Part 2
The poem "Things Divine" by Jean Brooks Burke is used by students of elocution as ideal for practice because of the difficulty which it presents. The thoughts cover a wide range with apparently no relation one with the other. Often two thoughts are expressed in one line, and to get them all well fixed in mind so as to repeat them makes the poem difficult, to say the least, yet you, who know how to apply your memory intelligently, may learn it with comparative ease. Read slowly and note the visual pictures and then go back and "bridge" them together. This is an excellent example of a difficult poem to practice upon. It will be an opportunity to use all of the principles given in this chapter.
The Things Divine
These are the things I hold divine; A trusting child's hand laid in mine, Rich brown earth and wind-tossed trees, The taste of grapes and the drone of bees, A rhythmic gallop, long June days, A rose-hedged lane and lover's lays, The welcome smile on neighbors' faces, Cool, wide hills and open places, Breeze-blown fields of silver rye, The wild, sweet notes of the plover's cry, Fresh spring showers and scent of box, The soft pale tint of the garden flox, Lilacs blooming, a drowsy noon, A flight of geese and an autumn moon, Rolling meadows and storm-washed heights, A fountain murmur on summer nights, A dappled fawn in the forest hush, Simple words and the song of a thrush, Rose-red dawns and a mate to share With comrade soul my gypsy fare, A waiting fire when the twilight ends, A gallant heart and the voice of friends.
To link the second line with the first, think of the natural association of thought between the words "Divine" and "trusting." Form the definite visual picture of the "trusting child's hand laid in mine."
Your thought will quickly pass to the duplex meaning of the word "mine." It means possession, my own, and also a mine in the earth. When we start a mine the first thing to come out is "rich brown earth" and that is the next thought. Let the word "mine" of the second line suggest the picture of the opening to the mine and the pile of "rich brown earth" beside it.
Behind a pile of rich brown earth, see the "wind-tossed trees", the next thought. Hanging on the "trees" see huge bunches of grapes, you pick and taste one, this is the next thought, "the taste of grapes." Around the grapes flies a swarm of bees, hear their "drone," the next thought, "the drone of bees." Let the drone of the bees suggest to you a rhythm and this will bridge your mind over to the thought of a "rhythmic gallop"; the answer to the question, "When do you like to gallop?" suggests "Long June days" the next thought.
June is the time of roses, suggesting "A rose-hedged lane"--the natural place for "lovers' lays." You can easily construct a "bridge" which will bind all the independent thoughts together. Visualize each thought, and watch for alliteration and alphabetical repetition.
Remembering What You Hear
It is also important that the child be trained to remember what he hears. Ear impressions are comparatively light and easily lost. If these ear impressions are quickly transferred into mind's eye pictures they will be far more lasting.
Instructions, lectures, sermons, talks, can all be pictures in the mind, just as you picture what you read. The act of visualization will concentrate the attention and prolong it, so that the memory of what is said will be greatly increased. The visual impressions will also be much stronger than the auditory ones.
=The attempt to visualize the thought of the speaker is the best method of directing your attention to his subject.=
Use the Hitching Post
When listening to instructions, or a lecture, in which there are different points which you wish to carry away and later recall accurately, use the Hitching Post idea. Run over a series of words so as to be sure that they will come readily when wanted. When a point is made which you wish to remember, transfer the thought into a quick visual impression, and Hitch it to the first object of your list. When a second important point is made, make a visual impression with the next object. Make your picture strong by exaggeration and motion, and be sure that you photograph each one.
In this manner you can file away any number of points. As soon as the lecture is over review the pictures, see each clearly a second time. If you have trouble recalling one make the picture stronger so that you will recall it more easily next time. Review the entire list of points visualized with the different Hitching Posts. If you wish to fix them in mind review them several times in the next few days, so that you make a permanent impression of them.
Transfer to Note-Book
A great many prefer the idea of transferring these points into a classified note book, where they are available for use at any future time.
One student tells of having written fifteen pages of notes from four talks which he heard at a convention, and that some of these notes were not transferred from his mind to the note-book for at least ten days after the talks were heard.
Form the habit of letting the lecturer make you SEE what he describes. The visual impression which you make will increase your understanding of anything you hear or read, and at the same time very materially assist you in remembering it.
Taking Instructions
When a person is giving you instructions about the things which he would like to have you do, follow the same plan. Simply transfer the words of the speaker into an exaggerated moving picture and the impression will stay with you. Another student told me this experience: "My employer often used to say to me, after having given some instruction, 'Do you see?' I realize now that the reason that I made so many mistakes was because I did not SEE. Now I make it a point to SEE the things he asks me to do and my reply, 'Yes, I see,' has a very different meaning. The results are also different."
Mastering Difficult Lists
In the child's studies there are often lists of different kinds which need to be committed to memory and which present considerable difficulty to say nothing of the time required. Following are aids and illustrations which will show how these lists can be mastered with comparatively small effort and little time.
