friends of education to this important subject, we shall have done all that we intended, and shall cheerfully join them in any measure or measures which will promise an improvement, believing that reflection will convince them as it has ourself, that a reform is greatly needed.

Mansfield, Sept. 5th, 1857.

W. C. C.

PHONETICS AT ANTIOCH COLLEGE.

An invitation from the Ohio Phonetic Association, to say why I believed the Phonetic Reform needful and available, which invitation I accepted, enabled me to spend two days of last week at Yellow Springs.

The meetings of the Association were held in the Chapel of Antioch College, and were attended by many of the students, male and female, and by the President and Faculty. The President, Horace Mann, was courteous in a high degree to the delegates. He invited them to his house, and publicly expressed himself a convert to the cause they advocated. Aside from an interest in the Phonetic Convention, I was pleased to visit Yellow Springs. It has historic and romantic interest, and, through Antioch College and its President, peculiar educational

interest.

The head waters of the Little Miami river, breaking through a romantic glen, affording cascades, and exhibiting curiosities in rocks. and trees, furnish a delightful resort for students, and other lovers of the beautiful in nature; while the spot pointed out as the birth-place of Tecumseh, and the remains of a log cabin, said to have been built and occupied by Robert Owen, the Socialist, during his visit to America, afford food for reflection and speculation for all who love relics, who are moved by memories of the past, or who may be sad over such lessons as Owen's failures suggest.

Coming out of the glen, after one has been thinking whether Tecumseh's people were the mound-builders or not; speculating on what might have been the character of the people in that valley; how Owen established a colony; and then remembering the recent struggle against the "free love" influences of Memnonia, the College buildings arrest peculiar attention. With Antioch there are novel associations. It has a way of its own, and that way, in one respect at least, is diametrically opposed to established college customs. Antioch encourages the

assembling together of young men and young women for the purposes of study and of recitation. At prayers, in its chapel, male and female voices blend; so they do in the college halls, in class-rooms, and at social gatherings, authorized by the President or some one of the Faculty.

Thus far the experiment has succeeded well. The prospects of the College are now encouraging. The classes are fuller than they have been since the first term, when scholarships were good for tuition.

Whether Horace Mann's severe discipline against tobacco, profanity and wine, and his liberal policy respecting the joint instruction of young men and young women, will find friends enough to afford Antioch continued support, is a question which experience alone can settle; but that boys and girls, educated under such auspices, will be better men and women than those educated without it, no person can dispute who has faith in commands and counsels against vice. Boys who, at college, neither swear nor chew tobacco, nor drink spirituous liquors, may not become abler politicians or shrewder finauciers than boys who, when students, learned to delight in "small vices," but they will certainly be purer men, so long as they practice what their college rules enforce.

To all reflecting parents, Antioch presents interesting inquiries. If our Common Schools, with boys and girls in the same classes, are better schools than those in which the sexes are separated, why may not a College for young men and women be better than one for young men alone, or than a Seminary for young women alone? It is worth while, at least, to watch how experience at Antioch will answer this question.

To return now to the Phonetic Association, I must announce that the proceedings are to be published in full, in a pamphlet. Benn Pittman remained at Yellow Springs, to give Phonetic instruction for a few days in the Common Schools, and Phonographic instruction in the College. Mr. Royce, the State Phonetic Agent, went to Lebanon, for the purpose of teaching Phonetics for a few days in the South-west Normal School. Facts reported at the Convention, by Teachers from different parts of the State, show that the practice of teaching Phonetic reading, as an aid to the Romanic, is gradually becoming frequent. The next meeting of the Association will probably be held at Columbus, during the last week of December.

W. T. C.

PHONETIC TEACHING.

BY CHAS. S. ROYCE.

BRO. CALDWELL · It is known to you, and to most of the Teachers of the State, that I have long advocated the introduction of Phonotypy into the Primary classes in our schools, as a means not only of making better readers and spellers in the common mode, but for the great sav ing of time.

About a year since, Mrs. M. V. Longley, of Cincinnati, was employed to teach the Primary department of one of the Ward Schools of Indianapolis, and Phonotypy was introduced for the purpose of testing its merits. Mrs. Longley, though a correct Phonetician, had had very little experience in teaching. Her school was large; and accessions were made to it at various times during the year. There were from fifty to seventy-five pupils.

