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Show CHOICE OF LANGUAGE FOR THE 80EOOLROOX. I What of his choice of la?gua.ge for the ,schoolroom?, Worde Each word 5.e utter flies on its wlnned mlsslon accompamed by a lea& to s&ak by hearing dthers speak. Is it"not to eive some thought to the words, the forms of to i&e? Oor noble Enaliph tongue hlw been likened to a r a t ~r i rns ls,t ored wit11 weapon and nnlror of every gnrrern and drjign, for ewry agv. Into Illis rtorehousc eilch LII uf 116 rnrce aucl ,,hooses iur himstlf the arm3 and tlre amor which his oul prornl.1 ~ ~ ~ . . prepossessing appennn2. incli~lesiu r to look wit11 favar on n i;wr aclluaintdncc. I I.et all your sprerh he irank, hunnt, nobly dirwt, tlan; and let ).cur lang such ni the young an cuuprehend and \rill do wl ell to imitate. But do not let any false regard for the imagined proprieties of your position lead you into the use of :hat stilted dialect of mistaken precisions w h ~ ha s iven cur rency to the term, Schoolmaster's English." Let us have no such painful effo after bookish forms of speech. No one is like1 to accomplish much, in the schoolroom or in effort to model 6 s conversation after the style of the eeeays of stan8,rds of speech, you use words which they do not understand. will ou gain in power, if, in the mistaken hope of educating your pupils up to youq LET THE LANOUAGFElT THE T EOUO~ . The educating power of language conaists not in forcing new terms, unexplained, upon the minds of your listeners but rath& in using languagewhich so precisely fits and represents your thought, an$ in so invariably having a real thought to resent whenever you speak, that thought and Ian e shall seem to belong to eat% other: If your speech is such as this, your pupils,?e%y you into new fields of thought, will feel the want of new terms to garrison and hold for them their new conquests in the realm of facts and ideas. They will thus take intelligently, and use naturally, the fitting terms which your instruction gives them in response to their felt need. Every teacher may, everytrue teacherwill, so choose his language as to makecom-munication with his pupils a delight to them, andwill be ready ceaselessly to explain to children, by processes involving thoughtand comparison on their part, the strange words they meet. But abow! all, my friends, and mpeially you who are young in teaching, he n w that yon never ralk in the hehuul rvu~u\v ithour fully inrending to, nirhont detinitely knowing what you mrsn t., say, .iyl rakinr pains ru my ir tu sceurately aud clearly that you ean not he misunderatwd. There is a danger here, now that so much is said in favor of oral ininstmction. 01 all atience+onsuming, intellect-destroying agencies, the teacher who in a sweetlj mo8ulated, unmeaningtone, without knowinglt, talkson and on, is perhapsthe worst. A h ? a--n-~- hd drnwnine fioodn of honeved inanitv from a teacher who fancies that -..,...-a -~~~~ ~ s.h~e. h a s sifk of exnression I have soketimes sekn little minds look up with such a ~~~ ienst. uike~p~ehsks vinrss rcrrinpon tllrru aslnnde t u r l o n ~to dry their,?t>ul~w' inq from rllistrenvleoi yushinp wurdinns, ant1 lrt them fly tu the clar sunrl~~nzoieil~nnnd hiokm Iirtt+rx L.w words. wit11 the underitandinn. The xiir ai tonpc ~~ ~ ~~ without thought, is a curse to any &her. - . Granted, then, that every wise-her willstrive to be trnthful and sincereinspeech, to make all her speech the clear setting forth in fitting words of real thoughts, and 'u choose such language as her hearers can comprehend and may well adopt as theirs. Speech which is thus sincere and thoughtful is speech, a divine gift and grace--no1 |