Fix in Mind by Initialing
Take the initial letter of each of the words which you wish to remember and use these as the first letter of simple words which will combine into an expression which has a meaning. This is very helpful, and is sometimes called "initialing." We have all learned the sentence:
E G B D F Every Good Boy Deserves Food,
in order to remember the names of the lines of the treble clef; the letters of the word F A C E are the spaces. In a similar way the lines of the bass clef can be remembered by the following:
G B D F A Good Bees Deserve Faithful Attention,
and the spaces by:
A C E G All Can Eat Goose.
These are simple examples of a principle which can with a little ingenuity and imagination be applied to any list to be learned.
Elevated Stations
The following illustration shows how a student learned the stations on the Northwestern elevated road in Chicago, and will give you a further example of the use of this principle:
I can see Chicago's Oak, divided between Schiller and Kinzie, Chicago, Oak, Division, Schiller
Sedgewick for luring a bee to Halstead's willow Sedgewick, Larrabee, Halstead willow,
center, Webster, Fullerton, writes Diversey that Center, Webster, Fullerton, Wrightwood, Diversey,
Wellington Belmont is the clerk to add three days' Wellington, Belmont Clark, Addison
grace to Sheridan's bill for Wilson. Grace, to Sheridan, Buena, Wilson.
Here only the principal words of the story are used as the names to be remembered. The story simplifies the work of preparing and learning.
Learning the Presidents
A further plan is the following combination of the Reminder Picture and the Visual Story used to learn the names of the Presidents of the United States in the order of their term of service. Go over the following Story Picture, visualize it clearly and then from the picture repeat the capitalized words in their order. When you can say the list readily, either forward or backward, go over it again slowly, seeing the object and speaking the name of the President for which it is a reminder.
The Picture
See some WASHING hanging on a line. See ADAM looking wonderingly at the washing. Then see Little JEFF, of "Mutt and Jeff", come up behind Adam. Jeff turns away, and falls over a MAT. Under it see some MONEY. Pick up the money and you find an AD. Take the ad and paste on a SHACK. See a moving VAN back up to the shack, and when the driver jumps down from his seat you recognize HARRY (a friend of yours by that name). Harry takes off his TIE and hangs it on a POLE, the pole falls over and hits the TAILOR who runs up on a FILL, from which he sees a PIER extending into the water. On the pier is a BIG CANNON from behind which jumps a LYNX and almost catches JOHN, who runs away, and climbs on a piece of GRANITE. On the other side of the granite is a pile of HAY, and rolling off the hay is a GARFISH. There stands an ARTIST with a CLEAVER in his hand, which he throws at HARRIS (a friend by that name). Harris picks some CLOVER, and pins it on his MACKINTOSH, and it turns into a large red ROSE. In the rose he finds some TAFFY, which he throws into a WILLOW.
From this story the capitalized words are reminders for the names of the Presidents, as follows:
WASHING ADAM JEFF MAT MONEY Washington Adams Jefferson Madison Monroe
AD SHACK VAN HARRY TIE Adams Jackson Van Buren Harrison Tyler
POLE TAILOR FILL PIER BIG CANNON Polk Taylor Fillmore Pierce Buchanan
LYNX JOHN GRANITE HAY GAR-FISH Lincoln Johnson Grant Hayes Garfield
ARTIST CLEAVER HARRIS CLOVER MACKINTOSH Arthur Cleveland Harrison Cleveland McKinley
ROSE TAFFY WILLOW Roosevelt Taft Wilson
Do this for practice and see how easily you can learn the names of the Presidents in their proper order and say them backwards and forwards.
Studying Anatomy
Initialing has been used by medical students with splendid results and has reduced the labor of learning to a minimum. The branches of the external carrotid arteries can be remembered by the following sentence:
Some Try Large Feats, Others Prefer Superior Thyroid, Lingual, Facial, Occipital, Pharyngeal,
A Simple Task In Memory. Auricular, Superficial, Temporal, Internal Maxillary.
For practice make a sentence of your own from the initials of the twelve pair of Cranial Nerves, which are Olefactory, Optic, Motor Oculi, Pathetic, Trifacial, Abducent, Facial, Auditory, Glosso-Pharyngeal, Pneumogastric, Spinal Accessory, Hypoglossal. For example, Oh! Out Motoring Papa Took A Friend and Got Paul Some Heather. Others can be made, but the one which the child makes for himself he will remember easiest.
BECOMING A GOOD SPELLER
Poor spelling is largely a matter of inattention. Continual inattention becomes a habit and the child soon finds himself decidedly handicapped by his inability to spell correctly. This is largely caused by uncertainty. He has no definite knowledge to resort to, the result being doubt as to whether the word is properly spelled, and therefore uncertainty as to what change to make. To read a word carefully and to study the letters as they appear in the proper sequence will usually be sufficient to fix the word in mind.
