therefore most spares the labour of
the tutor, that it ought reasonably to bestow high rank in the school.
Private reading is most favourable to the rapid collection of an
author's meaning: but for reading well--this is not sufficient: two
great constituents of that art remain to be acquired--Enunciation and
Inflection. These are best learned by Recitation. Thus far there is no
great novelty: the most interesting part of the chapter is what
relates to Stammering. This defect is held by the Experimentalist to
result from inattention to rhythmus: so much he thinks has been proved
by Mr. Thelwall. Whatsoever therefore compels the pupil to an
efficient perception of time and measure, as for example, marching
and music (p. 32), he resorts to for its correction. Stammerers, he
observes, can all sing: let them be taught to sing therefore, if not
otherwise corrigible: and from this let them descend to _recitative_:
then to the recitation of verses distinguished by the simplicity of
their rhythmus, marching at the same time and marking the accented
syllables by the tread of the foot; from this to the recitation of
more difficult verses; from that to measured prose; thence to ordinary
prose; and lastly to narrative and dialogue.

_Chap. VI. Of Penmanship._--This is a subject on which we profess no
experience which could warrant us in contradicting a writer who should
rest his innovations solely upon that ground: but the writer before us
does not rely on the practical issue of his own experiment (he does
not even tell us what that issue was), but on certain _a priori_
arguments, which we conceive to be ill-reasoned. The amount of the
chapter is this--that to write a good running hand is the main object
to be aimed at in the art of caligraphy: we will go farther, and
concede that it is the sole object, unless where the pupil is educated
for a writing-master. Thus far we are agreed; and the question is--as
to the best means of attaining this object. On which question the plan
here proposed differs from those in use by the very natural
error--that what is admitted to be the ultimate object, this plan
would make the immediate object. The author starts from a false theory
of the practice amongst writing-masters: in order that their pupils
may write small and running hands well, writing-masters (as is
well-known) begin by exacting from them a long praxis in large hands.
But the rationale of this praxis escapes the Experimentalist: the