class that causes much delay, either by not 
 spelling correctly, or by not readily finding 
 his word when he misses it, let him go into the 
 second division. The spelling-book exercises 
 for each class will be fully explained hereafter. 
 There will be but two reading classes needed 
 in school. In no case should there be a 
 reading class in a book smaller than Town's 
 Second Eeader, or Sander's, Webb's, and 
 Town's Third Eeaders. The second class 
 should have the best elocutionary work which 
 the school is able to procure, such as San- 
 ders' and Town's ~No. 5, or Sweet's, Zachos' 
 and Marshall's Elocution. This arrange- 
 ment of classes will be such as to enable 
 school-teachers to bestow much time in teach- 
 ing his school words, which is the most impor- 
 
70 THE TftUE PHILOSOPHY OF 
 
 tant study a school can be engaged in, till they 
 are able to spell and read well. But where 
 the arrangement of classes are such as they 
 are now generally in schools, the teacher has 
 no time to dictate words to his school. His 
 whole time being taken up in teaching a mul- 
 titude of what is generally called reading 
 classes, but more properly story-learning 
 classes, in the green primers, and No. 1 
 readers, together with a lot of half-minute 
 spelling-lessons, and perhaps a little class in 
 mental arithmetic, who cannot read words of 
 two syllables correctly, and a class in a little 
 child's Geography, who have seen so little of 
 the world, and their little minds have learned 
 so little of common things, as not to see much 
 difference between a lake and a mill-pond — a 
 mud-puddle and the Atlantic Ocean. The wise 
 man tells us there is a time for everything. 
 Fellow school-teachers, suffer not the propen- 
 sities and blindness of the present age to drive 
 you from your proper work. First teach your 
 scholars to read and spell words ; do this in a 
 thorough manner, and when it is once done, 
 your scholars will be able, without your help, 
 to read the Bible, the news of the day, law, 
 medicine, or divinity, and every book what- 
 ever in the language, much better and earlier 
 
TEACHING THE YOtJHG TO HEAD. 71 
 
 than they now do. I know it is said by a host 
 of learned small-fry educators, that a scholar 
 should be taught words no faster than they are 
 able to apply them to reading-lessons. This, 
 in the main, I hold to be an impossibility, 
 knowing the words, they would know how to 
 apply them. Again, on this principle, we 
 could never teach a child the alphabet, or the 
 most common arts of husbandry. On this 
 principle we should never let our sons use a 
 hoe, or an axe, a plough, or a scythe, till they 
 knew perfectly well how to hoe a field of corn, 
 to chop down our forests, to plough our fields, 
 or to cut the grass of our meadows. It is this 
 doctrine that is turning the spelling-book out 
 of our schools, and reducing them to a size 
 that renders them nearly useless in teaching 
 the language. 
 
 Give children, then, by every consideration, 
 a knowledge of words, and like implements of 
 husbandry in their hands, the occasion, circum- 
 stance, and necessity will show them how to 
 apply them, and perfect them in their use. 
 Give children, then, a thorough knowlege of 
 words, even no more than to the amount con- 
 tained in some of our largest spelling-books, 
 and they will be better off than they would 
 were they to read any series of reading-books 
 
72 THE TETJE PHILOSOPHY OP 
 
 that ever were printed. Give children words, 
 and they will find a way to nse them, as rea- 
 dily as a boy wonld find out the way to use a 
 sharp hatchet. 
 
 I know parents and guardians are pleased 
 to have their children learn to read sentences, 
 and so they should be ; and when they send a 
 little son or daughter to school, and he conies 
 home in a few weeks and is able to read, or 
 more properly, recite in the main, some little 
 story from (or in if you please) a small reader, 
 they are greatly delighted, and without re- 
 flection think their little son or daughter has 
 got along finely, when in fact, they have 
 learned nothing of consequence about read- 
 ing. If they would allow themselves to 
 make a proper examination, they would find 
 to their regret that they had learned a story by 
 heart more than they had learned to read it by 
 any knowledge of the words composing the 
 sentences. On this subject teachers should 
 bestow much attention. I have often, when 
 first going into a new school, and seeing the 
 little ones come in loaded with books that 
 were perfectly unfit for them, been sick- 
 ened and discouraged at the prospect that- 
 lay before me. For here, if I should give 
 way to the current that was setting against 
 
TEACHING THE YOUNG TO BEAD. 73 
 
 me, it would render my service of very little 
 use to them. And if I changed the order of 
 their studies I should have to make a world 
 of apologies and explanations to them and 
 their parents, which would impose a vast 
 amount of extra labor on me; but feeling 
 much responsibility resting on me, and fortu- 
 nately for me, late years having some pro- 
 minent inhabitants in the district that knew 
 and approved my method of teaching school, 
 I have had no great difficulty in making the 
 necessary changes, except the extra labor it 
 naturally incurs. I hope that teachers to 
 whom this manual shall come, will have both 
 the moral and physical courage necessary to 
 enable them to make the changes in the mode 
 of instructing the young, here set forth, and 
 I feel assured, if they at first cannot carry it 
 into effect as skillfully as an old experienced 
 teacher therein, they will do even at first a 
 vast deal better than they can possibly in the 
 old way of instruction. Try it, friends ; send 
 all the little green, pictorial primers and first 
 readers home, and perhaps many of the 
 second readers — all at least for a season — and 
 every kind of baby books, and get you a 
 large, well-classified-spelling book, and teach 
 the little and the big \)oth to read and spell v 
 
 r 
 
74: THE TBUE PHILOSOPHY OF 
 
 and key their words on the book and off the 
 book, and you will never have occasion to 
 stand, and point out, and pronounce words in 
 reading books as you have done and you will 
 never see the tribe of little books you sent 
 away return. Your scholars will need larger 
 and more advanced books, and will thank 
 you to the end of their lives for having taught 
 them to read in the direct method. 
 
 Cobb's ISTew Spelling-book is the only one I 
 know of that is properly arranged to meet 
 the wants of the direct system of instruction. 
 The United States Spelling-book might be~ 
 used if its pronunciation was not an inno 
 vation on all our standard works. Sanders' 
 has a good classification, but it contains too 
 few words. The elementary contains too few 
 words, and its marks of reference are not in 
 all respects convenient for children. Town's 
 has no classification as far as pronunciation is 
 concerned to make it available in this me- 
 thod. 
 
TEACHING THE YOUNG TO EEAD. 75 
 
 METHOD OP 
 
 TEACHING THE ALPHABET. 
 
 The alphabet is usually taught in the 
 direct method. When the attention of the 
 learner can constantly be secured and a cor- 
 responding effort made by the teacher, child- 
 ren generally learn it in a few days ; but it 
 seldom happens that this is done. For most 
 generally the scholar is hurried through his 
 lesson in a manner that renders it impossible 
 for him to remember any part of it. The exer- 
 cise generally had is to call the alphabet over 
 twice to the scholar. If we allow one second 
 for the time of pronouncing each letter, we 
 see the whole exercise is over in less than a 
 minute. But when the teacher is hurried by 
 a press of business, which is generally the 
 case, they repeat it much faster, and fre- 
 quently go over it but once. But allowing 
 one minute of time for the abecedarian to say 
 his lesson, and allowing him to have four 
 Lessons a day, we see he has but four minutes 
 in a day to learn his letters ; and allowing 
 
76 THE TRUE PHILOSOPHY OF 
 
 sixty days to the quarter, it will leave him 
 four hours during that time in which to learn 
 his letters. Thus, the great mystery why 
 children do not learn the letters sooner is 
 easily discovered. The greatest wonder of all 
 is, how they learn them at all in this manner. 
 Some, indeed, may say that there is more 
 time given to the abecedarian in our schools 
 generally ; but from my own observation I 
 firmly believe that in the aggregate they do 
 not have more time. But in very many 
 instances there is not over one half the time 
 given them that I have here allowed. But 
 suppose them to have twice as much time 
 given them, they would then have but eight 
 hours in the quarter, which is far too little 
 time to learn the alphabet. Then, give them 
 sixteen, thirty-two, sixty-four, or one hundred 
 and twenty hours, or even more than that 
 amount, so that they may have a proper 
 chance to learn their letters. " Oh, but," say 
 you, " it is impossible ; this can never be 
 done, for it is totally out of the question for 
 a teacher to spend anything like that amount 
 of time with the young scholar." Not too 
 fast, fellow-teacher, not too fast; it is per- 
 fectly easy when we know how ; and where 
 there is a will there is a way, and if any 
 
TEACHING THE YOUNG TO BEAD. 77 
 
 teacher wishes to know the way, he has only 
 ^ to read The Philosophy of Teaching the 
 £ Young to Bead and the way will be perfectly 
 plain to him. 
 
 It is reasonable that every one who goes to 
 school should be engaged in some useful 
 study or exercise. The young scholar by 
 himself cannot study his letters nor his spel- 
 ling lessons at first. He must be aided in 
 learning these or he will not learn them in a 
 very long time. Again, under the present 
 indirect method of teaching the young, it is 
 impossible for the teacher to bestow only a 
 very little time each day upon the abece- 
 darian and the young word reader. Hence the 
 imperative necessity of a change in our school 
 system that will enable the school-teacher to 
 come to the immediate aid of the young 
 scholar, by giving him a suitable exercise that 
 will enable him to read words correctly, thus 
 preparing him to help himself. For at no 
 period of his study will he ever need one 
 hundredth part of the help that he claims 
 here. The abecedarians, when there is only 
 a few of them, may, in a very few days, be put 
 into the first class of word readers, whether 
 they know their letters fully or not, for here I 
 mainly teach children their letters. But sup- 
 1* 
 
78 THE TRUE PHILOSOPHY OF 
 
 posing a teacher had a hundred beginners in 
 the alphabet (and he could manage even 
 double that number of orderly attentive 
 scholars), let him give each of them a spelling- 
 book and direct them to begin at A, and 
 speak the letters in concert, moving down or 
 up at the direction of the teacher. The 
 teacher saying A in a loud distinct manner, 
 and the whole class looking at the letter and 
 speaking it in concert after him distinctly, 
 and with quantity ; then let the teacher point 
 out its distinctive features to the class, the class 
 all the time looking at the letter while hear- 
 ing the remarks of the teacher. "When in the 
 estimation of the teacher the class has dwelt 
 on that letter long enough, let him say 
 " down," when all the class should move 
 down to B, the teacher pronouncing it as 
 before, and the class speaking it after him, 
 and so on as before. In this way a teacher 
 could keep a class of abecedarians at work 
 during the entire day, and no one could well 
 avoid learning the letters in a few days. This 
 exercise would be applicable to a large class 
 of young men that were learning to read. I 
 sincerely hope there will be many such classes 
 formed when the direct system becomes 
 known. 
 
