that should be presented to the eye; and in these lessons children should remain until the eye is as familiar with them as the ear, or in other words until they can read them with ease. The best lessons we know for this purpose are those published in the First Book of the Sunday School Union.

The next step is to extend a child's acquaintance with language, and hence lessons gradually introducing words used in every day life, but not common to childhood should be presented taking care that the increasing difficulty is in the phraseology and not in the matter of the lessons.

Another stage would require the introduction of difficult matter and as a consequence an increase in the amount of difficult language.

The principle then on which the graduation of the reading lesson should be conducted is that of presenting first to the eye, the words with which the car is already familiar; secondly, the further addition of words, whose meaning may be readily conveyed to the mind, and whose form and sound may be easily made familiar to the eye and

ear;

and thirdly, the introduction of such difficulties in matter and language as will require a vigorous analysis on the part of the teacher, with considerble mental effort on the part of the children.

The great difficulty in the graduation of the reading lesson is the want of suitable books. Those best adapted to our purpose are the books published by the Irish Educational Board; or those by Mc'Culloch.

The processes through which a reading lesson should pass, depend on the stage of the children.

In the earlier stages, the lesson should be printed or written on the slates; it should then be read, word by word, clause by clause, sentence by sentence, by the children individually, the teacher shewing them how, but throwing as much upon them as possible. It should then be read simultaneously for the purpose of emphasis

and expression. During the lesson the interest of the children should be excited, by getting them to talk of the things of which they are reading, or of the meaning of the words. After it is read, it should be spelt and then written or printed on the slate from dictation.

In the later stages, the reading lesson should be read individually in the drafts, that the children may be better prepared for any assistance to be received from the teacher. After the individual reading in the draft, with mutual correction under the supervision of a monitor, the meaning and derivation of words should be given to a class of two drafts, by an apprentice. After which the different classes forming a section should pass to the gallery for examination, analysis, and supplementary instruction by the teacher, to be followed by simultaneous and individual reading; the teacher should give the example in tone, emphasis, and expression, and finally the lesson should be reproduced, either as an abstract or by dictation, to ascertain whether the eye has been properly employed during the previous processes. QUESTION II.

Grammar should be taught so as to make children acquainted with language as the vehicle of thought. Hence attention should be directed in the first lesson to simple sentences and not as is usually the case to classes of words. The relation which the words in the sentences sustain to the things they represent, and to each other, so as to express thought, should be pointed out. Afterwards the simple sentence should be gradually increased, by the addition of qualifying words and clauses to the subject and predicate; and this process should be continued until by a carefully graduated series of lessons the child is made acquainted with the different classes of words used, their definite office, the modifications to which they are subject, and the various modes in which they may be arranged.

In thus teaching Grammar it is necessary to observe that no word

should be introduced into a sentence until the mind is ready for the idea it conveys, and no modification or inflection of a word should be allowed to be made until the difficulty of giving the precise meaning without it is felt.

Grammar and Composition should be taught together. Let half an hour daily be devoted to them; on one day there should be oral instruction, and on the next the formation of sentences on the model of the previous day. For instance if on Monday the oral instruction had been to show how the subject might be extended by means of an adjective (as a ripe apple falls,") on Tuesday the children should be required to form on their slates a number of sentences illustrating the same case.

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Dictation lessons should make a a child familiar with the structure of words and with the peculiar difficulties of the language, and this may be best done by a graduated series of lessons.

1. Words of like endings as bid, did, hid, kid, lid; bend, lend, mend, send.

2. Words with silent letters, knee, dumb.

should be spelt as it has been written, and if a boy finds that he and his neighbour do not agree, let him hold out his hand, and then be required to spell as he has written it; the two ways of spelling the word should then be put down on the black-board, and the sense of the class taken as to which is right, after which all the class should write the word in its correct form. At the end of the sentence, the slates should be inspected, and if any child's slate now contain mistakes, he should be required to produce them three or six times correctly. Thus proceed to the end of the lesson or till the time allotted to it has expired.

4. Primitives and Derivatives as shade, shadow; fiercely, fierceness; care, careful, careless.

5. Words nearly alike in sound but different in meaning; as device, devise. 6. Peculiar difficulties, as- 66 Eight heifers and ewe sheep were chewing the cud beneath the tough boughs of an ancient yew tree in that beautiful field."

Teaching should be made Collective during oral instruction by the practice of mutual correction combined with vigorous interrogation; and during the written exercises by a constant oversight and thorough revision. The certainty of such revision will do much to secure that diligent application without which the most skilful teaching is inefficient. To the correction of dictation exercises especial attention must be given. This correction should appeal to the eye not to the ear; hence after a sentence is dictated, each word

those assigned to geometry in a high state of education; it is the Euclid of elementary schools," Hence it should be so taught as to furnish material for the cultivation of the reasoning powers. Its great object is the discipline of the mind; and for this it furnishes great facilities as its principles are capable of easy demonstration and ready application.

To attain these objects a dogmatic style of teaching must be avoided, the reason of every process must be made apparent, the principles must be demonstrated, and examples of their application in household economy constantly given. A great defect in the ordinary examples is their being connected with subjects of which the majority of children have no ready conception. To remedy this the teacher should form examples having special reference to the circumstances of his children's parents, and to the particular modes of business pursued in his locality.

Oral teaching combining demonstration of principles and dictation of exercises, individual application to written or printed examples, and constant advancement of the proficient, are the things essential to success.

They can be secured only by an organization based on ability in Arithmetic. The practice of teaching Arithmetic in the reading section is as false in principle as it is fatal to success. "It often happens that the same child will make very different progress in different branches, many a boy will shoot a head of his class-fellows in reading and yet fall short in the reading section of them in arithmetic,' and vice versa.

In organizing for Arithmetic the classification is a matter of considerable moment, as in the best formed classes, if there be periodical examination and removal, there must be some who are either below the average of the class, or are ignorant of the principles taught in it. Now, it would be an absolute waste of time to teach the informed and the uninformed together; hence they should be placed in drafts according to the attainments. In each classes two or more principles should be taught. Those that have mastered the first principle should be placed in the higher draft, and should be seated in the desk silently working examples from cards, while the new comers and the rest in the remaining draft should be taken round a black board for instruction, in the first principle taught in the class. On another day the lowest draft should be left in the desk for silent working, and the higher one taken out for instruction in the other principle. Such a classification and method by adapting the instruction to the state of the children, tend to ensure its collectiveness.

QUESTION IV.

These have relation to the children, the teacher and method.

1. With respect to the children. Their position requires attention for the purpose of inducing a love of neatness and order. If seated at desks in

parallel rows each child should be immediately behind his neighbour; if standing at drafts the boys on the sides of the semicircle should be equal in numbers and exactly opposite. The posture of the children should be erect for the sake of health, neither leaning nor lounging should be permitted. All talking should be prohibited. Employment should be secured for all. The slightest deviation from what is required with the least wandering of the attention should be checked at first. 2. With respect to the teacher.

His eye should take in all; every child should feel how utterly impossible it is to escape its notice; his voice should be no louder than is necessary for the class to hear,-noise creates noise; his manner should be firm, conveying the impression that it is quite hopeless to attempt to do wrong with impunity.

3. With respect to method.

The interrogation should be rapid, not addressed to the children in turn, but irregularly, so that each child may feel the importance of being attentive. It should be at once addressed wherever there is a vacant look, a wandering eye, or any other symptom of inattention.

The answering should be individual, and if not immediate, or if wrong, others should indicate their ability to answer by putting out their hands. The teacher should never correct an answer himself so long as he can procure it from the class.

G.