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to that more immediately connected with the subject of the essays mentioned at the outset of this article,-the department of language. To acquire an intimate knowledge of any complex object, two things are essential: 1st. a survey of the whole object, as a compound unit.-2d. an examination of its constituent parts separately. To render a learner practically expert in recognizing such an object, we should afford him further aid, by allowing him to take it to pieces, and afterwards to put it together again. A word, as represented to the eye in type or by the pen, is a complex object such as we have just supposed. It is a combination of characters. To be rationally studied by a learner yet ignorant of it, it should be studied as any other visible form. But the current mode of teaching inverts the natural order, and professes to teach children words by means of spelling,—that is to say, it commences at the last stage of study and practice, that of analysing and afterwards making words, by putting together their component parts. The natural mode of instruction is exemplified in the infant school method, now successfully introduced, by means of that excellent little book Worcester's Primer, into many of our elementary schools. Take, for instance, the word Cat. On the customary plan, a child must first learn all the letters of the alphabet, before being permitted to attempt such a word. Then he must repeat, after his teacher, the letters of the word singly, or do it himself, if he happens to remember them. He is then perhaps asked the unreasonable question, 'What does that make? If he understood the question at all, he would naturally answer Seeaytee. For this Hindoo-looking word would be the fair result of combining the soft sound of the letter C, the 'name' sound of A, and the sound of T. The learner, however, is told that he must call these three letters 'Cat.' This direction is altogether arbitrary; and his success in complying with it must depend entirely on his recollection of what he is told,-not of what he sees, or would incline to suppose. If the names of our English letters readily suggested their sounds, this mode of teaching would be less objectionable. But as they seldom do, it has no foundation in reason; and it could never succeed at all, but for the readiness of the young memory.

The new method, (which is successfully exemplified in Worcester's Primer, See Lesson First,) is founded on very different views of the mind and of language. On this plan, the child enjoys, in the first place, the advantage of associating

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words with things, by receiving for its first lessons the names of familiar objects or of animals, annexed to a representation of them. In this way, the word Cat would first be offered to the attention in conjunction with a picture of the animal. After having become familar with the word, by observing it under the picture, and pointing it out in any lesson or page where it occurs, the child is made acquainted with the individual letters of which it is composed, and at last is taught to combine them in the enunciation of the whole word.*

The course commonly adopted is, as every person knows, after learning the names of the whole alphabet, without applying or using even one, to commence the study of syllables arranged in columns; and after this second mass of unused and undigested knowledge has been forced into the memory, (every other faculty being carefully kept in a dormant state, waiting till this has received its load,) the little learner is carried onward to columns of words, very systematically arranged, it is true, but divested of all meaning and connexion, and multitudes of them far above the comprehension of childhood, and lying out of the region of ordinary use, even among grown people.

The essays which have led to the preceding remarks, are directed particularly against the last of these evils. On this point the author expresses himself as follows.

'An inattention to the order of nature and reason is observable in the rudiments, and almost the whole progress of English reading. In some of the first lessons in spelling, the child is overwhelmed with words, which are totally unmeaning to him; many of which can hardly be considered, as belonging to the English language. A multitude of others are of no present use to children, while perhaps the greater part of those, for which they have an immediate demand, are excluded. The consequence is, that after having spent many a tedious month on their spellings, when they are put on reading sentences, they are every moment meeting with words, which, though perhaps familiar to their ears, are strangers to their eyes. In this situation they hesitate and stammer, and drawl out every word, exhausting their own spirits, and those of their instructer. Hence, I think, we may emphatically ask, what is the use, or the proper design of a spelling-book? Some perhaps may reply, It is to exercise the MEMORY of children; to acquaint them with the PRONUNCIATION of words; and to prepare them for writing correctly in subsequent life. All these things, indeed, may well be brought into view; but, I contend, they should all be subordinate to another design, viz. that of training the child more directly and effectually for the reading of sentences; that he may be enabled to read his first lesson of this kind with readiness and propriety, and grace. So far as memory is the final object, that will receive

* This method seems, from its its simplicity, preferable to that recommended at page 10th of the Essays.

better nourishment from things than from the shadows of things; and still more, than from the shadow of shadows; I should as soon think of crowding the stomach of a child with food, which I knew he could not digest for one, two, four, six, or ten years, as I should of requiring him to learn the orthography, or pronunciation of words, which were either to be forgotten, or to lie, as a useless burden on his mind for the same period of time. The mind of the learner should be like the lumber room or depositary of the cabinet-maker, where there is no superfluity, and no confusion; where the use and design of every article is understood, and where every thing is so thoroughly sorted and arranged, that, when required for use, it may be instantly found. Education, in all its (branches, should be perfectly analogous to the gradual and direct process of nature, in rearing the tender germ of the acorn into the majestic oak. It should resemble the work of the mason, who begins at the foundation, not at the top, nor the MIDDLE of the building; who makes each course of stone or brick to answer the double purpose of filling its own proper place in the building and of preparing directly and immediately for the next course; and not a single brick is laid without accomplishing both these ends.

