Lessons simply as designed to give culture to the perceptive powers; but this is a very narrow view of the subject. As the perceptive powers are more active in youth than any others of our mental faculties, they are more capable of receiving culture, and Object Lessons are peculiarly adapted to impart it; but it should not be imparted to them to the neglect of any other faculty of the mind. The matter of an Object Lesson, in addition to what it contains that can be known by the senses, may present something to be retained in the memory, something to excite the imagination, something to start a train of reasoning, or something to call into play one of those ideas of the reason which, whether consciously or unconsciously, condition all our thinking. Take, for example, such a simple object as a piece of bread. The teacher may call the attention of his class to the sowing of the seed, the gathering of the harvest, the threshing of the grain, the grinding of the flour, the baking of the bread-all of which furnish exercise to the perceptive powers and the memory. The imagination is exercised as well in conceiving the ripening wheat, harvest-time, the threshers at their work, the mill, the bakery. very little child can answer such questions as-Why is the ground ploughed and harrowed when it is desired to sow it with wheat? Why is the ripe wheat gathered and put in barns? Why is it hreshed out and taken to mills?-and thus learn to ase his judgment or learn to think. So, too, it would be proper in giving such a lesson, for the teacher to say that God gave us the grains of wheat; He causes it to grow; He ripens it and makes it fit for food;

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and IIe is good. Such instruction will find a lodge. ment in children's minds, because it is adapted to their mental nature, thus showing that the noblest faculty of our minds, the reason, is active in early youth.

The matter of Object Lessons must be adapted to increase the pupil's facility in the use of language. Thoughts are helpless without words. But words are best learned in connection with things. With fit opportunity, it is surprising how rapidly a child becomes acquainted with language, but the ordinary instruction of our primary schools does not furnish this opportunity. If the system of object teaching is not diverted from its true function, it will give prominence to linguistic culture. According to this system, the names of things, and the names of qualities of things are constantly pressed upon the attention of the pupils. They are taught, not only to make observations, but to tell what they know, to repeat what they have learned; and every lesson acquaints them with new words. A constant succession of interesting objects is made to pass before them, and they are taught to give them names. An Object Lesson is, in part, an exhibition of objects, and, in part, an application of words, and the two processes should be inseparable.

The matter of Object Lessons must be adapted to communicate the elementary facts which constitute the foundation of knowledge. It was previously shown that all the sciences took their rise from the common experience of men. A child can be made to experience by design what men at first experienced incidentally or by accident, and this is one of

the principal ends proposed by the object system of teaching. A child can be made acquainted with an immense number of facts, which are not only valua ble in themselves, but form the basis of further knowledge. Almost every common object may be made the subject of interesting lessons. Many of the objects technically belonging to the various branches of Natural History, many of the simpler phenomena of experimental science, certain national peculiarities of customs and manners, and large numbers of historical incidents, when properly presented to children, are well calculated to instruct and delight them. The experience of children can thus be made broader, and a great number of valuable facts and useful words be stored away in the memory.

The matter of Object Lessons must be adapted to expand the elementary ideas which furnish the conditions and measure of our knowing. That there are such ideas has been already shown, and no student of the human mind can doubt it. No exhaustive enumeration of them will be attempted here, as this is properly the work of the mental philosopher. It may be said, however, that they can be divided into two great classes: Empirical ideas, or those which are derived from experience, and are limited by it; and Rational ideas, or those of which experience is simply the occasion, and which transcend experience. These form respectively the bases of the Empirical and the Rational sciences. Among the ideas which I would denominate empi rical, are those of form, number, relation, size, weight, color, consistency, locality, &c, which relate to material

things; and those of duty, right, truth, beauty, good ness, &c., which are moral qualities. Among the ideas which I would call rational ideas, are those of space, time, order or harmony, identity and difference, the infinite, the absolute, the true, the beautiful, and the good. Chronologically the former class of ideas precede the latter in consciousness, but logically they are evolved from them. For example, a child realizes the idea of form before the idea of space, but the idea of space contains all possible forms.. So the idea of number is involved in the idea of time, the idea of relation in the idea of order or harmony, the ideas of particular truth, beauty, or goodness in the all-comprehending ideas of the true, the beautiful, and the good; but in all these cases, and in all others, the mind passes from that which can be presented in a concrete form to that which can only be conceived abstractly. Hence lessons in form, number, relation, &c., are valuable in themselves, and more valuable for furnishing the occasions of the realization in consciousness of the allcomprehending ideas which involve them.

If the ideas now designated do furnish the conditions and measure of our knowing (and no thinking man can doubt it), it should be one of the principal aims of those who instruct the young, to expand them, or to increase the knowledge which is based upon them. Their ideas of form can be expanded by having children notice, describe, and name objects of various forms; draw these forms. upon slates, paper, or blackboards; or imitate them in wood, stone, or clay. Their ideas of number can be expanded by counting objects, as beans, pebbles,

or grains of corn; and adding, subtracting, multiplying, and dividing them. No object exists in nature that has not its relations-its relations to other objects, and the relations of its parts to one another; and many of these are so simple that children of five years of age, and even younger, can understand them. Other ideas relating to material things may be expanded in the same way. Moral ideas must be expanded by acquainting children with the acts which exemplify or illustrate them. History, biography, personal experience, must be made to contribute stores of incidents that can be made to do much to enlarge the conception children have of right and wrong, and to form their character to virtue.

The matter of Object Lessons must be adapted to improve the artistic taste and talent of the young. Children have productive as well as receptive powers. These productive powers can be stimulated to activity by the exhibition of objects of art. The teacher can call their attention to the structure of houses, bridges, mills, vehicles, articles of furniture, and machinery in great variety. Such lessons are lessons on objects, and so are those which relate to the mechanism of plants, animals, and the humau frame-work. They can also receive exercise in practicing the elements of writing, drawing, painting, and making things of wood, and stone, and clay, or of any other suitable materials. Fathers and mothers could attend to this duty better than teachers, but teachers can do much. Our schools. cannot have shops connected with them, as had those of Pestalozzi and De Fellenberg, but still such