as in ocean;
in some it is spelled tion, as in nation;
in some it is spelled sion, as in mansion;
in some it is spelled cian, as in physician;
in some it is spelled cyon, as in halcyon;
in some it is spelled sian, as in Parnassian.
10. It is such things as these which make both reading and spelling very hard lessons for young children. If they think of them all at once, as the pendulum did of the eighty-six thousand times that it had to swing in twenty-four hours, it is no wonder if they feel discouraged, and say, I can’t get these hard lessons.
11. But you must recollect that, as the pendulum, every time it had to swing, had a moment given it to swing in, so you also have a moment given you to learn everything in; and if you get a little at a time, you will, in the end, finish it all, if it be ever so large.
12. You have seen the workman engaged in building a brick house. He takes one brick at a time, and lays it on the mortar, smoothing the mortar with his trowel; and then he takes another brick, and another, until he has made a long row for the side of the house.
13. He then takes another brick, and lays that on the first row; and continues laying brick after brick, until the house gradually rises to its proper height.
14. Now, if the workman had said that he could never lay so many bricks, the house would never have been built; but he knew that, although he could lay but one brick at a time, yet, by continuing to lay them, one by one, the house would at last be finished.
15. There are some children, who live as much as a mile, or a half of a mile, from the school-house. If these children were told that they must step forward with first one foot and then the other, and must take three or four thousand steps, before they could reach the school-house, they would probably be very much discouraged, every morning, before they set out, and would say to their mothers, Mother, I can’t go to school,—it is so far; I must put out one foot, and drag the other after it, three thousand times, before I can get there.
16. You see, then, that although it may appear to be a very hard thing to learn to read and to spell so many words as there are in large books, yet you are required to learn but a few of them at a time; and if there were twice as many as there are, you will learn them all, in time.
17. I shall tell you a story, in the next lesson, to show you how important it is to know how to spell.
Importance of Learning to Spell.—ORIGINAL VERSION.
1. A rich man, whose education had been neglected in early life, and who was, of course, very ignorant of many things which even little boys and girls among us now-a-days know very well, lived in a large house, with very handsome furniture in it.