How to Teach Reading in the Public Schools

by S. H. Clark

Vaunt couriers to oak-cleaving thunderbolts,

Singe my white head! And thou, all-shaking thunder,

Strike flat the thick rotundity o’ the world!

Crack Nature’s molds, all germens spill at once,

That make ungrateful man!

—King Lear, Act iii., Sc. 2.

There are two opposite qualities of voice well known to singers: the bright, ringing tone, and the dark, sombre, covered tone. This distinction is, for the purposes of the public-school teacher, far more valuable than most others. Joy, happiness, buoyancy, exuberance, are likely, when there are no marked physical defects, to find expression in the bright tone; while sorrow and the moods of introspection may often modify the texture of the vibrating substances so as to produce the darker quality.

EXTRACTS TO ILLUSTRATE “DARK” QUALITY.

King. O, my offense is rank, it smells to Heaven;

It hath the primal eldest curse upon’t,