ope, pa, paw, ate, ought or aught, oat, taw, to or toe, too, age, jay, jaw, Joe, Jew, ache, oak, key, caw, coo, be or bee, bay, bow or beau, each, chaw, chew, choose, me, ma, maw, mow, own, oath, ace, ail or ale, all, lo, lieu, foe, she, Shae, shawl, shoe, eve, we, way, woe, woc, ye, yea, you.

This cut shows the vowels that occur in many words of the language, and are called the long vowels. Study the power of each vowel sign, by reference to the word underneath it, until you can detect the long vowels in any other word you may read. The exercise will improve your pronunciation of words.

The long sound of e is placed in the beginning of every letter, in the first place, either before or after the letter; the a sound is put in the middle, or second place, before or after the letter; and the ah sound in the third place, before or after. So with the au, o, oo. Placed before the letter or letters, the vowel is read first; placed after, it is read after; placed above a horizontal letter, the vowel is read first; placed under the letter, it is read after.

If you commence the making of the letters from the top down, you begin to place the vowels from the top; if the letter is slanting and upward, you reckon the positions from the bottom, or where you commenced.

The stroke vowel signs must be written at right angles to the letter to which it belongs.

The double vowel letters must be pronounced together, as au (awe), not a-u,00 (as in food), not double oo.

The letters must be made first, and vowels put in afterward. Take all the consonants you can beginning with p or t, one at a time, and write the first place vowel e before it, until you go all round the circle. Then take the same consonants, one by one, and place the same first vowel e after it, until you complete the circle again. Then take the second vowel sound a and use it in the same manner. In every case be sure to sound the letter and vowel together, whether it happens to make a word or not. This will give you plenty of exercise, interesting and instructive. If necessary, get some one to show you how to commence.

Then pick out all the words you can in this reading matter which contain one or more long vowel sounds, and if they have no sound different from those in the words under the above scale, write them on paper, first the English word, and under it the Phonographic consonant outline, with the vowel properly placed.

Don't be alarmed at the task. The first principles are always the hardest, but the art becomes easier as you learn to understand it.

Taking it for granted that you have learned the rules for writing the long vowels according to the scale, in proper position, first, second, or third place, heavy dot or heavy dash, before or after the letters, we proceed to give you the scale of

pit pet pat top tap rich chap X V LJN Y

Hellow berry merry marry lively Sunday Monday

Mary, Johnnie, Sammy, Thomas, Billy, Joseph, Ella.

You will see the short vowels follow the same arrangements of the long vowels in position, are somewhat alike in make and sound, only the short vowels are more quickly and more lightly spoken.

Study this table also until you can pick out the words in the reading matter of any paragraph or column, whether the words contain long or short vowels, or both, and by the aid of your acquaintance with the full Alphabet, and vowels of both kinds, write them all in correct phonographic (short-hand) characters and without much time to study over it.

The t sign before which the short vowels in the table are placed, has no value as a letter, but is to show the relative positions of the vowels to any consonant, whether written before or after, at the beginning, in the middle, or end of a letter or letters.

Referring to the table when necessary, copy, and read as you write, the above exercise with the short vowels.

In like manner write, and read aloud as you do so, the following words: Pick, peck, pack, peak, peach, poach, putty, tick, tack, tuck, took, touch, tip, top, tug, chick, check, cup, kept, cage, catch, cut, cud, bit, bid, biddy, budge, back, book, jot, jet, map, met, Mat, Mattie, mud, muddy, mint, meant, among, nothing, fish, ship, shape, shop. Some of these words you must write with three letters.

Take the reading matter in this lesson, or any other print on this page, pick out all the words you can that have either or both sets of vowels, and write them out, first the consonant outline, then fill in the proper vowels. A great many words you will find have a kind of double vowel sound. These you can skip until a more convenient season. Now we conclude this lesson with the rule for placing the vowels, in writing words.

First position vowels (long or short) are written after the first consonant.

Second position vowels (long) are written after the first consonant; if short, before the second consonant.

Third position vowels (long or short) are written before the second consonant.

You have a first-rate chance for practice in your every-day schools, public and private: that is, you can use the big blackboard and chalk during recess, or before or after school hours. Besides, the beautiful, mysterious, puzziing signs will excite the curiosity and admiration of your fellow schoolmates, and perhaps induce your teachers to inquire into the subject, and to order the necessary books, and introduce short-hand into their schoolrooms as a regular branch of study. Practice in this way all the time you can spare, on the alphabet, then the joined letters, then the joined letters with the long vowels,

You will notice a difference is made between the S and Z sign, by making the Z circle a little heavier than the S circie. Two short-hand signs may be written entirely alike with this exception, and have different meanings.

The double Iss adds another S to a single S, and is called sis, ses, sus, or sez, according to the sound of the word you are writing, oftener ses, and is made twice the size of the single S circle, as in rise (Ray Iss), rises (Ray Sis), vices (Vee Ses), entices (En Tee Ses), arises (Ar [not Ray] Ses), spices (Is Pee Ses), slices (Iss Lay Ses), voices (Vee Ses), noises (En Ses), and as in some of the above words.

If you have forgotten what we have called the nomenclature, or describing of the letters (as just given in parenthesis), refer to the first of the alphabet. By using this naming, you see, we avoid all the drawing and engraving of examples, which yo can understand just as well as from the print.

I J J I H
ๆ 9

In like manner write the following words (from Graham's list): Vie, vice, vices, mice, tie, ties, entice, entices, die, dye, dies, sigh, sighs, ally, rye, arises, nice, spy, spices, sky, sly, slice, slices, eyes (i-zee), ice (i-es), sight, side, sign. Annoys, noises, choices. Bough, dow, allows, rouse, rouses, arouses, ounces, cows, house, houses, south, sour. Abuse, abuses, fuse, mew, amuses, dew, due (same), adieu, adduce, chews and choose, juices, Jews, hew, suit (Iss [not Es] Tee), stew. It is easier to memorize the sounds of the diphthongs by the sentence above than by different and disconnected words.

These signs have a place, like the single vowels, either first, second, or third, whether placed before, or after, at the beginning, in the middle, or at the end of a letter. Copy, and read aloud as you write, the above examples; but do not simply copy them without you know how and why the signs mean what they read. Observe closely the angles of the diphthong signs, whether downward, upward, to the left, at the top, or bottom. We might give you, in this lesson, much more to study, but it is best not to try to do too much all at

Examples wine quoit wound

From the above tables you will notice that the sounds, in their order and power, resemble the ordinary long or short vowels, and also the diphthongs, only with the addition of W before them. Instead of e, a, ah, au, o, oo, it is we, wa, wah. wau, wo, woo, etc. It would be well for you to repeat these sounds of the long and short vowels, and this table with the W, constantly in succession, until you have the sounds familiar and in order, just like your common alphabet. Most scholars have some trouble in learning the difference between the third place long vowel and the first place vowel of the last half of the vowel scale; this is, in forming words, they have some difficulty in distinguishing the sound of Ah from the sound Au. Be careful of this.

You can simplify these tables by dividing them into threes; that is, separate the first three sounds a little wider apart from the second three, and so relieving the eye, you can memorize the different sounds and forms by sets of threes-twelve sounds in all. The first six are heavy-the first three open on one side, and the next three open on the opposite side; the last six are light, and open in contrary ways, to be easily distinguished.

The next little cut represents sounds that do not occur very often, especially the woi. Wi and wou are more frequent.