have a double value if ten be given to the forenoon and ten to the afternoon.

To pronounce or spell a word twice or twenty times in immediate succession, if correctly done at the first trial, may possibly make a deeper impression, but will have little effect in giving it a lasting hold.

And when a page is read with ease, and perhaps repeated without the book, though it may be of some use in teaching expression or as a subject for conversation, yet as a reading-lesson it has served its purpose, and should give place to something else. Its further use is rather to stifle thought, and make of our thinking pupils little else than prating parrots.

Even upon the most enduring tablets the names and inscriptions become moss-covered and illegible, unless renewed at times by the mallet and chisel of some Old Mortality, and the lessons of our early school life, without an occasional recall, fade and escape us before the highschool examination; and, with a return in each grade to some preceding principles of the earlier grades, some new relation or application can be shown for which the pupil was not at first prepared. It is a frequent and sad mistake to suppose that a subject must be completed at the first consideration of it.

With the lower grades, too, as well as with the higher, an escape from monotony and a livelier interest may be secured by the magnetic attrition and generous rivalry of different minds. Not only in the saving of time and the multiplying of the teacher's efficiency, but in the quality of the work, a class of ten or twenty is far better than one or two. The wise teacher will seek, of course, to discern and regard the peculiarities of the individual pupils, but individual instruction without the class is almost of necessity inferior instruction.

The wealthy may employ the private tutor in the home, but at the sacrifice of the full-rounded training that results from the contact of mind with mind. The suggestions of another's reading or recitation, the quickening of the mind, the alertness of thought in detecting errors, the skill and power of expression in making proper corrections, these are often quite as valuable as the teachings of the book, and poorly does the teacher appreciate the appliances of her art who allows the pupil after his own recitation to turn to some other branch while his fellows are reciting.

Often a class of sixty even, in some kinds of work, derive as much benefit as if each were the solitary object of the teacher's care. The very errors of his fellows will sometimes fix the correct principle in the memory, as his own study had failed to do.

On some sample pages of a revised edition of "Brown's Grammar," just received, I find: "The bird; The bird sings; The bird on the trec." "Now," he says, "we are prepared for a definition of language."

For

For the advanced student, able to discuss intelligently the fitness of the definition, yes. For the young pupil, why? It teaches him nothing. He knows what language is as well as Brown. It is what he says; is talk. No definition can enable him to know any better. the hair-splitter it may be a good test of his acuteness and ingenuity. "Language," says Brown, "is the expression of our thoughts." What are thought and expression? What relation is expressed by of? What if I express not my thought, but yours? What if I read or talk, as we say, without expression? Is it language? Does the learner know more than before? You have all heard of Plato's man.

The meanings of these new words are to be learned

first by explanation, by employing them in various ways, but not by definition alone. No one becomes an elegant writer or speaker, or gets the nicer shades of meaning, by dictionary only. This is to be gained by thoughtful and varied reading of good authors, and by use and practice. But for the pupil in the primary grades let him get the correct idea, the thought, but not in set form of words. Let him learn no rules, no definitions, till he can make his Then he can memorize the best form understandingly. That only is to be learned by rote that is unchangeable. Extracts of poetry, and sometimes of prose, those crystals of thought that must remain, as pure, as durable as the diamond, may well be memorized and made familiar.

own.

When the pupil has become so well acquainted with most of the common words and their meanings that he can detect them at a half-glance, as he can his dog, his book, or his brother, and those ever-recurring forms, as a, the, of, to, for, and but, have almost ceased to seem as separate words; when his thought can run forward like an advanced guard ahead of his utterances, to remove all hindrances from his way, the memory is but just prepared to gather the richer treasures strewed along the route of his conquering march; to grasp the thoughts that have been hidden within those mastered sentences, and to distinguish the gem from the glittering gaud.

Then may he take the thought from its old setting, and fit it to other uses; from the recorded deed detect the character; from the plan, the secret purpose.

We sometimes blame our children for reading books for the story, and yet, if the story be worth the while, is it not a high, a useful art? In the multitude of things to read, is it not a worthy aim to learn to gather and store up the best; to be able to give the sub

stance of a page from a single reading, a close but rapid survey?

And in numbers, too, it would seem that in the earlier grades much of it is rather a matter of memory than of mathematics.

The child of a year knows that he has more thumbs than mouths; and at three, that a whole apple is more than a half.

One, two, three, four, might just as well have been, zig, zag, pen, lun. The boy of six knows that this and that make these, the sum of the two; that ten and one are more than ten. "Nine and three ?" "Seven," I fancy here is generally an ignorance of words rather than of numbers. Place nine pennies and three pennies before him, he does not choose the seven.

I consider myself somewhat familiar with the alphabet, but it was not so long ago that I first learned to repeat it backward, and should not feel sure of it now unless I should repeat it rapidly.

When writing this page, I stopped to ask myself what letter stands next before "I," and found myself at fault, till I commenced above and followed down till I reached it.

Ask the young learner what comes next after ten, and he answers five, not because he thinks this is more than these, but because he has not memorized the words, the names for each.

One and one, six and two, seven plus three, three from four, nine less seven, four plus five, six times three, two in eight, seem to me all memory, acquired by use and practice, practice perpetual to become familiar with the words, the names, and should always be verified with objects till the correct understanding is gained. And learning the multiplication-table is but memorizing the results

of additions. It is much as it would be for us to learn the second letter after c; the fourth after m; third before u; sixth before h; fifth after o. Drudgery? Monotony ? I grant it often the veriest essence of it, unless relieved and enlivened by some pleasing devices. No reason, no skill or ingenuity, but dull, dead, deadening monotony and drudgery. Fortunately, with our decimal system the monotony is limited, and after ten or twelve, at the most, we rise to a higher plane of mental activity, where reason and skill find a sphere for active employment and development.

As in learning to read, so here the short but often-repeated exercise, the small daily accretions, the introduction of blocks, cards, any little objects, lines, figures on, the blackboard, making the numbers the means to some end or purpose, some concrete problem-these and many other ways can furnish variety and pleasure. The multiplication-table can, perhaps, be learned as quick, and possibly quicker, by the simple memorizing of words without any objects; but in the first attempts the words need to become so closely associated with the things that they shall be inseparable in the thought; that six shall be six some things. As the Concord philosophers would say, we need to "is" them, to "thing" things.

Beyond these elementary lessons arithmetic should be relieved of the bonds of routine. Analysis, brief, simple, free from vain repetitions and mummeries of words; logic, clear, direct, the plain what? and what? and how?-what have we? what do we want? and how do we obtain it?

Then should come practice, making familiar with the forms and methods of business, of daily life, how and what men buy and sell, the expedients by which credit is made available, and how the records of transactions are kept, the terms in daily use. But, let the subject be well