As was said in Chapter II, the reading of a long sentence presents great difficulties for the child. He loses himself in the maze of words, and his mental condition is clearly shown in his melody, which drifts about here and there, like a rudderless ship. It is the purpose of this step to train him in the development of his powers of continuous thinking; to enable him to keep in mind the main idea, no matter how numerous the details. This step and that dealing with subordinate ideas have much the same object in view.
The following excerpt from the Introduction to The Song of Hiawatha is a good illustration of a sentence in which the sense is suspended through many lines:
Ye, who sometimes, in your rambles
Through the green lanes of the country,
Where the tangled barberry-bushes
Hang their tufts of crimson berries
Over stone walls gray with mosses,
Pause by some neglected graveyard,
For a while to muse, and ponder
On a half-effaced inscription,