en children
commonly articulate, still the triumph must be of short duration, the
fame confined to a small circle of "foes and friends," and, probably,
in a few years, the memory of the phenomenon would remain only with
his doting grandmother. Surely, it is the use which children make of
their acquirements which is of consequence, not the possessing them a
few years sooner or later. A man, who, during his whole life, could
never write any thing that was worth reading, would find it but poor
consolation for himself, his friends, or the public, to reflect, that
he had been in joining-hand before he was five years old.

As it is usually managed, it is a dreadful task indeed to learn, and,
if possible, a more dreadful task to teach to read. With the help of
counters, and coaxing, and gingerbread, or by dint of reiterated pain
and terror, the names of the four-and-twenty letters of the alphabet,
are, perhaps, in the course of some weeks, firmly fixed in the pupil's
memory. So much the worse; all these names will disturb him, if he
have common sense, and at every step must stop his progress. To begin
with the vowels: each of these have several different sounds, and,
consequently, ought to have several names, or different signs, to
distinguish them in different circumstances. In the first lesson of
the spelling book, the child begins with a-b, makes ab; b-a makes ba.
The inference, if any general inference can be drawn from this lesson,
is, that when _a_ comes before _b_, it has one sound, and after _b_,
it has another sound; but this is contradicted by and by, and it
appears that _a_ after _b_, has various sounds, as in _ball_, in
_bat_, in _bare_. The letter _i_ in _fire_, is _i_, as we call it in
the alphabet, but in fir, it is changed; in _pin_, it is changed
again; so that the child, being ordered to affix to the same sign a
variety of sounds and names, and not knowing in what circumstances to
obey, and in what to disregard the contradictory injunctions imposed
upon him, he pronounces sounds at hazard, and adheres positively to
the last ruled case, or maintains an apparently sullen, or truly
philosophic and sceptical silence. Must _e_ in _pen_, and _e_ in
_where_, and _e_ in _verse_, and _e_ in _fear_, all be called _e_
alike? The child is patted on the head for reading _u_ as it ought to
be pronounced in _future_; but if, remembering this encouragement, the
pupil should venture to pronounce _u_ in _gun_, and _bun_, in th