LEARNING TO READ. BY DR. H. RULISON, SUPT. SCHOOLS, WATSEKA, ILL. THE FIRST LESSON. We place before the child a simple picture. A man; a table by his side; a hat on the table; a mat on the floor; a cat on the mat. This is our picture to suggest ideas. The prominent object is the man. We ask, "What is it ?" The child answers, "It is a man." We place The the picture out of sight and write on the board, "It is a man." writing itself attracts attention. There is nothing on the board but this one sentence. The child has said, "It is a man ;" we write, "It is a man." The child has now to learn to associate his spoken words with our written words. We point to the written words in succession and say, "It is a man." As we point the child says, "It is a man.” This is repeated many times. The association is soon established. The words "it" "is" "a" "man," are learned so well that the child can pronounce them in whatever order they may be pointed out. Thus ends the first lesson. THE SECOND LESSON. We place before the child the same picture as before. Pointing to the mat we ask, "What is it ?" Answer, "It is a mat." We write on the board two sentences: "It is a man," and just below it, “It is a mat," in this way: It is a man. It is a mat. The child reads the first sentence first. He then begins to read the last sentence. He reads until he comes to the word "mat." At this word he hesitates and stops, for "mat" looks different from "man." We tell him it is "mat." He then reads both sentences without further trouble. We call his attention to the words "man" and "mat.” How do they differ? One ends with "n" the other with "t." The child sees dimly that the words are made up of parts. Thus ends the second lesson. THE THIRD LESSON. We place before the child the same picture again. cat we ask, "What is it ?" Pointing to the Answer, "It is a cat." We write : It is a man. It is a mat. It is a cat. The child reads without difficulty till he comes to "cat." We tell him it is "cat," when he reads the three sentences with ease. We call his attention to the words "mat" and "cat.' How do they differ? The child sees less One word begins with "m," the other with "c." dimly that words are made up of parts. Thus ends the third lesson. THE FOURTH LESSON. We use the same picture again. Pointing to the hat we ask, "What Answer, "It is a hat." We Write: is it?" He sees the "h" in "hat" "hat." He can now read four sentences. differs from the "c" in "cat." He may now learn the letters m, n, t, c, h, a. Thus ends the fourth lesson. What has the child learned in these first four lessons? He has learned to read four sentences. He will never forget the idiom "it is." Whenever and wherever he sees these two words he will never hesitate to pronounce them. The word "man" is as thoroughly learned; the word "mat" less thoroughly; the word "cat" still less so; and the word "hat" least of all. The child sees dimly that the words are made up of letters, and he knows a few of them. The idiom "it is" means nothing to him, though it stands for spoken words. But the words "man," "mat," "cat," and "hat," represent ideas, and the stimulus in these lessons is the idea-the method is practically the word method.-Educational News. THE WORLD'S EXPOSITION. MR. EDITOR:-Having vacation during the last week of February and the first week in March, I left the ice and snow of the Western Reserve for a more congenial clime. The route was the Queen & Crescent from Cincinnati-a splendid road, the train making good time and rushing along as if trying to annihilate distance. We sped over and through Kentucky's and Tennessee's mountains, across the barren soil of Alabama, among the cotton fields of Mississippi, and along the bayous, swamps and canebrakes of Louisiana, until, after crossing six miles of the dirty water of Pontchartrain, we at last came to the much talked of Crescent City, the pride of the South. New Orleans is only 20 feet above sea level, and from 4 to 8 below the Mississippi; consequently the soil is damp and the climate moist and malarious. These, with the filth and garbage of the streets, and the lack of proper sewerage, make New Orleans the favorite abode of Yellow Jack. I was particularly struck, while there, with the large number of persons in mourning. The people, as far as I observed, are kind, peaceable, and pleasureloving. I noticed no rudeness on street or car. Their theaters, museums, parks and other pleasure resorts, are numerous and prosperous. The stores that seemed to do the most business were those that dealt in fancy articles. The public schools of New Orleans are about 50 in number, not including academies. There are, besides, a large number of private and parochial schools, the latter of which are to some extent supported by the public funds. Many of the public school buildings were built from funds left by benevolent persons and are named after the donors; as for instance, the McDonogh school, No. 16. Happening one day to meet the superintendent, at his office, and expressing a desire to visit schools, he informed me that he was just going to McDonogh school, No. 8, one of the best boys' schools in the city, and would take me along. I found the school in good order, the pupils bright and studious, but the principal somewhat irritated because the Board of Education had, that morning, without consulting him, taken away one of his teachers, and had left 40 pupils for him to distribute among the