TEACHING THE YOUNG TO EEAD. 79 
 
 But suppose a few were inattentive, the 
 teacher could easily select them out and give 
 them a separate exercise for their special 
 benefit, while the rest of the class were rest- 
 ing or looking over. But I should recom- 
 mend a teacher of such a class to put them 
 into spelling lessons without waiting for every 
 one to learn all the letters perfectly. Scholars 
 will look with more attention at the letters 
 when they are going to form a word with 
 them, and think harder to call their names 
 correctly than when they are going to say 
 them singly in the alphabet ; and this being 
 true, they will learn the letters faster, and also 
 how to read words at the same time. A 
 teacher should have each scholar take his 
 turn in reading occasionally, so as to test his 
 progress, or if he cannot make the exercise 
 interesting in so large a class, he should 
 divide it into smaller classes. But here there 
 would be danger of letting the time of many 
 run to waste. I think a teacher can interest 
 a large number of scholars as well as a few 
 where the lesson is alike needed by all. I 
 have had, in a few instances, two hundred, 
 and frequently one hundred in a class for an 
 experiment, and I found no difficulty in gain- 
 ing their attention and keeping them to their 
 
80 THE TETJE PHILOSOPHY OF 
 
 work. Practice and close observation would 
 soon enable a teacher to instruct a large num- 
 ber of scholars on this principle. And I have 
 not the least doubt but that a teacher could 
 take from one to two hundred scholars, and in 
 from four to six months teach them to be very 
 good readers ; and I would here say, there is 
 no employment I could engage in with so 
 much pleasure as to demonstrate this prac- 
 tically to the world, and if any of the friends 
 of education in Boston, New York, or Phila- 
 delphia, or any other convenient place should 
 see fit to make an arrangement by which this 
 might be fully tested, I will hold myself 
 ready to enter upon it at the earliest oppor- 
 tunity. 
 
 What would be the effect on the American 
 character, if a teacher had the power of teach- 
 ing a hundred or more scholars to read during 
 one winter? How many thousands of the 
 grown' up multitudes that come here from the 
 the old world would educate themselves, 
 who now remain in servile ignorance, selling 
 their vote, perhaps, on election-day for a 
 drink of grog. If our schools were conducted 
 on this principle it would be a great corrector 
 for many evils we now endure both politi- 
 cally and socially. It would give sight to 
 
TEACHING THE YOUNG TO READ. 81 
 
 the blind, and be a stronger bulwark for the 
 defence of our liberties than all our fleets and 
 armies. 
 
 EXERCISING THE 
 
 FIRST CLASS OF WORD READERS. 
 
 The first class of word readers are supposed 
 to know their letters perfectly, although this 
 is not often the case at the beginning of a 
 school. They should keep their places cor- 
 rectly, and look on with much attention ; they 
 may differ considerably in their attainments 
 in reading without any disadvantage to any 
 one in the class, as they take a new lesson 
 every time they read, and consequently no 
 one in the class is delayed in his lessons on 
 the account of others, the poorest scholar in 
 the class not taking but a very little more 
 time than the best one, as the teacher helps 
 him on with his word when he is unable to 
 help himself ; but the best scholar w T ill have 
 all he can do to keep his place and see all the 
 words as they pass. This class will never 
 shut up their books to spell, but the scholar 
 reads the word after the teacher puts it out 
 
82 THE TRUE PHILOSOPHY OF 
 
 to him, and likewise pronounces it ; but if he 
 should be unable to pronounce it after he has 
 read the letters, the teacher should tell him 
 how to do it, and then put out a word to the 
 next scholar, and so on through the lesson. 
 In this way the scholar will learn the words 
 as a whole by hearing them pronounced, 
 and their distinctive features by reading the 
 letters, and also learn to spell very rapidly, as 
 he first has the word pronounced for him 
 while attentively beholding it ; he reads and 
 pronounces it, making an impression on his 
 memory, both through the medium of sight 
 and hearing, whereas, if his book were closed, 
 his memory could only be impressed through 
 the medium of hearing alone. But now, 
 having the sense of hearing and seeing 
 united, the sense of seeing being the most 
 perfect, his mind must be more than two fold 
 more deeply impressed, and consequently he 
 learns to spell more than twice as fast as he can 
 learn to spell with his book closed. But this 
 is not all. A class exercised on this principle 
 goes over three or four times more words in 
 the same time than they would if their books 
 were closed, consequently, in the aggregate, 
 they would learn to spell about ten times 
 faster, besides learning to read ; whereas, in 
 
TEACHING THE YOUNG TO READ. 83 
 
 the other case, it is clear they do not learn 
 to read at all, that is when they have their 
 books closed, 
 
 " If any spark of life be yet remaining." 
 
 With the patience of the reader, I will give 
 this old sytem another thrust, for I know well 
 with what tenacity this old, long cherished 
 error clings to life. In the direct method a 
 teacher can take a class through more spelling 
 matter in twenty minutes than he can on the 
 guessing system in an hour — no, this is a 
 mistake, for in the guessing system, they 
 seldom, if ever get through regularly — for 
 in that a teacher never can tell whether he is 
 ever going to get through regularly or not. 
 But in the direct system he can calculate to a 
 minute the time it will need to take a class 
 through a page of spellings, thus making his 
 school exercises regular, which is a great gain 
 to any teacher or school. But the guessing 
 system throws everything into confusion and 
 darkness, compelling the teacher to give out 
 lessons so small, in order to dispatch them 
 properly, that he cannot advance but very 
 slowly in the book, and seldom goes through 
 a large spelling-book in a term, and as it is 
 customary to begin the book anew at the 
 
84 THE TKUE PHILOSOPHY OF 
 
 commencement of each term, it is seldom a 
 school is taken through the book. But when 
 a teacher does give large lessons in order 
 to get his school through the book he 
 never goes through the lessons regularly, and 
 never calls near all the words in the lesson, 
 but goes on a while, taking the words in 
 order till he sees he is not going to get 
 through in that way, when he begins to skip 
 half, and finally two-thirds of the words ; and 
 at last, having consumed all the time, he 
 abandons the lesson altogether. Thus it is a 
 great amount of words in our spelling-books 
 are never brought before the school. 
 
 Again, this spelling words wrong in the 
 hearing of the school has a very pernicious 
 effect upon the school in general. For hear- 
 ing them spelt so many different ways dis- 
 tracts their minds, and prevents them from 
 remembering the right way of spelling them. 
 Where words are very generally read and 
 spelt correctly, it has a good effect on the 
 school. I can give living and overwhelming 
 testimony on this subject. I have a school 
 now in my mind which learned to spell on 
 the direct system and never closed their 
 books, but a very little in the school — scho- 
 lars I will pit against the world for spelling ; 
 
TEACHING THE YOUNG TO READ. 85 
 
 this, as far as our town is concerned, has been 
 actually tested. But to the astonishment and 
 confusion of those sticklers for shutting up 
 the spelling-book, a class of little girls and 
 boys trained on this principle, spelled down 
 five schools and their teachers with the 
 greatest ease, which gave a lasting rebuke to 
 this class of educators in our town. Now, 
 the theory and practice are alike honored. 
 Again, by closing the book many learn to 
 spell, although at this slow guessing rate 
 much better than they can read. I know 
 many of this class. I have no doubt but there 
 are many thousands of scholars in this con- 
 dition, and may live and die in it, unless the 
 direct system should save some of them. I will 
 mention one case of this kind, who is rather 
 the best specimen of the kind I ever knew. 
 He is eighteen or nineteen years old ; he has 
 been to school winters for eight or ten years 
 past ; he is of sound mind, but the school he 
 attended never read spelling lessons. He 
 read words as a whole in our little readers, 
 saying them after the teacher, and hearing 
 them read by the scholars till he can repeat 
 a considerable number of these interesting 
 little stories ; he also can spell very well in the 
 Elementary spelling-book, but he cannot read 
 8 
 
86 THE TBUE PHILOSOPHY OF 
 
 and pronounce scarcely any of the words in 
 the book, nor read the most simple sentence 
 correctly from a knowledge of the words. 
 He is a foreigner, but speaks the English 
 language very well ; he had no one at home 
 to show him, and he is a perfect specimen of 
 what our schools would do undisturbed by 
 other influences. His parents are wealthy, 
 and put unwavering confidence in our 
 schools, especially this one, as it was kept by 
 one of their own countrymen. What must 
 be their feelings to see their son, thus nearly 
 grown up to manhood and not able to read, 
 and all through the inefficiency of our schools, 
 and by the indirect method of instruction 
 which they pursue? "What more could this 
 young man do to learn to read than he did, 
 blindfolded and handcuffed as he was ? Did 
 he not learn the stories they repeated to him, 
 and spell the words as they dictated them to 
 him ? Most certainly he did. The fact is, that 
 spelling in this manner is nothing more than 
 a test of what we do know, and when a 
 scholar is not sufficiently acquainted with a 
 word to spell it understandingly, he had 
 much better look and read it than to have his 
 teacher tell him how to spell words, which in 
 many cases, he is unable even to read or pro- 
 
TEACHING THE YOUNG TO READ. 87 
 
 nounce in a reading lesson. But admitting 
 he did understand them, and even know how 
 to read and pronounce them, if he should 
 look at them again in a book it would be per- 
 fecting his acquaintance with them, and he 
 would be more likely to call them correctly 
 on any occasion for having frequently seen 
 them and read them many times. But ano- 
 ther advantage is when they learn in the 
 direct manner they learn the words as a 
 whole by sight, and in their elementary parts, 
 so that they are the better prepared to speak 
 them understandingly and readily in a read- 
 ing lesson. Let me give another case calcu- 
 lated to throw some light on this subject, 
 showing the absurdity of the former and pre- 
 sent practice of requiring young beginners to 
 study spelling and reading lessons. 
 
