Model first reader. Wayawa tokaheya. Prepared in English-Dakota

Abstract

Complete success in any department can be secured only by earnest and intelligent cooperation of individuals. A machine may, humanly speaking, be perfect, and yet, for want of a skill¬ ful operator, it may fail to perform well. Perfection is not claimed for this little book, yet, by its aid, results can be secured by the average teacher that will, I believe, justify both its existence and its name. We begin with the object itself. For the first lessons, such objects have been selected as can, without difficulty, be brought before the class, and such as can be represented on the blackboard by teachers unskilled in drawing; and which can also be readily drawn by the child. From the object, we develop language; from its representation (picture), the representation of language (written words or word pictures); from both, the power of grasping ideas from things and graphic (or typographic) repre¬ sentations, and of expressing them with ease and naturalness. The eye and the ear are skilled to know-the tongue and the hand to do. The system here pursued is a step in advance of the Word-Method (as gen¬ erally understood), inasmuch as it begins, not with separate words, but with combinations of words-with thought expressions. Words, as words, obscure thought; but, words as thought media, are trans¬ parent. Reading is grasping thought from language, and imparting thought (so grasped,) through language. Recognizing and pronouncing words, as words, is not reading. The illustrations in this book are a marked feature, and one which the chil¬ dren, at least, will readily appreciate, and, with me, thank the publishers for that cooperation which has secured them in such perfection. Grateful to a generous public for the favor it has shown to my former works, I now offer this book, believing it will be recognized as a still more successful effort to make the child's first days at school pleasant and profit¬ able, and as a step in advance toward securing the education that is to be in the " Good time coming," when, following nature more closely, it will be " Sport to learn."