Now as to spelling. In real life we hardly ever need to spell isolated words. We practically always are required to write them in sentences. But if we have learned them in isolated groups, even though they have been chosen from the regular studies, the chances are we will not be facile in spelling them as they will be used in daily life. Even if we require pupils to learn words in groups, we ought to follow this up with the requirement that they write them in typical sentences in which they will be likely to occur in the emergencies of real life. In this connection it should be noted that a pupil's spelling vocabulary can not keep pace with his reading vocabulary. Reading is a much simpler and more expeditious process than spelling. A pupil ought to progress far more rapidly in mastering words in reading than in spelling. If an attempt be made to keep his spelling up with his work in reading, geography, language, and other subjects, harm will result either to his spelling or to the subjects upon which it is based.

It is a rule of pedagogy that through repetition any impression may be permanently fixed. Teachers Harmful drill who acquire their art by learning in spelling rules rather than by observing children in the school-room often take this rule literally and seriously. Such teachers commonly assign a

lesson like this: "Write each word in your spelling lesson twenty times." One teacher whose methods the present writer has been studying, applies the rule referred to very vigorously in the matter of spelling. If a pupil misses one word in a lesson she requires him to write it twenty times; if he misses two words he must write each word forty times; three words, sixty times; four words, eighty times, and so on. Recently a child in her room missed seven words in a lesson, and he was required to write each word one hundred and forty times after school. This made a total of nine hundred and eighty words that had to be written without an intermission by this unfortunate pupil. When he completed his task he was quite unstrung. He went to his home and cried over the affair for a long time. He was in such a nervous state that he could not restrain himself. An examination of the papers upon which he had written nine hundred and eighty words showed that during the last quarter of the task he frequently misspelled words. He might write a word correctly twenty-five times, and then the letters would be interchanged, and in some cases letters were omitted and others added. Now, will the reader please notice particularly that after the pupil had written the word correctly twenty-five times, he was likely then to misspell it? What good

did that drill do him? In respect to spelling, pure and simple, was he not injured in the performance of such a task?

Any observing teacher may notice that after a child has written a word twenty-five times he is When the value likely not to gain any benefit from of drill ceases continuing to write it. What he does after that is apt to be entirely mechanical. Consequently he may not connect what he is writing with the visual or auditory form of the word. The moment he ceases to connect his execution with the way the word looks or sounds, at that moment the value of drill ceases. It may be that the average child can not write a word profitably more than ten times without a break. Certainly to write it one hundred and forty times as a penalty is a waste at best. It may be remarked in passing that the most serious consequence of such a proceeding is the unwholesome effect upon the nervous system of the victim. It is safe to say that no child in the elementary school can, after the close of school, write nine hundred and eighty words without nervous overstrain. A few experiences of this sort are likely to develop in a pupil marked distaste for the subject of spelling. The principle of repetition is a good one, but like everything else it may be easily

abused; and if carried to excess it may react, and prove of positive disadvantage.

An error in teaching spelling

We may turn now to an interesting psychological problem in teaching spelling. A spelling exercise was recently observed in which the following words, among others, were used, -surprised, sentence, picture, multiplication, together, signing, frightened, and minuend. The pupils had been given ten minutes or so in which to prepare themselves for the test. In studying their lesson they first looked at the words, then said over the letters, and endeavored to repeat them often enough to fix them in a vocal series. After the test had been given, it was found that a number of the words had been misspelled by a majority of the pupils. Picture, frightened, and multiplication seemed to be especially difficult, though each word troubled one or more of the pupils.

When the teacher came to correct the errors, she wrote each word on the board, and required the children who had misspelled it to look at the correct form for a moment, and then to attempt to reproduce it accurately. This method was successful in some cases, but it failed altogether in other cases. For instance, one boy of average brightness looked at the word surprised for a moment, but when he

came to spell it, he could not put the various letters in their proper places. The teacher was inclined to be severe with him, thinking that if he had really looked at it he could have perceived it and reproduced it accurately. During the ten minutes while misspelled words were being corrected, there was much faultfinding on the part of the teacher, because the pupils did not grasp the words at first glance.

Was this teacher skilful in helping pupils to overcome their difficulties in this special field? While some phases of her method were highly commendable, it was seriously defective in one respect. She wrote the word surprised, for example, on the board, and asked some pupil who had missed it to look at it and then reproduce it. She knew she could herself see at a glance the entire word correctly as a unit; and why could not the pupils do the same if they earnestly tried, as they should do? As a matter of fact, most of what the teacher thought she saw when she looked at the word, was read into it from her previous experience with it. The word was really in her imagination, as we say; and she got a suggestion from the form before her, which revived the image established "in her mind's eye." If a foreign word had been put there instead of a word she understood, she would have been confused