THE reading lessons in our Spelling Book flow in an earnest, priestly style. There is a sacred savor, a solemn anointing about them, which always reminds us of the Bible. This is not because it is old, but because its lessons are made up of old truths. It is not destitute of humor, but this is true humor, which always has a solemn background. When we look into our modern spelling books we find, in place of true humor, an attempt to be funny. Instead of the childlike we find the childish. Those have not read aright the minds of children who think that they are not attracted by the sacred and solemn. It is the contrary with them. They are charmed even by what we regard as the plaintive. A description of the vanity of life, as set forth by the falling leaf and fading flower pleases them. It will be found that it is passages of this character that they most love in the Bible; and that the first poetry or Hymns, which lodge in their memories are of the plaintive order. The reader need only call up the recollections of his own childhood to convince himself of this fact. Not only the solemn words, but the solemn style of the Bible pleases children. Why this is so may lie in a philosophy too deep for us to fathom and explain; but the fact is known and read of all observant men; and true it is, certainly, that its cultivation never makes them too grave and earnest as adults. It will be found rather that the silly are more apt to be morose, while such hearts as are most charmed by the plaintive are the more truly and sweetly attuned to serene and abiding cheerfulness. How great, therefore, is the mistake when it is attempted to interest children in reading by silly remarks, and simple, pointless stories about dogs, cats, pigs and monkeys, as is commonly done in what are given as the reading lessons in most of our "improved" spelling books. These remarks are merely designed as preparatory to some specimens which we wish to give from the reading lessons in our old spelling book. How strangely have some of these, so solemn and priestly in style, lingered with us through all the years which now separate us from our child hood and school days. As a specimen of this style, and the solid and wholesome instruction contained in our spelling book, take the following "PRECEPTS CONCERNING THE SOCIAL RELATIONS. Art thou a young man, seeking for a partner for life? Obey the ordinance of God, and become a useful member of society. But be not in haste to marry, and let thy choice be directed by wisdom. "Is a woman devoted to dress and amusement? Is she delighted with her own praise, or an admirer of her own beauty? Is she given to much talking and loud laughter? If her feet abide not at home, and her eyes rove with boldness on the faces of men-turn thy feet from her, and suffer not thy heart to be ensnared by thy fancy. "But when thou findest sensibility of heart joined with softness of manners; an accomplished mind and religion, united with sweetness of temper, modest deportment, and a love of domestic life; such is the woman who will divide the sorrows, and double the joys of thy life. Take her to thyself; she is worthy to be thy nearest friend, thy companion, the wife of thy bosom. "Art thou a young woman, wishing to know thy future destiny? Be cautious in listening to the addresses of men. Art thou pleased with smiles and flattering words? Remember that man often smiles and flatters most, when he would betray thee. "Listen to no soft persuasion, till a long acquaintance and a steady respectful conduct have given thee proof of the pure attachment and honorable views of thy lover. Is thy suitor addicted to low vices? is he profane? is he a gambler? a tippler? a spendthrift? a haunter of taverns? has he lived in idleness and pleasure? has he acquired a contempt for thy sex in vile company? and above all, is he a scoffer of religion?-Banish such a man from thy presence; his heart is false, and his hand would lead thee to wretchedness and ruin. Art thou a husband? Treat thy wife with tenderness and respect; reprove her faults with gentleness; be faithful to her in love; give up thy heart to her in confidence, and alleviate her cares. "Art thou a wife? Respect thy husband; oppose him not unreasonably, but yield thy will to his, and thou shalt be blest with peace and concord; study to make him respectable, as well for thine own sake, as for his; hide his faults; be constant in thy love; and devote thy time to the care and education of the dear pledges of thy love. "Art thou a parent? Teach thy children obedience; teach them temperance, justice, diligence in useful occupations; teach them science; teach them the social virtues, and fortify thy precepts by thine own example; above all, teach them religion. Science and virtue will make them respectable in this life-religion and piety alone can secure to them happiness in the life to come. "Art thou a brother or a sister? bonds of affection with thy brethren. brother in adversity, assist him; if thy necessities and alleviate her cares. Honor thy character by living in the Be kind, be condescending. Is thy sister is in distress, administer to her "Art thou a son or a daughter? Be grateful to thy father, for he gave thee life; and to thy mother, for she sustained thee. Piety in a child is sweeter than the incense of Persia, yea more delicious than odors wafted by western gales from a field of Arabian spices. Hear the words of thy father, for they are spoken for thy good give ear to the admonitions of thy mother, for they proceed from her tenderest love. Honor their gray hairs, and support them in the evening of life: and thine own children, in reverence to thy example, shall repay thy piety with filial love and duty." These are precisely the doctrines which the Guardian has ever earnestly inculcated. The hints given in this lesson on choice of a com 1858.] My Spelling Book. 35 panion for life cannot be too deeply pondered by the young. Every sentence could be turned into a text for a lengthy homily. We prefer, however, that each of our young readers should carefully reflect on the wholesome precepts it contains, and let their own thoughts preach to them. This and such like choice lessons we used to receive as "tasks"—that is, we were required to commit them to memory. This custom has to a great extent vanished under the "improved" systems. Especially are. children no more required, as a general thing, to commit to memory those forms of words which embody the fundamentals of religion, morality and social life-the Lord's Prayer, the creed, the commandments, the catechism, hymns, and prominent passages from the scripture, such as the Beatitudes, the baptismal formulary, and the words instituting the Lord's Supper, with the most familiar of the Psalms. These, it is said, ought to be learned in the family or in the Sunday school; but it is forgotten that many families have heads which care not for the religious instruction of their children, and neglect it entirely. Many children are never brought to Sunday school; and if they are, many Sunday schools are almost as secular as the week-day schools are made to be. But