nificant a word, that, whenever the speaker or reader is fully occupied with his subject, he is sure to pronounce it right; it being only when he thinks of the pronunciation, that he gives it the wrong sound. The consequence is, that bad, stiff speakers pronounce it uniformly; while good speakers pronounce it sometimes the one way and sometimes the other. The same remarks will apply to a large number of words compounded with a, such as about, afraid, around, away, &c., only that the error, in the compound words, lies rather in the accent, than in the emphasis. For, when we give the long instead of the obscure sound of a to these words, we necessarily accent both syllables, which is contrary to the genius of the English language, which admits but of one accent in dissyllables. The only exception given by orthoepists to this rule, is the word, amen; and this is, really, no exception, at all, as it is a Hebrew, not an English, word.* Another error, with respect to the indefinite article, is this: The word was originally one, as may readily be perceived from the analogy of all the languages derived from the Latin, (unus, Latin; un, une, French; uno, una, Spanish; hum, huma, Portuguese; un, una, Italian.) Thence it was corrupted, or shortened, into an, the last letter of which is dropped, for the sake of euphony, when it is followed by a word having a consonant sound at the commencement. Hence, when the h is not pronounced, as in the words, hour, honest, the n should be retained; but, when it is pronounced, as in hair and hat, the n should be dropped. Unfortunately, most printers, to whom such affairs are generally intrusted by authors, unable to discriminate, or unwilling to take the trouble, have retained the n in all cases before the h. The consequence is, that bad readers, and they are more than ten to one, pronounce the n, whether the h is silent or not, because they find it printed so, calling it an house, instead of a house; an hair, instead of a hair, &c. The same remark applies to the word one, pronounced wun; union, pronounced yuneyun, and other similar cases, where the n *The obscure sound of all the vowels is precisely the same: as liar, brier, irregular, idol, sulphur, truly. should be dropped, for the sake of euphony. All these originate in the same manner as the former; simply by the printer discriminating by his eye, in place of his ear. They ought to be printed and read, such a one; a union; a useful man, &c. A somewhat similar error occurs in most of our English Bibles, and is copied by many of the ministers in their pulpits, but nowhere else. In old times, before politeness introduced the use of you and your in place of thee and thy, the words mine and thine were used, for the sake of euphony, in place of my and thy, when the following word commenced with a vowel sound. Hence, in the Bible, we have my people, mine ear; my son, mine eye; consequently, we should also have my house, my heart, mine honor, mine heir. But, the printers having committed the same blunder here, we have mine house and mine heart, for my house and my heart; and this error in typography leads to the same error in pronunciation as was noticed respecting an house, an hat. The next error, to be noticed, relates to the pronunciation of the letter h, in certain cases. H is an anomaly among letters, being neither vowel nor consonant, but simply, as Webster observes, "the mark of a stronger breathing, than that which precedes the utterance of any other letter." It never can be sounded without some degree of emphasis; hence, although orthoepists have given. no rule on the subject, no good reader or speaker ever pronounces it in the personal pronouns mentioned above, unless they are emphatic words in the sentence. This will be at once perceived, by reading aloud the following lines, when it will be found, that the h is pronounced in the words printed in small capitals, but not in those which are in the Italic character, and with an apostrophe (') placed before them. ? If He command, who dares oppose With respect to the demonstrative pronouns, it may be observed, generally, that poor readers and speakers pronounce them, uniformly, with too much emphasis, so as frequently to change the sense. The words thy and my, should have the long sound of i, when emphatic; on other occasions, its obscure sound. The following words, and their compounds, are almost uniformly pronounced properly in conversation, and improperly in reading: hasten, chasten, fasten, listen, glisten, christen, moisten; castle, nestle, trestle, wrestle, thistle, whistle, epistle, bristle, gristle, jostle, apostle, throstle, bustle, justle, rustle; in all of which the t should be omitted in pronunciation; and in the word clothes, the th should be omitted. An innovation has lately been introduced, in some parts of New England, in the accentuation of the word legislature, by laying the stress on the second syllable, which is believed to be entirely devoid of respectable authority. Sheridan, Walker, Jones, Enfield, Fulton and Knight, Jameson, Webster, and Worcester, all place the accent on the first syllable, and Perry on the third. Such innovations should be discountenanced by every good speaker, as leading to interminable confu sion. The above remarks are intended for the use of the teacher. As