MY DEAR FRIEND,-In my letter to you at parting, written in January last, I endeavored to unfold those principles of discipline, management, and influence, on which, as I believed, the success of your school would mainly depend; and I am gratified to learn, through your esteemed favor of the first ultimo, that they commended themselves to your confidence, and that you have found them useful in practice. - You ask me for a statement of methods, which I would recommend, in teaching two or three of the branches attended to in your school. Most cheerfully will I comply with your request, not going into a finished plan, but giving you some hints and outlines, which you will readily fill up yourself; trusting, however, that if they, in any degree, militate with your own views, or if their use should be attended with awkwardness in your hands, you will not adopt them; or, if you make an unsuccessful experiment with them, after trial, you will abandon them. You must make them your own; must have faith in them, or they will prove but poor auxiliaries in your work. As far as possible, originate or modify, until the fruits of your labors prove the worth of the means adopted. Be not satisfied with moderate success. Let your standard ever be the highest. Seek to keep a better school, in all respects, than others. Have no external model, to be implicitly imitated; but aim at perfection in all things. When the time shall arrive that you think you have nothing higher to reach after, suspect your own fidelity; your school will be in danger. If there is any department in which you feel a degree of incompetency, set about qualifying yourself in it without delay. Everything that is to be taught by yourself, should be well understood by you. You cannot generate an equal taste or fondness for every study; but you must be expert in all, or you cannot succeed in all. I have heard the preposterous doctrine urged that (for instance) a man may teach writing and reading well, although himself a bad writer and a bad reader! Nothing, however, seems to me more absurd. Would the same be said of drawing or painting, of the Latin language, or geometry, or natural philosophy, or chemistry? A man cannot give what he does not possess; and if the teacher is unable, after pointing out an error in writing, to give a visible illustration with his own hand of the amendment he asks for; or, in reading, to furnish a specimen of the manner he would inculcate on his pupil, he is, in my estimation, wholly unfit for such part of his work. be Why is it that one man's school is celebrated for its excellent mathematicians, another for its finished linguists, a third for its fine readers, a fourth for its accomplished penmen? Undoubtedly, because the teachers of these schools have a taste for, a familiar acquaintance with, and consequently, as a general thing, an adroitness in making good scholars in them. This is not only the reasoning of common sense, but may demonstrated by the slightest observation, attended by fewer exceptions than almost any other general rule. If, therefore, your school does badly in any given department, suspect yourself to be in fault, and take means to attain a greater familiarity with it. Converse with those whose schools are noted for excellence in it, and ascertain, by comparison of views and methods, your own cause of failure; to which devote your energies until success is secured. It is a remarkable fact, that, in some branches of common school education, in many schools, there is so little teaching, that I might almost say there is none at all. Take, for example, those identical departments about which you inquire-reading and writing. The very terms in which they are spoken of in schools-"I have heard the class read"-" the boy has written his copy" indicate that instruction has little or nothing to do with them. No; it seems as if children were supposed to be born with instincts, in regard to them, which need no external means to develope and apply. Before the merest elements of the former have been acquired; as soon as the child can, without miscalling more than half the words, get through with a portion, without spelling, he is suffered to stumble on, or gallop, or whine, or drawl, or sing his part, irrespective of tone, or pause, or emphasis, or cadence, or meaning, till his share of the lesson is completed, and then the word "Next!" consigns him to silence, while his successor follows, with only the same or a new variety of senseless sounds; and thus they plod on to the end of the school-term, or, it may be, to the close of their, socalled, education. Some few teachers go so far as to insist on loudness in the reading; and he is deemed the best fellow the best reader-who shouts most vociferously! Another class of teachers are best pleased when the pupils read rapidly, because that saves time! If they get along well, it is of little importance what the words are called; hesitation is unpardonable! One would imagine that the teacher had received an invitation to a quilting match, at some Mynheer Van Tassel's, and, like another Ichabod Crane, was spurring on his pupils, that he might not be too late for the sport! Now, as there is in almost everything to be done, one way of doing it better than another, perhaps better than all others, you should steadily and perseveringly require all things to be done according to a prescribed mode. In the early reading lessons, for example, let the children be taught the sounds of the letters, not merely as they occur in the alphabet, but as they are found in familiar words. They will thus sooner learn the names by which the letters are called, and their respective powers, and the tediousness of the old mode of learning the letters, will be converted into a pleasure. Mr. Gallaudet, S. Worcester, Miss Peabody, and others, have prepared very good books for these first steps in reading, which may be profitably succeeded by Russell's Lessons in Enunciation; the last being to its department, what Colburn's First Lessons is to arithmetic the best book of its size in the English language. Then children have fully mastered these little treatises the tools for future use-they should be put