if ever the family and the Sunday school were active in this way, the least that can be asked of week-day schools is that they be co-workers in that kind of education which belongs to the highest wants and interests of the rising generation. The duty of committing to memory has, however, not been banished wholly from the schools, only it has been directed into another channel. In some schools the child is required to commit to memory the text book almost word for word, and is required to recite it to the teacher, whose business it is thought consists in hearing it. The teacher receives rather than imparts. The hearing of the lesson is a recitation, rather than an education. The thinking, the judgment, is not sufficiently exercised. The child is made to remember the shells of knowledge rather than knowledge itself. But does not then this objection also hold good against committing to memory lit erally those venerable forms of religious truth to which we have alluded. We answer, not at all. Because these at once weave themselves in with the affections and associations, so that they do not remain mere forms, but are living powers. That part of our being which these affect lies nearer the life, and our associations bring them up evermore from the memory as the pabulum or food of the spirit. The intellectual part of our nature relies more on the judgment, less on the memory; the religious less on the judgment, and more on the memory. The intellectual may be more original than the religious and consequently more self-reliant. Faith, the religious, is deeper than knowledge, and is more a part of our life, while knowledge is rather the furniture of life. Faith, then, must receive its food at hand, without effort, even as the plant receives its nourishment from the soil and air which lie around. In religion we must first remember, and then think. Faith receives, knowledge digests. If then it be so that intellectual instruction exercises prevailingly the judgment, and religious instruction prevailingly the memory, we may on the one hand approve and commend the practice of requiring children to commit to memory formularies of religious truth and devotion, while we at the same time deprecate the custom of demanding of children to commit lessons word for word from text-books. What scholar, for instance in adult years, ever thinks of repeating to imself and for his aid in his literary work, a rule of grammar? He has forgotten the words, and the formulary, while he holds fast only the principle. But how differently he acts as a religious being! He repeats the scripture passages committed to memory in the very words in which he learned them. He sings the old hymns as the most savory and the best. The prayers he learned have, every word, an anointing for his soul. A John Quincy Adams repeats to the end of his life his nightly, "Now I lay me down to sleep. Even our Saviour, in his most earnest hour on the cross, when if at any time the peculiar pressure on His spirit would have called forth an original prayer, adresses His Father in the words learned from the Psalms: "Father into Thy hands I commend my spirit." So also St. Stephen, when they stoned the spirit out of his body. The religious spirit, instead of being most original in its deepest devotion, is just then least so. It is then that the heart falls in most naturally and sweetly with those words which lie in the memory from earliest times. even as swollen waters do not make new channels when they find old ones at hand. It is for these reasons, and on this ground, that we stand firmly in doubt of all those "improved" systems of education, which set aside the learning of "tasks" in the sense referred to. They may seem "tasks" in the unpleasant sense of the word to the children; but this very fact makes it the more necessary that it should be required of them by such as hold the position of teachers over them. Children are to be instructed, not in the way they will go-as our modern systems seem to read the words of Solomon-but in the way they should go. Not the child's will, but the teacher's wisdom, is to be the rule which is to guide in the way. It would be a sad case for us if our parents and teachers had not required of us that which was often unpleasant, and seemed highly arbitary to our inexperience and ignorance. Now, on looking back over our life we see plainly, that even in our corrections nothing was more lost than the stroke which did not fairly hit us and go to the quick; and that no "tasks" injured us but those which we did not faithfully learn as we were required and in duty bound to do. Our experience also requires us to thank most devoutly our early teachers for having required us to learn the kind of tasks they were wont to give us; namely, those mentioned: Hymns, prayers, and other scriptural and religious formularies. We not only committed to memory the choicest hymns and prayers, but we daily prayed and sung them in the school. How blessed and pleasant is the memory of those pious exercises to us now, after years of anxious and earnest life have passed over us. We have heard much, it is true, from the advocates of the "improved" system, of the necessity of having "music in the schools." This always gladdened our heart; but having lately had an opportunity of witnessing the kind of singing introduced, our joy was sadly let down. The following is a specimen, over which, while hearing it performed, we knew not whether to laugh or weep. Hymns are excluded from the schools; 1858.] My Spelling Book. 37 and instead of them we have that which a pagan could sing just as well as a christian child, and which we fear not to say savors far more of nonsense than of either wisdom or piety. What holy, sacred, or even pleas ant associations can ever be connected with such stuff in the mind of a child. It requires, moreover, also the dancing tune sung to it to give the reader a full idea of the silly performance. This unfortunately we cannot give. But here is the first verse, which we hope will suffice: The "Tra, la la," we have heard from drunken men when their tongues were heavy. It belongs to a language which we do not understand, and we therefore give that up at once; but the rest being English we have tried it hard, but are at a loss to comprehend it. The first three lines are an invitation, which is all plain; but then we get in among the blossoms, flowers, dews, gems, jewels, from which we come out fainting. Let the reader try to analyze it. We give it up. In the same list we have another, with the tune designated at the top thus: "Tune-OH! CARRY ME BACK"-"to old Virginia," we suppose is meant! Decidedly fine for children This we must give entire : Tune-On! CARRY ME BACK. The pleasant school in yonder village I went to from day to day. And boys and girls together learned 'Twas my delight at morning break, O, carry me back to school again, My school boy days were short and merry, As I think upon the innocent joys Our school-room gave to me. But I miss some lessons I lost at school, So carry me back, etc. Oh, tell me not I've passed the limit That the World is now the school for me, |