e same
manner, he will, inevitably, be disgraced. Pain and shame, impress
precepts upon the mind: the child, therefore, is intent upon
remembering the new sound of _u_ in _bun_; but when he comes to
_busy_, and _burial_, and _prudence_, his last precedent will lead him
fatally astray, and he will again be called a _dunce_. _O_, in the
exclamation _Oh!_ is happily called by its alphabetical name; but in
_to_, we can hardly know it again, and in _morning_ and _wonder_, it
has a third and a fourth additional sound. The amphibious letter _y_,
which is either a vowel or a consonant, has one sound in one
character, and two sounds in the other; as a consonant, it is
pronounced as in _yesterday_; in _try_, it is sounded as _i_; in
_any_, and in the termination of many other words, it is sounded like
_e_. Must a child know all this by intuition, or must it be whipt into
him? But he must know a great deal more, before he can read the most
common words. What length of time should we allow him for learning,
when _c_ is to be sounded like _k_, and when like _s_? and how much
longer time shall we add for learning, when _s_ shall be pronounced
_sh_, as in _sure_, or _z_, as in _has_; the sound of which last
letter _z_, he cannot, by any conjuration, obtain from the name _zed_,
the only name by which he has been taught to call it? How much time
shall we allow a patient tutor for teaching a docile pupil, when _g_
is to be sounded soft, and when hard? There are many carefully worded
rules in the spelling-books, specifying before what letters, and in
what situations, _g_ shall vary in sound; but, unfortunately, these
rules are difficult to be learned by heart, and still more difficult
to understand. These laws, however positive, are not found to be of
universal application, or at least, a child has not always wit or time
to apply them upon the spur of the occasion. In coming to the words
_ingenious gentleman, get a good grammar_, he may be puzzled by the
nice distinctions he is to make in pronunciation in cases apparently
similar; but he has not yet become acquainted with all the powers of
this privileged letter: in company with _h_, it assumes the character
of _f_, as in _tough_; another time he meets it, perhaps, in the same
company, in the same place, and, as nearly as possible, in the same
circumstances, as in the word _though_; but now _g_ is to become a
silent letter, and is to pass incognito, and the child will commit an
unpardonab