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the cantons of Switzerland, at Florence, and in the United States of America, which have been formed to aid in the diffusion of knowledge, by seeking for improvements, visiting your schools, applauding your success, and rewarding your efforts.

What a testimony to the importance of your office, is the co-operation of such men, my hearers! In the exercise of your duty, you are surrounded, as it were, like the first preachers of Christianity, with 66 a cloud of witnesses," who render you present assistance, and call on you, more eloquently than I can do, to fulfil your duties worthily. But this opens a new subject, of which you have already the presentiment. In our next lecture, we shall consider the dispositions essential to the primary instructor, and all the responsibilities attendant upon his office, at once the source and the emanation of his dignity.

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Method of Teaching Children to Read and Spell.
By J. L. PArkhurst.

(Continued from No. 1.)

[We regret that the pressure of other articles has obliged us to defer this article; and still compels us to leave it unfinished.]

IN teaching him to spell, I have, for two or three days, spread before him twenty-one small letters, and eight or nine capitals. He is beginning to spell sentences. I consider it of some importance, that he should have the letters placed before him in the proper position, and in alphabetical order. Aug. 14.-Having placed the lettert under n, I have taught H. the combination of; not, however, without some difficulty. He has also, this morning, made several unaccountable mistakes, in repeating his exercise with the tickets. When I showed him op, he said ol, and then on, before calling it right; and when I showed him on, he hesitated, and called it wrong once or twice. He remembers perfectly the seven words that he learned yesterday. I find it much more difficult for him to remember unmeaning syllables of two letters, than it is significant words of three or four letters. I wish to carry the experiment farther, before I form my opinion; but I am at present strongly inclined to believe, that it would be better, at first, entirely to omit the duo-literal combinations. Let the child first spend one month, and perhaps six months, in learning significant words and sentences; then let him go through a thorough course with the 'ticket system'; and, after all that, let him learn the names of the letters. H. has to-day learned, in Less. 6, the sentence, "He walks with his feet, and works with his hands,"-containing five new words. In teaching him to spell, when he hesitates, I let him look at the word in the book, to see what selection and arrangement of letters to make. This serves to impress the forms of the letters more distinctly and deeply on his mind. Aug. 15.-H. has learned at, and has made, I believe, only a single error in reading with his tickets,-calling op ol, but correcting himself. In showing him, in Lessons 6 and 7, such words as he has learned, he has

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made several errors, arising from the impression which I mentioned Aug. 8. To teach him the capitals, I have placed a few of them in a row, directly over the corresponding small letters. I feel quite at a loss in regard to the best method of teaching the capitals. What I might have thought of Mr Worcester's method, it had followed it implicitly, and not covered the capitals in Lessons 1 & 2, I cannot say; but at present I regret that any words begin with capitals in Lessons 3-9, except the first word in each sentence. It appears to me that the capitals ought to be learned more gradually, or more systematically. And I am even inclined to think, that it would be better if no capitals at all were used, till about the 10th Lesson. I find that after H. could spell both the and top with small letters, and The with a capital, he could not tell, by that, how to spell Top with a capital.

Aug. 17.-Having placed m between n and t, I have taught H. the combination om. He found it very hard to remember; and so he has on.

H. is exceedingly fond of spelling. I just now set out to teach him the power or use of final s. He has before learned the words leg and legs in the Primer. With his alphabet before him, I told him to spell leg. He did it. I added s, and asked him what it was. He told me. I told him to spell boy. He did so. Then taking the s up, "What is that?" "Leg." "What is that?" "Legs." "What is that?" "Boy." "What is that?" "I don't know." "That is boys. You and William and Edward are boys, you know." "Yes, sir." Then, having repeated the same questions in the same order, I told him to spell hat. He did so. Then I began again at leg, moved the s as before, asked the same four questions, and immediately added, "What is that?" "Hat." "What is that?" "I don't know." 66 That is hats; such as you and William and I wear on our heads." Then, having repeated the six questions in the same order, I told him to spell cup. And before I had time to go over the questions again, he said, pointing at the word cup and the s which lay annexed to hat, "I know what that and that make; it is cups." I then had him spell hen and he knew, in a moment, how to pronounce the word with the s added. Perhaps he would have found out the word hals, had not the sound of s, at the end of this word, been a little different from its sound at the end of leg and boy; the one sound being sibilant, and the other soft like z. I feel as if he had acquired more knowledge of the power and use of the letter s, than he possesses of any other letter in the alphabet. Aug. 18.-H. has learned am with his tickets; also to read She runs fast in Less. 6. I find, to-day, that he can pronounce, with s added, any word which he before knew without the s. Mr Worcester says, 'Be careful to keep the mind of the child occupied but a few minutes at a time.' I really believe H. would be glad to spell a whole hour at a time, if I could attend to him.

