an instrument in the hand of the teacher. The leading spelling books before the community are Webster's, and quite recently Worcester's. These writers have continued faithful to the legitimate object of the spelling book; while many others have sought to introduce foreign matter, which has proved injurious to the main object.

No important change has been made in this branch of instruction for more than fifty years. Yet in this period much has been written on the formation of articulate sounds, on the causes of our irregular orthography, and on the etymology of the words which we use. Is there no room for improvement in the naming of the letters, in the phonetic adjustment of the lessons, and in a more philosophical arrangement of the materials? It seems as if each generation grudged to the succeeding the avoidance of any labor or toil which it had itself sustained.

It will not, we hope, be thought presumptuous in us to state in what particulars we think improvements may be made.

1. To the common alphabet might be added some of the more important Indo-European alphabetic sounds, with their simplest notation. As these sounds, together with the notation of them, have been introduced somewhat into English writing, it would be a convenience both to teacher and pupil to have them thus appended.

2. The letters h, w, and y, might be named he, we, and ye, according to the general analogy of the other names, instead of the present uncouth names, aitch, double u, and wy.

3. Besides the traditional arrangement of the alphabet, the same letters might be arranged in another table philosophically, or according to the natural order of their development. The pupil would thus become acquainted with the classification of the letters after their organs.

4. The different alphabetic sounds might be illustrated by lessons, in this natural or philosophical order, instead of the incidental order, depending on the usual arrangement of the alphabet.

5. According to this order, the five or six short vowels would come first, then the long vowels and diphthongs, then

the semi-vowels, then the mutes according to their organs as labials, dentals, or palatals.

6. As letters in combination often have a different sound. from what we should expect from the simple letters, such digraphs might be specially noticed. Much of the irregular orthography of the English language would be explained in this way.

7. The mute e final, so called, as in name, tide, should be regarded as a mere orthographical expedient to keep the preceding vowel long. Whatever may have been its original purpose or design, this is the only force which it has at present. See Grimm's Deutsche Grammatik, I. Th. III. Ausg. p. 380.

8. The doubling of certain consonants in inflection, as entrapping, kidnapping, should be regarded as a mere orthographical expedient to keep the preceding vowel short.

9. Ai and ay, ei and ey, oi and oy, ui and uy, should not be regarded severally as distinct digraphs, but as the same digraph differently written, according as it occurs at the end of a word or in the beginning or middle. This will save

much room in the statements.

10. Two tabular views should be given; the one representing all the different sounds to each character, and another representing all the different expressions for each sound. The two tables should be made to tally exactly.

11. The usual table of words pronounced alike, but spelled differently, should not be omitted.*

As an accompaniment or sequel to the Spelling Book comes in here the English Reader. Our literature abounds with works of this kind. Many of them are very excellent.

II. The next requisite after the Spelling Book and Reading Lessons is the English Accidence. The pupil has learned to speak and to read, as it were, mechanically. He is now called upon for the first time to study for himself. He is led to reflect on the words which he is accustomed to use, the changes which they undergo, and the use he makes of these

See Connecticut Common School Journal for January, 1860.

changes or inflections. The accidence, as the name implies, has reference to the inflections or accidental changes of words in continuous discourse, as opposed to the more permanent changes which are seen in etymology or the formation of words.

The limits of the Accidence are easily defined. It discusses the kinds of words, or parts of speech, and their subdivisions. It embraces the declension of nouns and pronouns, the comparison of adjectives and adverbs, and the conjugation of verbs. It embraces also the principles of concord, government, and collocation. All this should be exhibited continuously at one view, and not piecemeal. This branch of study has suffered much from the broken and fragmentary state in which it usually appears.

This is the leading portion of grammar, and a necessary part of every grammar. The grammars now in use embrace other topics; but the teacher will find it useful to give this a distinct consideration.

The pupil is enabled by his Accidence to go back to the ground-forms of words, and to go through the process which is technically called construing and parsing.

The object of the Accidence is to guard the pupil against the palpable errors of the looser colloquial style. There are, however, many forms of construction concerning the propriety of which it is difficult to give a positive decision.

Something remains to be done in the judicious selection of useful, as well as pertinent examples.

The common fault of most grammars on this topic is, that they treat the ancient declension of nouns, and the ancient conjugation of verbs, as irregularities, and thus give to the learner a distorted view of the language. This is felt as soon as the pupil passes to the study of other languages.

A learned work on this topic, by giving the origin of the inflections, would of course avoid this error; but there is no need that a popular work on the subject for beginners should lead him astray.

The English Accidence, it is easily seen, must precede in the order of study, the Verbal Analysis.

A work covering this ground might be called an Elementary Grammar, or the Rudiments of Grammar.

III. The next requisite is a work on Etymology or the formation of words, referring to the permanent changes in the forms of words. It might be called the Verbal Analyst.

Such a work should give an account of pronominal elements and verbal roots, of stem-words and their formation by internal inflection, of reduplicate forms, of suffixes and prefixes in all their variety of form and meaning, of compound words and the relation of the parts to each other. It should above all distinguish between words of Teutonic and those of Latin or Greek origin. It should give the character both of Latin and Greek roots, the changes to which they are subjected, and also the Classic suffixes, and prefixes, and compounds.

We know of no monograph covering the whole field. Many feeble attempts have been made to fill this vacancy, as it respects Classical words, but no one has sustained itself before the public.

The (London) Penny Encyclopedia did well on the subject of etymology. So the Encyclopaedia Americana, by the aid of Drs. Duponceau and Pickering, and it is to be hoped that the New American Cyclopedists will yet do something for the advancement of this science. Our periodicals touch etymology, if at all, very lightly. The whole subject is almost ignored in our proudest seats of intellectual culture; no proper provision being made for either in the common school course, the preparatory course for college, or the college course itself. How few persons, as they are now educated, can analyze offhand such words as uproar, noisome, fulsome, careless!

As a book of reference, and as an accompaniment of this branch, we need an Etymologicon Anglicanum, or a Vocabulary of English Roots. There are models of such works in German; but the modern English mind hardly forms a conception of such a thing.

IV. The next requisite is the Analysis of Language consid ered as Thought.

Here everything depends on our having a clear conception of what is expressed, or intended to be expressed, in language.

In language or continuous discourse we have occasion to speak of two kinds of notions, and twelve kinds of relations of these notions, and these are all. This last circumstance we wish to be noticed.

The two kinds of notions are notions of existences or things conceived of as such, and notions of activity in its different forms of development. These are the opposite poles in language.

The two first relations with which we are concerned are relations of notions of activity to notions of existence; viz, the predicative and the attributive.

The predicative relation is when we predicate an activity of an existence in such a way as to make one thought. We weld, as it were, the activity on to the existence.

The attributive relation is when we refer the activity to the existence in such a way as to make one idea, and that the idea of an existence. The activity is supposed to be already welded on to the existence.

The next relation is the relation of the existence to the activity, and is called the objective. In this relation the existence is referred to the activity in such a way as to make one idea, and that an idea of activity. In these three relations observe the opposite polarity of the factors.

We come now to relations of ideas of existence to the speaker.

The first of these relations is the relation of personality. The speaker brings all existences under three heads; (1.) the person speaking, (2.) the person addressed, and (3.) all other existences as merely spoken of.

The second of these relations is the relation of quantity. Quantity is not an inherent attribute of an existence. It refers rather to our mental conceptions of it.

We come now to relations of activities to the speaker. The first of the relations is that of modality, that is, whether an activity is actual or not actual, possible or not possible, necessary or not necessary. All these may be comprehended under the general term potentiality or modality.

The next relation of activity to the speaker is the familiar