Page:Letters to Squire Pedant in the East.pdf/10

 (To Parents and Teachers. Read the preface before you condemn.)

Publisher of the following Letters does not present them to your consideration as models of style for your children or pupils, but as a pleasant means of obtaining the meaning of the greater part of the unusual words of the English language, on the principle of "association of ideas.”

In the columns of a dictionary, there is no connection between the definitions of words, consequently, the committed definitions are soon lost to the pupil. By placing words in such a juxtaposition as to form some kind of sense, the learner will the more easily retain the meaning of the words used.

In the use of the Altisonant letters, the pupil will acquire two things at once: A facility in reading long and strange words; and their definitions. But it may be objected, that it is not desirable that the young should know the meaning of the words employed in these Letters, as they might become turgid and pedantic in their style, and intercourse with the world. Is it a necessary consequence, that a youth will be bombastic by knowing the meaning of all the words of his native or adopted language? Must he,