 There is a man whom I have been inti- 
 mately acquainted with for more than fifty 
 years who was sent to school two weeks when 
 he was five years old, where he learned his 
 letters perfectly, and to read the ab's and 
 words of three letters contained in the first 
 lessons of the old easy standard spelling-book, 
 such as Bay, Cay, etc., for which he received 
 a great deal of praise from his teacher and 
 parents. After this he was sent to school one 
 
88 THE TRUE PHILOSOPHY OF 
 
 winter and one summer term some distance 
 from home to a celebrated teacher, one old 
 Doctor Allen, I think; he was a fine man, 
 every way, and a good teacher in a qualified 
 sense. Here this scholar sometimes read 
 alone, and sometimes in a small class, taking 
 lessons to study and spell in the above-named 
 spelling-book, beginning with words of four 
 letters, such as Bind, Find, etc. During the 
 winter term he got through the first lessons 
 of words of four and five letters, and got to 
 the Baker table and read a column or two 
 in that table. During the summer term he 
 advanced as far as the Crucifix table. In all, 
 (luring the winter and summer terms, less 
 than eight pages, containing in all one thou- 
 sand and thirty-nine words. I cannot tell 
 how many weeks each term contained, but at 
 least from twelve to sixteen, making his 
 attendance, in any case, at least six months. 
 I can assure the reader it seemed much longer 
 to him. And what did this little boy learn 
 all this long time ? Why, the nearest thing 
 possible to nothing at all. 'Tis true, he had 
 learned to spell every word he had gone over, 
 for the good old doctor would not have let 
 him passed a word which he could not spell 
 for a world, But although he could spell the 
 
TEACHING THE YOUNG TO READ. 89 
 
 words in the book thus far I am sure he could 
 not read them as well as he could spell them, 
 and was quite unable to pronounce them at 
 sight in a reading-book. He took from four 
 to six words to a lesson, seldom read the 
 lesson to his teacher, was supposed by the 
 teacher to be able to read them sufficiently to 
 study them to advantage, because his teacher 
 required him to do so ; this, however, was not 
 the fact in his case, and is not the fact as far 
 as any other beginner is concerned, that ever 
 was or ever will be. And hence the impor- 
 tance of the direct system to each and every 
 one that has yet to learn to read, and to those 
 who have children to be taught to read. I 
 am well assured, from the experience I have 
 had in it that its importance is beyond 
 all computation, and teachers who may here- 
 after adopt it will see advantages emanating 
 from it that at first quite escaped their obser- 
 vation . Kind reader, pardon me for this digres- 
 sion. Did tins little boy study his lessons ? 
 I think I am a good witness in this case, and 
 I must say he did not, but very little indeed, 
 nearly the smallest amount imaginable that 
 amounted to anything to his advantage; he 
 made a show of study, and did the best he 
 could, but could call no word right unless it 
 8* 
 
00 THE TEXJE PHILOSOPHY OF 
 
 was by accident; did not know when lie 
 called it right or wrong ; knew he could not 
 study, but tried to please his teacher ; sat on 
 a slab bench seven months, that was so high 
 he could not touch the floor with his feet by 
 several inches ; swung his feet a good deal to 
 keep his back from aching and his knees 
 from becoming stiff ; held a spelling-book in 
 his hand during school hours; wore out a 
 spelling-book each term, so that it fell to 
 pieces mainly by holding it in his sweaty 
 hands ; lost all his courage for learning ; 
 felt friendly to the old doctor; should have 
 run away from school had he not been so 
 very kind to him ; thought he could never 
 learn the book through ; became so averse to 
 going to school, and circumstances withal 
 being unfavorable, that he did not attend but 
 very little after that ; went to farming for a 
 livelihood ; had a great desire for an educa- 
 tion as he became grown up to manhood; 
 had little confidence in schools ; learned 
 many things taught in school, at home. 
 
 So we see the effect of the indirect system 
 of instruction was not good in this instance, 
 for it was the means of turning the mind of 
 this little boy, for the whole period of his 
 youth, from schools, and thus virtually shut- 
 
TEACHING THE YOUNG TO READ. 91 
 
 ting liirn out for life from the joys of a refined 
 education. You may say that our schools are 
 better now, but I think they are not. I have 
 travelled considerably several years past, 
 visiting schools. I have no time to go into 
 any statistical accounts of them here. They 
 can be seen and should be read by all men. 
 Children seldom learn their letters and abs in 
 less than six months, in our schools quite often 
 they are a year in learning them. In New 
 York there are thousands that are reading 
 very poorly in Sanders' Second Eeader, from 
 eight to twelve years old. I heard a large num- 
 ber of scholars of this last kind mentioned? 
 read in Sanders' Second Header in one of those 
 schools where the head teacher is paid by the 
 board of education but little less than two 
 thousand dollars a year. It is said to be 
 one of the very best schools in the city, and I 
 believe it should have that reputation. I 
 asked its able principal how long it took to 
 advance boys as forward in reading as those 
 who were reading before us (which was a 
 large class in Sanders' Second Eeader). He 
 said he thought it generally took from two to 
 two and a half years' steady time. What 
 need had I of looking further? this teacher's 
 opinion was, in New York, considered the 
 
02 
 
 THE TRUE PHILOSOPHY OF 
 
 very highest authority. Who can imagine 
 my feelings while sitting and hearing this 
 class read for three quarters of an hour % I 
 knew to a certainty that the direct system, 
 beyond any doubt, would have taught them to 
 read much better in less than one fourth of 
 the time. 
 
 But, says one, this putting out words to scho - 
 lars, and their reading them on the book, seem 
 like children's play to me. All the better for 
 being children's play, if we can succeed as 
 well ; we need a system that is just as com- 
 mon and simple as the air we breathe. Allow 
 me to answer this objection by saying I 
 have, from a very early age, been engaged 
 in farming, notwithstanding I have kept school 
 considerably. I have ever had a farm to take 
 care of. I have broke or trained many a yoke 
 of young steers, and many a colt to work. The 
 way I did it, I used to contrive to get the 
 yoke on the steers, and then hitch the old 
 oxen on before them, and so start ahead. To 
 be sure they went quite wild at first, but every 
 day's practice made them better, and they had 
 the old cattle to look to for an example, and 
 finding they took it all very quietly, they soon 
 became as orderly and as well-trained workers 
 as the old oxen. 
 
 
TEACHING THE YOUNG TO READ. 93 
 
 In breaking colts, after bitting them, I put 
 them in by the side of a strong, steady horso^ 
 and as in the case of the oxen, we went ahead. 
 I expected a colt to take some unnecessary 
 steps, and sometimes to exert himself a little 
 too much, and sometimes not quite enough, 
 perhaps, but having the example of a kind, 
 gentle horse, and by prudence in driving him, 
 he very soon became a good, manageable 
 work-horse. In each case there was nothing 
 required of them but what they would easily 
 perform, and so they soon learned to work. 
 But, supposing we had, after yoking up the 
 steers, hitched them to a rock that it was 
 impossible for them to move, and kept them 
 chained up there six months, or a year, urging 
 them forward by persuasion and force, would 
 they not, for all working purposes, in all pro- 
 bability, be ruined for life? Why, most cer- 
 tainly they would. And so in like manner, if 
 we had hitched the colt to a stump, and coax- 
 ed and urged him to draw it out, would it not 
 have proved his ruin ? Yes, beyond any doubt 
 whatever ; and in case he had been balked in 
 this manner, a few minutes at the commence- 
 ment of his learning work, it might have de- 
 preciated his value one-half or three-fourths, 
 
94: THE TRUE PHILOSOPHY OF 
 
 and rendered him an outcast, and a fit subject 
 for horse-jockeys for life. 
 
 Then why not use as much good common 
 sense in educating our children, as in breaking 
 steers and colts. It is true it may look like 
 our children's play to you, and so may it look 
 like children's play to you to see old Farmer 
 Steady, with his boys and hired men, parading 
 the streets with a yoke of oxen and steers 
 drawing an empty sled, or training around 
 with his old John horse, and brown colt, draw- 
 ing an empty sleigh, with a lot of wide-awake 
 boys sometimes running on foot, and some- 
 times riding. But an old experienced eye can 
 see in both of these a principle that will work 
 the best results for the education of the young, 
 as well as for training animals for the use of 
 man. 
 
TEACHING THE YOUNG TO READ. 95 
 
 EXERCISES APPLICABLE 
 
 TO THB 
 
 SECOND CLASS OF WORD READERS. 
 
 First, let the teacher put out the words 
 to the class, each scholar having his book 
 open and his eye attentively on the word, 
 and each reading in rotation distinctly, and 
 yet with all possible dispatch; let them 
 read part of their lesson in this manner. 
 Second, should it be an easy lesson, or should 
 some easy words occur in the lesson, then 
 let these be pronounced in concert, or let 
 them pronounce one, two, or three words 
 apiece in rotation, speaking their words with 
 deliberation and with quantity. Pronouncing 
 words is a short way of studying them. No 
 one can pronounce words correctly, unless by 
 imitation or theory. To do it theoretically he 
 must know how many syllables there are in a 
 word, and know which the accented syllable 
 is, and also, what the vowel sound is contained 
 in that syllable; scholars may learn to pro- 
 nounce correctly by imitation, but it is impor- 
 
&6 THE TRUE PHILOSOrHY OF 
 
 tant that they should learn to do this from 
 theory, which can very easily be done in a 
 well classified spelling-book, as I shall show in 
 the third class exercises. Third, when the 
 words are long and difficult to spell, pronounce 
 them to the class, and let the class read them in 
 concert, reading slow, and the teacher marking 
 time for them with a pencil on a slate, or other- 
 wise. The teacher should give each one time 
 to read his syllable before he gives the signal 
 for reading the next syllable. I think this is 
 the fastest way of any to teach a class to read 
 and spell ; it takes more time to read a lesson in 
 this way, but its effect is tremendous, making 
 a deep and lasting impression on the mind. 
 
 I would advise teachers to practise it con- 
 siderably, especially those that are so far ad- 
 vanced as to generally read the words cor- 
 rectly; but supposing some one should be 
 unable to read his word right, if he is atten- 
 tive he will hear numerous voices, before 
 him and behind him, and on every side of 
 him, distinct and clear, telling him every let- 
 ter and syllable, and how to pronounce it 
 when read. But a class of any size, even con- 
 taining one or two hundred, could not endure 
 the labor that one teacher could impose on 
 them in this exercise, and consequently, ho 
 
TEACHING THE YOUNG TO READ. 97 
 
 would have to vary tlie exercise to save the 
 strength of the school. 
 
 I have found, that a class of attentive word- 
 readers, after reading the spelling-book through 
 a few times, know how to spell better than 
 those that have been to school on the old in- 
 direct system several years, and when they 
 had thus read the book through, there is very 
 little comparatively left for them to study. 
 
 Teachers should exercise this class daily in 
 learning the vowel and diphthongal sounds. 
 This can generally be done to the best advan- 
 tage in country district schools, in the third 
 class, which is composed of the whole school, 
 being divisions No. 1, 2, and 3, for which full 
 directions will be given. Schools composed 
 entirely of word readers will follow the direc- 
 tions there given, to learn the vowel and diph- 
 thongal sounds. 
 
98 THE TRUE PHILOSOPHY OF 
 
 EXERCISES FOR THIRD CLASS 
 
 COMPOSED OF 
 
 SPELLERS AND WORD READERS. 
 
 It should be borne in mind, that divisions 
 No. 1 and 2 of this class should have their 
 own appropriate exercises apart from the 
 class, and their position in the class should 
 be such as not to be in the way of division 
 number third ; for this there is no difficulty if 
 the teacher rightly adapts the exercises, and 
 enforces attention and promptness on the part 
 of each scholar. The teacher will put out 
 words to the whole class, the third division 
 spelling with their books closed, and keying 
 the words. The second division reading the 
 word on the book, and keying it in like man- 
 ner. The first division only reading their 
 words after they are pronounced by the 
 teacher ; the second and third divisions key- 
 ing the words of the first division in concert. 
 This is an important exercise, and should be 
 had in school daily. This exercise, however, 
 
TEACHING THE YOUNG TO READ. 99 
 
 cannot be had unless the class have a well 
 classified spelling-book. I never have found 
 one equal in all respects to Cobb's. It is true, 
 I should have liked it a little better if it had 
 been conformed to Webster's orthography and 
 pronunciation, but I have found that scholars 
 who get Cobb's speller thoroughly, are per- 
 fectly able to thelp themselves to Webster's 
 pronunciation, so that it is not so very impor- 
 tant which system they learn first, for if they 
 understand the theory of one system, they can, 
 with the least effort of their own, learn all 
 others ; and so, on the whole, I deem it rather 
 an advantage to the scholar to learn Walker's 
 first. 
 
