Sidebilder
PDF
ePub

marriages have been either proposed or made between the Royal Families of England and Scotland? Give dates.

2. With what feeling was the Act of Union (1707) regarded at the time in Scotland? Mention some of its principal provisions, and shew how it has contributed to the welfare and stability of both England and Scotland.

SECT. III.-1. Write a short account of Richard III.

2. Mention, with dates, the most important events which took place during the reigns of the Plantagenet kings.

3. Compare the end of the Plantagenet with that of the Tudor line of kings, and show how far each was owing to the character and conduct of the reigning sovereign.

SECT. IV.-1. What colonies were lost to Great Britain, and what possessions gained by her in the reign of George III.?

2. When, and under what circumstances, did the Cape of Good Hope become an English colony?

3. What are the chief objects in forming colonies? Show that these have been attained by Great Britain both in the Old and New World.

SECT. V.-1. State what you have read about Demosthenes or Plato, Virgil or Horace.

2. Describe, with dates, the civil war of Cæsar and Pompey.

3. Mention the Roman emperors of the Flavian family, and write a short account of Titus.

GEOGRAPHY AND POPULAR ASTRONOMY.

SECT. I.-1. Enumerate the headlands, rivers, and seaport towns, passed in a voyage from Kirkwall to Newcastle; illustrating the answer, if you can, by a chart.

2. Shew by a map the course of the river Shannon; mention its tributaries, and state what are the physical features of that part of Ireland through which it flows.

SECT. II.-1. Draw a map of England, shewing where battles were fought in the time of the Great Rebellion.

2. What are the chief manufacturing towns in Europe? Do they furnish products which compete with English manufactures? If they do, state what they are.

3. Give an account of Australasia: What are the peculiarities of its floods? What kind of climate does it enjoy? What do we know of its geological features?

SECT. III.-1. Describe geographically the several kingdoms comprised in the Austrian empire, stating fully the sources of its mineral wealth, the condition of its agriculture and manufactures.

2. Shew by a map the position of the Tigris, Euphrates, Orontes, and Jordan, with the sites of Nineveh, Babylon, Baalbec, Damascus, and Antioch.

3. Mention all those parts of the known world in which coal-fields and iron are found.

SECT. IV-1. State fully, and explain if you can by a chart, the great eastern passage from Europe to China for ships touching at the Cape late in the season. Show how the course is determined by prevalent winds and currents.

2. Draw a map of North America, shewing its river and lake system.

3. Explain the formation of dew, hoar-frost, and fog. How do you account for the stationary fog on the coast of Newfoundland? Why is cloudy and windy weather unfavorable to the formation of dew? When dew is formed, is it formed on all substances alike?

SECT. V.-1. What is the reason why a comparatively small quantity of snow falls on the high planes of the Himalaya and Andes?

2. Shew by a map the position of the chief groups of volcanic islands existing in the Pacific. Mention any theories which have been proposed to account for volcanic phenomena.

3. What are supposed to be the native countries of wheat and oats? Between what latitudes may barley, oats, and wheat be cultivated in Europe and America? What mean winter and summer temperature do they require ?

No. 17.

PAPERS FOR THE SCHOOLMASTER.

JULY 1, 1851.

Education; its Third Period.

As school-life advances, its claims if possible become more urgent; at any rate the period from seven to ten now coming under review,` has peculiar claims on the regards of the Educator. It is the period when in the majority of instances school-life terminates.

It is a melancholy consideration that as Educational processes improve, the time for their employment becomes more limited. The testimony of the Inspectors to the short time that the children of the poor are kept at school, the fluctuating character of their attendance while there, and that this short time is becoming shorter must have forced itself on the attention of all readers of their Reports. The Rev. F. Watkins says, "I find from the summary for my district, that above 79 per cent. of all the children under education in it, at Church Schools, are of and under the age of ten years." Again he says, "It has been my duty in every Report to notice the tender age of the children in Elementary Schools, the gradual lowering of that age in the great majority of places, and the contemporaneous shortening of the school-time of the children."

In such an unfortunate state of things much cannot be accomplished only by earnest, intelligent, devoted and Christian menmen who in a sense take their lives in their hands. It is desirable that every child should leave school with the ability to read with intelligence, to compose and write neatly with correct spelling, and to perform ordinary business Arithmetic. To which we might

add, a knowledge of our country and of the relations it sustains with other parts of the globe, and this, without mentioning religious knowledge, is to be crammed into the short space of two or three years.

It is desirable also to remember that during this period is laid the foundation of the child's future social position, and of his usefulness to the community of which he will form a member. The entire colouring of his future life for weal or woe, will be taken from its present aspect. What he is formed now, he will likely remain to the end of his days. We have in our school experience invariably found, that the habits formed now cling to the individual and mould his destiny. These and many other considerations which might be urged, claim for this period the earnest labours of the Educator.

The points requiring attention have relation to intellectual culture, efficient instruction, and the formation of industrial habits.

