For Grade.

FOURTH GRADE.

GRAMMAR DEPARTMENT.]

REGULAR COURSE,

Oral Instruction -Send, light water: meteorology; miscellaneous topics, gesty; morals and manners. The time devoted to oral instraina auch week to be equal in amount to fifteen minutes a day

Geography from text-book

Constractice & senknoes, etc.

First half of Third Reader or corresponding number of the series), with pancreation defuitions, and illustrations, and spelling by sounds

Written and oral spelling with defuitions from speller and from reading lessons

Drawing

Writing

Mental arithmetic continued. State arithmetic to long division, and reviewed. Extemporaneous exercises in combining series of numbers. See § 3

Declamations and recitations.

Physical exercises, from two to four minutes at a time, not less than three times a day. See § 105

DIRECTIONS.

Oral Instruction.-See $$ 8 and 18.*

$72. Sound.-How produced. Illustrate by stretched cord, or some other vibrating body. Ac

the pupil something presentable at home, but real training to the power of making good representations of a variety of objects on a flat surface."-Reid's Principles of Education.

"Lessons on objects are most valuable; especially lessons on the various familiar objects around us, when the learner is required to notice, or himself to suggest, every thing that can be remarked

Sound; Light.

tion on the ear. High and low sounds-how produced. Relation of the air to sound. Velocity of sound. The human voice. Varieties of the human voice. Name twenty different kinds of sounds. Echoes; whispering gallery; ear-trumpet. Musical instruments; bells.

$73. Light.-Luminous bodies. Velocity of light. Difference between the light of the sun and that of the moon. Laws of reflection; mirrors. Refraction; experiment with piece of money in a bowl of water. Action of the microscope and telescope. Solar spectrum; rainbow. Structure and action of the eye. Danger of injuring the eyes from excessive use; from imprudent exposure to light; from

References.- 72. Science of Common Things, index; Reason Why, index; Calkins's Object Lessons; Barnard's Object Teaching, arts. 4 and 9; Norton & Porter's First Book of Science, part 1; Brande's Cyclopædia.

73. Child's Book of Nature, parts 2 and 3; Fireside Philosophy; Science of Common Things, index; Reason Why, index; Barnard's Object Teaching, art. 4; Calkins's Object Lessons; Norton & Porter's First Book of Science, part 1; Beechers's Physiology and Calisthenics; Brande's Cyclopædia.

about them. Such lessons should be begun early, but not stopped soon, as is too often the case. It is a mistake to suppose that they are useful only to young children; they should be continued, of course with more detail and with greater exactness, and with a greater variety of objects, up to a late period. Nor should they be confined to the pupil suggesting the qualities with the object before him; he should be made to describe it again minutely, from recollection, and then write down an account of its qualities."-Reid' & Principles of Education.

Fourth Grade.

reading in twilight; from reading fine print. Danger of allowing young children to look steadily at a light. Average distance at which a book should be held from the eye; effect of holding a book too near the eye. How cats and other animals see in the night. Cause of color. Twilight.

Terms, iridescent, spectrum, solar.

$74. Water. Four or more lessons on the common properties and uses of water. Hard and soft water; water of the ocean, etc.

$75. Meteorology.-Six or more oral lessons on winds, clouds, fogs, dew, frost, moisture settling on a vessel of cold water in a warm room, rain, snow, hail, ice.

$76. Miscellaneous Topics. Oral lessons on printing, parchment, Julian calendar, copyright, patents, jail of the county, prison or prisons of the State.

$77. Geography.-After the introductory exercises of the previous grade, introduce a map of the United States, showing the situation and relative size of the State in which the pupils reside; the principal rivers of the country, mountains, capital, largest cities, etc. Divisions of the United States;

References.-874. Science of Common Things, index; Reason Why, index; Brande's Cyclopædia; Calkins's Object Lessons.

§ 75. Barnard's Object Teaching, art. 2; Child's Book of Nature, part 3; Norton & Porter's First Book of Science, part 2; Science of Common Things, index; Fireside Philosophy word Winds; Reason Why, index; Hailman's Object Teaching; Brande's Cyclopædia.

76. Brande's Cyclopædia.

Geography.

compare the climate of the Northern and Southern States; principal productions of each division; commerce; compare productions with those of other countries; President, etc.

The use of the globe should be introduced in this connection, showing the rotundity of the earth, rotation on its axis, day and night, poles, equator, parallels of latitude, meridians of longitude, tropics, polar circles, zones, points of the compass at any given place, the continents, oceans, and relative position of places, situation of the United States, and of the State and city or town in which the pupils live; relative size of each.

Similar illustration should be constantly given with the globe in connection with the recitations from the text-book, and no definition should be passed by till the teacher has satisfactory evidence that the pupils understand clearly the object described.

Lessons in geography should be accompanied by brief historical sketches of important events connected with the different countries, and by some allusions to ancient geography, and the changes through which the countries have passed in their governments, boundaries, etc.

One of the most common faults in teaching geography is the practice of requiring pupils to learn the names of a large number of unimportant places, the exact population of unimportant cities, etc.* It is

Great improvements have been made, especially of late, in teaching geography. Higher views of the whole subject have been

Fourth Grade.

not desirable that pupils should be required to "give the names of thirteen towns on the Tocantins river," nor even the number of square miles in every State of the Union. They may be able to learn these things so as to recite them, but they will not be likely to remember them; nor is the knowledge thus gained an equivalent for the labor required, even if it could be retained.

Construction of Sutenoes.—See §§ 6, 9, and 49. Rading--See $$ 1, 41, and 50.

§ 78. Analysis of Smudds.—The pupils of the Grammar divisions should have frequent exercises in spelling by sounds any words that may be selected from their reading lessons; and pupils that are not able to analyze the sounds of words promiscuously chosen, should receive special attention until this standard is attained.

$79. Spelling.-Spell one hundred words selected from the advertising columns of the newspapers. Five or more dictation exercises, in writing entire advertisements selected from newspapers. Fifty or more words selected from the lessons in geography. The spelling exercises of this grade may be about

References.- 79. Northend's Dictation Exercises.

taken, great general principles have been substituted for innumera ble useless details; the value of map drawing, already acknowledged, has been still more effectively insisted upon; the intimate connection between geography and history has been pointed out, and, in other ways, a new and stronger interest has been excited." -George B. Emerson. See, also, Fifteenth Annua! Report of Secro tary of Massachusetts Board of Education, by Dr. Sears, p. 65.