"ENGLISH AS SHE IS TAUGHT."

Timaru Herald, Volume L, Issue 4869, 14 June 1890, Page 4

" ENGLISH AS SHE IS TAUGHT."

At a conference of Dunedin schools this week Mr R. N. Adams, m accordance with notioe, moved— " Tbat the echcolmastera of the several schools represented should be requested, through their oommittees, to nee that the eoholata m the schoolß receive adj ditional tuition m pronunciation." Children 'Bhould be trained to speak with tbe same acouraoy as regards pronunciation as they were taught to write ; but. moßt of our teachers had not forgotten their provincialiams, and thus children were led into error m pronunciation. Reoeatly ho heard a class m one of our Bohools going ovor a reading lesson, which did not occupy more than half an hour, and within that Bhort time he jotted down a long Hat of words which had beou inoorrootly pronounced, and whioh the teacher had passed over. For instance, the word brown was pronounced aomothing like "breown," verb like " voob " (long accent), waggon as " waggun," eternity as " etonity," joy aa "joey," rocks as "rooks." Ab wo were building up a now nation, wo should | avoid snoh ridiculous abuse of our language 'as we found coming from America, so that iin the future our obildren and our teachers should not pronounce words ao incorrectly as they now did. He had known of one inatanca where a child was pluoked owing to faulty pronunciation aB a result of provincialism. I Mr Rutherford seconded the amendment ''pro forma. He suggested that the recommondation might be sent to the Educational Institute, and perhaps aome of the thorough English soholars might be induced to read a paper on pronunciation. Mr Hatton pointed out that Bohoolmastoro endeavoured to get tbe scholars to pass tbe standards creditably. There was no standard of pronunciation. The motion was bo amended that the matter is to be brought under tho notice of the Educational Institute, which meets noxt month.