 The importance of learning the vowel and 
 diphthongal sounds is very great, and no prac- 
 tice or system ever had has given the great 
 mass of our schools a knowledge of them ; but 
 the method of learning them here laid down, 
 will make them understood by all who go to 
 school, so that if they know anything about 
 reading, they will understand all about the 
 vowel sounds ; and when they have attained 
 to this, they will not stop here with their in- 
 quiries, but will become acquainted with the 
 elementary sounds of the English language 
 generally. 
 
100 THE TETJE PHILOSOPHY OF 
 
 Children should learn the elementary sounds 
 while in the second and third divisions. The 
 first division, however, frequently know con- 
 siderable about them. Teachers should be 
 constant in keeping the subject before the 
 school in a great variety of exercises. First, 
 in the manner above stated. Second, by hav- 
 ing them spell or read the words of their 
 lesson by speaking the vowel sounds and not 
 the name of the letter. Third, by reading or 
 spelling the words by the sounds of the letters, 
 and not by the names of the letters. Fourth, 
 by having the school pronounce the vowel 
 sounds of the accented syllables contained 
 in the words in concert, after the teacher pro- 
 nounces the word to the class. Fifth, let 
 each scholar in rotation pronounce the vowel 
 element alone, the teacher putting out the 
 words as before. Sixth, let the whole class 
 read in concert in slow time, the teacher keep- 
 ing the time of the syllables* with a pencil 
 on a slate, and the class after reading and 
 pronouncing the word, speak the vowel ele- 
 ment in concert. Seventh, read and pro- 
 nounce the same as before, and let the scho- 
 
 * The class will be able to keep the time properly after a 
 little practice without this aid from the teacher. 
 
TEACHING THE YOUNG TO READ. 101 
 
 lars in the class take turns in speaking the 
 vowel elements. Eighth, let each scholar in 
 the second and third divisions read and key a 
 word. Ninth, let the whole class pronounce 
 in concert, speaking slowly and scarcely above 
 a whisper, prolonging the sound as much as 
 possible. Tenth, let the whole class pro- 
 nounce in concert in slow time, speaking with 
 much quantity, and keying the words in con- 
 cert. Eleventh, let the class read in quick 
 time, not marking the time of the syllables. 
 Occasionally let them read and key the words 
 in concert in quick time. The class should 
 never take less than a page of spelling matter 
 for a lesson. All the above exercises should be 
 had every day ; some of the most important 
 should occupy the most time, others but a 
 small portion. Teachers will be able to dis- 
 criminate according to circumstances ; they 
 should never leave out the exercise of keying 
 words, that is, it should be had in every 
 lesson to a considerable extent; it does not 
 take up much time. Scholars should be re- 
 quired to study spelling lessons after they can 
 do so understandingly, never before in any 
 case whatever. This, however, in this mode 
 of instruction, they will be able to do in a 
 little time. In addition to the above exer» 
 
102 THE TRUE PHILOSOPHY OF 
 
 cises, the teacher should exercise the class 
 once a day in the elementary sounds of the 
 letters — of course he would take but a few of 
 them for each lesson ; he might spend two or 
 three minutes at the close of each spelling 
 exercise, beginning with the vowel and diph- 
 thongal sounds (tonics vocals) as they are the 
 most important ; after which he should pro- 
 ceed to the consonant sounds, subtonics, and 
 atonies. Here let the teacher not compel 
 the class to commit to memory the definitions 
 of the elementary sounds of the letters no 
 faster than he shows the class their practical 
 use. Beginning with the key, let the teacher 
 ask the class what a vowel is; they should 
 read from the book the general definition. 
 Then let the teacher explain their nature and 
 use, something like the following : That the 
 accented syllable in a word is the governing 
 syllable ; that the accented syllable contains a 
 vowel, the sound of which gives character to 
 the word; that the vowels have different 
 sounds, in different words, which different 
 sounds are indicated by figures placed over 
 the words in the spelling columns and also 
 over standard words to aid us the better to 
 understand them. 
 
 That No. 1 represents the long sound of a y 
 
TEACHING THE YOtfNG TO READ. 103 
 
 e, i, o, u, w, and y, as in fate, me, pine, no, 
 tube, dew, fly. 
 
 No. 2. The flat sound of a, as in far. 
 
 No. 3. The long broad a and o, as in fall, 
 nor. 
 
 No. 4. The short sound of a, e, i, u, and y, 
 as in fat, met, pin, tub, system. 
 
 No. 5. The short broad a and o, as in not, 
 what. 
 
 No. 6. The sound of oo, proper or slender, 
 as in to, rule, crew. 
 
 No. 7. The sound of short oo, or obtuse u, 
 as in good, bull. 
 
 No. 8. Short u, made by e, i, and o, as in 
 her, stir, dove. 
 
 No. 9. The sound of long a, made by e, as 
 in they. 
 
 No. 10. The sound of long e, made by i, as 
 in shire. 
 
 No. 11. The sound of short e, made by i, as 
 in flrm. 
 
 After explaining the key to them, let them 
 read the answers to questions on each num- 
 ber. Also let them answer the questions on 
 the diphthongs. When they understand these 
 perfectly, then let them begin with the conso- 
 nants and the sounds of the compound char- 
 acters and combination of letters. If the 
 
104 THE TRUE PHILOSOPHY OF 
 
 attention of the class is called to these during 
 the spelling exercises the class will soon be- 
 come acquainted with the elementary sounds 
 at an age when they will be able to retain 
 them in their memories, and get a practical 
 use of them while going to school, so that 
 they will fully appreciate them in after life. 
 
 FIRST READING CLASS. 
 
 This class having had a proper training in 
 the spelling book, will be able to begin 
 Town's Second or Third Header, or readers of 
 like character for their first reading-book in 
 school. I should prefer to have them read 
 the spelling-book till they can begin with our 
 third readers to good advantage. If teachers 
 do begin with smaller reading-books they will 
 not advance them as fast by so doing. 
 
 Let the teacher teach the class the pauses 
 and marks used in writing or printing, by at 
 first telling them the names of those charac- 
 ters. Then let the one at the head of the class 
 read, and when he comes to the pause let him 
 stop, while the rest of the class name the 
 
TEACHING THE YOUNG TO HEAD. 105 
 
 pause. If it is a comma, let them say comma ; 
 if a period, let them say period, etc., the 
 teacher telling them whenever they call the 
 character wrong. When they have learned 
 the names of all the characters in this man- 
 ner, let them count the time of the pauses 
 when they come to them, reading in like 
 manner. Thus, when one scholar is reading, 
 the rest of the class will count the time of the 
 pauses, the reader pausing till the class counts 
 the time distinctly in concert, by saying one, 
 for a comma, one, two, for a semicolon, etc. 
 Let the teacher see that every one in the 
 class labors constantly with fixed attention in 
 this exercise, as it is very important for 
 scholars when they first begin to read, to be 
 acquainted with the pauses, and use them 
 practically in their first reading lessons. 
 Second, let each scholar read to a pause and 
 name it. Third, let each scholar read to a 
 pause and count its time. Fourth, let each 
 scholar read a word apiece, naming the 
 pauses in connection therewith, as they occur 
 in the sentences. Fifth, let each scholar read 
 a syllable apiece, naming the pauses as be- 
 fore. Sixth, let the class read round, reading 
 the words in the same manner they do spell- 
 ing lessons. Seventh, the teacher should fie- 
 
106 THE TRUE PHILOSOPHY OP 
 
 quently read to his class and have them name 
 the pauses for him, and count their time. It 
 is important to keep the attention of the class 
 fixed on the words while being read. Scho- 
 lars generally see but little that is read in 
 their class more than to enable them to keep 
 their places. Sometimes, indeed, they will 
 count down to their verse, as they call it, and 
 study it for the time being with wonderful 
 energy and attention, bo as to read it well 
 when it comes to their turn. This is a great 
 damage to the scholar who practises it, for he 
 virtually sees but a very small part of his 
 lesson. 
 
 Again, when a class has any fixed custom 
 to read round a certain number of times, 
 much evil may grow out of it ; many pupils 
 will be very inattentive after they have read 
 for the last time, and where one shows inat- 
 tention it is apt to extend through the class. 
 A teacher should take no such formal method 
 of reading, but should let his class know 
 they are to be directed by him just according 
 as he shall dictate to them for the time be- 
 ing. Hence he should say, "read a verse 
 apiece," the class counting the time. But if 
 he sees during the process gross inattention, 
 he should say, " read a word apiece, and 
 
TEACHING THE YOUNG TO READ. 107 
 
 speak the pauses in connection," or, " read a 
 syllable apiece, naming the pauses as they 
 occur," or take any of the above exercises 
 which they most need. In this way the class 
 will be compelled to see every part of their 
 lesson which will early discipline them to 
 habits of close attention. 
 
 SECOND READING CLASS. 
 
 This should consist of the most advanced 
 scholars in school. 'None should belong to 
 this class unless they are well versed in the 
 elementary sounds of the language, for I should 
 consider it impossible to make them good 
 readers or speakers if they were ignorant of 
 these. Exercises in articulation, usually intro- 
 duced into our school readers, are but little 
 understood, and are generally passed over 
 with little interest ; they are manifestly in the 
 wrong place, and unless scholars learn articu- 
 lation elsewhere, they will be very likely to 
 remain ignorant of it. But scholars taught in 
 the direct method will highly appreciate these, 
 having learned articulation elsewhere, they 
 
108 THE TKTJE PHILOSOPHY OP 
 
 will be pleased with it here, as an exer- 
 cise. 
 
 But the idea of learning scholars generally 
 the elementary sounds of the English lan- 
 guage from these exercises alone, is not practi- 
 cal, any more than the idea of teaching schools 
 the elements from black-board or normal- 
 chart exercises is practical. You cannot make 
 it general enough in one sense, and in another 
 you cannot make it particular enough. The 
 whole school may respond and seem to know 
 all about it, but when you come to test each 
 one alone, he hesitates, and you will find but 
 few who understand enough about it to do 
 them any good. But in the direct system we 
 have to pass over some thirteen thousand 
 words (and when we have a spelling-book of 
 twenty thousand words, it will be better still), 
 so classified as to keep our minds constantly 
 exercised on the subject — every scholar being 
 easily tested, and having the subject plainly 
 illustrated to him in so many thousand words, 
 the knowledge of the elementary sounds be- 
 comes as familiar to him as his a b c, and he 
 can appreciate these exercises, although he 
 does not necessarily need them there. But to 
 think of teaching our schools from these exer- 
 cises alone is not practical. 
 
