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In such case, however, the pupil, we suppose, must give, in spelling, the sound or power which each letter would ordinarily have in combination. If our language were written exactly as it is spoken, there would be no difficulty, but the case is otherwise, nor can the evil be remedied until a new mode of spelling words shall be adopted, by the unanimous consent of learned men wherever the English tongue is spoken. Such a change in the structure of language would divest it of much that is now cumbrous, ungraceful and utterly useless, and has been strongly recommended by distinguished lexicographers and linguists, both in Europe and America, but we despair of seeing it brought about, to any considerable extent, in our day.

Mr. Mann furnishes some illustrations, at once forcible and humorous, of the inexpediency of the present mode of learning to read by commencing with the names of letters. In respect to the Greek language, he very pertinently asks:

"Will the names of the letters, kappa, omicron, sigma, mu, omicron, sigma, make the word kosmos? And yet these letters come as near making that word, as those given by the Rev. Mr. Ottiwell Wood, at a late trial in Lancashire, England, did to the sound of his own name. On Mr. Wood's giving his name to the court, the judge said, 'Pray, Mr. Wood, how do you spell your name?' to which the witness replied, "O double T, I double U, E double L, double U, double O, D.' In the anecdote it is added, that the learned judge at first laid down his pen in astonishment; and then, after making two or three unsuccessful attempts, declared he was unable to record it. Mr. Palmer, from whose Prize Essay this anecdote is taken, gives the following account of the manner in which children were taught to read the first sentence in Webster's old spelling-book,- En-o, no, emmai-en, man, emm-ai-wy, may, pee-you-tee, put, o-double-eff, off, teeaitch-ee, the, ell-ai-double-you, law, o-eff, of, gee-o-dee, God."""

124-5.

pp.

There is scarcely any thing so grave and serious, that it may not be presented under some ridiculous aspect, but the actual truth as applied to this time-honored custom of teaching children the alphabet, is itself the severest satire upon it. We are not aware that the Prussian system, as far as this branch of education is concerned, has hitherto been introduced into any of our American schools, but we confess we see no reason why it should not be so universally. Until the advantages of the old method are clearly pointed out, and enforced by better arguments than we have yet seen, we shall consider the point as actually settled, that it is ut

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terly worthless, and that the names of the letters are of no use whatever in the formation of words, or for any other purpose that can be mentioned.

Having described the reading of an elementary class in the Prussian schools, Mr. Mann gives a brief account of the reading lesson of an advanced class. The method adopted is admirable :

"The subject was a short piece of poetry describing a hunter's life in Missouri. It was first read,-the reading being accompanied with appropriate criticisms as to pronunciation, tone, &c. It was then taken up verse by verse, and the pupils were required to give equivalent expressions in prose. The teacher then entered into an explanation of every part of it, in a sort of oral lecture, accompanied with occasional questions. This was done with the greatest minuteness. Where there was a geographical reference, he entered at large into geography, where a reference to a foreign custom, he compared it with their customs at home; and thus he explained every part, and illustrated the illustrations themselves, until, after an entire hour spent upon six four-line verses, he left them to write out the sentiment and the story in prose, to be produced in school the next morning. All this was done without the slightest break or hesitation, and evidently proceeded from a mind full of the subject, and having a ready command of all its resources.

An account of one more lesson will close what I have to say on the subject of reading. The class consisted of young lads, belonging to a Burgher school, which they were just about leaving. They had been reading a poem of Schiller,-a sort of philosophical allegory,— and when it was completed, the teacher called upon one of them to give a popular exposition of the meaning of the piece. The lad left his seat, stepped to the teacher's desk, and, standing in front of the school, occupied about fifteen or twenty minutes in an extemporaneous account of the poem, and what he supposed to be its meaning and moral." p. 127.

