f
its intellectual and moral powers, how much more accurate would
our knowledge be of the proper methods of dealing with it both in
instruction, direction, and punishment. Thus to study it has been the
aim of my life, and I have made observations on thousands of children.
When this great and living book is more constantly read, the contents
of this humble volume may have a better chance of being appreciated;
and the utter absurdity of many things palmed upon the public for the
education of infants made glaringly manifest.

CHAPTER XI.

LANGUAGE.

_Means for conveying instruction--Method of teaching the alphabet
in connection with objects--Spelling--Reading--Developing
lessons--Reading lessons in Natural History--The Arithmeticon--Brass
letters--Their uses_.

* * * * *

"Without things, words, accumulated by misery in the memory, had far
better die than drag out a miserable existence in the dark. Without
words, theirs stay and support, things unaccountably disappear out of
the storehouse, and may be lost for ever; but bind _a thing with a
word_, a strong link, stronger than any steel, and softer than
any silk, and the captive remains for ever happy in its bright
prison-house."--_Wilson_.

* * * * *

The senses of children having revealed every object in its true light,
they next desire to know its name, and then express their perceptions
in words. This you have to gratify, and from the time you tell them
the name of an object, it is the representative of the thing in the
mind of the child; if the object be not present, but you mention
the name, this suggests it to the infant mind. Had this been more
frequently thought of by instructors, we should have found them less
eager to make the child acquainted with the names of things of which
it has no knowledge or perception. Sounds and signs which give rise
to no idea in the mind, because the child has never seen or known the
things represented, are of no use, and can only burden the memory.
It is, therefore, the object of our system to give the children a
knowledge of things, and then a knowledge of the words which represent
those things. These remarks not only apply to the names of visible
things, but more particularly to those which are abstract. If I would
say, shew a child _a horse_, before you tell it the name of the
animal, still more would I urge it on the teacher to let a child see
what l