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alphabetical order if no other, and many words related to each other often stand together.

But let us suppose the child has passed the threshold, what shall he read? Not, surely, such books as are levelled down to his intellect, for these will keep the intellect down. It is better to give him books that he can understand when explained, and this explanation it is the duty of the teacher to give. I would have the child understand just enough to enable him to take an interest in the book, but I would have it Bring the book always beyond his easy grasp. down to the child's capacity, so that he can understand every word, and every idea of it, and he will never wish to read it a second.time, and will make no progress in ideas or in reading, if he is compelled to read it. If I may compare great things with small. I will say that the Creator does not teach us to read in the Book of Na. ture in any such way. We are interested in every page that he has spread before us, but we understand very little of it. On the second perusal, we learn something more, and the more times we read, the better we understand, though we are sure we shall never master the great volume. There is a just medium in this matter, and he who consults the nature of children will observe it. Children, if I know them, prefer to read such books as require not only a constant stretch of the understanding, but even of the imagination, and such are the best for them, if they are to be read more than once.

But some utilitarians would have all reading books for schools filled with lessons in useful knowledge, and of course would exclude the greater part of our best poetry and works of ima. gination. Hence we have Agricultural Readers, Scientific Class Books, and such like, but does any farmer suppose that his son will be made a farmer by reading an agricultural school book? I can assure him that his farming and reading will be about equal to each other. Reading for information is one thing, and reading for the purpose of affecting others is another. Children should read for information at home, but at school, they should be taught reading as an art, a glorious art, and the reading lessons should be such as to afford the teacher an opportunity of teaching it properly but this cannot be done in the humdrum books of science, in the sing-song anl monotonous pages of a work on agriculture, commerce, manufactures or science.

It is true that much useful matter may be intro luced into school books, and, other things being equal, instructive lessons should be preferred; but the great object for which reading is taught in schools must not be lost sight of in the attempt to introduce a little of all sorts of know. ledge, which will never make children good philosophers, and which will assuredly prevent them from becoming good and impressive readers. Show me a teacher who prefers to use books on this mistaken plan, and I will show you one who knows nothing of reading as an art.

When I have expressed these sentiments, it has been objected that they would exclude the It reading of the Scriptures from our schools. might exclude the genealogical tables, the Leviti cal code, and perhaps a few other passages that, however valuable in other respects, afford no exercise like that I advocate; but there are thousands of passages in the sacred volume, sublime and beautiful beyond all others, and which not

only are calculated to improve the heart, but
which render portions of the Bible preeminently
suitable for teaching reading as an art.

mar,

Our lan

In teaching English Grammar, I would require little or nothing to be learned by rote. If there is any real difference between the parts of speech, the child should be obliged to point it out, instead of seeking the information in a Dietionary. Moreover, in teaching English GramI would be sure it was English. guage is more simple in its structure than any other, and I would teach it in all its simplicity, whatever might be the fashion. Not one child in ten thousand, studies any other language than his own, and yet every child is obliged to learn grammars that were constructed on foreign moBecause Greek had one article, two addels. jectives were set apart from the rest and called articles, that English Grammar might not lack this part of speech. As Latin nouns had six cases distinctly marked by a different termination, so English nouns must have half the number, although in the plural they undergo no change, and only one in the singular, which renBecause the Greek and Latin ders the word no longer the name of a thing, no longer a noun. and some modern languages in their various modes of speaking vary the termination of the verb, we also must have our five modes, not because we have any change of termination, but because the Greeks and Latins had. Because the Greeks and Latins, by the addition or change of terminations, counted forty or fifty methods of expressing tense or time, we who have but one such change of termination, like the simple jackdaw, are strutting about with our borrowed feathers, and pretending to be classical peacocks.

All this aping of foreigners impedes the progress of the child, and does not in the least assist him in the correct or euective use of language. I should admire to go into the particulars, but I should weary you, and perhaps offend my fellow bookmakers who are profiting by the general I would early teach the child that gramerror. mar is taught him that he may apply it to the use of language. Composition should go hand in hand with grammar. Conversation should be encouraged, and talk should be written down, till the mind is sufficiently trained to do something more advanceed. When the child is well acquainted with the structure of his own language and the use of it, I would teach him the Latin, or some other grammar, that he might, by contrasting the two, acquire that distinct idea of his own, which the popular grammars of English aim as far as possible to obliterate by assimilation.

This perversion of English grammar, and the dull and inoperative manner in which it has been taught, have induced many of high standing object to the study altogether. I cannot reject any good thing because it is abused, and I can least of all be induced to abandon this study, at the present day, when, in addition to the ordinary causes for neglect, we are overrun with a torrent of cheap aud alas! popular literature, in which the chief charm is often the jargon which, under the names of Scotch, Irish, Cockney, Yankee, or some other barbarous dialect, has so corrupted the "well of English no longer undefiled," that nothing is more rare than the pure English idiom, and nothing so important as immediate and constant resistance on the part of

every teacher, against the most serious enemy that our language has ever encountered.

