The Art of Writing Speaking the English Language | Page 6

cue from the spelling-book, each day
merely assigning to the class the next page. They haven't time to select,
and no one could consistently expect them to do otherwise than as they
do do.
To meet this difficulty, the author of this book has prepared a version
of the story of Robinson Crusoe which contains a large proportion of
the common words which offer difficulty in spelling. Unluckily it is not
easy to produce classic English when one is writing under the necessity
of using a vocabulary previously selected. However, if we concentrate
our attention on the word-forms, we are not likely to be much injured
by the ungraceful sentence-forms. This story is not long, but it should
be dictated to every school class, beginning in the fourth grade, until
every pupil can spell every word correctly. A high percentage is not
enough, as in the case of some other studies. Any pupil who misses a
single word in any exercise should be marked zero.
But even if one can spell correctly every word in this story, he may still
not be a good speller, for there are thousands of other words to be
spelled, many of which are not and never will be found in any
spelling-book. The chief object of a course of study in spelling is to
acquire two habits, the habit of observing articulate sounds, and the
habit of observing word-forms in reading.
1. Train the Ear. Until the habit of observing articulate sounds carefully
has been acquired, the niceties of pronunciation are beyond the
student's reach, and equally the niceties of spelling are beyond his reach,
too. In ordinary speaking, many vowels and even some consonants are
slurred and obscured. If the ear is not trained to exactness, this habit of
slurring introduces many inaccuracies. Even in careful speaking, many
obscure sounds are so nearly alike that only a finely trained ear can
detect any difference. Who of us notices any difference between er in
pardoner and or in honor? Careful speakers do not pass over the latter
syllable quite so hastily as over the former, but only the most finely
trained ear will detect any difference even in the pronunciation of the
most finely trained voice.
In the lower grades in the schools the ear may be trained by giving

separate utterance to each sound in a given word, as f-r-e-n-d, friend,
allowing each letter only its true value in the word. Still it may also be
obtained by requiring careful and distinct pronunciation in reading, not,
however, to the extent of exaggerating the value of obscure syllables, or
painfully accentuating syllables naturally obscure.
Adults (but seldom children) may train the ear by reading poetry aloud,
always guarding against the sing-song style, but trying to harmonize
nicely the sense and the rhythm. A trained ear is absolutely necessary to
reading poetry well, and the constant reading aloud of poetry cannot
but afford an admirable exercise.
For children, the use of diacritical marks has little or no value, until the
necessity arises for consulting the dictionary for pronunciation. They
are but a mechanical system, and the system we commonly use is so
devoid of permanence in its character that every dictionary has a
different system. The one most common in the schools is that
introduced by Webster; but if we would consult the Standard or the
Century or the Oxford, we must learn our system all over again. To the
child, any system is a clog and a hindrance, and quite useless in
teaching him phonetic values, wherein the voice of the teacher is the
true medium.
For older students, however, especially students at home, where no
teacher is available, phonetic writing by means of diacritical marks has
great value.* It is the only practicable way of representing the sounds
of the voice on paper. When the student writes phonetically he is
obliged to observe closely his own voice and the voices of others in
ordinary speech, and so his ear is trained. It also takes the place of the
voice for dictation in spelling tests by mail or through the medium of
books.
*There should be no more marks than there are sounds. When two
vowels have the same sound one should be written as a substitute for
the other, as we have done in this book.
2. Train the Eye. No doubt the most effective way of learning spelling
is to train the eye carefully to observe the forms of the words we read in

newspapers and in books. If this habit is formed, and the habit of
general reading accompanies it, it is sufficient to make a nearly perfect
speller. The great question is, how to acquire it.
Of course in order to read we are obliged to observe the forms of words
in