TEACHING THE YOUNG TO READ. 109 
 
 The elocutionary instructions contained in 
 most of our elocutionary works I most cheer- 
 fully indorse, and always endeavor to have 
 those whom I have the honor to teach to read 
 avail themselves of their able instructions. 
 The exercises here set fortli for the second 
 reading class, are intended mostly to correct 
 habits of bad articulation, and improper atten- 
 tion to the pauses while reading. I have prac- 
 tised them more than twenty years in my 
 schools with the best success. When we had 
 County Superintendents, they invariably gave 
 my reading-class the preference in the county, 
 and those who have visited my school have 
 bestowed much praise on my reading classes 
 — I speak this for the encouragement of others. 
 These exercises are in part the same as those 
 given for the first reading class. They should 
 be practised just in proportion as the teacher 
 may consider them most needed. If a class is 
 not good in its observance of the pauses, let 
 them count time. If they articulate hurriedly, 
 let them read by syllables. If they pronounce 
 incorrectly, take the reading down exercise. 
 In every case taking an exercise they most 
 need to correct them in any error they have 
 in reading. First, reading and naming the 
 pauses; Second, reading and counting the 
 10 
 
110 THE TRUE PHILOSOPHY OF 
 
 time of the pauses ; third, reading to a pause 
 and naming it ; fourth, reading to a pause, 
 and counting the time ; fifth, reading a 
 word apiece, and naming the pauses as they 
 occur ; sixth, reading the syllables, and 
 naming the pauses. Seventh — reading the 
 words and keying them as in spelling columns ; 
 Eighth, let the class rise up and read a sen- 
 tence, or more if they can ; but if a scholar 
 repeats a word or syllable, or utters any word 
 improperly, or does not read it as it is 
 pronounced in our dictionaries, or makes im- 
 proper pauses or inflections, etc., let him sit 
 down, and the next begin where he left off, 
 and proceed in the same manner, and so on 
 through the class, and perhaps several times 
 round, those who lost the honor of stand- 
 ing up, reading in their turn as the rest of the 
 class. 
 
 This is an exercise that scholars like to en- 
 gage in, and from an experience or practice 
 in it of many years, I am confirmed in believ- 
 ing it a very important one. It begets a sort 
 of self-discipline not to be obtained in any 
 other way. It greatly helps a scholar to pos- 
 sess himself in trying emergencies, and pro- 
 motes a confidence in himself of what he can 
 do if he but wills it. At first, let a class read 
 
 
TEACHING THE YOUNG TO BEAD. Ill 
 
 short sentences on this principle, and when 
 they have become more advanced, let them 
 read longer sentences, and finally, as long as 
 they can read without a mistake. Again, this 
 class should read in concert, and having been 
 drilled thoroughly in articulation and the 
 pauses, they can do so with very great beauty 
 and effect. If they had not this elemen- 
 tary training, they would be totally unable to 
 perform it ; but having this, they can do 
 it with propriety and pleasure. Occasionally 
 let the class read dialogues, in concert, divid- 
 ing the class into as many parts as the piece 
 selected contains. Again, let them read two 
 pieces in concert, that have much contrast to 
 each other — such as Byron's Address to the 
 Ocean, and Speech of Henry Y. to his troops 
 before the gates of Harfleur. This will teach 
 them to change the key from the middle to a 
 very high key, and from slow time and long 
 quantity, to a loud and quick rate of utterance, 
 or otherwise, as the pieces selected may indi- 
 cate. Again, let all your school that read in 
 readings, each select a piece once a week, and 
 read it before the school. Teachers should aid 
 their scholars somewhat in their selections, 
 book the pieces chosen, and endeavor to 
 have each scholar understand the nature of 
 
112 THE TRUE PHILOSOPHY OF 
 
 his piece, and be prepared to read it with 
 as much propriety as possible; this will 
 greatly encourage scholars, and help them to 
 become good readers and speakers with great 
 rapidity. 
 
TEACHING THE YOUNG TO BEAD. 113 
 
 GENERAL REMARKS AND CRITICISMS. 
 
 " Truth would you teach to save the sinking land, 
 All shun, none aid you, and few understand." 
 
 The faculties of the human mind most 
 prominently put forth in childhood, seem riot 
 to be well understood. Educators take it for 
 granted that that of reason is the one most to 
 be relied upon in educating the young. This is 
 a serious mistake; the faculty of reasoning 
 being little used comparatively in childhood, 
 and belonging more especially to that period 
 of life called manhood. Children to the age of 
 ten years, as a general rule, take things on 
 trust. At this stage of life the faculties of 
 observation, imitation and memory are strong, 
 and may be said to be in their greatest perfec- 
 tion. Imitation at this period of life is the 
 ruling genius of the mind, enabling it to 
 speak and act whatever it hears or sees, while 
 memory makes a faithful record which will 
 remain as long as life endures. Hence, this 
 is the time to tell children something. 
 
 1A* 
 
114 THE TRUE PHILOSOPHY OF 
 
 " Take nature's path and mad opinions leave, 
 All states can reach it, and all heads conceive." 
 
 This is the fit time to teach them written aa 
 well as oral language. This may be done in 
 the direct method almost spontaneously when 
 compared with former modes of instruction. 
 
 " Our needful knowledge, like our needful food, 
 Unhedged, lies open in life's common field, 
 And bids all welcome to the vital feast." 
 
 The order of God's providence to man con- 
 sists in the greatest and most needful bless- 
 ings being the most easily obtained. Hence, 
 it is unreasonable to believe that there is no 
 way to teach spelling and reading in a much 
 less expensive way, and a less tedious manner 
 than that now in use. 
 
 But what can be said to arouse the world 
 from its slumber on this important theme ? It 
 would seem that nothing less than the voice 
 of God as uttered on Mount Sinai would 
 arrest attention on this subject. The stu- 
 pidity of those who give direction in educa- 
 tional matters is beyond all belief — even 
 greater than that related of our fathers in 
 olden time, who, when they went to mill on 
 horse-baek did not know how to divide the 
 
TEACHING THE YOUNG TO BEAD. 115 
 
 grist in the sack to make it balance on the 
 animal's back, by putting one half in each 
 end of the bag, but put the grist in one end, 
 and an equal amount of cobble stones in the 
 the other to keep it down. 
 
 Thus, men who have stood at the head of 
 educational matters, as far as spelling and 
 reading are concerned, have always been 
 driving their wedge butt end foremost, and 
 quite recently one has arose who insists on 
 driving the wedge butt end and tip end at the 
 same time. To make the absurdity of those 
 systems commonly set forth by educators to 
 be practised by teachers more apparent to 
 all, I will here instance a few of them which 
 I wish every parent and teacher to carefully 
 examine by the light of truth and common 
 sense, believing their fallacy to be such that 
 the most superficial cannot avoid seeing their 
 impropriety, and thus avoid them as the 
 mariner would those reefs on which others 
 have foundered and lost their all. Their 
 name is legion, but we will notice but a few 
 of the most prominent, leaving the reader 
 mainly to make his own criticisms, hoping 
 that justice may be done to all concerned in 
 the spirit of friendship. 
 
 The State Convention of county and town 
 
116 THE TRUE PHILOSOPHY OF 
 
 Superintendents which met at Syracuse, April 
 22, 1845, speaks as follows : 
 
 " It is believed that the spelling-book is 
 often introduced too early in the course, and 
 relied upon too exclusively. It is recom- 
 mended that at least two elementary reading 
 looks be mastered by the pupil before the 
 spelling-booJc is placed in his hands, and that 
 the lessons, instead of being studied from the 
 book by the eye alone, be written upon slates, 
 care being taken to preserve a perpendicular 
 margin and horizontal lines. Spelling exer- 
 cises may be profitably conducted as follows : 
 
 Suppose the school to be unused to the ex- 
 ercise, and many in the class unable to write 
 with facility, from two to four weeks may be 
 devoted to writing the lessons, in the place of 
 studying them in the usual manner, and during 
 this time spelling may be conducted without 
 slates. This preliminary training will gene- 
 rally prepare the class to write readily, and 
 slates should now be used in spelling. The 
 teacher pronounces the words, and all write 
 them simultaneously until the lesson is gone 
 through with. The slates are then changed, 
 the teacher taking a slate from the right, 
 passes it to the left of the class, while the 
 pupils pass their slates to the right. This is 
 
TEACHING THE YOUNG TO READ. 117 
 
 done as quickly as the teacher can pass from 
 one side of the class to the other. Each 
 pupil has now the slate, and observes the 
 work of his neighbor. The teacher reads 
 each word, and as errors are seen, hands are 
 raised and corrections made by those who 
 committed the error. This is one method. 
 Various others not differing materially from 
 this, have been successfully practised. This 
 practice of the schools corresponds with that 
 of society, and the pupil that is thus habitu- 
 ated to write his words at school will find no 
 difficulty in writing them elsewhere." 
 
 "Webb's Normal Keader, No. 1, page 7, 
 says, "The child in this part is not to be 
 taught a letter or to spell a word, but is simply 
 to learn the words by their forms, the same as 
 he learns the names of animals by looking at 
 them as a whole, as an animal, associating 
 the name with its form." 
 
 Again, on page 8, note b: "We teach 
 nothing but words and reading at first, leav- 
 ing the letters and spelling till the 6th lesson, 
 when it is believed the child will understand 
 the object and nature of reading, and be pre- 
 pared to commence the alphabet understand- 
 ingly." 
 
 And again, on the 19th and 20th pages : 
 
118 THE TRUE PHILOSOPHY OF 
 
 " Note. — The teacher may now pursue either 
 of the -following ways or any combination of 
 them as may be thought best, though we give 
 a decided preference to the fourth, or phonic 
 method. 
 
 " 1. The word method, heretofore used may 
 be continued, the words being taught from 
 Col. 3. 
 
 " 2. The words may be taught from Col. 3, 
 spelled and letters learned from Cols. 2 and 1, 
 as per note a to Directions for Teaching. 
 
 " 3. The letters may be taught first from 
 Col. 1 put together, or spelled as in Col. 2, 
 and pronounced as in Col. 3. The spelling 
 may be done in two ways — first, in the ordi- 
 nary way, calling each letter by name ; or 
 second, by uniting the last two letters, as a-n, 
 making an ; then using this combination as 
 one character with the letter preceding it, 
 thus m-an, man. Of course these words as 
 soon as learned will be read in connection 
 with other words, as in the reading lesson fol- 
 lowing. 
 
 "4. Phonic Method. — The words may be 
 taught by the sounds of their letters. First, 
 teach the sound of a, then n (being careful if 
 
TEACHING THE YOUNG TO READ. 119 
 
 there is a figure over a letter to teach that 
 sound of the letter which this figure represents 
 in our Table of Elements) ; require the pupil 
 to utter these sounds in quick succession, as 
 represented in Col. 2, till the combination 
 in Col. 3 is distinctly given. Next, the 
 sound of m should be taught and given in 
 connection with the combination in Col. 3 
 as represented in Col. 2, till the perfect word 
 in Col. 3 is heard. This word should now 
 be read in the reading lesson below. When 
 the next word, fan, is wanted, it can be had 
 by simply teaching the letter f As fast as 
 new words are wanted they should be taught, 
 and no faster. A similar course should be 
 continued through Part Second, when the 
 alphabet (except q and z) is learned, its use, 
 and the use of words. If the teacher prefers, 
 the names of the letters can be taught in con- 
 nection with their sounds." 
 