they all relate to unnatural, acquired errors, a very slight degree of care, on his part, will prevent their being copied by beginners; but some pains will be necessary, to break the older pupils of their bad habits in this respect. These errors would not have been noticed here, had the writer been able to refer to any book where they have been pointed out: but, unfortunately, they seem to have been totally overlooked; and it was thought wrong to omit them, as they essentially interfere with good reading. There are many other errors or imperfections in reading, not even alluded to by authors treating of this subject; but, unfortunately, most of them are only capable of being exemplified in a proper manner orally. It is to be hoped, however, that, before long, teachers' seminaries will be established, where this, and other serious errors in teaching, will be fully rectified. Meanwhile, we shall close this part of our subject, by noticing two prominent imperfections in readers, generally. The first is, the neglect of proper pauses at the stops. The directions, generally given in schools, are, to stop at a comma as long as we can count one; at a semicolon, so long as to count two; a colon, three; a period, four. The two last are, evidently, too much. Perhaps a better rule would be, at a comma, one; at a semicolon, colon, or period, two; at the end of a paragraph, or change of subject, four. But this, though not much more than half the length of the pauses generally directed, is longer than is ever practised. Most readers make no stop at all, at either comma, semicolon, or colon; they merely lengthen the sound of the last syllable, and they stop not longer than to count one at a period. In this manner, the words and ideas become so huddled together, that it is very difficult to follow, and catch the sense. The teacher ought to insist on a complete cessation of sound at a comma, a cessation of double the length at the other points, and this, again, to be doubled, on a change of subject. The other defect to be noticed, is the want of sufficient variety of expression. There is too much sameness in the degree, both of force and of rapidity. The emphatic words should be pronounced strong and slow, and the other words softly and rapidly. Language is made up of words and syllables; and these syllables, like notes in music, are of all possible lengths. It is a rude and incorrect distinction, which the Latin readers have made, in classifying them merely into long and short. The word all, in length of sound, may be represented by a minim, the longest note in modern music; but the word indivisible, though composed of five syllables, should be spoken in time equally short; consequently, each syllable, in the latter word, is only one fifth of the length of the monosyllable. If we inspect the fine adagios of Haydn and Beethoven, we shall find them composed of sounds, varying in length, from the slowest note to those of the greatest quickness; and if we examine a speech of Shakspeare and Milton, we shall find them also composed of words ponderous and slow, mingled with particles and syllables of great rapidity. The strong expressions, properly sustained by the voice, invariably convey the sense. The smaller words, the mere links of language, should be driven together. This subject cannot easily be exemplified in writing; but, in general terms, it may be said, that the reading in schools would be much improved, if the force of the emphasis were at least doubled, and the rapidity of the other words also at least doubled. The teacher Having thus pointed out some of the principal errors to be avoided in reading, we are now prepared to resume our lessons in Worcester's Primer. As the vocabulary of the pupil extends, so should the proportionate length of his lesson. For some little time, he will have to be told how to pronounce every new word; but he will soon acquire, of himself, correct notions of the powers of the letters, which will enable him to find them out, himself. The teacher may aid him in this, by uttering the sound of the power (not the name) of the letter, at the beginning of the word, about which he is at a loss. For instance; suppose he did not know the word cross. might give the sound cr or cro. When he comes to words of more than one syllable, he may be assisted, by covering the second syllable till he had pronounced the first, &c. But, on no account, should a child be directed or allowed to spell a word, in order to ascertain its pronunciation. The folly of this practice has been fully shown, in Part I. Chapter V., which see. When a child has been stopped for a word, he ought to read the sentence over again, so that he may not lose the idea; and the teacher ought to keep steadily in mind, that the sine qua non, the grand object of the school, is to teach the child to connect words with ideas. There is considerable inconvenience in forming children into classes, until they can read with some degree of fluency; but, if the teacher is much pressed for time, he can collect half a dozen little ones round him, though he ought, perhaps, to give lessons to each separately. After the pupil has gone through the Primer, his lessons, for a day or two, may consist of examining the pictures, separately, and telling his teacher what was said |