fectually contribute to the happiness of men, than in aiding them to enter into possession of the faculties they have received for procuring it? In providing, as you do, for the first wants of the mind and heart, for the most essential wants of the creature endowed with intelligence and sensibility, are you not the messengers of reason and virtue to your fellow beings?

The duration of the good which you may effect, is increased in proportion to the early period of life in which you act. You sow your seed in a virgin soil. You lay the foundation of the edifice. Rearing childhood from the cradle, in its innocence and simplicity, it is your duty to introduce it into the paths of knowledge and goodness. By the aid of what you bestow, it may acquire all other blessings.

Your services have also an extensive influence. They immediately affect a great number of families. Thousands of individuals may in turn acknowledge you for their guides, either from your instructions, or those of your pupils. Indirectly, you constantly influence the families of your pupils. What a precious gift do you bestow, when you restore to a family a child capable of improving itself eternally! The whole family is often improved by the new ideas and example. Indirectly, also, you must influence the whole place you inhabit the whole society of which you are a member. Industry, good manners, general well-being, peace, and public order, are the slow, but certain fruits, of a good direction given to the primary education of children. Yes; society expects from you these elements of its prosperity,-these securities for its future welfare.

How great, then, is the sacredness of your mission! You are called on to contribute to the progress of civilization itself! The improvement of the condition of the mass of society, in knowledge and morality, is now, more than ever before, felt to be essential to the security and development of our institutions. Nations which aspire to liberty, can only render themselves capable of attaining, or worthy of enjoying it, by means of the virtue and knowledge which are the consequences of such offices as yours.

In the fourth place, the consideration of the legitimate character of your office leads us to inquire, who are the immediate objects of your services? And are there any members of the great community of men, who inspire a more tender interest than the feeble, inexperienced beings who stand on the threshold of life, surrounded by dangers, from which they can only be preserved by the development of something within, which must, however, be called forth from without? And when you look at the least favored classes of society, how must your interest and your zeal proportionally increase? Children, who are destined to a life of privation and fatigue, need a provision of strength and patience proportionally more abundant. The more painful their condition promises to be, the more interesting also it will be to you to alleviate it, beforehand, by timely aid; to teach them to do more and better, with less effort, and by making them virtuous, to arm them with true energy of character. The less time

they have to devote to liberal education, the more important you will feel it that they should improve the rapid moments. The more they have been neglected, and the less they have been guided by good counsel and example, the more necessary will be your assistance. Perhaps they are poor and destitute: then there is offered you a nobler privilege still,-a higher mission,-the career which is twice blessed." In procuring for these children the means of overcoming the difficulties of their condition, you strike at the root of their misfortune. You do more than console them; you arm them with courage against misfortune, the power to create resources for themselves. And this leads me to another mode of estimating your office. It demands of you sacrifices; but in proportion to their extent, your services increase in interest and honor. Nothing less is demanded of you, it is true, than your whole existence. You no longer belong to yourselves, but to others. Your whole life may be, and ought to be, devoted to them. Not only your time, but your liberty, and the combined action of all your faculties. But is it not a blessing to you, as men, that the honor of your vocation in life is proportioned to the call it makes on you for magnanimity, well disciplined character, and intelligence? One of the most difficult of qualifications is demanded of you that of untiring patience. Surrounded by ignorant and perhaps undisciplined children, you will be obliged to descend to them, and to make yourselves, in some sort, children with them. You will meet with 'continual obstacles and difficulties, over which you can only triumph by calm perseverance; and these obstacles will sometimes be occasioned by the prejudices, vicious habits, and grossness of the parents themselves. Opposed and disgusted by them, often without the support or guidance of a wise adviser and friend, all your resources must be found within yourselves. But besides this patience and internal resource, it will be necessary for you to unite to solid information, that talent for teaching which is much more rare, and more difficult of acquirement. You are also expected to possess, not only a wise, firm, indulgent character, and a life free from reproach, but an ascendancy over the characters of others, and the power of directing and mastering them; with the ability to form their habits, and penetrate their souls with your influence.