The Annual Report of Geo. B. Stone, Esq., Superintendent of the schools, thus alludes to the experiment: "The result of the experi ment which has been tried in the Fifth Ward Primary School, has been all that could have been expected. Classes have been formed at eight different times during the course of the year. The two first formed have made the transition from Phonetic to common print, and are now reading in the Indiana Second Reader. The first class made the transition three months since, and can now read and spell accurately any thing in the first 120 pages of the reader above mentioned. This was fully tested in the recent examination, in which all the reading and spelling exercises were selected by the Trustees and visitors. There was great distinctness in articulation and enunciation, readiness in pronouncing words, good emphasis, and a varied intonation, which surpassed any thing we have heard in any Primary School.

"In spelling, although difficult exercises were selected, and in various parts of the book, not a single word was missed-equaling in this respect our very best schools taught by the alphabetic method.

"I refer to the spelling particularly, because, as children in the Phonetic method are taught to spell by sound during the whole time they read the Phonetic print, it might be reasonably supposed that in this point they would be behind those who are taught in the usual way. The second class made the transition four weeks since, and now

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read tolerably well in the Second Reader. One little boy in this class, his parents were unable to teach his letters after more than a year's

trial. A year by the Phonetic method, and he is reading in the Second Reader.

"It will be seen by the facts here given, that the transition from one print to the other is attended with no difficulty. One of these classes began the common print eleven weeks ago, and the other only four weeks. No Intermediate or Transition Reader is needed. From the Phonetic First Book, scholars can pass directly into the Second Reader. Our own experience and that of others, show us that children will learn the letters of the common print, without the aid of Teachers, before leaving the Phonetic books."

In the above quotation I am responsible for the italicising. Notwithstanding the success that has attended the trial, Mr. Stone, or perhaps I should say the School Board, will introduce Phonotypy into but two additional schools the coming year. Though for years I have ceased to have a doubt respecting the superiority of the Phonetic system in teaching the first rudiments of Romanic reading, I admire the caution that they show in its introduction in Indianapolis. But I cannot admire the caution that keeps many of the best Teachers of Obio from even making the experiment, when every fair trial, in our State, has shown that not only may we save time, and make better readers and spellers, but that the Phonetic system also gives to children a love of study, a self-reliance, and an early use of their reasoning powers, not given by the old method.

I hope that such of our Teachers and school officers, as can, will visit the schools of Indianapolis, and see for themselves the working of this time-saving system.

When

my labors shall have closed in the fall Institutes, I shall be glad to aid personally in the introduction of Phonotypy into the Pri mary Schools of the State.

Huron (not Hudson), Erie Co., O., July, 1857.

INDIANAPOLIS, IND., Sept. 4, 1857.

FRIEND CALDWELL-I am at the Capital of Hoosierdom, making my temporary home with Mr. Stone, the editor of the Indiana Journal, and Superintendent of the City Schools. I came here to assist two Primary Teachers, who, for the first time, are using Phonotypy as a means of teaching the first rudiments of Romanic reading. The experiment of last year is continued this year, and one school is added instead of two, as I told you would be the case. It is solid pleasure to hear the children that have made the transition into the Romanic print, read

and spell. They read and spell very much better than others, who have been in school longer than they—yes, than some that were reading and spelling when they commenced attending school.

You are probably aware that the population and business of this city have nearly doubled within the last three years.

As a youth of rapid growth thrusts his limbs too far through coat sleeves and pants, so does Indianapolis show that she is outgrowing her school facilities. Children are transferred from one ward to another for temporary accommodation. School houses are too small for the accommodation of the pupils; especially is this the case with the entries or passages. Two hundred or more children, without respect to sex or size, are, necessarily, required to pass through an entry too small to accommodate one-fourth the number.

The High School building is an old two story brick building, which, I think, was once a Ward or District School building. It stands on a good lot of some four acres, I judge, and is quite central in its location. In that, there are separate entries for the sexes.

Formerly, the sexes were taught in separate school rooms, and yet used the same entrance, as I have said, in most of the buildings. Since Mr. Stone has been here, he has been gradually bringing them together. I think they had Primary Schools for boys, and the same for girls.

Last year, he had so far overcome this squeamishness of old maids, of both sexes, as to bring the sexes together in the recitation room, even of the High School, though they were seated in different rooms. This year, from Primary to High School, they are seated in the same rooms. The change has been so gradual and noiseless, that the people have hardly been cognizant of it.

Mr. Stone is well qualified for his post. As a practical Teacher he can take hold and teach in any school, from the lowest to the highest grade. I saw him give instruction in the Primary department; and he has taken the place of the Principal of the High School, who was unwell, since I have been here.

His last Annual Report will give you the statistics of his school. He seems to have, as he certainly deserves to have, the entire confidence of his corps of Teachers.