CHILDREN LEARNING TO READ AND WRITE. 391 



a decided relative ear-mindedness. Few laboratory researches have 

 been made upon the relative rapidity of development of the special 

 senses in children, but such as have been made tend to confirm the 

 indications of the " culture epochs " theory, and to show that the 

 auditory centers develop earlier than the visual. 



More and more attention is given in our elementary schools to the 

 subject of language — more, as some think, than the relative impor- 

 tance of the subject warrants; but without discussing this question, 

 it is indubitably shown by child psychology that it is the spoken 

 language which belongs to the elementary school. The ear is the 

 natural medium of instruction for young children, and all the second- 

 hand knowledge which it is necessary that the child should receive 

 should come to him in this way. It should come from the living 

 words of the living teacher or parent, not through the cold medium 

 of the printed book. In the elementary school, then, the child may 

 be instructed in language as it relates to the ear and the tongue, and 

 this is the real language. He may be taught to speak accurately and 

 elegantly, and he may be taught to listen and remember. He may 

 study in this way the best literature of his mother tongue, and get a 

 living sympathetic knowledge of it, such as can never come through 

 the indirect medium of the book. Indeed, this language study need 

 not be limited to the mother tongue. There is no age when a child 

 may with so great economy of effort gain a lasting knowledge of a 

 foreign language as when he is from seven to eleven years old. 



When the spoken language has been mastered in this way, and 

 when the child has arrived at the reading and writing age, language 

 in its written form may be acquired in a very short time, and that 

 which now fills so many weary years of school life will sink into 

 the position of comparative insignificance in which it rightfully be- 

 longs. Reading and writing have usurped altogether too much time. 

 In the schools of to-day there is a worship of the reading book, spell- 

 ing book, copy book, and dictionary not rightfully due them. By 

 dropping the study of letters from the lower grades much needed 

 time may be found for other timely and important subjects, such as 

 Nature study, morals, history, oral language, singing, physical train- 

 ing, and play. 



One of the greatest goods which would follow the banishing of 

 the book from the primary and elementary schools would be the cul- 

 tivation of better mental habits. Children suffer lasting injury by 

 being left with a book in their seats and directed to " study " at an 

 age when the power of voluntary attention has not developed. 

 They then acquire habits of listlessness and mind-wandering after- 

 ward difficult to overcome. They read over many times that which 

 does not hold their attention and is not remembered. Lax habits of 



