6. In the word hiccough the letters ough are pronounced like up—and in the word lough, the letters are pronounced like lok.
7. There are many words which end with a sound like shun; and this syllable is spelled in many different ways, as you will see in the following example.
8. In the words ocean, motion, mansion, physician, halcyon, Parnassian, Christian, and many other such words, the last syllable is pronounced as if it were spelled shun.
9. You see, then, that in some words a syllable sounding very much like shun is spelled
| cean, as in ocean; |
| in some it is spelled tion, as in nation; |
| in some it is spelled sion, as in mansion; |
| in some it is spelled cian, as in physician; |
| in some it is spelled cyon, as in halcyon; |
| in some it is spelled sian, as in Parnassian. |
10. It is such things as these which make both reading and spelling very hard lessons for young children. If they think of them all at once, as the pendulum did of the eighty-six thousand times that it had to swing in twenty-four hours, it is no wonder if they feel discouraged, and say, I can't get these hard lessons.
11. But you must recollect that, as the pendulum, every time it had to swing, had a moment given it to swing in, so you also have a moment given you to learn everything in; and if you get a little at a time, you will, in the end, finish it all, if it be ever so large.
12. You have seen the workman engaged in building a brick house. He takes one brick at a time, and lays it on the mortar, smoothing the mortar with his trowel; and then he takes another brick, and another, until he has made a long row for the side of the house.
13. He then takes another brick, and lays that on the first row; and continues laying brick after brick, until the house gradually rises to its proper height.
14. Now, if the workman had said that he could never lay so many bricks, the house would never have been built; but he knew that, although he could lay but one brick at a time, yet, by continuing to lay them, one by one, the house would at last be finished.