30 



THE POPULAIl EDUCATOR. 



their extremities in any manner whatever, except that of uni- 



form direction. A curved line, or curve, is a line whose direction 



varies at every point. 



Straight lines, or curved lines, are generally denoted, in 



speaking 1 and writing, by two letters placed commonly at their 



extremities ; but they may be 



placed anywhere on the lines 



at a distance from each' other. 



Thus, in Fig. 1, the letters A B 



denote one straight line, the 



letters c D another, and the 



letters E F a third ; and these 



straight lines are respectively 



called the straffht lines A B, ' ' ' ' > I 



C D, and E F. A straight line, p i? _ j 



as A B, may be divided into 



any number of equal parts, to serve as a standard for measur- 



ing other straight lines. 



A combination of straight, crooked, and curved lines is re- 

 presented in Fig. 2 ; A B, B c, c D, and D A, 

 are each straight lines ; the combination 

 A D C B, beginning at A, and terminating 

 at B, is a crooked ' ine ; and the line A >i B, 

 beginning at A, and ending at B, is a 

 curved line. 



6. A surface, or, as it is sometimes 



called, a superficies, is extension in two directions ; hence it is 



said to have only length and breadth. Hence, also, the extre- 



mities or boundaries of a surface are lines ; and surfaces inter- 



sect or cross each other in lines. 



7. A plane surface, or plane, is a surface in which any two 

 points being taken, the straight line between them lies wholly 

 in that surface ; or, it is that surface with which a straight line 

 wholly coincides, when applied to it in every direction. Any 

 other surface, not composed of plane surfaces, is called a curved 

 surface. 



8. Parallel straight lines are such as lie in the - 

 same plane, and which, though produced ever so far - 

 both ways, do not meet (Fig. 3). Fig. 3. 



2 - 



READING AND ELOCUTION. I. 



PUNCTUATION. 



PUNCTUATION is peculiar to the modern languages of Europe. 

 It was wholly unknown to the Greeks and Eomans ; and the 

 languages of the East, although they have certain marks or 

 signs to indicate tones, have no regular system of punctuation. 

 The Romans and the Greeks also, it is true, had certain points, 

 which, like those of the languages of the East, were confined to 

 the delivery and pronunciation of words ; but the pauses were 

 indicated by breaking up the written matter into lines or para- 

 graphs, not by marks resembling those in the modern system of 

 punctuation. Hence, in the responses of the ancient oracles, 

 which were generally written down by the priests and delivered 

 to the inquirers, the ambiguity doubtless intentional which 

 the want of punctuation caused, saved the credit of the oracle, 

 whether the expected event was favourable or unfavourable, 

 As an instance of this kind, may be cited that remarkable 

 response which was given on a well-known occasion, when the 

 oracle was consulted with regard to the success of a certain 

 military expedition : " Ibis et redibis nunquam peribis in bello." 

 Written, as it was, without being pointed, it might be translated 

 either, " Thou shalt go, and shalt never return, thou shalt perish 

 in battle," or, " Thou shalt go and shalt return, thou shalt never 

 perish in battle." The correct translation depends on the 

 placing of a comma after the word nunquam, or after redibis. 



The invention of the modern system of punctuation has been 

 attributed to the Alexandrian grammarian Aristophanes, after 

 whom it was improved by succeeding grammarians ; but it was 

 BO entirely lost in the time of Charlemagne, that he found it 

 necessary to have it restored by Warnefried and Alcuin. It 

 consisted at first of only one point, used in three ways, and 

 sometimes of a stroke, formed in several ways. But as no par- 

 ticular rules were followed in the use of these signs, punctuation 

 was exceedingly uncertain, until the end of the fifteenth century, 

 when the learned Venetian printers, the Manutii, increased the 

 number of the signs, and established some fixed rules for their 



application. These were so generally adopted, that we may 

 consider the Manutii as the inventors of the present method of 

 punctuation; and although modern grammarians have introduced 

 some improvements, nothing but a few particular rules have 

 been added since their time. 



