832 Th' A NS ACTIONS OF THE AMERICAy LXSTITUTE. 



tion that while these vapor stoves are very valuable in careful hands, 

 they are not fit to be entrusted to the hands of ordinary domestics. 



Impkovkd Method of Teaching Childkex and Foreigners to Read 

 English. 



Dr. Edward Leigh, of St. Louis, delivered a very interesting 

 address, in which he gave an explanation of his Pronouncing 

 Orthography, which is designed to facilitate the teaching of primary 

 reading. It is not intended that this system shall take the place of 

 the ordinary methods in our newspapers and general books. On the 

 contrary, it is designed for use only in elementary reading books, and 

 to aid the first steps of those who are learning to read the common 

 English print. Dr. Leigh exhibited charts and phonotypic text, 

 illustrating his method of phonetic teaching. This system, he said, w'as 

 the result of years of toilsome labor, prosecuted under much discour- 

 agement, but with an earnestness of purpose w^hich seems at last to 

 have crowned his unwearying efforts with success. He taught his 

 daughter from it in 1846, and originated the plan of the Boston 

 Phonetic School, and aided in its establishment in 1850. Taught a 

 class of illiterate adults in the St. Louis Evening Schools in 1859, 

 yet utterly failed to obtain, at that time, a full and fair trial of his 

 method in tlie Public Schools of Boston, though supported by the 

 cooperation of some of the best and most influential teachers of that 

 city. But the seed sown fell on good ground, and has borne much 

 fruit. 



The folloMnng examples will serve to i^llustrate and show the need 

 and use of the reform he has introduced. The words (/o, so, no, are 

 among the first that a child learns, and when he comes to the same 

 letter o in or, on, ox, to, do, he naturally gives it the same sound of 

 long 0. In practice this is found to be the fact. Children usually 

 call these words wrong at first, and pronounce to, do, like toe, doe, 

 until the teacher corrects the error. The child soon finds that the 

 letter is no guide to the sound,* for o in the new word he meets may 

 stand for any one of half dozen difteront sounds of the letter, as in 

 no, Jiot, 7ior, wolf, move, love, etc. ; and there is nothing to tell him 

 which it is. Discouraged by these seeming contradictions, he looks 

 no longer at the letters of the printed word to tell him the sounds of 

 the s])oken word. He looks to the book, only for the form and 

 appearance of the new word, just as he looks at any new animal, or 

 fruit, or other object, whose name he wishes to learn, and then he 