When you find that certain letters, or combinations, are bothersome, use the principle of exaggeration. Have the child write the word and exaggerate the letters that are causing trouble, making them three or four times larger than the rest of the letters of the word. For example, the word PRIVILEGE, often incorrectly spelled PRIVELEGE. Write the word correctly and enlarge the "I," making it several times the size of the other letters; now have him form the visual picture of the word spelled in his way:
In writing the word hereafter you will find that the visual picture of the word with the exaggerated letter will come back to his mind and give the correct spelling.
In cases where it is a question of a single, or double consonant, for example, the word "fulfil" write it "full" and mark a large X through the second "L."
This will impress upon his mind that one "L" is correct.
Rules in spelling as a general thing, are not as helpful as a little care, observation and commonsense. The most troublesome is the "I"-"E," and this one rule should be clearly fixed in mind:
="I" always comes before "E," except when following "C," or when sounded as "A," as in "Neighbor" and "Weigh."=
Notice the word "Alice." Keeping this one word in mind will serve largely to overcome this difficulty. "I" follows all letters except "C," which is followed by "E" as it is in "Alice." To fix in mind the "E" following "C" it will be helpful to show the child the similarity of motion and appearance in writing "C" and "E." Many examples could be given of this "I"-"E" rule. It will serve very largely to fix it in mind, however, if you will have the child hunt out these examples for himself and make a list of them.
Use Visualization
Teach the child to visualize the words which he studies each day in his spelling lesson. You may not be able to visualize them yourself, but if you have started early in training him, he will have little difficulty in doing so. Exaggeration should be used as an aid in spelling. It will be easier to see the words printed in letters from three to six feet high on the wall of the room, than to see them in pica type on the paper. If your child has difficulty in visualizing the words in the spelling lesson have him exaggerate and color them in his mind's eye picture.
Have the child take a piece of scratch paper and colored crayons and print the difficult words in large letters, using two colors, one for consonants and the other for vowels. If the child has difficulty in learning the sequence of "ie" and "ei" have him follow the plan of using two strong colors, such as red and blue for the two vowels. Have him print all the words with which he has difficulty, using red for the "e" and blue for the "i." This color impression combined with the enlarged letter, will overcome the difficulty.
Spelling Exercise
In order to help the child to become sure of himself write a list of words spelled incorrectly. Have him go over them and correct them, or tell what the error is.
Spelling rules should be learned by making visual pictures of the word to which the rule applies, and not by simply learning a group of words, the meaning of which sometimes is not fully appreciated.
An Example
Rule--Final "y," when preceded by a consonant, is changed to "i" before any suffix not beginning with "i."
To learn this rule have the child print out a few examples, as follows, enlarging and striking out the important letters:
Rule--Final "y" preceded by a vowel is not changed to "i" before any suffix beginning with a vowel.
plAy-ed delAy-ed
Have the child print these examples and enlarge them. All rules should be illustrated in graphic form.
The Spelling Cards
For younger children the brightly colored A, B, C, blocks and picture books have always been helpful in teaching the alphabet and simple words. These spelling cards have the advantage of self-instruction with no possibility of mistake, so that the child teaches himself accurately and uses the visual sense in doing so.
These spelling cards consist of a series of simple pictures on cardboard with irregularly shaped holes cut beneath, a hole for each letter in the name of the object in the picture.
The needed letters of the alphabet can be made from cardboard, each on a card of separate shape, so that it will not fit into any hole except where it belongs to properly spell the word illustrated. The holes in the picture will correspond to the shape of the cards which spell the name. In this way there can be no error. The child can take the picture cards and find the proper letter cards to fit the holes under the picture and thus learn to spell the name. These Spelling cards can be made by pasting pictures of common objects on cards about 4×6 inches. Then cut the odd shaped pieces for the principal letters of the alphabet, using the same shape for the same letters, mark the proper shapes for the letters spelling the name of the object on the card, and cut them out with a sharp knife.
The shapes for the letter cards can be similar to those suggested in the Game of Matching Cards in Book One.
Suggested objects for the picture cards:
Cat, Rat, Boat, Apple, Boy, Girl, Fan, Pig, Car, Dog, Bird, Rose, Bee, Egg, Spoon, Horn, Frog, Man, Cow, Ball, Baby, Chair, Watch, Saw, Hammer, Nail, Coat, etc.
The Game of Word Making
This game was at one time quite popular and should be revived and used often. It teaches spelling and increases the vocabulary.
The only equipment is a series of cards of any size larger than an inch square. On these print letters of the alphabet or cut large black letters from the headlines of the newspapers and paste them on. There should be about six of each of the vowels, two of all the consonants, and three or four more of those most used.