The intellectual culture of the period should have, in accordance with the principle on which we have hitherto proceeded, special relation to the state of mental developement. But as the life of a child advances it becomes increasingly difficult to mark the exact order of developement, and what adds to the difficulty is, that while some of the faculties are developed spontaneously, others require more or less of special culture. Amongst the former, in addition to Perception and Conception, may be placed Curiosity, the Power of observing resemblances, and the formation of Hypotheses; amongst the latter to a certain extent Memory and Judgment. This difficulty, however, is of little moment, so long as we keep from the region of Abstraction, and confine ourselves to the sphere of our observation, in which we shall find sufficient aliment for their sustenance in vigour and activity, of every power of the child's mind.

As a child's connection with the external world enlarges, and its experience grows, it spontaneously exhibits the power of tracing resemblances in objects apparently dissimilar. A thrill of delight, sudden and exquisite, is the consequence of some such discovery.

Nothing can be less like than the working of a vast steam engine and the crawling of a fly upon the window; yet we find that these two operations are performed by the same means the weight of the atmosphere; and that a sea-horse climbs the ice-hills by no other power. Can anything be more strange to comtemplate? Is there, in all the fairy-tales that ever were fancied, any thing more caloulated to arrest the attention, and to occupy and gratify the mind,

than this most unexpected resemblance between things so unlike to the eyes of ordinary beholders?" At a somewhat later period the child begins to notice the differences in objects apparently similar, and at length it proceeds to classify and generalize, and to form hypotheses or guesses as to the causes of the facts it has discovered.

With these characteristics of the period before us we shall not be at a loss whence to draw suitable aliment. The works of God around us appear as if they had been specially constructed for this purpose. Every department of Natural History, and of Physical Science, presents us with instances of resemblance in objects very dissimilar, and of differences, where at first sight, we should suppose none to exist. Sufficient has been said to indicate the process that is to be employed. Facts for investigation, in order to the discovery of resemblances, are to be collected-implying the culture of the eye, the ear, and the hand. Curiosity is to be stimulated in order to lead to the formation of a rational hypothesis, and then from comparison, experiment and analogy, the judgment is to determine the result at which you aim. The whole forming an inductive process as valuable in its effects on the Mental powers, as it is pleasant in its progress. "In lessons such as these" remarks-Mr. Fletcher, "Observation and experiment would be led by hypothesis, and even when it is impossible to submit the object or circumstances to the outward senses of the children, but necessary only to tell them the result of the observations and experiments of others, this will never be digested and assimilated unless hypothesis have given a zest for it. Unless the mind have been brought to ask a question, the answer will not be properly stored in its recesses."

Before passing away from the direct intellectual culture necessary to this period we would urge a proper cultivation of the Memory. There appears recently as great a tendency to neglect its culture, as there was formerly to unduly cultivate it. This is a great mistake. "The training and exercise of the memory" says Isaac Taylor, "should be a principal business of education. There is however nothing which more enfeebles the reasoning powers, and checks the imagination, than an excessive or exclusive exercise of the memory." The memory must be cultivated. Not by committing to its care long lists of hard words or geographical and scientific terms, but by making it the recorder and retainer, in appropriate language, of the ideas

or facts obtained, either by means of observation, or by an Inductive

process.

Valuable and essential as are direct efforts towards intellectual culture, yet it is still more important at this period that attention be given to the means of efficient instruction. For apart from the fact that such instruction may form, as it undoubtedly should, an efficient instrument in Mental cultivation, it is to be remembered, that the things in which instruction is given, Reading, Writing and Arithmetic, form nearly the only means by which the poor can prosecute that intellectual culture which the Educator has begun.

To the processes of instruction and to their vigorous appliance, it is expected that the Educator in this period directs his chief attention. The results at which he should aim are thoroughness, accuracy, neatness, acuteness and intelligence. In every exercise he should secure an intelligent action of the mind; as nothing is more to be dreaded, than an unintelligent, mechanical mode of dealing with the ordinary topics of school-life. The most strenuous efforts of mind should be required on every subject; if not, a habit of mind will be fostered which will fit them for nothing more than mere mechanical drudgery as they grow up; and few conditions of operative labour are so slightly remunerative, or so little desirable as those, where there is mechanical exertion without intellectual activity-where man is no more than a machine.

But a great purpose of school education and instruction will be thwarted, if great care is not taken to form them in industrial habits. To so form them will not be difficult, as this period is characterized by incessant activity. Hands, feet, eyes, tongue are in constant employment. The child has learnt to feel the irksomeness of unemployed time, and has made the discovery that employment causes it to pass more swiftly; hence it seeks something to do. If this activity be not usefully directed, it will expend itself, it may be, in what indiscriminating people call mischief.

Children should be urged to industry by motives drawn from the gratification resulting from employment and progress, from the influence which their present diligence will have in fitting them for honourable and profitable pursuits, and from the consideration that they are thus best prepared for usefulness to those around them.

The habits which it is desirable that a child should acquire at

« ForrigeFortsett »