The teacher and pupils should practice on these sounds till the three kinds can easily be distinguished.
You are now prepared to understand what I mean when I say that the +vowels+ are the +letters+ which stand for the +open sounds of the voice+, and that the +consonants+ are the +letters+ which stand for the sounds made by the +obstructed voice+ and the +obstructed breath+.
The teacher can here profitably spend a few minutes in showing how ideas may be communicated by Natural Language, the language of sighs, groans, gestures of the hands, attitudes of the body, expressions of the face, tones of the voice, etc. He can show that, in conversation, we sometimes couple this Natural Language of tone and gesture with our language of words, in order to make a stronger impression. Let the pupil be told that, if the passage contain feeling, he should do the same in Reading and Declaiming.
Let the following definitions be learned, and given at the next recitation.
+DEFINITION.—Artificial Language, or 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 3
Let the pupils be required to tell what they learned in the previous lessons.
+Teacher+.—When I pronounce the two words star and bud thus: star bud, how many ideas, or mental pictures, do I call up to you?
+Pupil+.—Two.