seen the evidence of industry-yes, of eagle-eyed research. Every answer to the appended questions is distinguished by pencil marks. It begins here and ends. there. The pupil wonders that the author should interpose so much useless matter between them—and, perhaps, sometimes with good reason. The answer thus designated is faithfully transferred from the pages of the book to the tablets of the memory, and intimately associated with the question, and with nothing else. Propose the question. The answer comes with promptness and verbal accuracy. There has been labor enough on the part both of the teacher and pupil, but the labor again has been bestowed on the book, and not on the subject of which the book professes to treat. Each fact in the mind of the learner is an independent unrelated fact. I might give further illustrations from arithmetic, rhetoric, history, and other branches. But enough already to make the error intelligible. This done, it is more important to seek for remedies, than to delay longer on this point. Pupils thus taught may be very prompt at recitations, and at public examinations, provided you do not go beyond the record. They may please a company of spectators, and gain a flattering paragraph in the next day's gazette. Such knowledge is not wisdom, and when the pupil goes out into the world, and has to deal practically with the subjects about which he has learned so much, he experiences embarrassment and mortification that he knows so little which he can use for practical purposes. He is deficient in principles to which he can refer facts as they arise in his experience, and destitute of knowledge which he can call to his service as occasion demands. * Books are, indeed, essential. Yet not the book, but the subject of it, is what we must see to it our pupil understands. We want mind trained so that it can modestly know and measure its own power, and trust to it,— trained to command its own resources. We want ideas, like troops, drilled, marshalled, and well officered, ready to do battle,-infantry, cavalry, artillery, all in place,-not scattered, like an Indian fight. To this end, knowledge must he familiar, and philosophically arranged—that is, in strict accordance with the natural tendencies and ope-rations of the human mind. The book is but the road to conduct the traveller to some destined place, and is valuable chiefly as a means to that end. A treatise of astronomy is a book. The things to be known, are in the heavens, the sun, and the moon, and the stars, as they were hung there on the morning of the universeand the laws which God has ordained for them. A mind familiar only with the statement of facts and laws as formed in books, and a mind which, with equal familiarity with facts, has added patient reflection, careful comparison, and a judicious classification, differ from each other scarcely less than a highly-finished artificial tree differs from one endowed with vital energy. The one may be beautiful possibly to look upon, but transient, barren, useless; the other pleases the eye as much, is susceptible of constant growth, and is prolific. It draws materials from earth and air, elaborates them, appropriates them to its own use, and yields its full harvest of generous fruits for the good of man. To guard against this capital error, and to secure sound knowledge and practical wisdom, I apprehend, we must go back first to the very beginning of instruction.. The very first lessons which the child has been usually required to learn, interfere with the course, which, up to that time, nature herself has been taking, and limits the attention of the learner to unmeaning characters in a book. Long, hard labor is performed. The end of it all is, that the child has learned, in a certain order, the absolutely insignificant names of the twenty-six letters of the alphabet. Even the names are oftentimes mere sounds, and not in the mind of the little learner the names of certain characters. I once examined a good little fellow, who had been schooled for months on his a-b—c, till he was perfectly familiar with all the names, in a certain order, while there was positively but one letter of them all which he knew by its form. Begin any where, and point, and he would begin and say a-b-c, till he came to-w, the only one he knew. I pointed him to z at the bottom of the alphabetical column. He said, a-b-c; then, coming in sight of his one familiar object, in the midst of an unknown sea, the chain of associated sounds was broken. He spoke affectionately to his old friend, and called him by his proper name—w. I pointed onwards to the letters above, and he continued his own succession-x-y-z-and as I still pointed on, he looked up with amazement to find himself ashore— with no land in sight. Here the child gets his first notions of the object of a book. When he gets through his freshman year, and becomes sophomore in the grave matter of abs, the same principle of teaching nothing is faithfully carried out, confirming the first impression, that the book is never to lead to any thing beyond itself. Is it strange that books become loathsome objects to the pupil? Stranger still, if they do not. At the very outset, we have been accustomed to take the most effectual means to form a habit in the learner of studying the book-it may be well-but, alas, nothing but the book. We have led our pupil through a strait and thorny road, "to a hill-side laborious, indeed, in its first ascent." Would that we could add, "but else so smooth, so green, so full of goodly prospects, that the harp of Orpheus were not more charming." In this matter, teachers themselves have been the dullest learners. The great wonder is, that we have been so slow to follow the better process, which nature herself indicates. The full grown Adam used names,—the entire names of things, before he knew, if he ever knew, his a-b-c. His youthful descendants, who have written, as well as spoken language, may safely imitate their great progenitor, and learn the written names of animals and other familiar objects, and in due time analyze the words into elementary sounds, and learn the forms and names of the characters employed to represent them. We seem to have shunned this method with as much care, as if to follow it would be a repetition of Adam's original sin. The Germans-pioneers in every department of the teacher's art-have ventured on the trial with success, and we begin to follow them. To those who would adopt improved methods in their first teachings, various numbers of the Common School Journal, and an article in the recent work entitled, "The School and the School Master," a book replete with practical wisdom, will furnish important aid, both in -suggestions, and in references to elementary books. If we begin right, and make words and language from the outset a vehicle of intelligent thought,-even every word the sign of its appropriate idea, the sequel will be attended with much less difficulty than at present. On this point it is encouraging to know, that good beginnings have been made by many of our teachers. Their suc cess must secure followers. It is so very convenient to refer to the letters by their names, that many teachers, who adopt these views substantially, prefer beginning with the names. This may be done in various ways, in a hundredth part of the time usually spent in doing it. Any child of ordinary capacity, will learn the form and name of every letter as an amusement before entering school, if he is furnished at home with a set of cards or blocks on which the letters are printed. Whatever may be done with their names, their powers must be learned, before children can pronounce correctly by the aid of letters. We pronounce a word by the names of the letters, when we spell it orally, letter by letter. What clue, for instance do-teeai-kay-ee give a child of the word take ? The names of the letters might as well be something else, and in many other languages they are something else. Tau-alpha-kappa-eta, are just as good a guide to— take, as tee-ai-kay-ee. Another general direction I would give is, endeavor to lead the pupil through such processes, that he will arrange knowledge for himself, and arrive at general principles. After you know that he understands any general principle, be careful to see that he refers to the principle all new acquisitions which come under it. The principle may be compared to a suspended chain,-every new fact under that principle may be hung on some link yet unoccupied in the chain. It is not enough for the |