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PROFESSOR OF THE SCIENCE AND THE ART OF TEACHING IN THE AUTHOR OF PRESIDENT GARFIELD AND EDUCATION; SCHOOLS AND STUDIES; NEW YORK D. APPLETON AND COMPANY 16 1896 65029 COPYRIGHT, 1896, By D. APPLETON AND COMPANY. ELECTROTYPED AND PRINTED AT THE APPLETON PRESS, U. S. A. EDITOR'S PREFACE. A5 1896 Main THE author of this volume has, in the course of his discussion of the theory and practice of teaching the language-arts, thrown light incidentally upon the teaching of all the other branches in the course of study. He has drawn judiciously upon the vast literature of his subject, and enriched his book with insights and keen observations from Aristotle and Quintilian in Greek and Roman times down to Spencer and Lowell of our own day. The book is in this respect a collection of fine thoughts on language-its use, its growth, the study of its mechanics, its grammatical and logical structures, the order of mastering its use in speaking, reading, and writing-first in the primary, next in the grammar school, and after in the high school and college; its place in the cultivation of the powers of thought, the study of literary works of art, the significance of philology among the sciences. In following his discussions, the reader will do well to ponder carefully the distinction made by the author in the second chapter between the mechanism or technique and the theory of the language-arts; also the array of facts drawn from child study in Chapters IV, V, and VI relating to the ideas in possession of the child at six years of age, and to what he acquires and can acquire through imitation. The author is at great pains to discriminate the me chanical and technical aspects of language study from its higher uses for guidance, culture, and discipline, and to give each its due place. The mastering of the mechanical and technical phases performs the great good of placing the child in relation to the repositories of the wisdom of the race so that he can use them. But it is their use, and not the mere possession of skill to use, that enables him to understand and interpret the world, and to penetrate the motives of human nature that govern the conduct of his fellow-men. In Chapters VII, VIII, IX, X, and XIII this higher function of literature is brought out. The prevalent tendency to magnify the means rather than the end to be accomplished leads frequently in school to the error of using so much of the pupil's time in preparing to readthat is, in mere formal reading, the calling of the words found in lessons written in the colloquial style-that little opportunity is left for the practice of the art by reading the great literary works of art. But this error should not be corrected by the opposite extreme-namely, by offering the pupil in his immature years the solidest productions of prose and poetry and neglecting all formal studies with dictionaries, grammars, and spelling books. There are many impractical people who would throw away these formal studies and hope to change the child mind into a mature mind at once. The discussion of the practice of paraphrasing in Chapter VIII places the matter in its true light. It is only by paraphrasing the text of the great author-explaining its meaning in his (the pupil's) own words— that the pupil can prove to his teacher that he understands it. The teacher in turn can show the felicities of the great writer best by comparison with the pupil's version, bringing out the superiority of the former in words |