 " Sargent's Standard Primer," second page, 
 says: 
 
 " In this work the child's oral familiarity 
 with certain words is made the basis of in- 
 struction in reading. Begin with teaching 
 him words to which he attaches a meaning 
 and not with letters to which he attaches 
 none. The analytical process of spelling 
 
120 
 
 THE TRUE PHILOSOPHY OF 
 
 should be subsequent to bis acquaintance 
 with the printed form of the word to be ana- 
 lyzed. It will be time enough to teach him 
 the alphabet after he has learnt to read, and 
 when you wish him to spell." 
 
 "Sargent's Standard First Keader," page 
 third : 
 
 " It is now generally admitted that the 
 sounds of the letters are best taught by show- 
 ing their powers in words, as in so many in- 
 stances their names do not correspond to their 
 powers. The resolution of these words into 
 letters of the alphabet is an analytical process 
 which, in the order of things, should be subse- 
 quent to a knowledge of the words them- 
 selves." 
 
 Pages fourth and fifth : 
 
 " Most children learn the alphabet at home 
 before going to school, but whether the child 
 be familiar with it or not, let him begin 
 his school labors with words and ideas instead 
 of meaningless letters and syllables. The 
 process here recommended is this : Begin with 
 teaching the child to recognize and pronounce 
 a few well-known words, such as are placed 
 in large type in the first half of this volume. 
 Let the words of lesson first be first selected. 
 Pronounce a word without spelling it, while 
 
TEACHING THE YOUNG TO READ. 121 
 
 pointing it out, and cause the children to pro- 
 nounce it after you. 
 
 " Make the word as interesting as possible, 
 by explanation, or by quoting instances of its 
 daily use. Do not at first task the memory 
 too much, but be content with very humble 
 beginnings. If the whole lesson cannot be 
 learned at the first trial, let half of it, or a 
 single word suffice. After the words are 
 learned let the sentence in which they are 
 introduced be read, and to be sure that the 
 sense of the sentence is not the learner's 
 guide to the words, let him read it back- 
 wards after he has read it forwards. As in 
 the succeeding lessons of Section first, only 
 new words that have not appeard in previous 
 lessons, are given in large type. Let the 
 words of one lesson be learned thoroughly be- 
 fore leaving it for another, and let them be 
 often reviewed as the child advances in the 
 order laid down. 
 
 " While this simple process of learning to 
 read is going on, put a pencil or piece of 
 chalk into the child's hand, and let him begin 
 to copy, however rudely, the forms of letters 
 and entire words. He may thus make some 
 progress in learning to spell before he knows 
 the alphabetical names of letters, and indeed, 
 11 
 
122 THE TRUE PHILOSOPHY OF 
 
 this is the best and shortest process for acquis 
 ing a knowledge of spelling, which may 
 always be attained more accurately by sight 
 than by sound. 
 
 " It is not till he enters upon section second 
 that the learner is introduced to the analy- 
 tical process of spelling. And here it is re- 
 commended that he be taught to decompose 
 words into their elementary sounds before 
 giving the alphabetical names of the letters. 
 Let the word be pronounced before and not 
 after it is spelled. Let the letters be pro- 
 nounced as nearly as possible with the sounds 
 they possess in combination. In communi- 
 cating the 23d lesson, let the letter o be writ- 
 ten on the black-board. The sound of it is 
 then given by the teacher, and the children 
 repeat it after him either individually or 
 simultaneously. The first consonant is then 
 written — the teacher gives its true sound or 
 power, and the children then do the same. 
 The consonant and the vowel are then sounded 
 and the word is pronounced. The remaining 
 words are then treated in a similar manner. 
 Each child should be furnished with a slate 
 and pencil and be made to copy as well as he 
 can the letters and words that may constitute 
 the lesson for the day. 
 
TEACHING THE YOUNG TO BEAD. 123 
 
 "After the pronunciation of the words, 
 and of their elementary sounds, has been 
 thoroughly learned, the children may be re- 
 quired to spell the words at the head of each 
 lesson, by giving the alphabetical names of 
 the letters. But this process may be better 
 reserved till the child is somewhat advanced. 
 It will be found a good exercise for the 
 teacher to name a letter in a word and re- 
 quire a child to give its sound in combination, 
 or to give its sound in combination and re- 
 quire the child to give its alphabetical name." 
 
 Thus, the county and town superintend- 
 ents would have the pupil master, at least, 
 two elementary reading-books before the spell- 
 ing-book is placed in his hands. He is then 
 to learn to write, after which he is to write 
 the spelling lessons upon his slate instead of 
 studying them from the book by the eye. It 
 will be observed that the pupils are to write 
 their lessons at the dictation of the teacher, 
 after which they are to change slates and, 
 with the aid of the teacher, review the lesson. 
 But I am happy in being able to infer that 
 the pupils are permitted to know the names 
 of the letters composing the words which they 
 are required to write, which I deem a decided 
 improvement on some more modern theories. 
 
124 THE TRUE PHILOSOPHY OF 
 
 This system, to say the least of it, would 
 be a slow way to learn to spell and read, 
 and whatever little child enters upon such a 
 course is doomed to spend a large part of 
 his earthly existence, provided he lives to 
 the common age of man, in learning to read 
 and spell. It is true, some may live through 
 this process and may know something about 
 spelling, but most of them who survive will 
 need to carry a dictionary with them while 
 they live. 
 
 My heart sickens at the sight of the thou- 
 sands of helpless innocents who are sacrificed 
 upon this worse than heathen altar. 
 
 Fathers, mothers, guardians of youth, will 
 you not see to it, that those who are depen- 
 dent upon you are saved from this ruinous, 
 wasteful course of study ? Are not the health 
 and precious years of youthful time nothing 
 to you f Do not say that you cannot avoid 
 it. The means are now within your reach. 
 Then put forth your hands and labor in this 
 good cause. Open your mouths and speak 
 for the dumb, the helpless innocents whom 
 God has given you, and placed under your 
 guardian care, and your children will rise up 
 and call you blessed. 
 
 It would seem that Mr. Webb has made an 
 
TEACHING THE YOUNG TO READ. 125 
 
 effort to improve the preceding system or 
 method of instruction above noticed. But I 
 am unable to see in his system, as a whole, 
 that improvement which we might have rea- 
 sonably expected. He does not begin by first 
 teaching the letters ; he discards the use of a 
 spelling-book as such. He does not claim 
 that his system advances scholars rapidly ; 
 he thinks we should be content to know that 
 we are advancing. 
 
 I hope the reader will examine for himself 
 the preface and notes in full in Webb's Nor- 
 mal Eeaders, Nos. 1 and 2, and his series of 
 Readers in full. There is much ability and 
 energy manifested by the author throughout, 
 superior taste in selecting and arranging the 
 reading exercises, and. I have only to regret 
 that the direct system was not fortunate enough 
 to find as able an advocate as it might have 
 done in him. But for all practical purposes 
 in their widest sense, for teaching children to 
 spell and read, I consider it too intellectual, 
 and slow of progress to meet the wants of 
 childhood. 
 
 Where is the propriety of first teaching a 
 
 child words as a whole, as an animal, before he 
 
 knows the letters, or attempts to learn them ? 
 
 Or the advantage of teaching him words by 
 
 11* 
 
126 THE TRUE PHILOSOPHY OF 
 
 the sounds or powers of letters composing the 
 words, while he is a stranger to the words, to 
 the elementary sounds composing the words, 
 and to the alphabetical names of the letters ? 
 
 My fixed opinion is that our children, under 
 such a system of instruction, would need the 
 intellect of a Locke or Byron, the physical 
 energies of Hercules, the patience of Job, and 
 the assistance of a learned professor, in order 
 to succeed at all in learning to read tous 
 ensemble. 
 
 The method for teaching the young as laid 
 down by Mr. Sargent in his Standard Primer, 
 and Standard First Reader, is, that the pupil 
 be taught at first words as a whole and not 
 unmeaning letters and syllables, teaching 
 him the alphabet after he has learned to read, 
 and when you wish to teach him to spell. 
 The rapidity of acquirement under this sys- 
 tem may be inferred from the earnest exhor- 
 tation made by the author to teachers. He 
 says, " Do not, at first, task the memory too 
 much, but be content with very humble be- 
 ginnings. If the whole lesson cannot be 
 learned at the first trial, let half of it, or a 
 single word suffice." And here we may 
 observe, that the word-lessons, as laid down 
 in the book, are very small, frequently no 
 
TEACHING THE YOUNG TO READ. 127 
 
 more than half a dozen words, and sometimes 
 less. These are to be learned as a whole, and 
 in addition to this, the pupil must learn to 
 write, and write down the words of the lesson 
 with a pencil, or a piece of chalk ; bnt where 
 he is to make this entry is not sufficiently 
 clear. He is then to be introduced to the 
 analytical process of spelling, that is, to de- 
 compose words into their elementary sounds, 
 and all this before he is supposed to know the 
 alphabetical names of the letters. After the 
 pupil has thoroughly learned to pronounce or 
 spell words by their elementary sounds, he 
 may be allowed to learn the alphabetical 
 names of the letters, and spell the words 
 accordingly. But this process is recommened 
 to be delayed " till the child is somewhat 
 advanced." 
 
 "Till the child is somewhat advanced." 
 As much as to say, the child has not as yet 
 advanced at all, or in so small a degree as not 
 to be called somewhat, 
 
 " I thank thee Jew for teaching me that 
 word /" T will rest here. There is no need 
 to say more. This is enough to show the 
 working of the system, and that is all I wish 
 to show. I think it is truly and well ex- 
 pressed in little space. If any are not satis- 
 
128 THE TRUE PHILOSOPHY OF 
 
 fied, let them make an actual experiment, 
 but I pray you do not take my little son 
 or daughter for that purpose ; let them be 
 excused. 
 
 Hear it, fathers, mothers, children. All ye 
 who have any interest in learning to read — ye 
 who have sympathies for your fellow-men. 
 From Maine to California — from Labrador to 
 Alaska. A child after going through one 
 book of seventy-two pages, and another to the 
 eighteenth page, and that in some cases by 
 taking one word for a lesson and frequently 
 reviewing lessons, by reading the words back- 
 wards, as well as forwards. And yet after 
 all this toil and labor, are not u somewhat 
 advanced." 
 
 Thus it seems that Mr. Sargent's system of 
 primary instruction is nothing more than a 
 learned rehash of Mr. "Webb's, the additions 
 made thereto by requiring the pupil to learn 
 to write, and write his lessons before he is 
 supposed to know the alphabetical names of 
 the letters, making it still more difficult to 
 perform. 
 
 If this is a desirable system to be used in 
 our schools, I hope it will prevail ; I only wish 
 the public to have a good system ; when this 
 is obtained I am content. 
 
TEACHING THE YOUNG TO READ. 129 
 
 " Hope, like a cordial innocent, though strong, 
 Man's heart at once inspirits and serenes." 
 
