Mr. Mann quoted.-The blind and the dumb.

The size, form, color, weight, temperature, and use of each are investigated by the test of his own senses, or ascertained by innumerable inquiries. His ideas of height and distance, of light and heat, of motion and velocity, of cause and effect, are all well defined. He has made no mean attainments in morals. He com prehends the law of right and wrong so that his deci sions may well put to the blush his superiors in age.; and unless grossly neglected, he has learned the duty of obedience to parents and reverence towards God. Now all this amazing progress has been made, because of the irrepressible curiosity with which God has endowed him, and the unspeakable delight he experiences in acquiring the knowledge which gratifies it.

All must have noticed the delight with which the child grasps a new idea; but few have been able so eloquently to describe it, as it is done by Mr. Mann. "Mark a child," says he, "when a clear, well-defined, vivid conception seizes it. The whole nervous tissue vibrates. Every muscle leaps. Every joint plays. The face becomes auroral. The spirit flashes through the body like lightning through a cloud."

"Observe, too, the blind, the deaf, and the dumb. So strong is their inborn desire for knowledge,—such are the amazing attractive forces of their minds for it, that although the natural inlets, the eye and the ear, are closed, yet they will draw it inward, through the solid walls and encasements of the body. If the eye be curtained with darkness, it will enter through the ear. If the ear be closed in silence, it will ascend along the

This pleasure abates in after life.-Mind may be surfeited.

nerves of touch. Every new idea that enters into the presence of the sovereign mind, carries offerings of delight with it, to make its coming welcome. Indeed, our Maker created us in blank ignorance, for the very purpose of giving us the boundless, endless pleasure of learning new things."

It is, of course, not to be expected that the same degree of pleasure will attend the learner in every acquisition as the novelty diminishes, and as he advances in age. The bodily appetite is less keen in after life than in childhood, so that the adult may never realize again to the full extent the delicious flavors which regaled him in his earliest years. Still there will ever be a delight in acquisition; and to carry our illustration a little further,—as the child is soonest cloyed whose stomach is surfeited with dainties, and stimulated with condiments, and pampered with sweetmeats, till his taste has lost its acumen and digestion becomes a burden; so the mental appetite is soonest destroyed, when, under the unskillful teacher, it is overloaded with what it can neither digest nor disgorge. The mind may be surfeited; and then no wonder if it loaths even the wholesome aliment. Artificial stimulants, in the shape of prizes, and honors, and flattery, and fear, and shame, may have impaired its functions, so that it ceases to act except under their excitement. But all must see that these are unnatural conditions, superinduced by erroneous treatment. There is still a delight in acquisition, just as soon as the faculties are aroused to the effort; and the skillful

A desire to know.-Instance of God's wisdom and goodness.

teacher will strive to wake up the mind to find this delight,—and if he understands his work, he will scarcely need a stronger incentive. If he understands the secret of giving just so much instruction as to excite the learner's curiosity, and then to leave him to discover and acquire for himself, he will have no necessity to use any other means as stimulants to

exertion.

To this might be added that irrepressible curiosity, that all-pervading desire to know, which is found in the mind of every child. The mind, as if conscious of its high destiny, instinctively spreads its unfledged wings in pursuit of knowledge. This, with some children, is an all-sufficient stimulant to the most vigorous exertion. To this the teacher may safely appeal. Indeed, it is a convincing proof of the wisdom as well as the goodness of God, that this desire to know, as well as the delight of acquisition, are the most active at that early period of childhood, when a just appreciation of the utility of knowledge, and the higher motives already detailed, could scarcely find a lodgement in the tender mind. It seems to be, therefore, an indisputable dictate of our very nature, that both these principles should be early employed as incentives.

If, then, the desire of the approval of parents and teachers, the desire of advancement, the desire to be useful,—and the desire to do right, can be superadded to the natural love in the child for acquisition, and a natural desire to know, there will, as I believe, be but little occasion to look further for incentives to exertion

A scholium.

in the pupil; and I may venture to add, as a scholium to what has already been said, that the teacher who has not yet learned to call into exercise these higher motives, and to rely for success mainly upon them, and who dares not abandon the system of exciting stimulants for fear of a failure, has yet much to learn as a true educator of the young.

Order necessary in school.-Self-government in the teacher.

CHAPTER IX.

SCHOOL GOVERNMENT.

Ir is not necessary that any space in this work should be occupied in speaking of the importance of order in our schools. Everybody who has written or spoken on this subject, has conceded the necessity of obedience on the part of the pupil. "ORDER IS HEAVEN'S FIRST LAW;" and it is scarcely more essential to the harmony of heaven, than it is to the happiness and success of the school.

If such be the necessity of order in the school, then the ability to secure and maintain it is no mean part of the qualification of the good teacher. It is lamentable that so many fail in this particular; and yet this frequent failure can in most cases be traced to some defect in the constitutional temperament, or some deficiency in the mental or moral culture of the teacher himself. It shall be my first object, then, to point out some of the

SECTION I.-REQUISITES IN THE TEACHER FOR GOOD GOVERNMENT.

I. SELF-GOVERNMENT. It has frequently been said that no man can govern others till he has learned to