Show at HADING MADING AND COGNATE ART aft BE has been said that mankind is where people do hot read may be true of human beings as but one is likely to think it nd ad of happiness that you and I 1 id adnot not enjoy like the happiness sted ested in the adage where ignore to is bliss it is folly to be wise vei th eless that a people can etain a high state of civilization be readers has been dem I 1 yet not in history grated abed time and again true in most of the ancient was and is the case today in Izat ions persia and of india f parts afa a literature of a printed absence e directly to enhance the powers of and the office of poet and bory hereditary the becomes tradition and folklore fol klove that bount of f retain and transmit is T can mind incredible it is said that thing of india axe are al storytellers story tellers word for word over relate thus s to atty folio volumes probably over he fact Is we have at of reading value led the baates trust to books as we t jn in so far for all to be fixed in ht ought once the days of chiarle ch arle in ands were held and writing reading anfe fit only for as contempt kand nd of the soldier the OB and priests and the gentleman E t affairs contaminated being above huite to read that ethem it is curious the reason early day that in against these arts was that they ed the memory men lory counted the bar usually lly Is asua usua ng the edu between fated ir distinction uneducated it n need eed not band the lady of my fua bo however wever A wealthy and high ce in brookline refused to ed has persistently above the reason tor for re read elsio destroys the m memory mory B that at it dell deli moreover that a which she something spiritual to convers conversation aaion and tt liot listening ehing from al reading would depart face to face with come to re she she accordingly fainted lain izod ted page to read to elocutionist pac strained A trained tp hours a day is dependent church catholic the fest for its existence upon valued memory so highly of of the experiences pc the personal itly saints who w were ere contemporaries RE esua I 1 and the oral that traditions little from them faded down was paid tor for two hundred and the catho it to manuscripts h arch toes not hesitate to let these the dilons ns take precedence over tea record whenever there is a ife first books of every people are uttered they come to Us as from ewhen when the very marks that go thi the alphabet are looked e up with awe and dread every let held to be significant of some 0 ide I flea a and as a matter of fact lai largely gely in different col ah fn the tha incantations of magi clans astrologer sand sooth sayers A for instance was supposed to symbolize the harrow B an ox yoke with which god plowed up the world R a dog from its resemblance to a snarl T a bird and so for all the sounds from the beginning of time or at least since we have had any record of teaching learning the alphabet has been counted a prodigious task and men have cudgeled cudge led their brains in the attempt to work out some smooth way up this rugged hill of knowledge these attempts yare very amusing indeed to modern modem teachers who know that a child picks up his a b cs without apparently knowing how bow or when after he has already learned to read old educators made mountains of the work hence naturally enough they had mountains to climb basedow made ginger cake letters which a child was permitted to have when he could name them no doubt this was a happy device to teach the distinction between letters especially such letters as I 1 and M Pesla lozzi though rightly called the father of modern education followed an alphabet system which involved unnecessary mouth consciousness children were kept at exercises of articulation and pronunciation which had practically little or no relation to fixing the letters in memory other educators carried this idea to such an extent that systems were invented at length ln involving the learning of different sounds and acrobatic sound combinations no wonder children dawdled along for months on the alphabet these same systems would w prove a years hard work for many teachers of today such is the fungus tendency cy of ideas when left to grow in cloisters cellars or elsewhere away from the breath and sunlight of nature after the ability to read was wa S somehow acquired spelling came in n for several years of torture and agony I low ilow long it would have taken germany to outgrow these laborious artificialities by natural evolution will never be known for in 1872 they were summarily forbidden by law since then one large city has ordained that but one year shall be spent in learning to read and write that is after one year reading and writing must cease to draw attention on their own account and fall naturally into place as mere tools for the acquirement and expression of knowledge that learning the alphabet consumed months of unnecessary time was demonstrated by the wife of john wesley who taught her boys their letters in one day taugh them so thoroughly too that they never forgot them at the present time the old saying you cant read till you know your letters has been proven worthless as an argument tor for antecedent impossibilities but eves even now there are primers gift books childrens handkerchiefs plates platea napkins and other articles with the letters printed upon them and arranged in inne monic verse the theory still holding that learning the alphabet to is the great mountain or sahara desert of childhood all this represents the mud tide marks of cram methods the pedagogic stream Is somewhat clear today in places but there is still much vt of the purely individual or personal in the current of teaching methods and every little whiley while down some obscure hollow comes a turgid contil bV tion from some enthusiast or other whose methods and devices while suited admirably to his own personality serve only to those who would imitate him let us not however go to the other extreme and pay no attention to methods methodia A wide repertoire of methods and devices will wall always make maize we teacher of tact and re resource soured the mistake is made when we tail fall to dis cern the living principle beneath tho the methods it is as if david had attempted to fight in the war ac coutre i ments of saul germane to the subject of reading is the question of script and print As respects respect i script the vertical has the advantage over the slant in that it saves fully one tenth the energy to in the reading and is written without the danger of curvature to the spine which is ever present with the slant two photographs one of a class in slant slant writing the other of a class th in vertical both taken without the knowledge of the students prove this fact most conclusively As As respects print we have still something t to learn take a page of our best type and you will and find that the energy necessary to recognize individual letters is by no nd means uniform some forms can be read at twice or even thrice the distance of others prof harris has in consequence of this fact started a movement for the iw e form of typography he bell believes erves lit la compensating of bod bodrey rby increase in shade the german type is very ver difficult and draws so much upon the newal energy that it is fast beites ceded by the roman a will be welcomed in selen scientific tIft cl celes but with the best type aud abl most kindly intentions of printers ers things occur that draw disastrously upon the nervous energy here Is a case in point A noted general had been toaster in EL a certain banquet As a battle scarred hero he protested against t such an imputation the editor w was as profuse in his apology and promised to se set t the matter right judge of the generals indignation when he read next day that he had been as a bottle scared hero this story gives me as the humble reporter of these lectures an