Mi deer Par Priry ous. Clapton I hop u are qute wel.—Tel Arnt jain that W. It is not spelt properly. | us (a.) the qualities of words; Lucy calls papa a "deer." and (b.) the arrangement of L. But since I have learned them in classes. We learned grammar I have written "dear." the uses of the animals next, P. Now you may easily see papa, after we had learned the what are the uses of grammar. qualities. You may say, "GRAMMAR teaches us to speak and write correctly.” Shall I tell you what you will have to learn in order to do that? Ion. Yes, please, papa. P. You have, as you said, learned something of grammar already. In grammar we learn (1st,) To make letters into syllables, and then to make syllables into words; this is called spelling, or, as we say in grammar, ORTHO GRAPHY. W. I have always called it "spelling." (2ndly,) You will learn the 66 qualities" of your words, so as to distinguish the different sorts from each other. And when you thus know them, you may arrange them into classes and orders (to remember them), just as you did the animals. This part of grammar we call ETYMOLOGY. P. Etymology also teaches us the origin of words, or, as we say, their "derivation," but you will not begin this part yet. L. Please let me say that once again. ETYMOLOGY teaches P. So you do with the words. (3rdly,) You will learn to use your words by making them into sentences; and you will make rules for using the proper words, and putting them in their proper places. This we call SYNTAX. Ion. I think that the Syntax will be rather hard. But let me say the three parts of grammar. 1st, The spelling of words, called ORTHOGRAPHY. 2ndly, The qualities (or meaning) of words, called ETYMOLOGY; and sen 3rdly, The uses of words (their arrangement in tences), called SYNTAX. Shall we begin to-day? P. Yes. We will have a short lesson on Orthography. Lesson 1. ORTHOGRAPHY. You know what letters are. They are merely sounds; but all sounds are not letters. W. No; the sound which the wind makes, and the sound of a cannon are not letters. Ion. Please let me give the definition of a letter. A letter is a sound which we use in speaking. And I will add something. People are sometimes a long way off from each other, so that they cannot hear such sounds, therefore they make different shapes upon paper to represent the sound. Here is a shape-a. Listen to the sound it represents. (Ion makes the sound.) P. Very good; and you will find, if you take notice, that you can make that sound without moving your tongue or your lips. You can make it with your throat. Now make another in the same way. count them up, b, c, d, f, g, h, j, W. Now then, I will make "These sounds may be represented on paper by different shapes. Five letters are independent without the help of another letter); sounds (that is, they can be sounded these are called VOWELS. "Twenty-one letters are dependent sounds (that is, they cannot Ion. e-e-e-e. I only used be sounded without the help of my throat then. P. Now make another. another); these are called CONSO NANTS. "The twenty-six letters of the W. i-i. I did not move my English language form a company lips or tongue. P. Now another which we call the ALPHABET." P. Now let us see what we Ada. O. My throat did that! can make with letters. Join P. Now another. L. u. Ah! I did move my lips a little then! That sounds like a double letter; like "e-oo." P. True. But it may almost be sounded by itself. Each letter which can thus be sounded by itself, without the help of another letter, is called a vowel. Thus a, e, i, o, and u, are vowels. There are two others which cannot be sounded by themselves, w and y (oo-i); these are sometimes used in a word as vowels. W. Can we not sound any of the other letters by themselves. Let me try: p, b, c. No! the first is pe and e put together, pee; the next is be e, bee; the next is s e, se. I will together b-a, ba. What is that? L. I do not think it is a word, because it has no meaning. P. No, here are three letters, o-n-g; here are four letters, n-i-n-g; here are five letters, t-i-o-n-s. In each case, the letters make a sound, but none of the sounds have any meaning. So we do not call them "words"; they are called "syllables". One letter also may be a syllable, such as e or i. W. I noticed that each syllable has only the sound of one vowel in it. Now I will make a sentence about "syllables." When one, or two, or three, or four, or five letters form a sound, without any meaning in it, we call such a sound a SYLLABLE. Ion. And what do we call a sound when it has a meaning? P. Then it is called a "word." I was going to show you that, just as letters make