COLOR PHOTOGRAPHS AND CONVERSATION LESSONS. 
the average child are correct enough 
from his standpoint, and when the 
teacher represses him on his first 
attempt to carry his part in the exer- 
cise, he is hurt to such an extent that 
he may never recover from it, and he 
may always believe himself peculiarly 
unfortunate in that he is incapable of 
speaking as others do. 
The truth is that all children are 
eloquent. They talk easily, very 
easily, in comparison with adults who 
have been frightened out of their 
natural tongues, and are forever trying 
to say what they think in terms that 
they do not think it in. 
All children are sensitive concerning 
their speech. Some of the keenest 
hurts children experience are inflicted 
by those who notice patronizingly or 
critically the language they use. 
Mothers are in a hurry to have them 
learn English at once, and so correct 
them instantly when such mistakes as 
" runned," "mouses," and "me wants " 
occur. The child allowed to think 
in his own terms overcomes his 
verbal difficulties in a short time if 
associated at home with those who 
speak correctly, and he is perfectly 
excusable for using what we call 
incorrect forms until he has acquired 
the so-called correct ones. 
There are times when the child's 
mind is open to acquisition of formal 
expertness in language. He will find 
these times for himself and exercise 
himself in forms without being driven 
to it at the very times when his mind 
is most active with other things which 
he tries to express to us in his moments 
of overflowing enthusiasm. In these 
moments he should not be bothered 
and confused by formal quibbling. In 
his most active states intellectually he 
ought not to be repressed. This applies 
to the child who hears good English 
at home. It also applies, with slight 
modifications, to the child who hears 
imperfect language at home. The 
child who will eventually prove cap- 
able of correct speech will learn to 
speak the best language he hears 
without direct instruction if encour- 
aged in it and given the respect a 
growing child is entitled to receive. 
Children learn to speak while at 
play. They are active and much in- 
terested when they are acquiring a 
natural vocabulary. Much of the 
vocabulary is wrong from the stand- 
point of the grammar and dictionary, 
and they have to unlearn it. They 
have to unlearn it at school and from 
the lips of pains-taking parents. One 
reason it is so hard for them to learn 
the correct forms is this unintelligent 
way of teaching. Another is that the 
incorrect conversation is heard under 
circumstances favorable to retention 
and reproduction; that is, when the 
child is much interested and happy; 
while the correct forms are given him 
when he is but half aroused, or when 
he is somewhat intense over another 
matter, and many times the intended 
instruction goes in at one ear and out 
at the other. When the skill of the 
teacher and the things of the school 
room become so powerfully attractive 
to the pupil that once hearing a new 
word will fix it, once seeing a word 
will make him master of it in all its 
forms, then the language lesson will 
not need to be given; for language, 
which is as natural to man as breath- 
ing, will flow in correct forms trip- 
pingly from the tongue, being so 
fixed in the pupil's mind from the 
first that he will have nothing to 
unlearn. 
Conversation lessons are intended to 
take care of some of the crudest errors 
in speech before the child has com- 
mitted the indiscretion of putting 
them in writing. It can be done with 
so much less severity in conversation 
than in a written lesson. Notice 
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