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WORD STUDY IN THE 
 
 ELEMENTARY 
 
 SCHOOL 
 
 By JOSEPH S. TAYLOR, Pd.D. 
 
 DISTRICT SUPERINTENDENT OF SCHOOLS, NEW YORK CITY 
 
 Author of "Art of Class Management and Discipline," and 
 
 "Composition in the Elementary School" 
 
 EDUCATIONAL PUBLISHING COMPANY 
 
 BOSTON 
 
 New York Chicago San Francisco 
 
r 
 
 Copyright, 191 o 
 
 BY 
 
 EDUCATIONAL PUBLISHING COMPANY 
 
 vj Q r 
 
 g.Cl.A25Q7c5 5 
 
Preface 
 
 Polonius — What do you read, my lord ? 
 Hamlet — Words, words, words. — Shakespeare 
 
 The author of this book believes that a good ele- 
 mentary school in our land is known chiefly by the kind 
 of English that is used therein. If the pupils read 
 with fluency and proper appreciation books possessing 
 worthy content, and speak and write their mother 
 tongue with accuracy, clearness, and force, the school, 
 no matter how humble its estate, or how numerous 
 its short -comings, has not labored in vain. On the 
 other hand, no matter how excellent may be the 
 equipment, how elaborate the course of study, no 
 school can lay claim to a high rank which neglects 
 the all -important matter of expression. 
 
 The study of language is largely a study of words. 
 The word is the first object of study presented to the 
 child when he enters school; and there never is a 
 time from that day until the day of graduation when 
 the word ceases to occupy his attention. So impor- 
 tant an element of education deserves our most care- 
 ful consideration. The following chapters embody 
 the author's effort to gather up the various phases of 
 
li PREFACE 
 
 word study, which are usually presented in isolated 
 fashion, into a single volume. 
 
 It has been well said that '^the thought in the thing 
 and the law in the mind determine the method.'' 
 In this book the method advocated is in every instance 
 based upon ^'the thought in the thing" and "the law 
 in the mind. " The nature of the word, in its forma- 
 tion, spelling, and meaning, is considered from the 
 point of view of the history of the English language. 
 The act of spelling as a mental process is analyzed by 
 scientific methods. The way the child puts meaning 
 into words is investigated in the same way. On the 
 facts thus learned are based a series of inferences in 
 the form of propositions constituting Chapter IV. 
 Upon these inferences, which are the raw material of 
 method, the author has built all his elaborations con- 
 tained in subsequent chapters on methods and devices 
 of teaching the spelling, meaning, formation, and use 
 of words. 
 
 It is believed that this work is the only attempt that 
 has ever been made to collect all the available scien- 
 tific material on word-study into a single body of 
 assorted knowledge and suggestion. The partial 
 bibliography given in Chapter IX shows that most 
 of the matter here summarized is scattered in periodi- 
 cal publications, some of which are accessible to 
 only the most favored teachers. Special attention is 
 
PREFACE 
 
 111 
 
 invited to the two chapters on method (V and VII). 
 These are the most practical parts of the subject, 
 although their full import can not be comprehended 
 without a careful study of the preceding chapters. 
 Chapter VI., which treats of the meaning and use of 
 words, is probably one of the most useful phases of 
 the discussion, because it treats in a comprehensive 
 way a topic that is little understood by teachers and 
 is sadly neglected. 
 
 For convenience of references, a ''summary" is 
 provided in Chapter IX, showing at a glance the 
 various forms of word study that should be carried 
 on in the several grades, and offering an alphabetical 
 list of prefixes, suffixes, and stems suitable for study 
 in the elementary school. 
 
 Joseph S. Taylor 
 New York, June 14, 1909. 
 
Table of Contents 
 
 I The Scope of Word Study 
 
 1 Pronunciation 
 
 (i) Articulation 
 
 (a) Imitation 
 
 (&) Phonic Analysis 
 
 (c) Errors due to Defective Organisms 
 
 (A) Stammering 
 
 (B) Lisping 
 
 (2) Accent 
 
 (3) Diacritical Marks . 
 
 2 Capitalization 
 
 3 Abbreviations and Contractions 
 
 4 Compounds, Plurals, and Possessives 
 
 II The Nature and Value of Spelling 
 
 1 Where to Begin Spelling . 
 
 2 The Origin of the Alphabet 
 
 3 The Norman Conquest of England . 
 
 4 The Practice of Authors and Copyists 
 
 5 The Invention of Printing . 
 
 6 The Publication of English Dictionaries 
 
 7 Spelling in the Schools . . . 
 
 8 Educational Value of Spelling . 
 
 (i) Not a Culture Study 
 (2) Conventional Value 
 
 III Psychology of Spelling .... 
 
 I Studies Published .... 
 (i) Adelaide E. Wyckoff 
 
 (a) Conclusions (1-4) 
 (2) W. A. Lay . 
 
 (a) Conclusions (1-9) 
 
 PAGE 
 
 I 
 I 
 
 3 
 6 
 
 7 
 9 
 
 9 
 10 
 10 
 II 
 
 13 
 14 
 16 
 
 18 
 18 
 
 19 
 20 
 
 21 
 
 22 
 
 22 
 
 23 
 27 
 27 
 28 
 
 29 
 29 
 29 
 32 
 32 
 34 
 
VI 
 
 TABLE OF CONTENTS 
 
 (3) 
 (4) 
 (5) 
 (6) 
 (7) 
 (8) 
 
 (9) 
 
 H. H. Schiller 
 
 
 
 35 
 
 (a) Value of Methods 
 
 
 
 35 
 
 F. W. Smedley 
 
 
 
 ' 35 
 
 (a) Conclusions (1-4) 
 
 
 
 36 
 
 H. E. Kratz . 
 
 
 
 36 
 
 (a) Conclusions (1-5) 
 
 
 
 38 
 
 Edward R. Shaw . 
 
 
 
 38 
 
 (a) Conclusions (1-3) 
 
 
 
 38 
 
 Dr. J. M. Rice 
 
 
 
 39 
 
 (a) Conclusions (1-3) 
 
 
 
 40 
 
 Miss E. K. Carmen 
 
 
 
 . 41 
 
 (a) Conclusions (1-2) 
 
 
 
 . 42 
 
 (b) Criticism 
 
 
 
 • 43 
 
 Oliver P. Comman . 
 
 
 
 43 
 
 (a) Fifteen-Minute Test 
 
 
 
 44 
 
 (A) Inferences (1-6) 
 
 
 45 
 
 (6) Analysis of Errors 
 
 
 . 46 
 
 (A) Motor Inco-ordination 
 
 • 48 
 
 (B) Complication . 
 
 
 48 
 
 (C) Sensory Inco-ordination 
 
 . 48 
 
 (c) Explanation of Terms (i-] 
 
 ^5) 
 
 48 
 
 (d) Inferences from Study of Errors 
 
 
 (1-8) . . 
 
 
 
 ■ 52 
 
 IV Conclusions Derived from the Nature, Value, 
 
 AND Psychology of Spelling (1-30) . . 54 
 
 From the Nature of Spelling. . . 54 
 
 From the Psychology of Spelling . . 55 
 
 Methods of Teaching Spelling 
 
 I The Selection of Words .... 
 
 (i) Arguments in favor of the Spelling-Book 
 
 (2) Arguments against the Spelling-Book 
 
 (3) Principles of Selection 
 
 (a) Familiar as to Meaning 
 
 (b) Some Difficulty of Spelling . 
 
 (c) Phonetic at First 
 
 59 
 
 59 
 
 59 
 61 
 
 63 
 
 63 
 
 63 
 
 65 
 
TABLE OF CONTENTS 
 
 Vll 
 
 Principles of Method 
 
 (i) English Spelling Arbitrary 
 
 (2) Not a General Habit 
 
 (3) Preparation of the Lesson 
 
 (a) Pronunciation 
 
 (b) Syllabication 
 
 (c) Derivation . 
 
 (d) Visual vs. Auditory Images 
 
 (e) The Copying Method . 
 (/) Motor Images of Speech 
 (g) Automatic Through Writing 
 (h) Combination of Senses 
 (i) Connected Discourse . 
 (j) No "Best Method" . 
 {k) Homonyms 
 
 The Test .... 
 
 (a) Teaching and Testing 
 Spelling a Sign of General Pedagogical 
 
 Health 
 Individual Differences 
 Spelling Drill 
 
 (a) Incidental Spelling 
 
 (b) Every Lesson a Spelling Lesson 
 
 (c) The Dictionary Habit 
 (8) Spelling and Supervision 
 
 3 The Time Allowance 
 
 VI The Meaning and Use of Words . 
 
 1 The Function of Words 
 
 2 The Nature of Definition . 
 
 (i) Illustration 
 
 3 Relation of Language- Teaching to 
 
 Teaching .... 
 How Words Get Meaning 
 (i) The Berlin Investigation 
 
 (2) Dr. Hall's Contents of Children's Minds 
 
 (3) Earl Barnes 
 
 (4) Will Grant Chambers 
 
 (4) 
 
 (5) 
 
 (6) 
 (7) 
 
 4 
 
 Knowledge 
 
 65 
 65 
 66 
 67 
 67 
 67 
 67 
 68 
 68 
 68 
 69 
 69 
 69 
 
 71 
 71 
 
 71 
 73 
 
 75 
 77 
 78 
 
 79 
 
 82 
 
 83 
 84 
 
 87 
 
 89 
 89 
 92 
 
 93 
 
 95 
 96 
 96 
 97 
 99 
 104 
 
viii TABLE OF CONTENTS 
 
 5 Summary of Conclusions (i-ii) .... 104 
 
 6 Words not to be Defined ..... 106 
 
 (i) Too Difficult 106 
 
 (2) Too Easy 107 
 
 7 What Words to Define 108 
 
 (i) Words in Common Use Whose Meaning 
 
 is not Familiar to Children . . . 108 
 
 (2) Words Needed to Master the Course of 
 
 Study 109 
 
 VII Methods of Teaching the Meaning and Use 
 OF Words 
 
 1 Inductive 
 
 (i) The Natural Method . 
 
 (2) The Use of Context 
 
 (3) Memorizing Prose and Poetry . 
 
 (4) Story and Picture .... 
 
 (5) Dramatization .... 
 
 2 Deductive 
 
 (i) Prefixes and Suffixes 
 
 (a) Graded Lists 
 
 (b) Review Work 
 
 (2) Definition 
 
 (a) Synonyms .... 
 
 (b) Figurative and Poetic Equivalents 
 ■? Tests of Meaning 
 
 (i) Definitions not to be Copied or Memorized 127 
 
 (2) Children's Definitions 
 
 (3) Children's Sentences 
 
 VIII Devices in Word Study . . . . 
 
 1 "Trapping" 
 
 2 A Modem Substitute for Trapping 
 
 3 Spelling in 185 1 
 
 4 Names of Common Things 
 
 5 "Logomachy" 
 
 6 Calling Attention to Parts Liable to be Mistaken 
 
 7 Drill on Words Often Mispronounced . 
 
 Ill 
 "3 
 
 113 
 
 "5 
 116 
 
 n7 
 
 119 
 
 120 
 
 120 
 
 122 
 
 123 
 
 123 
 
 125 
 
 126 
 
 127 
 
 129 
 130 
 
 132 
 132 
 
 133 
 136 
 
 163 
 
 137 
 
 137 
 
 138 
 
TABLE OF CONTENTS ix 
 
 8 Spelling i39 
 
 (i) How the Exercise is Conduxted . .139 
 
 (2) Method of Correction .... 140 
 
 9 Meaning 142 
 
 ID Spelling by Dictation 143 
 
 II Meaning and Use 143 
 
 IX Summary of Word Study 148 
 
 1 Word Analysis and Synthesis . . . .148 
 
 2 Choice of Words 15° 
 
 3 Diacritical Marks 152 
 
 4 Use of the Dictionary 152 
 
 5 Bibliography i54 
 
 6 Alphabetical List of Prefixes, Suffixes, and Stems 
 
 for Reference 156 
 
 (i) Prefixes iS^ 
 
 (2) Suffixes . . . . . • . 158 
 
 (3) Latin Stem . . ., . . .161 
 
 (4) Greek Stems 161 
 
 Summary of Word Study . . . . . 162 
 
 Index 173 
 
Elementary Word Study 
 
 I 
 
 The Scope of Word Study 
 
 The study of words in the elementary school in- 
 cludes the following elements: Spelling, Meaning 
 and Use, Derivation (including prefixes and suffixes), 
 Capitalization, Syllabication, Pronunciation, Phonics, 
 Contractions, Abbreviations, Compounds, Plurals, 
 Possessives, Homonyms, Synonyms, and Dictionary 
 Drill. Spelling and Meaning will be treated in 
 separate chapters. Some of the topics will be con- 
 sidered under spelling and the rest will be briefly 
 discussed here. 
 
 I Pronunciation 
 
 Orthography and pronunciation are reverse pro- 
 cesses. The problem of pronunciation is: given the 
 form of a word to determine its name. The problem 
 of spelling is: given the name of a word to determine 
 its form. Pronunciation is the translation of eye- 
 
2 ELEMENTARY WORD STUDY 
 
 symbols into ear-symbols; spelling is the translation 
 of ear-symbols into eye-symbols. 
 
 That the problems of word study which the present 
 generation is trying to solve are not new, may be seen 
 from the following quotation from a book printed 
 almost a century ago:^ 
 
 "Some have attempted to change the orthography 
 of our language, and to write words as they are pro- 
 nounced; but for an individual to presume to make 
 the least alteration, in that respect, must be the height 
 of arrogance and folly. . . . Even a Roman 
 emperor once exerted all his power to introduce one 
 new letter into their alphabet, but without effect. 
 . . . Custom will be sovereign in this case. . . . 
 Pronunciation, as well as orthography, is entirely 
 under the control of custom. This has decreed that 
 the words boatswain, shew, sew, cucumber, should be 
 pronounced bosn, sho, so, coiucumber.^^ 
 
 In order to become proficient in pronunciation the 
 child must have systematic drill in the art. The 
 chief elements involved in pronunciation are enun- 
 ciation and accent. Enunciation is sometimes called 
 articulation. Both terms are related to pronuncia- 
 tion as parts to a whole. Pronunciation refers to the 
 utterance of the entire word, while articulation or 
 
 ^ Abner Alden: "An Introduction to Spelling and Reading." Vol. 
 II., 9th edition, Boston, 1824. 
 
THE SCOPE OF WORD STUDY 3 
 
 enunciation has reference to the elementary parts of 
 the word. We get correct pronunciation of a word 
 by the clear articulation of its sounds and syllables, 
 and a proper distribution of the accents. 
 
 (i) Articulation or Enunciation Elemen- 
 tary sounds are divided into vowels and consonants. 
 The vowel characters, with their diacritical markings, 
 represent nineteen sounds. A vowel sound is pro- 
 duced by a continuous passage of the breath. The 
 following table exhibits the vowel sounds as usually 
 given in the dictionaries : 
 
 a, long, as in ale; like e in prey. 
 
 a, short, as in fat. 
 
 a, as in care; like e in there. 
 
 a, Italian, as in arm. 
 
 a as in ask. 
 
 a, broad, as in all; like 6 in fork, aw in pawn, au in faun. 
 
 e, long, as in me, like i in police. 
 
 6, short, as in met; like ai in said, ay in says. 
 
 e, as in her; likeT in bird, u in urge. 
 
 1, long, as in ice; like y in fly. 
 
 i, short, as in tin; like y in hymn. 
 
 o, long, as in old; like ew in sew, eau in beau. 
 
 6, short, as in not; like a in what. 
 
 u, long, as in use; like ew in few. 
 
 ti, short, as in ^ww; like 6 in none. 
 
 \}, as in rude; like o in to, 00 in woo;^. 
 
 u, as in pull; like o in wolf, 06 in /oo/. 
 
 oi, as in boil; like oy in boy. 
 
 ow, as in how; like ou in our. 
 
4 ELEMENTARY WORD STUDY 
 
 A consonant sound is produced by an obstruction 
 of the breath. In our language a consonant sound 
 is usually uttered in combination with a vowel sound. 
 Consonants are divided into classes that have refer- 
 ence to the organs by which the sounds are produced, 
 as follows : 
 
 (a) Aspirate ; as h, produced by forcing the breath 
 through the glottis. 
 
 (b) Gutturals; as, k, g, ch (chorus), made by 
 throat. 
 
 (c) Palatals; as, ch (church), j, made by palate. 
 
 (d) Dentals, made by teeth; as, /, d, th. 
 
 (e) Linguals, by tongue; also called sibilants, 
 from their hissing sound; as, sh, zh, s, z. 
 
 (/) Labials, by the lips ; as p, b, /, v, 
 
 L and r are called trills. 
 
 Consonant sounds are further classified as hard 
 or soft. Those that require considerable force in 
 utterance are hard, like p, and /; those that require 
 less effort are soft, like b and d. The table which 
 follows exhibits the consonants in their proper classi- 
 fication, and names also the organs by which they are 
 severally produced: 
 

 CO 
 
 < 
 
 M 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 P* 
 
 to 
 
 
 
 f-i* 
 
 >H 
 
 
 
 F-M 
 
 03 
 
 3 
 
 i3 
 
 03 
 
 03 
 
 p 
 
 
 ts 
 
 4-> 
 
 C3 
 
 
 bO 
 
 S 
 
 a 
 
 dJ 
 
 <u 
 
 
 o 
 
 ^ 
 
 Q 
 
 Q 
 
 J 
 
 03 
 bO 
 
 o3 
 
 o 
 
 C/3 
 
 CO 
 
 O 
 
 CO 
 
 O 
 U 
 
 o 
 
 H 
 iJ 
 
 < 
 
 03 
 
 
 bO 
 
 bO 
 
 :3 
 
 
 3 
 
 Xi 
 
 u 
 
 13 
 
 o 
 
 CO 
 
 o3 
 
 o 
 
 o 
 
 (U 
 +-> 
 
 bO o. 
 
 o 
 
 O 
 «4-l CO 
 O 
 
 o ^ 
 
 o3 
 
 03 
 bC ^ 
 
 .O 
 
 I § 
 P< 
 
 o3 
 OJ 
 bO 
 O 
 
 4-1 
 
 O -ir; 
 
 H 
 
 o3 
 h-1 
 
 
 'a, 
 
 bD 
 (U 
 
 CI ^ 
 03 4::! 
 
 §^ 
 
 O <^ 
 H 
 
 o3 (L> 
 CO P 
 
 
 Ph 
 
 O 
 
 
 a 
 
 03 
 (U 
 ::3 
 bO 
 
 o 
 
 •4-1 r^ 
 
 0) 
 
 1) o3 
 
 73 
 C 
 
 o ^ 
 h1 
 
 00 
 
 Oh—' 
 
 
 
 ^ 
 
 -4-J 
 "f-4 
 
 ^ 
 
 V 
 
 
 J3 
 
 0) • 
 O 0) 
 t3 S 
 
 Dh.& 
 
 OS 
 
 
 00 
 
 
 H 
 
 
 ^ 
 
 
 ri4 
 
 
 >-l 
 
 
 o 
 
 
 >H 
 
 
 ^ 
 
 
 (U 
 
 
 ^ 
 
 
 ^ 
 
 
 >> 
 
 
 C 
 
 
 03 
 
 
 IHh 
 
 
 a 
 
 , 
 
 o 
 
 t/j 
 
 U 
 
 H) 
 
 
 ,c) 
 
 ^ 
 
 CO 
 
 Q 
 
 ^~i 
 
 Q 
 
 .n 
 
 pq 
 
 3 
 D. 
 
 c 
 
 a> 
 
 03 
 
 ^ 
 
 u 
 
 -t-i 
 
 •c 
 
 
 fi) 
 
 <+H 
 
 B 
 
 O 
 
 < 
 
 IS 
 
 • -t 
 
 (U 
 
 bC Dl. 
 
 C 
 
 
 W 
 
 T3 
 
 .S^ 
 
 CO 
 
 C 
 O 
 
 
 y^ 
 
 >-. 
 
 <u 
 
 ^ 
 
 H-J 
 
 
 TJ 
 
 
 <IJ 
 
 
 U 
 
 
 j5 
 
 
 c^ 
 
 
 > 
 
 
 X) 
 
 
 < 
 
 
6 
 
 ELEMENTARY WORD STUDY 
 
 The following letters have been omitted from this 
 table because their sounds are represented by other 
 letters: c^ g (soft), q, x. 
 
 Another scheme of classifying sounds is the one 
 used by Webster's International Dictionary; this is 
 shown in the tables given below : 
 
 Vocals 
 These are the vowels: a, e, i, o, u (w, y, sometimes). 
 
 SUBVOCALS 
 
 h,asin bid 
 
 did 
 
 gun 
 
 jet 
 
 let 
 
 met 
 
 nag 
 
 g, " 
 J, " 
 1, " 
 m, " 
 
 n, " 
 
 r,astn rug 
 
 V, 
 
 w, 
 
 y> 
 
 ng: 
 
 vote 
 
 win 
 
 yet 
 
 gaze 
 
 azure 
 
 long 
 
 th, as in those 
 
 Aspirates 
 
 f,asin fame 
 
 h, " home 
 
 k, " king 
 
 P, " play 
 
 s, " sky 
 
 t,asin time 
 
 ch, " child 
 
 sh, " shine 
 
 th, " theme 
 
 wh," when 
 
 Correct pronunciation is taught chiefly by imita- 
 tion, by phonic analysis, and by correcting the faults 
 of the pupils. 
 
 (a) Imitation The child instinctively imitates 
 the language sounds he hears. This is the impulse 
 which guarantees the acquisition of language in the 
 
THE SCOPE OF WORD STUDY 7 
 
 case of normal children. So potent is the instinct of 
 imitation that a child will learn any language that 
 happens to prevail in his environment. Alfred 
 Russell Wallace says that the same is true in the 
 animal world. Young birds never have the song 
 peculiar to their species, if they have not heard it; 
 whereas they acquire very easily the song of any 
 other bird with which they are associated.^ These 
 significant facts point the way for the teacher in his 
 efforts to improve the child in the use of oral or 
 written speech. The teacher must himself be a 
 model of correct articulation, if he expects his pupils 
 to acquire the habit. In teaching foreigners he 
 will find it necessary to utter the difficult sounds 
 slowly and require the pupil to observe the posi- 
 tion of the speech organs while the sounds are 
 produced. 
 
 (h) Phonic Analysis This should receive care- 
 ful attention in every school. Many of the faults of 
 pronunciation found among children may be pre- 
 vented or removed by persistent drilling on elementary 
 sounds. The work is to be so conducted as to be both 
 voice-training and ear-training, and is to be so organ- 
 ized as to become an essential and integral element 
 in the method of teaching reading. One very thor- 
 
 ' Tracy: "The Psychology of Childhood," p. 117. D. C. Heath 
 & Co., Boston, 1896. 
 
S ELEMENTARY WORD STUDY 
 
 ough and intelligent scheme of phonetic drill was 
 worked out by the late Edward G. Ward, of Brooklyn, 
 in connection with his method of reading.^ Many 
 other schemes have been devised by authors of text- 
 books on reading; but in spite of all the excellent 
 material available, phonic drills are sadly neglected 
 in many schools. The principal point to remember 
 in this connection is that such drills, in order to be 
 effective, must be both systematic and persistent. 
 Desultory work, which is done one way in one class 
 and some other way in the next class, or is done when 
 the teacher happens to think of it, is almost a total 
 waste of time. Careful supervision, which grades 
 the work and insists on daily faithful practice, is 
 absolutely essential to success. The first desidera- 
 tum, therefore, in phonic drills, is a plan devised by a 
 teacher, principal, or author, which specifies the exact 
 work to be done in each grade and sees to it that 
 every teacher performs his allotted portion of the 
 task. 
 
 Phonic Analysis should include exercises on the 
 vocals, subvocals, and aspirates by themselves and 
 in combination. At the end of the first three years, 
 if the work has been thoroughly done, the formal 
 drills on mere sounds as such may cease. Thereafter 
 each teacher or grade should work upon exercises 
 
 ^ " The Rational Method. " Silver, Burdette & Co., New York. 
 
THE SCOPE OF WORD STUDY 9 
 
 designed to correct characteristic errors made by the 
 pupils. These faults of pronunciation will vary in 
 different communities and in different sections of the 
 same city. Children of German parentage or en- 
 vironment have one set of difficulties, Italians have 
 another, Russians have another, and so on; while 
 the native boy has a stock of mistakes peculiar to 
 himself. A half-hour's observation in any class- 
 room will reveal the kind of drill required in that 
 particular class. In the course of a five-minute 
 reading-test of a fourth-year class the author dis- 
 covered the following errors: threw (troo), dew (do), 
 Arctic (Artie), Antarctic (Antartic), bird (boid), 
 apology. These and similar words should be put 
 into lists and given to children for practice in articu- 
 lation. 
 
 (c) Errors due to Defective Organisms. 
 
 (A) Stammering Stammering is a hindrance 
 or obstructed utterance of words. Sometimes it is 
 due to a defect in the organs of speech. Such was 
 apparently the fact in the case of Demosthenes, 
 who is said to have cured his faults of enunciation by 
 declaiming with pebbles in his mouth. Sometimes 
 stammering is merely a habit contracted through 
 the power of suggestion by associating with com- 
 panions who stammer. When some people are greatly 
 excited by anger or other powerful emotions they 
 
lo ELEMENTARY WORD STUDY 
 
 stammer. The remedy in both of the cases just 
 cited is speaking slowly. Frequently stammering 
 is due to nervousness or timidity, in which case the 
 teacher may overcome the defect by inducing in the 
 pupil a state of self-confidence and self-forgetfulness. 
 One of the writer's classmates in a normal school was 
 afflicted in his youthful days with a serious case of 
 stammering. He was cured in a school of oratory 
 chiefly by drills in deliberate utterance and the habit 
 of self-control. To-day he is a prominent railroad 
 attorney of the West, and no one would suspect his 
 former deficiency. 
 
 (B) Lisping Lisping is the use of the sound 
 th for s. It may be due to a peculiarity of the vocal 
 organs, or may be a mere habit of which the victim 
 is unconscious. The remedy is practice in making 
 the sounds of 5 and th, either in isolation or in words 
 of which they form a part. 
 
 (2) Accent For a complete discussion of 
 accent the reader is referred to the unabridged dic- 
 tionaries. Accent is a stress of voice placed upon 
 one or more syllables. It gives a musical element to 
 speech and adds to the beauty and harmony of 
 language. Accent is of two kinds, primary and 
 secondary, the former being the stronger. Some 
 words have two secondary accents. Sometimes the 
 primary and secondary accents are nearly equal, as 
 
THE SCOPE OF WORD STUDY ii 
 
 in violifiy caravan^ artisan. Sometimes the primary 
 and secondary accents are exchanged, the primary 
 becoming secondary and the secondary primary. 
 Artisan, reverie, and invalid are examples of exchanged 
 accent. 
 
 Accent, like enunciation, is taught chiefly by imi- 
 tation and by drills in correcting errors. The teacher 
 should be a model of correct accent. The pupil 
 should be made familiar with the method of indicating 
 accent in the dictionary. Pronouncing matches 
 may be conducted as follows: The teacher spells 
 words orally or on the blackboard and children are 
 called upon to pronounce. They may choose sides, 
 or "trap," or "go out.'' An occasional exercise of 
 this kind lends zest to the work, stimulates interest 
 in correct pronunciation, and assists in the formation 
 of habits of accuracy in oral speech. 
 
 (3) Diacritical Marks Phonic work in Eng- 
 lish involves a knowledge of diacritical markings. 
 Since we employ the Phoenician alphabet, which has 
 but twenty-six characters, to represent some forty 
 sounds, it is necessary for some letters to represent 
 two or more sounds. In order to indicate the exact 
 pronunciation of a word, therefore, we employ a 
 system of marks. Following is a list of the marks 
 commonly used : 
 
12 ELEMENTARY WORD STUDY 
 
 Vowel Markings 
 
 The macron, 
 
 — , as in ate, eve. 
 
 " breve, 
 
 w, as in bat, f6x. 
 
 " dot. 
 
 . , as in ask, was. 
 
 " diaeresis, 
 
 .., as in arm, all. 
 
 " circumflex, 
 
 «, as in flare, th^re. 
 
 " wave or tilde, 
 
 -, as in ftr, term. 
 
 Consonant Markings 
 
 The bar. 
 
 — , as in get. 
 
 " dot. 
 
 ., as in gem. 
 
 " cedilla, 
 
 ^, as in gell. 
 
 " suspended bar, 
 
 J., as in exist. 
 
 The extent to which these marks should be resorted 
 to in elementary reading is a disputed point. Many 
 excellent authorities make them an essential part of 
 phonic reading and phonic drill from the very first, 
 while other well-known educators believe that they 
 may be dispensed with during the first three years. 
 But after the child is old enough to use a dictionary 
 he must know the meaning of diacritics. The writer 
 has found many classes that could use the dictionary 
 with facility as a book of definitions, but he has seldom 
 found one whose members could with confidence 
 tell the pronunciation of a strange or difiicult word 
 by its markings. This deficiency is due to lack of 
 drills in diacritical markings. Children should be 
 practiced in pronouncing words according to their 
 
THE SCOPE OF WORD STUDY 13 
 
 marks, and also in marking the sounds of words 
 whose pronunciation is given. 
 
