Course of Instruction.

Abstract

Course of Instruction Harvey P. Peet, LLD The character and long experience of Mr. Turner give to his article with this heading, in the last number of the Annals, (page 97 et Seq,) a certain importance, and entitle his views to a careful examination. It is to be regretted that "twenty-eight years" of experience in teaching language, should not have taught Mr. Turner the value of perspicuity and propriety of expression. For instance, the phrase, "a manual alphabet on one hand," is unnecessarily ambiguous, giving the reader the idea, not of a one-handed manual alphabet, but of a manual alphabet, set in contrast with something else. On page 101, near the middle, we find a verb and its dependent words without a nominative, (a contempt of grammar quite in character in an article written professedly to decry "books constructed according to the grammatical theory.") And Mr. Turner surely expresses more than he intended, when he states, page 98, that the "German system" "is content with nothing short of changing the deaf-mute into a speaking and apparently a hearing person." We usually connect present contentment with what is actually done, not with what is merely a rarely, if ever, attainable object of desire and effort. Just exception may be taken to the epithet, "infallible" near the bottom of page 101. We are aware of no "guide in composition," that is claimed to be "infallible." But it is claimed that the pupil who enjoys the benefit of a well arranged course of lessons, in which the difficulties of construction are divided and graduated, will, other things being equal, compose with greater ease, and with fewer mistakes, than one whose instruction in language has proceeded without order or method. Faults like these are noticed because they indicate crudeness of thought, as well as haste and negligence of expression; because they lead to the inference that Mr. Turner could not have bestowed upon the subject that careful and close reflection which its importance demands. But the present communication has a higher object than the advantages which may be taken from the haste, negligence, or confusion of an opponent. Mr. Turner has put forth objections to the "elementary part" of a certain "course of instruction," which, according to him, is used in the "French and American schools." The elementary works published by the New York Institution, without being openly named, are still comprehended under this designation, and evidently aimed at. Without pausing to examine the correctness of Mr. Turner's exposition of the different systems of instruction, or of his remarks on unimportant or irrelevant points, let us seek to discover, if possible, the rationale of his objections to what he is pleased to name "the French course," and reply to whatever there may be tangible in his reasoning, letting the chaff blow away of itself. We are bound to suppose that when Mr. Turner "acknowledges the hand of Providence" in the "fortunate" adoption in this country, of the "French system, rather than either of the others," he must have [End Page 32] meant to make a distinction between this "French system" and the "French course of instruction," which he condemns. What, in his view, constituted the difference, it is not very easy to divine. He states, (page 98,) as one of the most prominent traits of the "French system," that it employs "a set of conventional signs expressive of the relations of words in a sentence, and of the changes which words admit of in respect to case, tense, number, comparison, &c.;" in other words, a set of grammatical signs; and he defines (page 101) the "French course of instruction" as proceeding on the principle of teaching language in connection with grammar. So, then, Mr. Turner is devoutly grateful for an artificial set of signs, expressive of the grammatical relations and inflections of words, while he deprecates as "artificial" a course of lessons designed to impress practically on the memory these grammatical relations and inflections. The fact probably is that Mr. T. finds in his system of grammatical signs, a means of supplying the want of order and method in his lessons. If by "teaching language in connection with grammar...