are able to count. This has the advantage of employing both hands and eyes, and affords amusement. When once the idea of number is acquired, the arithmeticon serves the purpose of giving combinations of number, and of working any arithmetical problem.

Specimen Lesson.

The teacher should be furnished with several sets of small objects.

2 Teacher.I have here five books, five pence, and five sticks; count them with me. Now, I have placed them all on the floor, and I want some little child to bring me two books. That is right. Now who can bring me three books? Quite right; now put them back again. Who can bring me a penny and two books? Now bring three sticks and a book. Now a book, a penny, and a stick. How many are they together? Who can bring me four sticks, five books, and five pence ? Who will answer me a question? I will. Well, how many brothers and sisters have you? Try to tell me their names. William, Peter, and Mary. How many together? Who can count the legs of the chair? The bars of the grate? Clap your hands once, now twice, now three times.

This subject is too simple to require further detail; yet it must be taught progressively, otherwise the mind of the learner is apt to become confused. It will be perceived that it is entirely preliminary to arithmetic, and therefore it is best in this stage to keep to small numbers; and when arithmetic is commenced, still to carry on the previous process in conjunction with it, in order to give reality to the value of figures. It is particularly useful to give easy exercises in mental arithmetic, in which the notion of real objects is associated with number.

Weight.

In commencing this subject, the teacher should first call attention to such general facts as the falling of bodies towards the earth, the tendency of water to flow downwards, the difficulty of raising any heavy object up from the ground, and the sensation of weight in the human frame. Cubes or spheres of equal size, formed of lead, stone, wood, cork, or other substances, strikingly different in weight, should be examined and compared by the children. Bodies that are lighter or heavier than water may be distinguished by actual experiment, The resistance of the air to falling bodies may be easily shown by letting fall at the same instant such things as wool, cork, and lead, and watching their unequal rate of descent. The pupils should be allowed frequently to handle and compare objects of different density and size.

The next step is to make the children acquainted with the standard weights, and then to let them judge of the weights of various things, testing the accuracy of their guesses by weighing the objects before

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When a pretty accurate knowledge of small amounts of weight is acquired, it may be extended by degrees to familiar examples of

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greater quantities; but in this, as in the case of number, it is useless to attempt to expand the idea too rapidly; the process must be progressive, and, if hurried, would lose its reality.

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The use of wooden bricks and other mechanical toys in the playground, greatly assists in developing the perception of weight.

Some idea of the nature of the mechanic powers should be given in connection with this subject, and this may be easily done by means of models and by simple experiments.

Specimen Lesson.

The teacher should be provided with several different substances for experiment. Wool, cork, pumice-stone, marble, wood, lead, or such objects as are within reach, may be used for illustration.

Teacher. You see in my hand two balls of equal size. I want some one to try for me which is the lighter of the two. They are very different in weight; one is a ball of cork and the other of lead. If I let the leaden ball drop from my hand, can you tell me the direction in which it will go? It will fall down to the floor. Yes, for we never see any thing fall up to the ceiling or to one side, but always downwards, because the earth draws all the smaller things which are near it towards itself. The earth draws all you little children towards it, and when you try to climb a hill, you find that lifting your feet from the earth is hard work. Will you watch what takes place when I let the ball of lead fall from my hand? It strikes the floor and makes a loud noise. Now see if the same takes place when I drop the ball of cork. No, it makes only a faint sound. Why is this? The lead is heavy and the cork is light. I have here two more balls, one of wood and one of stone. Who will come and try their different weights? I am now going to place the four balls in this glass of water, and you must observe what happens. Two of them sink and two swim. Why do the cork and wooden balls swim? You can not tell; well, I must explain to you that wood and cork are lighter than water, and so come to the surface; but lead and stone are heavier than water, and sink down in it. A fish swims in the water, because it is about the same weight as water; but an oyster lies at the bottom of the sea, because it has a heavy shell. If things upon the earth had no weight, men and animals would not require to be strong; but the larger an animal is, the more strength it must have, to be able to move about. Could any little child here lift me from the ground? No, I am too heavy, and you are not strong enough. Quite true, but I could lift any of you, because you are all lighter than I am, and I must have strength enough to be able to move my own weight. A horse can carry a man because a horse is larger and heavier than a man, and has more strength. If a little child were to run a great way, would he not be tired? Yes, he would have to carry the weight of his own body all the way he went, and this would tire him. Look at the walls of the school-room. What are they made of? Are they not very heavy? Why do they not fall? Because they are upright or vertical. Would they stand if they were inclined? No, they would then fall; for all heavy things which are not supported will fall straight down. When we stand, we take care to stand upright, or else we should fall. When people fall, we say they lose their balance; that is, they throw more of their weight to one side than to the other, which causes them to come to the ground. Would you stand near a wall that leaned to one side? No, it would be dangerous to do so; it might fall and kill you.

