LESSON XV.
Hard Words.
1. In one of the former lessons, you were taught how to read long and hard words, by taking them to pieces, and reading a part of a word at a time.
2. I promised you also that this book should not be filled with hard words; but I did not promise that there should be no hard words in it.
3. Having taught you how to read hard words, I propose, in this lesson, to give you a few long words to read,—not for the purpose of understanding what they mean, but only to make you able to read such words, when you find them in any other book.
4. The best way of getting rid of all difficulties, is to learn how to overcome them, and master them; for they cease to be difficulties, when you have overcome them.
5. Demos'thenes, as I told you in the last lesson, had a very hard task to perform, before he became a great orator. You, also, can become a good scholar, if you will take pains to study your lessons, and learn them well.
6. Before you read any lesson to your teacher from this book, it is expected that you will study it over, and find out all the most difficult words, so that you may read them right off to him, without stopping to find them out, while he is waiting to hear you read them.
7. Now, here I shall place a few hard words for you to study over, to read to your teacher when you read this lesson to him; and he will probably require every one in your class to read them all aloud to him.
8. I wish you not to go up to your teacher to ask him to assist you, until you have tried yourself to read them, and find that you cannot.
9. There are some words that are not pronounced as they are spelt, as I have taught you in a former lesson.
10. Such a word as phthisic, which is pronounced as if it were spelled tis´ic, I dare say would puzzle you, if you had never seen it before; but before you go up to your teacher, to ask him any questions, you should read over the whole of your lesson, and perhaps you will find, in the lesson itself, something that will explain what puzzled you; and thus you could find it out from your book, without troubling your teacher.
11. Here are some of the long words I wish you to read.
12. Organization, Theoretical, Metaphysical, Metempsychosis, Multitudinous, Arithmetician, Metaphysician, Hyperbolical.
13. Apotheosis, Indefeasible, Feasibility, Supersaturated, Prolongation, Meridional, Ferruginous, Fastidiousness.
14. Haberdashery, Fuliginous, Exhalation, Prematurely, Depreciation, Appreciability, Resuscitate, Surreptitious, Interlocutory.
15. Sometimes the letters a e, and o e, are printed together, like one letter, as in the words Cæsar, Cœlebs, and then the syllable is pronounced as if it were spelled with e alone, as in the following words:
16. Diæresis, Aphæresis, Œcumenical, Æthiop, Subpœna, Encyclopædia, Phœnix, Phœbus, Æolus.
17. When there are two little dots over one of the letters, they are both to be sounded, as in the word Aërial, which is pronounced a-e-ri-al.
18. The letter c is one which puzzles many young persons who are learning to read, because it is sometimes pronounced like k, as in the word can, and sometimes like s, as in the word cent; and they do not know when to pronounce it like k, and when to sound it like s.
19. But if you will recollect that c is sounded like k when it stands before the letters a, o, or u, and that it is sounded like s before the letters e, i, and y, you will have very little trouble in reading words that have the letter c in them.
20. So also the letter g has two sounds, called the hard sound, and the soft sound. The hard sound is the sound given to it in the word gone; the soft sound is that which is heard in the word gentle.
21. The same rule which you have just learnt with regard to the letter c applies to the letter g. It has its hard sound before a, o, and u, and its soft sound before e, i, and y.
22. There are, it is true, some words where this rule is not applied; but these words are very few, so that you may safely follow this rule in most words.
23. The letters ph are sounded like f. The letters ch are sounded sometimes like k, as in the words loch and monarch, and sometimes like sh, as in the words chaise and charade; and they have sometimes a sound which cannot be represented by any other letters, as in the words charm and chance.
24. I suppose that you have probably learned most of these things which I have now told you in your spelling-book; but I have repeated them in this book, because I have so often found that little boys and girls are very apt to forget what they have learned.
25. If you recollect them all, it will do you no harm to read them again, but it will impress them more deeply on your memory. But if you have forgotten them, this little book will recall them to your mind, so that you will never forget them.
26. I recollect, when I was a little boy, that the letter y used to trouble me very much when it began a word, and was not followed by one of the letters which are called vowels, namely, a, e, i, o, u. I knew how to pronounce ya, ye, yi, yo, yu; but one day, when I was studying a lesson in geography, I saw a word which was spelt Y, p, r, e, s, which puzzled me very much.
27. I knew that the letters p, r, e, s, would spell pres, but I did not know what to call the y. After studying it a long time, I found that the letter y, in that word and some others, was to be pronounced like the long e, and that the word was pronounced Epres, though it was spelled Y, p, r, e, s.
28. Perhaps you will be able, when you grow up, to write a book; and to tell little boys and girls who go to school, when you have grown up, how to read hard words, better than I have told you.
29. If you wish to do so, you must try to recollect what puzzles you most now, and then you will be able to inform them how to get over their difficulties and troubles at school; and when they grow up, I have no doubt that they will feel very grateful to you for the assistance you have given them.
