Teacher.—I will pronounce these three sounds very slowly and distinctly, thus: b-u-d. Notice, it is the power, or sound, of the letter, and not its name, that I give. What did you hear?

Pupil.—I heard three sounds.

T.—Give them. I will write on the board, so that you can see them, three letters—b-u-d. Are these letters, taken separately, signs to you of anything?

P.—Yes, they are signs to me of the three sounds that I have just heard.

T.—What then do these letters, taken separately, picture to your eye?

P.—They picture the sounds that came to my ear.

T.—Letters then are the signs of what?

P.—Letters are the signs of sounds.

T.—I will pronounce the same three sounds more rapidly, uniting them more closely—bud. These sounds, so united, form a spoken word. Of what do you think when you hear the word bud?

P.—I think of a little round thing that grows to be a leafy branch or a flower.

T.—Did you see the thing when you were thinking of it?

P.—No.

T.—Then you must have had a picture of it in your mind. We call this mental picture an idea. What called up this idea?

P.—It was called up by the word bud, which I heard.

T.—A spoken word then is the sign of what?

P.—A spoken word is the sign of an idea.

T.—I will call up the same idea in another way. I will write three letters and unite them thus: bud. What do you see?

P.—I see the word bud.

T.—If we call the other word bud  a spoken word, what shall we call this?

P.—This is a written word.

T.—If they stand for the same idea, how do they differ?

P.—I see this, and I heard that.

T.—You will observe that we have called attention to four different things; viz., the real bud; your mental picture of the bud, which we have called an idea; and the two words, which we have called signs of this idea, the one addressed to the ear, and the other to the eye.

If the pupil be brought to see these distinctions, it may aid him to observe more closely and express himself more clearly.