PEDAGOGICS ABROAD.-NO. X.

W. M. CROCKET, A. M.

ERHAPS the best way to gain from paper | the recognition of the individual words, at

attention called to its form, various expedients may be adopted to impress it-to select it from a list of words in which it repeatedly appears, to name it each time the teacher prints it, and to throw it, when practicable, into some sentence already known by the class. Each word of the sentence is dealt with in a similar way, after which the children themselves are required to form other sentences by transposing the order of words, an exercise which is often amusing and at all times profitable. It is scarcely necessary to say that before the whole sentence is mastered in the way described several lessons will have to be given, no lesson exceeding a quarter of an hour in length. When several sentences have thus been taught, the visitor will observe that they are then arranged so as to form an interesting story on one subject, and the Lesson Cards prescribed by the Provincial Board of Education-which are constructed so as to be used in this way-are taken advantage of, and render the printing of the story on the blackboard unnecessary. The children are prepared for each story on the card in a similar manner.

When the cards have been mastered, the children are introduced to the Primer, which contains no word which they have not hitherto met with on the cards. Different stories are formed merely by a different arrangement of the same words, and each lesson is invested with fresh interest, just as the different arrangement of a child's toy affords it new delight.

As they become acquainted with several sounds, they are led to see their use in the formation of words. During their first exercises in these lessons, monosyllabic words of two letters are taken as the root out of which other words are made to grow, as it were, by prefixing a sound-e. g., from at are formed by prefixing the sounds, c, f, r, s,c-at, f-at, r-at, etc.; from in, by prefixing t, f, d,-t-in, f-in, etc. When all the sounds are known, and their use drilled upon, the children are put in posession of a power by which they can ordinarily make out new words which they may meet with in their subsequent reading. The names of the letters of the alphabet which are of no use to the pupil till he begins oral spelling, which should not be during Primer work, are learned without any formal instruction. The course which has been described is very satisfactorily accomplished in one year. Nothing is gained by attempting to accomplish it sooner with pupils. who enter school about five years of age.

This method carries out the true theory of teaching reading, which is to enable the pupil to recognize in visible form the language he daily employs. The child, at the age we are considering, expresses his ideas not in detached words, but in sentences. It is true that the word Tom or dog will suggest an idea, but that idea implies a notion of doing or being, and which when expressed will assert something of Tom or dog. The sentence, therefore, is the smallest whole which should be presented to the child.

When about half the lessons of the Primer The method is on the principle of leading can be read with ease and fluency, and each from the known to the unknown. The teacher word in them readily recognized, the process in her preliminary conversation takes care of phonic analysis is commenced. The teacher that the sentence which is to form the subject is observed to select some word from a sen- of the lesson is understood, and conveys a tence of their reading lesson-e.g., the word distinct and definite idea. The unknown mat. When it has been pronounced by the thing to be taught is the visible expression of children, they are required to imitate the that idea. It carries out to the full extent sounds as given slowly by the teacher, the principle which pervades all sound elementm-a-t. The pupils repeat the separate sounds ary teaching-the wholes before parts, analyseveral times, and are thus led to see that thesis of the wholes, and the recomposition of word consists of three sounds. The first of these parts into wholes. these, m, may be selected as the sound to be drilled upon. The character is printed along with other letters on the blackboard, and the sound given each time it is pointed out, and different expedients may be adopted to impress it, as in the case of the word. Each sound is involved in a similar manner-the exercise being generally taken previous to the close of a reading lesson. Before the Primer has been finished, the children have become acquainted with the elementary sounds, whether represented by one letter or more.

It appeals to the intelligence of the child from the outset. Unless a symbol is the representation of some idea either just excited, or previously existing in the mind, the impression made does not act on the intelligence but is remembered merely as a matter of sight and sound, without connecting it with any idea intended to be conveyed. names of the twenty-six letters, the knowledge of which was at one time deemed necessary in order to be able to read, were, besides a hindrance to reading, nothing more than

The

cise the epitomes of the same by the pupils. An eminent teacher recently asked a class of fifty-seven boys, What is the last book you have read? One answered "I haven't read any lately;" another, "I don't remember;" "Can't tell," said a third. But the great majority were able to give an account of their reading which was most creditable to their teacher, evincing his wholesome influence over his pupils outside of the school

twenty-six seeing sensations with which no
intellectual activity could possibly be associ-
ated. The sounds of the letters also, unless
evolved from the wholes or known words, are
so many hearing sensations, but of a more
mysterious character, because heard nowhere
outside of the school-room. In the method
described, a source of pleasure is initiated by
the child's associating the symbol with the
mental conception. By such a process, the
associating of idea and symbol becomes habit-room.
ual, and if after a time the language the child
meets with should represent unknown ideas,
these will be sought for by the mind, and an
intelligent curiosity will be excited in regard
to them. The child will come to feel that
there is something to be known in connection
with any words or language that may be
strange to him, and the impression made can-
not but lead to intellectual action.

Canada School Fournal.

WHAT SHOULD OUR BOYS READ?

HON. B. G. NORTHROP.

[In our last issue appears an article on "What Our Boys are Reading." This was published also in Mr. Northrop's annual report of the Connecticut Schools, just received, where it is followed by the article here given under heading as above.-ED.]

TE

Twenty-seven had been reading works of history and biography, including Life and Times of Benjamin Franklin, Life of Prescott, Higginson's History of the United States, Irving's Washington, Lives of Cicero, Hannibal, Cæsar, Xerxes, Alexander, Ferdinand and Isabella. Three boys were reading Dickens' History of England and one was enjoying Bancroft's ten volume History of the United States, another had just read three volumes of Macaulay's Essays. Shakespeare, Bunyan, Bulwer, DeFoe, Jules Verne and Oliver Optic had one reader each. What Career, Avis, Marble Faun, History of Propellers, Management of Horses, Seven Oaks, Miss Mühlbach's Empress Josephine, Ways of the World, Half-Hour Natural Science Series, American Explorers, Little Men, Speke's Sources of the Nile, Wide Wide World, Waverly, Fortunes of Nigel, and Quentin Durward were also named.

