They are mortified when treated as though they could not understand what is really within the reach of their faculties.

They do not like to have their powers underrated, and they are right in this feeling.

It is common to all, old and young.
(2.) Children are kept back in learning language if their teacher makes effort to _come down,_ as it is called, to their comprehension in the use of words.

Notice that I say _in the use of words;_ for, as I shall show presently, it is absolutely necessary to come down to the comprehension of children in some other respects.

If, however, in the use of words, those who address children confine themselves to such words as children already understand, how are they to make progress in that most important of all studies, the knowledge of language?
Many a mother keeps back her child, in this way, to a degree that is hardly conceivable, thus doing all in her power to perpetuate in the child an ignorance of its mother tongue.
Teachers ought to make constant efforts to increase their scholars' stock of words by using new ones from time to time, taking care to explain them when the connection does not do it for them; so that, instead of _coming down_ to the language of childhood, they ought rather to go as far away from it as they can, without leaving their pupils behind them.
(3.) But perhaps the greatest evil of this practice is, it satisfies the teacher.