Alice stood by her desk ready to speak. “Have you seen this word before, Alice?” asked Miss Merlin.
“No,” answered Alice, “but I think I can guess how it is pronounced.”
“Oh!” said Miss Merlin, “I don’t want any guessing. You might guess wrong. If I hear the word incorrectly pronounced for the first time, I am afraid I shall find it harder to learn the correct pronunciation. Two reasons why so many words are pronounced incorrectly are: people guess a wrong pronunciation instead of finding the correct one; and people hear the incorrect pronunciation instead of the right one. I want the correct pronunciation for the word on the board. If you cannot give it to me, perhaps you can tell me where I can get it.”
John jumped to his feet. “Go ask the market man,” he said.
“I might,” answered Miss Merlin, “but there are reasons why I would rather not.”
“It’s too far to the market,” “It would take too long,” “You can’t go until after school and by then the market may be closed,” were some of the objections made by the pupils.
“Those are all good reasons,” answered Miss Merlin, “but if there were no other way to learn the correct pronunciation of the word I might manage somehow to make a trip to the market. And I really need not take the trouble. I can find out all I want to know about that word right here in our own schoolroom.”
The pupils looked at one another with troubled faces. In the third grade they had always gone to their teacher with bothersome words, and here was Miss Merlin bringing hard words to them and expecting them to help her to learn the pronunciation and the meaning. Never had they felt so helpless. Suddenly John cried out, “Oh, I know! The dictionary!” and running to the front of the room, he placed his hand on a great, heavy book that lay on the small table near Miss Merlin’s desk. “My father has a dictionary like this,” he continued, “and he often looks up words in it.”
“Good, John!” said Miss Merlin, “you have shown me the best place to go for the help I need. This book contains 400,000 words. My word is one of those 400,000. How can I find my one word among so many?”
“I know,” answered John. “My father showed me. The words are arranged like the alphabet, first the a’s, then, the b’s, and then the c’s, and so on.”