17. For of all sad words of tongue or pen, The saddest are these: It might have been! 18. Lord of the universe! shield us and guide us, Sprinkled with starry light, Spread its fair emblems from mountain to shore, Loud rings the Nation's cry, UNION AND LIBERTY! ONE EVERMORE. Holmes. APPENDIX IV. NOTES FOR TEACHERS. To children at their entrance upon any sort of knowledge everything of itself is difficult, and the great use and skill of a teacher is to make all as easy as he can. John Locke. A teacher should, above all things, first induce a desire in the pupil for the acquisition he wishes to impart. How shall he give kindling in whose own inward man there is no live coal, but all is burnt out to a dead grammatical cinder? - Thomas Carlyle. There is no teaching until the pupil is brought into the same state or principle in which you are; a transfusion takes place; he is you and you are he; there is teaching. - Ralph Waldo Emerson. Attempt to teach the young but little at a time; this will be easier to impart, easier to receive, and surer to be retained. · Hosea Ballou. Beware of routine; it is fatal in teaching. The work in the foregoing pages has not been arranged into ready-made lessons, to which all pupils must be fitted, as it has seemed wiser to relegate to the teachers of the different grades the problem of how best to fit the daily lessons to the capacities of their pupils. In the arrangement of daily lessons the author would suggest to teachers that, at the beginning of the work, there will be a greater danger of having the lessons too long than too short. Hasten slowly at the outset if you would hasten rapidly as you near the end. No subject is difficult after its essentials are well mastered. Review frequently. Encourage pupils to search for fresh illustrative sentences in review work. Much of success in teaching grammar depends on the enthusiastic mental attitude of the teacher. The teacher must be filled with the subject, not merely with its skeleton of rules and forms, but, as well, with the vital glow and color as revealed in its strength and beauty when applied to literature. The subject of Word Building has been put in the appendices rather than at any definite place in the body of the work. From experience in the classroom the author is fully convinced that the best results are reached when the work is at least extended throughout the course in grammar, as length of time is an important factor in enabling pupils to grow into the apprehension and application of word formation. The subject should be introduced at such times and in such amounts as the teacher shall determine to be most effective in enabling pupils to obtain its ready mastery. The remaining appendices are not to be studied at the completion of the general work of the book, but at such opportune times in the course of the work as the teacher shall decide. The literary illustrations given throughout the book are not to be regarded as sufficient for analysis or illustration, but the teacher should have the rules and principles which have been learned constantly applied to literature, as grammar, in the spirit of its investigation, leads into the subject of literature. NOTE 1. Some prefer to regard principal and subordinate sentences as principal and subordinate clauses. Such a use of terms emphasizes the function rather than the form. When form alone is considered it seems better to refer the term clause to the sentence use and not to sentence formation. NOTE 2. A great amount of practice should be given pupils in this phase of the work. Reading books should be employed, and many pages required to be expressed in this visual form. The work should include long sentences, having subordinate sentences dependent upon principal or upon subordinate sentences. This visual expression should be expressed as much as possible in one continuous plane, and not broken, as was necessary in sentence 1, page 49. NOTE 2 a. This should be considered at the end of Plural Number of Nouns, page 77. In the English language are many foreign nouns whose foreign plurals have been adopted as English plurals. The tendency, however, is to form the plural of foreign nouns in the usual English way; as dogmas, formulas, indexes, memorandums. The following comprise the more common foreign words with their foreign plurals. |