Page:Craven-Grey - Hindustani manual.djvu/16

 understands a good deal that is said to it, but it does not speak. About the third year, it begins to speak. This shows that, in Nature's method, the ear is the first organ appealed to. The child, however, has to acquire new ideas as well as speech, so its progress is slow. Immigrants into America, who know no English, are at first bewildered by the many foreign sounds. That state of unpleasant mental confusion lasts for two or three weeks. By that time the ear has grown accustomed to a few of the sounds. The phrase heard oftenest, probably connected with eating and drinking and perhaps picked up in a restaurant, is instinctively imitated and a simple phrase such as " Please bring me a beef-steak and potatoes " is acquired. The learner expands this phrase and builds on it, till in a few months only, he is able to speak English fluently, often with perfect accuracy. This is what is going on every day in America, instancing also the truth that languages are learnt by sentences and not by isolated words. Now every organ has a memory. If a person cannot spell a word, he hastily writes it down and finds that the memory in his fingers is better than that in his head. In acquiring a language, more than one organ is brought into use. An actor who learns his part in the quiet of his room, repeating it over in his own mind till he is word-perfect, finds that at rehearsal he is unable to repeat his part aloud without considerable effort. The reason is that he has learnt by eye only, and has not practised the memory in his tongue and ear.

Bearing all these points in mind the Professor gives his first lessons on a phonograph. The first lesson is a simple but rather long sentence. In a book, this is arranged in tabular form with an interlinear English translation. The beginner, the open page before him, turns on the machine and places the ear-cup to his ear. When the sentence has been delivered