I must confess, that in return for all which is required of you, too little external compensation is at present offered you. All the friends of the great and noble work of elementary education, mourn over the insufficiency and uncertainty of the compensation that is allotted to you. They unceasingly try all possible measures to procure you a more just remuneration, and they do hope to see your labors better rewarded. But, shall I say it? (the good men who hear me will comprehend my meaning;) if the recompense does not correspond to the utility of your services, that very circumstance enhances the real dignity of your office. The less it is rewarded, the more disinterestedness it supposes on the part of those who fulfil its duties. Is it by the fees paid that we estimate the true value of services rendered to our fellow men? On the contrary, gratuitous services have

ever been considered the most honorable; and a duty that is ill recompensed, approaches a gratuitous service. Society is indebted to you. It owes you esteem, and it will ultimately pay it; and the thoughts of its most valued members will follow you in the modest asylum, which will soon witness your devotedness to the good work, amid those arduous labors of which the world is ignorant.

But what more certain testimony of general esteem could you receive, than the confidence that is felt in you? for confidence, you are aware, cannot be founded upon anything but esteem. In your hands are deposited the objects of the most tender affection. You are associated in all the dearest interest and solicitude of parents. It is confided to you to preserve and prepare the happiness and future welfare of families. To you is granted an almost boundless power; everything is confided to you, without any other guarantee than your character and your conduct. At some future day, we hope to see these little children, who are the objects of your care, add to this sentiment another, not less honorable to you,-the sentiment of gratitude. After having been introduced by you to the light of reason,— after having been sustained by your first lessons of wisdom, your pupils will feel their obligation to you in proportion to the value of the instruction. They will feel it more every day after they have left you, by applying your instructions, and finding how useful they are to them in the duties of life. When arrived at the age at which they establish themselves in life, they will meet you, and come to see you. They will always receive you joyfully, eagerly press around you, and seek in you a friend and guide, and recur ever to your counsels. The number of those who are thus to be indebted to you, increases every year. From all sides you will receive this voluntary tribute of affection; and when you shall have grown old in your labors, you will be surrounded with many generations of those to whom you have done good. My dear hearers, how noble and rare is this prerogative which is reserved for you, of deserving and obtaining the gratitude of your fellow men! This homage is far superior to the vain applauses bestowed upon power or success; it is much more valuable than the brilliant glory of renown.

Let me remark upon another rare advantage of your position. It affords you a constant opportunity of perfecting yourselves; and it furnishes you with motives and means to do so. It calls upon you to exercise your faculties in the most active and continuous manner. You will be obliged to study incessantly. You will have subjects of observation as interesting as numerous. You will learn as you teach. You will become better, while seeking to direct your pupils, and to make them good. You will constantly acquire new strength in the persevering and courageous fulfilment of your difficult duties. This high and just esteem, which I am happy to express here in your presence, for the functions you are about to fulfil, has often been expressed before, and in different ways, by a great number of estimable men, at the head of whom we are happy to find the most enlightened philanthropists. Some have labored for you, by seeking

