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English in the Grades V

Memorizing

What is Worth Memorizing

Rea McCain

Any selection to be worth memorizing must be the adequate expression of some emotion already experienced by the child. It must be the adequate expression, for, if the idea alone be beautiful, why not remember the idea and let the wording go? It must be the expression of emotion, for facts are concerned with thought and not with their expression.

Emotion does not imply sentimentality. The preamble to our Constitution is as truly the expression of emotion as Highland Mary. The feeling in the two is very different, but, each in its way, is an emotion.

The third requirement is more apt to be disputed than either of the others. There are those who say the child will grow into comprehension of what he learns. That he will have come to have a fuller appreciation of anything worth learning is true, but this does not prove the time spent on what is beyond his present understanding is not wasted. Most of us admit that we have forgotten nine-tenths of all we were compelled to learn. Doubtless we have retained many an impression from lines we can no longer quote, but his is not an argument for learning selections beyond our understanding. Quite the contrary. If we lose the words and retain only the impression, or a part of the impression, made at that time, it is essential that the feeling of the selection be one which is rightly understood.

Analysis of Aids to Memory

Those characteristics of form or thought which are essential to the composition as it stands are natural aids o memory. Any chance or accidental points which are selected for emphasis may be called artificial aids to memory.

Natural Aids to Memory

There are three possible natural aids to memory, logical sequence of ideas, rhyme and rhythm. It is impossible to imagine any selection worth memorizing in which none of these is found, but not all occur in equal proportion in every selection.

Rhyme and Rhythm Read the Seal Lullaby:

Oh! hush thee, my baby, the night is behind us,
And black are the waters that sparkled so green.
The moon, o'er the combers, looks downward to find us
At rest in the hollows that rustle between.
Where billow meets billow, there soft be thy pillow;
Ah, weary wee flipperling, curl at thy ease!

The storm shall not wake thee, nor shark overtake thee,
Asleep in the arms of the slow-swinging seas.

The thought analysis is not difficult; the darkness around, the moon over them, the seals in the hollow, he dangers guarded against. The thought, we say, is plain, but the order is not inevitable, and yet the poem is easy to learn. Kipling has such mastery of rhythm tha the swing of the line carries one on, The rhyme, too, helps. We do not consciously think that pillow follows billow, but the suggestion is made all the same.

Rhythm may be of many kinds. We happen to have taken an example of slow and balanced motion. Quick and broken lines are just as easy to learn.

Over the cobbles he clattered and clashed in the dark inn-yard,. And he tapped with his whip on the shutters, but all was locked and barred;

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Artificial Aids to Memory

These are so numerous that even to catalogue them is impossible. Moreover, it is a waste of time. Some one suggests that one word be selected from each line and tha these be memorized. Great speed and accuracy s announced as the result. It is probable that the poem. learned in this way, as a test case, was quickly and successfully handled. Why? Not because of the merit of the method, but because the consciousness that something new was being tried acted as a spur. The mind, alert, went at the matter eagerly. For a device it worked; as a method to be regularly employed, it is plainly only an aggravation of the labor.

Wash-Ad-Jeff so we learned them, and supposed it helped. When I studied kings of England I didn't try the method. Did you?

Children's Reasons for Memorizing

Many fairly vital motives may be found for little children, to repeat the poem at home, to take part in a program before the school, etc. Perhaps they need the exact words in dramatization, although extemporaneous work is better in the lower grades. It may be they will sing the poem when it is learned. "Sweet and Low" has done duty many times. The more definite and individual

the motive that is assigned, the better the work will be, but it must never be forgotten that willing eagerness to take part in all exercises is characteristic of a well-governed school. The motive assigned on a lesson plan may be a dead thing, only an added and useless cog in cumbersome machinery if the teacher cannot tactfully employ it so as to make the whole operation move rapidly. Beware of the artificial motive. Above all, beware of the pause when the child contemplates the incentive and decides he doesn't want to.

Reasons for Requiring Memorizing

Repeating the writing of others means using words which one is not in the habit of employing. If the selection is rightly made, these words should be well within. the power of comprehension but slightly beyond habitual use. This increase in vocabulary is the weakest and poorest of the reasons for committing to memory.

Another reason is finding expression for one's own feelings. A famous teacher is in the habit of speaking of our great writers as the Articulate Ones. He says they give words to what others feel. It is much for anybody, child or man, o find words for the gropings toward truth of which we are all conscious.

The strongest reason is the last. One paragraph which has become thoroughly familiar is a center which attracts to itself much which would otherwise be forgotten. "This reminds me of❞— and we remember, because of its parallel significance, what we might otherwise have passed over.

Study of Poem

it is more permanent than any later study. A hild much older than these tots was told to learn Portia's speech. She began to study it.

The quality of mercy is not strained.

There was no ommentary, but she reasoned it out easily. She had seen her father strain milk. That was the only straining she knew. Don't laugh at her stupidity. It worked out well. The milk was strained to keep back foam, which is undesirable. Mercy isn't like that. None of it has to be kept out. It is all good, therefore, it does not need to be strained. The child is a woman now, but the milk bucket has held it; place in Shakespeare's lines.