In teaching Geography, I should require no lessons to be committed to memory. The smaller geography used in the Boston schools, says in the preface, "Most authors have extended the subject beyond its proper limits, and much extraneous matter is introduced into school geographies." This is a just remark, and yet the author has devoted a large portion of his book to astronomy, meteorology, mineralogy, the statistics of religion, commerce, population, and similar matters, which may be true to-day, but which must be false before long.

If you wished to learn the geography of a town instead of a world, how would you proceed? Would you go to one farmer and ascertain whether he raised wheat or oats? to another to know how many men he employed? to a third how many pigs he raised, or how often he washed their faces? Would you visit the schools to see how many children attended-when they did not stay at home? how many pupils there were of each sex, and how many teachers? what school books were used and what abused? and whether they were purchased because they were cheap, or because they were good? Would you visit the several clergymen and ascertain The author of the larger geography used in how many sects there were, and how many of the Boston schools, has told us that it was first each sect? which expended the most money, and published in 1819, and after two editions were which had the least to show for it? No, indeed, stereotyped, or permanently fixed. Soon, he you would know that these things have nothing to adds, it was necessary to re-write it entirely; do with geography. You would walk round the and then, after two editions, it was stereotyped boundaries of the town, and see how other towns or fixed again; and he says it may be expected bordered upon it. You would travel every road to remain as it is till a considerable change shall and learn where they led to; you would visit become desirable," that is, till an unusually large every pond and every hill, and sail down every proportion of it is false. In the mean time, it stream; you would learn the locality of every must be borne in mind, thousands and tens of church, of every school-house, and every other thousands of children are learning these geogra. public building; you would learn the limits of phies with the certainty that what they learn, if every school district; the remarkable caves or remembered, will soon be of no value. The rocks; the quarries, and every thing that could world will not stay fixed, as the unlucky book be considered permanent; you would draw a does, and when there is so much certain and per-plan of the town, till you were familiar with every manent knowledge to be learned, is it not cruel part of it. to trifle with the young nind thus? It is bad enough to have to commit to memory what is true, but it seems unpardonable to oblige a child to commit what is already false, or avowedly soon to become so. Let it not be supposed, however, that the two geographies alluded to are singular in this respect; I believe they are like all others that are popular, and a late most popular author solemnly promises in his preface not to change his book ofte.er than once in five years, right or wrong. It said of one of the worthy governors of New.msterdam, that be. cause the wind had a troubk ometrick of chang-bles by heart? We cannot travel over the world ing, he was accustomed early in the morning to fix the city weathercock for the day; and in what does his conduct differ from that of the au. thor last mentioned?

Then if you wished to learn the history of the town, you would have some lines to go by, some points to measure from. You could lay out the farms of the first settlers, and cut them up as their descendants did; you could plan new roads and future improvements, and your accurate knowledge of the unchangeable features of the town would never cease to be of service. Statistical tables are valuable to the political economist, to the historian and antiquarian, and such may prepare and preserve them for reference, but what would they think if asked to learn such ta.

as we may over a town, but we may travel over maps till the face of the globe is familiar, the great natural features, those characters which the Creator has engraved on the everlasting rocks, and not what transient man has scratched upon the shifting sand.

Again, it is generally conceded that the true way to learn geography is to begin at home, and travel no faster than we get acquainted; but, as The celebrated Rousseau ridicules the custom geographies are made to be universally used, of teaching History to children, and he relates this beginning at home is impracticable. A an amusing anecdote, which shows that history geography adapted to any particular home, was taught in his day very much as it has been would not be likely to have an extensive sale. I since. He was spending a few days in the coun The utmost we may ask then is, that they shall try, and a fond mother invited him to be present give a particular account of our own state. at a lesson in Ancient History about to be given Well, how far have they done this? Mitchell, to her son. The lesson related to that event of out of 336 pages, allows the Empire State but Alexander's life, when, being dangerously sick, four, and these include three pictures that were he received a letter informing him that his phy not executed by Raphael or Benjamin West, Ol-sician intended to poison him under pretence of ney's geography allows your great state 4 pages out of 283, and these 4 include 3 engravings not by the same great masters. Smith allows you 4 pages out of 312, and he can only afford 1 engraving. Woodbridge, in his new edition, thinks that 2 pages out of 352, with 1 picture, are enough for New-York, and the other authors are no more liberal. Poor Massachusetts is allowed room in proportion to her size, and yet these books furnish all the knowledge that our childraught. dren are required to learn of their respective most to death, and all medicine was poison to him. Still the history was not lost upon the

states.

giving him medicine. Alexander handed the letter to the physician, and while he was reading it, drank off the medicine at one draught. At dinner, the conversation turned upon the lesson, and the young historian expressed so much admiration at the courage of Alexander, that Rousseau took him aside and asked him in what the wonderful courage consisted. Why, said he, in swallowing such a nasty dose of physic at one His kind mother had dosed him al

104

child, though it was misunderstood, for he determined that the next medicine he had to take, he would imitate Alexander. "If it be asked,' adds Rousseau, "what I see to admine in that act of Alexander, I answer, that I see in it the proof that the hero believed in human virtue, and that he was willing to stake his life upon his belief. The swallowing of the medicine was a profession of his faith, and no mortal ever made one more sublime."

