elements of a language consist of the simplest possible sounds into which its syllables can be divided, or resolved. The division of syllables into their elementary parts is a branch of vocal analysis. This analysis shows that the vocal elements of the English language are (including the short vowels) forty-three in number. We shall for the present retain their common division into vowels and consonants, and shall first give a table of the vowel elements.

Before proceeding to do this, I would observe, that I am persuaded that tables of elements, if diligently used, will be found effective in teaching very young persons a distinct and graceful articulation. This must be at once admitted by the reader, when he is informed that the forty-six elements exposed in our first tables do in different combinations, make up all the syllables of our language. Elements make syllables, syllables words, and words discourse. If each element which ought to be sounded in a word is distinctly formed by the organs of utterance, the word must be well pronounced, and if all the words are thus pronounced in a discourse, the articulation of such a discourse must be faultless. I should feel ashamed of urging such plain matters of fact, were it not for our extraordinary ignorance on the subject. I never yet pronounced the vocal elements of our language, in my public lectures, without exciting the mirthful wonder of the audience. Perpetually using, or, often, misusing these elements, persons in general are ignorant of their existence, as single specific sounds. I add another testimony to the importance of exercise on the elementary sounds.

"When the elements are pronounced singly, they may receive a concentration of organic effort, which gives them a clearness of sound, and a definite outline, if I may so speak at their extremes, that makes a fine preparative for a distinct and forcible pronunciation in the compounds of speech."-Philosophy of the human voice, Sect. 47, p. 461.

TABLE OF THE VOWEL ELEMENTS

OF THE

ENGLISH LANGUAGE.

Ir is to be particularly noticed, that, in using this table, the attention is to be directed to the Elementary Sounds, actually heard in the words which are placed opposite to the letters and not to the names of the letters. The same letter sometimes stands in different words for several sounds. Attend therefore to the Sounds of the Elements which are, as the table of words shows, distinct. They are sixteen in number. The Element is separated from the rest of the word by the horizontal line, and is always distinguished by an italic letter or letters.

* As the worl is frequently ¡ronounced in New-England.

TABLE OF THE CONSONANT SOUNDS

OF THE

ENGLISH LANGUAGE

In this Table (when the language admits of it,) one word is employed to show the consonant element at its beginning, and another to show the same element at its termination. The element is distinguished from the other parts of the word in the same manner as in the preceding Table of Vowels.

* The elements KTP are mutes. They produce such a degree of occlusion of the organs that no sound can escape until they are united with some other vowel or consonant. It will be useless therefore to attempt to sound them alone.

The ear can clearly perceive the difference of each vocal element in the foregoing tables of vowels and consonants from each other. Each is pointed out in the word or words in which it is found, by an italic letter or letters. Such letter, or letters, (where more than one stand for a vocal element,) if pronounced as usually heard in such word or words, will give the true elementary sound in question. Each vocal element, vowel and consonant, is to be exactly sounded, in the order of succession in which they are found in the tables. When no teacher is at hand to demonstrate the sounds of the elements with his voice, the following direction will lead the attentive student to a perception of them.

Let each word by which the elementary sound is illustrated in the tables, be pronounced in a very slow, drawling manner. During its pronunciation let special notice be taken of the position of the organs of speech, and of the particular sound produced, as the element which is the immediate subject of description, issues from the mouth. This slow, drawling pronunciation is to be repeated over and over again, until the element to be illustrated is clearly distinguished by the ear from the rest of the word, and the position of organs by which it is formed