other teachers. I attended two sessions of the International Congress of Educators. Dr. White's communication in the April MONTHLY gives a good idea of the proceedings of the Congress. I could scarcely suppress a smile when Secretary Newell said to the 25 or 30 present, "The Congress will please come to order." A glance at the preliminary program of the "Congress" will convince any one that there is, after all, considerable buncombe among teachers. What the Congress lacked in quantity, however, was made up in quality. The papers and addresses I heard were most excellent, and worthy of an audience of thousands. I hesitate to write about the Exposition, scarcely knowing what view to take. As a teacher, I noted many things for future use in my classes. I saw specimens, casts, reproductions, or fossils, of nearly every known animal, ancient or modern. There were deep-sea specimens, curious and interesting, together with apparatus used in obtaining them. Specimens of rocks, ores, minerals and precious stones, of every State, recalled many things of which I had read, but which I had not seen. Fruits, flowers, shrubs, trees and plants of nearly every zone were there to instruct one in the productions of nature, while on every hand, in wonderful profusion, were visible, the products of the skill and ingenuity of man. The educational exhibits were as varied as they could well be. There were all sorts of school furniture and appliances-physical apparatus, maps, globes, and charts-that made one sick at heart because he could not have them. Pictures and plans of school-houses, constructed on hygienic principles, decorated the walls. Occasionally could be seen small "dark rooms" for the performance of experiments in chemistry and luminous electricity. I saw samples of pupils' handiwork in wood, leather, straw, and cloth. Of course they were very fair, when we consider that they were made by mere boys and girls; but they all bore the stamp of inferiority when compared with the same goods in the exposition. A number of schools had sent bound volumes of their examination papers of all grades. These papers did not enchant one as reading matter, yet they are probably the best exhibit of the real intellectual progress of a school that can be obtained. Specimens of drawing were exhibited in such abundance that a stranger to school work would infer that drawing was the chief end of a pupil. The fact is, we, as teachers, cannot exhibit our work. What we do is for the mind, and is like bread cast upon the waters, to return after many days. An exhibit of the outward or mechanical part of our work can be outstripped by a single brewing establishment of Milwaukee, but the result of the inward culture that we confer may be seen in the intelligence of the face, in the productions of the press, and in the refinements, architecture and traveling facilities of our people. In the April Century we are told that the success of the mortar fleet, in the bombardment of Forts Jackson and St. Philip, was due to the precision of the mathematical computations of Mr. Gerdes, who. stationed the vessels. 16,800 shells were thrown a distance of two miles, and nearly all fell within the forts. The charts and figures used in the computations would look modest on exhibition, but who can exhibit the mental processes ? I chanced by the kindergarten department one day, and hearing a march played on a piano, I saw that some ambitious kindergartner had a dozen little children on the floor marching, for the amusement of a few visitors. The visitors were amused, and the teacher mortified, by the persistency with which the little ones (only 4 or 5 years old) would get out of step and forget the maneuvers they had been taught. I did not pity the teacher, even if she did have her class on exhibition at the World's Exposition; but I pitied the children, and wished that some great apostle would arise to teach us the folly of the desire that is in us nowadays to have children do something as early in life as possible. Such an apostle might teach us to let Nature, in her own good time, prompt them what to do and when to do it. Garrettsville, Ohio. J. E. MORRIS. TO THE WOOD ANEMONE. BY CARRIE CHEYNEY. When spring breathes soft through woody vale, In shady covert, then, I know Lovely flower of gentle mold, The morn beholds thee crowned with gems, Thy sparkling dew-drop diadems. What artist did thy brown stem paint, What master hand thy petals tint? Thy graceful head will gently bend Wooster, O. WAKE UP! The following is the closing of a paper on "Rip Van Winkle," read, some time ago, before the Meigs County Teachers' Reading Circle, by E. H. Eaves, of Racine, Ohio. account: Irving's story is turned to good In this story of Rip Van Winkle, hear the voice of the past, speaking unto the present. It tells in no uncertain accents of the danger of getting left. We live in an age of progress and ceaseless activity. The world is now faster than ever before. We are keeping time with the puff of the locomotive, and the click of the telegraph. Thought rides upon the wings of the morning and "helloes" in the ends of the earth. "Progress" is the watchword of the age, and the cry is being sounded all along the line. Workers in the realm of matter, and workers in the realm of thought are alike pressing forward. The entire array of arts and sciences are stepping to the front. There is no reason why common school education should not keep |