_Phrase 1._--To write phonetically, without liaison, a phrase dictated in the ordinary vocabulary of the child. _Example._--Émile est un petit élève bien sage; il écoute son papa et sa maman; il va à l'école. _Phrase 2._--To put the _s's_ of the plural to words chosen from the vocabulary of the child. _Example._--J'ai une tête, deux bras, deux jambes, une bouche, vingt dents, une langue, et dix doigts. _Phrase 3._--Plural of qualifying adjectives in simple cases; verbs to the third person plural, present indicative. _Example._--Le soleil brille déjà de ses plus _gais_ rayons. Les hommes _partent_ en chantant. Les bergers sont _heureux_ de la belle journée qui se _prépare_: ils suivent au pâturage le _grand_ troupeau des vaches _pesantes_. _Phrase 4._--Feminine of the qualifying adjectives without phonetic indication; verbs with the plural endings _ons_, _ont_, _ez_, _aient_. _Exercise._--Le garçon de ferme, de son pas lourd, _entrait_ dans la grange encore _obscure_, ou nous _réposions_. Les boeufs _mugissaient_ tout bas. Dans la cour le coq, les poules, le chien, _allaient_ et _venaient_. _Phrases 5, 6, and 7._--Finals of verbs in the singular of the different tenses of the four conjugations. Past participle with or without _avoir_. Infinitive in _er_, and past participle in _é_. _Example._--Joyeux merle, ne _viens_ pas dans le bocage. _Prends_ garde à ce méchant qui _veut_ te saisir et t'_enfermer_. Pendant que je te _parle_, tu _viens picorer_ les raisins que l'oiseleur a _disposés_ comme un piège. Ils sont _garnis_ de glu: si tu y _touches_, c'en est fait de ta liberté. _Method of Marking Mistakes._ One mistake for a letter omitted. One mistake for a letter too much. One mistake for a letter substituted for another. There may therefore be several mistakes in the same word, but the number of mistakes for any word cannot be greater than the number of letters in the word. A word omitted counts as many mistakes as it has letters. The liaison of two words counts for one mistake. Failure to join the two parts of a word also counts one mistake. It is to be noticed that we do not speak of grades of spelling--that is to say, of different phrases which the children of each age should be able to write without mistake. No doubt such could be found. But we have been content to count the mistakes; it is by the number of mistakes that the children of each age are distinguished. The dictation given in February by M. Vaney in his school and corrected by the teachers there has enabled us to draw up the following table, which shows the number of mistakes committed, counted by the method indicated above:[8]