Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 40.djvu/398

382 the minds of the children were intent on the getting of ideas and the expression of them. Direction to look or think again usually sufficed to change vague, wordy expressions into clear, terse ones by giving the child clear and accurate conceptions. When the child's own vocabulary was exhausted, he was promptly helped to words by classmates or teacher, the effort being to use the speech of cultivated people.

At first the reading could by no means keep pace with the science lessons: from the mass of expressions obtained some were selected for the reading and writing matter. With increase of power to remember forms and combinations of letters and words, the number of sentences was increased, until what was gained in the science lessons was reproduced in the reading lessons. This increase was rapid. From the first field lesson two sentences—eleven words—only could be taken, while a field lesson near the close of the second year yielded ninety-seven sentences—over eleven hundred words. In the former the sentences were written on the board and read every day for five weeks; in the latter they were taken down in pencil by the teacher as the children gave them, arranged according to topics, printed, and presented in the printed form for the first reading. There was little hesitation in that reading, so vivid were the impressions from such a day out-of-door.

During the first year a little reading matter was drawn from lessons in literature and history. This was gradually increased during the second and third years. Still the sentences for reading were taken chiefly from the science lessons, because there could be more certainty of the child's having accurate and well-defined ideas as the basis of each expression, and the sentences could be more completely their own. In March of the first year reading-books were introduced. At the first trial they took Swinton's Easy Steps for Little Feet, and in twelve minutes read a page-and-a-half story. Of their own accord they sought and independently obtained from the context the meaning of all but two of the unfamiliar words, and gave to express the meanings either the exact words of the book or synonymous ones, for which those of the book were substituted. After this they read from books whenever such reading could be related to their other work—not much otherwise. While the production by the children of the bulk of their reading matter was a prominent feature, this was not the object of the experiment but merely an adjunct to the chief end in view. Nor were the science topics selected with reference to the reading matter, but on their own merits, mutual relations, and the capacities of the children.

As soon as a child's writing on the blackboard could be read by his classmates—copy being erased—he began to write at his