 2 Capitalization 
 
 The use of capitals demands attention from the 
 time when the child first begins to write to the end of 
 the school course. In the first year the pupil will do 
 little more than copy words and sentences, and for 
 this work no formal teaching as to capitals will be 
 needed. During the second year, dictation and 
 reproduction may be introduced, and therefore it will 
 be necessary to teach the use of the capital at the be- 
 ginning of a sentence and in writing I and O . During 
 the third year the use of capital letters for the first 
 word of a line of poetry, for months and days, and 
 for titles, may be added. For the fourth year the 
 capital for particular names can be taught. During 
 the fifth year, add the words North, South, East, 
 West, when used to denote parts of a country; also 
 the first word of a direct quotation, names repre- 
 senting the Deity, names of the books of the 
 Bible, and important words in titles and head- 
 ings. There remains only the rule for personifi- 
 cation, which may be introduced during the sixth 
 or seventh year. 
 
 In all word lists for spelling, proper nouns and 
 adjectives should be printed or written with capital 
 
14 EhnMI'MTAin' wain) STflDV 
 
 JniflnlH; all (Aljt;r worth Hhcnild bcj^in with small 
 IcItc.r.H. 
 
 3 Abbreviations and Contractions 
 
 Tin':; i:, ;i hir.y world, ;in<l hn.incHH men flavc time* 
 \>y 'ihorlcninf/ wriilcn wonl.. I'y (.-illin// Mlfcntiofi 
 to Htrect HJ^nH, hillH, Idtcrw, etc., the teacher induces 
 children 1<> ohwjrve the two wayn of making wordrt 
 fthorter; namely, by .ihl^rcvialionH and by contnic 
 tionn. 'I'he rule in then diHcovered that abbreviationn 
 arc followed by the period and eontraetionn reprenent 
 the orniltcd letterH by the apostroj>he. Ah abbrevia- 
 tionH are merely deviccH to wive time and wpace, they 
 are neither neceswary nor denirable cxcci)t in bnsinesH 
 pajK'rH and letter hcadiiifis or when a lack of time or 
 space ju'cirr; lo n(|uir(' Ihem, c.j^., the word "County" 
 and the name of Ihe ntate in the superscription of a 
 letter. (Contractions and abbreviations should be 
 taught systematically, either as a part of the spelling 
 lesson or in se|)arale lessons. In Ihe case of proper 
 names, many h-ac hers prefer lo present the abbrevia- 
 lion with the word to wlii( h it belongs in the same 
 Bpelltng cxcrcii.e, r.f*.: 
 
 jam I.I ry 
 
 Jan. 
 
 I'Vbruary 
 
 I<V1). 
 
 August 
 
 Aug. 
 
inv: Si'in'E of word study 
 
 '5 
 
 Wednesday 
 
 Wed. 
 
 Ca|)lain 
 
 Ctipt. 
 
 CololK'l 
 
 Col. 
 
 Colonido 
 
 Col. 
 
 MicIiiKiin 
 
 Mich 
 
 Mn|,^lMn(l 
 
 lOn^. 
 
 Kcnlucky 
 
 Ky. 
 
 There is no espcc i.il dilViriilly in Ic'icliin)^ (lu^ uso 
 of ablm'vialions and ( onl lacl ions as ca riy as 1 \\v third 
 year; and llu'rc i;; nnu li need of such insiriution as 
 soon as Ihc child lias a(<[iiircd sonic facility in ivjidiiij^ 
 He niccls in his books many cases of c()ntrac(i<m 
 similar (o (he followin)^: 
 
 Tlir ycar'.'i Jil (lie ;i|)iiiiK 
 Ami (lity'.M III llic moin; 
 ( iod's ill I lis lii-.ivt-ii, 
 AH',". lif-'Jil vvilli I he world. 
 
 Some early drills of I he kind sugg^'stcd here will 
 prepare Ihe pupil to read and understand ( onl ract ions 
 wilhoiil <li(hcul(y. In order lo impress Ihe lessons, 
 Ihe two way:; of shorteniii}^ words should not only be 
 observed in written or |)rln(ed form, but should be 
 fre(iuently written from dictation. 
 
i6 ELEMENTARY WORD STUDY 
 
 4 Compounds, Plurals, and Possessives 
 
 These three classes of words are usually taught in 
 connection with grammar, but the exercise is really 
 one of spelling. Some incidental teaching of the 
 words may be done through observation and written 
 practice in the early years, before the child is intro- 
 duced to the formal study of grammar. After he takes 
 up grammar as a separate study the drills should be 
 frequent and thorough. Some of the spelling books 
 make provision for words of the kind above specified, 
 as shown in the following exercises : 
 
 Rule To form the plural of nouns ending in y preceded by a 
 consonant, change yioi and add es; as army, armies. 
 
 ally beau ty a'genc y en'e my 
 
 du ty bod y ar'ter y in jur y 
 
 ed dy fair y cav i ty gal ler y 
 
 Rule Nouns ending in /, jf, and fe are made plural either by 
 adding 5 or changing / or je into v and adding es. 
 
 Add ^ Change /, jf, or fe to v and add es 
 
 be lief roof beef loaf 
 
 chief scarf calf knife 
 
 proof sheriff life wolf 
 
 Certain common foreign plurals require special 
 attention ; among these are phenomena, data, genera^ 
 axes, etc. Many business men and sometimes careless 
 writers of books are in the habit of using ^'data'' 
 
THE SCOPE OF WORD STUDY 17 
 
 with a singular verb. The writing of plural com- 
 pounds is generally rendered easy by the simple 
 device of determining the principal part of the word 
 and pluralizing that, e. g. : 
 
 father-in-law; principal part, father; hence, fathers- 
 in-law. 
 
 court-martial; principal part, court (the thing we 
 are speaking of) ; hence, courts-martial. 
 
 handful; principal part, /^/(equals a measure); 
 hence, handfuls. 
 
 rose-tree; principal part, tree; hence, rose-trees. 
 
II 
 
 Nature and Value of Spelling 
 
 I Where to Begin Spelling 
 
 The method of teaching reading at present in vogue, 
 under whatever name or guise it appears, begins 
 almost from the first day with the expression of 
 thoughts in sentences. Words are learned not 
 merely as constituent parts of the sentences, but also 
 as individual symbols of objects or ideas. If the 
 method be analytic, the process of learning to read 
 involves the separation of the sentence into words, 
 the words into syllables, syllables into letters or 
 sounds. If the method be synthetic, the reverse 
 procedure takes place; the child begins with letters, 
 combines these into syllables, syllables into words, 
 and words into sentences. Whenever the stage of the 
 individual sound has been reached, it is necessary to 
 teach the names of the characters that represent the 
 sounds. It is customary to teach the letters of the 
 alphabet in order at the close of the first year or at 
 the beginning of the second. Word-analysis-and- 
 
 i8 
 
NATURE AND VALUE OF SPELLING 19 
 
 synthesis naturally leads to spelling, which may 
 therefore properly begin with the second year of 
 school. During the first stage of spelling-instruction 
 words should be presented in reading lessons in such 
 a way as to make their meaning clear. Pupils are 
 to observe carefully the printed and written forms of 
 words. The naming of letters will help to fix the 
 forms in the memory. Whether the method be 
 anal)^ic or synthetic, the final stage in either case 
 will be a mastery of the elements and their combina- 
 tion as word-units. 
 
 2 The Origin of tlie Alphabet 
 
 The English alphabet originated in Egypt in the 
 remote past . From there it was carried into Phoenicia, 
 where it was modified and became the Phoenician 
 alphabet. It is well known that the Phoenicians 
 were a commercial and colonizing people, and where- 
 ever they went they carried this alphabet. In time 
 the Greeks received it. They passed it on to the 
 Romans, and they in turn gave it to the Germanic 
 peoples. Originally the alphabet had twenty-two 
 characters. In the course of historic transmission, 
 some of the characters were dropped, others were 
 added, and the phonetic values of many were greatly 
 changed. Furthermore, there were not enough 
 
^o ELEMENTARY WORD STUDY 
 
 characters to represent all the sounds of the modem 
 languages that borrowed the oriental alphabet, and 
 so it came to pass that some letters represent a variety 
 of sounds. It is evident that this circumstance alone 
 accounts for a large part of the difficulty of English 
 orthography. There is nothing in the pronunciation 
 of such words as dough, cough, plough, etc., that 
 gives any hint as to their spelling; and conversely, 
 the spelling furnishes no clue concerning the pro- 
 nunciation. 
 
 3 The Norman Conquest of England 
 
 The native language of England is the speech of 
 Teutonic tribes that came into the country in the 
 fifth century and conquered the Celtic inhabitants. 
 It is known as Anglo-Saxon. "The Roman mission- 
 aries first reduced this language to writing. They 
 used the Roman letters, in nearly their Roman value, 
 and added new characters for the sound of a in jat, 
 th in their, th in thine, and w. In the fusion of 
 Normans and Saxons, after the Norman Conquest, 
 neither party could pronounce the words of the other 
 party correctly, and in spelling these mispronuncia- 
 tions, they introduced many lamentable irregulari- 
 ties."^ But while this union of two great tongues 
 
 1 « 
 
 The Origin of Language. " Quoted in Standard Dictionary, p. IX. 
 
NATURE AND VALUE OF SPELLING 21 
 
 has resulted in incongruous and unmanageable 
 spellings, it has produced a language of which Jacob 
 Grimm writes as follows: ^^Its entire structure and 
 completeness, at once wholly intellectual and wonder- 
 fully perfected, has proceeded from an astonishing 
 union between the two noblest languages of modern 
 Europe, the Germanic and the Romanic; and it is 
 well known how they are related in English, the 
 former predominantly giving the material basis, the 
 latter the intellectual conception. In fact, the Eng- 
 lish language as used by Shakespeare can rightly 
 be called a world language, and seems, like the 
 English people itself, destined in the future, in yet 
 greater measure than heretofore, to rule in all the 
 ends of the earth. When we consider its richness, 
 intellectuality, and condensed adaptability, no one 
 of all the other living languages may be placed at its 
 side, yea, not even our German language. " 
 
 4 The Practice of Authors and Copyists 
 
 Before the invention of printing, authors spelled 
 as they pleased. There was no recognized standard. 
 Words were spelled in various ways by different 
 authors and frequently by the same author. Even 
 proper names had no fixed and invariable spelling. 
 Copyists still further complicated the situation by 
 
22 ELEMENTARY WORD STUDY 
 
 orthographic independence and inconsistency. In 
 the introduction to ''Webster's Dictionary" it is 
 stated that Main waring has been spelled in one 
 hundred thirty-one different ways. Even in Shakes- 
 peare's day we find the great poet's name written 
 in more than thirty different ways. 
 
 5 The Invention of Printing 
 
 The immediate result of the invention of printing 
 by movable types was that the bad spellings of the 
 time became more or less fixed. Indeed, much of 
 the perverse spelling of books printed three centuries 
 ago may be attributed to the printer, who often 
 inserted or eliminated letters to suit the length of 
 the line. It is no uncommon thing to find in the 
 works of Chaucer and Spenser the same words 
 occurring in several different forms upon the same 
 page. 
 
 6 The Publication of English Dictionaries 
 
 To the celebrated Dictionary of Dr. Samuel John- 
 son, more than to any other influence, is credited the 
 present fixed form of English spelling. This great 
 work was first published in 1775. The changes in 
 spelling introduced by Dr. Johnson were generally 
 made in order to restore the ancient orthography or 
 
NATURE AND VALUE OF SPELLING 23 
 
 to remove some anomaly. The result of Dr. John- 
 son's work was that it settled usage definitely in 
 favor of some one spelling, and thus removed the 
 cause of much confusion. In 1828 Dr. Noah Web- 
 ster issued his Dictionary of the English Language. 
 He made many changes in spelling that met with 
 universal favor among reputable authors. The 
 most important of these changes was the restoration 
 of older spellings in order to reveal the et5miological 
 affinities of words and to remove anomalies and 
 special cases. But in spite of these changes a large 
 portion of English words still refuse to conform to 
 the rules for spelling. 
 
 7 Spelling in the Schools 
 
 Spelling as a school subject owes its existence to 
 the invention of printing. The spelling method of 
 teaching reading came into universal use in the 
 Eighteenth Century. It has been well said that 
 our fathers used all their ingenuity to make the 
 simple art of reading as difficult as possible. Not 
 only did the children learn to read by spelling, but 
 spelling was kept up after they had acquired some 
 facility in reading. Even the most difficult and 
 unusual words were used. A reading book pub- 
 lished in 1766 contains these words for spelling: 
 
24 ELEMENTARY WORD STUDY 
 
 Allerliebensivurdigster, regimentsquartiermeister. An- 
 other reading-and-spelling-book for beginners, pub- 
 lished in 1804, begins the spelling with the word 
 Viceoberappellazionsgerichtspresident, which contains 
 fourteen syllables. An educational author, writing 
 in 1822, speaks as follows concerning these methods: 
 ^'Spelling seems to be a frightful judgment of divine 
 wrath, which the righteous God has allowed to come 
 upon us and oppress us for a long time on account 
 of our school sins, and we fervently pray God for 
 Christ's sake that He will have mercy upon us and 
 take away this judgment from us and open the eyes 
 of those who cannot see until He does, in order that a 
 permanent foundation may the sooner be laid, and 
 that which has long lain waste may the sooner be 
 rebuilt."^ Another writer says that the spelling of 
 those days was "a greater evil than the burning of 
 witches and heretics, a greater crime than the rack 
 and all inhumanities taken together." In America 
 it was the fashion at one time to use the dictionary 
 as a spelling book and to spell and define all the 
 words printed from A to Z. Christopher A. Green, 
 in the year 1851, delivered an address before the 
 American Institute of Instruction, in the course of 
 which he referred to his own method of teaching 
 
 ' Quoted by Dr. Bumham from H. Fechner, Pedagogical Seminary^ 
 Vol. 13, p. 477. 
 
NATURE AND VALUE OF SPELLING 25 
 
 spelling in these words: ''Each pupil has a blank 
 book, in which the words spelled are written with 
 pen and ink. I use Worcester's dictionary, which I 
 go through regularly from beginning to end."^ 
 The method has been well characterized by Mr, 
 Roark as "a pedagogical horror. "^ 
 
 From this extreme view of the importance of spell- 
 ing the pendulum in educational history swings to 
 the opposite extreme, that spelling is of little or no 
 consequence. ''Very few people realize,'' says 
 Walter W. Skeat,3 ^'the extreme lateness of the idea 
 that the same spelling must be adhered to throughout 
 the same book. It is really no earlier than 1700; 
 for previously to that date varieties of spelling, such 
 as he and hee upon the same page, can usually be 
 found. " Queen Elizabeth is cited as a well-educated 
 woman who spelled "sovereign" in seven different 
 ways. Frederick the Great and Blucher are examples 
 of indifference to spelling. Some writers of the 
 present generation hold contemptuous views con- 
 cerning the value of orthography. The late Arnold 
 Tompkins was quoted as sa5dng that he wanted 
 children to learn to spell, but "not too well." 
 
 ^ "Methods of Teaching Spelling," in Journal of American Institute 
 of Instruction, 185 1, p. 181. 
 
 ^"Method in Education," p. 133. American Book Company, 1899. 
 
 ' The National Review, Vol. 48, p. 304. 
 
26 ELEMENTARY WORD STUDY 
 
 William E. Mead/ of Wesleyan University, Middle- 
 town, Conn., says there is no special virtue in being 
 able to arrange letters in a certain order. Spelling 
 which is good in America is regarded as very bad in 
 England. An ignorant man usually spells badly, 
 but many men who are not quite sure of their spelling 
 are unjustly ranked among the ignorant. There is 
 some excuse for the worst of spellers, and there is 
 much question whether the social position of many 
 excellent people should on this score be made pre- 
 carious. "It is even hinted that George Washington 
 and other patriots showed their independence as much 
 in spelling as in other things. "2 
 
 Confusion and conflict have been rife since the 
 time of Pestalozzi as to the best way of teaching 
 spelling. Some of the great writers emphasize 
 sound and the ear. 3 Others lay stress on the impor- 
 tance of the physiognomy of the word and the eye. 4 
 Still others think the rules of spelling and the under- 
 standing are of supreme importance. 5 Diesterweg 
 especially emphasized pronunciation, while Bor- 
 
 ^ "Is Spelling a Lost Art ?" Ediicational Review, Vol. ig, p. 49. 
 
 ^ In a letter written by Washington in 1785 to his Aid-de-Camp, which 
 was recently sold at auction, choosing is spelled "chusing. " See New 
 York Times, March 29, 1908. 
 
 ^ Olivier, Grassman, Hamisch, Diesterweg, Rudolf. See Dr. Bum- 
 ham's article. 
 
 ^Bormann, Kehr. 
 
 * Wandes, Heyse, Mohr. 
 
NATURE AND VALUE OF SPELLING 27 
 
 mann considered this a hindrance rather than a help. 
 Wawrzyk is the only authority among the early 
 writers who points out the significance of muscular 
 movements of the hand and speech organs. Bor- 
 mann and Kehr believe copying the most advan- 
 tageous movement in learning to spell, while Naumann 
 is convinced that copying is a serious error. Hamisch 
 and others speak disrespectfully of rules. Diesterweg 
 advocates dictation exercises; Bormann and Kehr 
 are opposed to this procedure. They all use oral 
 spelling, except Wawrzyk, who absolutely rejects 
 it. 
 
 This confusion of opinion is due to the fact that it 
 is opinion rather than knowledge. The authors 
 quoted argued and theorized, but did not study the 
 psychology of the subject. In order to determine 
 in a conclusive way which of the several methods is 
 the most efficacious, scientific experiments are re- 
 quired. These have in recent years been made, and 
 the facts established by them will be found in Chapter 
 III. 
 
 8 Educational Value of Spelling 
 
 (i) Not a Culture Study It has become 
 generally understood that spelling is not a culture 
 study, like literature and history, but a necessary 
 art which is to be acquired in the most direct and 
 
28 ELEMENTARY WORD STUDY 
 
 positive way, and which is to become automatic as 
 soon as possible, 
 
 (2) Conventional Value In spite of the fact 
 that some people have a poor opinion of good spellers 
 and cite Washington and Queen Elizabeth in support 
 of their contention that very good people have been 
 poor spellers, it remains true, in the opinion of the 
 present generation, that it is a disgrace not to know 
 how to spell. Business men complain every now 
 and then that the graduates of the elementary schools 
 can't spell. Dean Briggs, of Harvard, says: ^^We 
 have boys who cannot spell, teachers who cannot 
 spell, college professors who cannot spell and who 
 have a mean opinion of spelling.'' A single slip of 
 spelling in an otherwise faultless letter attaches an 
 odium to the writer. It is no particular credit to be 
 a good speller, but it is a disgrace to be a poor one. 
 Spelling, therefore, has a conventional value which 
 may not be despised with impunity. 
 
Ill 
 
 The Psychology of Spelling 
 
 In order to arrive at sound conclusions on the peda- 
 gogy of spelling, it is well to inquire next what the 
 subject is as a mental process. What mental and 
 physiological activities are involved in an act of spell- 
 ing ? What is the cause of poor spelling ? What is 
 the relation of the spelling habit to general mental 
 ability ? Which of the several methods or devices of 
 teaching spelling produce the best results, and why? 
 These and a host of similar considerations are in- 
 volved in the discussion of the spelling question. 
 In this as in other subjects the major part of the 
 literature accessible is the record of mere opinion, 
 based usually upon personal experience, or other 
 insufficient data. The psychology of spelling has been 
 scientifically studied by a number of educators in 
 this country and in Europe. Following will be found 
 a brief account of nine of these investigations with 
 the conclusions drawn from each. 
 
 (i) Adelaide E. Wyckoff ^ In 1893, ^i^s 
 
 ^ Pedagogical Seminary, Vol. 2, p. 448. 
 
 29 
 
30 ELEMENTARY WORD STUDY 
 
 Wyckoff published a brief article giving an account 
 of some experiments she had made upon five young 
 women over twenty years of age whom she designates 
 as "incorrigible bad spellers. " The subjects were in 
 other respects able and faithful students of Packer 
 Institute, Brooklyn, New York. For purposes of 
 comparison the experiments were made also upon 
 two good spellers. The author analyzes the spelling 
 process into the following elements: sensation (per- 
 ception); directing of attention; retentiveness; mental 
 image; automatic circuit. 
 
 The test of the senses (for perception) revealed 
 defective vision in four of the five poor spellers. 
 
 The mode of attention was tested by the exposure 
 for one second of a card containing an unpronounce- 
 able combination of letters. The subject was re- 
 quired to write down the letters in the order observed. 
 This test was also given to forty other students. The 
 result showed three modes of directing the attention : 
 
 In the first, two or three letters only were seen, 
 usually the first, second, and last. This mode of 
 attention seizes the whole of an impression with its 
 characteristic features. The bad spellers of this 
 type "were students who always sought out the 
 general principle and remembered by means of it. 
 Conspicuous as thinkers, they were comparatively 
 slow readers. Almost all their mistakes in spelling 
 
THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SPELLING 31 
 
 occurredinthelatterhalf of theword, . . Further 
 test made it clear that attention was habitually directed 
 to the beginning of the word. " 
 
 In the second mode of attention, most of the letters 
 were correctly perceived and in the right order. 
 "The impression m.ade was that of a whole composed 
 of distinct parts." The best representative of this 
 type was able to perceive instantly and correctly a 
 combination of nine letters, but she failed utterly 
 in the tests on visualization and retention. 
 
 In the third mode, most of the letters were seen, 
 but the order was not known. In one case nine 
 correct letters were given in a shufHed order. Here, 
 apparently, the impression was of individual unre- 
 lated parts. This class furnished no bad spellers. 
 
 "Further tests showed that the best natural speller 
 perceived long words in two or more groups of letters, 
 none of the poor spellers having this habit. "^ 
 
 No account is given of the test for memory. 
 
 The test for imaging required the subject to spell 
 the word backward from the visual image. 
 
 The automatic circuit was tested by having a 
 paragraph written with the hand concealed. Mis- 
 
 ^ This statement is interesting in connection with recent discoveries as 
 to fixation "points" in reading, as revealed by the scientific study of eye- 
 movements. See "The Psychology of Reading," by Dearborn. The 
 Science Press, New York, 1906. Also see " The Psychology and Pedagogy 
 of Reading, " by Huey. Macmillan, 1908. 
 
32 ELEMENTARY WORD STUDY 
 
 takes were made of insertion, omission, inversion, 
 and substitution. 
 
 Following are Miss Wyckoff's conclusions: 
 
 1 Many poor spellers have defective senses. 
 
 2 Bad spelling may in part be the result of a strong natural bent 
 toward selective attention. 
 
 3 In such cases, where the syllable method of teaching might be 
 especially ineffective, the mechanical memory would be helped by 
 assisting the attention in its selection. For example, above the word 
 separate might be written, as an invitation to the eye, the syllable p-a-r. 
 
 4 "Apperceptive methods should be employed from the outset in 
 the teaching of spelling. For the class of students mentioned in the 
 preceding paragraph they are a necessity; for all they are an economy. 
 The children could use a set of cards, each containing a word so chosen 
 as to furnish material for induction in the finding of root, prefix, and 
 suffix, and the meaning of each. Then, using these as tracers, they 
 could notice in reading and blackboard exercise such new words as 
 contained the familiar elements. " The words separate, preparatory, 
 and reparation, are suggested as samples. 
 
 (2) W. A. Lay^ This writer employed non- 
 sense syllables in his experiments, of which the follow- 
 ing are samples: Lihug, labog, lubag, ribog, rabig, 
 labeg, guhlin. There were eight separate tests to 
 determine the percentage of errors the subject made 
 in remembering the spelling of four of the nonsense 
 words under these eight conditions: i Hearing; 
 2 Hearing with low speaking ; 3 Hearing with loud 
 
 ^ Fuher durch den Rechtschreib-Unterricht, Wiesbaden, 1899. An 
 abstract of this study may be found in Pedagogical Seminary, Vol. 13, 
 p. 482. 
 
THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SPELLING 33 
 
 speaking; 4 Seeing; 5 Seeing with low speaking; 
 6 Seeing with loud speaking; 7 Oral spelling; 
 8 Copying. 
 
 In the tests for hearing and seeing without speech, 
 the pupil, when words were spelled for him orally 
 or in writing, was required to inhibit the muscular 
 movement of expression by firmly closing his jaws 
 and keeping the vocal organs quiet. In seeing or 
 hearing with speech movement he repeated the 
 letters in a whisper or aloud. The test included 
 an aggregate of some three thousand individual 
 experiments on children from the first to the sixth 
 school year. The same experiments to the number 
 of eighteen hundred were made upon classes of the 
 teacher's seminary, and the results in this case were 
 always similar to those obtained in the elementary 
 school. Taking the figures of both investigations 
 together, the averages are shown in the following 
 tables : 
 
 Method of Testing Per cent of errors 
 
 per pupil 
 
 1 Hearing, with speech movement 3.04 
 
 2 Hearing, with low speaking 2.69 
 
 3 Hearing, with loud speaking 2.25 
 
 4 Seeing, with speech movement (reading) 1.22 
 
 5 Seeing, with low speaking 1.02 
 
 6 Seeing, with loud speaking 0.95 
 
 7 Spelling (loud) 1.02 
 
 8 Copying (low speaking) 0.54 
 
34 ELEMENTARY WORD STUDY 
 
 Commenting on these figures, Lay says: "If we 
 note the increasing number of errors, then the exer- 
 cises in orthography are to be arranged in the follow- 
 ing order, according to their value : Copying, spelling 
 orally, reading aloud, dictation." The same author 
 also made experiments to determine the value of 
 printed as compared with script spelling books. 
 Among his further conclusions are the following : 
 
 1 In orthography script spelling books surpass, printed books; 
 
 . they are almost twice as valuable as material for sense per- 
 ception. 
 
 2 Cultivation of correct pronunciation is of great importance for 
 learning orthography. 
 
 3 As much as possible the sense of a word (apperceptive aid), the 
 pronunciation, and the writing must be united, and the motor pre- 
 sentation in writing is the determining factor. 
 
 4 The usual spelling lesson should be omitted and forbidden by 
 law on account of the time wasted by it. 
 
 5 Dictation may be used in orthography only as a test and spar- 
 ingly. 
 
 6 The so-called copying method, the writing down of sentences 
 and the like, from memory, is useful, since it is most closely related to 
 the orthographic practice in common life. 
 
 7 The knowledge of derivation of words is advantageous in 
 orthography as a means of fixing the attention on word forms. 
 
 8 The rules of spelhng are not directly of value, but are useful as 
 a means of fixing the attention and developing a critical sense for 
 orthographic forms. 
 
 9 The words for spelling should not be selected according to a 
 special system (as per spelling book), but should be selected from the 
 lessons of the pupil. 
 
THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SPELLING 35 
 
 (3) H. H. Schiller I At the suggestion of 
 Herr Schiller several tests were made by two different 
 investigators for the purpose of verifying or refuting 
 the results of Dr. Lay. Schiller's conclusions in 
 general corroborated those of Lay, and indicated 
 that in spelling, sight is a better aid than hearing, 
 and that in the case of both sight and hearing the 
 errors are decreased when these senses are reinforced 
 by speech or writing movements. Following is the 
 order of the value of methods as fixed by Schiller: 
 
 1 Copying, with soft speaking. 
 
 2 Copying, with loud speaking. 
 
 3 Seeing, with writing movement. 
 
 4 Oral spelling. 
 
 5 Seeing, with speaking aloud. 
 
 6 Seeing, with soft speaking. 
 
 7 Seeing alone. 
 
 8 Hearing, with writing movement. 
 
 9 Hearing, with loud speaking. 
 
 10 Hearing, with soft speaking. 
 
 11 Hearing alone. 
 
 (4) F. W. Smedley^ Dr. Smedley conducted 
 a series of tests to ascertain the different kinds of 
 memory among Chicago school children, with special 
 
 ' Siudien und Versuche uher die Erlernung der Orthographie. Samm 
 V. Abhand. a, d. Gebiete der pad. Pysch. und Phys. II. Bd. 4 Heft, 
 Berlin, 1898. See Pedagogical Seminary, Vol. 13, p. 485. 
 
 ^Report of the Department of Child Study and Pedagogical Investi- 
 gation, Chicago Public Schools, Child Study Report, No. 3. 
 
36 ELEMENTARY WORD STUDY 
 
 reference to spelling. He used a series of digits. 
 In one case the pupils were asked to reproduce the 
 digits after hearing them read; in another test they 
 reproduced the digits after looking at them; and 
 finally the children wrote the digits on paper while 
 the series was dictated and also exposed on a card, 
 the pupils turning the face of their paper downward 
 at the close of the dictation and reproducing the 
 series from memory on test paper. It was found 
 impossible to test different memories as isolated 
 powers, for the reason that in spite of admonitions 
 to the contrary the pupils moved their lips and throats 
 while the hearing and sight tests were made. Among 
 Dr. Smedley's inferences are these: 
 
 1 There is probably a place for oral spelling. 
 
 2 There should be some pronunciation of syllables with spelling. 
 
 3 The words presented to the child at first should be, as far as 
 possible, phonetic in their spelling, the more unusual forms being re- 
 served for later years when the eye memory has become stronger. 
 
 4 The spelling of words is rendered automatic through practice 
 in writing them. 
 
 (5) H. E. KJRATZ^ The experiments of Lay 
 and Schiller were repeated in America by Mr. Kratz, 
 who has published his results in a book. He 
 used English nonsense words of ten letters each, 
 
 ^"Studies and Observations in the School-room." H, E. Kratz, 
 Educational Publishing Company, Boston, 1907. 
 
THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SPELLING 37 
 
 and made the following three tests upon 
 743 elementary school pupils: (a) the auditory; 
 ip) the visual; {c) and the audo-visual. For the 
 first, ten words were used, the letters of which were 
 pronounced slowly and distinctly, the pupil being 
 required to write immediately the letters named in 
 the correct order. In the second test, the words 
 were printed on cards and held up for a few moments 
 before the pupil, who was then commanded to write 
 what he had seen. The children were cautioned 
 not to use their lips, but in spite of their efforts to 
 inhibit muscular movements they exhibited a strong 
 tendency to whisper the letters to themselves. It will 
 be remembered that Schiller came upon the same 
 important fact. In the audo-visual test appeal was 
 made to eye and ear by holding up the card and 
 requiring the pupils to repeat the letters in concert. 
 Following are the results of these three tests : 
 
 Method Per cent of correct results 
 
 1 Auditory 44.8 
 
 2 Visual 66.2 
 
 3 Audo-Visual 73.7 
 
 Upon these data and others obtained by an ex- 
 periment as to the relation of the general power of 
 observation to the spelling habit, Mr. Kratz bases 
 the following inferences: 
 
38 ELEMENTARY WORD STUDY 
 
 1 Poor spelling is largely due to inability to picture the word cor- 
 rectly in the " mind's eye" and this inability is largely due to careless 
 or weak observation. 
 
 2 Defective vision is often a serious handicap. 
 
 3 The average child retains more from visual than from auditory 
 impressions. Therefore in the preparation of the spelling lesson we 
 must lead him to appeal as strongly as possible to his sense of sight. 
 
 4 In primary grades the spelling lesson should be studied with 
 the assistance of the teacher at the blackboard. Words should be 
 written, shown for a moment, then erased or hidden while the children 
 write. 
 
 5 In all grades teachers should vary the spelling exercises by re- 
 quiring about two-fifths of the words to be spelled orally, with syl- 
 labication and pronunciation of syllables. 
 
 (6) Edward R. Shaw^ The late Dr. Edward 
 R. Shaw repeated the experiments of Kratz about 
 the same time that Lay was making his tests in 
 Germany. He does not publish a table of results, 
 but states that some two thousand children were 
 examined with nonsense words. Among his con- 
 clusions are these : 
 
 1 The strong tendency of children to use the lips in spelling to 
 themselves is significant in suggesting that the motor speech apparatus 
 should be turned to use in learning to spell. 
 
 2 Preparation for spelling should be oral, while the final test should 
 be written. 
 
 3 Spelling is a matter of association; and the eye, the ear, and the 
 motor elements must be appealed to. 
 
 *The Spelling Question in "Three Studies in Education." E. L. 
 Kellogg Co., New York, 1899. 
 
THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SPELLING 39 
 
 (7) Dr. J. M. Rice In the April and June 
 numbers of the Forum for 1897, Dr. Rice published 
 the results of an extensive and thorough investigation 
 of spelling in twenty-one schools representing every 
 section of the United States. Over thirty-three 
 thousand children were tested, fifty words being 
 given to fourth and fifth year classes, and seventy- 
 five words to the sixth, seventh, and eighth year 
 classes. He also tested the spelling of many of the 
 children by means of a composition based on a 
 story prepared for the purpose. Following are the 
 words used in the two tests : 
 
 (a) Fourth and fifth years: running, slipped, 
 listened, queer, speech, believe, weather, changeable, 
 whistling, frightened, always, changing, chain, loose, 
 baking, piece, receive, laughter, distance, choose, 
 strange, picture, because, thought, purpose, learn, 
 lose, almanac, neighbor, writing, language, careful, 
 enough, necessary, waiting, disappoint, often, covered, 
 mixture, getting, better, feather, light, deceive, 
 driving, surface, rough, smooth, hopping, certainly. 
 
 (b) Sixth, seventh, and eighth years : Tne above 
 list with the following omitted: because, thought, 
 writing, language, feather, light, surface, rough, 
 smooth; and the following added: grateful, elegant, 
 present, patience, succeed, severe, accident, some- 
 times, sensible, business, answer, sweeping, properly, 
 
40 ELEMENTARY WORD STUDY 
 
 improvement, fatiguing, anxious, appreciate, assure, 
 imagine, peculiar, character, guarantee, approval, 
 intelligent, experience, delicious, realize, importance, 
 occasion, exceptions, thoroughly, conscientious, there- 
 fore, ascending, praise, wholesome. 
 
 These words were not dictated in columns, but 
 were included in sentences, e. g., "While running 
 he slipped. I listened to his queer speech, but I 
 did not notice any of it. " 
 
 The schools tested represented every degree of 
 excellence, all sorts of methods, all kinds of pupils, 
 and many diversities of street and home environment, 
 and of nationality. The time devoted to spelling 
 in the several schools varied from six minutes a day 
 to fifty minutes a day. 
 
 1 The author arrives at the sweeping conclusion 
 that none of these things make any difference in the 
 spelling. "In brief," he adds, "there is no direct 
 relation between method and results. The results 
 varied as much under the same as they did under 
 different methods of instruction." He says there 
 is no clear choice between oral and written spelling 
 or between writing isolated words and writing sen- 
 tences. Phonic reading does not make bad spellers, 
 nor do written language work and wide general 
 reading make good spellers. 
 
 2 A second inference made by Dr. Rice, is ex- 
 
THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SPELLING 41 
 
 pressed in the following words: "The facts here 
 presented, in my opinion, will admit of only one 
 conclusion, viz., that the results are not determined 
 by the methods employed, but by the ability of those 
 who use them. In other words, the first place 
 must be given to the personal equation of the 
 teacher, while methods and devices play a subor- 
 dinate part. " 
 
 3 Dr. Rice maintains further that with fifteen 
 minutes of instruction each day children will 
 learn just as much spelling as if they have 
 more; and hence anything above this limit is time 
 wasted. 
 
 (8) Miss E. K. Carmen ^ Dr. Edward L. 
 Thomdyke of Columbia University, in comment- 
 ing on the work of Dr. Rice (which upon the 
 whole he pronounces excellent), says we may add 
 another lesson gained from a mistake of the 
 author's. He refers to Dr. Rice's conclusion that 
 methods, devices, nationality, environment, quality 
 of school, etc., have no causal relation to suc- 
 cess in spelling. ''Dr. Rice's desertion of facts 
 for opinion," says the critic, "was hasty, for 
 there are real causes for good and bad spell- 
 ing other than the one he opines" (personal 
 
 ' Teachers^ College Record, May, 1901, p. 87. Columbia University 
 Press, New York. 
 
42 ELEMENTARY WORD STUDY 
 
 equation of the teacher). Dr. Thorndyke then 
 proceeds to quote from the study of Miss Carmen^ 
 to substantiate his contention. This lady started 
 with the hypothesis that poor spelling is due to poor 
 observation of the words. The subjects of the 
 experiment were sixteen adults, all of whom had 
 completed a high school course and had spent two 
 years more in study. There were eight good spellers 
 and eight poor ones. The test was a printed page 
 from Appleton's Fourth Reader, containing one 
 hundred misspelled words. The subjects were 
 asked to go through the paper as quickly as possible 
 and mark each misspelled word. The results were 
 as follows: 
 
 Time in seconds Words omitted 
 
 Good spellers (average) 130-1 8.9 
 
 Poor spellers (average) 199.6 28.1 
 
 1 Miss Carmen's inference is that ability to spell 
 probably implies not a general habit or power of ob- 
 servation, but a special ability to notice small dif- 
 ferences in words. 
 
 2 Dr. Thorndyke adds: ^^ Whether any specific 
 methods can be used in the class-room to secure the 
 habit of attention to the spelling of words dur- 
 ing reading is still a question. It would seem 
 likely. " 
 
 ' Journal of Pedagogy, October, 1900. 
 
THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SPELLING 43 
 
 3 By way of criticism on Miss Carmen's inference, 
 Dr. William H. Burnham says:^ "Miss Carmen is 
 probably right in this inference, but a number of other 
 factors doubtless contribute to the ability to spell 
 well as suggested by the comxplexity of the mental 
 process. Whether poor power of observation for 
 small differences in words is the cause of the ina- 
 bility to spell, or whether improper training in spell- 
 ing is one cause of the lack of observation for small 
 differences, there is at least an interesting correlation 
 here. It is probable, however, that the special 
 training in spelling does not contribute to general 
 power of observation." Miss Carmen, Dr. Thorn- 
 dyke, and Dr. Burnham, therefore agree that Mr. 
 Ejratz's inference is erroneous, when he argues that 
 "nature study is tending to improve our spelling. "^ 
 Dr. Thorndyke3 also calls attention to the fact that 
 Miss Wyckoff refers poor spelling to a "quality of 
 aatention in general rather than to a particular habit 
 of attending to words. " 
 
 (9) Oliver P. Cornman4 Mr. Corman made 
 the following kinds of tests : 
 
 ' Pedagogical Seminary, Vol. 13, p. 498. 
 
 ^"Studies and Observations in the School-room," p. 140. Educa- 
 tional Publishing Company, Boston, 1907. 
 
 ' Teachers' College Record, May, 1901, p. 87. 
 
 ^"Spelling in the Elementary Schools." Ginn & Co., Boston, 1902 
 
44 ELEMENTARY WORD STUDY 
 
 (a) Lists of spontaneously selected words — the largest number 
 that could be written in fifteen minutes. 
 
 (b) Lists of specially selected words written in vertical columns 
 from the dictation of the teacher. 
 
 (c) Series of short sentences (containing selected words) written 
 from the dictation of the teacher. 
 
 (d) Spelling papers of the regular term examination set by the 
 superintendent of schools, 
 
 (e) Compositions and other written exercises of the regular school- 
 room work. 
 
 (a) The Fifteen-minute Test Only the first of 
 these tests was studied with a view to the psychology 
 of the subject. Great care was taken to secure 
 uniformity of conditions. A simple set of explicit 
 directions was prepared and read to the pupils, who 
 were told to begin at a given signal and write as many 
 words as they could, using any words at all that they 
 might happen to think of. These words were written 
 in vertical columns, and at the end of fifteen minutes 
 the signal to stop was given and the papers were 
 collected. The tests were given in June three years 
 in succession in the same schools. 
 
 Following is a specimen table, slightly modified, 
 showing the kind of results obtained : 
 
THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SPELLING 45 
 North West School Fifteen-minute Test June, iSgy 
 
 TABLE I 
 
 
 
 
 Average No. of 
 
 Per cent Spelled 
 
 School 
 
 No. of Pupils 
 
 words per pupil 
 
 Correctly 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Year 
 
 Boys 
 
 Girls 
 
 Boys 
 
 Girls 
 
 Boys 
 
 Girls 
 
 8th 
 
 33 
 
 46 
 
 245 
 
 212 
 
 95-8 
 
 98 
 
 7th 
 
 26 
 
 28 
 
 239 
 
 186 
 
 95-2 
 
 97-4 
 
 6th 
 
 53 
 
 69 
 
 202 
 
 201 
 
 92.6 
 
 96.8 
 
 Stha 
 
 24 
 
 18 
 
 169 
 
 189 
 
 92.3 
 
 95.8 
 
 5th b 
 
 3« 
 
 31 
 
 163 
 
 132 
 
 94-3 
 
 95 
 
 4th a 
 
 23 
 
 23 
 
 138 
 
 154 
 
 90.1 
 
 94.2 
 
 4th 6 
 
 16 
 
 16 
 
 164 
 
 136 
 
 95-2 
 
 95-3 
 
 Sda 
 
 19 
 
 20 
 
 132 
 
 lor 
 
 91.4 
 
 94.4 
 
 Sdb 
 
 24 
 
 19 
 
 69 
 
 81 
 
 88.1 
 
 92 
 
 Totals 
 
 256 
 
 270 
 
 
 
 
 
 Average or 
 
 
 
 179 
 
 169 
 
 93-4 
 
 96.1 
 
 per cent 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 The inferences drawn by Mr. Cornman from a 
 series of tables like the above are briefly as follows : 
 
 1 The pupils in the elementary school increase 
 regularly from grade to grade in the quantity and 
 quality of their spontaneously written words, and in 
 accuracy of spelling. 
 
 2 The average results established by this method 
 are constant within small limits of variation and 
 may be utilized as normals to compare the work of 
 
46 ELEMENTARY WORD STUDY 
 
 individuals or of classes, under varying pedagogical 
 conditions. 
 
 3 The boys show a more rapid rate of movement 
 than girls, but the girls excel markedly in legibility 
 and correctness of spelling. 
 
 4 The difference of results in the sexes is ac- 
 counted for by the conclusion that the boys followed 
 the directions "to write as many words as they could." 
 They were more interested in the quantity than the 
 quality of their productions, while the girls fell short 
 of the quantity by their conscientious attention to 
 details of execution. These conclusions are sup- 
 ported by the fact that the boys had more illegible 
 and nonsense words than the girls, and the girls had 
 many more careful erasures and substitutions than 
 the boys. 
 
 5 The pedagogical corollary may be drawn here 
 that boys need training in attention to details, and 
 girls require stimulation to the accomplishment of 
 larger purposes. 
 
 6 The rate of movement and the accuracy of spell- 
 ing tend to vary together, and both are functions 
 of general mental capacity. 
 
 (b) Analysis of Errors The examination and 
 classification of errors of spelling found in the spon- 
 taneously written words of the children is probably 
 Mr. Cornman's most valuable contribution to the 
 
THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SPELLING 47 
 
 psychology of spelling. The scheme of classification 
 was worked out in the psychological laboratory of 
 the University of Pennsylvania by Professor Light- 
 ner Witmer, Dr. Oscar Gerson, and Mr. Oliver P. 
 Cornman. It was discovered by these investigators 
 that the characteristic spelling errors bear an essential 
 similarity to the phenomena of aphasia. The general 
 type of mental activity is analogous to the function 
 of a ganglion with its afferent and efferent nerve- 
 attachments. If there is any disorder in the afferent 
 nerve, or the sensory elements which convey the 
 impulse to the central organ, the ganglion cannot 
 perform its proper function. If the difficulty is in 
 the efferent nerve, or any of the elements involved in 
 motor expression, the ganglionic function is inter- 
 rupted. Now, aphasia is the total "inability or 
 partial disability of an individual to make outward 
 expression of thoughts, feelings, or other states of 
 consciousness, whether such disability result from 
 interference with the formation of the mental content 
 or the emission of it. "^ 
 
 "Spelling is a sensori-mot or habit which expresses 
 itself in every concrete instance of the spelling of a 
 word as a synthetized motorial reaction following, 
 at more or less remote temporal intervals, certain 
 
 ^ Collins, Joseph : * * The Faculty of Speech. ' ' Macmillan, New York, 
 1898. 
 
48 ELEMENTARY WORD STUDY 
 
 complicated sensory stimulations."^ Errors in or- 
 thography are therefore more instructive than cor- 
 rectly spelled words, because they may be viewed as a 
 mild form of aphasia. Mr. Cornman's plan of classi- 
 fication is based upon the aphasic conception of 
 spelling errors : 
 
 TABLE II 
 
 Analytic Classification of 2851 Spelling 
 
 Errors 
 
 
 
 (Modified) 
 
 
 
 
 
 Number of Pupils 
 
 Boys 
 
 251 
 
 Girls 251 
 
 
 1 
 
 Motor Inco -ordination 
 
 
 Total, 
 
 Boys and Girls 
 
 
 I Omission 
 
 
 
 409 
 
 
 
 2 Addition 
 
 
 
 183 
 
 
 
 3 Change 
 
 
 
 178 
 
 
 
 4 M and N 
 
 
 
 109 
 
 
 
 5 Transposition 
 
 
 
 193 
 
 
 
 6 Wrong letter doubled 
 
 
 
 18 
 
 
 
 7 Attraction (S-M) 
 
 
 
 150 
 
 
 
 8 Attraction (I-M) 
 
 
 
 48 
 
 
 
 Total 
 
 
 
 
 1288 
 
 II 
 
 9 Complication 
 
 
 
 
 125 
 
 III 
 
 Sensory Inco -ordination 
 
 (a) Phonetic 
 
 10 Standard 
 
 1 1 Local and Individual 
 
 (b) Confusing 
 
 12 ei, ie, or, er, etc. 
 
 13 Doubling 
 
 14 Non -Doubling 
 {c)i$ Unclassified 
 
 Total 
 
 Grand Total 
 
 
 
 233 
 364 
 
 460 
 
 145 
 151 
 
 85 
 
 1438 
 2851 
 
 ' Comman, p. 5. 
 
THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SPELLING 49 
 
 (c) Explanation oj Table II. 
 
 Motor Inco-ordination "All those classes of 
 errors whose commission seems to have been pre- 
 dominantly determined by defect in motor process." 
 
 1 Omission Where one or more links (letters 
 or syllables) in the chain of associations are dropped 
 out; e.g., hoase (hoarse), Main (Maine), tortose 
 (tortoise), sureying (surveying). 
 
 2 Addition "Where one or more supernu- 
 merary letters or syllables appear; e.g., wolfe (wolf), 
 tarble (table), pianono (piano)." 
 
 3 Change "Where a letter is so incompletely 
 formed as to constitute a different letter, or where 
 one letter is unaccountably substituted for another; 
 e.g., trumb (thumb), crach (crack), sise (six). " 
 
 4 M and N "The confusion of m and n for 
 each other is a special case of 3; e.g., swin (swim), 
 primpts (prints), Jin (Jim)." 
 
 5 Transposition Where letters or syllables are 
 transposed; e.g., aminal (animal), chian (chain), gril 
 (girl). 
 
 6 Wrong Letter Doubled This is an error 
 related to 5. The doubling is shifted to the wrong 
 letter; e.g., speel (spell), dool (doll). 
 
 7 Attraction (Sensori-motor) "A letter or ar- 
 rangement of letters in a previously written word calls 
 out a similar form where it should not occur; e.g., 
 
50 ELEMENTARY WORD STUDY 
 
 roap (rope) follows soap; does (clothes) follows 
 shoes; or a prominent letter in a word calls out an 
 incorrect repetition of that letter or a substitution 
 of it for a correct letter in a latter part or syllable of 
 the same word; e.g., Missiouri (Missouri), sunsut 
 (sunset)." 
 
 8 Attraction {Idea-Motor) ^^A letter or arrange- 
 ment of letters in a succeeding word calls out a wrong 
 form. Both words have been held together in idea, 
 but the order of subscription has not followed the 
 order of ideation; e.g., groop (group) precedes troop, 
 stateau (statue) precedes plateau." 
 
 9 Complication ^' Those errors which seem 
 to be due to a combination of defective functioning of 
 both sensorial recall and motorial expression." It 
 usually results in a mere jumble of letters; e.g., 
 amanole (animal), pienishel (peninsula). 
 
 Sensory Inco-ordination "All those classes 
 of errors whose commission seems to have been 
 determined by defect in sensory processes, the literal 
 association having been improperly formed; or, if 
 properly formed, forgotten or changed from the 
 conventional order." Of this class of errors there 
 are three kinds: Phonetic, Conjusing, Unclassified. 
 Of the phonetic class there are two sub-classes (lo 
 and ii) and of the confusing class there are three 
 sub-classes (12, 13, 14). 
 
THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SPELLING 51 
 
 10 Standard This is a case of phonetic sensory 
 inco-ordination ^Svhere the spelling is largely deter- 
 mined by phonetic analogies and on the basis of an 
 approximately standard pronunciation; e.g., Wens- 
 day (Wednesday), scolar (scholar), ismus (isthmus). " 
 
 11 Local and Individual A case of error be- 
 longing to the phonetic-sensory-inco-ordination class 
 "where a more or less faulty or incorrect pronuncia- 
 tion ... is the basis on which the attempt to 
 follow phonetic analogy is made; e.g., chimley 
 (chimney), hooken-later (hook and ladder), Henery 
 (Henry)." 
 
 12 Ei, ie; er, or, etc. Sensory inco-ordination 
 of the ''confusing" class has several varieties. One 
 arises from the confusion of ie and ei; tion, sion; 
 or, ar, er; ey, y; able, ible, etc.; e.^. grammer (gram- 
 mar), liley (lily), etc. 
 
 13 Doubling A second species of "confusion" 
 is using double letters for single ones; e.g., Hellen 
 (Helen), gass (gas), Pannama (Panama). 
 
 14 Non-Doubling The third kind of "con- 
 fusion" is the reverse of the preceding, omitting to 
 double a letter; e.g., galons (gallons), weding (wed- 
 ding). 
 
 15 Unclassified "Includes all those errors not 
 treated under any of the other classes; e.g., Scuylkill 
 (Schuylkill), handerchief (handkerchief), etc." 
 
52 ELEMENTARY WORD STUDY 
 
 (d) Inferences Drawn from the Study of Errors. 
 
 1 Boys show a larger percentage (54.8) of motorial 
 inco-ordination than girls (44.8). This excess of 
 error by defect of motor process on the part of boys 
 may be accounted for by the direction of their attention 
 to the completion of a word as a whole, while the 
 superiority of the girls may conversely be ascribed to 
 their care in the formation of each letter. The same 
 considerations account for the fact that boys write 
 more words than girls, but girls are better spellers. 
 
 2 The practical effect for good of the teaching 
 of spelling rules is a question of method, which itself 
 needs investigation. 
 
 3 There is no "best method '' of teaching spelling. 
 Educational progress has been seriously retarded 
 by the exploitation of panacea methods. Oral 
 spelling, written spelling, syllabic spelling, "photo- 
 graphic" spelling (spelling a word after it has been 
 photographed upon the mind by a single glance!), 
 have all been severally championed as possessing 
 exclusive pedagogic virtue. 
 
 4 "The wise teacher will acquaint herself with 
 as many methods and devices as possible, and change 
 from one to the other, in order to relieve the tedium 
 and meet the needs of individual children," some of 
 whom belong to the visual type, some to the auditory, 
 some to the motor, and some to the mixed. 
 
THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SPELLING 53 
 
 5 The difference in results in spelling would seem 
 to lie, not in specific method, but in effectiveness of 
 administration, i.e., the personal efficiency of the 
 teacher or principal. 
 
 6 The specific spelling lesson, taught, studied, 
 and recited in oral or written form, is but a trifling 
 proportion of the total stimulation afforded by the 
 environmental influences of school, home, and out- 
 door life to which the average pupil is subjected. 
 In school almost every lesson is contributory to spell- 
 ing, and every written or printed word which is seen 
 in street advertisement or is met with in home reading 
 registers its effect upon the mind of the pupil. 
 
 7 We may regard the complex act of writing 
 connected discourse (the ultimate goal of school 
 training in spelling) as an entire situation which 
 should be departed from in practice as little as pos- 
 sible. Hence the spelling lesson should most fre- 
 quently take the form of connected written discourse. 
 
 8 "These conclusions indicate the comparative 
 unimportance of the spelling drill as contributory 
 to accuracy in spelling. " 
 
IV 
 
 Conclusions Derived From the Nature, 
 Value, and Psychology of Spelling 
 
 From the Nature of Spelling 
 
 1 The process of spelling involves a knowledge 
 of the following elements: pronunciation, syllabica- 
 tion, capitalization, abbreviations, contractions, com- 
 pounds, plurals, possessives. 
 
 2 The necessity for spelling arises as soon as the 
 child is required to write words and sentences. This 
 locates the beginning of spelling in about the second 
 year of school. 
 
 3 On account of the oriental origin of our alpha- 
 bet, the Norman conquest of England, the variant 
 practice of authors and copyists, and the vagaries of 
 printers before the era of dictionaries, English orthog- 
 raphy is arbitrary; and therefore the speller is assisted 
 but slightly by reason and rules. 
 
 4 Spelling is not a culture study, but a necessary 
 art, which should be made automatic as soon as pos- 
 sible. 
 
 54 
 
CONCLUSIONS DERIVED 55 
 
 5 Spelling has an important conventional value. 
 One receives little credit for being a good speller, 
 but is in danger of losing position and prestige for 
 being a poor one. 
 
 From the Psychology of Spelling 
 
 6 The knowledge of the derivation of words is 
 advantageous in orthography as a means of fixing 
 the attention on word forms (Lay, Wyckoff). 
 
 7 According to Lay, the various ways of pre- 
 paring a spelling lesson rank in the following order, 
 beginning with the most efficacious : 
 
 (i) Copying (with low speaking). 
 
 (2) Spelling orally (loud). 
 
 (3) Seeing (with speech movement — reading.) 
 
 8 In orthography, script spelling books surpass 
 printed books: they are about twice as valuable as 
 material for sense perception (Lay). 
 
 9 Cultivation of correct pronunciation is of great 
 importance for learning orthography (Lay, Smedley). 
 
 10 As much as possible the sense of a word (ap- 
 perceptive aid), the pronunciation, and the writing 
 must be united, and the motor presentation in writing 
 is the determining factor (Lay, Shaw, etc.). 
 
 11 Dictation should be used in spelling only as a 
 test (Lay). 
 
S6 ELEMENTARY WORD STUDY 
 
 12 The so-called copying method, including 
 the writing down of sentences from memory, is useful 
 since it is most closely related to the orthographic 
 practice in common life. 
 
 13 The words for spelling should not be selected 
 according to a special system (as per spelling book), 
 but should be selected from the lessons of the pupil 
 (Lay). 
 
 14 The words presented to the child at first should 
 be, as far as possible, phonetic in their spelling, the 
 more unusual forms being reserved for later years 
 (Smedley). 
 
 15 The spelling of words is made automatic 
 through practice in writing them (Smedley). 
 
 16 The average child retains more from visual 
 than from auditory impressions (see No. 7). 
 
 17 The strong tendency of children to use the 
 lips in spelling to themselves is significant in sug- 
 gesting that the motor speech apparatus should be 
 turned to use in learning to spell (Shaw; see No. 7). 
 
 18 Spelling is a matter of association, and the 
 more clues there are for memory, the better are the 
 chances of recall (see No. 7). Hence as many senses 
 as possible should be employed in learning to spell. 
 
 19 Results in spelling are determined not so 
 much by the methods employed as by the ability of 
 those who use them (Rice); in other words, results 
 
CONCLUSIONS DERIVED 57 
 
 depend chiefly upon effectiveness of administration 
 (Cornman). 
 
 20 Ability to spell probably implies not a general 
 habit or power of observation, but a special ability 
 to notice small differences in words (Carmen). Mr. 
 Kratz is therefore wrong when he argues that "nature 
 study is tending to improve our spelling." 
 
 21 The pupils in the elementary school increase 
 regularly from grade to grade in the quantity and 
 quality of their spontaneously written words, and in 
 accuracy of spelling (Cornman). 
 
 22 Boys show a more rapid rate of movement 
 (in spontaneously written words) than girls, but 
 girls excel markedly in legibility and correctness of 
 spelling (Cornman). 
 
 23 The rate of movement and accuracy of spelling 
 tend to move together, and both are functions of 
 general mental capacity (Cornman). 
 
 24 Boys show a larger percentage (54.8) of 
 motorial inco-ordination (errors of spelling due to 
 motor defect) than girls (44.8). This excess of error 
 on the part of boys may be accounted for by the 
 direction of their attention to the completion of a word 
 as a whole, while the superiority of the girls may be 
 ascribed to their care in the formation of each letter 
 (Cornman). 
 
 25 The practical effect of the teaching of spelling 
 
58 ELEMENTARY WORD STUDY 
 
 rules is a question of method, which itself needs 
 investigation (Comman; see No. 3). 
 
 26 There is no "best method" of spelling (Com- 
 man). 
 
 27 The wise teacher will acquaint herself with as 
 many methods and devices as possible, and change 
 from one to the other, so as to adapt herself to the 
 various types of children; namely, the visual, the 
 auditory, the motor, and the mixed (Cornman). 
 
 28 The specific spelling lesson in school is but a 
 trifling proportion of the total stimulation afforded 
 by the environmental influences of school, home, and 
 outdoor life. In school every lesson is contributory to 
 spelling, and every written or printed word which is 
 seen in street advertisement or home reading registers 
 its effect upon the mind of the pupil (Cornman). 
 
 29 We may regard the complex act of writing 
 connected discourse (the ultimate goal of school 
 training in writing) as an entire situation which 
 should be departed from as little as possible. Hence 
 the spelling lesson should most frequently take the 
 form of connected written discourse (Cornman). 
 
 30 Evidence points to the comparative unimpor- 
 tance of the spelling drill as contributory to accuracy 
 in spelling (Rice, Cornman). Lay goes so far as to 
 say that the traditional spelling lesson should be 
 omitted and forbidden by law, on account of the time 
 wasted by it. 
 
V 
 
 Methods of Teaching Spelling 
 
 I The Selection of Words 
 
 The first question that the spelling problem pre- 
 sents is the selection of words to be spelled. "What 
 shall we spell?" must be answered before "How 
 shall we spell ?" This brings us at once face to face 
 with the question of the spelling book. 
 
