which something is the meaning_.

Let me not be misunderstood in regard to this matter of definitions. I
believe it to be of the utmost importance that children should be
constantly required to give definitions or explanations of the words
whose meaning they have acquired. All I mean to call in question is,
whether that meaning to any considerable extent is acquired by
committing to memory formal definitions prepared by others. When they
have once learned the meaning of a word, which is to be done mainly, if
not only, by observing its use, then by all means let them be required
to express that meaning by other words which they know. Such an exercise
cannot be too much insisted on. It is one of the best means of securing
that attention to the signification of words, which is so much wanted.
It requires the child, moreover, to bring his knowledge continually to
the test. It cultivates at once accuracy of thought, and accuracy of
language, which is the vehicle of thought. Train a child, therefore, to
the habit of attention, first to the meaning of words as gathered from
observation of their use, and secondly to the expression of that meaning
in language appropriate and intelligible to others.

I have dwelt a little on this subject, because, as in the matter of
hearing, I doubt whether people generally are aware how little children
understand what they read. Nor is this ignorance confined to children.
In our acts of devotion, we are all in the habit of using certain
stereotyped phrases, without attaching to them any definite meaning,
without perhaps so much as having even thought whether they had a
meaning. This same pernicious habit is seen also in our reading of the
Scriptures. We have read the phrases over from childhood, until we have
become so familiar with them, that we are obliged often to stop, and by
a sort of compulsory process to challenge each word as it passes, and
see whether it really conveys any meaning to our mind.

If I were to say to a class, "The Bible tells us of a man who was older
than his father," or some such apparent contradiction in terms, the
sharp antithesis would doubtless arrest their attention, and I would at
least be asked to explain myself. Yet, ten to one, they have read,
hundreds of times, of him who is "the _root_ and the _offspring_ of
David, the bright and morning star," without noticing anything at all
remarkable in the expression. It is to them merely something good and
pious, couc