the habit of reading without sufficiently filling the lungs with breath; and this not only makes disagreeable reading for the hearer; but is very injurious to the health of the reader. Dr. H. F. Briggs, of New York, who teaches elocution as a means of health, proposes that there should be exercises of vocalizing, uttering each vowel sound to express all kinds of emotion which the special vowel will express, and in all quantities and accents. Children are all naturally histrionic and will be amused in doing this. The vowel sounds educate emotions in those who utter them, and awaken them in those who hear. When pronounced with feeling, they come from the chest and abdomen and not from the head merely, and so give a general internal exercise that is healthy. Bronson's "Elocutionist" will give a teacher much assistance in this branch, though he has not worked out the thing so completely as Dr. Briggs has done. It is proper to remark to those who measure the success of a school by the rapidity with which it teaches a child to read, that the thorough attainment of the art here proposed, requires time. But when attained, much is gained besides the mere reading, namely, development of body, mind, and heart. Besides, to those who are hereafter to be taught other languages it will be found of great advantage to have associated the vowel sounds of ark, ebb, ill, old, and rue, with the characters a, e, i, o, u, respectively. See for the proof of this, some articles on "Kraitsir's Significance of the Alphabet," published in "The North American Review" for 1849. CHAPTER XII. GRAMMAR AND LANGUAGES. MRS. MANN has suggested, in the last part of this volume, the first exercises in grammar. But grammar is the most abstract of sciences. There are at present few children sent to Kindergartens, who are not too young for the abstracting processes of classing words into parts of speech. - But it is a lesson of orthography, to lead the children to make the few changes which there are in English words, to denote grammatical modifications. For instance, let them write cat, and then say "If you are talking about more than one cat, what do you say?" They will say cats. Let them write at the head of two columns - cat and cats. After some exercises on words adding s only, tell them to write box, and ask, "What if there are more than one?" Then go on and get groups of other irregularities, as changing f into ves, y into ies, &c. Having gone over the nouns, and told all their changes, for number, also letting the children write a list of the nouns that do not change for number, go into verbs, and give the few personal terminations thus: tell the children to write, 1 cry. Then say, "Would you say George cry?" "No," they will reply, "George cries." I say, "I have a book; but should I say, George have a book?" They will say, — "No; George has a book." Also by asking questions whose answers shall give the comparison of adjectives, these can be written; and finally the past tense and past participles of irregular verbs. In my own Kindergarten I have given to about half a dozen children who if know how to read fluently, and can print very prettily, a little LATIN. It is but a quarter of an hour's lesson, and is conducted in this wise: Write down am. Now, that means love in Latin; but if you want to say he loves you, add at, which makes amat. Write down ar. That means plough; if you want to write he ploughs you write what? A bright child said arat. Now write down cant. That means sing. Now if you want to say he sings, you add what? at, then it is cantat. But if you want to say to love you must add are to am. They all said amare. Now, you want to say to plough? arare; and to sing, cantare. Now make the whole sentence, he loves to sing. What is it he loves? They all wrote amat cantare. Now write he loves to plough. They wrote amat arare. I took the hint from Harkness's edition of "Arnold's First Lessons," and gave them six variations on the four regular conjugations, the infinitive and the third person singular of the present imperfect and future indicative, and Latinized their own names; and they were greatly entertained to improvise sentences, the most complicated of which was, O Helena, Anna loves to dance, Maria loves to sing. I give them no grammatical terms, but only English meanings, and shall not give any cases but the nominative and vocative at present; but I think I shall teach them to vary verbs throughout all the conjugations. It is perfectly easy to give so much of Latin grammar to children in the Kindergarten, because it will not involve the use of a book. They can have a manuscript book into which they can write their words and sentences, in print-letters. French, so far as it can be taught by merely conversing with the children, is legitimate in the Kindergarten; also any other modern language. But let there be no books used, nor should French be written by the children, for it will confuse their English spelling, and not, like Latin words, aid it. In my Kindergarten, about a quarter of an hour a day is given to making French phrases by all but the small est children. They have also been greatly interested in learning the French words of a play, which is a useful exercise in pronunciation. I will give the words here: L'ESTURGEON (Sturgeon). Commère Perche, Je vous salue ! Comment vous portez-vous ? LA PERCHE (Perch). Je me porte très bien, et vous? Fait de sole et de morue? LA SOLE ET LA MORUE (Sole and Cod). L'ESTURGEON. Commère Baleine, LA BALEINE (Whale). Très bien, et vous ? L'ESTURGEON. Pouvez-vous sauter en haut Comme moi, Au dessus de l'eau ? LA BALEINE. Je ne puis sauter si haut; L'ESTURGEON. Commère Hareng, je vous salue, LA HARENG (Herring). Je vais chez moi, chercher les jeunes, Commêre truite, Je vous salue! Dites moi, je vous prie, LA TRUITE (Trout).· Ah, par exemple, J'ai bien grand peur; Voilà le brocheton Même si de bonne heure ! L'ESTURGEON. Commère Requin, Je vous salue! Que faites-vous là LE REQUIN (Shark). Je veux manger Le petit garçon, Qui pêche dans l'eau. Pour l'éperlan. L'EPERLAN (Smelt). Petit garçon, Je vous salue! Voilà la Requin Près de moi, et près de vous. (Tous les poissons se plongent.) |