instead of being whipped into reading, is beguiled into it pleasantly
and imperceptibly, and makes his progress by a philosophical law. He
reads before he knows it. But here the obstacle arises that each vowel,
printed in the same type, has so many sounds. One ingenious teacher. Dr.
Leigh, obviates this by printing on his charts each vowel-sound in a
slightly different form, and giving the silent letters in hair-lines.
The objection here might be that the scholar learns a type different
from that in common use. Still, the deviation from the ordinary alphabet
is so slight as probably not to confuse any young mind, and the learner
can go on by a philosophical classification of sounds. Other teachers
indicate the different vowel-sounds by accents.

One well-known writer on the "Object System," Mr. Caulkins, seems to
approve of what we are inclined to consider even more philosophical
still--the learning the word first, and the letters and spelling
afterward.

Most children in cultivated families learn to read in this way. The word
is a symbol of thought--a thing in itself--first, perhaps, connected
with a picture of the object placed at its side, but afterward becoming
phonetic, representing arbitrarily any object by its sound. Then other
words are learned--not separately, but in association, as one learns a
foreign language. Farther on, the pupil analyzes, spells, considers each
letter, and notes each part of speech.

An objection may occur here, that the habit of correct and careful
spelling will not be so well gained by this method as by the old.

Mr. Caulkins's remarks on this topic in his Manual on "Object Lessons"
are so sensible that we quote them _in extenso:--_

THE A B C METHOD.

This old, long, and tedious way consists in teaching, first, the name of
each of the twenty-six letters, then in combining these into unmeaning
syllables of 'two letters,' 'three letters,' and, finally, into words of
'two syllables' and 'three syllables.' Very little regard is had to the
meaning of the words. Indeed, it seems as if those who attempt to teach
reading by this method supposed that the chief object should be to make
their pupils fluent in oral spelling; and it ends in spelling, usually,
since children thus taught go on spelling out their words through all
the reading lessons, and seldom become intelligent readers. They give
their attention to the words, instead of the ideas intended to be
repre