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 learn by example and find the reasons afterwards, if ever. And as 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

expression are based on the laws of metaphysics or psychology, therefore none but a philosopher can act upon them correctly; it would be quite as sensible to say that none but a grammarian can construct a sentence correctly.

One mistake, however, in the commonly received theory of Expres sion, ought to be corrected here. That is, the notion that the marks used in punctuation indicate, directly, the place and proportion of the pauses, which are an effective mode or instrument of expression. Punctuation is not properly "employed to mark the pauses which the sense requires in reading." It is merely a contrivance to show the grammatical construction of words, and the connection, or, perhaps it is better to say, the separation, of clauses. By this means the logical relations of the thoughts are understood. It is then a matter of judgment and skill to present these relations to the mind of the hearer, either by pauses, or by intonations, or both ways. It is true that the pause, employed as an element of Expression, and the grammatical point, sometimes coincide in place; but the cases are almost equally numerous where they do not. To make the latter a direct index to the former, then, is sure to result in a mechanical style of reading, in which the natural expression is lost.

The first condition of intelligible speech is, no doubt, that the words be so produced as to be distinctly heard. Orthoepy, then, is the first, and, in some sense, the most important thing in the art of reading. All the other graces of speech are a manifest and exposed pretence, a sham and mockery, without a good articulation. They are like ribbons or jewels on a filthy person, which rather expose than conceal his vulgarity. Too much pains can hardly be taken with children who are learning to talk, or to read, in securing a correct, distinct, and graceful articulation. It is never too late to mend a faulty one, but this is more easily done in early life.

Orthoepy is to be learned by imitation, to be taught by example. The teacher must make the sounds he would teach, and encourage his pupil to persevere till he succeeds in making the same, and then to persevere until it becomes easy and habitual. The mode of producing each element, the opening of the mouth, the position of the tongue, the moving of the tongue or of the lips, may be described. It is very important that the pupil should be required to observe how the elements, severally, are made, so as to tell them by looking at the speaker's mouth, when this is practicable, and in other similar ways should be made familiar with all the characteristics of the elements of articu

late speech. He should be made to know that sounds are things, to be talked about, written about, described, and understood, as much as forms, or colors, or numbers. But as the fact now stands, sometimes from natural defect, and oftener from habitual negligence, many people do not recognize the distinctions among sounds, and, of course, cannot understand the terms by which such distinctions are described. This difficulty is certainly not relieved by the fact that these terms commonly have only a secondary and analogical application in phonology, as the words high and low, broad and slender, or hard and soft. Yet all the effects of speech, and of song, too, depend on the distinctions and modifications of sound, which are described in terms such as these. It is evident, then, that one who would teach the art of speaking, or reading, must be able to produce, as an example to his pupil, every sound, and every variation or modification of sound, which he wishes him to take cognizance of, or to imitate. Nothing can be left to mere description. It is by imitation only that a child in one country learns to speak English, and in another French; and by imitation one child learns to speak English or French badly, and another well. When the sound is once caught, the practice upon it should be followed up till it is fixed as an invariable habit. By insisting on the practice of the simplest elements of the language, a good articulation will be secured in the most expeditious and thorough manner; and besides, the ear will be improved for the more just discrimination of sounds, and for the better appreciation of all that vocal and articulate sounds can be made to express.

The following scheme of exercises in orthoepy is intended as a manual for the daily practice of those who use this volume, to secure correct habits of articulation and pronunciation. Every lesson in reading should be prepared for by an exercise in this manual, even though a short one. The reading is sure to be executed better if the organs of speech be brought into vigorous play by some previous exercise of this sort. The definitions and explanations are meant for the teacher, who must make his pupils first acquainted with the sounds by hearing, before any description can be understood. As a blind man cannot understand any definition or theory of colors, so - precisely sono one can learn any thing of the theory of spoken language, the mechanism of speech, until his ear is able to recognize, with discrimination, the sounds employed in speaking. It is quite possible that even some

teachers will find it difficult to keep the distinction clearly in mind, between the orthographic and orthoepic forms of words. But any one who wishes to understand the subject will test every proposition by repeated experiments with his own voice. To facilitate that object, examples are given in print, whenever the point to be brought out could be made certainly evident by any intelligible contrivance of orthography. Such examples, if understood, should be attentively practised; and if not, should be practised attentively till they are understood. Let it be kept in mind that the example is an example of sound only, and is to be spoken, therefore, before it is an example of any thing. The sound is represented by letters in Italic type. If the example be represented by a consonant letter, do not give the alphabetic name of the letter, but its proper sound.

§ 1.

Orthoepy treats only of the sounds used in the words of a spoken lauguage. The representing of such sounds to the mind, through the sense of sight, by written or printed words, belongs to orthography. The primary elements of orthoepy, then, are sounds, not letters.

NOTE. This definition must be distinctly understood, and kept in mind. Letters are the elements of orthography, and, to avoid confusion, we abandon the terms letter, vowel, consonant, diphthong, &c., to their use in that department of English grammar. It is considered possible that, at some time, in some original language, every letter stood for, or suggested, some one sound only, and every sound was thus suggested, or represented, by some one letter only. But this is very far from being the case with English orthography at present. Accordingly, in attempting to represent orthoepic elements by letters which stand sometimes for one sound, sometimes for another, and sometimes for none at all, it is necessary to select, for this use, a word in which the representative letter shall suggest a known sound, that is to say, a sound learned from an instructor by hearing and imitation. This method is used in the following pages, the representative letter, or letters, being in Italic type, and separated from the other letters of the word by a hyphen. Thus e-ve signifies a single orthoepic element, namely, the sound properly given to letter e in the word eve; l-oo-k represents the sound given to the letters oo in the correct pronunciation of the word look. It should be remembered that this roundabout process, or some other still more artificial, is made necessary, not by any confusion or uncertainty in the sounds themselves, but by the irregularities and complications of English orthography. For in actual speech the elements may all be distinctly articulated separately. Thus, in the following exercises, in speaking the element e-ve one sound only is uttered that, namely, which is given to e in the word; so of all the rest.

Let it be an invariable rule to designate an element, in speaking, by simply