to the study of other books adapted to their capacity, containing selections in pure language, simple in style, but not puerile, nor so diluted as to leave them nothing to inquire about, but containing matter sufficiently interesting to awaken and keep alive their curiosity; which they should be required to study as infallibly as they study any memory lesson; to study for the general meaning of every sentence, and the particular meaning of every word. The teacher should keep himself familiar with every reading lesson, as it comes up, and be prepared to explain the allusions, whether to history, biography, poetry, natural science, or whatever else, not defined in an English Dictionary, that may be found in the lesson. The Encyclopædia Americana is a valuable storehouse of varied information, and would be found, with such other books of reference as almost every teacher may have in his possession, adequate to nearly all occasions. The price of this useful book at the present time, brings it within the means of most if not all teachers. The teacher of reading should be familiar with the rules in use among men the most distinguished in this department; but the notation for emphasis, inflection, pronunciation, etc., found in many books, although, to some extent, an aid to teachers, often proves a stumbling block to the pupils. In fact, the man who forms his style of reading, and, consequently, of teaching, upon any system of marks, emanating from another's mind, will inevitably impart a stiff, artistic, and unnatural manner, which can never gratify a refined taste, or move the soul of the hearer to sympathy with the reader. Reading is merely talking with book in hand. Let, then, the pupil understand and feel his subject and the instruction and and explanations of the teacher must enable him to do this he will unfold it as if he were the originator of the sentiments in the lesson. A celebrated actress, in reciting Lewis's Scene in a Private Madhouse, actually lost her wits, and became the maniac she personated; so fully did she enter into, and identify herself with, the feelings of the heroine of the story. There is little danger of so lamentable a result in the case of children's reading, and the teacher may be assured that it is perfectly safe to inculcate this rule. Good reading can come only from a just apprehension of the meaning of the author, and an ability to vary the tones of the voice to express the sentiments or emotions which the case involves. The teacher must be able so to read that the tone and manner even though the words be not understood-shall indicate the character of the piece, as grave or gay, plaintive or cheerful, ironical or frank;-in short, shall speak distinctly all the passions of the mind involved in the exercise. Unless he can do this, his scholars will never reach the desired point of excellence through his agency. Whatever books he may have to aid him, he must himself be the living model to his pupils. Great advantage will be found from allowing the pupils to correct one another in pronunciation, accent, inflection, tone, &c. Their attention will be the better secured, the ear quickened in its perceptions, and the sentiments of the piece more effectually impressed on the mind. The error may be corrected at the instant, or be noted, and reported when the reader has closed. Both modes may be tried by turns; the variation will be useful. Every member of the class should take part in it. The greatest obstacle to this plan, is the alleged lack of time. And teachers have not always from Committee-men all the consideration that they need. They should endeavor to show the necessity of doing their work well, rather than fast, demonstratingas may easily be done that a single lesson, taught in the right way, is more valuable than a mere running through with many portions of reading. Several years since, in some of the Returns of School Com mittees to the Board of Education, complaints were made that the children did not, in some cases, read more than once a day; and by this standard teachers were judged, without reference to the results of their labors. Alas! for that teacher whose legal adviser [director?] brings so little philosophy to the judg ment seat! No error or short-coming in any pupil, should be permitted to pass uncorrected, and when pointed out, the pupil should read it over until he reads it right. This, too, requires time, which cannot be taken beyond the proportion due to this branch of study. The claims of each are to be weighed and fairly met. To do any thing in a hurry, is to ensure an imperfect. performance. But, without extending further these desultory remarks on the teaching of reading, I must pass to the other subject of inquiry -the mode of teaching writing. * The best penmen are made from practising upon large hand until the principles are well established, and then reducing the size, step by step, till the current business hand is acquired. A clerk should be able to open an account in his ledger, in a fair round hand, as well as to enter the items in a neat and fine hand. One rarely acquires a good large hand from beginning with fine hand, although the converse may always be expected. In teaching, let the simplest element compose the first lesson. If there can be a fixed hour for giving the writing lesson, let the teacher stand at his black-board, in view of all, and begin by chalking on it long, straight marks, inclined about sixty-eight degrees. Let them be made in pairs and perfectly parallel, which will aid the pupil, and enable him the more easily to preserve a similarity of slope an indispensable requisite in writing. Require the beginners to copy these marks, as exactly as possible, on a slate or writing-book, holding the pen or pencil precisely as you direct. Great care should be taken that this *A System of Penmanship, by J. I. Hitchcock, has recently been published; and is, in my estimation, the best ever presented to this community. Mr. H. is an elegant penman himself, and in this work, comes nearer as I conceive- to the true principles and models of finished, practical Chirography, than any other man who has undertaken to teach the art among us. |