Some things are very light, compared with others of the same size. Will you tell me of all the light things you know? Now name those that are heavy. Will you try to think of things that are bought and sold by weight? I have here a penny and a halfpenny; why is the penny worth more than the halfpenny ↑ Because it is larger and heavier. Yes, metals are valued by weight.

When I put this iron weight into one scale, and this piece of wood in the other, what happens? The scale with the iron sinks down; the other rises. Why is this? Because the iron is heavier. And which is the larger? The wood. What

"should you then say of the wood? It is a lighter substance than the iron. I now put a package of wool into one scale, and the piece of wood in the other. Which appears the heavier now? The wood. Which is the larger? The package of wool. So we find that wool is lighter than wood in proportion to its size. All things which we see have weight. Even the air has some weight, as you will learn in a future lesson. If it were not so, we should have no power to move or to work; without weight, the workman's hammer would not strike, the water would not turn the mill to grind the corn, or the wind move the great ships over the sea, to fetch us good things from distant countries. Even the rain could not fall from the sky to make things grow, if it had not some weight; so that when we find it difficult and laborious to move about, or carry heavy things, we should remember how useful and necessary it is for things to have weight, and how God, in his wisdom and goodness, made every thing just as heavy as it should be. He made the air light for us to breathe and to move about in, the heavy stones to build our houses, light wool and cotton to make us warm clothes, and heavy metals to make our tools. Let us always think that He has made every thing in the way it should be.

Sound.

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First lessons on this subject should not be of a musical character, but chiefly confined to the discrimination of ordinary sounds. The attention of the pupils may be directed to the varieties of the human ..voice in children and grown persons, in men and women, and in different individuals; also to the different modes of utterance, as speaking, calling, singing, whispering, and so on. Sounds may be produced experimentally, as by the ringing of bells, the noise made by striking various bodies, and by other means; and these should be divided into sharp, grave, loud, faint, or as many varieties as can be exhibited.

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The next step is to require the pupils to observe sounds for themselves. Children, when first called upon to mention the sounds they are acquainted with, will not, perhaps, be able to remember more than ten or twelve; but we have known many who, in a week or two after their attention had been directed to the subject, could enumerate upwards of one hundred. It is useful to lead them to classify their observations, as into the voices of beasts, birds, sounds produced by insects, by the footfall of men and animals, by the motion of carriages and machinery, by workmen in performing various mechanical operations, sounds produced by the motion of water, air, and by other natural causes. Sounds may also be divided into kinds, as roaring, rumbling, crashing, crackling, murmuring, rolling, tinkling, echoing, and so on; the intention of such exercises being to connect words with definite ideas, and to cultivate habits of correct observation.

Directions for a Lesson on Sound.

Strike in succession two bells, one much sharper in tone than the other, and call attention to the different pitch in their sounds. Let the children try to produce high and low tones with the voice, Produce sudden sharp noises, as by striking hard substances, by the breaking of wood, or by the children calling out in a high key and stopping suddenly; then sounds of an opposite character, as by

the rapid movement of the feet of many children, as they sit in the gallery, by rolling any heavy object on the floor, or by the lower tones of the voice. Call attention to such slight sounds as those produced by the rubbing or striking of various substances, and then let the children listen with closed eyes, and try to determine the causes which produce them. Place several children out of sight and let them speak in succession, while the class try to discriminate their voices. Direct attention to the feelings expressed by the human voice in exclamations of sorrow, joy, pain, terror, mirth, and other emotions, and to the voices of animals expressive of their feelings and wants.

Explain the difference between inarticulate sounds, such as laughing, sobbing, muttering, screaming; and articulate sounds, as speaking and singing.

The kind and amount of instruction given in each lesson must, of course, depend entirely upon the age and advancement of the pupils; the subject may as easily be treated in a way to suit a child of three as of ten years of age, and such preliminary lessons are an excellent preparation for correctness of ear in speaking and singing. Indeed, when developed, the imitative power of children is so great that no refinement of tone or inflections of voice are difficult to them; and hence the importance of a pure pronunciation and correct manner of speaking in the teacher, as defects in this respect are but too readily imitated, and bad habits formed.

Developing Lessons on Objects.

When, by the preceding series of lessons, some idea of the general properties of things has been imparted, the observation of particular objects should be commenced; but we must always keep clearly in view the principle on which this kind of lesson rests, viz., that the children should discover for themselves the qualities of the object under examination, the teacher merely supplying the words needed to express them; for to tell the pupil that such and such qualities exist in it, which we are not able to demonstrate, will not develop his faculties. Hence it follows, that attention should be called only to the more palpable and striking characteristics, and that, if possible, the same quality should be traced through several examples, and even contrasted with its opposite, to render it more evident.