Aug. 19.-I placed the vowel i under a, on the left side of the slate, and taught H. the combination ib immediately after ob and ab. He then read thus: ab, ib; ob, ib; ob, ab, ib; op, ob, ib; ap, ab, ih; op, ap, ib; &c. Aug. 20.-He learned ip. He read thus: ob, ab, ib; op, ap, ip. Then, ob, op; ab, ap; ib, ip; followed by a repetition of former exercises. also learned It is hot.

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Aug. 21.-H. learned to read Get my hat. With the tickets, I attempted to make H. find out il, without being told. I began thus: ob, ab, ib; op, ap, ip; ol, al, il; hoping that when he came to il, he would tell it of his own accord; but I was disappointed.

Aug. 22.-In the morning, I attempted, in the same manner, to make H. find out ir; but with the same ill success. I began to feel a little dis

couraged in regard to his future progress. After breakfast, when I tried him to see if he remembered ix, he pointed at the i and the next consonant g, and asked me what that and that spelled. He has frequently before asked me similar questions. I told him I could not inform him today, but should be glad to have him find out himself. I gave him an opportunity thus: ob, ab, ib; op, ap, ip; ol, al, il; ox, ax, ix; og, ag, - ; and when the and g came together, he paused a moment, and then said "ig." This was what I had so ardently desired. I was satisfied; and had no thought of showing him any more new combinations to-day. But this afternoon, having sat down to let his Ma witness his performance, and having let him read the fifteen combinations just mentioned, he, to our surprise, and of his own accord, pointed at the i and n, which lay quite distant from each other, and said, "That and that is in." "So it is, Henry," said I. "And that and that is im, and that and that is it," continued he, almost in the same breath, and before I had time to place the letters together. The next thing was to take the vowel i, and move it along the consonants in order from b to t. He hesitated only in one instance, and found out that, by having the consonant moved along the three vowels. I am far from supposing that he can tell the five combinations he has learned to-day, when taken promiscuously; and, therefore, I do not expect to show him the next vowel for two or three days.

He makes daily improvement in spelling, though it is difficult to record this improvement with the pen. He is much pleased with the capitals, and has learned pretty well the use of the greater part of them. I now teach him to spell in the following manner: the board containing the letters is laid before him in a chair, with a book for him to lay the letters on, in spelling each word. I sit down, the other side of the room, with a book in my hand or the babe in my arms. He spells a word on his book, with small letters, and brings it to me to see if it is right. If so, I take his book and send him after the initial capital of the same word. I then tell him another word to spell. When he spells wrong, I open his album or the Primer, to the page containing the word, and let him find it, or show it to him; and away he hies to his alphabetic board. When he declares himself unable to spell a word assigned him, I set him to select and bring to me as many letters of the word as he can recollect; and have him tell me whether the letter he has brought, or the letter that is wanting, is the first, or last, or middle letter of the word. He then completes the word by seeing it in the Primer, as before. A peculiar advantage of this method is, to make him think intensely of the word he is to spell, and the form of each letter, while he is walking across the room.

Another method I must not omit to mention. Showing him some large word printed all in capitals, I let him tell what words he can spell with each letter. Take, for instance, the title of a newspaper, as CHRISTIAN MIRROR. Pointing at the first letter, he says, “That is to spell Cat with." "What else?" "Cow." "What else?" "Cup." Pointing at the next letter, he says, "That is to spell He with." And on my asking him what else, he mentions Hat, Hen and log, or as many of them as he can recollect. "The next letter is to spell Rat with; the next is to spell I can hop with; the next is to spell Sun with; the next is to spell The and Top with; the next is I; the next is capital A; the next, I don't know; the next is to spell Man and Mug with ;" and so on. He has got so that he very seldom commits such a mistake as to show me a capital O or W, and asks if that is to spell Cow with. It seems to me important that a child should learn, that the initial of a word is the letter that should be a capital. I therefore dislike Mr W.'s method of spelling words for children all in

capitals. They are very seldom so spelled in books. Hence it gives the child an erroneous impression.

Aug. 23. H. learned two new sentences, containing two new words. "Aug. 24. H. has learned one new sentence, containing one new word. As I apprehended, he hesitates and errs considerably in reading promiscuously what he learned with his tickets, Aug. 22."

Aug. 25. The following is one of the best and most convenient methods of conducting a promiscuous exercise with the tickets: First, form the combinations ob, ap, il, leaving each vowel by the side of its consonant. Then slide the i down to the next consonant x; then slip the vowel a after the i so as to form the combination al; and then let the o follow the a. Then move down the i again; and so on.

Aug. 26. Having placed the vowel u under i, I taught H. ub; also, to read one new sentence, containing three new words.

