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The Study and Teaching of English.. 385 What We May See in Words....

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A mother recently asked her eight-year-old daughter, "What separates the United States from Canada?" The answer immediately came, "Water." At first the mother was disposed to object to the reply, but a second thought led her to stop and think. She soon concluded that the answer was correct. After a few minutes the mother asked, "What waters?" The girl replied: "The River St. Lawrence and the Lakes Ontario, Erie, Huron, and Superior." Not one pupil in ten thousand is taught to use language with such precision and correctness as this little girl. How did she learn? What effect had this accuracy on her mind. What use will this be to her in after life? The answers to these questions open the whole subject of teaching English. The following propositions are obviously correct:

1. But one language should be learned at one time.

2. With us, the study of the English should be continued until it can be read and spoken with fluency and correctness, and its use produce. both pleasure and profit.

The attempt to master two language at one time must obviously produce confusion and thus inaccuracy. The English and German, for example, are quite different in many particulars-elementary sounds, arrangement of words, which means method of thought, and meaning of analogous roots. Thinking in one language must of necessity be different from thinking in another. The minds of beginners are not equal to the task of using different modes of thought-expression without confusion. It follows then that, in America, the study of the English should be continued until the meaning of words and their arrangement are so familiar as to be recalled, and used without the conscious activity of the mind. In other words the forms of correct English expression should become almost second nature. One who is constantly obliged to stop and decide as to the proper words to use, and their arrangement, will certainly fail of using language with profit. His thoughts will unconsciously sympathize with his lame utterance. As we think in sentences no one can think well unless he can use his language well and easily. Repeated instances could be cited proving that young children who are accustomed to speak two

languages in the family, or street, fail of becoming correct and fluent in either.

The pleasure and profit derived from the reading of an author depend upon two elements: first, a perfect understanding of his idiomatic expressions, so that his thought is taken in by the mind without conscious effort, and; second, a familiarity with his writings so that a bond of sympathy is created between the writer and his readers. This sympathetic element is all-important in literary study. In other words, we cannot get profit from an author unless we are interested in his works. A cold analysis of a piece of prose or poetry is as foreign from literary enthusiasm as the warm equator is from the icy poles. To enter into the spirit of a writer is to become so intimate with his spirit that some of it is transfused into our mind. The cold "I-see-a-cat," is freezing to all the warm sympathies of earnest, living childhood. But when a pupil learns to read a story about a cat so as not to think of the words used, but of the thought the words convey, she is beginning to get a literary spirit of great value.

Now for some practical suggestions. We want in all our schools three things:

1. A knowledge of good English words, ready to be used in sentences. 2. The power of putting these words in sentences.

3. The ability to utter and write these words with correctness and ease. These are important points, as will be seen at a glance. Words are the tools of a thinker. He must have them in abundance and at hand. Then he must be able to use them properly, and his sentences must flow on so that his thoughts attract attention, not the way he puts his words together. There is another principle, most important in its bearing on success in learning a language. It is this: Composing is an art. Another fact intimately connected with this is-we learn an art by slow degrees and through constant practice. It is a progress of growth. In learning the art of speech there are several stages. First, the infantile stage. Here words are associated with things and ideas. Sentences are short, often none at all. Second, the childhood stage. During this period sentences grow in length and meaning. At first one is uttered, then two are connected and then several are joined. During this stage punctuation, capitalization, spelling, and paragraphing are learned. Third, the rational and rhetorical stage. The child becomes conscious of an object in writing. He has a worthy aim in his work, both of reading and composing. He becomes an author, even though he publishes nothing. His letters are full of rhetorical paragraphs, and metaphors, perhaps poetical expressions. He may rise to be the best writer in his class, for his soul is full of what he wants to say. He has left the study of words, grammatical forms and rules, far below, and his only desire now is expression.

only the vehicles of his thoughts. He has reached the literary stage, which is the highest possible in human achievement. But it must be re