In the department of arithmetic and mathematics, we see nothing very striking or original in the Prussian mode of teaching:

"It struck me," says Mr. Mann, "that the main differences between their mode of teaching arithmetic and ours, consist in their beginning earlier, continuing the practice in the elements much longer, requiring a more thorough analysis of all questions, and in not separating the processes, or rules, so much as we do, from each other. The pupils proceed less by rule, more by an understanding of the subject. It often happens to our children, that while engaged in one rule they forget a preceding. Hence, many of our best teachers have frequent reviews. But there, as I stated above, the youngest classes of children were taught addition, subtraction, multiplication and division, promiscuously, in the same lesson. And so it was in the later stages. The mind was constantly carried along, and the practice enlarged in

more than one direction. It is a difference which results from teaching, in the one case, from a book; and in the other, from the head. In the latter case, the teacher sees what each pupil most needs, and, if he finds any one halting or failing on a particular class of questions, plies him with questions of that kind until his deficiencies are supplied." pp. 129-30.

Much attention is paid to grammar in the Prussian schools, but Mr. Mann tells us, that he heard little of "the ding-dong and recitative of gender, number and case,-of government and agreement, which make up so great a portion of the grammatical exercises in our schools." The study of grammar, there, is the study of the German language, and it is esteemed of more importance actually to speak and write with propriety and elegance, than to learn the technical rules in accordance with which sentences are constructed. They are therefore taught first to speak with accuracy on all occasions, and when the great aims for which language should be taught at all, are thus substantially attained, the structure of the language claims their attention, and grammar is taught and learned in a scientific manner:

"The Prussian teachers, by their constant habit of conversing with the pupils; by requiring a complete answer to be given to every question; by never allowing a mistake in termination, or in the collocation of words or clauses, to pass uncorrected, nor the sentence as corrected to pass unrepeated; by requiring the poetry of the reading lessons to be changed into oral or written prose, and the prose to be paraphrased, or expressed in different words; and by exacting a general account or summary of the reading lessons, are-as we may almost literally say-constantly teaching grammar; or as they more comprehensively call it-the German language. It is easy to see that Composition is included under this head,-the writing of regular 'essays' or 'themes' being only a later exercise." p. 131.

Mr. Mann never saw before such excellent hand-writing as he saw in the Prussian schools, and this superiority he attributes in part to the peculiarity of the German script, which, he says, is easier than our own, but more particularly to the universal practice of learning to draw, cotemporaneously with learning to write,-a practice which, he thinks, cannot be too strongly commended:

"In the course of my tour, I passed from countries where almost every pupil in every school could draw with ease, and most of them with no inconsiderable degree of beauty and expression, to those where less and less attention was paid to the subject; and, at last, to schools where drawing was not practised at all; and, after many trials, I came to the conclusion, that, with no other guide than a mere

inspection of the copy-books of the pupils, I could tell whether drawing were taught in the school or not ;-so uniformly superior was the hand-writing in those schools where drawing was taught in connection with it. On seeing this, I was reminded of that saying of Pestalozzi, somewhat too strong,-that 'without drawing there can be no writing." p. 133.

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The following account of the mode in which geography is taught in the German schools, is highly graphic and interesting:

"I will describe, as exactly as I am able, a lesson which I heard given to a class a little advanced beyond the elements,—remarking, that, though I heard many lessons given on the same plan, none of them were signalized by the rapidity and effect of the one I am about to describe.

The teacher stood by the blackboard, with the chalk in his hand. After casting his eye over the class to see that all were ready, he struck at the middle of the board. With a rapidity of hand which my eye could hardly follow, he made a series of those short, divergent lines, or shadings, employed by map-engravers to represent a chain of mountains. He had scarcely turned an angle, or shot off a spur, when the scholars began to cry out, Carpathian mountains, Hungary; Black Forest mountains, Wurtemburg; Giant's mountains, (RiesenGebirge,) Silesia; Metallic mountains, (Erz-Gebirge,) Pine mountains, (Fichtel-Gebirge,) Central mountains, (Mittel-Gebirge,) Bohemia, &c. &c.

