Cobwebs to catch flies

by Mrs. Lovechild

THE USEFUL PLAY.

First Girl. Let us lay words. Where is the box?

Second Girl. How do you play?

First Girl. I will show you. Here I give you c, e, u, h, q, and n; now place them so as to make a word.

Second Girl. It is quench!

First Girl. You are quick; now let us pick out some words for Charles. What shall we choose?

Second Girl.

Let us lay	thrust,	thresh,	branch,
ground, school,	thirst,	quince,	quail,
and dearth.

First Girl.

I will	lay	plague,	and	neigh,	and
nought,	and	naught,	and	weight,	and
glare,	and	freight,	and	heart,	and
grieve,	and	hearth,	and	bathe,	and
thread,	and	vaunt,	and	boast,	and
vault,	and	tongue,	and	grieve,	and
beard,	and	feast,	and	friend,	and
fraught,	and	peace,	and	bread,	and
grape,	and	breath,	or the verb		to
breathe,	and	thought,	and	grace,	and
mouse,	and	slave,	and	chide,	and
stake,	and	bought.

Second Girl. I shall like the play, and it will teach Charles to spell well.

First Girl. That is its use: we have sports of all kinds to make us quick: we have some to teach us to count; else I could not have been taught to do sums at three years old.

Second Girl. Were you?

First Girl. Yes; I was through the four rules by the time that most boys learn that two and two make four.

Second Girl. I wish you would teach me some of your sports; that I could teach Charles.

First Girl. Print words on a card; on the back write the parts of speech; let it be a sport for him to try if he can find what each one is; let him have the words, and place them so as to make sense; thus I give you these words:

you, done, do, be, would, by, as.

Place them in their right order, and make

Do as you would be done by.

Or give him two or three lines: here and there scratch out a word; let him tell what those words must be to make sense.

Second Girl. The card on which you have a, b, c, and so on, might have a, b, c, made with a pen at their backs, to teach written hand.

First Girl. I have a set of those; I could read my mother’s writing when I was four years old.

Second Girl. I will buy some prints or cuts, and paste at the back of cards, for our little ones; so they will soon learn to distinguish nouns. On one side shall be DOG; I will ask what part of speech is that? Charles will say, Is it not a noun?—He will turn the card, and find a cut.

First Girl. Let us prepare some words of all kinds; we can lay sentences for little ones to read. For Lydia, we will place them thus:

Our new dog.

An old cat.

My mother says that three words are as much as a child could read in a breath at first.

Second Girl. Where there is a house full of young folks, it might be good sport to teach and learn in these ways.

First Girl. It is; we play with our words thus; mother gives to one some words; he is to place them so as to make sense: one is to parse them: one to tell more than the parts of speech, as the tense, mode and so on, of the verbs.—George and I have false English to correct; verse to turn to prose; we write out a passage which we like; we write letters upon given subjects; we read a story, and then write it in our own words.

Second Girl. Do you repeat much?

First Girl. To strengthen our memories, we learn to repeat passages in prose—we also repeat verse, and read it aloud.

Second Girl. That is a great pleasure.

First Girl. Yes, and my mother reads aloud to us; this teaches us to read with propriety; and she often stops to inquire whether we understand any expression which is not perfectly plain.

THE END.