 (i) Aeguments in Favor of the Spelling 
 Book The arguments in favor of the spelling 
 book are many. Here are a few : 
 
 (a) The spelling book is convenient and syste- 
 matic. It presents a ready-made list of words which, 
 it is assumed, the children ought to know. "In the 
 spelling book and its proper use seems- to rest the 
 hope of the coming generation of spellers. Yet too 
 many of the spelling books now in use are thrown 
 together on no recognizable principle and afford no 
 opportunity to the pupil to discover a relation between 
 his lesson and his own attainments. What is im- 
 portant is that he form the habit of spelling accurately 
 
6o ELEMENTARY WORD STUDY 
 
 the words that belong to his range of thought, and 
 that he continue the process when he advances to 
 higher studies. We may therefore urge that the 
 territory to be covered by the spelling course should 
 be narrowed as much as possible, and that words 
 that offer no difficulty and words that offer too great 
 difficuty should alike be weeded out. There remains, 
 then, a fundamental vocabulary which belongs to 
 everyone who speaks or writes at all. This vocabu- 
 lary is not capable of precise delimitation according 
 to the school grade of the pupil, but it can be roughly 
 determined by co-operative study on the part of 
 teachers." ^ 
 
 (&) The author of a spelling-book is more likely 
 to possess the intelligence necessary to insure a good 
 selection than the average teacher or principal. 
 
 {c) Words selected at random in the schoolroom 
 are unsystematic and not graded in the order of 
 difl&culty. 
 
 (d) Again, words selected at random to meet the 
 demands of the class-room are not likely to meet the 
 requirements of later life as well as those selected 
 after a discriminating consideration of all the words 
 in the language. 
 
 (e) To the foregoing arguments we may add, 
 
 *Wm. E. Mead, Wesleyan University, Middletown, Conn., on "Is 
 Spelling a Lost Art?" in Educational Review, Vol. 19, p. 49. 
 
METHODS OF TEACHING SPELLING 6i 
 
 finally, that the children, in copying words into their 
 note-books, frequently make mistakes, and thus 
 have the wrong form impressed upon the memory. 
 Furthermore, this copying consumes no small 
 amount of time which might be more profitably 
 employed. 
 
 (2) Arguments Against the Spelling Book 
 Some of the objections against the spelling book are 
 the following: 
 
 (a) The first is that it violates the principle of 
 utility. A list of words selected for the average 
 child does not satisfy the needs of any child. "I 
 look upon the whole business of spelling, as generally 
 conducted, to be an enormous waste of time, labor, 
 and patience — an unsatisfactory method of gaining 
 a very important accomplishment. . . . The 
 time for learning to spell words correctly is when 
 they are first used and represented to the eye in 
 print. '' ^ ''In English, as in everything else, children 
 must be taught the rudiments first. Not that I 
 would replace the spelling book in its former com- 
 manding position in the schools, and compel boys 
 and girls to learn long lists of words which they 
 would have no occasion to use; but everyone should 
 be able to spell the words that are often on his lips, 
 
 ' Zalmon Richards, Washington, D. C: "The English Language in 
 
 Elementary Schools," N. E. A., '77, p. 175. 
 
62 ELEMENTARY WORD STUDY 
 
 or often under his eye in the books he studies or 
 reads. "^ 
 
 (b) Such a list also violates the principle of in- 
 terest. It is, at least, an open question whether 
 words should be taught with a view to future use or 
 immediate use. The pupil is not much interested 
 in what he will need ten or twenty years hence. 
 But he is interested in words that grow out of his 
 daily work, that enable him to master the contents 
 of the course of study. '' It is very doubtful whether 
 the modem spelling book, vv^ith its barren list of 
 words made up on the principle of similarity of sound, 
 is not the greatest foe of good spelling. The really 
 necessary thing is to acquire the habit of taking in 
 with the eye the correct spelling of each new word 
 
 as it is presented, and preserving the image in the 
 mind. "2 
 
 (c) Most of the spelling books have many words 
 that it is not worth while to spell, either because 
 they present no difficulty of spelling, or because they 
 do not occur in any of the lessons of the pupils. The 
 writer learned to spell caoutchouc many years ago in 
 the public school, and he has not once had occasion 
 to use the word since. He learned hundreds of other 
 
 ^^dams Sherman Hill: "Our English," Harper* s, New York, 1889, 
 p. 16. 
 
 ^ Wm. H. Maxwell: Educational Review, Vol. 3, p. 477. 
 
METHODS OF TEACHING SPELLING 63 
 
 words of like nature. If a child is properly trained 
 to use a dictionary he will look up such strange and 
 unusual words when he meets them in his reading. 
 Hence, their spelling, for the mere sake of drill and 
 a possible future contingency, seems to be a waste 
 of time. The ordinary spelling book has, at least, 
 two useless words for every useful one. 
 
 {d) Finally, it is held by one investigator that 
 script spelling books are about twice as valuable as 
 printed books for purposes of sense-perception. 
 (Prop. 8.) 
 
 (3) Principle of Selection In the light of the 
 preceding discussion it is possible to formulate several 
 principles which should guide the teacher in the 
 selection of spelling words. 
 
 {a) Familiar as to Meaning The first principle 
 is that the spelling words should be familiar as to 
 meaning. To require children to spell words they 
 cannot use is manifestly a waste of time; for the 
 only occasion we have for spelling at all is when we 
 employ words in written discourse. 
 
 (h) Some Difficulty of Spelling In the second 
 place, words in the spelling list should present some 
 difficulty of spelling. Their meaning may be already 
 known, and, therefore, no time need be devoted to 
 their definition and use. To this class belong such 
 words as which^ Tuesday, island, physician, giraffe, 
 
64 ELEMENTARY WORD STUDY 
 
 comby until, cigar, tough, knife. The meaning and 
 use list, on the other hand, contains words whose 
 meaning (which may be new to the children) must 
 be known in order to master the subject matter of 
 the grade. They may or may not present difficulties 
 of spelling. If they do, both the spelling and the 
 meaning must be taught. The class readers in 
 literature, geography, and science will supply many 
 spelling words. 
 
 Another prolific source for the supply of spelling 
 words, as well as for grammatical and dictation 
 exercises, is found in the class compositions. Here 
 the children reveal their peculiar infirmities, and 
 thus the teacher is able to prescribe the specific 
 remedies demanded by their case. Every time a 
 set of compositions is corrected a sheet of paper 
 should be at hand, on which are indicated the com- 
 mon errors of spelling, construction, punctuation, and 
 the like. The misspelled words should be added to 
 the spelling list, while other errors should be kept 
 for use during the grammar and dictation periods. 
 Of what use is it to a child to be able to spell the 
 hundreds of test words found in a printed speller, 
 if he cannot write a letter of ten lines without mis- 
 spelling a dozen ordinary words which he has occasion 
 to use? Many teachers take compositions home 
 and laboriously correct the numerous errors found 
 
METHODS OF TEACHING SPELLING 65 
 
 therein. This is all labor in vain unless an effort 
 is made in the spelling period and in other language 
 exercises to drill the pupils on the forms in which they 
 have failed. 
 
 {c) Phonetic Words at First One authority 
 who has investigated the psychology of spelling has 
 come to the conclusion that the words selected for the 
 child's first efforts in spelling should be phonetic in 
 character, the more unusual forms being reserved 
 for later years (Prop. 14). As this requirement 
 follows the law of sequence from the easy to the 
 difficult, its observance is in accordance with our 
 practice in other subjects. 
 
 2 Principles of Method 
 
 The various principles derived from the psychology 
 of spelling will now be discussed in so far as they 
 apply to methods of teaching spelling. 
 
 (i) English Spelling Arbitrary The first 
 important consideration with respect to English 
 spelling is that reason is of slight assistance in the 
 process. The present forms of words had their origin 
 in many cases in the vagaries of early printers and 
 copyists (Prop. 3). The consequence is that no 
 rules can be formulated that are not limited by 
 numerous and confusing exceptions. On account 
 
66 ELEMENTARY WORD STUDY 
 
 of these exceptions it is not safe to spell by rule, for 
 it is almost impossible to remember for any length 
 of time whether a given word one happens to be 
 writing is spelled according to the rule, or according 
 to the exception. One writer has well said that 
 spelling rules are useful chiefly to prove how useless 
 they are. It remains an open question, therefore, 
 whether it is economical and humane to burden 
 the memory of children with these rules, or whether 
 spelling is not equally successful without rules. 
 
 (2) Not a General Habit Spelling is pri- 
 marily a sensori-motor habit acquired, like any other 
 habit of this kind, by repeated motor reaction to 
 certain sensory stimuli. The motor images of sepa- 
 rate letters are learned in the first writing lessons. 
 The combination of the writing-movement images 
 of separate letters into motor images of syllables and 
 words is the germ of all instruction in spelling. This 
 is a very complicated process. Numerous sets of 
 muscles must act in harmony, in a definite sequence, 
 with definite strength, rapidity, and accuracy. As 
 Miss Carmen has shown (Prop. 20), the power to 
 spell is not a general habit, but a special ability. 
 We cannot improve spelling by introducing nature 
 study to train the observation, any more than we can 
 learn to ride a bicycle by practice in skating, or learn 
 percentage by drill on square root. In order to learn 
 
METHODS OF TEACHING SPELLING 67 
 
 anything we must exercise the particular mental 
 and physical functions involved in that thing, rather 
 than some other functions. In other words, the way 
 to learn to spell is to spell. 
 (3) Preparation of the Lesson. 
 
 (a) Pronunciation Cultivation of correct pro- 
 nunciation is of great importance in learning to 
 spell (Prop. 9). 
 
 (b) Syllabication It has been suggested that 
 the pronunciation of certain syllables in oral spelling 
 is an aid to the memory. In presenting the word in 
 written or printed form it may likewise be an advan- 
 tage to exhibit the syllables. This should be done 
 by widening the space between syllables rather than 
 by the use of the hyphen. The hyphen has a distinct 
 use in hyphenated compounds and in cases where 
 a part of a word is carried to the line below. To 
 use the hyphen in syllabication leads to confusion. 
 y (c) Derivation A knowledge of the derivation 
 of words is advantageous in orthography as a means 
 of fixing the attention on word forms (Prop. 6). In 
 fact, the Vv^iter depends far more on his knowledge 
 of derivation than on his knowledge of rules. The 
 key to the double r in Mediterranean is terra; the 
 double n in centennial comes from annus. Separate 
 is never troublesome after you know that it comes 
 from paratus. 
 
68 ELEMENTARY WORD STUDY 
 
 (d) Visual vs. Auditory Images Many authori- 
 ties agree in the conclusion that the average child 
 retains more from visual than from auditory impres- 
 sions (Prop. 1 6). In teaching little children to spell, 
 therefore, more is accomplished by exhibiting the 
 written or printed form of the word than by the oral 
 presentation of the spelling. Lay says the visual 
 image is three times as valuable as the sound image, 
 
 (e) The Copying Method After experiment 
 with many forms of presentation, Lay comes to the 
 conclusion that copying, with low speaking, is the 
 most efficacious. According to this plan the child 
 prepares his spelling lesson by copying the words and 
 saying over the letters softly to himself at the same 
 time. Next in order of merit is saying the letters 
 over to one's self in a loud voice without writing. 
 The third in order of merit is seeing the letters, with 
 speech movement (Prop. 7). The so-called copy- 
 ing method, including the writing down of sentences 
 from memory, is useful because it is most closely 
 related to the orthographic practice of common life 
 (Prop. 12). 
 
 (/) Motor Images 0} Speech The strong ten- 
 dency of children to use the lips in spelling to them- 
 selves is significant in suggesting that the motor 
 speech apparatus should be turned to use in learning 
 to spell (Prop. 17). In all the experiments recorded 
 
METHODS OF TEACHING SPELLING 69 
 
 by Lay, Shaw, Kratz, and others, the results of other 
 methods were uniformly better when accompanied 
 by speech than without the use of speech. 
 
 (g) Automatic Through Writing Since spelling 
 is essentially a motor habit, it is made automatic 
 through practice in writing (Prop. 15). The only 
 use we make of spelling is when we are writing. 
 
 (h) Combination 0} Senses It is evident from 
 the preceding discussion that a combination of senses 
 in learning to spell is more effective than the use of 
 any single sense. The sight is more valuable than 
 hearing; the motor image of speaking and the motor 
 image of writing are very important. Why not com- 
 bine all these elements, if possible, in a single process ? 
 Spelling is a matter, psychologically, of association, 
 and the more clues there are for memory, the better 
 are the chances of recall (Prop. 18). 
 
 (i) Connected Discourse We may regard the 
 complex act of writing connected discourse as an 
 entire situation which should be departed from as 
 little as possible. Hence the spelling lesson should 
 most frequently take the form of connected written 
 discourse (Prop. 29). "Spelling can be best taught 
 from the sentence, which gives to words meaning and 
 life. Greater stress should be laid upon the written 
 expression of thoughts, either from dictation, or 
 from memory, or as original spelling; and the pupil's 
 
70 ELEMENTARY WORD STUDY 
 
 vocabulary should be extended in such direction as to 
 enable him to use, spell and write words seen or 
 required in his daily exercise. " ^ 
 
 This procedure has the added advantage of en- 
 abling us to teach the meaning and use of words 
 (along with spelling), by the natural or inductive 
 method. By copying, studying, and writing from 
 dictation selections from the best authors, the pupil 
 learns meanings from the context and at the same 
 time increases the power to put his own thoughts 
 into clear and pertinent language. A number of 
 spelling books embodying this principle have been 
 published. The following exercise is quoted from 
 one of these : ^ 
 
 ^^The first set of teeth, twenty in number, is de- 
 veloped between the ages of six months and three 
 years. The second, or permanent set, commences 
 to replace the first at the age of six or seven. The 
 names of the teeth are incisors, canines, bicuspids, 
 molars, or grinders. The wisdom teeth do not 
 usually appear until the twenty-first year of life. " 
 
 Another dictation-spellers presents the lesson 
 in the form of a quotation from a standard author. 
 
 * Edgar A. Singer, Philadelphia: "What Constitutes a Practical 
 Course of Study?" N. E. A., '80, p. 120. 
 
 ^ Campbell's Reading Speller. Taintor Bros. & Co., New York, 188 j!. 
 
 ^"Dictation Day by Day." Kate Van Wagenen. Macmillan, 
 New York, 1909. 
 
METHODS OF TEACHING SPELLING 71 
 
 (y) No "Best Method'' There is no ''best 
 method" of teaching spelling (Prop. 26). The wise 
 teacher will acquaint herself with as many methods 
 and devices as possible, and change from one to the 
 other, so. as to adapt herself to the various types of 
 children; to wit, the visual, the auditory, the motor, 
 and the mixed (Prop. 27). 
 
 (k) Homonyms Professor Burnham ^ has shown 
 that in teaching spelling it is important to avoid 
 interference of association. The process of writing 
 words involves a very complicated set of mental and 
 physical activities, such as concepts, images of form, 
 images of movement, conflicts, motives, decisions, 
 etc., and, therefore, interference is liable to occur. 
 Examples are the noun advice, and the verb advise; 
 principle, a rule of conduct, and principal, a person. 
 In the teaching of homonyms, it is usual to present 
 them simultaneously. The result is likely to be 
 interference of association. The similarities, which 
 are supposed to assist the memory, are in reality a 
 source of confusion. It is recommended, therefore, 
 that each one of a pair of homonyms be presented 
 apart from the other, so that the peculiar spelling 
 may be thoroughly associated with the meaning. 
 
 (4) The Test After the lesson has been pre- 
 
 * Pedagogical Seminary ^Yol. 13, p. 439: "The Hygiene and Psychol- 
 ogy of Spelling." 
 
7^ ELEMENTARY WORD STUDY 
 
 pared, either in class, with or without the teacher's 
 assistance, or at home, it is usual to test the pupil to 
 find out whether he can spell the words he studied. 
 The usual form of the test is the dictation; and this 
 may consist of column spelling or sentence writing. 
 Mr. Cornman has found that the smallest average 
 variation in spelling tests appears in written language. 
 Lists of test words give more variable results, the 
 widest variation being brought out by the examina- 
 tion papers officially prescribed as a test for the 
 promotion of pupils. This is easily accounted for 
 by the fact that such test words are arbitrarily selected 
 by the examiner, sitting at a distance, without refer- 
 ence to the particular words that may have been 
 taught in the different schools. It is an assumption 
 that a pupil of a given age ought to know the words 
 specified. If the words happen to belong to the 
 pupil's vocabulary, he may be able to spell them; if 
 they are entirely new, he guesses at their spelling; 
 and as English spelling is without law and seldom 
 phonetic, he generally guesses wrong. In view of 
 the fact that arbitrarily selected exercises in dictation 
 and spelling introduce the very variable factor of the 
 judgment of the examiner, Mr. Cornman has come 
 to the conclusion that a method of basing the estima- 
 tion of proficiency in spelling upon the pupil's written 
 language would be a more equitable way of meeting 
 
METHODS OF TEACHING SPELLING 73 
 
 the demand for examination data. The objection 
 to dictation, however, would not hold in the case of a 
 teacher or principal dictating words previously 
 assigned for spelling. But the spelling in the pupil's 
 original composition is not altogether a safe guide 
 for the estimation of his spelling ability, for the reason 
 that he avoids spelling difficulties by substituting 
 words which he can spell. ^ 
 
 {a) Teaching and Testing A confusion exists 
 among teachers as to the functions of teaching and 
 testing. Much of so-called teaching is nothing but 
 testing. Both of these processes are indispensable, 
 but we cannot substitute one for the other. You 
 teach a pupil when you give him a method of ac- 
 quiring knowledge or power or skill ; when you help 
 him to memorize, or to think, or to plan, or to con- 
 struct. You test him when you try to find out how 
 well he has succeeded in his learning, how much he 
 remembers, how accurately he thinks, or how intelli- 
 gently he plans and constructs. When a teacher 
 writes ten problems on the board, and then sits back 
 in his chair while the class solve the problems, he is 
 
 ^ The following anecdote is an illustration of the point: 
 
 A Good Substitute — Jimmy had his weak points as an example of 
 the result of modem educational methods, but his brain was of excellent 
 quality. 
 
 When the teacher looked at him and inquired, coldly, "What is a 
 synonym, James ? " he was ready with his answer. 
 
 "It's a word that you can use when you don't know how to spell the one 
 you thought of first, " he replied, cheerfully. 
 
74 ELEMENTARY WORD STUDY 
 
 not teaching, but testing the knowledge and skill of 
 the children. 
 
 So, when one dictates a column of words to be 
 spelled, he is merely testing, not teaching. What is 
 called ^^ hearing lessons'^ is usually testing what has 
 been learned out of a book. Composition writing, 
 under the guidance of a skillful teacher, is teaching. 
 If the subject has been simply assigned and the chil- 
 dren do all the work without suggestion or plan from 
 the teacher, there is manifestly no teaching in the 
 exercise. Dictation is a method of testing how well 
 certain formal elements of written language have been 
 mastered by the pupils. To develop or explain the 
 meaning of a word is teaching; using the word in an 
 original sentence is a test to see whether the meaning 
 is properly understood by the pupil. The younger 
 the child the more teaching and the less testing is 
 required. In the first years of school life the pupil 
 does so little for himself, especially in graded schools, 
 that all the necessary testing may be done simul- 
 taneously with the teaching. As the pupil grows 
 older he should also grow in self-dependence. The 
 teaching partakes more and more of suggestion, and 
 planning, and guiding, while the pupil is compelled 
 to work out his own results. Hence, the test is neces- 
 sary that we may know how faithful and successful 
 he has been in accomplishing the task set for him. 
 
METHODS OF TEACHING SPELLING 75 
 
 In the secondary school this self-reliance becomes 
 still more prominent, the pupil being compelled to do 
 a larger share of the work at home, and thus each 
 recitation is largely a test. 
 
 In collegiate and university instruction, the sug- 
 gestive and guiding phase of teaching becomes still 
 more prominent. The professor lectures; then the 
 pupil is sent to the library and the laboratory, where 
 he must work out his own salvation. The results 
 are shown in the form of notebooks, themes, theses, 
 and the like, all of which are methods of testing the 
 acquisition of knowledge and power. 
 
 The test is not to be despised at any stage. It is 
 to teaching what reaping is to sowing. He who 
 teaches and never tests cannot possibly know whether 
 his sowing ever brings forth fruit. He who tests and 
 never teaches is reaping where he has not sown, 
 and is sure to come to grief. 
 
 (5) Spelling a Sign of General Pedagogical 
 Health In order to ascertain what relation 
 exists between the specific spelling drill and accuracy 
 of spelling, Mr. Cornman decided to abandon the 
 use of the spelling book and home spelling lessons 
 in the Northwest School in Philadelphia, of which 
 he was principal, and also to omit from the school 
 program the period which had been devoted to spell- 
 ing. All teaching in spelling was done incidentally. 
 
 -^ 
 
76 ELEMENTARY WORD STUDY 
 
 This does not mean that spelling was totally ne- 
 glected. ^* Words liable to be misspelled were placed 
 conspicuously before the pupils when they were en- 
 gaged upon an exercise in which the words were likely 
 to occur; pupils were taught to appeal, when in doubt, 
 to the teacher and to the dictionary, and mistakes 
 in written work were corrected as far as possible. " 
 
 By numerous elaborate and varied tests the North- 
 west School was compared during a period of three 
 years with the schools where the regular spelling 
 drill prevailed. Mr. Cornman's inferences from 
 this study are, briefly, as follows: 
 
 {a) The spelling result is a function of the general 
 pedagogical health of the class. Given a class 
 making fair progress in its general work, and its 
 spelling result, as measured by a composition testj 
 may be predicted with scientific accuracy, no matter 
 w^hat the daily procedure in spelling may have been. 
 
 (b) The Northwest School, during the three 
 years in which the specific spelling drill was sus- 
 pended, neither gained nor lost appreciably in spelling 
 proficiency. 
 
 (c) The percentage of correctness of spelling for 
 pupils of any school grade is a fairly constant quantity 
 for the grade, whether the basis of comparison be 
 written connected discourse or spontaneously written 
 words. 
 
METHODS OF TEACHING SPELLING 77 
 
 {d) The degree of general mental development, 
 as measured by the school grade of the pupil, is the 
 most important factor in accuracy of spelling. 
 
 (6) Individual Differences The principle 
 stated in the preceding paragraph is modified by the 
 fact that children differ in their natural ability to 
 spell as they differ in other talents. Some are fond 
 of mathematics and find no difiQculty in mastering 
 it; others acquire a knowledge of mathematics only 
 after the most discouraging and most laborious 
 efforts. Professor Thorndyke^ presents the fol- 
 lowing as an example of differences in spelling 
 ability between two pupils in same grade and 
 class ; 
 
 A 
 
 B 
 
 greatful 
 
 gratful 
 
 elegant 
 
 eleagent 
 
 present 
 
 present 
 
 patience 
 
 paisionce 
 
 succeed 
 
 suckseed 
 
 severe 
 
 su'Tvere 
 
 accident 
 
 axadent 
 
 sometimes 
 
 sometimes 
 
 sensible 
 
 sensible 
 
 business 
 
 biusness 
 
 answer 
 
 anser 
 
 sweeping 
 
 swepinge 
 
 properly 
 
 prooling 
 
 * "The Principles of Teaching," E. L. Thomdyke. A. G. Sailer, 
 New York, 1906. 
 
78 ELEMENTARY WORD STUDY 
 
 improvement 
 
 improvement 
 
 fatiguing 
 
 fetging 
 
 anxious 
 
 anxchus 
 
 appreciate 
 
 appresheating 
 
 assure 
 
 ashure 
 
 imagine 
 
 amagen 
 
 praise 
 
 prasy 
 
 In general, this principle of individual difference 
 may be illustrated by saying that if the weakest 
 pupil in the class can do five problems in ten minutes 
 the best pupil will do at least twenty. While the 
 poorest speller picks out fourteen mispelled words 
 in a given passage, the best pupil picks out ninety- 
 four. In a word, the best pupil in a class will have 
 in any one trait an ability from two to five times as 
 great as the poorest pupil. 
 
 (7) Spelling Drill The investigations of 
 Rice and Cornman point to the comparative unim- 
 portance of the spelling drill as contributory to 
 accuracy in spelling. Lay goes so far as to say that 
 the traditional spelling lesson should be omitted 
 and even forbidden by lav/, on account of the time 
 wasted by it (Prop. 30). Cornman does not go so 
 far as Lay in his attack upon the spelling drill, as we 
 see by the following paragraph: 
 
 "To remain strictly within the evidence gathered 
 •by this investigation, it must be admitted that there 
 may be teachers of surpassing ability who can obtain 
 
METHODS OF TEACHING SPELLING 79 
 
 more than the average results by the method of the 
 specific spelling drill, and other teachers of meaner 
 ability who need the drill to bring their pupils up 
 to the level of this average result. " 
 
 Rice's conclusion with reference to the uselessness 
 of the spelling lesson is modified by the fact that he 
 has, since his investigation, written a series of spelling 
 books for the elementary school. 
 
 {a) Incidental Spelling The Committee of Ten 
 says bluntly that ''spelling should be learned inci- 
 dentally, in connection with every subject studied, 
 and not from a spelling book." The Committee 
 of Fifteen recommends ''that selected lists of words 
 difficult to spell be made from the reading lessons 
 and mastered by frequent writing and oral spelling 
 during the fourth, fifth, and sixth years. " 
 
 The question here arises, \Vhat is meant by "in- 
 cidental spelling?" According to the dictionary, 
 incidentally means "without intention, casually, 
 collaterally, beside the main design. " The writer's 
 experience of many years in the office of principal 
 and of superintendent has convinced him that inci- 
 dental teaching in the sense of "without intention, 
 casually," is equivalent to no teaching. A class of 
 necessity has a definite program, wherein a certain 
 number of minutes are devoted to this, that, and the 
 other exercise. Incidentals have no definite time 
 
8o ELEMENTARY WORD STUDY 
 
 allowance, consequently the attention they receive is 
 at best spasmodic, desultory, haphazard. Under 
 such circumstances it is idle to expect satisfactory re- 
 sults-. In a school of fifty classes, perhaps twenty per 
 cent of the children would learn to spell under such 
 a system; the rest would not. And on examination 
 it would doubtless be found that the small number 
 of teachers who are successful do their work sys- 
 tematically rather than incidentally. 
 
 Incidentally has for one of its meanings "collater- 
 ally. " This is probably the sense in which the word 
 is usually employed in connection with spelling. 
 From this point of view incidental spelling would 
 mean spelling in correlation with other subjects of 
 the course of study, such as composition, reading, 
 geography, history, and science. The principle of 
 correlation is an important one, and is applicable 
 to all school work. But it has its limitations. Com- 
 plete correlation is liable to result in superficial and 
 vague impressions ; and this defect can only be cured 
 by a certain amount of isolation. My opinion is 
 that spelling should appear as spelling on the teacher's 
 program and in the child's consciousness. 
 
 A further objection to incidental spelling is the 
 fact that by this plan the child learns to spell only 
 the words employed in the course of study. It 
 makes no provision for the development of a general 
 
METHODS OF TEACHING SPELLING 8i 
 
 vocabulary adapted to the needs of life after school 
 days are over. 
 
 There is still further objection to the proposal to 
 teach spelling only in connection with other subjects. 
 Children do not successfully attend to more than 
 one thing at a time. If they undertake to keep 
 several subjects under observation at once, there is 
 alternation of attention, accompanied by more or 
 less confusion of impression, and consequent weak- 
 ness of memory and lack of vital reaction. It is 
 asserted that children spell just as well in schools 
 where no separate spelling drills are conducted as in 
 schools where such drills are had. Spelling lessons 
 are therefore declared to be a waste of time and a 
 mortal pedagogical sin. On this point I quote a very 
 competent psychologist:^ 
 
 "The wide application of the doctrine of 'in- 
 cidental learning' is a case in point. [He is speaking 
 of the difference between habit formation and judg- 
 ment.] This doctrine assumed that 'content' and 
 'form' could be acquired simultaneously; or, to put 
 it in another way, that form could be acquired in- 
 cidentally while attention is fixed upon 'thought' 
 or 'content.' This assumption is a direct violation 
 of the law of habit; the child can never become 
 proficient in form without many distinct acts of 
 
 ' Bagley: "The Educative Process," p. 123. Macmillan, 1905. 
 
82 ELEMENTARY WORD STUDY 
 
 attention dealing with form alone. It may be that 
 the child will learn to spell without spelling lessons as 
 such; that he will 'absorb' the form of written and 
 printed words while he is reading interesting stories 
 or writing essays and compositions. But if this is 
 ever true, it is because attention has been divided, 
 now being concentrated upon the form, now upon the 
 content, and flitting from one to the other as the 
 exigencies of the task have demanded. " 
 
 (h) Every Lesson a Spelling Lesson It is un- 
 doubtedly true that the specific spelling lesson in 
 school is but a trifling proportion of the total stimu- 
 lation offered by the environmental influences of 
 school, home, and outdoor life. Every lesson is 
 contributory in some degree to spelling, even if no 
 mention be made of the subject. Every written or 
 printed word which is seen in street advertisements 
 or home reading registers its effect upon the mind 
 of the pupil (Prop. 28). Moreover, even where 
 a daily spelling lesson as such is conducted, some 
 attention should be paid to orthography in all 
 branches. It is not amiss to ask pupils to spell the 
 new words with which they meet in arithmetic, geo- 
 graphy, grammar, history, science, and reading. 
 In some schools where the departmental system of 
 teaching is employed, it has been the practice to 
 hold each teacher responsible for the spelling of the 
 
METHODS OF TEACHING SPELLING 83 
 
 terms that occur in the subject taught by him. Thus 
 every teacher becomes a spelling teacher, and the 
 pupil is not allowed to grow careless in his spelling 
 in any part of his school work. 
 