opportunity t to D protest against th manyo many many typographical and other errors error that somehow have hav crept into the publication li of them when the series la it done I 1 shall present a chapter of errata N L N the relation of conversation to reading is a point very import important alit for teachers to keep in view in france oral discourse precedes and determines written discourse both in education and in literature french newspapers are but a transcript of french talk and manners it Is for these reasons that the french are such fine conver rationalists in england all this is reversed the spirit is the slave of the letter much to the loss of naturalness and vivacity it is a doubtful compliment to say of a man he talks like a book but strong praise that his written style is natural and lifelike life like what shall children read just as we have no moral right to give doles to beggars since we thereby render them more helpless by confirming their evil habits so we have no right to teach children to read unless we are willingto take pains to direct their reading undirected this acquirement may sink its possessor to lower depths than he could possibly have reached without it the converse to Is equally true in view of this fact it can be maintained I 1 believe that there are people who ought never to be taught to read just as there are multitudes of boys who ought never to go to college their capabilities and destiny are such that an oral life is the most economical and best for them and Is in fact the life to which they settle whatever might have been their training the question of what to read is a most vital one in 1776 it led to a war in germany one party contending for a secular and the other for a religious text in the school readers shall there be fairy baies tales by all means fairy tales appeal to the heart life of children a life which matter of fact literature is powerless to nourish take this story for instance once a little girl was left all alone in the world without friends or any place to go to but before her father and mother died they gave her a new pair of shoes a silver dollar and a loat loaf of bread one morning she set out to find herself a home she had not gone far when she met a little girl bare footed and with bleeding feet so she gave her the shoes after a little while she met a poor woman who had no money with which to buy medicine for her sick child so she gave her the dollar towards night she met a gray haired man tottering along on his staff he had not eaten anything for three days I 1 so she gave him the loaf night came on and she found herself in the middle of a deep dark wood what should she do she remembered that her mother had said god would be her friend so she knelt down and prayed and what do you think happened the stars fell down all around her and when she picked them up they were silver dollars so she was rich and grew up to be a princess now what amount of didactic preaching could leave the impression on a childs soul that this simple story leaves As the child grows older and spiritualizes spiritual izes his conceptions he will read new truths from the objects in this story the stars and silver dollars will stand for virtues which heaven reigns down upon the doer of good deeds fairy stories should therefore form part of child literature for the rest let the reading of children contain the easier classics books on history travels biography and books on science fiction of the yellow back variety should be rigidly excluded As to the range of reading it should be as wide as the experiences or sympathies of the child enable him to fully assimilate what he reads but no further to read what is but faintly understood or appreciated tends to enfeeble the mind in choosing books for children it is well to bear in mind the onomatopoetic faculty children above all things love rhyme and jingle the writer of mother gooses melodies was a genius so go strong is the love of noise and rhythm in children that some teachers have advocated making use of it in teaching reading geography arithmetic and other studies but this is manifestly carrying the tendency too far A more important question still is quality of reading matter to be placed before the young our rule should be nothing but the best dallying with the second best is a crime much of the best is always copyrighted placing it practically out of the reach of the poor one of the questions of the future will be the moral right of a government to the interests of the individual at the expense of the nation the injustice bears more heavily upon the masses and is least felt in the matter of literature than in any other protected article however there is much good matter outside copyrights which if properly selected will enrich the fireside of every home at a trifling cost foremost among best books is the bible no other book can be compared with it from whatever point of view it is looked at its stories interest children its maxims are a practical guide to the everyday laborer its human nature appeals to the psychologist ch its psalms and prophecies to the poet and mystic and its deep spirituality to all natural men and women of every age and clime it is in centering the interest of children upon this book that teachers can do most in the way of directing the reading of their pupils next to this library of sacred writings there should be a selection from the very best library of literature a selection which the con census of cultured opinion would entitle to be called the secular bible here are some of the things that should in my opinion be found in the childs department of this bible stories of a dozen of the greek dramas collins abridgement Abridge ment is a good text stories of the iliad and odyssey fables the lungen lied A dozen of platos myths shakespeare dante faust nature myths babbits advice to young men some others that the reporter failed to get these two bibles taken to heaxt heart would place any man or woman among the noblest average of the human race of course other things would have to be studied to inform the understanding and give the technical knowledge and skill necessary for the chosen profession in life but I 1 would rely very much upon these two for forming the charac character teh the need of reading for information brings us to the consideration of a very important question viz how to economize time literature is multiplying so fast in every department of investigation that he who would keep abreast of the times must learn how to read as he runs it is a fact not widely en enough 0 kgb understood that the eye can call be trained to take in printed matter at three or four times the speed ordinarily dina rily followed it is not an unusual feat for minds thus trained to read a book bearing on their own trend of thought at the rate of one page per second surely the great need of saving time should make rapid reading a matter of training in every school but all books should not be this way some are to be chewed digested connected with this subject is I 1 ie ing to read in a foreign tongue ear and mouth or short circuit ma me should be the one followed it is only natural method then too t is too precious to waste itt it inn in loo loo for little words in a big diccio better use a good translation to you in getting the meaning of finally a few words on the su sut of theme writing will not be out place here the key to success choosing subjects near the life the writer the circle of deepest terest is the circle of personal ea ence and this is precisely the within which the child can write intelligently no more fatal m mb could be made than simple la law writers axe are not made 1 tho choosing osing subjects remote from fro t life experiences the plan may ia an exceptional few lead to the thell ll of gab but most of the pupils come too much disgusted with com compisi tion work ever to figure as writer miu |