6o THE THIRD YEARBOOK 



first, the sentence was rewritten, and repeated trials were permitted 

 until the pupils could reproduce the story. This was to induce the 

 pupils to grasp and hold the entire thought and the complete forms 

 that embodied it, and to prevent that painful copying, letter by 

 letter, which is the bane of the old copy-book method. 



5. As the stories were written on the board, they were read by 

 the pupils. These were interesting to all, because each generally 

 contained some bit of a picture that had partly or wholly escaped 

 the attention of others, and then writing and reading were both 

 given immediately their proper function. 



6. It was soon evident to the pupils that the order in which the 

 stories were told by the class was not the best to express the 

 experiences of the day as a whole. They then selected those stories 

 which bore upon the same point and grouped them together, form- 

 ing something of a chapter. Within this chapter, too, they arranged 

 the stories m the most effective sequence. 



7. When this work was done, the stories were copied upon 

 paper and sent to the printing-office. In a day of two it came back 

 in large type. It was a matter of some conjecture as to whether 

 the pupils would care to read the story, now, after having dealt 

 with the details so fully before printing. But the doubt was 

 immediately dispelled. There was the most eager desire to read — 

 partly, no doubt, from the novelty, and from the fact that each had 

 contributed to the composition, and therefore had a desire to see 

 himself in print ; but, in the main, because through the reading they 

 actually lived the day over again. In this way the reading per- 

 formed its perfect function as an aid in imaging. 



Of course, the pupils did not recognize all the words — perhaps 

 not more than half of them. Their eagerness to get the meaning, 

 though, rendered them alert in getting the new ones ; and the 

 meaning was clear to all. Teachers are frequently so overconsci- 

 entious in making sure that the pupils get every word that they 

 spoil the spirit of the reading. Nobody is ever expert enough to be 

 perfectly sure that he will know either the pronunciation or meaning 

 of every word on the page of the ordinary newspaper, magazine, 

 or book. Yet we get the sense from the context without this final 

 detail of meaning, and we get from the page all it was intended 

 to give. The same rule should apply to the children. The nature 