 (c) The Dictionary Habit One essential ele- 
 ment in the spelling equipment to which the pupil 
 is entitled when he graduates from an elementary 
 school is the dictionary habit, i.e., the habit of going 
 to the dictionary when he is in doubt as to any feature 
 of word study, be it spelling, punctuation, syllabica- 
 tion, derivation, or what not. In order to develop 
 such a habit, systematic drills are necessary. From 
 the beginning of the sixth year, every pupil should 
 possess a dictionary; which should be on his desk 
 each school day. In order that the dictionary may 
 be of use as a standard of pronunciation, the pupil 
 must be thoroughly familiar with the meaning of 
 diacritical marks. I have frequently had children 
 copy the pronunciation upon the board, with the 
 marks employed in the dictionary, and even then 
 they were unable to pronounce the word. 
 
 The important point to be emphasized in this 
 connection is the demand that a habit of relying upon 
 the dictionary to resolve doubts shall be formed. 
 Many devices that serve to stimulate interest in 
 dictionary work may be employed. Exercises of 
 this sort must never be allowed to become mechanical 
 
84 ELEMENTARY WORD STUDY 
 
 grinds. It would be, for instance, a crime for a 
 teacher to assign so many words as a home-lesson, 
 the children being required to copy the definitions 
 out of a dictionary into a note-book. Occasionally 
 word-hunting may take the form of a game. A 
 word is given, and the object is to see who can find 
 it in the dictionary first. Or a word may be mispro- 
 nounced, as arctic, for instance, and the teacher 
 says, "Get your dictionaries; when you are prepared 
 to give me the correct pronunciation, stand. " Then, 
 again, the game may be to find out how many words 
 can be looked up in a given time, or how long it will 
 take to look up a given number of words. 
 
 By the time the pupil gets into the highest ele- 
 mentary grades and into the high school he should 
 have the habit of requiring every strange word to 
 give an account of itself before he passes it. 
 
 (8) Spelling and Supervision Results in 
 spelling are determined not so much by the methods 
 employed as by the ability of those who use them; 
 that is, results in spelling as well as in other subjects, 
 depend largely upon effectiveness of administration 
 (Prop. 19.) Every supervisor of school work knows 
 that the quality of the product in any study depends 
 more upon the skill of the teacher than the time given 
 to the subject. One finds schools where the usual 
 amount of time is allotted to reading, yet the children 
 
METHODS OF TEACHING SPELLING 85 
 
 cannot read. Unless the subject be intelligently 
 supervised the results will be poor, in spite of the 
 daily reading lesson. The same is true of spelling. 
 A thoroughly competent teacher will accomplish 
 more in ten minutes than a novice can do in an hour. 
 
 Then again, good spelling is largely a matter of 
 standard. Probably the majority of teachers have 
 daily lessons in spelling without ever thinking to 
 inquire what degree of success they achieve. They 
 assign a stated number of new words each day to be 
 studied at home by the children. The next day 
 they dictate these words and correct the papers, taking 
 note of the errors of individual pupils, but not stop- 
 ping to calculate the percentage of correct results 
 for the entire class. They imagine they are doing 
 good work when, as a matter of fact, the results are 
 ridiculously poor. I have known many teachers 
 who, when told that thirty or forty per cent of the 
 words dictated to the class, were misspelled, thought 
 the results were quite satisfactory. The first requisite 
 of good spelling in a school is the establishment of a 
 high standard by the principal, and a persistent 
 endeavor on the part of every teacher to live up to the 
 standard. The average result of the daily spelling 
 drill in any class should be regarded as unsatisfactory 
 if it is less than from ninety to ninety-five per cent. 
 
 The following testimony of Superintendent C, N. 
 
86 ELEMENTARY WORD STUDY 
 
 Kendall^ as to the manner in which he improved 
 the spelling in New Haven, illustrates the relation of 
 supervision to spelling-efficiency. 
 
 (a) "Increased interest and attention on the part 
 of the teachers to the subject; there has been more 
 variety in the instruction than formerly. 
 
 (b) The teaching of common words only, and 
 not of the uncommon ones which the child would 
 never have occasion to write outside of school. 
 
 (c) The use of a spelling blank-book, in which 
 a daily record of the pupil's work for the year is kept, 
 thus affording opportunity for intelligent review of 
 the words the pupil needs to review." 
 
 When Mr. Cornman abolished the regular spelling 
 drill in the school for three years, the subject was by 
 no means neglected. If the truth were known, it 
 might even transpire that he and his teachers did 
 more to stimulate interest in spelling while they 
 taught it informally than they had done before. Dur- 
 ing these three years of experiment the subject must 
 ever have been present in Mr. Cornman's thoughts. 
 He may have been anxious to prove Dr. Rice's con- 
 tention, which had recently been published in the 
 Forum^ that results in spelling have nothing to do 
 with the amount and kind of drilling that is devoted 
 to the subject. While, therefore, the Northwest 
 
 * Educational Review, Vol. XIV, p. 409. 
 
METHODS OF TEACHING SPELLING 87 
 
 School had no spelling-period on the program, spell- 
 ing was probably more systematically and intelligently 
 taught and supervised than it ever had been 
 before. 
 
 3 The Time Allowance 
 
 Rice and Cornman conclude that the amount of 
 time devoted to the specific spelling drill bears no 
 discoverable relation to the result. In the nineteen 
 cities whose spelling was tested by Rice, the time 
 varied from six to fifty minutes a day. The results 
 were no better where fifty minutes were employed, 
 than where only six were used. He thinks any 
 school that devotes more than fifteen minutes a day 
 to spelling is wasting time. If this be so, what shall 
 we say of the conditions described in the following 
 paragraph, written in 1877 ? 
 
 ''It has been calculated that on an average an 
 hour a day, for ten years, between six and sixteen, is 
 spent upon this accomplishment. Of what use can 
 spelling be to one who cannot use the words which 
 he has learned to spell ? If the first elements of spell- 
 ing have been properly taught, a student's spelling 
 will keep pace with his reading; he can probably 
 spell all the words he can use intelligently, and what 
 need has he of more?"^ 
 
 * President M. A. Newell, N. E. A., Louisville, Ky., 1877, P- ^<^' 
 
88 ELEMENTARY WORD STUDlt 
 
 The Committee of Fifteen recommends four 
 periods a week for spelling during the fourth, fifth, 
 and sixth years, aggregating eighty minutes in the 
 fourth year, and one hundred minutes in the fifth and 
 sixth years. In a recent investigation of spelling 
 in my own district, I discovered that the average 
 time in minutes devoted to word study by my twenty- 
 five schools is as follows : 
 
 Subject Year Average 
 
 1-2345678 
 
 Spelling 100 90 70 60 50 40 40 = 60 
 
 Meaning and Use 25 25 25 25 30 = 25 
 
 Derivation 20 20 20 20 = 20 
 
 Total 100 90 95 105 95 85 90 = 105 
 
 These averages fall within the limits set by Rice 
 and the Committee of Fifteen so far as the length of 
 the daily period is concerned. But the total school 
 time devoted to spelling is far greater in the New 
 York schools than in the Fifteen's program. We be- 
 gin to spell in the second year and continue for seven 
 years. The Committee of Fifteen begins in the 
 fourth year and ends in the sixth. My own opinion 
 is that spelling should not only continue through 
 the seventh and eighth years, where the pupil meets 
 with so many new words which he must learn to use, 
 but that even in the high school the need for some 
 sort of spelling exercises still exists. 
 
VI 
 
 The Meaning and Use of Words 
 
 Words are the soul's ambassadors, who go 
 Abroad upon her errands to and fro; 
 They are the sole expounders of the mind, 
 And correspondence keep 'twixt all mankind. 
 
 — James Howell 
 
 I The Function of Words 
 
 Someone has defined reading as the conversion 
 of sights into sounds. This statement is very wide 
 of the whole truth. So long as a word calls up a 
 sound as its only response it is an end in itself, and 
 does not serve its highest purpose as a link in the 
 chain of indirect reactions. *^ Words are of value 
 only when they arouse something more than articula- 
 tions; they must arouse ulitmately reactions appro- 
 priate to their remoter meanings."^ The immediate 
 function of words is to carry some idea or emotion. 
 In this sense they are ambassadors of the mind, that 
 go "abroad upon her errands to and fro." They 
 bring to us of the present, not merely the thoughts 
 
 'Judd: "Genetic Psychology for Teachers," p. 262. Appleton, 
 J^ew York, 1903. 
 
 89 
 
90 ELEMENTARY WORD STUDY 
 
 of our contemporaries, but messages of days long 
 past, so that what Moses has done and Socrates has 
 thought we may know through these expounders of 
 the mind. The culture function of education is to 
 bring the child into full possession of language in 
 order that he may get wisdom from the experiences 
 of others. The word is the key to this wisdom. 
 ''Perhaps," says LowelP, ''it will be found that 
 the telephone, of which we are so proud, cannot 
 carry human speech so far as Homer and Plato 
 have contrived to carry it with their simpler appli- 
 
 ances." 
 
 The ultimate function of the word is to beget some 
 appropriate reaction. The final destination of every 
 thought and emotion carried by words is expression 
 through one or another of the several modes at our 
 command. "No truth, however abstract, is ever 
 perceived, that will not probably at some time in- 
 fluence our earthly action. You must remember 
 that, when I talk of action here, I mean action in the 
 widest sense. I mean speech, I mean writing, I 
 mean yeses and noes, and tendencies 'from' things, 
 and tendencies 'toward' things, and emotional deter- 
 minations ; and I mean them in the future as well as 
 in the immediate present. As I talk here, and you 
 listen, it might seem as if no action followed. You 
 
 ^ Essay on Gray. 
 
MEANING AND USE OF WORDS 91 
 
 might call it a purely theoretic process, with no 
 practical result. But it must have a practical result. 
 it cannot take place at all and leave your conduct 
 unaffected. #fr not to-day, then on some far future 
 day, you wT answer some question differently by 
 reason of what you are thinking now. Some of you 
 will be led by my words into new veins of inquiry, into 
 reading special books. These will develop your 
 opinion, whether for or against. That opinion will 
 in turn be expressed, will receive criticism from 
 others in your environment, and will affect your 
 standing in their eyes. We cannot escape our 
 destiny."^ 
 
 Sometimes the intermediate phase of thought, 
 emotion, judgment, or reflection is almost entirely 
 eliminated, and the word becomes the direct cue to 
 an action. Huxley has a story which well illustrates 
 this point. A practical joker, seeing a discharged 
 veteran carrying home his dinner, suddenly called 
 out, ''Attention!" whereupon the m.an instantly 
 brought his hands down, and lost his mutton and 
 potatoes in the gutter. £The drill had been thorough 
 and its effect had become embodied in the man's 
 nervous structure. ^ 
 
 'William James: "Talks to Teachers," p. 26. Holt & Co., New 
 York, 1899. 
 
 2 "Elementary Lessons in Physiology," Lesson XII. 
 
92 ELEMENTARY WORD STUDY 
 
 2 The Nature of Definition 
 
 A very competent authority gives the following 
 exposition of the process of finding the content of 
 words :^ 
 
 "The natural way of discovering the meaning of a 
 word in our language is the method of induction. 
 We hear a word, e.g., oppression, repeated, in a 
 certain context, in such a way as to give us, as we 
 think, some approximate notion of its meaning, say, 
 violence; then we hear it again in a different context, 
 and perceive that it cannot mean exactly violence; 
 it seems to mean injustice; but again some further 
 mention of the word makes it evident that though 
 oppression is always unjust, yet it is not identical with 
 injustice. If we live in a society where the word is 
 often and correctly used, or if we read the works of 
 accurate authors, we shall in course of time arrive 
 at its exact meaning. This process of rejection may 
 be technically called elimination. The process by 
 which, by introducing the different instances in which 
 a word occurs, we arrive at the meaning which the 
 word has in every instance, is called ^The Method 
 of Induction. ' " 
 
 It is evident from the above analysis that defini^ 
 tions which are inductively inferred from the use 
 
 * " English Lessons for English People, " Edwin A. Aljbott and J. R. 
 Sccley, London, 1883. 
 
MEANING AND USE OF WORDS 93 
 
 of terms are at first inaccurate. The error consists 
 in making the connotation too large. The correc- 
 tion consists in limiting the meaning. Now, the 
 Latin definere means to limit or fix the boundary. 
 The mental process of definition, therefore, is the pro- 
 gressive elimination of qualities that do not belong to 
 a concept. 
 
 (i) Illustration A young child plays with a 
 sheep dog. He hears others call this thing a dog. 
 A dog then for him has the following attributes: 
 
 {a) Runs about. 
 
 {h) Has four legs. 
 
 (c) Barks. 
 
 {d) Is larger than himself. 
 
 (e) Has a brownish coat. 
 
 'Modified from Dexter and Garlick's "Psychology in the School- 
 room." Longmans, 1898. 
 
94 ELEMENTARY WORD STUDY 
 
 The term at this stage is represented by the square 
 "a" in the diagram. He next sees a retriever, 
 while the sheep-dog is present. He hears the re- 
 triever called "dog" and notes that it 
 
 (a) Runs about. 
 
 (b) Has four legs. 
 {c) Barks. 
 
 {d) Is larger than himself. 
 {e) Has a black coat. 
 
 There is a temporary confusion, and the result that 
 item {e) is eliminated, and the square "&" repre- 
 sents "dog" at the second stage of development. 
 
 The child now sees a spaniel, hears it called "dog, " 
 and notes that it 
 
 {a) Runs about. 
 
 {h) Has four legs. 
 
 {c) Barks. 
 
 {d) Is smaller than himself. 
 
 There is confusion again, with a resulting elimina- 
 tion of item (d), and the square "c" represents "dog" 
 at the third stage. 
 
MEANING AND USE OF WORDS 95 
 3 Relation of Language-Teaching to Knowledge-Teaching 
 
 What do we imply when we speak of teaching the 
 meaning of words? Alexander Bain answers this 
 question in the following passage : 
 
 "Knowledge of things should always keep ahead of the knowledge 
 of terms. ^ The more we inquire into the early teaching of language 
 the more shall we find it to be in great part the teaching of knowledge 
 under difficulties. The child is soon brought into the situation of hav- 
 ing to comprehend consecutive speech, many parts of which are devoid 
 of meaning. But to explain the words that are blank to the mind, we 
 have first to bring before the view things that have hitherto been en- 
 tirely unknown. We have to communicate a knowledge lesson, sup- 
 plemented by a verbal lesson, the first being by far the more serious of 
 the two. If the teacher can but compass the knowledge difficulties, 
 he does not need any extraordinary efforts or any refined methods for 
 securingtheadherenceof the verbal expression." . . . "The best 
 form of introducing a fact would be its real occurrence . . . 
 but listening to talk and book-reading bring forward many things 
 without any reference to their actual presentation; and then some 
 way of introducing them has to be found; the task being in many 
 instances premature and impossible." 
 
 "It has already been noted that the explanation of newly-occurring 
 terms is for the most part thing-knowledge. When the word 'slave' 
 is presented for the first time, an explanation of the state of slavery is 
 provided, whereby a new idea is imparted to the pupil. This is in no 
 sense a word lesson, although the recurrence of a word is the occasion 
 for teaching the thing. If the pupil has had prior experience of things 
 without knowing their names, to give the name is a language lesson: 
 this situation is not so frequent as the other. " 
 
 ^ From " Education as a Science. " 
 
96 ELEMENTARY WORD STUDY 
 
 4 How Words Get Meaning 
 
 A number of important investigations have been 
 made in an effort to discover what kind of content 
 children have for the words they use. 
 
 Below will be found a brief account of the principal 
 studies that have been published on this phase of 
 word study. 
 
 (i) The Beexin Investigation^ In October, 
 1869, The Berlin Pedagogical Verein issued a cir- 
 cular inviting teachers to investigate the individuality 
 of children entering city schools so far as such in- 
 dividuality was represented by ideas of common 
 objects. The children were questioned on seventy- 
 five different objects selected from their environment. 
 Following are a few specimens of the words employed 
 and the number of children in 10,000 that had con- 
 tent for the term used: dwelling, 9026; rainbow, 
 7770; cube, 6957; moon, 6215; frog, 5085; triangle, 
 4182; City Hall, 3615; squirrel, 3579; village, 3374; 
 museum, 3222; mushroom, 2855; plough, 2036; dew, 
 2364; lake, 2078; willow, 1667; sleet, 2493; hare, 2466; 
 birch, 1318; river, 1122; botanical garden, 527. 
 
 No very definite conclusions bearing upon our 
 problem are drawn from this study, except the follow- 
 ing: 
 
 ^ Vorstellingskreis der Berlin Kinder beim Eintritt in die Schule, pp. 
 59-7 7 . Berlin Stddtisches Jahrhnch, 1870. 
 
MEANING AND USE OF WORDS 97 
 
 (a) The content of children's vocabularies is in- 
 fluenced to a very large extent by their environments 
 out of school. Thus, only 18 per cent of the children in 
 the schools of a German city had seen the sun rise, 
 while 42 per cent of children in the country districts 
 had seen the same. 
 
 (b) Kindergarten children have a better content 
 for words than those that come directly from home 
 to the grades. Thus, out of 10,000 German kinder- 
 garten children, 7032 knew a swan, while of 10,000 
 children from families only 5976 knew the bird. 
 
 (c) In a large majority of the seventy-five words 
 employed in the German test, they boys had clearer 
 concepts than the girls. 
 
 (2) Dr. Hall's "Contents of Children's 
 Minds "^ In 1880, Dr. G. Stanley Hall repeated 
 the German experiment in Boston, substituting for 
 such words as were unsuitable in the foreign list 
 others that were adapted to the local conditions. 
 The problem Dr. Hall set for himself was this : "What 
 may Boston children be assumed, by teachers, to 
 know and have seen when they enter school ? " 
 
 With this general problem and its answer we are 
 not now concerned; but as the test applied was in 
 effect finding what content children had for certain 
 terms, the study throws incidentally some light on 
 
 ^ G. Stanley Hall. E. L. Kellogg Co., New York, 1893. 
 
98 ELEMENTARY WORD STUDY 
 
 the study of words. Among the conclusions formu- 
 lated by Dr. Hall are the following : 
 
 {a) The German boys had more content for 
 seventy-five per cent of the Berlin words than the 
 girls had. In Boston the boys excelled the girls in 
 about 70 per cent of the words used. 
 
 (h) The German conclusion that kindergarten 
 children possess a richer content of words than other 
 children do is emphatically confirmed by the Boston 
 study. 
 
 {c) The Boston inquiry also confirms the con- 
 clusion of the German investigation that country 
 children have more content for words than city chil- 
 dren have. For 86 per cent of Dr. Hall's questions, 
 the intelligence of the country children ranked higher 
 than that of city children. ^'A few days in the country 
 at this age (six years) has raised the level of many a 
 city child's intelligence more than a term or two of 
 school -training could do without it. " 
 
 {d) Many errors in the use of words by children 
 are due to euphonic analogy. Numerous illustrations 
 are given from the Boston study; as: "Butterflies 
 make butter;" "grass-hoppers give grass;" "honey 
 is from honeysuckles;" "when the cow lows it 
 blows its own horn;" "a holiday is a day to ^holler' 
 on," etc. "Words in connection with rhjmie, 
 rhythm, alliteration, cadence, or even without these, 
 
MEANING AND USE OF WORDS 99 
 
 simply as sound pictures, often absorb the attention 
 of children, and yield them a really esthetic pleasure, 
 either quite independently of their meaning, or to the 
 utter bewilderment of it. " 
 
 (3) Earl Barnes In Denmark Dr. HalPs 
 study v/as repeated by Mr. Olsen, who found results 
 identical with those of the Boston schools.^ These 
 investigations show us how large a part of a child's 
 vocabulary is obtained by imitation without experi- 
 ence with the things which the words signify. When 
 we hear children's language we are prone to imagine 
 that the words they use have the same content that we 
 put into them. Nothing could be further from 
 the facts than such a view. 
 
 Ideas in the mind of a child are quite fragmentary 
 and incomplete, or entirely erroneous. In using 
 language children project their ideas, as it were, on a 
 screen; and hence a study of children's vocabu- 
 laries show us how terms grow in their minds. 
 
 In 1902 Earl Barnes published a paper on "How 
 Words get Content. "^ The test which is the basis 
 of the study was given to 1200 London Board School 
 children, 1500 Boston school children, and certain 
 children in English secondary schools. The children 
 
 ^ " Children's Ideas, " in the PafJo/o^w^, England, Vol. II, pp. 128- 
 131- 
 
 * "Studies in Education," Vol. II., p. 43. 
 
loo ELEMENTARY WORD STUDY 
 
 were asked to give the meaning of the following six 
 words : monk, peasant, emperor, armor, nation, school. 
 The first five were selected to represent the historical 
 group of the humanities, and are fairly representative 
 of the vocabularies constantly appearing in all kinds 
 of school work after a child is eight. 
 
 The returns are tabulated separately for each 
 word. Here are the results of the test for school: 
 
 (a) "School" (Partly or wholly correct — Boston.) 
 Age Syrs. 9yrs. loyrs. ii yrs. i2yrs. i3yrs. 
 93% 95% 99% 97% 98% 
 
 School was chosen because its meaning was known 
 to every pupil tested. No child had the answer 
 entirely wrong. Some omitted it, probably for want 
 of time, as the word was last in the list. The table 
 shows that when a child has an adequate content for 
 a word he manages to express himself properly. It 
 is therefore assumed that the inaccuracies for the 
 remaining words are due to lack of content and not 
 merely to difficulties of expression. 
 
 Following are the results for armor and emperor: 
 
 (b) "Armor" 
 Age 7 yrs. 8 yrs. 
 Boys — 34 
 Girls 40 31 
 
 (c) "Armor" 
 
 Boys — 34 
 Girls 28 18 
 
 (No Answer — Boston.) Per cents. 
 
 
 9 yrs. 10 yrs. 11 yrs. 12 yrs. 
 
 13 yrs. 
 
 14 yrs. 
 
 21 18 II 12 
 
 14 
 
 II 
 
 38 27 34 16 
 
 23 
 
 21 
 
 (Wrong answer — Boston.) 
 
 
 
 IS 12 6 4 
 
 2 
 
 2 
 
 18 17 5 7 
 
 2 
 
 2 
 
MEANING AND USE OF WORDS loi 
 
 id) 
 
 "Armor" 
 
 Boys 
 
 Girls 
 
 — 32 
 32 SI 
 
 ie) 
 
 "Armor" 
 
 Boys 
 Girls 
 
 — 10 
 
 — 4 
 
 (Wholly or in part right content — Boston.) 
 64 70 83 84 84 87 
 
 44 56 61 77 75 77 
 
 (Content entirely correct — Boston.) 
 
 28 32 45 56 53 72 
 
 II 13 21 46 44 49 
 
 We next compare the results between the London 
 and Boston children. 
 
 (/) "Armor" 
 
 America — 7 
 London — 16 
 
 (Content entirely correct.) 
 
 20 
 26 
 
 23 
 48 
 
 33 
 61 
 
 SI 
 64 
 
 48 
 68 
 
 60 
 
 The study of the word emperor is based on 1400 
 returns from children in the London Board Schools. 
 
 (g) 
 
 Boys 
 Girls 
 
 (h) 
 Boys 
 Girls 
 
 (i) 
 Boys 
 Girls 
 
 Ci) 
 
 Age 
 
 Boys 
 
 Girls 
 
 "Emperor" 
 
 — 41 
 
 — 29 
 
 "Emperor" 
 
 — 25 
 
 — 29 
 
 "Emperor" 
 
 — 17 
 
 — 28 
 
 "Emperor" 
 8yrs. 
 
 3 
 
 3 
 
 (No Answer — London.) 
 
 25 17 9 II ^^ 
 35 22 14 12 15 
 
 (Content entirely wrong — London.) 
 13 10 7 31 
 
 12 17 6 5 4 
 
 (Content partly right — London.) 
 
 30 23 10 3 3 2 
 
 26 17 18 13 14 ^ 
 (Content entirely correct — London.) 
 
 9yrs. loyrs. iiyrs. i2yrs. i3yrs. i4yrs 
 21 34 58 60 62 
 
 II 22 42 48 50 
 
 9 
 14 
 
 2 
 
 I 
 
 74 
 65 
 
 (k) 
 Age 
 
 " Peasant " (Correct content — London.) 
 
 8yrs. 9yrs. loyrs. iiyrs. 12 yrs. i3yrs. 
 
 Board School 6 2 8 20 20 20 
 
 Secondary School 26 31 41 21 35 43 
 
 From these tables and the papers upon which they 
 are based Mr, Barnes draws the following inferences: 
 
I02 ELEMENTARY WORD STUDY 
 
 (a) Dr. Hall's discovery that euphonic analogy is 
 a prolific source of error in children's use of words is 
 confirmed, e.g., "Armor is to hold a thing by your 
 arm;" ''armor is a title given to Arabic rulers 
 (Ameer);" "armor is a river (Amoor);" "armor is 
 a man's name (Armour)." Mr. Barnes says exam- 
 iners should treat this kind of errors as unripened 
 truth, although it is difficult to distinguish them from 
 mere guesses. 
 
 (b) From tables (b) and (g) we learn that at 
 eight 34 boys in loo and 31 girls in 100 had no avail- 
 able content for armor, while 41 boys and 29 girls 
 had no content for emperor. This ignorance vanishes 
 with a fair degree of steadiness, but even at fourteen 
 there are still from 9 to 21 per cent of children without 
 content for these words. 
 
 (c) The effect of home is well illustrated by table 
 (k). The Board School children come from homes 
 of laborers, artisans,, and small shop keepers. The 
 secondary school children represent the middle-class 
 homes. The intelligence of the better-class children 
 is from two to fifteen times as great as that of children 
 from the homes of the humbler class. 
 
 (d) "Learning definitions, or dictionary work, 
 can never give any slightest new content to the mind ; 
 it can simply re-shuffle the existing ideas. Every 
 child should know how to use a dictionary, but the 
 
MEANING AND USE OF WORDS 103 
 
 teacher should not allow herself to think that it can 
 furnish new material for thought. It can simply take 
 content out of old terms and put it into new ones; 
 and generally the product is less clear than before 
 the transfer." 
 
 (e) "All teachers of subjects in the humanistic 
 group, and this includes all elementary subjects 
 except science, should each year select from fifty to 
 two hundred new terms connected with the subject 
 matter of that year, and plan definitely that their 
 children -should know these terais before they leave 
 the grade." 
 
 (/) Illustrative material should be selected with 
 the same pains and care that a teacher employs in 
 preparation for a lesson in nature study or an ex- 
 periment in elementary science. 
 
 {g) These materials should consist of carefully 
 selected pictures, stories, and incidents. They should 
 be treated as similar material is treated in a science 
 lesson. They should be observed, analyzed, compared, 
 and combined with experience already possessed by 
 the children. "A few terms carefully worked out 
 and added to each year would strengthen all the rest 
 of the vocabulary not thus carefully elaborated, 
 and would give a foundation for good dictionary 
 work." 
 
 Qi) The method suggested for the elementary 
 
104 ELEMENTARY WORD STUDY 
 
 school would apply equally to the high school and to 
 the university. 
 
 (4) Will Grant Chambers^ In 1904, Mr. Cham- 
 bers published the results of a study which he made 
 to verify the inferences of Mr. Barnes. He employed 
 the same method and the same words that had been 
 used in England; namely, monkj peasant, emperor, 
 armor, nation, school. As in the case of Mr. Barnes, 
 school was used to discover to what extent children 
 at different ages can express the meaning of a word 
 with which they are perfectly familiar. The remain- 
 ing words were used because the child is probably 
 ignorant of their meaning when he enters school, 
 but is expected to know them when he arrives at the 
 high school age. The results in figures and the 
 inferences of this study are practically identical v/ith 
 the findings of Mr. Barnes. 
 
 5 Summary of Conclusions 
 
 (i) The content of children's vocabularies is influ- 
 enced to a very large extent by their environments 
 out of school. (See especially table k of Barnes's test.) 
 
 (2) Kindergarten children have a better content 
 for words than those that have never been in a kinder- 
 garten. Such is the experience of Boston and Berlin. 
 
 (3) Boys seem to have clearer concepts as to the 
 
 * "How Words Get Meaning," Pedagogical Seminary^ Vol. XI., p. 48. 
 
MEANING AND USE OF WORDS 105 
 
 meaning of words than girls have. This is true of 
 the Boston and of the Berlin children. 
 
 (4) German and American investigators agree 
 in the conclusion that country children have more 
 content for words than city children have. 
 
 (5) Many errors in the use of words by children 
 are due to euphonic analogy (stature — statue). 
 
 (6) At eight, about thirty per cent of the English 
 children tested had no available content for ^' armor"; 
 forty per cent of the boys and thirty per cent of the 
 girls had no content for "emperor." 
 
 (7) Learning definitions can never give any 
 slightest new content to the mind; it can simply re- 
 shufHe the existing ideas. 
 
 (8) All teachers of subjects in the humanistic 
 group should each year select from fifty to two hun- 
 dred new terms connected with the subject matter of 
 that year, and plan definitely that their children 
 should know these terms before they leave the 
 grade. 
 
 (9) Illustrative material should be collected with 
 the same pains and care that a teacher employs in 
 preparation for a lesson in nature study or an ex- 
 periment in elementary science. 
 