 So let us hope there is a good time com- 
 ing, when the capacities of the youthful mind 
 will be better understood by educators than 
 they are now, and when they shall be able to 
 devise some method of instruction Jbetter 
 suited to meet the wants of children than any 
 that are now in general use, and when this 
 system may be so known and perfected as to 
 be a blessing to all who learn to read. For 
 the sake of humanity may this good time 
 come speedily. 
 
 " The eternal law of Progress bids us On." 
 
 At the annual meeting of the New York 
 State Teachers' Association, held in the city 
 of Oswego, August, 1854, it was said by 
 Prof. Marcius Wilson, in a speech to that 
 body, the subject being "Practical Educa- 
 tion," that as yet there was no direct method 
 known* to teach spelling and reading. He 
 thought it would be a very important disco- 
 very ; hoped, though rather despairingly, that 
 such discovery would yet be made. 
 
 * I attended that meeting for the purpose of making 
 known what I conceived to be this very system, but could 
 get no opportunity of doing so. 
 
130 THE TRUE PHILOSOPHY OF 
 
 Now, it is plain to my mincj, that the first 
 step to this important discovery is a better 
 knowledge of the peculiar capacity of the 
 youthful mind. I think, as yet, it has not 
 been well understood. When this is accom- 
 plished, the discovery of a direct system of 
 instruction will be rendered comparatively 
 easy. 
 
 From a practical experience of over thirty 
 years in teaching children, I have learned a 
 little of what really constitutes the mind of 
 childhood. For many years of my first prac- 
 tice, I scarcely gave the subject a thought, 
 but like others around me, I endeavored to 
 flatter or urge these almost helpless innocents 
 up the hill of science to the utmost of my 
 power, on the same principle that I would 
 persons of maturer years. And even when I 
 had made some useful discoveries in this direc- 
 tion, I have been held back from advancing 
 or adding to them as I might have done, had 
 not educators and teachers, with whom I have 
 conversed freely for twenty years, been so 
 cold and indifferent on the subject. 
 
 It would seem that they are in a fair way 
 to continue to thrust their almost impractical 
 systems of primary instruction down the 
 throats of an over credulous people forever. 
 
TEACHING THE YOUNG TO BEAD. 131 
 
 The projectors of those systems could never 
 cany out their own plans practically, had 
 their numbers been sufficient to have supplied 
 every schoolhouse in the Union. They have 
 wisely left them to the patience and endu- 
 rance of women, without which they would 
 be totally impractical, and would, long ago, 
 have fell into disuse. 
 
 I consider that it is reasonable, that those 
 who do the work should invent the modes by 
 which to accomplish it. 
 
 But as yet there has not arose a Fulton, a 
 Watt, a Guttenberg, or an Arkwright among 
 common school teachers, to make that improve- 
 ment in their calling, that has been witnessed 
 in other professions. 
 
 I believe that the following, in a qualified 
 sense, may be considered truisms respecting 
 children. 
 
 1. They are not reflective, and their rea- 
 soning faculties cannot be relied upon, as the 
 modus operandi in their education. 
 
 2. They are possessed of infinite powers of 
 observation and imitation, which are the most 
 perfect at this period of life. 
 
 3. They remember what they see, hear, 
 
132 TEACHING THE YOUNG TO BEAD. 
 
 and do, memory being as perfeot, and in some 
 respects more so than at any subsequent 
 period. 
 
 4. They are seldom wearied in talking on 
 subjects that do not require extensive reflec- 
 tion. 
 
 5. They delight in talking much, provided 
 they can produce the subject mainly of them- 
 selves. Hence they delight to read, even 
 to them, meaningless words by their letters 
 and syllables, probably for the mere pleasure 
 of utterance. 
 
 6. When properly aided to so read words, 
 they will be able in a short time to pronounce 
 at sight, and spell words to an infinite ex- 
 tent. 
 
 7. "When able to so recognize words, they 
 can read books, and thus learn the meaning 
 of most words by association, provided they 
 understand the vernacular language in which 
 they are written. 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 In the course of a very extensive reading 
 on the subject, I have not been able to find 
 but a very few desultory hints that coincided 
 with any idea of Direct Teaching. I shall 
 here subjoin the following : 
 
 Report of the Superintendent of Public In- 
 struction of the State of New York, 1855 
 (page 48). 
 
 " Observation and reason teach that they 
 (children) are not fit at so early a period (four 
 years of age), for the study of books. Nearly 
 all they know before they are eight years of 
 age they learn from the example of superiors' 
 oral instruction, and from observation and ex- 
 amination of things around them." 
 
 Sargenfs Standard Primer (page 2). 
 
 "But do not explain over much. Eemem- 
 12 
 
134 THE TRUE PHILOSOPHY OF 
 
 ber that a child must be taught,to take many 
 things on trust, and to believe a thing is so 
 because you say it is so." 
 
 Sargent's Standard Primer (page 60). 
 
 " A child learns to spell by the eye in read- 
 ing, more than in any other way." 
 
 Sargent's Standard First Header (jpage 3). 
 
 " Children learn to recognize words almost 
 as imperceptibly as they learn to utter sounds, 
 and do not pass through much analytical rea- 
 soning in the process of doing so. A little 
 patient exercise of repeating the sound of the 
 word in connection with its sign, is sufficient 
 to make a child familiar with the word when 
 he sees its symbol." 
 
 Sargent's Standard Second Reader {page 5). 
 
 " It is not recommended that the attempt 
 should be made to level every sentence and 
 word in a reading lesson, to the immediate 
 and entire comprehension of the child. This 
 would be impracticable. ' What blockheads,' 
 says Eobert Southey, ' are those wise persons 
 who think it necessary that a child should 
 comprehend everything it reads.' " 
 
TEACHING THE YOUNG TO READ. 135 
 
 The London Quarterly Review^ speaking of 
 the education of children, says : 
 
 " The reason is cultivated at an age when 
 nature does not furnish the elements necessary 
 to a successful cultivation of it, and the child 
 is solicited to reflection when it is only capa- 
 ble of sensation and emotion." 
 
 Fowler, on Memory, had a partial view of 
 the direct system of instruction ; and although 
 I am an incorrigible unbeliever in Phrenology 
 as a science, I am certain its able expounder 
 speaks many truths about the intellectual 
 powers, that are worthy of profound attention. 
 It was not till after I had taken my manual to 
 my publisher, that I had the pleasure of read- 
 ing Fowler on Memory. The following ex- 
 tracts are so in accordance with my theory of 
 instruction, that I transcribe them with plea- 
 sure ; on page 37th he says : 
 
 "So constituted is the human mind, that 
 whatever is seen is forever riveted on the 
 mind. Description fails to impress, but obser- 
 vation fastens what is seen upon the other 
 faculties, as it were branding it into their very 
 texture. Thus one minute's ocular inspection 
 of anything, say the human scull, makes and 
 leaves an impression incalculably more vivid 
 and retentive than worlds of books, or years 
 
136 THE TRUE PHILOSOPHY OF 
 
 of description could possibly effect. A law of 
 mind requires things to be shown, and insists 
 on observation. Children or adults can be 
 taught mechanics, natural science, anatomy, 
 phrenology, and every species of knowledge, 
 many hundred per cent, more speedily and 
 effectually by observation than by all other 
 means put together. The human mind easily 
 remembers how things appeared, and thus 
 readily recalls whatever is associated with these 
 appearances. Man was made to see, and must 
 see effectually to progress in knowledge, and 
 mental attainments." 
 
 Speaking of the observation of children, on 
 page 41, he says : 
 
 " In them, too, more than in adults, obser- 
 vation conveys instruction more vividly and 
 practically than all other means put together. 
 "With what avidity they seize every book con- 
 taining pictures, and ask to be told about them. 
 Indeed, their looking instinct is too strong, too 
 unequivocal, too universal to be mistaken. 
 Nor was it created for naught. Eor should it 
 be overlooked in educating that mind, of 
 which it forms so great a part. Indeed, all 
 education should acknowledge and be formed 
 upon it, because observation is their great 
 highway to knowledge. It should not then 
 
TEACHING THE YOUNG TO READ. 137 
 
 be hedged up, but opened wider still. In 
 fact, as all education of mind should be con- 
 ducted in harmony with the laws of mind, 
 educated, and as observation is a prominent 
 law of the juvenile mind, therefore they should 
 be taught by observation mainly, till this has 
 developed both memory and reason. How 
 quickly they learn from seeing and being 
 shown, but how slowly from books and de- 
 scriptions ! This is a palpable universal fact, 
 based in a law of mind. 
 
 "This being thus, of course existing sys- 
 tems of education require to be remodelled, so 
 as to become adapted to the cardinal law of 
 mind, or rather based upon it, yet they almost 
 universally violate it. Instead of developing 
 observation they actually repress it, not even 
 allowing it its natural action. They thus 
 cramp what they should develop, and do a 
 positive damage instead of good. They actu- 
 ally curtail observation, and thereby weaken 
 this faculty so all-essential to intellectual ad- 
 vancement. How many of us, readers, have 
 been rebuked or chastised, because we looked 
 around the schoolhouse, or out of its windows. 
 Thump came the ruler on our heads, or crack 
 the birch over our backs, because we looked 
 off the book, with the stern mandate and 
 
138 THE TEUE PHILOSOPHY OB 
 
 threat- — keep your eyes on your books, or I'll 
 flog the skin off your backs. Gracious hea- 
 vens, humanity flogged for trying to see. 
 Not for what was bad, but merely for looking 
 — as well chastise for breathing. Almost as 
 well stop respiration as obseevation, for the 
 latter is quite as essential to intellectual life 
 and growth as breathing is to physical. The 
 fact is thus palpably apparent, that educa- 
 tion is begun at the wrong end, and conducted 
 erroneously throughout." 
 
 Page 43. — " Let us commence their educa- 
 tion by showing and explaining things. Shall 
 we longer confine them to the study of things 
 which they have not yet the faculties to com- 
 prehend. As well put the blind to selecting 
 colors and the deaf to learning music. Granted 
 this proposed remodelling of existing educa- 
 tional systems is a bold innovation, and would 
 demolish that idol to which parents cling as to 
 their children themselves, and on whose altar 
 millions are now falling a sacrifice, both phy- 
 sically and mentally, yet it is based in the 
 two incontestable facts that individuality is 
 one of the first developed and most active 
 intellectual organs of the young, so that their 
 obseevation should be the leading instru- 
 mentality employed in their education." 
 
TEACHING THE YOUNG TO READ. 139 
 
 {Page 44.) 
 
 " OBSERVATION MUST PRECEDE REASONING. 
 
