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INTRODUCTION.

as different as sight

IN learning to read, as this phrase is popularly used, two things are to be accomplished. The first is to become familiar with the printed or written words of the language, and with their meanings, so as to recognize both at sight. The second is to acquire a ready power of producing the words of the spoken language, and of communicating thereby the meaning of sentences. These two objects are entirely distinct. They relate to very different matters as different as form and sound. They exercise different faculties and memory from hearing and speech. It cannot, then, be reasonably expected, that the same exercise which is best adapted to accomplish one of these objects should also be the best suited to secure the other. The fact is quite the contrary, as every one knows who is competent to judge of the matter. The attempt to accomplish both these purposes, in the exercise of reading aloud, is found to produce a dull, mechanical, and unimpressive style of reading- a mere calling of words. The forms of the words may be learned from the spelling book, or from any printed page. This is the business of orthography, and may be furthered by various devices. The reading lesson may be used, the pupil being required to pronounce the first word in every line, or the last word, or all the words in any line, in reversed order, from right to left. Especially should every line containing “hard words” be practised in this way. But at any rate, let the process be varied as it may, so long as the pupil's attention is sure to be attracted, in reading, to the letters, the syllables, in short, the form of the word, let it be confined to that alone. Let the word be relied upon to suggest its meaning, not its meaning to suggest the word.

The next step in the preparation of a reading lesson is to become familiar with the meaning of it, both as a whole and in particular

sentences. This is to be taken as including not only the thought, which even an indifferent person might understand, but the feeling also. The sense must be understood, and the sentiment felt. All this is intended in the common direction, "Make the sentiments of the author your own, and deliver them as your own."

Now, it is evidently impossible that one should give the effect or meaning of a sentence, except by mere accident, unless he is able to anticipate the end from the beginning of it. He cannot even begin it properly unless he foresees the end before he begins; for the beginning is always to be spoken with reference to the end, and the end with reference to the beginning. Otherwise all sentences should be spoken alike, as they are by many readers, or else varied at random, as by others. For example, suppose a question has been read, and the next sentence is begun, by a reader who does not know whether the new sentence is another question, or another form of the same question, or a direct answer to the question, or an indirect answer to it, or an entire change of the subject. The chances are, obviously, at least four to one, that he will read the passage without giving its proper force, since no one needs to be told that each of the five forms, or offices, of the sentence above supposed, may require a peculiar reading from beginning to end.

In this part of his preparation, a dictionary will be of service to the pupil. But a formal definition of the words will not always be sufficient. It is commonly necessary that the reader should know something more of the subject than he can learn in the passage he is set to read. As to this want, the teacher must undertake to supply it by oral and familiar explanations. Let every classical or historical allusion be also explained. Let every difficult or unusual construction, or form of sentence, be simplified by transpositions, substitutions, or other methods. When the pupil is possessed of the whole subject matter, and also has mastered the forms of its presentation, he is prepared to present it as it stands, and yet as his own. Then, in reading, he is not conscious of any purpose to call off a set of words. He is thinking only of the expression of a meaning, and the words proceed, as a matter of course, just as the steps do in walking. Reading in this way is always interesting to young persons, as it never is when the spelling out of a series of words is called reading.

The second of the two objects aimed at in learning to read is to acquire the Art of Reading, or, in other words, the Art of Elocution, in that exercise of it called Reading. It seems almost unnecessary to

remind those for whom these remarks are intended, that this is an art, from beginning to end; since it is not to be supposed that any person would assume the unnecessary labor of teaching any thing which he supposes to be given to all men by instinct. But on account of the prevalent errors, it is proper to explain, even here, that “to write and read cometh by nature," in the same sense that walking, dancing, and singing come by nature. That is to say, there are certain natural organs, or faculties, that may be exercised in these several ways, voluntarily and of set purpose; but none of these organs act by instinct, or involuntarily, for the production of song, or of locomotion, or of speech. To speak words at all, merely as words, requires artistic skill, or dexterity, of a certain sort and degree. This is the department of Orthoepy. To speak them in sentences for the communication, or, more properly, the exciting, or eliciting, of thought and feeling, requires artistic skill of another sort and degree. This belongs to what is technically called Expression. Now, skill or dexterity in any thing whatever is to be acquired by practice. But the practice which makes perfect must be judiciously directed by a knowledge of the principles, or theory, of the art, whatever it is, which is to be acquired. In the art of reading, this direction falls into the hands of the teacher, for the greater part; because this art is taught to children at an age when they are not capable of understanding abstract statements of theory, though they can appreciate examples most thoroughly, and imitate them most perfectly.

The theory of Expression is not discussed in this Introduction, not because it is thought unimportant, but rather because it is important that teachers should consider the subject more at large than would be possible in the space that could be allowed it here. It would be well nigh, if not entirely, useless to the pupils for whom this book is intended. This would be the case, indeed, if the matter were as simple as it is assumed to be in those systems which base their rules on the rhetorical, or even grammatical, forms of the sentences; but it is more obviously so, when it is understood, that a true theory of Expression derives its rules not from the forms or arrangements of grammar, but from the logical relations of thoughts, and the laws of sympathy in human souls. Nothing is possible, then, to the young learner, but to And as learn by example and find the reasons afterwards, if ever. for examples, every page is a promiscuous collection of them, which the teacher must turn to account, as his judgment, or ingenuity, and time shall serve. And let him not think that if the rules of natural b