The design of the system referred to was purely grammatical, 

 and had no further reference to enunciation, than to remove 

 ambiguity in the meaning and to give precision to the sentence. 

 This, therefore, is the object of punctuation, and although the 

 marks employed in written language may sometimes denote the 

 different pauses and tones of voice which the sense and accurate 

 pronunciation require, yet they are more generally designed to 

 mark the grammatical divisions of a sentence, and to show the 

 dependence and relation of words and members which are 

 separated by the intervening clauses. The teacher, therefore, 

 who directs his pupils to " mind their pauses in reading," gives 

 but an unintelligible direction to those who are unversed in the 

 rules of analysis. A better direction would be to disregard 

 the pauses, and endeavour to read the sentence with just such 

 pauses and tones as they would employ if the sentence were 

 their own, and they were uttering it in common conversation. 

 Indeed, it is often the case that correct and tasteful reading 

 requires pauses, and these too of a considerable length, to be 

 made, where such pauses are indicated in written language* 

 by no mark whatever. It is not unfrequently the case that the 

 sense will allow no pause whatever to be made in cases where, if 

 the marks alone were observed, it would seem that a pause of 

 considerable length is required. The pupil, therefore, who has 

 been told to mind his pauses, must first be taught to unlea/rn 

 this direction, and endeavour to understand the sentence which 

 he is to read, before he attempts to enunciate it. 



The characters employed in written language are the follow- 

 ing: 



The Comma, 

 The Semicolon, 

 The Colon, 

 The Period, 

 The Dash, 

 The Exclamation, 

 The Interrogation, 

 The Quotation Marks 

 The Dferesis, 

 The Crotchets, 

 The Brackets, 

 The Obelisk or Dagger, 

 The Double Obelisk or 

 Double Dagger, 



The Hyphen, 



The Breve 



The Apostrophe, ['tis] 



The Brace, 



The Acute Accent, 



The Grave Accent, < 



The Circumflex Accent, "~ or A 



The Caret, A 



The Cedilla, 9 



The Asterisk, 



The Section, 



The Paragraph, JT 



The Parallels, 



The Ellipsis, sometimes expressed by Periods, thus, 



sometimes by Hyphens, thus, 



sometimes by Asterisks or Stars, thus, **** 



sometimes by a Dash prolonged, thus, 



These characters, when judiciously employed, fix the meaning 



and give precision to the signification of sentences, which, in a 



written form, would be ambiguous or indefinite without them. 



Thus, " I said that he is dishonest it is true and I am sorry for 



it." Now the meaning of this sentence can be ascertained only 



by a correct punctuation. If it bo punctuated as follows : " I 



said that he is dishonest, it is true, and I am sorry for it ;" the 



meaning will be, that it is true that I said he is dishonest, and I 



i am sorry that I said so. But if it be punctuated thus, " I said 



! that he is dishonest; it is true; and I am sorry for it;" the 



j meaning will be, " I said that he is dishonest ; it is true that he 



is dishonest, and I am sorry that he is so." 



A further instance of the importance of correct punctuation 

 was afforded by a late advertisement, in which the commissioner 

 for lighting one of the largest commercial cities of Europe, by 

 the misplacing of a comma in his advertisement, would have con- 

 tracted for the supply of but half the required light. The 

 advertisement represented the lamps as "4,050 in number, having 

 two spouts each, composed of not less than twenty threads of 

 cotton." This expression implied that the lamps had each two 

 spouts, and that the two spouts had twenty threads that is, 

 each spout had ten threads. But the meaning that the com- 

 missioner intended to convey was, that each spout had twenty 

 threads ; and his advertisement should have had the comma 

 after " spouts," instead of after " each," thus : The lamps have 

 two spouts, each composed of twenty threads, etc. 



* The term "written language" of course Includes printed lixj' 



