Reading and writing

“ I have found by experience that the best method deeply to impress what I have read, is to have at hand writing materials, and after each reading write out as fully as possible whatever new idea has been presented. ”

“ In the first place, I believe that all text-books should be written in a manner to please, as well as to instruct; that they should be agreeable reading; and, aside from their teaching value, have a certain excellence as a writing. Again, there is nothing in literature so interesting as the autobiography, real or fictional. Nearly all our great works of fiction are of this class. ”

“ Enough to remark here, that a course of book-reading without attempts at original composition is as faulty an extreme, as to begin and carry on writing upon a stinted basis of reading. The thorough student, as concerned in my present essay, carrying on book-study in the manner I have sketched, will almost infallibly end, at the proper time, in a self-thinker, and a self-originator. ”

“ Writing, and the reading of writing, is to be considered in the same way as gesticulation; it has the same alarming influence on voice and general appearance as the other, so that it is relatively indifferent whether a man speaks and acts or writes and thinks. ”

“ Reading ought to mean understanding; writing ought to mean knowing something; believing ought to mean comprehending; when you desire a thing, you will have to take it; when you demand it, you will not get it; and when you are experienced, you ought to be useful to others. ”

“ Spelling, reading, writing, arithmetic, geography, history, grammar, civics and physiology are the subjects usually taught. The school authorities select the textbooks which shall be used in each subject. ”

“ The study of the structure, the form, the author’s purpose, his style, the revelation of the author’s personality, the relation of the piece of literature to the age in which it was written, and a comparison with other pieces of the same type, all give a clearer understanding of literature. The other purpose of the reading is to stimulate the pupils’ interest in good literature, and to lead them to read what is worth while, on their own initiative. ”

“ As he advances in years and increases his intellectual equipment his love for lurid tales will wane, and if his reading has been supervised, a desire for the best fiction, history, biography, essays, ethics, and poetry will easily and naturally take its place. ”

“ Doubtless there are classes of literature in which form or expression predominates, and we cannot read poetry, for example, or the drama, or even the higher class of fiction, without lingering upon the finer passages, to get the full impression of their beauty. In reading works of the imagination, we read not for ideas alone, but for expression also, and to enjoy the rhythm and melody of the verse, if it be poetry, or, if prose, the finished rhetoric, and the pleasing cadence of the style. ”

“ All the selections, both in prose and in verse, have been made with constant reference to their suitableness for the teaching of reading. They are fitted to exemplify every mode of expression, except, perhaps, that appropriate to a few of the stronger passions. ”

“ After reading a piece of poetry, boys must be made to analyze and scan it, to point out peculiarities of language and rhythm, to enumerate the different meanings of words, to name and explain the various figures of speech. ”

“ The aim of the reading must be to enable the pupil to understand each idea as it is presented, to combine these ideas to get the thought of the sentence, and to follow the chain of thought from sentence to sentence until he grasps the meaning of the paragraph, essay, story, or poem, as a whole. As rapidly as the maturity of the pupil permits, other elements that aid in the better understanding of a piece of literature may be considered in connection with the reading. ”

“ When he has mastered it he is ready to make the acquaintance of the world's literature in the English tongue." In that book, therefore, the pupil was led by easy exercises to an intelligent reading of pieces of literature, both verse and prose, so that he might become in a slight degree familiar with literature before he parted with his sole text-book. But the largest space had, of necessity, to be given to practice work, which led straight to literature, indeed, though to a small quantity only. ”

“ VISUALIZATION OF LETTER FORMS
It has been said, “The three arts of education are seeing, reading, thinking. The boy who learns to see is awakened; the boy who learns to read is enriched; the boy who learns to think is emancipated.” ”

“ The writer finds the scope and worth of his book growing as he proceeds with the writing. The student, beginning doubtfully on his construction in geometry, finds the truth growing clearer as he proceeds. The child with a dim and hazy notion of the meaning of the story in history or literature discovers that the meaning grows clear as he himself works out its expression in speech, in the handicrafts, or in dramatic representation. ”

“ In a parallel sense, if we once inspire in the children the desire to convey the message of the text, the accessories of inflection and tone will become theirs. It cannot be too strongly emphasized that these lesser phases of good reading will be secured if properly subordinated to one great aim—the desire to communicate thought. ”

“ In our study of literature we have perhaps too much sympathy with the latter, and we even insist that the child come back from his own quest of the ideal to join us in our critical companionship. In reading many text-books of late, and in visiting many class rooms, the writer has received the impression that we lay too much stress on second-hand criticism, passed down from book to book; and we set our pupils to searching for figures of speech and elements of style, as if the great books of the world were subject to chemical analysis. ”

“ The study of masterpieces as units of thought has introduced into the common school a new and improved method of reading and interpreting literature. Reading in grammar grades is no longer a mere drill in enunciation, pronunciation and rhetorical expression. ”

“ The study of the principles of exposition and argumentation, and of the development of the theme, as they appear in the plan and outline of the essay, take on new significance when their application to the writing of a debate or a commencement oration is made clear. The pupil discovers that the periodic sentence, parallel construction, climax, and other rhetorical devices, are effective means that he may use to accomplish his ends. For those with literary inclinations the study of plot, characterization, and poetic form and expression furnishes new inspiration for their own work. ”

