476 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



of works of imagination, are lost when the attention is absorbed in 

 the choice of words which will best render the thought of the author. 

 Poetry, especially, cannot be read by the translator. All its beauties 

 and merits disappear in passing into the prose of another language. 

 Besides, the study of poetry is of no use in acquiring the materials of 

 discourse for the exchange of thought with foreigners, or in following 

 the progress of civilization among other people. The student should 

 enter upon such reading only at an advanced period of study, when 

 he can mark the rhythm and the cadence. Milton, for instance, who is 

 on the programmes of the ivniversity, is not understood by the ma- 

 jority of the English, and yet our young people, who have not read 

 more than four or five volumes of English prose, are expected to un- 

 derstand it in the translation ! 



IV. Pronunciation. The premature exercises in pronunciation, 

 made necessary by the priority given to the art of speaking, are con- 

 trary to reason in proceeding from letters to sounds ; since it is neces- 

 sary to know the pronunciation in order to establish the value of the 

 signs which represent it. It is this inversion of logical order which 

 has given birth to reading aloud, to all the systems of written pronun- 

 ciation, to all those dissertations on the letters of the alphabet in the 

 beginning of most grammars. 



The real use of reading aloud is to test the progress made in pro- 

 nunciation ; and, when once it is acquired, to keep it in memory by 

 practice. But, at the beginning of study, it is a process doubly irra- 

 tional : it implies that the sign leads to the thing signified previously 

 unknown ; and it presents characters to the eye instead of sounds to 

 the ear, thus moulding the pronunciation upon the orthography, which 

 often represents it only imperfectly ; especially in the case of the 

 English language. The attention of the pupil is occupied with the 

 pronunciation of words without regard to their meaning, to which 

 pronunciation is subordinate. This proceeding has become very gen- 

 eral only because, demanding no knowledge on the part of the master, 

 it is suited to the capacity of those who wish to teach. 



Reason requires that we adapt means to ends, but reading aloud is 

 precisely the reverse of that which occurs in conversation. In read- 

 ing, we pass from the word to the idea ; the orthography suggests the 

 sound. In speaking, on the contrary, we pass from the idea to the 

 word ; the sound suggests the orthography. Reading aloud can be 

 only a source of error to a beginner. The corrections required will 

 never form good habits, for these are the result of the repetition of 

 correct impressions, such as are produced by the words of the master 

 when reading to his pupils. To speak and pronounce a foreign lan- 

 guage correctly, we must hear it spoken habitually. The alphabetic 

 combinations by which we represent the foreign pronunciation are 

 equally irrational. They can only bring to the mind of the student 

 the sounds of his own language. It is by hearing sounds, and not by 



