_Reading and Spelling._
1. Another important thing for which you go to school is to learn how to
spell. It is not always very easy to spell, because there are so many
different ways in which the same letters are pronounced in different
words.
2. That you may understand what I mean, I shall give an example, to show
you how many different ways the same letters are pronounced in different
words; and also another example, to show you how many different ways
there are of spelling the same syllable.
3. To show you, first, in how many different ways the same letters are
pronounced in different words, I shall take the letters o, u, g, h.
4. The letters _o, u, g, h_, are sounded or pronounced like the letter
_o_ alone, in the word _though_. The letters _o, u, g, h_, are
pronounced like _uf_, in the word _tough_.
5. In the word _cough_, the letters _o, u, g, h_, are pronounced like
_off_. In the words _slough_ and _plough_, the letters _o, u, g, h_, are
pronounced like _ow_; and in the word _through_, they are pronounced
like _ew_, or like _u_.
6. In the word _hiccough_ the letters _ough_ are pronounced like
_up_--and in the word _lough_, the letters are pronounced like _lok_.
7. There are many words which end with a sound like _shun_; and this
syllable is spelled in many different ways, as you will see in the
following example.
8. In the words _ocean_, _motion_, _mansion_, _physician_, _halcyon_,
_Parnassian_, _Christian_, and many other such words, the last syllable
is pronounced as if it were spelled _shun_.
9. You see, then, that in some words a syllable sounding very much like
_shun_ is spelled
_cean_, as in ocean;
in some it is spelled _tion_, as in nation;
in some it is spelled _sion_, as in mansion;
in some it is spelled _cian_, as in physician;
in some it is spelled _cyon_, as in halcyon;
in some it is spelled _sian_, as in Parnassian.
10. It is such things as these which make both reading and spelling very
hard lessons for young children. If they think of them all at once, as
the pendulum did of the eighty-six thousand times that it had to swing
in twenty-four hours, it is no wonder if they feel discouraged, and say,
I can't get these hard lessons.
11. But you must recollect that, as the pendulum, every time it had to
swing, had a moment given it to swing in, so you also have a moment
given you to learn everything in; and if you get a little at a time, you
will, in the end, finish it all, if it be ever so large.
12. You have seen the workman engaged in building a brick house. He
takes one brick at a time, and lays it on the mortar, smoothing the
mortar with his trowel; and then he takes another brick, and another,
until he has made a long row for the side of the house.
13. He then takes another brick, and lays that on the first row; and
continues laying brick after brick, until the house gradually rises to
its proper height.
14. Now, if the workman had said that he could never lay so many bricks,
the house would never have been built; but he knew that, although he
could lay but one brick at a time, yet, by continuing to lay them, one
by one, the house would at last be finished.
15. There are some children, who live as much as a mile, or a half of a
mile, from the school-house. If these children were told that they must
step forward with first one foot and then the other, and must take three
or four thousand steps, before they could reach the school-house, they
would probably be very much discouraged, every morning, before they set
out, and would say to their mothers, Mother, I can't go to school,--it
is so far; I must put out one foot, and drag the other after it, three
thousand times, before I can get there.
16. You see, then, that although it may appear to be a very hard thing
to learn to read and to spell so many words as there are in large books,
yet you are required to learn but a few of them at a time; and if there
were twice as many as there are, you will learn them all, in time.
17. I shall tell you a story, in the next lesson, to show you how
important it is to know how to spell.