Writing; Concert Exercises.

make constant use of the blackboard. Important letters and principles of the copy should be written on the board, both correctly and incorrectly, illustrating the excellences to be attained and the errors to be avoided. Teachers who are not accustomed to this mode of illustrating, will find that they can easily qualify themselves to introduce it.*

Many teachers who excel in. imparting a knowledge of other branches, teach penmanship only indifferently well. Teachers who have little taste for this exercise should discipline themselves to increased effort. Even a poor writer may make a good teacher of penmanship; and no one who attempts to teach writing is excusable for not teaching it successfully.†

Exercises of special excellence should receive marks of special credit; and deficiencies resulting from carelessness or indifference, should in all cases receive marks of error and affect the scholarship averages as much as failures in any other lessons. § 4. Concert Exercises.—In all the lower grades of

Reference.-§ 4. Barnard's Object Teaching, Art. 13.

"Where the best results were produced, the blackboard was in constant use, and a whole section of pupils wrote the same copy at the same time. In some divisions, the black board did not seem to be used at all in teaching this branch. Such a neglect shows a want of competency, or a want of faithfulness on the part of the teacher."-Report of Boston School Committee.

"A bad handwriting ought never to be forgiven; it is shameful indolence; indeed, sending a badly-written letter to a fellow-creature is as impudent an act as I know of."--Niebuhr.

eFuses shot asa be atmansel ʼn connecten with reading, in the upper demons of the Primary De partment, and in al me qisions of the Grammar Department.

Great care should be taken, in all concert exercises, to ser are free and natural tones of voice. It is always better to dispense with exercises in concert, than to have them become a means of forming bad habits in modulation and inflection.

These

§ 5. Rapid Combinations in Arithmetic.-Classes in Arithmetic should have frequent extemporaneous exercises in combining series of numbers, involving the principles which they have gone over. numbers should be given by the teacher, slowly at first, and afterward with more and more rapidity, as the pupils are able to carry forward the computations. The following is an example: Take 5, add ubtract 9, multiply by 8, add 20, add 8, vide by 10,-result? Those who are wer raise the hand, and the teacher more of them individually, for the together. Exercises of this kind nonood as soon as pupils are able to

Good Language.

add simple numbers together, and continued through the entire course. Similar examples may occasionally be carried rapidly round a class, each pupil giving in turn the result for one step of the process, with as little delay as possible.

§ 6. Good Language. Composition.-Teachers should be watchful on all occasions, and especially during recitations, to secure habits of readiness and precision in the use of language. Every question should receive a complete and grammatical answer. Teachers should be clear and accurate in their own expressions, and impress upon their pupils the importance of selecting at all times the best words and phrases, and forming the habit of using good language in early life. As fast as new words are learned in the various oral exercises, the children should be required to embody them in spoken or written sentences, and thus fasten their meaning and uses securely in the memory.*

Reference. § 6. Manual of Elementary Instruction, vol. 2, article, Language.

"Great attention should be given to the language used in the school-room, both by teachers and pupils. It should be pure English, free from all provincialisms; and the construction of the sentences should be grammatical. It is of the utmost importance that the teachers of our Primary scholars should be accurate in the use of language; quick to notice, and prompt to correct all “bad grammar" heard in their school-rooms. No slang, no useless expletives, no unnecessary repetitions, no obsolete words, no violations of orthography or syntax, should, at any time, or under any circumstances, be allowed to pass without careful correction. The power of expression may be cultivated by "" Object Lessons" and

General Directions.

Exercises in composition may be introduced in anch a manner, that pupils will never regard them as irksome tasks. With proper care and skill on the part of the teacher, they may be made as intereating and attractive as any of the exercises of the school. The following are some of the first steps that may be taken to secure this object:

(1.) Let the pupil take his slate to a window during a recess, and write down any thing that he hears from the children in the play-ground. At the close of the recess, let him read before his class what he has written, and he will be interested to learn that the

conversation. Pupils should also be advised and required to write much. Recitations may sometimes be conducted by writing, and will be found mutually profitable. Questions should be pointed and precise; answers should be concise and exact. Every answer should embrace a complete proposition. Frequently the pupil gives the answer only in part. Every exercise, and every recitation should be so conducted as to habituate the scholars to correct, terse, and elegant modes of expression. All indistinctness of utterance, all clipping of words, all hesitancy of speech, should at once be noticed and the proper remedies faithfully applied."-J. G. Mc Mynn.

"Conversational Lessons.-One great object in early education should be to awaken the mind of children to activity, and to furnish them with language. Conversational lessons are well calculated to effect these objects, inasmuch as they accustom children to speak of things they daily see and use; leading them to make their own observations upon such things, and in their turn to ask for further information.

"These lessons are of course conducted without any formality, and do not require any particular hints. The subjects chosen are very simple, and the teacher ought to be quite easy and familiar, letting the children take the lead; merely stimulating them by dicious questioning."-Manual of Elementary Instruction.

Morals and Manners.

sentences from the different scholars are so many little compositions. He will then understand, that every time he speaks a sentence, he makes a composition, and if he will only write it on his slate or on paper, it will be a written composition.

(2.) Select a common and familiar subject, as a horse, and ask the pupil various questions respecting it. As he gives his answers, let him write them down on his slate. He will soon find that he has written an original composition, almost without effort.

(3.) At the close of an object lesson on any familiar subject, let the pupils write or print on their slates every thing they can remember of the description that has been given, and read their exercises in turn before the class.

These different exercises should be examined carefully by the teacher, and the errors that occur in language, orthography, punctuation, etc., should be kindly pointed out and corrected before the class. The pupils should then be required to rewrite their exercises correctly.

The establishment of a school paper, sustained by the pupils, under the general direction of the teacher, is one of the best means of cultivating this import

ant art.

87. Morals and Manners.-Love to parents and others, friendship, kindness, gentleness, obedience,

References.-7. Calkins's Object Lessons; Cowdery's Moral Lessons, and Cowdery's Primary Moral Lessons; Barnard's Object Teaching, arts. 7, 9, and 12; Hooker's Natural History, chap. 36; Willson's Third Reader; Barnard's Journal of Edu