syllables, so syllables make words. Tell me a word W. Me, that is a word of one syllable. And we may go on to say that words are made into sentences; that sentences are made into paragraphs; that paragraphs are made into chapters, and that chapters may be made into books. P. Yes; but all that does not belong to our subject, Ortho L. I will tell you a better.graphy. Now let us finish the It is better grammar to say I. That is a word of one syllable, and of one letter. P. All the words of one syllable are called mono-syllables (which long word is made partly from the Greek monos, alonejust as we say monarch for a man who rules alone; a monk, a man who lives alone). Ion. Here is a word of two syllables, "Wil-ly." P. Such words we call dissyllables. Lucy. Here is one with three syllables, "po-ta-to." P. That is called a tri-syllable. W. And here are some fullgrown words-ther-mo-me-ter, Con-stan-ti-no-ple. What are they, papa? P. All the words you find with more than three syllables, you may call poly-syllables. Ion. Now let me make a "eutence about words: When one, two, or more syllables joined together have some meaning, they are called a WORD. lesson. What does orthography treat of, Ion? Ion. Of spelling; - that of P. Name a consonant. P. Mention a SYLLABLE. P. Now a word-a monosyllable. W. Boy. P. Now a dis-syllable. P. Now a tri-syllable. P. Very good. I intend for you to have a "parsing exercise" at the end of each lesson, by which I mean that you are to take each word in a sentence, and say which class it belongs to. You may begin, to-day, by pointing out all the vowels, consonants, syllables, monosyllables, &c., in the following sen tences: No. 1. PARSING EXERCISE. (Write the number of vowels, consonants, syllables, monosyllables, dissyllables, trisyllables, and polysyllables, in these sentences :-) He that runs fast will not run long. Write injuries in dust and kindnesses in marble. All the days of Methuselah were nine hundred sixty and nine years. Constantinople is the capital of Turkey. Hands were made to be useful, if you teach them the way, Therefore, for yourself or neighbour, make them useful every day. Work away, while you're able; work away! work away! And, to speed with your labour, make the most of to-day, As for grief and vexation, let them come when they may, Let your own hands support you till your strength shall decay, And your heart will never fail you, even when your hair is gray. Work away, while you're able; work away! work away! A JOURNAL OF INSTRUCTION FOR THE FAMILY AND THE SCHOOL. 2nd Week. MONDAY. Moral Biography. INDUSTRY. THE MAN WHO MADE A STEAM-ENGINE. P. SOME time before you were born, Lucy, the world did not know what was meant by a steam-engine. If any one went out for a ride, he wanted, first, a place to sit down upon; secondly, wheels for that place to be moved upon; and, thirdly, a horse to move the wheels. W. Or else a donkey. Ion. Or, he might ride in a dog-cart. L. Or, in a sedan-chair. Then he would do without the wheels, and without the horse; two men would carry him. P. True. I had forgotten those things. Well! the world had been accustomed to move on in this way. Some were jogged along in waggons; some were walked along in sedans; and others were trotted along, when all at once men were startled by some strange news. They heard how they might ride in coaches which would almost fly along at least, they would tear along over the earth in a style equal to that of the swiftest bird. This was not all the news. It was said that the new coaches went without horses; but that no one would believe. II. Of course not. P. I was a boarding-school boy when I first heard the news; and, as I came home for the holidays, on the top of a coach, we passed a strange road with iron rails upon it. The coachman pointed them out to the passenger who sat beside me, and he laughed at them, saying, "Ah, ah! they will never do." Ion. That was a railroad, I suppose? P. Yes; it was one of the first that had been made, and the wonderful coaches the world had heard of were steamengines-the coachman could not believe such things. But the steam-engine soon let him know, and all the world too, that he was a wonderful fellow. The wind is a useful servant to man, for he drives great ships at a swifter speed than that of horses; but the steam-engine beats the wind. He moved great vessels across the mighty ocean, even in the face of the wind; he worked great machines in factories; he worked for the spinners, the weavers, the miners; for the printers; and did all sorts of work for all sorts of people. Then, as for his strength; he boasted of having a ten-horse |