If I have not wholly misunderstood the dictates of philosophy, this gradual, direct, and constant progress should appear in all the elementary books, employed in education, without excepting a single branch, as also in the method of using these books.'

The following remarks, though general in their character, apply, with peculiar force, to the mode of teaching children to read.

'But the loss of time, great as it is, is very far from being the principal evil, arising from the want of method in common education. While our children make little progress in real information, they are rendered in a measure incapable of future proficiency. The understanding cannot long be neglected without being stinted, if not thoroughly blighted. The mind as naturally hungers for truth, as the body does for animal food; and it is no less unphilosophical and unwise, not to say inhuman, to neglect this natural craving in the one case, than it is in the other. We should make it as much a principle of conscience and of feeling to supply our children with mental food every day, and if possible every hour, as we do to provide them with their necessary meals. I do not mean that they should be kept constantly at their books, nor that we should be perpetually delivering them lectures, which are addressed more to their ears than to their apprehensions, but that we should accommodate ourselves to their natural curiosity; that we should encourage and answer their questions, and adapt all our instructions to their understandings, so that every day may add something to the strength and capacity of their minds. But, alas, how far is this from what we generally see in our schools, where, for several years at least, the memory and the tongue are every thing, and the understanding nothing!

'Some, however, may ask, by way of objection to what has been saide If the understanding is thus neglected, and if the natural consequence of such neglect is to blight the mind, and render it incapable of futur cultivation, how happens it that we see so many rising superior t

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these disadvantages, and displaying through the whole course of their lives so much intellectual vigour? To this question I answer, that the mind of the child, however neglected, is not entirely without nourishment. Like the young animal, it picks up for itself, here and there, something to sustain its life, and contribute to its gratification. In general it is not in schools, but in the common intercourse of life, that the meaning of language is learned, and that the child is formed to a capacity for receiving any kind of instruction whatever. Whereever he goes, wherever he is, he sees something, from which he learns something; by which his mind is kept from falling into a state of torpor; by which it is nourished, and strengthened, and entertained. In general, the common school has never been, as it should have been, the principal nursery of thought. It has not been the house of feasting, but the house of fasting; where there has been almost as little employment, or recreation for the mind, as there has been for the limbs.

We would earnestly recommend these essays to the attentive consideration of parents as well as of teachers; and, for the information of such of our readers as may not have received the intelligence from other quarters, we would add that the author has furnished a series of small and cheap books, intended to obviate prevailing evils in the manner of teaching the English language. These books, though susceptible of some improvements, are, on the whole, excellently adapted to their object. They are arranged as follows: the Franklin Primer, uniting the purpose both of a primer and, in some measure, of a spelling book; the Improved Reader, an interesting explanatory reading book, of the introductory order; and the General Class Book, containing, among other useful and original matter, a specimen of a familiar school dictionary of definitions and explanations.

ART. IX.-Botany for Schools.

[It would give us great pleasure to be often called to make room for articles such as the following. The happy influences arising from the study of nature form one of the finest effects of education. Health mingles its inspiring energy with the pursuits of the naturalist; moral purity and elevation form his mental atmosphere, if he has not suffered his mind to be perverted in other directions; and a congenial discipline of his intellectual faculties is silently but effectually blended with all

his employments. The mind and the body are not set at variance in such occupations, as in those of sedentary application. Here, the whole nature of the human being is in harmonious and happy action the laws of his constitution are obeyed; and his progress is one of cheerfulness, vigour, and freedom. The moral merit of this accordance with Providence is, we admit, comparatively humble; still it is one of the first steps of wisdom. Amid prevailing and arbitrary notions on education, it becomes a positive and valuable attainment, towards which every facility should be afforded to the young.]

THE object of the following thoughts is to recommend the introduction of botany into those schools where it has not yet been attended to. Numerous, and, in our view, powerful reasons urge its introduction into schools, especially those of a higher order. As a lover of nature, as an admirer of the wisdom and power manifested in the construction of the humblest flower of the woods, or the meanest weed trodden under our feet, equally, as in the splendid colours and admirable figure of the most beautiful plant, the writer of this cannot but regret that so little attention has been, and still is, paid to this subject in the education of the young. Its adoption as a branch of school discipline is earnestly recommended.

1. Because it furnishes one of the most interesting and delightful occupations of the youthful mind. When properly taught, it produces in the mind of the young scholar new and pleasing views of the economy of nature, and the harmony and beauty everywhere visible in the works of the Creator. It captivates the young imagination, by opening to the mind's eye a range of varied existence, which is inexhaustible in stores of beauty and perfection.

2. Because it gives interest and utility, to our journies and walks. What individual of sedentary habits is there, who has not often wished for an object sufficiently interesting and important to engage his thoughts, and yet not so abstruse as to fatigue the intellect, which might oftener call him forth into the green fields of summer, and impart animation and spirit to his solitary rambles? Now botany affords precisely the inducement to leave the close air of the school room, the study, or counting room, and to wander in search of the fairest objects of inanimate creation. The excitement produced is sufficiently vivid, without bringing on too violent exertion, and consequent exhaustion. It acts as a gentle and pleasin

VOL. IV.-NO. II.

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