Analysis

Next, line by line, analyze the stanzes, have the children describe the various scenes visualizing is most important. A poem means to man or to child just as much or as little as it suggests. Far-fetched meanings are bad, but there can never be too clear an understanding. Don't dwell always on the same point. Let each going over mean the addition of a new thought.

Poem as a Whole

When the discussion has been carried as far as you can profitably take it, stop analyzing. The child's thought of the poem is as full and complete as you can make it. He has gone from the first impression, when his liking was of the most importance, to the last, when he has

Suppose we glance over Stevenson's "Young Night brought to it and taken away from it all that he could Thought:"

Preparation

All night long and every night,

When my mamma puts out the light,
I see the people marching by,
As plain as day before my eye.

Armies and emperors and kings,
All carrying different kinds of things,
And marching in so grand a way,
You never saw the like by day.

So fine a show was never seen
At the great circus on the green;
For every kind of beast and man
Is marching in that caravan.

At first they move a little slow,
But still the faster on they go,
And still beside them close I keep
Until we reach the town of Sleep.

To use the technical language of an author, it is necessary first to create an atmosphere. The introduction need not be long, but it should be clear. Especially with small children is it necessary to make sure of a receptive mood. Know yourself what you wish to call forth. "What do you imagine you see in the dark?" might give a "goblin 'll get you" feeling or call forth the horrors of "seeing things at night." The little boy of the poem had the nicest possible time as he lay there.

So fine a show was never seen

At the great circus on the green.

Let the little folks shut their eyes and try to see the biggest procession they ever read about, then repeat to them the poem. They know what is coming because you have prepared them, they enjoy it, for Stevenson wrote what they think, only a thousand times better expressed.

Presentation

It is important that the first presentat on be clear, for

carry. You are through.

Authors

Is it desirable that much study of authors should be undertaken? No, mankind is curiously alike. The mention of birth and death serves only to employ words which are already familiar. Only those details about the writer are worth while which had some influence upon the writing. Stevenson thought more in the dark than other children because he lay awake long hours. He was ill, and made of bed and dreams his playthings. He was a courageous little man. He thought of kings and armies and great processions. Such are the items about an author for which children care and need to know.

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How They Brought the Good News from Ghent to Aix-Browning
Incident of the French Camp - Browning

Man Without a Country - Hale

Old Ironsides - Holmes

Battle Hymn of the Republic - Howe

Star Spangled Banner - Key
Recessional- Kipling

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The Barefoot Boy - John Greenleaf Whittier
Four Things - Henry Van Dyke

The Landing of the Pilgrims - Felicia Dorothea Hemans
The Rising Thomas Buchanan Read

Lays of Ancient Rome - Thomas Babington Macaulay
The Concord Hymn - Ralph Waldo Emerson

Arithmetic as Seat Work

Alden Hewitt

Normal Supervisor, Litchfield, Minn.

EAT WORK should always be correlated with preceding lessons in arithmetic, language, word drill or reading. Arithmetic seat work, it should be remembered, is for drill, not presentation. Beginning arithmetic may be assisted by having children string red haws, rose hips, basswood seeds, or corn, in groups of two, of three, of four, etc. Basswood seeds (monkey nuts), strung with a piece of corn between each, make a treasured necklace in the fall when the beginners are still puzzled over school life.

Do not hesitate to use the things all around the school. With so many counters growing about, beginning arithmetic may be play.

Beginning arithmetic must be chiefly oral; it should be largely in story form and deal with those things found in children's daily experiences.

Do not hesitate to use all possible material in your primary arithmetic.

Remember it is better to know a little well than to half know a great deal.

Never attempt more than one step in advance at one time. A successful teacher once said, "The keys to teaching arithmetic are three: drill and drill — and drill."

Never teach a child to count by repeating the mere words. Let your beginning class count the chairs, the children, the erasers, the windows, etc. Help if necessary. Two minutes of this at the opening of each session does wonders.

Calendar numbers, pasted on tagboard, to be arranged in order, are easier to handle than the small card numbers and also more attractive. These may be used later to make sums, etc.

Picture arithmetic, made by letting third graders draw around carded patterns and blacken them in, to form groups, makes excellent first grade seat work toward the end of the term.

The clock face device is one of the best drills for lower grade work.

Never attempt a drill till you have fully presented and discussed the topic in view.

Make learning the various number combinations pure memory work. If the pupil hesitates at all give the answer or have another pupil give it.

Teach subtraction by the Austrian or change system. Example 8-5 = Five and what make 8?

Begin at the bottom of a column when adding. Add in what is carried. This does away with writing the carried number.

Adopt one written form and insist on its use. Neatness is a most necessary requirement.

A uniform manner of explanation helps the atmosphere of the school.

Example-Subtraction

872

358

514

"Eight hundred seventy-two less 358. The 8 is more than 2; take 1 from 7 and put with 2, making it 12; 8 and 4 are 12; write the 4; 5 and 1 are 6; write the 1. Three and 5 are 8; write the 5. The difference is 514."