 " If this new but true doctrine require addi- 
 tional confirmation, it has it in that constitu- 
 tional method by which the human mind 
 arrives at most of its conclusions. Eeason 
 without fact can teach very little. Could 
 mere reasoning ever have discovered, or can 
 it even now perfect phrenology or any other 
 science % Unaided by experiment, can it teach 
 us that motion is the function of muscle, sen- 
 sation of nerve, vision of the eyes, etc., or 
 that heat can be obtained from trees, that 
 water will quench thirst, food satiate hunger, 
 stones thrown up fall down again, etc., etc. 
 By a law of mind observation must pre- 
 cede reasoning. After we have tried these 
 several experiments several times over we 
 may then infer that like causes produce like 
 effects. This inductive method of observing 
 facts first, and then ascending through 
 analogous facts up to the laws that govern 
 them, is the only sure guide to certain 
 truth. The only safe method of investigat- 
 ing any of the operations or laws of nature. 
 Now the juvenile mind is an adult mind in 
 miniature, only that this inductive method of 
 
140 THE TRUE PHILOSOPHY OF 
 
 gaining knowledge appertains to the juvenile 
 even more than to the adult. The former 
 are compelled by the inflexible law of mind 
 to learn most that they know from obser- 
 vation, followed indeed by reason, but never 
 by the latter first or mainly. Then, let 
 this inductive lesson be taught at first, and 
 even constitute the main education of child- 
 hood. Then, should not education be at once 
 remodelled accordingly ? It will be thus re- 
 modelled. Fifty years, probably twenty, will 
 see this fundamental change effected and 
 demolish the present system, though thus 
 thoroughly riveted upon the affections of 
 parents and teachers. Strange that all the 
 interests felt and labor expended upon schools 
 should not have both detected and remedied 
 this fatal error. It is too palpable and fatal 
 to be tolerated much longer." 
 
 Page 49. — " Moreover we never have any 
 occasion to know how to spell words except 
 when they are put on paper, or in order to 
 put them on ; that is, where form can be em- 
 ployed in spelling them. This method of 
 learning to spell is also far superior in ease as 
 well as durability to the present method of 
 learning to spell by rote, as to demand the 
 substitution of the former for that of the 
 
TEACHING THE YOUNG TO READ. 141 
 
 latter. In other words, form is the natural 
 organ for reading and spelling, and there- 
 fore children should be taught at first to read 
 and spell by means of the appearances of 
 words instead of as now, by rote. Lan- 
 guage or rote may assist, but should be alto- 
 gether secondary, whereas now it is primary. 
 This course will enable us to remember 
 what we have learned, whereas now how few 
 of us even, after having served a five years' 
 spelling and reading apprenticeship, however 
 expert we may have been as scholars, can 
 spell correctly an ordinary page of a letter 
 or even many common household words! 
 What greater practical condemnation of the 
 present system could be had than the miser- 
 ably poor spelling of nearly all, even after all 
 the pains taken ? 
 
 " The reason is this : we learn to spell by 
 rote, by the jingle, and this is forgotten 
 soon after we leave school, whereas we should 
 learn to read and spell by the eye, by the 
 appearances of the words, which as it is a law 
 of mind easily to remember, the looks of what 
 we have seen would enable us to learn much 
 more easily, and then retain what we learn. 
 By adopting the change here proposed, child- 
 ren could learn to spell in less than half the 
 
14:2 TEACHING THE YOUNG TO READ. 
 
 time now consumed, and retain it twice as 
 well, a four-fold advantage, and in one of the 
 most important of matters where the time and 
 labor-saving principle, now so advantageously 
 applied elsewhere, can possibly be employed. 
 If this proposed change would enable children 
 to learn what they now do in one-fourth the 
 time now consumed, and employ the balance 
 either in gaining health and growth by play, 
 or in learning three times as much as now — 
 
 THE END. 
 

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MINISTERS', TEACHERS', 
 
 AND 
 
 SUNDAY-SCHOOL TEACHERS' 
 
 LIBRARY ASSOCIATION, 
 
 US NASSAU STREET, 
 
 The Subscriber has formed, in New York, a " Minis- 
 ters' Library Association i " and, under the sanction 
 and direction of the Association, the Sermons of 
 the Rev. Robert Walker, with Introduction by 
 Dr. Cheever ; and Rev. John Logan, with Intro- 
 duction by Dr. Whedon, have been published. 
 Other works will be published from time to time, 
 such as the Association shall approve, and none 
 others. The Subscriber, with the assistance of his 
 friends — entirely distinct from the Association — 
 assumes the pecuniary responsibility of the enter- 
 prise; the moral and literary responsibility being 
 with the Association. 
 
 Officers. — The officers of the Association are 
 president, vice-president, secretary, and publishing 
 committee. 
 
 Terms of Membership. — The purchase of a copy 
 of the Sermons of the Rev. Robert Walker, and 
 Rev. John Logan, at $2 50, entitles ministers, 
 teachers, and Sunday-school officers to membership. 
 
 Advantages of the Association. — We propose 
 to furnish to all members of the Association, books, 
 periodicals, and stationery, at cost prices. The 
 
2 Ministers' and Teachers' Library Association. 
 
 room at 118 Nassau street will be a place where the 
 members can safely leave any baggage, consult Di- 
 rectories, obtain information of the public, and of 
 benevolent institutions and their anniversaries, best 
 places to obtain servants, and of entertainments, 
 etc., etc. N. Tibbals. 
 
 Rev. J. B. Wakeley, Pres., N. Y. 
 
 Rev. C. J. Hopkins, Sec., 2V. Y. 
 
 The publication of the Sermons of Rev. Robert 
 Walker and Rev. John Logan originated in the fol- 
 lowing circumstances. On inquiry of persons keep- 
 ing rare books, it was found that these sermons were 
 out of print, much called for, and of great value. 
 That no old sermons were so much in demand. 
 Whenever a copy of Walker could be found it was 
 held at $5, and a corresponding price for Logan. 
 On conversing with an eminent divine, he stated that 
 he held them both in the highest estimation, and 
 was six years in finding a copy of Walker, and after 
 reading Logan, searched till he found a copy of that. 
 In further consulting experienced book publishers 
 and divines, such as have recommended the sermons, 
 we have come to the conclusion to give them again 
 to the world. 
 
 These sermons were not written, like many, under 
 the influence of a religious controversy, or the 
 heated zeal of bigotry, but in , the quiet study of 
 pastors who went in thither to prepare food for their 
 flocks. They had no theological opponent, no sacred 
 creed, to influence the thoughts, absorb the atten- 
 
Recommendations. 1 3 
 
 tion, and direct the pen. The adversary they fou-ht 
 was Satan. They lost sight of all opposition and 
 controversy but to war with the powers of dark- 
 ness, and to oppose sin. With the vivid images of 
 the lost writhing in eternal pain, and an undying 
 desire to see them reconciled and raised up to God° 
 were these soul-stirring sermons produced. The 
 likeness impressed on their hearts is found living 
 and blooming on these sermons, and must find its 
 way to and fire the heart of every godly man 
 that reads them. We present them to the Christ- 
 ian public, with the sentiments of the distinguished 
 divines who have given them their highest approval 
 believing that they will be of great and lasting use . 
 fulness. 
 
 Extract from Dr. Whedon's Introduction to Logan. 
 " Under his lucid touches, the rust of common-place dis- 
 appears." 
 
 Extract from Dr. C7ieever's Introduction to Walker. 
 " The richness, completeness, and fervor with which the 
 distinguished doctrines of the Gospel are presented in 
 Walker's Sermons, account for his popularity and his 
 power." 
 
 • • « 
 
 RECOMMENDATIONS. 
 
 Rev. N. Tibbals— Dear Brother : It was many years 
 after I had seen a copy of Logan's Sermons before I could 
 purchase one. They were out of print. When I obtained 
 oue I felt as if I had found a jewel. 
 
 J. B. Wakeley, 
 Pastor of Jane street M, E. Church, 
 New Yqrje, Sept. 2ith, 1854. 
 
Recommendations. 
 
 Pittsfield, Sept. 5th, 1854. 
 Rev. N. Tibbals, Astoria, L. I. 
 
 My Dear Sir : I am glad to learn that the Ministers' 
 Association in New York, think of re-publishing some of the 
 genuine old Scotch theologians, particularly the writings of 
 John Logan and Robert Walker. These are wells of 
 pure and cooling waters, refreshing and purifying to those 
 who draw faithfully from them. 
 
 Yours truly, John Todd. 
 
 Hartford, Aug. 21st, 1854. 
 Rev. N. Tibbals — Dear Sir : The Sermons of the Rev. 
 Robert Walker, in two volumes, I regard as among the 
 best in the language. Thoroughly evangelical in doctrine ; 
 deeply imbued with the spirit and phraseology of the Scrip- 
 tures ; logical in argument ; perspicuous in style, and faith- 
 ful in application — they may be recommended as models of 
 correct sermonizing to young ministers, and to all as replete 
 with Biblical instruction, and of excellent use for general 
 religious reading. The volume of Logan which it is proposed 
 to publish with those of Walker, differs somewhat from them 
 in character. The author had more genius, and more elo- 
 quence ; wrote in a vivid style, and abounds more in striking 
 illustrations, but did not perhaps deal so closely with the 
 heart and conscience. Yet many of his sermons are of great 
 excellence — rich in thought and clear in style and arrange- 
 ment ; and cannot be read or heard without leaving a deep 
 and useful impression on the mind. J. Hawes. 
 
 New Haven, Oct. 23tf, 1854. 
 Rev. N. Tibbals — Dear Brother : The sermous of Rev. 
 Robert Walker, I have long held in high esteem. While 
 beautifully elucidating the leading doctrines of Christianity, 
 their tendency is highly practical. These sermons are per- 
 vaded by a fervor indicating the deep piety of their author, 
 and consoling and animating to the heart of the reader. 
 They comprise a series of excellent religious reading, and 
 a most admirable Sabbath companion for any Christian. 
 
 J. Kennaday, 
 
Recommendations. 
 
 I am gratified to learn that a new edition of Walker's 
 Sermons is nearly ready for the public use. Few preachers 
 combined so many excellences of thought, method, and 
 style ; and I have never hesitated to recommend his ser- 
 mons, as among the very best models for young ministers. 
 They possess, in a high degree, the faultless beauty of his 
 colleague Blair, along with a directness and evangelical 
 fervor, which the published sermons of the latter lack. 
 
 Alexr. T. McGill, 
 Professor of Pastoral Theology, Church Government, 
 • Composition, and Delivery of Sermons* 
 
 Pkinceton, Oct. 13, 1854. 
 
 I have been accustomed from early life to read Logan's 
 Sermons, particularly as the effusions of a beautiful and 
 highly gifted mind. They are by no means wanting in 
 evangelical sentiment, or in fervent and impressive appeals ; 
 but as specimens of polished and graceful composition, I 
 think the Scotch pulpit has rarely, if ever furnished any- 
 thing superior. 
 
 Albany, Sept. 1§, 1854. H. B. Sprague. 
 
 Walker was of the section recognized as the Evangelical, 
 and his sermons have by some theological professors been 
 recommended as among the safest and best models of evan- 
 gelical preaching. 
 
 Wm. R. Williams. 
 New York, 11th Oct., 1854, 
 
 Teachers and professional men generally, will find that it 
 will be of great advantage to purchase their Books and Sta- 
 tionery of us, and to patronize the Association. We intend, 
 from time to time, to publish such books specially valuable, 
 yet not of a popular want, and thus not offering money in- 
 ducements to publishers j and we can do this, if those for 
 whose special benefit this institution was established will 
 patronize it. 
 
 1* 
 
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