Suppose, for instance, two such substances as glass and india-rubber were chosen for a lesson. The most striking properties of the glass are that it is transparent, hard, brittle, sonorous, rigid, reflective. These are rendered more evident by contrasting them with the qualities of the india-rubber, which is opaque, soft, tough, not sonorous, flexible, dull. The idea of transparency may be rendered more general by reference to water, air, mica, crystals, and other examples, and also by extending the idea of the opposite property of opacity, and so on with the remaining qualities. We will now proceed to an example of this kind of teaching.

Lesson on Coal and Chalk.

Teacher-Tell me what you observe in the object I now show you. Children. -It is white. Is it quite white? Yes, quite white. What else have you seen of the same kind of white? Linen, paper, snow. Tell me the color of this object It is black. Is it black like this piece of cloth? No, the coal is bright and the cloth is not. But are not both black? Yes. Is the chalk bright and

smooth? Feel it and try. No, it is quite rough and dull. Now feel the piece of coal. Is it smooth? Yes, in some parts. Does it shine or reflect the light? Yes. Repeat now with me, coal is black and reflects the light; chalk is white and dull. I will make a line on the blackboard with the chalk. How is it that the chalk makes a white mark? Some of it rubs off. Yes, it is friable; that is, it will rub or crumble away. Now we will try to make the coal mark. Has it made any mark? No. I will tell you the reason: the wood is softer than the coal, and so it will not mark. Weigh the two substances in your hands, and tell me are they heavy or light. Try which feels the harder. Listen while I strike each of them, and tell me what you hear. The coal gives a sharper sound than the chalk. Yes, because it is harder; for you will find that soft bodies give a dull, heavy sound, and hard bodies a sharp sound.

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I am going to hold the piece of coal in the flame of this candle; will you what takes place? The coal burns and gives out smoke. Say, coal burns or is combustible. Now, watch if the chalk burns when in the flame, No, it neither burns nor smokes. Say, chalk will not burn; it is incombustible. It is changed, indeed, by the heat, but you can not see the change now,

When we wish to break coal into convenient pieces, how do we do it? With a hammer. Can chalk be broken in the same way? Let us try. Yes, both coal and chalk can be broken by a blow, and are therefore called brittle. Doy you think that coal or chalk is made by men? No; I will tell you: they are both dug out of the ground, and were formed by the power of God, and such things are called natural, while things made by man are called artificial. Is either of these substances transparent? No, most rocks and other things dug out of the earth are opaque, that is, no light will shine through them, nor can we see through them. Such things as are neither animal nor vegetable are called mineral; and these are mineral substances. Now let us repeat what we have learned about them: Both coal and chalk are natural, mineral, opaque, brittle, heavy. Coal is also combustible, black, smooth, shining, hard. Chalk is white, friable soft, and will not burn. You know that they are both useful. Will you try to name some of the uses of coal? To warm our houses, to cook with, to drive steam engines, to make gas, and so on. Now some of the uses of chalk? To write and draw with, to make whitewash, to make lime, to manure land. Now you have examined these two substances and know some of their qualities, I will tell you something more about them. Coal is generally found deep down in the earth, and men must dig down to get it. Some of you may have seen a well out of which water is raised, and the entrance to a coal mine is like a very deep well, Up this well or shaft the coal is drawn by a rope or chain, moved by a steam engine, and when the workmen wish to go down into the mine, they get into box covered with an iron roof, and are let down. If you look on the map of England for the counties of Northumberland and Durham, it is there, on both sides of the river Tyne, that so many coal mines are worked; but there are many other places in England, freland, and Scotland, where coal is found.

If you wish to see a coal mine, you would first have to be let down the shaft very far; and then, when you arrived at the bottom, you would find many passages leading in different directions, along which little cars laden with coal are drawn by horses or pushed along by boys; and, in some places you would see the miners digging the coal out of the earth with pickaxe and spade, each with a lantern to light him, covered with wire-gauze; for a kind of gas like that which burns in the street lamps comes out of the coal, and if the flame of a candle or lamp touches it, it takes fire and explodes with a dreadful noise, often killing the poor miners who may be near; but this gas will not pass through the small holes in the wire-gauze, and so can not take fire from the miner's light.

Chalk is dug out of the ground, but it is not so deep in the earth as coal, and is often close to the surface. The men who dig it out are called chalk-cutters, and a great quantity of chalk is used to put on land to make wheat and other crops grow. When chalk is burned, it changes into quick-lime, and is then used for making mortar for building. Sometimes chalk is given to ealves to lick, or pat into the water which cattle drink. Although chalk is now found in the sides of hills, it was once underneath the sea; for sea-shells are found mixed with it, which must have got in it when it was in a soft state at the bottom of the sea, just as we find shells mixed with the soft sand on the sea-shore now..