 (10) These materials should consist of carefully 
 selected pictures, stories, and incidents. They should 
 be treated as similar material is treated in a science 
 
io6 ELEMENTARY WORD STUDY 
 
 lesson. They should be observed, analyzed, and 
 compared, and combined with experience already 
 possessed by the children. 
 
 (ii) When a child, at any age, has an adequate 
 content for a word he manages to express himself 
 properly (correct content for ''school," ^S per cent 
 at 8, 98 per cent at 13). 
 
 6 Words Not to be Defined 
 
 It may be well to specify just the classes of words 
 whose meanings should not be taught in the ele- 
 mentary school. 
 
 (i) Too Difficult Many words occur in 
 the books used in school whose mea.ning is too ab- 
 stract or refined for the child at the time. It is 
 unwise to select such terms for instruction because 
 they can be more successfully taught and learned at 
 a more mature stage of advancement. We must 
 recall in this connection the fact already explained, 
 that learning the meaning of words is really a know- 
 ledge-lesson ; and there are many kinds of knowledge 
 that a pupil in the grades cannot possibly compre- 
 hend. Among the terms here alluded to are very 
 technical or unusual v/ords, and words of ethical or 
 moral significance beyond the experience of chil- 
 dren. 
 
 The following are examples: Plasmodium, par- 
 
MEANING AND USE OF WORDS 107 
 
 thenogenesis, psychology, anthropology, autocracy, 
 profligacy, sensuality, sanctiflcation, free-thinker, tran- 
 suhstantiation. Our time is limited, and we should 
 devote ourselves to the task of equipping the pupil 
 with a vocabulary of words in ordinary use, and 
 should not anticipate the work of the secondary 
 school and college. 
 
 (2) Too Easy Another class of words that 
 should be excluded from the meaning list consists of 
 words in common use whose meaning is familiar to a.11 
 children. The following are examples: knuckle, 
 laughter, Wednesday, mirror, music, neighbor, nine- 
 teen, nurse, sponge, though. The object of definition 
 is to bring the "meaning" of words to the mind; 
 that is, to develop or suggest the object or idea for 
 which the word stands. If this knov/ledge, or con- 
 tent, or meaning is already well-known, why waste 
 time in carrying coal to Newcastle? 
 
 It is evident, from the preceding illustrations, that 
 the exclusion of words from the meaning list is quite 
 as important as the selection of the proper words. 
 Not all the words used by a child or employed in his 
 books are to be defined or explained. How bar- 
 barous, then, was the practice, once very common, 
 of requiring children to commit all the definitions 
 found in the dictionary! One writer confesses that 
 he took a class through Worcester's dictionary regu- 
 
io8 ELEMENTARY WORD STUDY 
 
 larly from beginning to end/ although another 
 author, twenty years before, had condemned the 
 practice in the following sensible paragraph i^ 
 
 *^To say that it would be impossible to remember 
 the definitions thus abstractly learned would be to 
 assert what must be perfectly obvious to every one. 
 And even if they could be remembered, they would 
 be of little utility, for as the right application of a 
 definition must depend entirely on the situation of 
 the word to be explained and the office it performs 
 in a sentence, the repeating of half a score of mean- 
 ings, as obscure perhaps as the word itself, conveys 
 no definite thought, and serves rather to darken than 
 to illumine the mind." 
 
 7 What Words to Define 
 
 The meaning and use list should contain at least 
 the following two classes : 
 
 (i) Words in Common Use Whose Meaning 
 IS NOT Familiar to the Children The selection 
 of this list depends entirely upon circumstances. 
 We have seen that the home environment affects 
 the vocabularies of children. Only two per cent 
 of the nine-year-old pupils in the Board Schools of 
 
 ^ Christopher A. Green: "Methods of Teaching Spelling," Journal 
 of the American Institute of Instruction, 185 1, p. 181. 
 
 ^ G. P. Thayer: "On the Spelling of Words," Journal of American 
 Institute oj Instruction, 1830, p. 123. 
 
MEANING AND USE OF WORDS 109 
 
 London knew the meaning of "peasant," while 
 thirty-one per cent of the children of the same age 
 in a private school knew the word. We have shown 
 also that kindergarten children have a better content 
 for words than others of the same age; that country- 
 children are superior to city children; and that boys 
 have slightly the advantage of girls. 
 
 (2) Words Needed to Master the Course of 
 Study In the second place, we must teach the 
 meaning of words that are needed to master the 
 subject-matter of the grade. A large proportion of 
 the words that occur in school books have the vaguest 
 kind of content for the child or no content at all. 
 The following simple experiment illustrates this fact : 
 A seventh-year class had read Longfellow's "The 
 Courtship of Miles Standish,'' and were asked to tell 
 the meaning of a few words selected from the text 
 of the first two pages. This was the result : 
 
 Words 
 
 Per Cent 
 
 of Children who Knew the Meaning 
 
 clad 
 
 
 12 
 
 doublet 
 
 
 
 
 anon 
 
 
 
 
 stature 
 
 
 50 (confused with statue) 
 
 athletic 
 
 
 25 
 
 sinews 
 
 
 
 
 azure 
 
 
 6 
 
 scribe 
 
 
 I 
 
 Perhaps the best way to find out what words need 
 
no ELEMENTARY WORD STUDY 
 
 to be taught in a given class is to test the children. 
 Mr. Barnes has shown that if a pupil has content for 
 a word, he manages to express himself with sufficient 
 clearness. We may, therefore, assume that if he 
 cannot tell the meaning of a word he has no meaning 
 to tell. Every grade, even every class, will almost 
 necessarily have its peculiar list, and will scarcely 
 have the same list during any two successive terms. 
 Teachers in the same grade often have different text- 
 books; and therefore, a list selected by one teacher 
 might be partially useless to another. These lists 
 cannot well be made in advance. As the reading, or 
 study, or experiment proceeds, the words come up. 
 If the meaning is known, there is no occasion for wast- 
 ing time on it. If the word is new and its meaning 
 within the comprehension of the pupil, it is put into 
 the meaning and use list. 
 
VII 
 
 Methods of Teaching the Meaning and 
 Use of Words 
 
 We have now reached the most difficult part of our 
 problem. How shall the schoolmaster put content 
 into the words of his pupil ? This has been the prob- 
 lem of the ages. Words are the "ambassadors" and 
 "sole expounders" of the mind, hence all knowledge 
 must be communicated from the master's mind, as 
 well as from books, to the pupil's mind by means of 
 words. Words are competent to fulfil their function 
 only when they represent the same things to the two 
 communicating minds. As a matter of fact, they 
 never do this; but in the case of adults, they do it 
 with sufficient approximation to render the exchange 
 of ideas possible. The immaturity and want of 
 experience on the part of the child, however, serve 
 sometimes to make words non-conductors of thought. 
 In order to secure the best results in the most econo- 
 mical way, the knowledge of things and the know- 
 ledge of terms should progress together. As a child 
 
 III 
 
112 ELEMENTARY WORD STUDY 
 
 in his early years comes in contact with all sorts of 
 people whose conversation he hears, and later reads 
 all sorts of books, magazines, and papers, it is im- 
 possible to keep the knowledge and vocabulary abreast 
 of each other. The vocabulary usually outruns the 
 knowledge, being picked up and employed loosely by 
 imitation. Sometimes the opposite condition obtains, 
 the child having ideas and feelings without the neces- 
 sary language for adequate expression. He is de- 
 ficient in words representing subjective states, because 
 he is too young for the introspective processes involved 
 in the use of subjective terms. He is prone to use 
 the general rather than the specific word in his 
 descriptions and narrations. For instance, if he has 
 been at a picnic, he says he has had "nice things to 
 eat." When he gets older he will probably say 
 he has had "thin, dainty, chicken sandwiches, olives, 
 grapes, and litde cakes with pink icing on them.'' 
 When we try to bring the vocabulary up to the know- 
 ledge, the process is purely a language lesson; when 
 we try to bring the knowledge up to the vocabulary, 
 the process is a knowledge-lesson. In both cases it 
 is called word study; but in the one instance it is 
 finding the meaning of words, while in the other it 
 is learning the use of words. 
 
METHODS OF TEACHING MEANING 113 
 
 I Inductive 
 
 There are two principal methods of teaching the 
 meaning of words, the inductive and the deductive. 
 The inductive method has already been described 
 in one of its aspects in the previous chapter. We 
 shall next try to discriminate the several forms of 
 the inductive method. 
 
 (i) The Natural Method This is the spon- 
 taneous procedure the child follows in learning to 
 speak. Its application in the class-room would 
 require the frequent use of a word in the presence 
 of the pupil, so that almost unconsciously he would 
 infer the correct use. Now, how can this be ac- 
 complished? The following description of a device 
 is offered as an answer to the question:^ 
 
 '^In a day's exercises the teacher will select three 
 or four words which are to be subjects of instruction. 
 Of course, every unfamiliar word has been explained, 
 but these are put aside for future treatment. The 
 limitations of the classroom allow only an artificial 
 application of the natural method. I have en- 
 deavored to approximate it by printing such words 
 on charts and exposing them in a conspicuous place 
 in the class-room without comment, so that there are 
 always about eight words before the eyes of the pupil. 
 
 ^ Albert Shiels, District Superintendent of Schools, New York, is the 
 author of this device. 
 
114 ELEMENTARY WORD STUDY 
 
 Furthermore, the teacher will use these words in his 
 conversation when possible, and it does not require 
 a master of language to introduce ordinary words 
 into the class-room conversation. Imitation will 
 contribute its share; and teachers who have tried 
 this method state that their pupils will introduce the 
 words into compositions through the suggestion of 
 the chart and the teacher. 
 
 Not until one week later, will the word be con- 
 sidered as a formal subject of instruction, and by 
 that time it is something more than a bare unknown 
 term. It is ''warm" to the pupil. The sense in 
 which the word will be selected will be the same as 
 that in which it first occurred, and it is, of course, 
 assumed that when it was first chosen it was used in 
 one of its general meanings. The definition is now 
 taken up, and it must be developed, not merely taken 
 like a dead mummy from a dictionary. How far 
 figurative meanings may be drawn out must be 
 determined by the grade." 
 
 A child's knowledge of a term is, of course, never 
 complete, and not very exact. The younger he is, 
 the smaller the degree of accuracy and completeness 
 we can expect. It is necessary for the teacher to 
 provide for grades of exactness; so that he may not 
 demand of a fourth grade pupil the same degree of 
 perfection that he demands of an eighth grade pupil. 
 
METHODS OF TEACHING MEANING 115 
 
 The question as to when formal or systematic 
 work in the meaning and use of words should begin 
 is pertinent at this point. The child is occupied 
 during the first three years of school in an effort to 
 overcome the mechanical difficulties of reading, 
 and a large proportion of the words employed in his 
 reading lessons are selected from his oral vocabulary. 
 During this period he is not able to read books on 
 his own account for the purpose of acquiring know- 
 ledge. He therefore meets with relatively few words 
 that are strange to him. He has been engaged in 
 recognizing words previously familiar as ear-symbols 
 in their new disguise as eye-symbols. During the 
 fourth year independent book-study begins; and a 
 host of strange terms are encountered, which must 
 be known if the subject-matter of the book is to be 
 understood. All these considerations point to the 
 fourth year as the proper time for the beginning of 
 the study of the meaning of words. 
 
 (2) The Use of Context The stories in the 
 school-readers usually deal with facts familiar to 
 children, which are expressed in language choice 
 and frequently adorned. In reading such material 
 the pupil's language stores are insensibly increased. 
 By asking questions on the text and encouraging 
 children to answer in the language of the book, the 
 teacher may train his class in the habit of the correct 
 
ii6 ELEMENTARY WORD STUDY 
 
 use of words. The meaning of many new words can 
 be inferred from the context. The pupil in this case 
 is really employing the natural method explained 
 under the preceding topic. The difference is that 
 in the former instance he inferred the meaning of 
 words by hearing them used, whereas now he learns 
 by seeing them used. 
 
 (3) Memorizing Another inductive method of 
 learning the meaning of words consists in committing 
 passages to memory. Poetry is especially recom- 
 mended for this purpose by Alexander Bain.^ Poetry 
 contains thoughts, images, and expressions such as 
 are capable of taking part in our future intellectual 
 constructions. Impassioned and rhythmical prose 
 is next in value to poetry for memorizing purposes. 
 Selections should be chosen which are expressed in 
 short, happy phrase, rather than in long and com- 
 plicated sentences. A mind well stored with language 
 thus carefully chosen will unconsciously catch some 
 of the tricks of style and learn to discriminate nice 
 shades of meaning. A little girl once crossed Newark 
 Bay with me on a windy autumn day. The water 
 was rough and as the child caught sight of the water's 
 edge, she exclaimed, "The waves dashed high on 
 a wild New England shore." In this way the 
 memorized stores through association become avail- 
 
 * "Education as a Science." 
 
METHODS OF TEACHING MEANING 117 
 
 able for future demands in oral and written 
 
 composition. 
 
 (4) The Method of Story and Picture Earl 
 Barnes came to the conclusion from his inquiry on 
 ''How Words Get Content," that teachers should 
 select for special study from fifty to two hundred 
 terms each year; that they should collect illustrative 
 material with the same care a teacher employs m 
 an experiment in elementary science; that these 
 materials should consist of pictures, stories, and 
 incidents; that these should be treated as simHar 
 material is treated in science, i. e., they should be ob- 
 served, analyzed, compared; and that finally the 
 pupil should infer the proper use of words as a result 
 of such study. I think we may call this the story 
 method. Mr. Chambers^ warns us against one 
 danger in tliis form of teaching. We must be careful 
 not to let the meaning of a word depend upon a single 
 incident, but should vary its use sufficiendy to brmg 
 out its essential content by several common appli- 
 cations. For instance, a child on being asked for 
 the meaning of ''peasant," wrote: ''A peasant is a 
 farmer in Holland." Another child wrote for a 
 definition of " emperor, " "An emperor is the^mler 
 of Germany." A third wrote for "monk," "A 
 monk is a man who hunts people who are lost." I 
 
 1 " How Words Get Meaning," Pedagogical Seminary, Vol. XL, p. 48. 
 
ii8 ELEMENTARY WORD STUDY 
 
 offer below three stories or incidents to illustrate the 
 method of teaching here described: 
 
 Scalawag — During the period of reconstruction 
 after our Civil War, the colored people of the South 
 were enfranchised, while most of the men of influence 
 and ability were disfranchised on account of having 
 taken part in the rebellion. This left the affairs of 
 government in the hands of three classes — the 
 enfranchised slaves, the "carpet-baggers," and the 
 "scalawags." These last were Southern white Re- 
 publicans. The name applied to them originated 
 in the experience of a man who was kicked by a sheep 
 so that he died. "He said he didn't mind being 
 kicked, but he hated the idea of being kicked to 
 death by the meanest wether in the whole flock, the 
 scaly sheep." Therefore "scaly wag," or scalawag, 
 was applied to a man who was supposed to be meaner 
 than a carpet-bagger. ^ The word now means a 
 scamp or worthless fellow. 
 
 Carpet-baggers The so-called carpet-baggers 
 were Northern men who went to the South during 
 the period of Reconstruction. Many of them had 
 been Union soldiers. They were attracted by the 
 high price of cotton, and became planters. As their 
 ventures were generally unsuccessful, they took ad- 
 
 * "History of the United States," by Jas. P. Rhodes. Macmillan, 
 1906, Vol. VI., p. 91. 
 
Methods of teaching meaning ng 
 
 vantage of the new conditions to earn a livelihood in 
 politics, which was open to them on account of the 
 wholesale disfranchisement of Southern white men. 
 Their worldly goods, it was supposed, could all be 
 carried in a carpet-bag; hence, they became known 
 as carpet-baggers.^ This word is now applied 
 sometimes to any one who seeks his fortune in new 
 or untried fields. 
 
 The Story of the Word ''Petrel'' A petrel is a 
 little black and white seabird. It has long, pointed 
 wings that will carry it for days over the ocean. It 
 likes to spread its wings and speed along after some 
 ship. It is quite at home upon the water and appears 
 to walk on the billows. 
 
 Once when the disciples of Jesus were in a ship 
 tossed by the waves, Jesus walked toward them over 
 the sea. Peter, one of the disciples, came down 
 from the ship and stepped out upon the water to 
 meet Jesus, his master. 
 
 Peter and the seabird both braved the sea, and 
 appeared to walk upon the waves. Therefore the 
 bird was called petrel, which means ^^ little Peter." 
 
 (5) Dramatization In the primary grades, be- 
 fore the period for the formal study of meanings has 
 arrived, dramatization has in modern days become 
 a useful means of giving richness of content to the 
 
 * "History of the United States," Rhodes. Macmillan, Vol. VI., p. 91. 
 
I20 ELEMENTARY WORD STUDY 
 
 spoken and written symbols that are thrust upon the 
 child in such profusion. 
 
 The story will be told or read one day, and the 
 next some children will be allowed to "act out" the 
 incidents as related. This device is particularly 
 useful to pupils who come from uncultured homes, 
 where the daily conversation furnishes no assistance 
 in learning the use of words. 
 
 2 Deductive 
 
 When we have ascertained the meaning of a word 
 by induction, it is sometimes of use to confirm, or 
 narrow still further, our definition by another method 
 — the method of deduction. 
 
 Many of our least familiar words are derived from 
 Latin or Greek words; others from Latin through 
 French. By taking such compound English words 
 to pieces, and translating their foreign roots into 
 English, we can often deduce the exact meaning of 
 the compound word. Thus by knowing that ge 
 is Greek for earth, and that logy means science, 
 we may see that ''geology" means science of earth. 
 But this is not always a safe process.^ 
 
 (i) Prefixes and Suffixes At first the pupil 
 learns words as wholes. A little later he learns their 
 
 * Abbott* " English Lessons for English People, " p. 22. 
 
METHODS OF TEACHING MEANING 121 
 
 parts as sounds and syllables for purposes of spelling 
 and identification. He learns the meaning of new 
 words considered as wholes, also. Of the majority 
 of words used by him in his early years, he infers the 
 meaning unconsciously. During the first three 
 years he deals chiefly with words taken from his oral 
 vocabulary. During the fourth year he begins to 
 read books for information or pleasure, and thus 
 learns the necessity for exercises in finding the mean- 
 ing of new words. During the fifth year we may 
 properly begin to show him that the parts of which 
 words are composed may give a clue to their meaning. 
 The first steps in this work should be analytic. 
 Taking some familiar word like recall^ the teacher 
 shows that it may be separated into two parts — re 
 and call. The children know the meaning of call; 
 perhaps some know the meaning of recall. Other 
 similar words are submitted, such as rearrange, 
 rebound, reclaim. The children may, by this time, 
 infer the meaning of re. Then it is explained that in 
 such words the first part is called prefix and the second 
 part stem. Suffixes are treated in the same way. 
 It has been suggested that in these first exercises we 
 reject all words whose stems cannot be used as words. 
 This would exclude from our list such words as report 
 and reflect, but would retain re-exchange and reform,^ 
 
 * Emma L. Johnston, Brooklyn Training School. 
 
122 ELEMENTARY WORD STUDY 
 
 After some little drill of the analytic sort, the process 
 may be reversed, and children required to build 
 words out of given elements. The building may 
 take the form of a co-operative exercise on the board, 
 teacher and class working together, or the elements 
 previously learned may be given as a written test. 
 The children should give the meaning of the ele- 
 ments used, as well as the literal and current meanings 
 of the words they build. They should not be en- 
 couraged or allowed to add prefixes and suffixes to 
 words merely because such additions are possible. 
 Thus, we may build sensible and senseless from 
 sense, but we do not want sensibility or sensual, 
 because these words could not properly be defined 
 for children. 
 
 In the fifth year I would not require pupils to copy 
 any of this work into note-books. The teacher 
 should, however, enter the words analyzed, as well 
 as the stems, prefixes, and suffixes used, into her 
 progress book for reference, review, and drill. 
 
 {a) Graded Lists Essential It was suggested 
 above that the beginning of the etymological analysis 
 and synthesis be somewhat informal. It is not 
 intended that the work shall be haphazard. On 
 the contrary, the principal should provide a graded 
 list of elements to be taught and reviewed in each 
 class. This is essential to economy of effort. Unless 
 
METHODS OF TEACHING MEANING 123 
 
 each grade has a definite amount of work prescribed, 
 all the teachers might be frittering away the children's 
 time on the same dozen or score of elements. Wliat 
 particular work is done in a particular grade is not 
 nearly so important as the demand that the work 
 shall be definitely agreed upon and faithfully per- 
 formed. 
 
 {h) Review Work By way of review the pre- 
 fixes and suffixes may be arranged into classes ac- 
 cording to the language from which they come, and 
 according to their meaning, as sho\vn in the following 
 table : 
 
 ENGLISH PREFIXES 
 
 a = at, in, on ^^ = beyond 
 
 fte = tomake,by ^^^= above 
 
 en {em) — in, on, to make io — the, this 
 
 ]or = not, from ^^ = ^^t, opposite act 
 
 /^. = before under = hene3,th 
 
 mis = wrong, wrongly '^th = against, from 
 
 The teacher should remember that the object of 
 this work is to furnish a key to the meaning of words, 
 and, above all, to stimulate the interest of children 
 in the study of words. The lesson, therefore, must 
 never descend to a lifeless, mechanical drill ; for 
 that is the surest way to destroy whatever interest a 
 child may have in words and to render the whole 
 performance worthless. 
 
 (2) Definition A second form of the deductive 
 
124 ELEMENTARY WORD STUDY 
 
 method of finding the meaning of words is the use of 
 the definition. The dictionary gives a list of the 
 meanings in which the word may be used. By com- 
 paring these definitions with the context, we infer 
 that one or the other of the meanings appHes in the 
 given case. We have already found, from a study 
 of the psychology of meanings, that definitions can 
 never give new content to the mind. They can, 
 however, re-shutfie the existing ideas, and often 
 explain the strange by the familiar. 
 
 Suppose the child finds the word occlude, as used 
 by the dentist. He turns to the dictionary and finds 
 that occlude is defined by the synonym to shut. But 
 very frequently the definition is as much of an enigma 
 as the word it attempts to define. The following 
 letter written by a parent of foreign birth to a New 
 York school principal was evidently elaborated 
 from dictionary definitions: 
 
 Dear Miss B. 
 
 Please exculpate my son Moses for being absent from school one 
 aggregate day because his mother substantive sick and he had to so- 
 journ in the house perpetual, so please apology him this one day ab- 
 sence and oblige his father. 
 
 While the dictionary, therefore, has its value, it 
 is not suitable for the use of very young children. 
 The beginning of the study of meanings must be by 
 the inductive method. But in about the fifth or sixth 
 
METHODS OF TEACHING MEANING 125 
 
 year, after children have had some work in word 
 analysis and word building by means of prefixes and 
 suffixes, they should be gradually trained to get 
 information from the dictionary. 
 
 (a) Synonyms One of the forms of definition 
 is the method of synonyms. 
 
 "The first decided amplification of language 
 lessons on the great scale is the teaching of synony- 
 mous words. The best example of this is the per- 
 petual passing to and fro between our two vocabu- 
 laries — Saxon and Classical. The pupils bring 
 with them the homely names for what they know, 
 and the master translates these into the more dignified 
 and accurate names; or in reading, he makes the 
 learned terms intelligible by referring to the more 
 familiar."^ 
 
 In the following list of synonyms there is probably 
 one word in each series that is familiar to most chil- 
 dren, and by means of which the remaining words 
 in the group are understood: 
 
 English Latin Greek 
 
 well-bred civ il po lite 
 
 strength vig or en er gy 
 
 tease tor ment tan ta lize 
 
 sight spec ta cle scene 
 
 shel ter ref uge a sy lum 
 
 fore tell pre diet proph e sy 
 
 ' Bain: "Education as a Science." 
 
bold 
 
 cou ra geous 
 
 dark en 
 
 ob scure 
 
 time 
 
 e ra 
 
 foe 
 
 en e my 
 
 stress 
 
 ac cent 
 
 126 ELEMENTARY WORD STUDY 
 
 he ro ic 
 e clipse 
 pe ri od 
 an tag o nist 
 em pha sis 
 
 The study of synonyms has long been regarded 
 as a valuable intellectual discipline. It cultivates a 
 habit of thorough investigation into the meaning of 
 words, and this habit is indispensable to precision 
 and accuracy of thought. Slovenly use of words 
 implies slovenly thinking. While the drill on syn- 
 onyms cannot be very thorough or formal in the ele- 
 mentary grades, it may be used as a mode of definition 
 and for the purpose of inducing children to acquire 
 the habit of making nice distinctions between words. 
 By and by the process of critical study in the use of 
 words will become spontaneous, and the child will 
 unconsciously select the term with the right shade of 
 meaning. 
 
 (b) Figurative and Poetical Equivalents A 
 special application of the method of teaching words 
 by S3nionyms is the use of figurative and poetical 
 equivalents. In a sixth-year reading lesson, recently 
 heard by the writer, the word fireside occurred. The 
 children who knew the meaning of the word were 
 asked to stand; thirty per cent arose. They were 
 then asked to give a definition. Every pupil took 
 the word in its literal sense to represent a place where 
 
METHODS OF TEACHING MEANING 127 
 
 fire is kept. It is a valuable lesson in such cases to 
 point out the figurative extension of the word. There 
 lurks in many such applications a singular poetic 
 beauty, which children are capable of appreciating. 
 Another useful exercise consists in adducing equiva- 
 lent idiomatic phrases for single words. Roget's 
 Thesaurus is a treasure-house of such material. 
 For instance, where we distrust a person or situation, 
 ^^ we smell a rat;" if we have courage, we "put on a 
 bold front," or "come to the scratch;" when we die, 
 we "shake off this moral coil," or "pay the debt to 
 nature, " or " go to our long home. " There is a subtle 
 reaction of the knowledge of things in this exercise 
 because figures imply a comparison of one object with 
 another, and they are used to intensify and elucidate 
 
 the meaning. 
 
 3 Tests of Meaning 
 
 How shall the child's knowledge of the meaning 
 of a word be tested? 
 
 (i) Definitions not to be Copied or Memo- 
 rized Under no circumstances should children be 
 required to memorize the formal words of the defini- 
 tions found in the dictionary, nor should they ever 
 be required to copy definitions into note-books from 
 the dictation of the teacher.^ An enormous waste of 
 
 ^ This interdiction applies only to words of ordinary use. Technical 
 terms found in grammar, arithmetic, science, etc., must be technically 
 defined; and such definitions should be memorized in the higher grades. 
 
128 ELEMENTARY WORD STUDY 
 
 time is involved in the exercises here condemned. 
 In the first place, it must be perfectly obvious to 
 everyone that it would be an impossible task to re- 
 member definitions thus abstractly learned. To 
 prove this statement, let the reader try to remem- 
 ber the exact words of any definition he ever found 
 in the dictionary. And if the child cannot remem- 
 ber definitions, it is manifestly an outrage to compel 
 him to copy them into a book. If he wants to refer 
 to a definition it is easier to depend upon the 
 dictionary, which has all the words, than to refer 
 to his note-book, which at best can have only a 
 few. 
 
 But even if a child could remember the words of 
 the definition, it w^ould not be desirable to do so. The 
 "meaning" of a word must be stored in terms of 
 experience or knowledge, and a definition is neither. 
 The function of a word is to convey an idea or feeling; 
 hence we do not desire to establish a connection be- 
 tween the word and its definition; for this is merely 
 associating one symbol with another. The function 
 of the definition, so far as it has any value, is to call 
 up some former experience of the pupil and connect 
 it with the new word. The word and the experience 
 have hitherto been strangers. The definition merely 
 serves to establish an acquaintance between the two. 
 When the word "Ceylon" is pronounced, we do not 
 
METHODS OF TEACHING MEANING 129 
 
 expect the pupil to think of the words, "Ceylon is an 
 island south of British India''; nor do we want him 
 to recall a yellow patch on the map of Asia. What- 
 ever he knows of Ceylon, its people, houses, vegeta- 
 tion, animals, etc., should appear in consciousness 
 when the word is seen or heard. So in teaching the 
 meaning of any other word, the aim is to connect 
 some real knowledge or experience directly with the 
 word symbol. 
 
 (2) Children's Definitions When a child 
 makes his own definition, the process is very different 
 from the recitation of a memorized definition. When 
 he recites a definition someone has made for him, 
 there mxay be nothing in consciousness except the 
 words he has learned. When he undertakes to 
 construct an original definition, he is not thinking 
 of abstract words, but is trying to convey some 
 experience of his which we call the content of the 
 word. We have already seen that if there is any 
 content in his mind, the pupil of any age manages 
 to express himself with reasonable success. The 
 child's own definition may therefore be taken as a 
 test of his knowledge of a word. The peculiarities 
 of children's definitions have been carefully investi- 
 gated by Binet, Barnes, Shaw,^ and others; and 
 
 * See the author's paper on" Interest " in "Educational Foundations," 
 Vol. 18, p. 126, A. S. Barnes & Co., 1907. 
 
13© ELEMENTARY WORD STUDY 
 
 from these studies the following interesting con- 
 clusions are gathered: 
 
 (a) At the age of seven, children define things 
 in the terms of "use"; that is, if asked what a thing 
 is they tell what it does or is used for; as, "A knife 
 is to cut with." 
 
 (h) At the age of eleven, "use" is still supreme, 
 but "larger term" and "substance" are assuming 
 importance. By "larger term" is meant referring 
 an object to its genus; as, "A clock is a time-piece." 
 By "substance" is meant what an object is made of; 
 as, "A clock is made of wood." 
 