that they were not properly drilled when young. The second reason why spelling has retrogra. ,"ded in our schools, has been the pretended imThirty or forty provement of spelling books. years ago, little or no regard was paid to pronunciation; and any person who chewed his words was laughed at as a flat or sneered at as a pedant. About that time Walker's Dictionary was reprinted in this country, and spelling books began to be made on his plan. The test of gentility was pronunciation, and not orthography. Figures and other marks were introduced into spelling books, and relying upon these, the classification of words began to be neglected, until it was almost disregarded, and the difficulty of learning to spell was increased just in proportion to this neglect. Who needs an argument to show that a proper classification facilitates the learning of every art and science, and that on the association thus produced, the me mory in a great degree depends for its power? The great desideratum is a spelling book that shall be choice but sufficiently comprehensive in its vocabulary, simple but exact and thorough in its classification, and that shall teach the true pronunciation without appearing to do so, and without drawing off the pupil's attention from the naked word.

History, as taught in schools, should be a practical application of Geography. My method of teaching it, was to read the history to the class, explaining every word, and illustrating every sentiment as far as possible by maps, books, engravings, medals, relics, and conversation. Then I required the pupils to read the lesson for themselves, and be prepared to answer such questions as I might propose. I never taught ancient geography except in connection with history, and never without a constant comparison of ancient geography with modern. In this way there is hardly any branch of human knowledge that was not brought to the aid of history, and in return illustrated by it. But, set a child to learning the compend by heart, or only so much as will serve for an answer to certain set questions, printed and adapted to the very words of the answer, and what does the child acquire but a distaste for what is only a dead letter, and a love for tales and romances and that trashy reading which is too well understood, and whose spirit as well as letter killeth too often both body

and soul?

The third reason for the decline of spelling was the introduction of definition spelling books, and the custom of giving spelling lessons from dictionaries. If attention to the marks and figures that indicated the pronunciation, took off the scholar's attention from the orthography, But, it may be asked, would you not cultivate much more so did the affixing of a definition. the memory of words at all. I answer that the The definition became everything, and the orordinary intercourse of society will do much to- thography only a secondary object. The vocabuwards educating this memory, but there is one lary of a definition spelling book was so curschool exercise which, when not perverted, is tailed from necessity, that it was altogether inpeculiarly fitted for this purpose; I mean spell-sufficient for the purpose of teaching orthogra ing, although spelling, if properly taught, is not merely the learning of words, but the expression of sounds, and the acquisition of a correct pronunciation, which is rarely acquired in any other way. Perhaps no one branch taught in our common schools has been so badly taught as this, and in no department is there such a general complaint of deficiency, and such a loud cry for reform. Whence is this? Certainly not because correct spelling is not universally considered indispensable to a good education, certainly not because there is any dearth of spelling books. Will you bear with me a few minutes longer, while I endeavor to explain the cause of the deficiency which is so notorious.

First, then, spelling has been treated as an inferior branch, in which to exercise a pupil was to degrade him. Hence the higher classes have generally been excused from spelling, or have only spelled occasionally without having regular and set lessons. Now, spelling must be taught at schools, or the chance is a thousand to one that the adult will never make up for the neglect. The reason of this is not so much the incapability of adults to learn, as their unwillingness to come down to the only effectual way of learning, that is, by lessons from the spelling book. It must be this, for adults read the words constantly, write them frequently, and understand and use them better than children do, and yet

they seldom correct words that they have been
accustomed to misspell. The reason uniformly
given by adults, who continue to spell ill, is,

You see the con

phy, and the words of a dictionary are so nu-
merous that it was the labor of a life, a school
life, to spell it through once.
sequence: in the definition spelling books many
common and useful words were omitted, and the
attention was distracted between those that were
left and their definitions, while the length of
time required to go through a dictionary ren-
dered a familiar acquaintance with the definition
or the orthography absolutely impossible. And
had the definition been retained what would it
have been worth? Common words are gene-
rally mystified by a definition, and seldom ex-
plained. The other day, in preparing a new
work to oblige children to write the words
of their spelling books, I wanted a simple def.
nition of a flounce and of a periwig, both com-
mon things and well understood. I turned to
the most popular and really the best school dic-
tionary, and found the definition as follows:

I

Periwig. Adscititious hair.

Flounce. A loose, full trimming, sewed to a woman's garment so as to swell and shake. then asked an intelligent child what sort of

"I

hair he thought "adscititious hair" was.
don't know," said he, "unless it is hair that is
all in a snarl." I then asked an intelligent girl
what she should call "a loose full trimming
and she said at once an April fool."
sewed to a garment so as to swell and shake,"

66

So much for the definition of easy words. I then had occasion to look out the word Imbrica.

M. O yes, indeed. Fraxinella, my dear, tell the lady something of geometry and astronomy. What is astronomy, my dear? Ask her a ques.munications to the inhabitants and trustees of tion miss, any question you please.