any different ways, as you will see in the
following example.

8. In the words _ocean_, _motion_, _mansion_, _physician_, _halcyon_,
_Parnassian_, _Christian_, and many other such words, the last syllable
is pronounced as if it were spelled _shun_.

9. You see, then, that in some words a syllable sounding very much like
_shun_ is spelled

_cean_, as in ocean;
in some it is spelled _tion_, as in nation;
in some it is spelled _sion_, as in mansion;
in some it is spelled _cian_, as in physician;
in some it is spelled _cyon_, as in halcyon;
in some it is spelled _sian_, as in Parnassian.

10. It is such things as these which make both reading and spelling very
hard lessons for young children. If they think of them all at once, as
the pendulum did of the eighty-six thousand times that it had to swing
in twenty-four hours, it is no wonder if they feel discouraged, and say,
I can't get these hard lessons.

11. But you must recollect that, as the pendulum, every time it had to
swing, had a moment given it to swing in, so you also have a moment
given you to learn everything in; and if you get a little at a time, you
will, in the end, finish it all, if it be ever so large.

12. You have seen the workman engaged in building a brick house. He
takes one brick at a time, and lays it on the mortar, smoothing the
mortar with his trowel; and then he takes another brick, and another,
until he has made a long row for the side of the house.

13. He then takes another brick, and lays that on the first row; and
continues laying brick after brick, until the house gradually rises to
its proper height.

14. Now, if the workman had said that he could never lay so many bricks,
the house would never have been built; but he knew that, although he
could lay but one brick at a time, yet, by continuing to lay them, one
by one, the house would at last be finished.

15. There are some children, who live as much as a mile, or a half of a
mile, from the school-house. If these children were told that they must
step forward with first one foot and then the other, and must take three
or four thousand steps, before they could reach the school-house, they
would probably be very much discouraged, every morning, before they set
out, and would say to their mothers, Mother, I can't go to school,--it
is so far; I must put out one foot, and drag the other after it, three
thousand times, before I can get there