 {c) At fifteen, "larger term" is more important 
 than "use"; "substance" and "structure" are get- 
 ing more and more prominent. 
 
 (3) Children's Sentences In some quarters it 
 is customary to test the "meaning" of words by 
 memorized definitions and the "use" by original 
 sentences made by children. We have already 
 condemned the memorizing of definitions. What 
 shall we say of the sentence-test ? Good authorities 
 may be quoted on both sides of this question. Prof. 
 Samuel T. Button, of Columbia, speaks thus: "The 
 pupils themselves should be required to put into 
 suitable sentences the words that properly belong 
 to their vocabulary at each stage of school life. We 
 
METHODS OF TEACHING MEANING 131 
 
 are seeking for the largest possible self -activity."' 
 With this view I agree. I can see no valid objection 
 to the sentence method of testing a pupil's knowledge 
 of content. On the contrary, it is plain that the use 
 of words in the oral or written discourse is the aim 
 of every lesson on the meaning of words. The child, 
 therefore, cannot begin using his words too soon. 
 Of course, one must not imagine that the pupil gets 
 content by writing sentences. We assume that he 
 has content; and the construction of sentences is 
 merely a test of the accuracy of his content, and 
 practice in the proper use of the word. 
 
 » "New York Teachers' Monographs," November, 1898. 
 
VIII 
 
 Devices in Word Study 
 
 I "Trapping" 
 
 All the spelling in the writer's boyhood days was 
 by the oral method. Spelling was always the last 
 exercise on the program. There were, in our little 
 country school, at least two spelling classes, an ele- 
 mentary and an advanced. The entire school was 
 registered in one or the other of these classes. We 
 all stood up in a line, one end of which was the ^'head, " 
 and the other the "foot." If a pupil spelled cor- 
 rectly a word that had been missed, he "trapped" 
 all those that had failed (i.e., passed them toward 
 the head of the class). The method of spelling was 
 to pronounce the word as the teacher gave it, then 
 to spell and pronounce each syllable separately, and, 
 finally, to put together the syllables into the synthe- 
 sized word. This process involved sight, when the 
 pupil studied, and hearing and the motor apparatus 
 of speed, when he recited. The muscular activity 
 
 involved in "trapping," the strong incentive to study 
 132 
 
DEVICES IN WORD STUDY 133 
 
 offered by a chance to get to the head of the class, 
 the Hvely interest aroused by the contest — all these 
 were elements of association that aided the recall 
 of the word. The method was faulty, however, in 
 one or two particulars. It omitted the use of the 
 muscular apparatus employed in writing and over- 
 looked the important fact that about the only practi- 
 cal use we make of spelling is in writing rather than 
 speaking. 
 
 2 A Modern Substitute for "Trapping" 
 
 The method of "trapping" is hardly to be recom- 
 mended in classes where the discipline is weak, 
 because its use is liable to lead to disorder. Nor 
 is it feasible in classes that are very much crowded, 
 except as an occasional test. Therefore, some 
 device must be found which is adapted to the condi- 
 tions as they exist in the average class in crowded 
 city schools. It is believed that the following plan 
 meets these conditions: 
 
 (i) The teacher selects a word that has never 
 been taught or given to the children. He slowly 
 writes it upon the board, spelling it orally as he does 
 so. As the children observe the process, they have 
 the auditory image of the oral spelling, the visual 
 image of the completed written word, and the mus- 
 
134 ELEMENTARY WORD STUDY 
 
 cular image of the eye as it follows the hand that 
 writes the word. 
 
 (2) Next the children write the word into their 
 note-books, spelling orally at the same time. They 
 have thus the auditory image of the word, the mus- 
 cular image of the vocal organs, and the muscular 
 image of the hand that writes. 
 
 (3) If it is a word whose meaning is also to be 
 taught, a conversation now follows as to its content. 
 Its meaning is briefly illustrated and discussed, but 
 not written at the time. This enhances the interest 
 of the whole process and furnishes an additional 
 association as a clue for the recall of the spelling of 
 the word. 
 
 (4) After four or five words have been treated in 
 this way, the children are asked to look at each word 
 once more, and to avert their eyes to see if they have 
 imaged it perfectly. 
 
 (5) The board is now cleaned, the books are put 
 away, and the spelling papers are given out. The 
 first word is pronounced and the children write it, 
 laying down their pencils at a given signal. 
 
 (6) The teacher writes the word on the board, 
 and at the same time a pupil orally spells it. Those 
 who have made a mistake pick up their pencils and 
 correct the error. Those who are right, remain in 
 position. If eight are wrong, the teacher writes the 
 
DEVICES IN WORD STUDY 135 
 
 figure "8" after the word in his list. This shows 
 him, when he comes to review, how many children 
 have missed that word. By and by, some words in 
 the list will thus have a row of figures written after 
 them. He keeps on reviewing until each row of 
 figures is reduced to zero. Then he stops. There 
 is no use in wasting time on a word that every pupil 
 can spell. 
 
 (7) Each word is treated similarly. When the 
 spelling is done the papers are collected and filed or 
 thrown away. The teacher need spend no further 
 time on corrections. Each pupil's degree of success 
 is already recorded on his own paper, and the success 
 of the class is shown by the figures after the words 
 in the teacher's note-books. 
 
 The above device is offered, not as a panacea for 
 all the spelling evils, but as a modem substitute for 
 ''trapping." A teacher may try the plan under 
 unfavorable conditions of discipline or grade, and 
 pronounce it futile or foolish. I have no quarrel 
 with him. It certainly involves a correct principle; 
 if he can get better results by embodying the prin- 
 ciple in some other method, by all means let him do 
 it. I am inclined to think that for the higher grades 
 it does too much for the pupil. Children need the 
 discipline that comes from book mastery. In the 
 upper grades it may be better simply to set for the 
 
136 ELEMENTARY WORD STUDY 
 
 pupil the task of learning so many words. But in 
 that case the child would probably be helped by 
 some such device as that herewith presented. 
 
 3 Spelling in 1815 
 
 "Each pupil has a blank book, in which the words 
 spelled are written with pen and ink. I use Wor- 
 cester's dictionary, which I go through regularly, 
 from beginning to end. . . . With the lower 
 class my method was to write the words to be spelled 
 on the blackboard; a few minutes were allowed the 
 class to study them; the rules of spelling were given 
 and explained whenever they were applicable; if 
 there were any words whose meaning was not under- 
 stood, they were explained ; and I stated what I knew 
 of the derivation and history of all interesting words; 
 the words were then pronounced, first by the teacher, 
 and then by the scholar."' 
 
 4 Names of Common Things 
 
 A high degree of interest can be created among 
 children by giving them lessons in which they are 
 required to spell the names, qualities, actions, etc., 
 of common things, such as an object in the school - 
 
 ^ Chrifetopher A.Green: "Methods of Teaching Spelling. " American 
 Institute of Instruction Lectures, 1851, p. 161. 
 
DEVICES IN WORD STUDY 137 
 
 room, articles of furniture, articles of wearing ap- 
 parel, kinds of food, things bought at stores, things 
 taken to market, trees, flowers, vessels, vehicles, 
 men, women, etc.^ 
 
 5 '• Logomachy "i 
 
 This word means '^word-fight. " The device con- 
 sists in trying to make as many words as possible 
 out of letters printed on separate pieces of card- 
 board, which are distributed to the players. The 
 play necessitates correct spelling and frequent re- 
 course to the dictionary; it arouses emulation, and 
 fixes eye-images of words in the memory. 
 
 6 Calling Attention to Parts Liable to be Mistaken^ 
 
 The feature of this book to which attention is 
 particularly invited, and in which it differs from any 
 book with which the writer is acquainted, is its 
 classification of words upon the basis of form, with 
 that part of the word which is likely to he mistaken 
 as the form element. 
 
 Illustration: Sound S. 
 
 Equivalents ay, ai, e, ea, ee, eigh, et, ey. 
 
 ' Wickersham: " Methods of Instruction. " Lippincott, 1866. 
 * Diamond's "The Rational Speller. " Macmillan, 1901. 
 
138 ELEMENTARY WORD STUDY 
 
 IV 
 
 V 
 
 VI 
 
 VII 
 
 clay 
 
 weigh 
 
 pmme 
 
 attache 
 
 dvdiy 
 
 neigh 
 
 dairy 
 
 cafe 
 
 pla^^ 
 
 sleigh 
 
 
 cure 
 
 stray 
 
 neighbor 
 
 vary 
 
 employe 
 
 etc. 
 
 ob^y 
 
 wary 
 
 protege 
 
 prey 
 
 convey 
 
 warily 
 
 resume 
 
 they 
 
 survey 
 
 variable 
 
 vise 
 
 whey 
 
 daily 
 
 yea 
 
 matinee 
 
 The part printed in italics may be written or 
 printed in colored chalk on the blackboard. 
 
 "7 Drill on Words Often Mispronounced ^ 
 
 Take as many of the following or similar words 
 as you desire for one exercise, write them upon the 
 board, and in a parallel column write the words 
 again, indicating the correct pronunciation. Allow 
 each pupil sufficient time to study and practice the 
 proper pronunciation — a half-day at least — after 
 which erase the column in which the proper pronun- 
 ciation is marked, and test the pupil's ability to pro- 
 nounce correctly each word in the list: museum, 
 lyceum, precedent, allopathic, homeopathic, allo- 
 pathy, homeopathy, obligatory, combatant, indis- 
 
 * Shaw & Donnell: " School Devices," p. 8^. A. S. Barnes & Co, 
 
DEVICES IN WORD STUDY 139 
 
 putable, apparatus, covetous, iodine, prelude, ex- 
 quisite, itinerant, impetus, architect, condenining, 
 process, Juliet, greasy, interesting, allies, quinine, 
 gallows, finance, mischievous, Khedive, condolence, 
 leisure, extant, fatigue, bronchitis, telegraphy, pho- 
 tography, inquiry, Italian, bade, acclimated, extol, 
 franchise, lamentable, patron. Pall Mall, abdomen, 
 association, pronunciation, bellows, livelong, Arab. 
 
 8 Spelling 
 
 Dictation as a Test.^ (The Fifth Herbartian 
 Step), 
 (i) How THE Exercise is Conducted 
 
 (a) At least one child writes on the blackboard, 
 while the rest write on paper. 
 
 (b) The number of words dictated consecutively 
 depends upon the mental capacity of the child and 
 upon the nature of the selection. 
 
 (c) Only groups of related words are dictated. 
 
 (d) The speed of the dictation is limited by the 
 ability of the majority of the class to take down the 
 exercise verbatim. 
 
 (e) No repetition is permissible unless it is de- 
 manded by the content of the selection. 
 
 » From Cronson's "Methods in Elementary School Studies," Mac- 
 millan, 1906, This device is quoted with the permission of the publisHers, 
 
I40 ELEMENTARY WORD STUDY 
 
 (2) Method or Correction 
 
 {a) Individual children are called upon to read 
 their written exercises, the rest meanwhile inserting 
 omissions. 
 
 (6) The blackboard exercise as "proof-sheet": 
 the attention is directed first to the paragraphs as 
 wholes, then to the separate sentences as wholes, 
 and lastly to the elements of each sentence. 
 
 {c) Classes that are supplied with dictionaries 
 should use these to look up the correction of mis- 
 spelled words and the meanings of unknown words. 
 
 {d) Correction is made by passing a line through 
 the error, re-writing correctly above the word, and in 
 the case of a misspelled word, writing it also below 
 the exercise. 
 
 General Directions 
 
 {a) Time must be assigned for the study of the 
 corrected forms, and for recitation by several pupils. 
 
 (h) Each sheet of paper should contain two 
 original dictations; if re-dictation is deemed advis- 
 able, it should be taken on a separate sheet. 
 
 {c) An oral review of exercises should be had at 
 least once a month, when children are given an 
 opportunity to restudy previous corrections. A 
 recitation should follow. 
 
DEVICES IN WORD STUDY 141 
 
 Model Lesson i 
 
 The teacher dictated the following in groups of 
 words included between the vertical lines : 
 
 As the fair happened on the following day, | I had 
 intentions of going myself. | 
 
 "No, my dear," said my wife, | "our son Moses is 
 a discreet boy, | and can buy and sell to very good 
 advantage." i 
 
 The "Proof-sheet" 
 As the fair happened on the following day, I had 
 
 intentions TI " 
 
 intensions of going myself. "No, my dear, said my 
 
 " discreet , 
 
 wife, our son Moses is a discret boy and can buy 
 
 advantage 
 
 and sell to very good advantag." 
 
 prudence 
 
 As I also had a good opinion of my son's prudense, 
 I was willing enough to trust the business with him. 
 
 I Intentions 
 
 5 
 
 discreet 
 
 2 ^ 
 
 6 
 
 J 
 
 3 " 
 
 7 
 
 advantage 
 
 4. '' 
 
 8 
 
 prudence 
 
 ^ The main aim of the lesson was to test the children' s knowledge of 
 paragraphs and quotation marks. 
 
142 ELEMENTARY WORD STUDY 
 
 9 Meaning 
 
 ''The method of Mr. Alcott, in a school composed 
 chiefly of young children, was to converse with his 
 scholars on the meaning of every word spelled; so 
 as to create an interest in it, and make them perceive 
 its connection and use. They wrote these words 
 from their spelling book, until they knew them, and 
 then spelled them orally from dictation. It seems 
 to me that such a method, applied by one competent, 
 is nearly perfect as far as it goes. The blackboard 
 was then cleaned, the words were put out to the class 
 and written by them in their books. The lesson 
 was then written over again on the blackboard, the 
 pupils compared their v/ork with that on the black- 
 board, marking mistakes with a cross, and the teacher 
 called for and recorded the number of mistakes 
 which each had made. The teacher afterwards 
 corrected the books, examined them, and wrote, 
 in a book kept for that purpose, all the words which 
 were misspelled; he began his next day's lesson 
 with these words, and continued to do so until every 
 word had .been spelled correctly by every member of 
 the class. The whole process takes the pupil twenty 
 minutes each day."^ 
 
 * Christopher A. Green: "Methods of Teaching Spelling," American 
 Institute of Instruction Lectures, 1851, p. i8i. 
 
DEVICES IN WORD STUDY 143 
 
 10 Spelling by Dictation 
 
 "For four or five years, spelling has been taught 
 from 2 A to 4A, solely by dictation. Tests have been 
 made in two 4A classes. In each one, the children 
 were placed in two sections: one composed of those 
 who had been taught to spell by dictation for a year 
 or more; the other of those who had been taught 
 to spell by dictation for less than a year. The aver- 
 age result of the former group was 90 %, while in the 
 case of the latter group, the result was only 80%. 
 The method of dictation gives practice in such words 
 as there, which, very, those, etc. When we write, 
 we write in sentences and there seems to be no need 
 for children to write vv^ords in columns. It is an 
 unnatural arrangement and does not give sufficient 
 practice in the spelling of small words. It would 
 be as sensible to teach children to read columns of 
 words daily, and have readers in their hands but 
 once a week, as it is to teach children to spell columns 
 of words, and conduct dictation but once a week." i 
 
 1 1 Meaning and Use 
 
 The method pursued by the writer has been to 
 supply the children with the necessary definitions and 
 illustrative sentences. Briefly the method has been 
 as follows: 
 
 * Kate Van Wagenen. 
 
144 ELEMENTARY WORD STUDY 
 
 After the reading lessons for the following week 
 have been chosen by the teacher, a selection is made 
 of the words that require special study. These 
 form the list of meaning and use words for the week. 
 The next step is to compose a simple but compre- 
 hensive definition of each word. This done, the 
 illustrative sentence is next in order. These two 
 should give the pupil a good working knowledge of 
 each word. With the aid of a hektograph the teacher 
 has been able to furnish the pupils on each Monday 
 morning of the term a list of the words for the week, 
 together with definitions and illustrative sentences. 
 Thus week after week a word book is built up 
 which is always at the service of the pupils. 
 
 The illustrative sentences have proved very valu- 
 able, not only because they have thrown additional 
 light upon the meanings of words, but also for the 
 assistance they have given the pupils as guides in 
 the construction of original sentences. With them at 
 his command he seldom makes the foolish blunders 
 so common in this subject. If we want children to 
 furnish sentences it is only fair that we should furnish 
 them with a model. We do it in composition; why 
 not in the study of words ? 
 
 The relation of the reading lesson to word study 
 as a result of the above outlined method is worthy 
 of a few words. The teacher has been careful to 
 
DEVICES IN WORD STUDY 145 
 
 arrange the word list so that words shall come up 
 for consideration before the reading lesson from 
 which they were chosen and on the same day. The 
 pupils have not been told that the words were chosen 
 from the reading lesson, and for two reasons. In 
 the first place, it is a great delight to the pupils to 
 discover the words they have been discussing and 
 using earlier in the day. Again, the apparent dis- 
 covery serves to indicate that these words are words 
 in common use. Consequently the pupil is on the 
 look-out to find the same word in other quarters. 
 Thus there is aroused a genuine interest in the study 
 of words, and what would seem to be a dry and 
 uninteresting topic has had ''breathed into it the 
 breath of Hfe." The reading lesson, too, has been 
 the gainer, for it has been cleared of many of its 
 difficulties, and more time is left for actual reading. 
 
 Specimen List 
 
 (i) Melancholy — Extremely sad and down- 
 hearted. "A melancholy story"— ''His mother's 
 death made him melancholy. " "A melancholy life. " 
 
 (2) Phenomenon — (a) An unusual happening 
 or fact. "A child bom with six toes is a phe- 
 nomenon." "Samson had phenomenal strength." 
 (b) Something causing surprise or wonder. " Me- 
 teors are natural phenomena. " 
 
t46 ELEMENTARY WORD STUDY 
 
 (3) Irresolution — Lack or want of firmness of 
 purpose. Lack of the power of deciding what to do. 
 "Irresolution during a fire may cause the loss of many 
 lives. " " The defeat was caused by the GeneraPs irres- 
 olution. " "An irresolute man lacks the nerve to act." 
 
 (4) Relinquish — To give up using or having. 
 "He relinquished the stolen goods." "He relin- 
 quished his hold on the oar and sank." 
 
 (5) Surplus — That which remains beyond what 
 has been used or needed. "Surplus wealth" — 
 "After paying his debts there was a surplus." 
 
 (6) Incredulous — Not disposed to believe. 
 "When the clerk said that the money had been 
 stolen, his employer was incredulous." 
 
 (7) Appropriate — Suitable for the purpose or occa- 
 sion. "The General was buried with appropriate 
 honors, and the President made an appropriate 
 speech." 
 
 (8) Embarrass — To put in a confused and 
 disturbed state of mind. " He was much embarrassed 
 when called upon for a speech." "His embarrass- 
 ment caused him to stutter and stammer." 
 
 (9) Opportunity — A favorable chance. A fit 
 or convenient time. "The government furnishes 
 us all with an opportunity to learn." "He had an 
 opportunity to make money." "It was the opportu- 
 nity he was looking for." 
 
DEVICES IN WORD STUDY i47 
 
 (lo) Eternity— (a) Endless time. ^'Washing- 
 ton's fame will live through eternity." (b) Un- 
 ending life beyond the present. ''In a moment it 
 exploded and fifty lives were hurled into eternity." 
 
 (ii) Indulge — To give in (usually unwisely) 
 to the wishes or desires of oneself or another. "To 
 indulge a child." "To indulge in strong drink." 
 "Indulgence in opium." 
 
 (12) Maintain — (a) To support. Provide for. 
 "To maintain a family." "Orphan asylums are 
 maintained by charity." (b) To support by argu- 
 ment. "England maintained her right to tax the 
 
 colonists." 
 
 (13) Superior — (a) Of higher rank. More ex- 
 cellent. Finer or better than the others. "He 
 saluted his superior officer." "The enemy were 
 superior in number." "A superior article." (b) 
 A person higher in rank than another or others. 
 "The General is the superior of the Colonel." "He 
 was his superior in knowledge." 
 
 (14) Injerior — (Opposite of superior.) 
 
 (15) Menace — (a) To threaten with evil. "He 
 menaced his enemy with death." (b) Anything 
 that threatens with evil. "He laughed at his enemy's 
 menace." "The swamp was a m.enace to the health 
 
 of the people living nearby." 
 
 — A Brooklyn Principal 
 
IX 
 
 Summary of Word Study 
 
 I Word Analysis and Synthesis 
 
 The mere memorizing of the meanings of prefixes, 
 suffixes, and stems is a dull and profitless perform- 
 ance. Drill in the use of these elements is absolutely 
 essential if we hope to interest the pupil permanently 
 in the study of words. Suppose we assume that in- 
 terest, rather than knowledge, is our goal in this 
 form of word study. This will be a sensitive test of 
 the value of our method. 
 
 As soon as the interest flags, we shall know that 
 something has gone wrong in our teaching. We 
 shall be constantly on the lookout for interesting 
 material and helpful devices. In other words, the 
 beginning of wisdom here is interest on the teacher's 
 part. Seek ye first this chief good, and all other 
 things shall be added unto you. 
 
 Create in the pupil a need for the new knowledge, 
 
 and he will take pains to satisfy his desire. The 
 
 reading of such books as "Trench on the Study of 
 148 
 
SUMMARY OF WORD STUDY 149 
 
 Words" and Richard Grant White's "Words and 
 Their Uses" is pretty sure to beget interest on the 
 teacher's part and to open up a rich mine of resources 
 for classroom use. 
 
 (i) Analysis Suppose we take the word Capi- 
 tal as used in geography. We find that the word is 
 made from caput, the head, and al, pertaining to. 
 The word means literally, pertaining to the head. 
 The head is the seat of mental power, the chief part 
 of the body; hence the usual applications of the word 
 are based on this idea of chief power or authority. 
 Thus, we have capital city, capital letter, capital pun- 
 ishment, capital play, capital in business, making 
 capital of the candidate's bad record. 
 
 Lessons in word analysis may be assigned in the 
 following form : 
 
 Beneficent 
 
 The pupil is expected to find the parts of which the 
 word is composed and to infer the literal meaning of 
 the compound. He may then find figurative applica- 
 tions of the word and illustrate each use by an appro- 
 priate sentence of his own construction or selection. 
 
 (2) Synthesis Reversing the process, we may 
 have an exercise like the following : 
 
 in 
 
 alien 
 able 
 
I50 ELEMENTARY WORD STUDY 
 
 The pupil will tell the meaning of the parts and 
 form the compound, then infer the literal meaning of 
 the word, and proceed from this to the metaphorical 
 uses. The study of the Declaration of Independence 
 in the higher grades furnishes an occasion for the study 
 of this word. 
 
 2 Choice of Words 
 
 The items suggested in the summary on pages 
 1 62-1 71, under the head of ^Xhoice of Words," are 
 not meant to be exhaustive or mandatory. The topic 
 is brought forward for the sole purpose of reminding 
 the teacher that something of the sort must be done 
 if we expect the speech of children to rise above the 
 commonplace and to become adequate for the cor- 
 rect and forceful expression of thought and feeling. 
 
 During a recent examination of a package of com- 
 positions written by seventh-grade children, the 
 writer selected at random for careful reading an 
 essay which had been written by a girl of thirteen. 
 The paper contained a description of natural scenery. 
 The child had used the word ''lovely" three times 
 on a single page in referring to a landscape, and had 
 employed "nice" to describe the sky. These im- 
 portant words had been passed by the teacher without 
 correction or comment. He had not felt the need of 
 guiding children in the choice of words. 
 
SUMMARY OF WORD STUDY 151 
 
 Probably the best way to suggest to young writers 
 the importance of using the right word is to present 
 correct models. The class referred to above would 
 have profited by the careful study of a passage like 
 the following: 
 
 " A few amber clouds floated in the sky, without a breath of air to 
 move them. The horizon was of a fine, golden tint, changing 
 gradually into a pure apple-green, and from that into the deep-blue 
 of the midheaven." ^ 
 
 The right word is the specific word, rather than the 
 general. The specific word in description or narra- 
 tive is usually the concrete word. Witness the follow- 
 ing account of the meeting of Abraham's servant 
 with Rebekah (Genesis xxiv): 
 
 " And he made his camels to kneel down without the city by a well 
 of water at the time of the evening, even the time when women go 
 out to draw water. And she said. Drink my lord; and she hasted 
 and let down her pitcher upon her hand, and gave him drink." 
 
 For further suggestions on the right use of words 
 see the author's ^^Composition in the Elementary 
 School" (A. S. Barnes & Co.), pp. 41, 42. 
 
 ^ Washington Irving. 
 
152 ELEMENTARY WORD STUDY 
 
 3 Diacritical Marks 
 
 The names of marks used should be taught in each 
 grade. Not all the marks used by Webster are given 
 in the summary on pages 1 62-1 71. Grades 6A-8B 
 should teach such additional marks as an intelligent 
 use of the dictionary may require. 
 
 There are two ways of conducting drills in dia- 
 critics. In one, the teacher writes or pronounces a 
 word and the pupil inserts the necessary marks to 
 indicate the pronunciation. In the other, the teacher 
 marks an unfamiliar or difficult word and the pupil 
 pronounces the same in accordance with the marking. 
 When a pupil in his reading mispronounces a word, 
 the latter method should usually be employed. The 
 word arctic is mispronounced by probably half the 
 children in the elementary schools. It is one of the 
 clearest evidences of the general neglect of phonics 
 as applied to pronunciation. 
 
 4 Use of Dictionary 
 
 Drills in the correct and rapid use of the dictionary 
 as an authority on the meaning and pronunciation of 
 words should be conducted in the sixth, seventh, and 
 eighth years. Many devices may be employed to 
 stimulate interest. Lessons may be organized as 
 
SUMMARY OF WORD STUDY 153 
 
 games, in which the test is to find a given word in the 
 shortest time, or to find the largest number of words 
 in a given time. Pupils should have individual dic- 
 tionaries from the beginning of the sixth year; and 
 they should early acquire the dictionary habit. 
 
154 ELEMENTARY WORD STUDY 
 
 5 Bibliography 
 
 1 The Hygiene and Psychology of SpeUing. Wm. H. Burnham, 
 
 Pedagogical Seminary, Vol. 13, p. 474. 
 
 2 Method in Education, by R. N. Roark. American Book Com- 
 
 pany, 1899. 
 
 3 Is Spelling a Lost Art? By Wm. E. Mead, Educational Review, 
 
 Vol. 19, p. 49- 
 
 4 Constitutional Bad Spellers. Adelaide E. Wyckoff, Pedagogical 
 
 Seminary, Vol. 2, p. 448. 
 
 5 Dr. F. W. Smedley: Report of the Department of Child Study 
 
 and Pedagogic Investigation, Chicago Public Schools. Child 
 Study Report, No. 3. 
 
 6 Spelling: Mr. H. E. Kratz: "Studies and Observations in the 
 
 School-Room." Educational Publishing Company, Boston, 
 1907. 
 
 7 Edward R. Shaw on Spelling: Three Studies in Education. 
 
 E. L. Kellogg & Co., New York, 1899 (pamphlet). 
 
 8 Experiments on Spelling: Miss E. K. Carmen, Teachers College 
 
 Record, p. 87. Columbia University Press, New York, May, 
 1910. For same study, see Journal of Pedagogy, October, 
 1900. 
 
 9 Spelling in the Elementary School, by Oliver B. Comman. Ginn 
 
 & Company, Boston, 1902. The most noteworthy scientific 
 investigation of spelling made in this country to date. 
 
 10 Individual Differences in Spelling. "The Principles of Teach- 
 
 ing, " by E. L. Thorndyke. A. G. Seiler, New York, 1906. 
 
 11 Bagley: The Educative Process, p. 123. Macmillan, 1905. The 
 
 Spelling Drill. 
 
 12 E. N. Kendall: Report on Spelling in New Haven Schools. Edu- 
 
 cational Review, Vol. 14, p. 409. 
 
 13 Judd: Genetic Psychology for Teachers, p. 262. Appleton, New 
 
 York, 1903. See "Spelling" in Index, 
 
SUMMARY OF WORD STUDY 155 
 
 14 English Lessons for English People. Edwin A. Abbott and 
 
 J. R. Seeley, London, 1883. (On Definition.) 
 
 15 Dexter & Garlick's Psychology in the Schoolroom. Longmans, 
 
 1898. (On Definition, p. 148.) 
 
 16 Bain's Education as a Science. Chapter on "Our Mother 
 
 Tongue, " for Meaning of Words. 
 
 17 Hall's Contents of Children's Minds. E. L. Kellogg & Co., 
 
 1893. Meaning of Words. 
 
 18 "How Words Get Content": Studies in Education. Earl 
 
 Barnes, Vol. 2, p. 43. 
 
 19 "How Words Get Meaning." Chambers, Pedagogical Sem- 
 
 inary, Vol. II, p. 30. 
 
 20 On Meaning and Use of Words. Albert Shiels, School Work, 
 
 New York, Vol. i, p. 35. 
 
 21 Children's Definitions, by Joseph S. Taylor, Educational Foun- 
 
 dations. Vol. 18, p. 126. A. S. Barnes & Co., New York. 
 
 22 Dictation Day by Day. Kate Van WageneUo Macmillan, 
 
 New York, 1909. 
 
156 
 
 ELEMENTARY WORD STUDY 
 
 6 Alphabetical List of Prefixes, Suffixes, and Stems 
 
 for Reference 
 
 (i) Prefixes 
 
 a (Eng. ) = at; in; on; or adds be (Eng. ) = hy; about; over; 
 
 force. 
 a (Lat. ) See ab or ad. 
 
