LESSON 1.

A TÁLK ON LANGUAGE.

We wish to talk with you to-day about a language that we never learned from a grammar or a book of any kind. Nor was it ever taught us by parent or by teacher. We came by it naturally and use it without thinking of it.

It is a universal language, and so needs no interpreter. People of all lands and all degrees of culture use it; even the brute animals in some measure understand it.

This Natural language is the language of cries, laughter, and tones; the language of the eyes, the nose, the mouth, the whole face; the language of gestures by the hand, and postures by the body.

The child's cry tells of its wants; its sob, of grief; its scream, of pain; its laugh, of delight. The boy raises his eyebrows in surprise and his nose in disgust, leans forward in expectation, draws back in fear, doubles his hand into a fist in anger, hisses in contempt, and calls his dog to him or drives him away by the tone in which he speaks to him.

But feelings and desires are not the only things we wish to communicate. Early in life we begin to acquire knowledge and learn to think, and then we feel the need of a better language.

Suppose, for instance, you have formed a mental picture, or idea, of a day; could you express this by a tone, a look, or a gesture?

If you wish to tell me the fact that yesterday was cloudy, or the truth that the days are shorter in winter than in summer, you would find it wholly impossible to do this by means of Natural language.

To communicate, then, your thoughts, or even the mental pictures we have called ideas, you need a language more nearly perfect. This language is made up of words.

These words you learn one by one. You learn them from your

mothers, and so Word language is your mother-tongue. You learn them from your friends and teachers, your playmates and companions, and you learn them by reading; for words, as you know, may be written as well as spoken.

This Word language we may, from its superiority, call Language Proper.

Natural language, as was said, precedes this Word language, but gives way as Word language comes in and takes its place; yet it may be used, and always should be, to assist and strengthen the latter. In earnest conversation we enforce what we say in words, by the tone in which we utter them, by the varying expression of the face, and often by the gestures of the hand.

The look or the gesture may even dart ahead of the word, or it may contradict it, and so convict the speaker of ignorance or deception.

The happy union of the two kinds of language is the charm of all fine reading and speaking. The teacher of elocution is ever trying to recall the pupil to the tones, the facial expressions, and the action, so natural to him in childhood and in animated conversation.

Questions on the Talk.-How did we come by Natural language? How does it differ from other languages? Why is it a universal language? When do we use it? What is it made up of? How does the child employ it? What is Word language, or Language Proper, used for? How do we learn it? What retires before it ? How can Natural language aid it? What is an idea? What two kinds of words are there? Give a definition of Language Proper. Define English grammar.

DEFINITION.—Language Proper consists of the spoken and written words used to communicate ideas and thoughts.

DEFINITION.

- English Grammar is the science which teaches the forms, uses, and relations of the words of the English language.

LESSON 2.

A TALK ON THOUGHTS AND SENTENCES.

To express a thought we use more than a single word, and the words arranged to express a thought we call a sentence.

But there was a time when, through lack of words, you compressed

your thought into a single word. The child says to his father, up, meaning, take me up into your lap; or, book, meaning, this thing in my hand is a book.

These first words always deal with the things that can be learned by the senses; they express the child's ideas of these things.

We have spoken of thoughts and sentences; let us see now if we can find out just what a thought is, and what a sentence is.

As a sentence is a group of words expressing a thought,—the body, of which the thought is the soul,—and so is something which we can hear or see, while a thought is not, let us try to find out what a thought is by looking at a sentence.

In any such sentence as this, Spiders spin, something is said or asserted about something. Here it is said or asserted of the insects,

spiders, that they spin.

The sentence, then, consists of two parts,-the name of that of which something is said, and that which is said of it.

The first of these parts we call the Subject of the sentence; the second, the Predicate.

Now, if the sentence, composed of two parts, expresses the thought, there must be in the thought two parts to be expressed. And there are two; viz., something of which we think, and that which we think about it. In the thought expressed a moment ago, the insects, spiders, are the something of which we think, and their spinning is what we think or judge of them. In the sentence expressing this thought, the word spiders names that of which we think, and the word spin tells what we think or judge of them.

Not every group of words is necessarily a sentence, because it may not be the expression of a thought. Spiders spinning is not a sentence. Neither of the two ideas for which the words stand is thought of the other or asserted of it.

Soft feathers, The shining sun, are not sentences, and for the same reason. Feathers are soft, The sun shines, are sentences. Here the asserting word is supplied, and something is said of something else.

The shines sun is not a sentence, for, though it contains the asserting word shines, the arrangement is such that no assertion is made, and so no thought is expressed.

How are our first

Questions on the Talk.-What do we use words for? thoughts expressed? What do our first words express? What is a sentence?

What is it made up of? What is each part called? Of what two parts is a thought composed? Why is spiders spinning not a sentence? Why is the shining sun not a sentence? Convert the shining sun into a sentence. Why is the shines sun not a sentence?

LESSON 3.

A TALK ON SOUNDS AND LETTERS.

We have already told you that in expressing our ideas and thoughts we use two kinds of words, spoken words and written words.

We learned the spoken words first. Mankind spoke long before they wrote. Not until people wished to communicate with those at a distance, or had thought out something worth handing down to aftertimes, did they need to write.

But speaking was easy. The air, the lungs, and the organs of the throat and mouth were at hand. The first cry was a suggestion. Sounds and noises were heard on every side, provoking imitation, and the need of speech, for the purposes of communication, was imperative.

Spoken words are made up of sounds. There are about forty sounds in the English language. The different combinations of these give us all the words of our spoken tongue. That you may clearly understand these sounds, we will tell you something about the human voice.

In talking, the air driven out from your lungs beats against two flat muscles, stretched, like bands, across the top of the windpipe, and causes them to vibrate up and down. This vibration makes sound. Take a thread, put one end between your teeth, hold the other with thumb and finger, draw it tight and strike it, and you will understand how voice is made. The shorter the string or the tighter it is drawn, the faster will it vibrate and the higher will be the pitch of the sound. The more violent the blow, the farther will the string vibrate and the louder will be the sound. Just so with these vocal bands or cords. The varying force with which the breath strikes them, and their differ