Proceedings of the Polytechnic Association. 835 



The natural order of the sounds, and not any arbitrary a b c, a e 

 i n, arrangement, lias been kept in view in these exercises. Prac- 

 tising the sounds in pairs, and in their true order, as they are actu- 

 ally related in nature, will not only aid in acquiring the right sounds, 

 but will give interest and life to the school exercises ; for there is a 

 real harmony in the vocal as well as in the musical scale, which at 

 once strikes the ear and awakens the interest of the class. 



Prof. James A. Whitney said he wished to express a very high 

 opinion of the English language ; it came from the stout old Saxon 

 tongue, from Saxon men who built up the greatest civilization the 

 ■world has known. And as the commerce of England extended, we 

 took words from almost every language under the sun, even from 

 the Sandwich Islands we have taken some. And what is called a 

 fault in our language is an advantage, for we can express a thought 

 in it much better than in any other that he knew of. He believed 

 that all statesmen agree that the language of a people is a criterion 

 of their greatness. An excellent feature of Dr. Leigh's system is the 

 speedy eradication of provincialisms so prevalent among us. One 

 great object which we should have in view, is to have" our language 

 taught homogeneously throughout the country. If the system of Dr. 

 Leigh's could be used all over tlie country, it would take but one 

 generation to wipe out the diiference in language of foreigners, and 

 their childern, and eradicate all difference in nationalities, and in 

 time bring us to what we should be, a homogeneous nation. 



Dr. Leigh remarked that Mr. Moeller, of the German school in 

 Twenty-seventh street, in this city, taught a class already reading 

 Crerman for twenty minutes a day. He says that in three months 

 they have gone through half the book, and it would require a very 

 acute ear to hear the foreigner in the children. The results have 

 been very satisfactory. In teaching German children to read and 

 speak English correctly tliere is a great trouble, and sometimes it 

 takes years with the old method. 



The Chairman said tliat when the Pittmans first introduced their 

 system of phonetics in this county, it failed on account of using a 

 new style of spelling in our language. Dr. Leigh's spells the lan- 

 guage correctly for his pupils ; the words to be pronounced behjg 

 printed in heavy lettel-s, and the unpronounced letters in liglit lines. 

 The whole system lie said appeared to be the greatest improvement 

 that has been made in this direction tor years. It is shown by 

 experiihent that half the time in learning is saved by this method. 



