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the blackboard. Let him then study his district, with some of its streets and prominent buildings. My own geographical knowledge has always been bereft of half its value from my early study of the map facing the south; and to-day I have to make a mental conversion—the east of the map is always the west of the real world. The map of the world, the hemispheres, should always be preceded by the globe or some spherical object.

More than one college-learned man have I seen caught by the very simple trap of asking him the direction of the north pole from Australia.

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Not much minute detail need be learned, or latitudes and longitudes memorized. With the fullest and most minute study the map must be brought out whenever a Franco-Prussian or Egyptian war is on the stage. Places start at once into prominence which had never found an assignment on the map. It matters not so much what form of words is used in this early school life. The clear conception of the things, the facts, is essential. And for this there are no other witnesses so credible and reliable as sight and touch. The object, the picture, the ball, map, diagram-all are to be seen, examined, made, if possible. Then we may afterward be as careful as we will in the choice of our words and the forms of our definition.

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When memory shall take its proper place and our pupils be taught to observe, to think, to do, instead of to memorize and repeat, then will the growth of our pupils compel the respect of the wise for our schools, and the fruit of the tree of knowledge be for the sustenance and health of the people.

IV.

THE ELEMENTS OF GROWTH IN SCHOOL-LIFE.

THAT memory should have played so prominent a part in our school-life is not to be wondered at, as it is, perhaps, the most important and mysterious of our mental faculties the one faculty that makes all the others of any worth, binding by its infinite attractions the separate atoms of existence into one glorious whole, affording the possibility of a reasonable, intelligent life. Nor can the value of its marvelous powers be overestimated, nor too careful heed be given to its proper training and development. It is only the misapplication of its forces that is sometimes deplored, when, instead of acting as an allpervading gravitation, molding the bright family of worlds and holding planets and suns in their harmonious circles, it would supplant the living principles of growth and progress, dragging the unvitalized star-dust of the mental universe down to a shapeless chaos of darkness and death.

The first conscious act of the child's awakening intelligence is to observe-to see, to hear, to touch. How vague and shadowy the procession that passes over his tender sensorium! And yet these sensations are to be the alphabet by which the world and its occupants are to be revealed to him; his reasonings and conclusions thereon shall constitute his wisdom; and the conduct to which they shall lead him be the determination of his usefulness and the condition of his happiness.

To observe, to think, to do-the three elements of all progress, without whose perfect blending all education must be sadly deficient and incomplete, and our best efforts illusory and ineffective-in what sweet accord they unite

during the early years, when the young being is adjusting itself to its new surroundings, and getting its powers of body and mind well in hand for the outreaching life; and how ready the reward to his ever-delightsome efforts! With no motive power but his own natural desires, no guidance save their speediest gratification, his advance, both in knowledge and power, might well put to the blush the maturer guardians of his later life. And if, upon his entering school, we are to be of service in leading him by wiser ways, it will be, not by checking his childish curiosity, but by giving it a surer direction; not in quenching any one of his desires, but in pointing to higher gratifications; not by diminishing his happiness, but by helping him to make it more perfect and enduring; not by calling a halt to his new-born powers, but by directing him how he may observe more accurately, think more clearly, and act more efficiently, because more wisely.

But by the most earnest and well-directed efforts little would be gained, and we should all be but savages at the last, should we depend solely upon ourselves—could we not, on stepping-stones of the dead past, availing ourselves of the world's wisdom, already won, rise thereon to greater heights. And where but to the written, the printed volume shall we turn for the best and fullest records, or where else make faithful minute of our own successes and failures? Language-reading and writing -is the key that shall unlock the treasures of the past, and in the mastery of this will be found the chief employment of the early school-life.

But language is the expression of thought, and without this the ready calling of words is of no more worth than the twitter and chirping of birds, and from the first the two should always be associated-the thought suggesting the word, the word the thought, forever inseparable.

But, till the mind has somewhat furnished itself with ideas, hanging its walls with pictures, and storing its secret cells with abstractions for study and contemplation, the thought must come as a suggestion of the senses, those silent but watchful messengers waiting ever upon our waking hours to minister to our needs and pleasures, and making report of aught that may concern our welfare. Readiest to our hand comes the visible object-the hat, the book, the man; then the easily recognized representation, the picture, followed in due time by the arbitrary sign, the word, the name. Even now, too, may the interest of the pupil be quickened by letting him tell, in simple, easy word and sentence, what he has already learned, and leading him on to discover something as yet unknown to him-his little errors of speech by use set right, the strangeness of the school-room and the unwonted sound of his own voice there made sweetly familiar, and his foreign lip soon beginning to curve in loyal lines.

Now may he, by easy, quick transition, try to make himself the words; or, perchance, essay with unskilled hand his first attempt at art in the little picture of the hat, the book, the man. Soon will the apparent love and gentle sympathy of the teacher begin to be reflected in his own confiding face and glistening eye. There must be ever the thing to suggest the thought, the thought expressing itself in words, the word fitly framed in the sentence, and made visible on the slate or page, and the sentence woven so as to produce mental pictures, like the changing kaleidoscope, ever fresh and new; thought again suggesting thought, making study an inspiration and labor a delight.

At every step of his progress, even to make progress possible, there must be something new, some new arrange

ment of old material, something for the pupil to handle, examine, to find out for himself; something for him to think, to reason about; something to devise, to invent, to do; some desirable purpose to accomplish. The very effort, which might otherwise be but the essence of drudgery and dullness, may, with a due motive presented, awakening his childish spirit, become like the glad motion of a new life. It is but the Dead Sea fruit of a perished and bitter past, the thought that labor, that work is and must be irksome. In the ardor of conflict the soldier is not conscious of the wounds he receives, nor any more does the student think of the toil, in view of the end to be attained. It is the aimless, fruitless, compelled toil that burdens and degrades, against which the free heart rebels, and which the weary drudge seeks to shirk.

The motive may be fortune to be won, a future home, or empty fame; or, for the little ones, more valued still, and more efficient, a pleasant look of recognition, a kindly word, a well-earned commendation, or even the consciousness of successful accomplishment. If for one taste of the tree of knowledge our parents threw paradise away, surely for the banquet to which the wise teacher leads, these little ones will gladly seek it again. Toil for the sake of toil is not labor, nor suffering for the sake of suffering, martyrdom; and subjection to unworthy imposition is not a desirable or useful discipline.

When the pupil has advanced, as he will have done, perhaps by the end of the first term, so as profitably to use the book in reading, a new and fruitful field opens before him. The words that he has already learned stand out bright and clear, but in a different order, to tell him tales of new interest. Not now does the teacher need to stand over each, one by one, pointing with pencil or finger at the unmeaning words, while the rest of the class

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