PART III. MISCELLANEOUS SELECTIONS. SECTION I. PROSE SELECTIONS. 1. ELOCUTIONARY TRAINING. 1. Elocutionary training should be begun in early life, because then the vocal organs are flexible. It is a serious defect in our school methods of instruction, that the expressive faculties, comprising feeling, affection, emotion, passion, imagination, fancy, association, imitation, and description, are called so little into action. Elocution, when properly taught, calls into active exercise the expressive faculties, and tends to educate the child as a social being. 2. In most ungraded schools in the country, and in many city schools, an hour of the closing afternoon of each week may be usefully devoted to declamation, dialogue, and select readings. It is not advisable to compel every child in school to take part in these exercises, for there are some who never can become good readers, and others who are so awkward and diffident that it is cruel to force them upon the school stage with a declamation. 3. Appropriate selections should at first be made by (277) the teacher; for the uncultivated taste of pupils will lead them to choose pieces altogether too difficult, or utterly worthless when committed to memory. Select at times, for the boys, short prose declamations, which, when learned, remain in the memory as models of pure prose and patriotic feeling. If they learn a poem, let it not be one made up of doggerel rhymes, or of painful attempts at a low order of wit. 4. A careful selection of pieces will be the surest safeguard against the ranting, tearing, overstrained, theatrical style of florid oratory which so painfully mars many school exhibitions. The teacher can take odd moments at the intermission, or recess, or before and after school, for the purpose of hearing rehearsals, and giving special instructions. 5. Teachers should instruct pupils in the elements of gesture. Gestures spring naturally from the close sympathy of mind and body. A look of the eye, an expression of the countenance, a movement of the hand, often convey more than words can express. The principles of gesture may be easily learned from any one of several excellent works on elocution. 6. The reading and recitation of poetry by girls is an indispensable part of the education of woman, as one of the most efficient modes of discipline for the taste. and imagination. Many of the most exquisite passages of the poets can never be fully appreciated until repeated by the voice of woman. 7. It requires no close observer to perceive the effects. of poetry on the youthful mind. Childhood delights in the melody of verse, and is pleased with its flowing harmony of sound. In poetry are embodied some of the most beautiful lessons of morality; and they are presented in a manner which arrests the attention and impresses the character. What teacher has not seen the dull eye kindle, the vacant countenance take expression, the face glow with emotion, and the whole boy become lost in the sentiment of his declamation? 8. Introduce elocution into school to cultivate a taste for reading, to exercise and strengthen memory, to awaken feeling, to excite imagination, and to train those who are to enter the professions, to become graceful and pleasing speakers. Introduce it as a relief from study, a pleasing recreation, and a source of intellectual enjoyment. Introduce it as a part of the aesthetic education so peculiarly appropriate for woman. Make it as a part of the education of man as an expressive being. 2. GOOD READING. 1. There is one accomplishment, in particular, which I would earnestly recommend to you. Cultivate assiduously the ability to read well. I stop to partícularize this, because it is a thing so very much neglected, and because it is such an elegant and charming accòmplishment. Where one person is really interested by músic, twenty are pleased by good reading. Where one person is capable of becoming a skillful musician, twenty may become good readers. Where there is one occasion suitable for the exercise of músical talent, there are twenty for that of good reading. 2. The culture of the voice necessary for reading well, gives a delightful charm to the same voice in conversàtion. Good reading is the natural exponent and vehicle of all good things. It seems to bring dead aúthors to life again, and makes us sit down familiarly with the gréat and good of all ages. 3. What a fascination there is in really good reading! What a power it gives one! In the hospital, in the chamber of the invalid, in the nursery, in the doméstic and in the social circle, among chosen friends and compànions, how it enables you to minister to the amuse |