In less than half a minute, the ridge of that grand central elevation which separates the waters that flow north-west into the German ocean, from those that flow north into the Baltic, and south-east into the Black Sea, was presented to view,-executed almost as beautifully as an engraving. A dozen crinkling strokes, made in the twinkling of an eye, represented the head-waters of the great rivers which flow in different directions from that mountainous range; while the children, almost as eager and excited as though they had actually seen the torrents dashing down the mountain sides, cried out, Danube, Elbe, Vistula, Oder, &c. The next moment I heard a succession of small strokes or taps, so rapid as to be almost indistinguishable, and hardly had my eye time to discern a large number of dots made along the margins of the rivers, when the shout of Lintz, Vienna, Prague, Dresden, Berlin, &c., struck my ear. At this point in the exercise, the spot which had been occupied on the blackboard was nearly a circle, of which the starting point, or place where the teacher first began, was the centre; but now a few additional strokes around the circumference of the incipient continent, extended the mountain ranges outwards towards the plains,-the children responding the names of the countries in which they respectively lay. With a few more flourishes the rivers flowed onwards towards their several terminations, and by another succession of dots, new cities sprang up along their banks. By this time the children had become as much excited as though they had been present at a world-making. They rose in their seats, they flung out both hands, their eyes kindled, and

their voices became almost vociferous as they cried out the names of the different places, which under the magic of the teachers crayon rose into view. Within ten minutes from the commencement of the lesson, there stood upon the blackboard a beautiful map of Germany, with its mountains, principal rivers and cities, the coast of the German ocean, of the Baltic and the Black seas; and all so accurately proportioned, that I think only slight errors would have been found had it been subjected to the test of a scale of miles. A part of this time was taken up in correcting a few mistakes of the pupils; for the teacher's mind seemed to be in his ear as well as in his hand, and notwithstanding the astonishing celerity of his movements, he detected erroneous answers and turned round to correct them. The rest of the recitation consisted in questions and answers respecting productions, climate, soil, animals, &c. &c.

Many of the cosmogonists suppose that after the creation of the world, and when its whole surface was as yet fluid, the solid continents rose gradually from beneath the sea,-first the loftiest peaks of the Andes, for instance, emerged from the deep, and as they reached a higher and a higher point of elevation, the rivers began to flow down their sides, until at last,-the lofty mountains having attained their height, the mighty rivers their extent and volume, and the continent its amplitude,—cultivation began, and cities and towns were built. The lesson I have described was a beautiful illustration of that idea,—with one advantage over the original scene itself, that the spectator had no need of waiting through all the geological epochs to see the work completed.

Compare the effect of such a lesson as this, both as to the amount of the knowledge communicated, and the vividness and, of course, the permanence of the ideas obtained, with a lesson where the scholars look out a few names of places on a lifeless atlas, but never send their imaginations abroad over the earth; and where the teacher sits listlessly down before them to interrogate them from a book, in which all the questons are printed at full length, to supersede on his part all necessity of knowledge." pp. 136-37-38.

There is a class of lessons in the Prussian schools, called "Exercises in Thinking," upon which Mr. Mann dwells at considerable length:

"These lessons consisted of familiar conversations between teacher and pupils, on subjects adapted to the age, capacities and proficiency of the latter. With the youngest classes, things immediately around them, the schoolroom and the materials of which it had been built; its different parts, as foundation, floor, walls, ceiling, roof, windows, doors, fire-place; its furniture and apparatus; its books, slates, paper; the clothes of the pupils, and the materials from which they were made; their food and play-things; the duties of children to animals, to each other, to their parents, neighbors, to the old, to their Maker,these are specimens of a vast variety of subjects embraced under one or another of the above heads. As the children advanced in age and attainments, and had acquired full and definite notions of the visible and tangible existence around them, and also of time and

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