as the foundation of that oral instruction of the master which is to follow this examination. In those schools to which no infant school is annexed, some of the children will probably be so young, and so imperfectly instructed in reading, as to render it expedient that they should remain in the reading-room during the period assigned for instruction of the lowest division in writing, and during one of the two periods allotted every day to the oral instruction of that division. This is a modification of the plan in respect to which the master will exercise his discretion.

The writing, practice of arithmetic, drawing, &c., will be placed under the supervision of the pupil-teacher or assistant-master, who will nevertheless relieve the head-master, changing places with him from time to time, and taking up his task of oral instruction; but not at any other times, or in respect to any other subjects, than such as are prescribed in the school routine, and have received the sanction of the School Committee. It is not, however, to be supposed that the master to whom the duty of oral instruction is assigned is constantly to be occupied in talking. His duties include examination and the hearing of lessons; and from time to time he will pause, and require the children to write down their recollections of the lesson he has been giving.

In the afternoon I propose that the girls should be taught to sew by the mistress, in the room appropriated in the morning to reading; and that the boys be formed into three divisions, as in the morning, and similarly occupied; the two divisions employed in oral instruction and writing occupying one of the remaining rooms, and the other being appropriated to reading, under the supervision of the assistant-master or pupil-teacher. The number of children composing each division being greatly less in the afternoon than in the morning, I anticipate that the supervision of that division which is occupied in writing, under the care of an elder child, or monitor, will not interfere materially with the important task of oral instruction, with which he is more particularly charged, more especially as that task is not supposed to be incessantly plied, but alternated with periods when the children under oral instruction may be writing out exercises on their slates, or working examples in arithmetic, the principles of which branch of science I suppose to be taught as an important department of oral instruction. The duties of the master will be relieved by those of the assistant-master or pupil-teacher in the afternoon as in the morning, and under the same circumstances.

It is a characteristic feature of this arrangement, and that which I have principally in view in recommending it, that it brings each individual child, from the least to the greatest, every day, during one-third of its school-hours, under the personal instruction of the master; that it places the master under the most favorable circumstances which I can devise for conveying that instruction to him; that it compels him to take up the study of the child from the moment when it first enters the school, and that it entirely takes away from the duties of the master that voluntary and irresponsible character which they are made to assume, by a system which provides for the carrying out of the entire business of instruction without his intervention; that it emancipates the children from the monotonous control of the monitors, and from the noise of the reading-room, during two-thirds of the day; that when the children are under monitorial instruction, it places them in groups, under the charge of each monitor, less in number by one-half than the classes usually assigned to the charge of a monitor, all day long, by the existing system; that for the great business of the elemen

tary school, Reading, its most tedious and difficult task, it provides, moreover, the services of an adult teacher (the mistress,) who is supposed to employ assistance of monitors only ir respect to those children whom she is unable to teach herself; that each reading lesson so given it followed by an examination, as to the success with which it has been given, by the master; that whilst the services of the mistress are rendered available in respect to that branch which, however important, does not (under the circumstances,) suppose in the teacher that higher degree of attainment and general ability for the management of a school, which are so rarely found united in a mistress-it secures, nevertheless, to the girls (to whom it is at least as necessary as the boys) the highest order of instruction which the school will supply; that in respect to existing schools, it provides for this, without dispensing with the services of the mistress, or altering the present arrangements as to her salary; that, in respect to new schools, it enables the master to employ the services of his wife in the business of the school, under circumstances (with reference especially to that higher standard of education at which we aim,) in which they would not otherwise be available; that it economizes the labors of the pupil-teacher, making, by the union of the two schools, one such teacher sufficient where two would, if the schools were separated, be necessary.

Lastly, that, providing for those technical branches of instruction which are not only valuable in themselves, but necessary to secure that public opinion of the parents favorable to the school, on which its success must after all depend, it provides further for that oral instruction of a more general kind, which aims at results less tangible, indeed, but the highest contemplated in education, and the most valuable; that extends the benefits of this form of instruction from the highest to the meanest and lowest child, and that it brings to it the master spirit of the school, and all the sanctions with which the authority of the highest office can surround it; that in respect to his own individual part in the labor of teaching, it does not leave the master to the influence of no other motive than his own sense of duty, or that desire for excellence which it is so difficult to preserve in a remote and unobserved school, subject as it is to the antagonism of those prejudices which, lingering in the public mind, too frequently interdict all sympathy in his labors; but that it contemplates a system of instruction in which his labors shall constitute an integral part, and prescribes the subjects which he shall teach himself, and the times when he shall teach them.

XIV. ORAL LESSONS ON COMMON THINGS.

BY THOMAS MORRISON."

Rector of the Free Church Training College, Glasgow.

