In another lesson, I asked them how they made the sound m, and helped them to say that they did it by putting their lips together, and sounding without opening them; for I wanted the power of the character and not the name,—em; and then I said, "Now tell me how shall I write mama?" which they also wrote on their slates.
I then said that the lips made another motion when they began to say papa; that they were put together and opened without any sound of the voice at all,—at the same time showing it myself on my own lips. And I told them to write the letter p by making a straight perpendicular line, twice as long as the lines that made m; and then, at the upper right hand, drawing their upper lip,—also doing it myself for them to imitate. I then told them to put on an a after it, then another p, and then another a; and now they had papa.
I said, "You have now articulated with your lips two sounds, but you can make more articulations with your lips. You can put your lips just as you do to make p; and then, if you sound a little, you will make b; and when you write b, you can make a perpendicular line as you did to make p, but instead of putting an upper lip to it, put an under lip on the lower right-hand side of it;" and I showed how to do it on the black-board, and saw that they imitated it on the slate.
The next day I began with calling on them to write the vowels, dictating by the sounds I had given them; and then the lip letters, m, p, and b.
I then said, "But there are two more articulations with lips—Put your upper teeth on your lower lip and breathe" (articulating f at the same time). They imitated, and I said, "Now make a perpendicular line and cross it, and then make the top of the line bend over a little; that is the letter f" (I gave the power, not name, ef). "Now put your lip as before and breathe again, making a little sound, and instead of f it will be v. The letter v is printed by two short obliques meeting at the bottom. Now you can make all the lip letters, m, p, b, f, v."
For exercise in printing, and to make sure of these letters and sounds, I told them to write ma, pa, ba, fa, va, always keeping the Italian sounds of the vowel; also, me, pe, be, fe, ve; mi, pi, bi, fi, vi; mo, po, bo, fo, vo; and mu, pu, bu, fu, vu.
Another lesson was the tooth letters d, t, s. Here the teeth must be set together, and a sound made for d; and the lip put behind the perpendicular in printing it; the teeth put together, the articulation t is made without putting any voice to it. The teeth put together, and a hissing sound makes s. The letter can be described as a snake, the head on the right and the tail on the left of the curl: z is still more easily made by three lines.
These letters can be made fast in the memory, by dictating di, de, da, do, du; ti, te, ta, to, tu; si, se, sa, so, su; and zi, ze, za, zo, zu.
Then attention is drawn to throat letters. The easiest to make is h. Let them see that the sound is breathed out of their throats, and do not give it the name of aitch. They can write ha, hi, he, ho, and hu; and then make the sound k, and show them how it is written: sometimes k, sometimes q, and sometimes c; and do not call c see. Make them write ca, co, cu; ka, ke, ki, ko, ku; and qua, que, qui, quo.
Show them how to write the sonorous throat letter in go, ga, gu. It will be very easy for them to make the nose sound n, and write the letter by two short perpendiculars, joined on top by a horizontal line; the tongue sound l and the rolling r are also easily sounded and written. In a week's lessons, or possibly a fortnight's, these letters can all be learned; but it is of no consequence if it takes a month.