“ Ease and flexibility of articulation, quickness in catching the drift of ideas, and readiness in varying the tones of the voice in the utterance of words so as impressively to portray their latent sentiment,—all this is possible with those alone to whom difficult word-forms, complex sentence-structures, and the infinite variety and play of thought and emotion, are more or less familiar through such a wide range of reading as only the silent prosecution of it makes possible. ”

“ Under present methods, the child, before he is given any of the laborious drill work—which is as essential as ever to his learning to read for himself—is told stories, is led into the beautiful realms of literature, and is made to realize what is in store for him when he has mastered the technical difficulties of reading. ”

“ Definite attention should be given to each new word until its form both as written and as printed is indelibly stamped upon the mind. In your general reading and in each of the subjects that you will study in the high school you will meet unfamiliar words. ”

“ The value of the ideas and ideals which find expression in the literature must not be overlooked in planning the work in reading. As a portrayal of life in its various activities, literature presents to the pupil many types of character and action, and thus gives the boys and girls a broader view of life than their own experience affords. The analysis of character, motives, and actions forms an interesting and valuable part of the study of literature. ”

“ I have a piece of advice to give which I have before urged, that is to read something improving. Books of instruction will be a thousand times more pleasing (after a little while) than all the novels in the World. I own myself I am too fond of Novel-reading ”

“ There are not, however, many references to book study; and such as we find are chiefly directed to the one aim of painful and laborious examination, first, of an author's meaning, and next of the goodness of his arguments. Two or three sentences will give the clue. "Those who have read of everything, are thought to understand everything too; but it is not always so. Reading furnishes the mind only with materials of knowledge; it is thinking makes what we read ours. ”

“ As the first and most important and most far-reaching of the arts of reading is the Art of Reading as One Likes, the principles, inspirations, and difficulties of reading as one likes are the first to be considered in the following chapters. ”

“ Because experience supplies an abundance of interesting, clear, and definite ideas, which are your own and which may be expressed in familiar language, it furnishes better material for training in expression than does either imagination or reading. ”

“ If we imagine ourselves as seated by the study table reading our favorite poem, we shall recognize that it has been through the reading of literature that much of our highest inspiration has come to us. It is the poet who brings to us true insight into our own experience, who interprets for us the great problems of life. ”

“ For even a moderate proficiency in the art of reading two requirements are essential: (1) A cultivated mind quick to perceive the sequence of thoughts which the words to be read logically express, and equally quick in its power sympathetically to appreciate the sentiment with which the words are informed—the feeling, emotion, passion, which pervades them—but which they suggest rather than actually portray ”

“ The purpose of the HEATH READERS is, first, to enable beginners to master the mechanical difficulties of reading successfully and in the shortest time; second, to develop the imagination and cultivate a taste for the best literature ”

“ The variety of subjects brought before the reader, the absence of deep thought or real principles, concealed by an attractive and brilliant style of writing, dissipate the mind, and gradually destroy, not only the habit, but even the power of serious reflection. ”

“ If your books are wisely selected and properly studied, they will enlighten your minds, improve your hearts, and establish your character. To acquire useful information, to improve the mind in knowledge and the heart in goodness, to become qualified to perform with honor and usefulness the duties of life, and prepare for immortality beyond the grave, are the great objects which ought to be kept in view in reading. ”

“ By dint of able writing and pen-craft, books are cunningly compiled, and have their run and success even among the learned, as if they were the result of a new man’s thinking, and their birth were attended with some natural throes. ”

“ When they write their books, they write the history of their inner life. You open a book and you read twenty lines, and in the tone and character of those twenty lines you seem to feel the beating of the writer’s pulse. ”

“ The Author—Figures of Speech Real appreciation of literature is dependent on effort, and each acquired impression aids all others in proportion to its intensity. We can interpret only by what our minds already contain, so that the earlier years of one’s reading are largely devoted to the acquirement of material for future use. In this way the myths and folk stories with which children fill their minds become the touchstones that enable them in later years to read with interest and judge accurately the literature that falls within their reach. ”

“ Constant drill upon the analysis of lessons, varied at times by the analysis of short stories taken from other sources and read to the class, will develop the reasoning faculties of pupils and render the writing of original compositions a comparatively easy exercise. ”

“ Children in this Form have a wider range of reading, a more fertile field of thought, and more delightful subjects for composition. They write their little essays themselves, and as for the accuracy of their knowledge and justice of their expression, why, ‘still the wonder grows.’ They will describe their favourite scene from The Tempest or Woodstock. They write or ‘tell’ stories from work set in Plutarch or Shakespeare or tell of the events of the day. ”

“ Let the lessons for reading be varied, that the youth may be made acquainted with good styles of all kinds in prose and verse, and the proper manner of reading each kind—sometimes a well-told story, a piece of a sermon, a general's speech to his soldiers, a speech in a tragedy, some part of a comedy, an ode, a satire, a letter, blank verse, Hudibrastic, heroic, &c. But let such lessons be chosen for reading, as contain some useful instruction, whereby the understanding or morals of the youth may at the fame time be improved. ”

“ Does the student know how many times, in how many forms, under how many different heads, he perseveringly inserts the bold assurance, that the form of poesy and enigmatic allusive writing is the only form in which the higher applications of his discovery can be made to any purpose in that age? ”