84 METHODS IN TEACHING 



grammar of the preceding grades that the pupil is always 

 conscious of the direct and important relation between 

 grammar and written or oral expression. The aims in 

 teaching grammar are broadening by the time the sixth 

 grade is reached. To speak and to write correctly have so 

 far been the only purposes, but now there must come the 

 recognition of the fact that many pupils continue their 

 studies in higher institutions of learning, and that prepara- 

 tion for work there must begin in the grammar grades. The 

 textbook is now, necessarily, the basis of the year's work in 

 grammar, and a well written, elementary rhetoric should 

 be in the hands of the teacher for guidance in composition. 

 The growing self-consciousness of pupils in the sixth, sev- 

 enth, and eighth grades tends to weaken and shorten oral 

 expression with many, but papers are often correspondingly 

 better, because in writing there is a feeling of freedom from 

 direct supervision and observation. 



There follows a summary of some thoughts by a sixth 

 grade teacher 1 on composition with her grade: 



The aim in this work is to apply the knowledge gained 

 from a study of technical grammar to oral language and to 

 written exercises. Much drill is given in the correct use of 

 prepositions that are commonly misused, of pronouns, adjec- 

 tives, and adverbs ; of the conjunctions as if and as though 

 in distinction from the preposition like, so frequently used 

 for them, as in the sentence, " It looks like it would rain." 

 Several verbs belong also in this frequent drill, lie and lay, 

 sit and set, and others that, in spite of careful oversight in 

 lower grades, still exist in the vocabularies of the pupils in 



1 Miss Margaret Meehan. 



