(b) Lessons which consist first of the distinct pronunciation by the teacher of few words (especially of nouns which must be associated with a concrete idea); by this means clear and perfect auditory stimuli of language are started, stimuli which are repeated by the teacher when the child has conceived the idea of the object represented by the word (recognition of the object); finally of the provocation of articulate language on the part of the child who must repeat that word alone aloud, pronouncing its separate sounds;
(c) Exercises in Graphic Language, which analyse the sounds of speech and cause them to be repeated separately in several ways: that is, when the child learns the separate letters of the alphabet and when he composes or writes words, repeating their sounds which he translates separately into composed or written speech;
(d) Gymnastic Exercises, which comprise, as we have seen, both respiratory exercises and those of articulation.
I believe that in the schools of the future the conception will disappear which is beginning to-day of "correcting in the elementary schools" the defects of language; and will be replaced by the more rational one of avoiding them by caring for the development of language in the "Children's Houses"; that is, in the very age in which language is being established in the child.
CHAPTER XIX
Teaching of Numeration; Introduction to Arithmetic
Children of three years already know how to count as far as two or three when they enter our schools. They therefore very easily learn numeration, which consists in counting objects. A dozen different ways may serve toward this end, and daily life presents many opportunities; when the mother says, for instance, "There are two buttons missing from your apron," or "We need three more plates at table."
One of the first means used by me, is that of counting with money. I obtain new money, and if it were possible I should have good reproductions made in cardboard. I have seen such money used in a school for deficients in London.