 ^ ?■ = without; not. 
 an j ' 
 
 ab (Lat. ) 
 
 abs y = from. 
 
 twice, 
 down, 
 around. 
 
 y = to.^ 
 am 
 ap 
 ar 
 as 
 at 
 
 ambi (Lat.) 
 amb 
 am 3 
 
 amphi (Gr. ) =both; around. 
 ana (Gr. ) = up; back; through. 
 ante (Lat. ) = before. 
 
 = around. 
 
 to make; or adds force 
 bi (Lat.)) , , . 
 bis [ = ^'^''' ^"^^ 
 
 cata (Gr. ) ) 
 cat J 
 
 circum (Lat. ) ") 
 circu J 
 
 con (Lat. ) ^ 
 cum I 
 
 CO ! = with; together; 
 
 col j wholly.^ 
 
 com 
 
 cor J 
 
 contra (Lat.) ") 
 contro V = against. 
 
 counter ) 
 
 de (Lat. ) = down. 
 dia (Gr. ) = through. 
 dis (Lat. ) ) _ 
 di [- 
 
 dif ) 
 
 apart; not; op- 
 posite act.^ 
 
 ^ \ == twice; two. 
 
 dys (Gr. ) = bad; ill. 
 ant j "" (Against; opposite. ®^^ ^^- ^'^ j 
 
 apo (Gr. ) I f 
 ap '1 = /^^. 
 
 e£ 
 ez 
 
 = out of; from. 
 
 * The last letter of the prefix is often modified by the first letter of the 
 root. Thus, the word affix consists of ad and fix ; but the d in ad be- 
 comes /. 
 
SUMMARY OF WORD STUDY 
 
 157 
 
 } 
 
 en (Eng.) 
 
 em 
 
 en (Gr.) 
 
 em 
 
 epi (G 
 
 ep 
 
 en (Gr.) 
 
 ev 
 
 extra (Lat. ) 
 
 for (Eng.) = 
 
 fore (Eng.) = 
 
 hyper (Gr. ) = 
 
 hypo (Gr. ) = 
 
 in (Lat.)^ 
 
 il 
 
 im 
 
 ir 
 
 inter (Lat.) 
 
 intro (Lat.) 
 
 meta (Gr.) ) 
 
 met 3 
 
 mis (Eng.) = 
 
 mono (Gr. ) 
 
 non (Lat.) = 
 
 ob (Lat.) 
 
 o 
 
 oc 
 
 of 
 
 op 
 
 = in; on; to make. 
 
 vn: on. 
 
 upon. 
 
 well; good. 
 
 = beyond. 
 
 not; from. 
 = before. 
 = over; beyond. 
 = under. 
 
 = in; on. 
 
 =*■ not. 
 
 = between. 
 = within. 
 
 = beyond; change. 
 
 = wrong; wrongly. 
 = alone. 
 = not. 
 
 = in front; in the 
 way; against.'^ 
 
 off (Eng.) = 
 out (Eng.) = 
 over (Eng. ) 
 para (Gr. ) | 
 par 3 
 
 per (Lat.) = 
 
 from. 
 = beyond. 
 = above. 
 = side by side; 
 
 unlike, 
 through; thor- 
 oughly; by. 
 
 y = for; forth. 
 
 poly (Gr. ) = many. 
 
 post (Lat. ) = after. 
 
 pre (Lat. ) = before. 
 
 pro (Lat.) 
 
 pur 
 
 pro (Gr. ) = before. 
 
 re (Lat. ) = back or again. 
 
 retro (Lat. ) = backward. 
 
 se (Lat.) = aside. 
 
 semi (Lat.) = half. 
 
 sine (Lat. ) = without. 
 
 sub (Lat.) 
 
 sue 
 
 8Uf 
 8Ug 
 8Up 
 BUS 
 
 subter (Lat. ) = under. 
 
 super (Lat.) 
 
 sur 
 
 syn (Gr. ) ' 
 
 sy 
 
 syl 
 
 sym 
 
 to (Eng. ) = the; this. 
 
 trans (Lat. ) 1 = over; beyond; 
 
 tra 3 through. 
 
 tri (Lat., Gr. ) = three; thrice. 
 
 ultra (Lat.) = beyond. 
 
 un (Eng. ) = not ( in adjectives 
 
 and nouns ). 
 un (Eng.) = opposite act {in 
 
 verbs. ) 
 under (Eng.) = beneath. 
 vice (Lat. ) = instead of. 
 with (Eng. ) = against; from. 
 
 " = under. '^ 
 
 [ = above; 
 
 over. 
 
 > = with; together. 
 
 * See note on ad. 
 
158 
 
 ELEMENTARY WORD STUDY 
 
 (2) Suffixes 
 
 aceous (Lat.) 
 acious 
 
 al 
 
 an 
 
 able (Lat.) ") = able to be; fit to 
 ible ?- be; causing {used 
 
 ble ) to form adj.) 
 
 ac (Gr. ) = pertaining to (adj.) 
 
 I = having the 
 y quality of: full 
 ) of (adj.).^ 
 acy (I^at. ) = state or quality of 
 
 being (nouns). 
 age (French) = state of being; 
 
 act of; that which; a collec- 
 tion of (nouns). 
 (Lat.) = pertaining to; the 
 
 act of (adj.; n. ). 
 
 (Lat. ) = pertaining to; one 
 
 who (adj.;n.). 
 ance (Lat. ) | = state of being; 
 ancy j act of (n. ). 
 
 ant (Lat. ) = See ent. 
 ar (Lat. ) = pertaining to (adj. ). 
 ar (n). Seeer (n.). 
 ard (Eng. ) one who (n.). 
 ary (Lat.) = belonging to; one 
 
 who; place where (adj.; n. ). 
 ate (Lat. ) = one who; to make; 
 
 having (adj.; n.; verb). 
 ble. See able. 
 
 oU(Lat.)) ;i„;, („) 
 
 cule j ^ 
 
 dom (Eng.) = state of being; 
 
 domain of (n. ). 
 ed (Eng. ) = past tense and past 
 
 participle (v.). 
 ee (Fr. ) = one to whom (n. ). 
 eer (Fr. ) | _ 
 ier 
 
 — V 
 
 i 
 
 ery (Eng.) 
 ry 
 
 one who (n,). 
 
 en (Eng. ) = made of; to make; 
 past participle; little (adj.; 
 v.;n.). 
 
 ence (Lat. ) ) = state of being 
 
 ency J (n.). 
 
 ent (Lat.) = one who or that which; 
 being or ing (adj.; n. ). 
 
 er (Eng. ) = one who or that 
 which (n.). 
 
 er (Eng. ) = more = compara- 
 tive degree (adj. ). 
 
 == place where; state 
 of beirtg; collection; 
 } art of (n. ). 
 
 escence (Lat. ) = state of be- 
 coming (n. ). 
 
 escent (Lat. ) = becoming (adj. ) 
 
 ess (Fr. ) = female (n. ). 
 
 est (Eng. ) == most, superlative 
 degree (adj. ). 
 
 ette (Fr. ) = little (n. ). 
 
 ful (Eng. ) = full of; causing 
 (adj.). 
 
 fy (Lat. ) = to make (v. ). 
 
 hood (Eng. = state or quality of 
 being (n.). 
 
 ible. See able. 
 
 ic (Ut.,Gr.)l = fff"'"^ ''■ 
 . . ' ^ > made of; one who 
 
 ''^^ } (adj.). 
 
 ics (Gr. ) ] . i / X 
 
 ^ l ~ science of (w. ) 
 
 id (Lat. ) = quality; pertaining 
 
 to (adj. ). 
 ie (Eng.) 
 
 I =11 
 
 little (n.). 
 
SUMMARY OF WORD STUDY 
 
 159 
 
 ier. See eer. 
 
 ile (Lat. ) = able to be; relating 
 
 to (adj.). 
 ine (Lat. ) = belonging to. 
 ing (Eng. ) = the act; containing 
 
 {n.; v.; .adj.). 
 ion (Lat.) = act of; state of 
 
 being (n.). 
 ise (Gr. ) )= to make; to give 
 ize J (v.). 
 
 ish (Eng.) = somewhat; like; 
 
 to make (adj.; v.). 
 ism (Gr. ) = state of being; 
 
 doctrine (n.). 
 ist (Gr. ) = one who (n. ). 
 ite (Lat. ) = one who is; being 
 
 {adj.;n.). 
 ity (Lat. ) 1 = state or quality of 
 ty J being (n.). 
 
 ive (Lat.) = one who; that which; 
 having power or quality {n.; 
 adj. ). 
 ix (Lat. = female (n. ). 
 ize. See ise. 
 kin (Eng. ) = little (n. ). 
 less (Eng. ) = without (adj. ) 
 let (Eng. ) = little {n. ). 
 ling (Eng. ) = little {n. ). 
 ly (Eng. ) = like; manner (adj.; 
 
 adv. ). 
 ment (Lat.) = state of being; 
 
 act of; that which (n.). 
 mony (Lat.) = state of being; 
 
 that which (n.). 
 ness (Eng.) = state or quality 
 of being (n,). 
 
 s (Eng.) 
 es 
 
 ock (Eng. ) = little (n. ). 
 
 or (Lat. ) = one who; that which 
 
 (n.). 
 ory (Lat.) = relating to: place 
 where; thing which (adj.; 
 n.) 
 ose (Lat. ) ) = full of; having 
 ous J (adj.). 
 
 pie (Lat. ) = fold (adj. ). 
 ry. See ery. 
 
 = plural of nouns; 
 third person singu- 
 lar of verbs (n.;v.). 
 
 ^ ^ ^S- >> f _ possessive case. 
 
 ship (Eng. ) = state of; office of 
 
 (n.). ^ 
 sion. See ion. 
 some (Eng. ) = full of; causing 
 
 (adj. ). 
 ster (Eng. ) = one who (n. ). 
 th (Eng. ) = state of being (n. ). 
 tion See ion. 
 
 tude (Lat. ) = state of being (n.). 
 ty. See ity. 
 ule (Lat. ) = little (n. ). 
 ulent (Lat. ) = full of (adj. ). 
 ure (Lat.) = state or act of; 
 
 that which (n.). 
 ward (Eng. ) 1 = direction f 
 wards j (adv. ). 
 
 wise (Eng. ) = manner (adv. ). 
 y (Eng.). Seeze (n.). 
 y (Eng.) full of; having (adj.). 
 y (Lat.; Gr. ) = state of being 
 in.). 
 
i6o 
 
 ELEMENTARY WORD STUDY 
 
 (3) Latin Stems 
 
 ). See agere, 
 aequus (equ, equal, iqu), equal; 
 
 just, 
 agere (act, B,g),to do; to drive. 
 alienus {d^tG.)^ another; stranger. 
 anima (anim), life. 
 animus (anim ), mmc^. 
 annus (ann, annu, enn), a year. 
 bene, well. 
 cadere (cad, cas, cid, cide), to 
 
 fall. 
 capere (cap, capt, ceive, cept, 
 
 cip ), to take. 
 caput (capit, cipit ), the head. 
 (cas ). See cadere. 
 cedere (ced, cede, ceed, cess), to 
 
 go; to yield. 
 (ceive, cept ). See capere. 
 (cid). ^ee cadere. 
 (cip). See capere. 
 (cipit). See caput. 
 clamare (claim, clamat), to cry 
 
 out; to call. 
 claudere (clud, elude, clus), 
 
 to shut. 
 credere (cred, credit), to believe. 
 currere (cur, curr, curs ), to run. 
 dicere (diet ), to say. 
 dignus (dign), worthy. 
 ducere (due, duce, duct ), to lead. 
 (enn). See annus. 
 (equ). See aequus. 
 facere (£ac, fact, feas, feet, fie), 
 
 to do; to make. 
 felix (felic ), happy. 
 ferre (fer, lat), to bear; to carry. 
 
 (fie). See facere. 
 fluere (flu, fluct, flux ), to flow. 
 forma (form), a shape; a form. 
 frangere (frang, fract, fring), to 
 
 break. 
 fundere (fund, fus, fuse), to 
 
 pour. 
 gradi, (grad, grade, gress), to step; 
 
 to walk. 
 haerere (her, hes ), to stick. 
 (iqu ). See aequus. 
 ire (it), to go. 
 (lat). See ferre. 
 litera Qiiei), a letter. 
 loqui (loqu, locut ), to speak. 
 magnus (m&gn), great. 
 manus (man, manu ), the hand. 
 mergere (merg, mers), to dip; 
 
 to plunge. 
 migrare (migr, migrat ), to wan- 
 der; to remove. 
 mittere (mit, miss ), to send. 
 pars (part, parti ), a part. 
 ponere (■poii.,^osit), to place. 
 potens (potent ), powerful. 
 scandere (scend, scens ), to climb. 
 scribere (scrib, scribe, script), 
 
 to write. 
 secare (sect ), to cut. 
 sedere (sed, sess, sid ), to sit. 
 specere | (spect, spic ), to look; 
 orspicere ) to see. 
 
 spirare (spir, spire, spirat), to 
 
 breathe; to blow. 
 (tain). Seetenere. 
 tempus (%empoI)^ time. 
 
SUMMARY OF WORD STUDY 
 
 i6i 
 
 endere (tend, tens, tent), to 
 
 stretch. 
 tenere (tain, ten, tent, tin), to 
 
 hold. 
 (tent ) . See tender e and tenere. 
 (tin). See tenere. 
 
 trahere (tract ), to draw. 
 tribuere (tribut), to allot \ to 
 
 give. 
 verbum {\%ih)y aword. 
 vertere (vert, vers ), to turn. 
 vocare (voc, vocat ), to call. 
 
 (4) Greek Stems 
 
 alpha = -first letter in Greek 
 
 alphabet. 
 anthropos = a man. 
 arctos = a hear. 
 aristos = noblest; best. 
 astron = a star. 
 autos = one^sself. 
 beta = second letter in Greek 
 
 alphabet. 
 biblos = a book. 
 bios = life. 
 cristos = anointed {Christ, 
 
 Christmas). 
 elites = a judge. 
 demos = the people. 
 drama = a play. 
 ge = the earth. 
 genea = generation; birth. 
 
 grapho == to write. 
 
 gymos = naked {gymnasium). 
 
 horos = a boundary. 
 
 hydor = water. 
 
 logos = reason; discourse; science. 
 
 mechanao = to contrive; to in- 
 vent. 
 
 melos = a song. 
 
 odos = a road or way {exodus). 
 
 opto = to see. 
 
 orthos = erect; straight {or- 
 thography). 
 
 pathos = feeling. 
 
 philos = a lover. 
 
 polis = a city. 
 
 Sophia = wisdom. 
 
 telos = the end; distance. 
 
 theatnim = a theatre. 
 
i62 ELEMENTARY WORD STUDY 
 
 SUMMARY OF WORD STUDY 
 
 
 I A 
 
 Spelling 
 
 Standard List 
 Miscellaneous List 
 
 
 Meaning and Use 
 
 
 
 Prefixes 
 
 
 1 
 o 
 
 Suffixes 
 
 
 «5 1 
 o 
 
 Stems 
 
 
 £ 
 
 Analysis and Synthesis 
 
 
 Diacritical Marks from Web- 
 ster's Dictionary 
 
 
 Use of Dictionary 
 
 
 Choice of Words 
 
 
 Figures and Allusions 
 
 
SUMMARY OF WORD STUDY 
 
 163 
 
 SUMMARY OF WORD STUDY — Continued 
 
 iB 
 
 2 A 
 
 2B 
 
 Incidental 
 
 150 
 
 200 
 
 In the first three years the words used are taken chiefly from 
 the child's oral vocabulary. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 For the first three years the marks taught and the order of the 
 same depend upon the system of reading employed. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
i64 ELEMENTARY WORD STUDY 
 
 SUMMARY OF WORD ST\]T>Y — Continued 
 
 
 3A 
 
 Spelling 
 
 Standard List 
 Miscellaneous List 
 
 200 
 
 Meaning and Use 
 
 See Preceding Grades 
 
 1 
 
 Prefixes 
 
 
 1 
 
 VM 
 
 o 
 
 Suffixes 
 
 
 ^ 1 
 .2 
 
 Stems 
 
 
 ^ 
 
 Analysis and Synthesis 
 
 
 Diacritical Marks from Web- 
 ster's Dictionary 
 
 See Preceding Grades 
 
 Use of Dictionary 
 
 
 Choice of Words 
 
 Drill on correct use of is, are, 
 was, were, has, have 
 
 Figures and Allusions 
 
 
SUMMARY OF WORD STUDY i6. 
 
 SUMMARY OF WORD STUDY — Coiainued 
 
 3B 
 
 4A 
 
 250 
 
 150 
 150 
 
 
 All 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 1 
 
 
 ale, arm, all, am, eve, end, 
 Tee, 111, old, Odd, use, tip 
 
 
 
 Forms of do, see, come, go, 
 plurals of nouns 
 
 Forms of irregular verbs and 
 plurals of nouns 
 
 
 
i66 ELEMENTARY WORD STUDY 
 
 SUMMARY OF WORD ^TVTtY— Continued 
 
 
 4B 
 
 Spelling 
 
 Standard List 
 Miscellaneous List 
 
 150 
 150 
 
 Meaning and Use 
 
 All 
 
 f. 
 
 Prefixes 
 
 
 1 
 
 o 
 
 Suffixes 
 
 
 .2 
 
 Stems 
 
 
 ^ 
 
 Analysis and Synthesis 
 
 
 Diacritical Marks from Web- 
 ster's Dictionary 
 
 Review 4 A, care, ask, fern, 
 orb, rude, full 
 
 Use of Dictionary 
 
 
 Choice of Words 
 
 Special drill on forms of is, 
 have, do, see, come, go 
 
 Figures and Allusions 
 
 
SUMMARY OF WORD STUDY 
 
 167 
 
 SUMMARY OF WORD STUDY — Continued 
 
 5A 
 
 SB 
 
 175 
 175 
 
 175 
 175 
 
 All 
 
 All 
 
 
 a, be, en (em), for, fore, mis, 
 out 
 
 
 One who does — an, ant, ent, 
 ar, er, or, ard, ary, eer, ier, 
 ist, ive, ster 
 
 
 Selected and related to words 
 whose meaning is taught 
 
 
 See p. 148 
 
 Review 4 A and 4 B, senate, 
 event, idea, 5bey, anite 
 
 Review 4 A, 4 B, s A, urn, pity , 
 food, foot, out, oil 
 
 In the fourth and fifth years children should be taught how 
 to find a word in the teacher's dictionary 
 
 Choice of adjectives used in 
 description 
 
 Agreement of verb and sub- 
 ject, irregular verbs, prepo- 
 sitions 
 
i68 
 
 ELEMENTARY WORD STUDY 
 
 SUMMARY OF WORD ST\JT>Y— Continued 
 
 6 A 
 
 Spelling 
 
 Standard List 
 Miscellaneous List 
 
 200 
 200 
 
 Meaning and Use 
 
 All 
 
 I 
 
 Q 
 
 O 
 (3^ 
 
 Prefixes 
 
 Suffixes 
 
 Stems 
 
 Analysis and Synthesis 
 
 Review 5B: over, to, un, un- 
 der, with, ab (abs), ad 
 
 Review 5B: One who is; 
 one to whom — ate, ee, ite, ive 
 Place where — ary, ery, ory 
 
 Selected and related to words 
 whose meaning is taught 
 
 See p. 148 
 
 Diacritical Marks from Web- 
 ster's Dictionary 
 
 All 
 
 For directions, see p. 152 
 
 Use of Dictionary 
 
 See p. 152 
 
 Choice of Words 
 
 Drill on irregular verbs, prepo- 
 sitions, relative pronouns 
 
 Figures and Allusions 
 
SUMMARY OF WORD STUDY 
 
 169 
 
 SUMMARY OF WORD STUDY — Continued 
 
 6B 
 
 7A 
 
 200 
 200 
 
 225 
 225 
 
 All 
 
 All 
 
 Review 5B, 6A: ante, bi (bis), 
 circum, con, contra, de, dis 
 
 Review 5B, 6A, 6B: ex, extra, 
 in, inter, non, ob, per 
 
 Review 5B, 6A: State, quality, 
 act — 2icy, age, al, ance, 
 ancy, dom, ence, ency, hood. 
 
 Review 5B-6B, State, quality, 
 act — ing, ion, ment, ism, 
 mony, ness, ty, ity 
 
 See preceding grades 
 
 See preceding grades 
 
 See p. 148 
 
 See p. 148 
 
 All 
 
 See p. 152 
 
 All 
 See p. 152 
 
 See p. 152 
 
 See p. 152 
 
 Choice of verbs. 
 Possessive forms 
 
 Precision 
 Simplicity 
 
 
 Simile 
 
I70 ELEMENTARY WORD STUDY 
 
 SUMMARY OF WORD STVTtY— Continued 
 
 
 7B 
 
 Spelling 
 
 Standard List 
 Miscellaneous List 
 
 225 
 225 
 
 Meaning and Use 
 
 All 
 
 CO 
 
 '2 
 
 Prefixes 
 
 Review 5B to 7A: post, pre, 
 pro, re, retro, se, semi 
 
 1 
 
 o 
 
 Sufiixes 
 
 Review 5B to 7A: Diminu- 
 tives: cle, cule, ie or y, kin, 
 en, let, ling, ock, ule, ette 
 
 C5 1 
 
 3 
 
 Stems 
 
 Selected and related to words 
 whose meaning is taught 
 
 £ 
 
 Analysis and Synthesis 
 
 v.. 
 
 See p. 148 
 
 Diacritical Marks from Web- 
 ster's Dictionary 
 
 See p. 152 
 
 Use of Dictionary 
 
 See p. 152 
 
 Choice of Words 
 
 Precision 
 Simplicity 
 
 Figures and Allusions 
 
 Metaphor 
 
SUMMARY OF WORD STUDY 
 
 171 
 
 SUMMARY OF WORD STUDY — Continued 
 
 
 8 A 
 
 8B 
 
 
 250 
 250 
 
 250 
 
 250 
 
 
 
 All 
 
 All 
 
 Review 5B to 7B: sub, super, 
 trans, ultra, vice, a (an), 
 amphi, ana, anti 
 
 Review 5B to SA: apo, cata? 
 epi, hyper, hypo, meta, sym 
 
 Review 5B to 7B: al, ary, ic, 
 ical, ine, ory, ful, ous, able, 
 ible, ble, ish 
 
 Review 5B to 8A: less, ant, 
 ent, ate, en, ise, ize, ly, ern, 
 ward 
 
 See preceding grades 
 
 See preceding grades 
 
 See p. 148 
 
 See p. 148 
 
 See p. 152 
 
 See p. 152 
 
 See p. 152 
 
 See p. 152 
 
 Precision 
 Simplicity 
 
 Precision 
 Simplicity 
 
 Personification 
 
 Review 
 
Index 
 
 Abbott, Edwin A 92, i55 
 
 Abbreviations ^4 
 
 Alden, Abner, quoted 2 
 
 Accent ^° 
 
 Alphabet, Origin of 19 
 
 Analysis of spelling errors . . 46 
 
 — of words 148 
 
 Articulation 3 
 
 Authors, practice of in spell- 46 
 ing 
 
 Bagley, William C i54 
 
 Bain, Alexander . . .45j i^^, 155 
 Barnes, Earl . .99» ii7> 125, 155 
 Berlin investigation on 
 
 words 9^ 
 
 Bibliography of Word Study 154 
 
 Blucher ^5 
 
 Bumham, William H. 43» ^54 
 
 Campbell, William A 70 
 
 Capitalization 13 
 
 — in spelling lists 13 
 
 Carpet-bagger "8 
 
 Carmen, Miss E. K. ..41, i54 
 Chambers, Will Grant 
 
 104, 117, 155 
 Characteristic errors of 
 
 pronunciation 9 
 
 Children's definitions 129 
 
 Children's sentences 13° 
 
 Choice of words 150 
 
 Combination of senses in 
 
 spelling 69 
 
 Committee of Fifteen 88 
 
 Committee of Ten 79 
 
 Compounds 17 
 
 Conclusions on spelling ... 54 
 
 Concrete words 151 
 
 Connected discourse in spell- 
 ing 69 
 
 Consonants 4 
 
 — classified 5 
 
 Constitutional bad spellers . 154 
 Contents of children's 
 
 minds 97 
 
 Context, use of, in teaching 
 
 meaning of words 115 
 
 Contractions i4 
 
 Conventional value of spell- 
 
 ing 
 
 28 
 
 Copying method of spelling 34,68 
 Copyists, effect on spelling . 21 
 Comman, Oliver P 43> ^54 
 
 Deductive methods of teach- 
 ing meaning of words ... 120 
 
 —-definition 123 
 
 — ^prefixes and suffixes ..120 
 
 — synonyms 125 
 
 Definition, illustration of .. 93 
 
 — nature of 92 
 
 173 
 
174 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Definitions, children's. 129, 131 
 — learning useless .. 102,128 
 
 — ^words not to define 106 
 
 — ^what words to define . . 108 
 — ^not to be copied 127 
 
 Derivation of words 67 
 
 Devices of word study . 132, 147 
 
 —trapping 132 
 
 — a modern substitute for 
 
 trapping 133 
 
 — spelling in 1851 136 
 
 — names of common 
 
 things 136 
 
 — logomachy 137 
 
 — calling attention to 
 
 parts 137 
 
 — drill on words often mis- 
 pronounced 138 
 
 — spelling 139 
 
 — meaning 142 
 
 — spelling by dictation .. 143 
 — meaning and use ..... 143 
 
 Dexter and Garlick 93 
 
 Diacritical marks 11 
 
 — list of 12, 152 
 
 Dictation day by day 155 
 
 Dictionary, effect on spell- 
 ing 22 
 
 — habit ^z 
 
 Dramatization for meaning 
 of words 119 
 
 Drill in spelling 78 
 
 — on words often mis- 
 pronounced 138 
 
 Dutton, Samuel T 130 
 
 Educational value of spell- 
 ing 27 
 
 Elizabeth, Queen 25 
 
 English spelling arbitrary . . 65 
 
 Enunciation 3 
 
 Errors of spelling analyzed . 46 
 
 Euphonic analogy 98 
 
 Every lesson a spelling les- 
 son 82 
 
 Fifteen -minute test 44 
 
 Figurative meanings 126 
 
 Frederick the Great 25 
 
 Function of words 89 
 
 Graded list of prefixes and 
 
 suffixes 122 
 
 Green, Christopher A. 
 
 24, 136, 142 
 
 Greek stems 161 
 
 Grimm, Jacob 21 
 
 Hall, G. Stanley 97, 155 
 
 Hard and soft consonants . . 4 
 
 Homonyms 71 
 
 Howell, James 89 
 
 How words get meaning ... 96 
 
 Huxley, Thomas H 91 
 
 Hygiene of spelling 154 
 
 Imitation in pronunciation 6 
 
 Incidental spelling 79 
 
 Individual differences in 
 
 spelling 77 
 
 Inductive method of finding 
 
 meaning of words 92 
 
 — in teaching meaning of 
 words 113 
 
 James, William 91 
 
INDEX 
 
 175 
 
 Johnson, Samuel, his dic- 
 tionary 22 
 
 Johnston, Emma L 121 
 
 Judd, Charles H 89, 154 
 
 Kendall, C.N 86,154 
 
 Knowledge- teaching, rela- 
 tion to language- teach- 
 ing 95 
 
 Kratz, H. E 2>^, 154 
 
 Language-teaching and 
 
 knowledge-teaching 95 
 
 Latin stems, list of 160 
 
 Lay, W. A 32 
 
 Lisping 10 
 
 Logomachy 137 
 
 Lowell, James Russell 90 
 
 Mead, William, E. ... 26, 154 
 Meaning and use of words . 89 
 — how words get meaning 96 
 — various studies on .96-104 
 —summary of conclusions 104 
 — methodsof teaching II i-i 31 
 — when should formal 
 
 study begin ? 115 
 
 — use of context 115 
 
 — use of story and pic- 
 ture 117, 118 
 
 — use of memorizing 116 
 
 — use of dramatization . . 119 
 
 — deductive method 120 
 
 — figurative and poetic .. 126 
 
 — device 145 
 
 Memorizing poetry for 
 
 meaning of words 116 
 
 — definitions 127 
 
 Method in Education, 
 
 Roark 154 
 
 Method of Spelling: 
 
 — principles 65 
 
 — preparation 67 
 
 Motor idea in spelling 55, 56, 68 
 
 Names of common things . 136 
 Natural method of teaching 
 
 meaning of words 113 
 
 Nature of spelling 18 
 
 New York, spelling in 88 
 
 Norman Conquest, effect 
 
 on spelling 20 
 
 Northwest School 45, 75 
 
 Origin of alphabet 19 
 
 Petrel 119 
 
 Phonetic words to be spelled 
 
 first 65 
 
 Phonic analysis 7 
 
 Pictures, to teach meaning 
 
 of words 117 
 
 Plurals 16 
 
 Possessives 16 
 
 Prefixes and suffixes 120 
 
 — graded list essential .. 122 
 
 — classification 123 
 
 — list of 156 
 
 Printing, invention of, effect 
 
 on spelling 22 
 
 Pronunciation i, 65, 138 
 
 — how to teach foreigners 7 
 
 — characteristic errors of 9 
 
 — important in spelling . . 34 
 
 Propositions, thirty, on spell- 
 ing 54 
 
 Psychology of spelling 29, 154 
 
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