native tongue is honored and admired and imitated as eagerly as his skill in athletics. Everbody tries to excel in French. Why should it not be so in America? Let us set the fashion. EXERCISE 2 TESTING ACCURACY IN WRITING YOUR NATIVE An American who was visiting the schools in France gave some of the boys, who had been studying English only two years, a little story to write in that language. (That is as if you were asked to write it in French after two years of study.) So accurate are the French pupils in their writing that this is the record these boys made: Out of twenty-eight boys the number in the class eleven wrote perfect papers, five others made only one error each, and no one made more than ten. These pupils were ten and eleven years old. In America, with the same story to write in English, this is the record: Out of five hundred pupils in eighteen different schools-boys and girls of the same age as the French pupils or older-only eleven wrote perfect papers, few approached perfection, and many had twenty errors, some as many as forty. Perhaps your teacher can find the same story to test you with 1; if not, use any short anecdote illustrating the very simplest matters of punctuation, capitalization, and spelling, and see what record you can make. Of course you should not study or even see the test story before you write it, 1 See Rollo W. Brown's "How the French Boy Learns to Write," p. 60. Harvard Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts. since none of the other pupils did. Make a chart showing the record of your class on this test, and keep it to compare with later records. Probably this exercise will show you what you need to work for. Start a class spelling list of the words misspelled on five or more papers, and be sure that these words are mastered by everyone in the class.1 EXERCISE 3 THINKING OF LANGUAGE AS A TOOL Before the next lesson make a list of ten ways in which you have found language a valuable tool; for example, in persuading your mother to make a favorite dish, or in planning some fun with a friend. How would you have managed without this tool? In which cases would it have been more valuable if you had known how to use it more skillfully? Put your list in what you think is good form, and in class decide which ideas of good form for written lists are the best. In judging which form is the best, notice especially the position of each item in the list, the spacing, the capitalization, and the numbering. (Numbers and letters in lists should be followed by periods.) Mention several examples that you can think of, from real life or from books, illustrating what you consider the especially skillful use of language to express someone's thought and feeling to another; for example, Lincoln's Gettysburg Address" or Bryant's "To a Waterfowl.” 1 Start also an individual spelling list and try not to misspell a second time any word entered on it. (This list should, of course, include all words misspelled in your written work for any class.) Study and apply the rules for learning to spell a word which are given in Appendix C. EXERCISE 4 DECIDING WHAT TO ACCOMPLISH IN LANGUAGE Think over and report in class some of the things that you would now like to do well, things that require language in the doing. What friends have you whose talk is especially interesting? Should you like to have people interested in whatever you may have to say to them? Have you a correspondent whose letters you welcome particularly because they are so interesting? Do you think yours are as enjoyable as his? Have you sometimes hesitated to write for some article advertised in a paper or magazine because you were not quite sure of the correct letter form? Should you like to be able to make a business man think, when he reads a letter from you, "Well, here's a boy (or girl) that knows something"? Are you satisfied with the form of the recitations you make in various classes? What are some of the difficulties that keep your recitations from being as clear and complete as you would like them to be, even when you know the facts? Should the work in the English class help you to improve in these matters ? There are certain matters of language which are determined by custom, just as certain matters of dress and manners must be. What should you think if you saw a man walking down the street with straw in his hair or feathers on his coat, or a boy at a party in overalls and dirty shoes? Bad habits of speech that sometimes stick to people up to the seventh year of school and beyond, as feathers stick to a coat, should be brushed off as soon as possible. It takes 1 In planning for the work of the year notice the suggestions in Problem XXI for a class magazine. hard and persistent work to get rid of a habit. The best way to conquer a bad habit is to put a good one in its place. In Appendix A you will find a list of the worst of these childish or ignorant expressions. It is to be hoped that you have not carried any of these beyond the sixth grade; but if you have, it is time that you discover that fact and get to work. Check off on the list any errors that you make, and suggest definite ways to drill yourself in each correct expression until it sounds right. The teacher and your fellow pupils will help you if you tell them what good habits you especially wish to form. What four definite things have been suggested for accomplishment this year? Have you any others in mind that you especially want for yourself? Perhaps you would like to write a letter to your teacher telling what you wish this year of English work to give you. (See an example in Problem XVI, Ex. 5.) Or you may record your intentions as for a diary, under this date, and keep the record till the end of the year. PROBLEM II TELLING PERSONAL EXPERIENCES WITH INTERESTING DETAILS You have decided that one thing you want to do this year is to interest your friends in what you say. When people get together they often talk about the things they have done and seen; in other words, they tell their personal experiences. You will always enjoy being able to interest your hearers in your experiences. EXERCISE 1 SEEING THE NECESSITY OF DETAILS IN TELLING A. Tell the class all about some one thing you saw or did the last time the circus was in town. Make what you say as interesting as possible, but of course tell the truth. If you had no interesting experience on circus day, tell an adventure of the last day you were away from home. Will you talk to the class or to the teacher? Where should you stand? Where do you look when you are talking to people whom you really wish to interest? How do you feel when you have to listen to someone who talks so indistinctly that you lose part of what he says? Always remember, then, when you speak to the class (1) to stand where they can easily see you and listen to you, (2) to look |