After they are all written, he calls upon the pupils
to spell them aloud as they have written them, simultaneously, pausing a
moment after each, to give those who are wrong an opportunity to
indicate it by some mark opposite the word misspelled. They all count
the number of errors and report them. He passes down the class, glancing
his eye at the work of each one to see that all is right, noticing
particularly those slates which, from the character of the boys, need a
more careful inspection. A teacher who had never tried this experiment
would be surprised at the rapidity with which such work will be
performed by a class after a little practice.
Now how different are these two methods in their actual results! In the
latter case the whole class are thoroughly examined. In the former not a
single member of it is. Let me not be understood to recommend exactly
this method of teaching spelling as the best one to be adopted in all
cases. I only bring it forward as an illustration of the idea that a
little machinery, a little ingenuity in contriving ways of acting on the
_whole_ rather than on individuals, will very much promote the teacher's
designs.
In order to facilitate such plans, it is highly desirable that the
classes should be trained to military precision and exactness in these
manipulations. What I mean by this may perhaps be best illustrated by
describing a case: it will show, in another branch, how much will be
gained by acting upon numbers at once instead of upon each individual in
succession.
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