g., _soap_, and also words beginning with the
_sch_-sound, _sugar_, and with _st_, _sw_, _sm_, and many others. As the
words of the three children are grouped, not according to the _sounds_
with which they begin, but according to their initial _letters_, into
twenty-six classes, the author's conclusions can not be admitted. The
words must first all be arranged according to their initial _sounds_.
When this task is accomplished, which brings _no_ and _know_, e. g.,
into one class, _wrap_ and _rag_ into a second--whereas they were put in
four different classes--then we find by no means the same order of
succession that Holden gives. The author wrote to me, however, in 1882,
that his oldest child _understood_ at least 1,000 words more than those
enumerated here, i. e., than those published by him, and that with both
children facility of pronunciation had more influence in regard to the
use of words than did the ease with which the words could be understood;
this, however, does not plainly follow from the printed statements
before me, as he admits. When the first-born child was captivated by a
new word, she was accustomed to practice it by herself, alone, and then
to come and employ it with a certain pride. The second child did so,
too, only in a less striking manner. The boy, on the contrary, who was
four years old in December, 1881, and who had no ear for music and less
pride than his sisters, did not do as they did.
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