Much simple work is better than a little very difficult work. One of the best drills possible in the fifth or sixth grade is to present one simply worded problem concerning some everyday matter and then request five other origina problems of like type from pupil.

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After the lessons on and are presented, have the children make and pick out the different signs. Use all the outdoor material possible.

Second Grade

Processes within twelve

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Processes within nineteen, twenty, twenty-one, twenty-two, and twenty-three.

Thorough study of 24, including 1, 1, 1, 1, and of 24. Study 25, 50 and 100.

Seat Work

Measuring pints, quarts and gallons.
Measuring yards, feet and inches.

Building forms with square inches and then writing the statement: This figure (draw it) contains 12 squares or 12 square inches.

Making up stories about the number lesson example. The lesson was processes within 12. "There were 12 chickens; three ran away." "Nine were left." "Three 99 "How more ran away." "There were of them gone.' 12, 6 two's many were gone?" "If we sold 4 of the 12 we should have 8 left."

2+10, 66, 125, 12-8, 2 six's 12, 3 + 9, 12-2, 126, 129, 3 four's = 12, 48, 123, 136, 1210, 57, 127, 4 three's = 12.

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Table of two's: addition, subtraction, multiplication and division.

Columns of numbers less than 3

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Multiplication with two figures in multiplier. Division table (reversing multiplication table). Much of this can be seat work. Oral division with a remainder, as 100 ÷ 9 11 and 1 over.

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Short division. Some drill on aliquot parts. There should be no remainders.

This new work may, much of it, be drill seat work after the first careful presentation. Do not make the mistake of drilling before the subject is fully presented,

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"The Children in the Wood" was taken from the second part of an old play entitled, "Two Lamentable Tragedies; the one of the murder of Maister Beech, a chandler in Thames street. The other of a young child murthered in a wood by two ruffians, with the consent of his unkle." By Robert Yarrington, 1601. In the play the scene is laid in Padua, so that originally it may have been based on Italian romance.

Several chap-books have been made out of the ballad; these are enumerated in Halliwell's "Popular Histories" (Percy Society), No. 18. The ballad form of the story has been presented in "The Percy Reliques." From this version Joseph Jacobs takes his tale in "More English Fairy Tales," choosing to retain the ballad form, as the story in ballad form has become a nursery classic. According to Allingham, "The Children in the Wood" is the best of the ballads of the pedestrian order and the best example of undying popularity.

The Percy copy was taken from two ancient copies, one in black letter in Pepys collection. Its title is "The Children in the Wood," or "The Norfolk Gentleman's Last Will and Testament. To the tune of Rogero," etc. I suppose it was this ballad which was licensed at Stationer's Hall, London, 1595. The oldest edition now known in print dates from 1670, and is called "The Cruel Uncle." A chap-book facsimile given in Ashton's "Chap-Books of the Eighteenth Century" is dated 1700. It contains three illustrations: THE DEATHBED SCENE; THE DEPARTURE FOR THE WOOD; and THE CHILDREN IN THE WOOD. An old song, "The Children in the Wood," is identical with the earliest copy of the British Museum, dated 1640, and is the standard ballad. Another ballad of 1720 has been corrected from this model. In the chap-books the names of the characters are: Androgus, the wicked uncle; Pisaurus, his brother, who married Eugenia the parents of the children; Cassander and Jane or Kate, the two children; Rawbones and Woudkill, the

two ruffians. The traditional burial place of the children is pointed out in Norfolk.

The traditional ballad was appreciated by Addison, who, when his contemporary writers failed to value the ballads, expressed his estimate in his Spectator paper,

No. 85.

""Two Children in the Woods' is one of the darling songs of the common people, and has been the delight of most Englishmen in some part of their age.

"This song is a plain simple copy of nature, destitute of all the helps and ornaments of art. The tale of it is a pretty tragical story, and pleases for no other reason but because it is a copy of nature. There is even a despicable simplicity in the verse; and yet, because the sentiments appear genuine and unaffected, they are able to move the mind of the most polite reader with inward meltings of humanity and compassion. The incidents grow out of the subject, and are such as are the most proper to excite pity, for which reason the whole narration has something in it very moving, notwithstanding the author of it (whoever he was) has delivered it in such an abject phrase and poorness of expression, that the quoting any part of it would look like a design of turning it into ridicule. But though the language is mean, the thoughts, as I have before said, from one end to the other are natural, and therefore cannot fail to please those who are not judges of language, or those who, notwithstanding they are judges of language, have a true and unprejudiced taste of nature. The condition, speech, and behavior of the dying parents, with the age, innocence, and distress of the children, are set forth in such tender circumstances, that it is impossible for a reader of common humanity not to be affected with them. As for the circumstances of the Robin-red-breast, it is indeed a little poetical ornament; and to show the genius of the author amidst all his simplicity, it is just the same kind of fiction which one of the greatest of the Latin poets had made use of upon a parallel occasion; I mean the passage in

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