Note.-R is not an articulation except when before a vowel; and, if the preceding vowel is long, the R has then both its vowel and articulative effect, as in vary,-in which case it is represented by a capital letter. The letter u, when sounded alphabetically, represents the articulation Y, and the vowel oo,-to denote which, it is printed in capital: after q, always, and, in a few cases, after other articulations, u has the power of w. The letters e and i, when before a vowel, have sometimes the power of Y,-instances are marked by capitals. The letter o in one represents wu, to denote which, the o is made capital.

9

GREAT EFFECTS FROM LITTLE CAUSES.

Nothing created is great or little, except comparatively, and in relation to its effects, and the method of its operation. The quantity of caloric in the whole world, if it were expressed, and could be condensed by some Faraday or Thilorier on One scale of the most delicate of balances, would not make it kick the beam so sensibly as the thinnest breath of air, if at all; yet that latent heat is so magnificent in power, that certain local disturbances of its equilibrium are productive of earthquakes and volcanoes: and Newton used to boast, with that quiet pleasantry of illustration which was as characteristic of him as his sure induction, that, if he were the master of fire, he could pack the planet in a nut-shell. Electricity, too, is said to be imponderable; but the sudden restoration of the interrupted balance between such quantities of the subtile fluid as are contained in opposing clouds,-themselves so diminutive in comparison with the body of the earth,—is the cause of the thunder storm.

The very direction in which a power is applied, or in which a weight is allowed to operate, is so immensely more significant than the weight itself, that Archimedes, after having showered imponderable arrows of sunfire on the enemies of Syracuse, and burned up their vessels of war, wanted but a point to plant his lever, in order to move the world with his puny arm! What is the weight of water with which Watt clips thick iron, like paper, into shreds; and sends his huge leviathans, throbbing in their irresistible struggle, across the Atlantic, with all but the regularity of the freighted planets themselves! Are not a few pounds of

weight transformed into tons, by the mere disposition of them by Bramah, on the principle of the old hydrostatic paradox? Paradox! One had thought the day of paradoxes was over for ever now. Everything great is a paradox at first; because our own ignorance makes it strange.

Illustrations of the manifestations of great forces by little bodies may be drawn from the region of pure physics. Davy, fearlessly following the principle of electrical induction by contact, discovered that half-a-dozen square feet of the copper sheathing of the British fleet are rendered electro-negative by a zinc nail driven through the centre of the space, and are thereby protected from the corrosive action of the sea with its stores of oxygen, chlorine, and iodine, everywhere ready to be let loose upon metallic substances. Nay, Sir John Herschell finds that the relation to electricity of a mass of mercury is such, that it may be reversed by the admixture of an almost infinitesimal proportion of a body, such as potassium, in an opposite electrical condition. So impressed is he with this class of observations as to observe, "That such minute proportions of extraneous matter should be found capable of communicating sensible mechanical motions and properties, of a definite character, to the body they are mixed with, is perhaps One of the most extraordinary facts that has appeared in chemistry."

Everything that has been said about material forms, into which the breath of life has not been inspired, must be affirmed, and more urgently affirmed, of the living frame, with its fearful, though harmonious complication. The physician and his forces have to deal with a quivering epitome of all the species of susceptibility in creation, One kind reacting on another, so as to produce a combination of harmony so highly strung, that the prick of a pin shall grate upon every fibre, and a cooling odour, in a hot atmosphere, impart refreshment and delight to every nerve. According to the experiments of Leuchs, if the ten thousand two hundredth part of a grain of tartrate of mercury be diffused through the substance of a sweet pea, the beautiful germ of a graceful flowering herb, which lies

folded up within its horny pericarp, shall never come out and be expanded, though you inclose it in the softest mould, and solicit it by every art. Before Androclus will a lion, with a paltry thorn in his royal palm, crouch in his rock-built palace, and humbly crave deliverance from the insignificant prickle that has unstrung his fibrous frame. But man is a creature of such exquisite and manifold sensibility to the agency of even physical re-agents, that, when the compacted balance of all the parts is disturbed in any One way, and idiosyncrasy is produced, the feel of velvet produces nausea in some; a professor of natural philosophy faints under a sprig of lavender; an Erasmus cannot so much as taste fish without a fever; a Cardinal Hauy de Cardonne swoons at the smell of a rose; a Scaliger falls into convulsions at the sight of cresses; and a Tycho Brahe trembles in the awful presence of a hare.-DR SAMUEL BROWN.

ELEMENTARY INSTRUCTION IN SPEECH.

