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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



child is to be individual in his actions, the 

 teacher should certainly be so. The fault in 

 the instruction in our public schools at pres- 

 ent, however, is not a lack of individuality, 

 but rather a lack of uniformity. If our 

 teachers depended a little less upon their 

 own individual impulses, and more upon the 

 recognized principles of education, we should 

 probably have fewer imperfect plans to criti- 

 cise, and would secure better results in our 

 work. 



We have not to complain of a " craze " 

 for carrying methods to extremes so much as 

 a " craze " for individual prominence, which 

 results in somewhat absurd plans of proced- 

 ure that must be abandoned as soon as their 

 novelty wears away. Nothing will correct 

 this weakness so completely as the uniform 

 training of teachers in accordance with rec- 

 ognized psychological principles. When this 

 is secured, the observers of school work will 

 at least do teachers the justice to suppose 

 that they have excellent reasons for what 

 may appear to the uninitiated to be mere 

 erratic action. Yours truly, 



Margaret K. Smith. 

 Oswego, N. Y., October 24, 1890. 



UNNATURAL HEADING. 

 Editor Popular Science Monthly : 



Sir : In your issue of November appears 

 a letter from A. C. Ray, calling attention to 

 the method of teaching reading in vogue in 

 our public schools. To quote the writer's own 

 language, "Children are taught to read with- 

 out spelling, recognizing each word by its 

 appearance, and learning it as a detached 

 fact." 



Your correspondent then goes on to show 

 the unnaturalness of the " natural method " 

 so called. Permit me to say that I person- 

 ally thank the writer for having had the 

 courage to bring this matter to the attention 

 of your readers. The present natural method 

 of teaching children to read is indeed an ab- 

 surdity, and it is difficult to understand the 

 reason and the authority upon which such 

 a system has been adopted. 



My little girl is attending a grammar 

 school in Cambridge, Mass., which has the 

 reputation of being a very good one. My 

 child is in the fifth class, and I am informed 

 by the teacher that this class offers greater 

 difficulties to the average pupil than any of 

 the higher classes. Night after night I 

 have the pleasure of rehearsing with her 

 the writing-lesson of the day. Now, how 

 does the child learn to read ! The school 

 uses Swinton's lTistory and Geography. 

 From this book the teacher, no doubt acting 

 under instructions, reads daily with the chil- 

 dren, and then dictates to them the principal 

 words contained in the paragraphs they have 

 been reading. I beg to be understood that 

 the words are dictated and written by the 

 children as they are found in the text-book 



i. e., the verbs not in the infinitive mood, but 

 in any of the several tenses ; nouns either in 

 the singular or plural ; all in confusion. I 

 will give here a few of the words found in one 

 of the lessons : Sachem, aurora borealis, Chey- 

 enne City, arctic, eider-down, Phoenix, Indian- 

 apolis, Indian dialect, Latin language, French 

 or Indian, Greek language, German language, 

 Latin language, compound English-Greek. 



It will be observed that these words rep- 

 resent a fine collection taken from several 

 old as well as modern languages. No expla- 

 nation is given by the teacher concerning the 

 derivation of the words; if she thinks well 

 of it, she will tell the children what the 

 meaning of such a word is, but all the rest 

 is a tabula rasa to the pupils. 



No doubt some people will not believe 

 me when I assert that, though my child has 

 been attending school four years, has been 

 studying writing and reading for the same 

 time, she has never been taught the differ- 

 ence between a vowel and a consonant, and, 

 consequently, she is ignorant of the very 

 tools she is called upon to work with. 



It seems but too simple a thing to call 

 attention to the numerous recurring un- 

 changeable prefixes, affixes, endings, etc. ; 

 such, for instance, as "ious," "ive," "able," 

 " ation," etc., or to tell ihem that a certain 

 grouping of characters as a rule produces 

 such and such sounds, all of which would 

 materially assist the pupils and save them 

 hours of laborious work. But no, let them 

 grope in utter darkness and recognize each 

 word by its appearance ! If that is a correct 

 way of teaching children reading, why don't 

 you apply the same method to teaching arith- 

 metic ? As the English language contains 

 about forty thousand words, independently 

 of numerous derivatives, compounds, and 

 grammatical formations, the idea of teaching 

 children reading by recognizing each word 

 by its appearance is indeed absurd. 



The evil effects of such a system are self- 

 evident, but the means of overcoming the 

 evil are not so apparent, and after a good 

 deal of consideration I have thought best to 

 apply to The Popular Science Monthly for 

 assistance. No doubt many fathers and 

 mothers will take a deep interest in this 

 matter touching the education of their off- 

 spring, and as it is useless for an individual 

 to go to the several school boards, laying his 

 or her grievances before them, I suggest 

 that through the agency of The Popular 

 Science Monthly an association may be 

 formed of such people as are interested in 

 the education of children; that the aim of 

 such association be united action to bring 

 sufficient pressure to bear upon the several 

 school boards to modify or abolish the 

 method now used in the public schools to 

 teach children reading, and to consider ways 

 and means to best accomplish this purpose. 



I shall be glad to hear from other people 

 in this matter. Victor M. Berthold. 



Cambbidgkpobt, Mass., October 27, 1890. 



