acquired, we often expect tha impossible. A knowledge of only be obtained by the observ yet it is by written signs we of ren. Language also is first speech, and should be advance fore written characters are taug only as far as they can connect teach them words faster than true signification, is plainly imp Children are quick observers a as they have premises to reaso expect them to reason witho hearing a boy of seven years ol he did not understand what an forgetting that the vast compo his own mind by the mere me much observation and combinat

That is simple which consist can be readily grasped by the pe ometrical forms are simple and a children to examine, not from the they are within the compass of th of any object as a whole, is gene once seen and named, will be ea but to enter into its structure so organization in the apple or othe quires not only more careful obse rate reasoning.

The true teacher will be conter step with his pupil, and will end the crowd of perceptions which f his notice and present them singly

"I began with children," says does with savages, first bringing a eyes, and then seeking a word to e to which it gives rise."

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our ideas are first derived from nature and, as books merely represent this knowledge, it is plain that they instruct us only as far as we are able to connect the words they contain with the ideas those words represent. No man could become a good farmer, botanist or surgeon, from books alone, but by practice and observation.

Children delight in natural knowledge, a constan impulse seems to urge them to acquire correct ideas of things around them, and the exercise of this good and useful instinct, divinely implanted, will become a habit if encouraged and strengthened, but will diminish and almost cease, if checked and neglected.

The process of education seems to be, that we first acquire certain intuitions from outward nature, through the senses; these the reasoning powers arrange and combine, and, as the circle of observation enlarges and becomes general, the powers of comparison and combi nation enable us to form notions, more or less imperfect of things or actions which are merely related to us, or of which we read, but of which we have had no posi tive observation. If we follow the course thus marked out for us, and begin from the first with things, and go then to words, the path of the learner may be made easy and pleasant. To do this regularly and methodically is the first business of the Infant School teacher

We must begin by teaching real sounds, real forms. real colours, and real things. Before we use the word purple, we must distinctly impress upon the eye the colour purple. If we would speak of a thing being square. we must take care first to impart the true notion of the form; and, when using the words rough or smooth, we should have previously made the mind acquainted with those sensations. The more we spread and enlarge these roots of knowledge, the more rapidly the future tree will grow, and the more vigorous will be the fructification. A child thoroughly drilled in real arithmetic by counting and arranging objects will carry clearness

and vigour into the artificial a thorough comprehension of things will enable the learne scriptions met with in history ner impossible without this ele The spirit in which intellect carried on, is of so much impor ed to give the following clear from Pestalozzi.

"The interest in study is teacher should endeavour to There are scarcely any circum of application in children does of interest; and there are perha want of interest does not origina ing adopted. I would go so fa rule, that whenever children are rently take no interest in a lesso always look to himself for the rea of dry matter is before a child, v to listen to lengthy explanatio exercises which have nothing in and attract the mind, this is a tax a teacher should make it a point ing. In the same manner, if the fection of his reasoning powers, o with facts, is unable to enter int the chain of ideas in a lesson; w or to repeat, what to him is but this is perfectly absurd. And wh of punishment is added, besides itself is punishment enough, it b elty."

The first thing to be considered ate an interest in study so as to caus and retain the necessary informati be divided into-first, that derive tary action of the senses, impresse

object or event, which by its novelty or interest makes a distinct and permanent impression on the mind; and secondly, such as is obtained designedly by compelling the attention of the perceptive and reasoning powers to some subject with which we wish to become acquainted. The first merely wants to be directed to become a fruitful source of improvement, but no child will adopt the second without some motive. It is of the highest importance to determine what that motive is to arise from. Two stimulants were much in vogue in the old system, fear and ambition; fear of the rod, and ambition to be considered clever, with a mingling of envy of the more gifted.

But will not love do more than fear? Will not the desire to acquire knowledge, for its own sake, once awakened, do more than the wish to excel others? The answer is not difficult, and the choice once made, minor details will follow.

If fear and ambition are to hold sway over the mind, we have the old system ready made. But if on the contrary, love, and a desire of knowledge, are to be the ruling motives, our plan must be more deeply studied— a free development of the individual powers of each pupil must be sought; each dawning faculty must be watched and tended like a tender bud, and screened from the nipping frosts of unkindness and neglect, and the child treated from the first, as a reasoning being. Great advances in the right direction have been already made, school has been robbed of its terrors; we no longer see the boy "creeping like snail unwillingly to school," but hastening with willing feet, and looking on forced absence as the greatest privation. The teacher is daily rising in public estimation, as improved principles impart a real value to his art. Parents are keenly alive to whatever affects the good of their offspring, and although some, through ignorance, may undervalue Education, this is a prejudice which will disappear as they see its good effects. If they find virtue, intelli

gence, and industry, resulting wish to withhold it. But whi narrow in principle, and limite not surprising that it was littl Mr. Wilderspin thus states education:

"The error of the past syste venture to call it) as to mental the inferior powers of the mind in preference to its higher facu exercise the memory, and sto which, owing to the inactivity and the judgment, was seldom adopt the opinions of others wa without the child being trouble to form an opinion of its own should be. Such a system is n great nor wise men; and is m parrots than to children. Hence ed in an Infant School is, to se -to induce them to examine, reference to all those matters w tellects are capable of mastering. a child in the first place, what it once inducing mental indolence, rally prevalent among adults; o method having been adopted b charge of their early years. V own resources, to discover and j sively by itself, though the oppos consequence, namely, a state of c yet I am doubtful whether it wou lamentable than that issuing from tem of giving children dogmas in opinions of others instead of elicit one case we should find a mind u tivated, but of a vigorous and grasping the little knowledge it