Publisher's Synopsis
From the PREFACE.
The teaching of English is the most complex, the most difficult, and the most important work of the elementary school teacher. It includes reading, word study, phonetics, composition, and grammar. Each of these is a good-sized job by itself; and the possible combinations of them and the methods of teaching them are almost infinite. We have a deluge of "language" books for the use of pupils, every page of which is usually a medley of the various elements named above. It is the kind of correlation which results in a superficial impression and a confused notion of what is learned. As we ascend in the grades the various subjects and parts of subjects should be isolated for thoroughness of drill and clearness of conception. Departmental teaching is a device which automatically accomplishes such isolation. As the pupil gets older he himself is able to perceive the interrelations of knowledge, so that it is no longer necessary for the teacher to make all the connections.
For these reasons there comes a time, beginning in the fifth or sixth grade, when grammar should be taught as grammar, reading as reading, and composition as composition. Each of these should be graded into steps, easy at first, and proceeding gradually to the more difficult until the entire science or art is mastered. During the whole process the relations of grammar, reading, and composition should be pointed out, so that each is seen in the light of the others and each is illustrated by the others. But the correlation should no longer be so complete that the subjects lose their individuality. By the time a pupil reaches the eighth grade he should have a systematic knowledge of grammar as such, composition as such, and literature as such....
