COLOR PHOTOGRAPHS AND CONVERSATION LESSONS. 



the average child are correct enough 

 from his standpoint, and when the 

 teacher represses him on his first 

 attempt to carry his part in the exer- 

 cise, he is hurt to such an extent that 

 he may never recover from it, and he 

 may always believe himself peculiarly 

 unfortunate in that he is incapable of 

 speaking as others do. 



The truth is that all children are 

 eloquent. They talk easily, very 

 easily, in comparison with adults who 

 have been frightened out of their 

 natural tongues, and are forever trying 

 to say what they think in terms that 

 they do not think it in. 



AH children are sensitive concerning 

 their speech. Some of the keenest 

 hurts children experience are inflicted 

 by those who notice patronizingly or 

 critically the language they use. 

 Mothers are in a hurry to have them 

 learn English at once, and so correct 

 them instantly when such mistakes as 

 " runned," "mouses," and "me wants " 

 occur. The child allowed to think 

 in his own terms overcomes his 

 verbal difficulties in a short time if 

 associated at home with those who 

 speak correctly, and he is perfectly 

 excusable for using what we call 

 incorrect forms until he has acquired 

 the so-called correct ones. 



There are times when the child's 

 mind is open to acquisition of formal 

 expertness in language. He will find 

 these times for himself and exercise 

 himself in forms without being driven 

 to it at the very times when his mind 

 is most active with other things which 

 he tries to express to us in his moments 

 of overflowing enthusiasm. In these 

 moments he should not be bothered 

 and confused by formal quibbling. In 

 his most active states intellectually he 

 ought not to be repressed. This applies 

 to the child who hears good English 

 at home. It also applies, with slight 

 modifications, to the child who hears 



imperfect language at home. The 

 child who will eventually prove cap- 

 able of correct speech will learn to 

 speak the best language he hears 

 without direct instruction if encour- 

 aged in it and given the respect a 

 growing child is entitled to receive. 



Children learn to speak while at 

 play. They are active and much in- 

 terested when they are acquiring a 

 natural vocabulary. Much of the 

 vocabulary is wrong from the stand- 

 point of the grammar and dictionary, 

 and they have to unlearn it. They 

 have to unlearn it at school and from 

 the lips of pains-taking parents. One 

 reason it is so hard for them to learn 

 the correct forms is this unintelligent 

 way of teaching. Another is that the 

 incorrect conversation is heard under 

 circumstances favorable to retention 

 and reproduction; that is, when the 

 child is much interested and happy; 

 while the correct forms are given him 

 when he is but half aroused, or when 

 he is somewhat intense over another 

 matter, and many times the intended 

 instruction goes in at one ear and out 

 at the other. When the skill of the 

 teacher and the things of the school 

 room become so powerfully attractive 

 to the pupil that once hearing a new 

 word will fix it, once seeing a word 

 will make him master of it in all its 

 forms, then the language lesson will 

 not need to be given; for language, 

 which is as natural to man as breath- 

 ing, will flow in correct forms trip- 

 pingly from the tongue, being so 

 fixed in the pupil's mind from the 

 first that he will have nothing to 

 unlearn. 



Conversation lessons are intended to 

 take care of some of the crudest errors 

 in speech before the child has com- 

 mitted the indiscretion of putting 

 them in writing. It can be done with 

 so much less severity in conversation 

 than in a written lesson. Notice 



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