COLOR PHOTOGRAPHS AND CONVERSATION LESSONS. 
silently the peculiarly bad expressions 
and forms of statements of the whole 
class, then plan your talking lesson in 
which those who are not guilty of 
those errors are allowed to lead. Then 
let the child whom you consider most 
likely to profit by hearing correct 
expression from his mates give you 
the necessary statement. If he use 
correct forms, let another try. 
For instance, suppose you have a 
number of pupils who are inclined to 
say "The robin isn't so purty as the 
bluejay." The reason for this is that 
the parents of nearly all these pupils will 
make the same error. If early in their 
experience with you you are shocked by 
their speech and let them know it, you 
either lose their respect or make them 
feel that they and their parents are 
inferior beings with no right to speak. 
It will take a few minutes to speak 
of something else that is pretty, and 
let several of your pupils who speak 
the word correctly give some state- 
ments concerning pretty things. Then 
call upon one of the offenders, without 
his suspecting himself to be such, and 
the probability is that he will say 
"pretty," as you wish. But suppose 
he fail, you must not think he does so 
because of dullness, for he may say 
"purty" for the sole reason that his 
mates are listening and he fears they 
may think he is trying to " put on 
style." If you pass the matter in 
silence . that day you will find him 
bolder or more acute the next day, and 
he will speak the word correctly. In 
this way he will seem to himself to 
be teaching himself. Self-culture will 
begin in him and the credit will be 
yours. Another teacher would sup- 
press that sort of language and compel 
the boy to say the word right instanter. 
But her pupils speak one language in 
school and a different one in places 
where they are more comfortable. 
Aim to set the child to correct- 
ing his own speech by his own appar- 
ent choice. A single error is easily 
repressed, but the habit of looking 
after one's own speech is not easily 
acquired. It is easy to make a child 
feel his inferiority to you, but it is a 
great thing to inspire him to do the 
good and wise and elegant things which 
you are capable of doing in his presence. 
The process of unlearning words 
has always been a failure with the 
majority of pupils, and most of the 
English speaking race are ashamed of 
their inability to speak. Men most 
eloquent and successful in business 
conversation, who were by nature fitted 
to thrill the world with tongue and 
pen, have been confused and repressed 
by this process till they believe them- 
selves vastly inferior to others because 
they cannot translate their thoughts 
out of the terms of the street or count- 
ing room into the language of the 
grammar school, and so they never try 
to fill the large places that would have 
been open to them if they could but have 
learned to think in terms which may 
be spoken right out without fear 
of opprobrium. 
Now since so much of our teaching 
psychology and common sense have 
shown to be radically wrong, let us 
build up our language work on the 
high plane of interest in real things, 
expressing thought directly without 
translation into fitter terms. Let the 
thinking be done in terms suitable for 
life. And use the color photograph to 
to insure that enthusiasm necessary to 
good thinking ; be guarded as to how 
you deal with thoughts that come hot 
from growing minds, repress never, 
advise kindly, and know that by fol- 
lowing the natural method in language 
you are not ruining the speech powers 
of your best pupils, as has been done 
heretofore. 
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