Excerpt from An Ear and Eye Spelling Book: A Book on Word Study for the Primary Grades The advocates of spelling reform, whose convincing pages make up the body of Mr. Vaile's book, Our Accursed Spelling, are in perfect accord in the Opinion that if the eye could always see what the ear hears in a word, spelling would be easy and could be learned in three years. Now the truth of the matter is that the eye does see exactly what the ear hears in a multitude of English words and syllables. With such words and syllables this book begins. Word study in the beginning should help the child to know what the ear hears and what the eye sees in a word. As the child already knows the spoken word, oral spelling should have an exclusive right of way in the First Grade. Oral spelling, how ever, requires an alphabet, and the alphabet which went into pe'numbra with the advent of the visualist must be reinstated in the schools if there is to be any valid word study. The alphabet needed is not the A B C alphabet of fifty years ago, but an alphabet consisting of vowels and consonants. Spelling in the primary grades has long been handicapped by select ing the words to be spelled from the daily reading lesson. Professor Max Muller tells us in Auld Lang Syne that he was once bold enough to ask Tennyson what was the use or excuse of rhyme. The poet was not offended, but was quite ready with his answer, Rhyme helps the memory. An answer that was as honest as it was true, adds the renowned professor. Rhyme helps memory by its appeal to the law of association. The words selected from the reading lesson make no such appeal. Each word, unaided by association, must make its own isolated appeal to the memory. That all knowledge is not power is as true as that all knowledge is not profitable. That knowledge is profitable which begets power, but the spelling of any number of words unrelated by tonal association begets no power. Not only does rhyme aid memory, but still more does the grouping of words which are alike in tonality aid memory by making the burden light. The 240 words, as grouped in the first eight lessons of this book, make thirty-one appeals to the memory; five vowels, eight tonalities, and eighteen initial consonants. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.