Turn all the cards face down on the table and mix them thoroughly. The first player picks up a card and lays it face up in the center of the table, the next player does the same, and so on. The first child to make a word of the letters turned up speaks the word, selects the letters to properly spell it and lays them side by side, spelling the word. If it is properly spelled he gets one point, but if he has not spelled it correctly he loses one point, and the letters go back into the draw pile.
Each properly spelled word counts a point for the child first calling it. A limit of points can be set and the first one reaching that score wins. If older persons wish to play the game a limit may be set on the size of the words spelled, as no word of less than 6, 8 or 10 letters, whichever figure is decided upon.
The Game of Salvaging Words
Pick a large word to pieces and see how many smaller ones can be made from the letters contained in it. This is a good exercise for persons of any age and is often played at parties.
Give each player a paper and pencil, select some long word and let each write it at the top of his paper. Determine on a time limit usually five minutes, and see who will make the most words from the letters of the larger word.
After the time is up the one having the longest list wins. It will be interesting and helpful to have the long list read, each checking the words on their list. Then let each one read the words which they made and which no one else has read. It will be surprising how many different words there will be. Use words like:
Conflagration Consternation Understanding International Washington Gubernatorial Examination Immovability Imperceptibility Permeability Responsiveness Stenographer
The Game "The Camels Are Coming"
This game should never be allowed to grow old. It is "lots of fun" at parties and helpful in vocabulary building, because it requires an effort, and every time you induce yourself, or your child, to make an effort good is accomplished.
Have the group sit around the room and then begin by selecting a letter and a suffix, as B-ing. The one starting says to the one on his left "The camels are coming." He replies "How are they coming?" The beginner must then reply using one word beginning with B and ending with "ing". For example: Buzzing--Bleating--Braying--Blushing--. Each player must think of a word to give as his answer. All must remember the words that have been given and must answer inside the limit of ten seconds after the other has said, "How are they coming?" Any word that is in the dictionary can be used. If a player cannot answer in ten seconds he must sit on the floor of the room and pay a forfeit to the timekeeper.
This game can be varied in a great many ways, the words can begin with any letter and end with any suffix or begin with any prefix.
Learning Synonyms
To help the child remember synonyms and to increase his vocabulary write a list of words and have him write opposite them as many words of similar meaning as he can. For example:
HOUSE--residence--building--dwelling--abode.
TRAVEL--journey--trip--tour.
THE STUDY OF GEOGRAPHY
Most children will like the study of geography if it is given to them in stories and pictures as much as possible. Note how the more modern geographies are literally picture-books compared with those of several years ago.
Teach the child to make the pictures in the book his permanent knowledge through visual reviews. When he is studying about an isthmus, and there is no picture of one in the geography, find one elsewhere. Have the child notice clearly that "An isthmus is a narrow strip of land connecting two larger bodies." Take the outline maps and have the child go over them and point out all the examples of the isthmus. Now have him take a pencil and paper and draw one. Have him repeat the definition as the teacher wishes it to be learned, but be sure that he can SEE and explain it in his own words.
Fix one definite illustration of each geographical division in the child's mind. Use the Isthmus of Panama for the isthmus, explaining to him that this location was selected for the Panama Canal because it was a narrow strip of land, etc. Make it interesting by stories.
In your walks with the children through the country take every opportunity to explain the different geographical formations. Find an illustration for an isthmus even if it is only a small puddle, or if you have to make one in the back yard with a shovel and a pail of water. The sand-box method, because it is visual, has always been a successful one for teaching geography.
Visualize the Map
See clearly the outline of the country being studied, and note its peculiarities. Put the map at arm's length and let your imagination transform the contour of the country into the picture of some object.
Note that the continent of South America is very similar in shape to the head and trunk of an elephant, the projection on the Northeast corner being the ear. Note the similarity in shape between the outlines of France, Spain and Portugal to a hog's head eating from a bucket. The continent of Australia easily becomes the shape of two animals' heads, back to back.
To study any country follow the plan outlined in the next two paragraphs for the study of the states of Illinois and Indiana. Note carefully the outline of the state, and see just the shape which it forms. Note the location of the principal cities and get their relationship to each other.
Illinois
Take your pencil and draw an outline of this state, then a line from Chicago to Rock Island, from Rock Island to East St. Louis, from East St. Louis to Springfield and from Springfield back to Chicago. Notice that the line connecting these cities forms a triangle. Get the visual impression of the triangle in mind. Now close your eyes and see if you can see the outline of the state clearly and upon it the line joining the principal cities.
Indiana
In like manner note the state of Indiana, its outline and the triangle formed by the line running from Indianapolis to Fort Wayne to South Bend, to La Fayette, to Evansville, and back to Indianapolis. Any state may be studied in this way, or any country or continent. Its size, shape and the location of the principal cities may be indelibly fixed in mind.