Aug. 27. H. learned up, and also to read one new sentence, containing three new words.

Aug. 28. H. has this morning found out ul, ux, ug, un, um, ut, in the same manner that he did ig, in, im and it, on the 22d. He has to-day learned one new sentence, containing three new words. I now indulge him in having the Primer to look at by himself, and to find, in any part of the book, such words as he knows. He also sometimes does the same in a newspaper. He now very seldom mistakes a word that he has not learned, for one that he has.

Aug. 29. H. can read promiscuously what he learned yesterday with his tickets. He has to-day learned two new sentences, and three new words.

Aug. 30. H. has learned two new sentences, containing five new words. Aug. 31. H. has learned two new sentences, containing two new words. It is now just one month since II. began. I have made out a list, from which I find that he has learned sixty-five words from the Primer, and thirty-two duo-literal combinations from the tickets, eight of which are significant words, that he understands; making a total of seventy-three words. I have reckoned the addition of s, as constituting a separate word only in a single instance. I think that one half of the time has been spent on the tickets; so that, without these, he might have learned one hundred and thirty words in the month; and, without the capitals, probably one hundred and fifty. I reckon nothing as LEARNED, which is not REMEMBERED."

"Sept. 1. Having placed the vowel e under u, I have taught H. eb; also, two new sentences, containing five new words. Yesterday, having spelled feet with tickets, he covered or removed the last letter, and asked if it was foot now. This singular question is thus accounted for: he had learned that the addition of s forms the plural, and its removal, the singular; and it seems he had thought of the sense quite as much as the sound. Feet was the first word he had seen that formed its plural irregularly; but he, guided by analogy, and not being aware that the irregularity in the spoken word affected the written one, concluded that the singular must probably be formed by the omission of the final consonant.

Sept. 2. H. had forgotten eb. Of course, I taught him nothing new with his tickets: this is my invariable rule. He has learned two new sentences, containing three new words.

Sept. 3. H. this morning found out ep, el, ex, eg, en, em, et, in the manner mentioned Aug. 22d and 28th. He has also learned two new sentences, containing three new words.

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INTELLIGENCE.

CONVENTION OF TEACHERS AT CINCINNATI.

In our number for November 1831, we gave an account of the formation, in Cincinnati, of an Institution to be called "The Western Academic Institute and Board of Education;" of their purposes and objects, and of their first Annual Meeting and proceedings. We also announced the first number of a monthly periodical, to be the organ of the Institute and a means of diffusing correct and enlarged views on the subject of Education. Although we had heard no more of the work until quite recently, we could not believe that the spirit which dictated the first number would be permitted to slumber; and were not therefore surprised to find on our table, a few weeks since, another number, issued in Dec. last. It consists of 40 octavo pages. The articles are the following.

Art. I. To the Public. II. On a well digested system of Education. III. The importance and advantages of cooperation in the cause of Education. IV. On the feasibility of establishing the Western College of Professional Teachers. V. Proceedings of the Convention. VI. Constitution. VII. Letter of the Corresponding Secretary. Added to these articles is an Appendix containing several important articles, on the Construction of School Houses, Classification and branches of study in Schools, and Reports of Trustees of various Common Schools.

From the article entitled "Proceedings of the Convention," we learn that a Convention of Teachers was held in Cincinnati on the 3d, 4th, 5th, and 6th days of Oct. 1832, at which much interesting and important business was transacted.

On the first day, an introductory address by Rev. Mr Bascom, of Augusta College, on "The Philosophy of Letters, reviewed as a question of moral interest," and the Rev. Timothy Alden was appointed Chairman, and O. L. Leonard, Esq. of Frankfort, Ky. Secretary of the Convention. Several Committees on important subjects, were also appointed. In the evening a lecture was delivered by Mr M. Butler, of Louisville, on “The Qualifications of Teachers."

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On the second day of the Convention, lectures were delivered as lows: on "Physical Science in general," by Rev. E. Slack; on "The Study and Nature of the Ancient Languages," by Mr A. Kinmont; on "The History of Mathematical Science," by Mr F. E. Goddard, Louisville; and on the "importance of preserving the purity and innocence of the infant mind, and of erecting thereon a thorough and liberal Education."

On the third day, Mr Thos. Maylin delivered an address on "The Nature and Objects of Education;" Mr Robert Munford on "The Duties of Parents and Trustees ;" and by Mr C. Bradford on "The Modern Languages."

During this day and the following, the name of the Western Institute was changed to that of "The Western Literary Institute, and College of Professional Teachers." The former Constitution was therefore revised, and new officers appointed,

The Committee appointed to select and recommend subjects for standing Committees, submitted for consideration the following, which were subsequently adopted by the Convention.

For Common Schools. 1. What branches of instruction ought the

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