, in that proud centre of arts and sciences,
and in the proudest halls of learning and of legislation? Examine the
gentleman's credentials, and take your choice between the adoption of his
plan, as a great improvement in the management of syllables, and the
certain conclusion that great men may be greatly duped respecting them.
Unless the public has been imposed upon by a worse fraud than mere literary
quackery, the authorities I have mentioned did extensively patronize the
scheme; and the Common Council of that learned city did order, November
14th, 1833, "That the School Committee be and they are hereby authorized to
employ Mr. William Mulkey to give a course of Lectures on Orthoepy _to the
several instructors of the public schools_, and that the sum of five
hundred dollars is hereby appropriated for that purpose, and that the same
amount be withdrawn from the reserved fund."--See _Mulkey's Circular_.

OBS. 5.--Pronunciation is best taught to children by means of a good
spelling-book; a book in which the words are arranged according to their
analogies, and divided according to their proper sounds. Vocabularies,
dictionaries, and glossaries, may also be serviceable to those who are
sufficiently advanced to learn how to use them. With regard to the first of
the abovenamed purposes of syllabication, I am almost ready to dissent even
from the modest opinion of Walker himself; for ignorance can only guess at
the pronunciation of words, till positive instruction comes in to give
assurance; and it may be doubted whether even the simple rule or rules
suggested by Walker would not about as often mislead the young reader as
correct him. With regard to the second purpose, that of showing the
derivation or composition of words, it is plain, that etymology, and not
pronunciation, must here govern the division; and that it should go no
further than to separate the constituent parts of each word; as,
_ortho-graphy, theo-logy_. But when we divide for the third purpose, and
intend to show what is the pronunciation of a word, we must, if possible,
divide into such syllabic sounds as will exactly recompose the word, when
put together again; as, _or-thog-ra-phy, the-ol-o-gy_. This being the most
common purpose of syllabication, perhaps it would be well to give it a
general preference; and adopt it whenever we can, not only in the composing
of spelling-books and dictionaries, but also in the dividing of words at
the ends of lines.

OBS. 6