“It is so with all the ideas,” continued her father, addressing Mary Jay, “which history brings before the mind. They are greatly complicated, and of very extended and intricate relations, so that young children cannot possibly appreciate them. If you tell them that Columbus discovered America in 1492, they can learn the words; but they are utterly unable to appreciate the truth. They cannot form any conception of America, or of Columbus, and the date 1492 marks no era of the world in their minds.”
“Well, sir,” said Mary Jay, “but isn’t it so with all studies?”
“No, by no means,” replied Lucy’s father. “The truths of arithmetic a child can appreciate as fully and completely as any person. Three from ten leaves seven. Now, a child may be longer in learning that than a grown person; but when she once understands it, she understands it as perfectly as any mind can. The reason is, that the idea of three is a simple idea, which, if it is formed at all in the mind, is formed fully at once. But the idea of a rebellion, or of a king, or an army, is a complicated idea, which can be acquired only slowly, and after some years of experience of life, of reading and observation.”
“What are some of the other studies,” asked Mary Jay, “besides arithmetic, which children can learn to advantage?”
“Reading is one. A child who learns what the sound is, that is represented by the character S, knows the truth as completely and thoroughly as Sir Isaac Newton could have known it. Then there is writing, including spelling.”
“Spelling belongs to reading, father,” said Lucy.
“You learn the art of spelling, generally, with reading; but we use it only with writing,” replied her father.
“How?” said Lucy.
“Why, the chief reason why we learn to spell is, so as to be able to spell the words correctly when we are writing. We do not spell the words when we read. Therefore, to be able to spell is rather a part of the art of writing, than of reading. In reading, the scholar must be able to pronounce all the words which she finds already spelt; and in writing, she must be able to spell them again.”