It will take a few minutes to speak of something else that is pretty, and let several of your pupils who speak the word correctly give some statements concerning pretty things. Then call upon one of the offenders, without his suspecting himself to be such, and the probability is that he will say "pretty," as you wish. But suppose he fail, you must not think he does so because of dullness, for he may say "purty" for the sole reason that his mates are listening and he fears they may think he is trying to "put on style." If you pass the matter in silence that day you will find him bolder or more acute the next day, and he will speak the word correctly. In this way he will seem to himself to be teaching himself. Self-culture will begin in him and the credit will be yours. Another teacher would suppress that sort of language and compel the boy to say the word right instanter. But her pupils speak one language in school and a different one in places where they are more comfortable.
Aim to set the child to correcting his own speech by his own apparent choice. A single error is easily repressed, but the habit of looking after one's own speech is not easily acquired. It is easy to make a child feel his inferiority to you, but it is a great thing to inspire him to do the good and wise and elegant things which you are capable of doing in his presence.
The process of unlearning words has always been a failure with the majority of pupils, and most of the English speaking race are ashamed of their inability to speak. Men most eloquent and successful in business conversation, who were by nature fitted to thrill the world with tongue and pen, have been confused and repressed by this process till they believe themselves vastly inferior to others because they cannot translate their thoughts out of the terms of the street or counting room into the language of the grammar school, and so they never try to fill the large places that would have been open to them if they could but have learned to think in terms which may be spoken right out without fear of opprobrium.
Now since so much of our teaching psychology and common sense have shown to be radically wrong, let us build up our language work on the high plane of interest in real things, expressing thought directly without translation into fitter terms. Let the thinking be done in terms suitable for life. And use the color photograph to insure that enthusiasm necessary to good thinking; be guarded as to how you deal with thoughts that come hot from growing minds, repress never, advise kindly, and know that by following the natural method in language you are not ruining the speech powers of your best pupils, as has been done heretofore.
SUMMARY.
Page [166].
SHARP-TAILED GROUSE—Pediocœtes phasianellus campestris. Other names: Sprig-Tail, Pin-Tail, White Belly.
Range—Plains and prairies east of the Rocky Mountains; east to Wisconsin, north to Manitoba, south to New Mexico.