I invite our teachers to test their scholars EACHERS can largely determine the in the same way during the present year, and reading of their scholars out of school. to send me lists of the books read by their It is important not only to awaken a love of pupils. With the coöperation of teachers books, but to guide in their selection and and school officers we may learn what the form a taste for profitable reading. Scholars youth of Connecticut are reading. This should be encouraged to have some good effort will enlist the attention of parents and book always at home, in which they read a secure their aid in the selection of better little every day. In school they should be books and periodicals for their children, and invited to tell what they have read. To give thus check a growing evil and accomplish an epitome of one's reading is an admirable great good. Teachers should foster a taste school exercise. The pupil will peruse a for such choice literature, that travels, histobook with ten fold greater interest, when ex-ries and biographies, books of science, genupecting to epitomize his author before the school. As a drill of memory and in language it is a most useful exercise, and is one that is sure to interest as well as profit the school. Having experienced these advantages in my own teaching and witnessed them in many schools, I strongly recommend this practice, already adopted by some, to all the teachers of Connecticut. Instead of giving here a list of books for all the youth of the State, I advise teachers to recommend well known works in adaptation to the age, taste and advancement of individual pupils, usually those which they themselves have read, that they may the better appreciate and criti

ine poetry, essays and choice romances shall take the place of the "blood and thunder" stories and other emphatically weekly novelettes of the day.

Social reading should also be encouraged. The industry in many a sewing circle has been enlivened by well-selected reading by one of their number. The same genial influence should often cheer the circle around the family hearth. "Reading circles" ought to be maintained in every town, where selections in prose or poetry, often a play of Shakespeare, the several parts having been previously assigned and made the subject of careful private study and drill, are rehearsed

together. These Reading Clubs, where each [ must soon retrograde, and such a teacher thoroughly studies his part or selection till would stultify rather than stimulate his class. he becomes so posse-sed of its thought and spirit as to render it in the best style he can command, not only cultivate the art of elocution, but improve the taste and develop a higher appreciation of the best authors. Aside from the educational value of this class of evening schools, their social influence is happy. Divided as the residents of our rural districts too often are, by party or sect, by prejudice or neighborhood difficulties, every influence tending to fraternize the people should be welcomed; every association where they meet on common ground for mutual improvement, and where kindly feeling and social amenities are cultivated, should be encouraged.

Happily there are now many teachers worthy of their work, whose ideal is high and who are enthusiastic in the life-long work of personal culture. The efficient coöperation of such teachers I confidently anticipate in the efforts now making to stimulate a taste for books, and aiding our youth in the selection of the best books. One who early acquires a taste for reading and a love of books, will realize that his education is only begun when his school days are ended. To complete it will be the aim and ambition of his life. Let his calling be what it may, with an insatiable desire for knowledge he will find leisure for self-improvement. The many instances of self-educated men whose eminence and success are due to an early taste for reading, should be given to the boys who are just entering the active pursuits of life, and who are so apt to think that they can no longer find time for self-culture. But is the little leisure they have well improved? Should the even

The teacher cannot awaken love of books unless he himself continues to be a student. Any one who thinks he knows enough to teach even the humblest class, should never profane the school room by his presence. One who has ceased to be a learner cannot be a good teacher. The more one has dis-ings be idled away, because the days must be covered, the more he wants to know. The truly learned man feels the greatness of his ignorance and the littleness of his knowledge as but a drop out of the boundless ocean of truth. It has been well said, "The greater the circle of our knowledge, the greater the horizon of ignorance that bounds it. The pride of wisdom therefore is the proof of folly." Arrogance and assurance are not the fruits of true learning. Yet from the days of Johnson to Dickens "the school-master" has

occupied with business or labor? The youth whose teachers have trained them to always have a good book at hand for odd moments, will enter the practical callings of life with a habit of inestimable importance.

been characterized in our literature as magis- G

SCHOOL DISCIPLINE.

THOS J. CHAPMAN.

OOD government lies at the base of all true excellence in the school-room. Un

will be impossible to succeed. Order is heaven's first law. The school where good order is not enforced, is a failure; it is the plain of Shinar at the confusion of tongues; there may be movement there, but not progress. The first care of the teacher should be given to securing good order.

terial, opinionated, and dogmatical. Associated as teachers are with beginners, or at less a proper discipline is enforced there, it least inferiors in attainments, seldom called to the grapple of mind with mind as in forensic contests with equals or superiors, there is great danger of imbibing the spirit of conceit and dogmatism, even when only getting deeper in the old ruts. What is drier than an old, opinionated, self-satisfied, unprogressive school-master? He despises "all your new-fangled notions." He glories in the "good old ways." His fluent routine feeds his complacency, though it really enervates his own mind and stupefies his pupils. Whoever either in the college or primary school has ceased to learn, should by all means stop teaching, for children need impulse even more than instruction. Any one who no longer thirsts for higher knowledge, cannot fitly lead even the youngest to its fountain. As a teacher, one must be progressive, or cease to be at all. The mind that stagnates

Not many rules, but good ones, and these well adhered to, should be the maxim in organizing a school. There should be no looseness in framing rules for the government of a school, and above all things there should be no looseness in the enforcement of these rules when they are once enacted. So long as a regulation remains as one of the rules of the school, it must be carefully observed; if it is an improper rule it should be repealed promptly, and the pupils should be informed that it has been so repealed, that they may not imagine that the teacher is winking at a