It really seems strange that speech,-a power so common and so invaluable, a thing" in every body's mouth," should not have been taught to us elementarily; and, in looking back over the pages of this chapter, very strange it certainly appears, that there should be such a phenomenon in cultivated society, as a person incapable of sounding an S, an L, an R, or any of the simple elements correctly yet we have even public teachers-in almost every department of knowledge-exhibiting in their utterance such shameful incapacities, in great variety, and vitiating by their high example the taste and habits of extensive listening circles; so that it is really thought no disgrace to be a burrer, a lisper, a mumbler, a drawler-to twang words i' the nose, to scream, and roar, to foam, to squeak, to whine, to mouth, and otherwise so to abuse the glorious faculty of speech, that, with Shakspeare, we may say, it seems as if "some of Nature's journeymen had made men, and not made them well, they imitate humanity so abominably."

The reason of the general ignorance of speech, from which such a state of things results, is, we are told, just the very commonness of the faculty, which seems to render the subject below scientific inquiry. But is it therefore unworthy of being understood? Why then were not scientific men satisfied with seeing and hearing

H

on the same ground? Why did they seek to know how we see and hear? They have elaborated theories of optics-and look at the result! Wonderful mechanical adaptations of optical principles, before undreamt of, and which, otherwise, would never have been discovered. Might not an analogous result attend the philosophical investigation of the faculty of speech; and acoustic and articulative principles be developed, which would lead to mechanical inventious no less wonderful and useful than those in optics? A subject so little explored, and so open to operations, is, at least, full of promise to science.

In the ordinary mode of teaching children to read, the difficulties, necessarily attending our defective orthography, are fully laid in the learner's way, so as to make his task one of as much drudgery as possible. What is called elementary instruction is not such,―our children have no really elementary instruction in speech. They are taught the alphabet, such as it is; but they are not taught an alphabet of sounds. They are taught to name the letters; that is to say, they are taught to associate with the characters a set of words, by which they may in time become qualified to speak of the letters, but they are not taught those simple elementary sounds by which they might at once be enabled to speak the letters: so that the child has not the most distant idea of the real object of the characters he becomes familiar with. It never can enter into his mind that they stand for no more in speech than those puffs, and blows, and hisses, and other funny noises, which the youngest in the school could make perfectly, and would make with most delightful interest; this is all darkness to him:-and if, by some accidental coincidence between the name and power of a letter, a ray of light flash upon him, and he seek to trace it to the truth which shot it forth, he soon gives up the search in despair ;-the light disappears at the first step from the chink which let it in-and he can see no way out of the doubleyou, eye, ell, de, e, are, en, e, double-ess, (wilderness) by which he finds himself surrounded.

The first sad period of his education at last over-he “knows his letters." Unfortunately, however, he discovers that he is then hardly in the least advanced in the art of reading, but has a new task to learn, and a new vexation, in every new combination of letters. One thing, however, is done, beyond the mastery of the alphabetic names; he has learned to learn without under

standing-to know without knowing what;-and he is therefore prepared to apply what he knows in any way he may be told, without inquiring, or caring to learn, the how and why. A foundation is laid for a mindless after-course. The school he either dislikes, or loves only for its opportunities of social mischief; till in due course he "finishes his education," and leaves the school-with a certain amount of knowledge acquired by dint of preceptorial authority, but without having learned the pre-eminently important lesson-to teach himself-to love knowledge for its own sake-to have a "constant care to increase his store"and to go on a scholar to the end of his days.

Fraught with consequences momentous as these, is, we believe, the false initiatory training of the alphabetic class.

An improved orthography would, no doubt, be a ready means of improving this state of matters,—and a very excellent system of letters has recently been introduced as an experiment ;—but we fear existing prejudices will be found too strong to admit of sufficient reformation in this way. A better use must be made of present materials.

The rational mode of teaching to read would surely be, to begin with the mouth, and teach it to speak;-to present, first, to the imitative aptitude of children the simple elemental sounds of language, and get them practically mastered orally, before endeavouring to teach the eye to recognise their arbitrary symbols. The sounds should be the first object of the teacher; and their practice will be an amusement-not a task-to the children :— while, in learning them, they may be led on, almost insensibly, to a knowledge of the alphabetic symbols, and so by a most agreeable method, and in a very short time, gain all, and much more than all, that is now gained after laborious and protracted effort on the part both of teacher and pupil.

Distinct and graceful habits of speech, too, would thus be formed; the mouth would be always in advance of the eye; and so there would be an end to those abortive mouthings, and to that hesitancy and stammering which, in a greater or less degree, are common to all educational tyros now, and which do sometimes strike root into the muscular and nervous systems, and produce most pitiable objects in society.

A glance at the pages of English writers of past and present times will show that innovations in orthography are not to be