to perfect the methods of instruction which you employ. Some have produced an amelioration of your condition, and taken the necessary measures for the security of your future welfare. Some have used their efforts to increase the number of schools, or have founded them at their own expense. Some, penetrated with the true spirit of religion, have invoked its support in your favor; some have given you wise counsels; some have recommended, directed and formed seminaries for instructors; some have wished to associate themselves with you in your labors; and all, in these different undertakings, have shown, that in their eyes your ministry is one of the most powerful means of doing good. In Germany, we have seen the respectable prebendary of Rochow, and the Count of Bucquoy, endowing Saxony and Bohemia with generous institutions for primary education. The illustrious Campe labored at the same time for instructors and for children. Zerrenner, Wilmser, and many of their countrymen, have published treatises and manuals for the masters of elementary schools. The venerable curate Demeter is creating a method of instruction, and giving rules for discipline. And the zealous Dinter, an instructor himself, has become a guide for his fellow laborers, by his plan of improvements in country schools. In England, Drs. Bell and Lancaster have rivalled each other in zeal to simplify instruction, and extend its salutary influences. In Switzerland, the excellent Pestalozzi devoted his whole life to the noble object of ameliorating education in all classes, from the first lessons of the mother, to those which introduce the pupil to the sciences; and devoting himself to the development of the intellect by the exercise of teaching. Fellenberg, that distinguished friend of humanity, has erected, amidst the vast establishments of Hofwyl, a Normal School for primary instructors, and an Agricultural School for the children of the country, to which he gives the most salutary moral direction. In France, since the end of the eighteenth century, the respectable prebendary of Laselle erected a special institute for the direction of primary schools, and created the simultaneous method of instruction, and for twenty years struggled against every difficulty and obstacle, that the holy cause of elementary education might triumph. In our days, we have had the good Abbé Gaultier, who, spending his life in the midst of children, breathing only for them, and teaching without relaxation, is also the friend of all instructors, enlightening them. by his advice, and encouraging them by his benevolence. And our dear and venerated Liancourt, whose great soul, embracing in its solicitude all the interests of humanity, the wants of the poor, the sufferings of the sick, the relief of the imprisoned, the propagation of inoculation, the development of mechanical education, founded, at his own expense, schools worthy of serving as models,-and was always found first wherever the progress of these institutions could be advanced. The most eminent men in science and public stations, have, by their writings or efforts, prepared and seconded this same progress. How numerous, too, are the associations of the friends of humanity, who, in Holland, England, Scotland and Ireland, in all 12

VOL. III.NO. III.

the cantons of Switzerland, at Florence, and in the United States of America, which have been formed to aid in the diffusion of knowledge, by seeking for improvements, visiting your schools, applauding your success, and rewarding your efforts.

What a testimony to the importance of your office, is the co-operation of such men, my hearers! In the exercise of your duty, you are surrounded, as it were, like the first preachers of Christianity, with a cloud of witnesses," who render you present assistance, and call on you, more eloquently than I can do, to fulfil your duties worthily. But this opens a new subject, of which you have already the presentiment. In our next lecture, we shall consider the dispositions essential to the primary instructor, and all the responsibilities attendant upon his office, at once the source and the emanation of his dignity.

ART. V. PRACTICAL LESSONS ON READING.

Method of Teaching Children to Read and Spell.

BY J. L. PARKHURST.

(Continued from No. 1.)

[We regret that the pressure of other articles has obliged us to defer this article; and still compels us to leave it unfinished.]

IN teaching him to spell, I have, for two or three days, spread before him twenty-one small letters, and eight or nine capitals. He is beginning to spell sentences. I consider it of some importance, that he should have the letters placed before him in the proper position, and in alphabetical order. Aug. 14.-Having placed the lettert undern, I have taught H. the combination ot; not, however, without some difficulty. He has also, this morning, made several unaccountable mistakes, in repeating his exercise with the tickets. When I showed him op, he said ol, and then on, before calling it right; and when I showed him on, he hesitated, and called it wrong once or twice. He remembers perfectly the seven words that he learned yesterday. I find it much more difficult for him to remember unmeaning syllables of two letters, than it is significant words of three or four letters. I wish to carry the experiment farther, before I form my opinion; but I am at present strongly inclined to believe, that it would be better, at first, entirely to omit the duo-literal combinations. Let the child first spend one month, and perhaps six months, in learning significant words and sentences; then let him go through a thorough course with the 'ticket system'; and, after all that, let him learn the names of the letters. H. has to-day learned, in Less. 6, the sentence, "He walks with his feet, and works with his hands,”-containing five new words. In teaching him to spell, when he hesitates, I let him look at the word in the book, to see what selection and arrangement of letters to make. This serves to impress the forms of the letters more distinctly and deeply on his mind. Aug. 15.-H. has learned at, and has made, I believe, only a single error in reading with his tickets,-calling op ol, but correcting himself. In showing him, in Lessons 6 and 7, such words as he has learned, he has