1. ORAL INSTRUCTION ought to be employed in dealing with the principles of all the ordinary branches of school education. Text-books are mainly valuable, in that they present a connected and systematic view of any subject, and supply the various definitions and technical terms employed in connection with it. But no text-book can furnish information in principles, so clear and so conclusive as to supersede the necessity of oral instruction on the part of the master. In treating of such branches as arithmetic, geography, or grammar, by far the most valuable part of the information-that, namely, which relates to the fundamental principles on which these sciences are based—to be given successfully, must be given orally by the master. But, in addition to these regularly stereotyped branches of education, much useful and highly important information may and should be communicated to

children in school-information which no series of text-books can adequately supply. We refer to incidental oral lessons upon various portions of natural history, natural science, and upon what has been termed in these modern days "common things." The books used in school too generally deal with dry abstract subjects-while the little world in which the child lives, his home-his food-his garmentsthe air he breathes-the various operations which he sees going on around him-are carefully and most religiously shut out from school.

2. In all these oral lessons, the knowledge acquired should be directed to practical purposes. In this way the child becomes acquainted with the science of common things. The mere knowledge of principles, whether in the region of natural or moral things, does not imply the power of directing that knowledge to practical use. It is quite a possible, nay it is, unfortunately, a too common thing, to find a person whose creed is thoroughly orthodox, and who has a clear intellectual discernment of the relation of the various doctrines which constitute that creed, but whose practice is sadly at variance with his belief. So it is in natural things. Our education is too formal. It is too much shackled with absurd conventionalities. We give our

* Abridged from "Manual of School Management."

pupils much knowledge, but little wisdom. We supply abstract principles, but no directions as to their application. Now it must be borne in mind that we do not speak here of the attempt which some hair-brained visionaries have made, to convert the school into a general workshop, where the boys are taught shoemaking, tailoring, and other trades; and where girls are trained to bake and wash, and to perform such like domestic operations. We have already lifted up our voice in solemn protest against the introduction of such things into the elementary school. Much of our education has been, no doubt, an unreal, a visionary thing; much of it has been concerned with words, and nothing more, and, perhaps, it, was natural, when a reaction set in against this state of matters, that many should err in the other extreme, and deny the use of knowledge of any kind which could not be immediately applied to practical purposes. We make no reference here to such attempts as these; but, while we deprecate with all our might such misapplications of the child's school life, we would insist on giving the child as much information as possible upon the application of those principles which we present to him. Thus, in dealing with the atmosphere, while we would give the child a knowledge of those ingredients which compose it, and of the laws which regulate it when in motion, we would also give him information upon the connection which subsists between health and a constant supply of fresh air-of the means whereby a dwelling-house, or other building, may be safely and effectively ventilated-of the cause and the evil results of draughts, &c.; so, when speaking of dwellinghouses, we would not only unfold the nature of the material employed in constructing the edifice, but also the necessity of having a dry foundation-how this might be obtained-the evils consequent upon over crowding, &c. We would not only teach the child the philosophy of the art of swimming, but that it is unsafe to bathe in all states of the body, &c. These illustrations will serve to show what we mean by the science of common things. The advantages arising from such lessons are obvious. The child associates the abstract principles of science with the common affairs of every-day life, and finds illustrations of them in objects the most unlikely. His interest is thus continually kept up, and, when he leaves school and enters on the actual battle of life, instead of performing his work blindly and in virtue merely of imitation, he does it with the intelligence of a man who has learned to trace the relations which subsist between theory and practice. We are satisfied that, were lessons of this kind more common, they would create an intelligence that would result in the greatest benefits to the body politic; and that such things as smoke

nuisances-over-crowding nuisances-and many other foul and loathsome nuisances-would not be tolerated, no not for a day. At present, our laboring classes, more particularly in country districts, do their work mechanically, with little more intelligence than is shown by the dumb animals whose services they employ. Their school education enabled them to read but very imperfectly, and soon after their life of toil began, the little technical learning they had acquired became obsolete through want of practice, and so they settled down into that sad and most melancholy position in which nothing interests them which does not appeal to their senses. We need not wonder at the alarming prevalence of vice among our rural populatiou. The lessons we are now treating of would, to a certain extent, serve to counteract the tendency which uneducated natures have to gravi tate to the earthly and sensual. By opening up to them some of the wonders which meet in the most common objects, by training them to reflect on the principles involved in the most simple operations, and by guiding them to make, from a knowledge of principles, improvements in the mode of conducting these operations, we supply them with the means whereby their attention and their curiosity may be kept ever on the alert, and their minds exercised upon what is both useful and profitable.

ORAL LESSONS.-FIRST STAGE.

3. It is evident that, if young children are to receive any instruction at all, it must be given orally. For a very considerable time after entering school, they are unable to employ the art of reading in such a way as to derive much benefit from what they read. If their minds, accordingly, are to be exercised at all, if their young faculties are to be trained and developed, something more must be done than merely teach them the arbitrary signs of sounds. To keep a poor child for some months, or, it may be, years, poring over the A, B, C, and its combinations, is the sure and certain way to make him a dunce of the first water. In fact it would appear eminently natural to delay introducing the child to the acqusition of written signs, until he has been some time in school. The method which nature suggests, is to follow out the line of education which the child has instinctively pursued before entering school. He has been exercising his perceptive faculties on the various objects which surround him; he has been examining their properties and qualities, and acquiring a marvelously large stock of ideas, and of language in which to give expression to them. By means of oral lessons the teacher can take him up at the exact point at which he has arrived at the time when