Graded Lessons in English | Page 5

observe that we have called attention to four different
things; viz., the +real bud+; your mental picture of the bud, which we
have called an +idea+; and the +two words+, which we have called
signs of this idea, the one addressed to the ear, and the other to the eye.
If the pupil be brought to see these distinctions, it may aid him to
observe more closely and express himself more clearly.

LESSON 2.
+Teacher+.--What did you learn in the previous Lesson?
+Pupil+.--I learned that a spoken word is composed of certain sounds,
and that letters are signs of sounds, and that spoken and written words
are the signs of ideas.
This question should be passed from one pupil to another till all of
these answers are elicited.

All the written words in all the English books ever made, are formed of
twenty-six letters, representing about forty sounds. These letters and
these sounds make up what is called artificial language.
Of these twenty-six letters, +a, e, i, o, u+, and sometimes +w+ and +y+,
are called +vowels+, and the remainder are called +consonants+.
In order that you may understand what kind of sounds the vowels stand
for, and what kinds the consonants represent, I will tell you something
about the human voice.
The air breathed out from your lungs beats against two flat muscles,
stretched like strings across the top of the windpipe, and causes them to
vibrate. This vibrating makes sound. Take a thread, put one end
between your teeth, hold the other in your fingers, draw it tight and
strike it, and you will understand how voice is made.
If the voice thus produced comes out through the mouth held well open,
a class of sounds is formed which we call vowel sounds.
But, if the voice is held back by your palate, tongue, teeth, or lips, one
kind of consonant sounds is made. If the breath is driven out without
voice, and is held back by these same parts of the mouth, the other kind
of consonant sounds is formed. Ex. of both: b, d, g; p, t, k.
The teacher and pupils should practice on these sounds till the three
kinds can easily be distinguished.
You are now prepared to understand what I mean when I say that the
+vowels+ are the +letters+ which stand for the +open sounds of the
voice+, and that the +consonants+ are the +letters+ which stand for the
sounds made by the +obstructed voice+ and the +obstructed breath+.
The teacher can here profitably spend a few minutes in showing how
ideas may be communicated by Natural Language, the language of
sighs, groans, gestures of the hands, attitudes of the body, expressions
of the face, tones of the voice, etc. He can show that, in conversation,
we sometimes couple this Natural Language of tone and gesture with

our language of words, in order to make a stronger impression. Let the
pupil be told that, if the passage contain feeling, he should do the same
in Reading and Declaiming.
Let the following definitions be learned, and given at the next
recitation.
+DEFINITION.--Artificial Language, or Language Proper, consists of
the spoken and written words used to communicate ideas and
thoughts+.
+DEFINITION.--English Grammar is the science which teaches the
forms, uses, and relations of the words of the English Language+.

LESSON 3
Let the pupils be required to tell what they learned in the previous
lessons.
+Teacher+.--When I pronounce the two words star and bud thus: star
bud, how many ideas, or mental pictures, do I call up to you?
+Pupil+.--Two.
+T+.--Do you see any connection between these ideas?
+P+.--No.
+T+.--When I utter the two words bud and swelling, thus: bud swelling,
do you see any connection in the ideas they stand for?
+P+.--Yes, I imagine that I see a bud expanding, or growing larger.
+T+.--I will connect two words more closely, so as to express a thought:
Buds swell. A thought has been formed in my mind when I say, Buds
swell; and these two words, in which something is said of something
else, express that thought, and make what we call a sentence. In the

former expression, bud swelling it is assumed, or taken for granted, that
buds perform the act; in the latter, the swelling is asserted as a fact.
Leaves falling. Do these two words express two ideas merely
associated, or do they express a thought?
+P+.--They express ideas merely associated.
+T+.--Leaves fall.
Same question.
+P+.--A thought.
+T+.--Why?
+P+.--Because, in these words, there is something said or asserted of
leaves.
+T+.--When I say, Falling leaves rustle, does falling tell what is
thought of leaves?
+P+.--No.
+T+.--What does falling do?
+P+.--It tells the kind of leaves you are thinking and speaking of.
+T+.--What word does tell what is thought of leaves?
+P+.--Rustle.
+T+.--You