might foster a spirit of pride, avarice, ambition or warfare, be carefully excluded.

4. That moral and physical facts should form a prominent feature in such books, and mere fictions be entirely discarded.

5. That the lessons be so constructed, that every sentiment and description may produce an accurate and well-defined idea in the minds of the young.

These rules proceed on the assumption, that the communication of ideas-the elements of thought and the formation of moral character, are the great and ultimate objects of education.

In the first books put into the hands of children, the lessons should be so constructed that the leading ideas they contain, or the objects they describe, may be immediately pointed out, either by means of the specimens contained in the museum, by pictorial representations, or by the objects around them in the scene of nature; so that every word, or at least every description contained in the lesson, may be associated in the mind of the child with the idea of its objects. Hence the propriety, in the first instance, of restricting the descriptive lessons solely to sensible objects. It is through the medium of the senses that the elements of all our knowledge are derived. We perceive, in the first instance, a variety of objects which immediately surround us, and gradually become acquainted with some of their qualities. As we advance in life, and mingle in society, and make excursions from one place to another, the number of our perceptions is indefinitely increased. We have the power of presenting to the view of the mind the images or ideas of these objects at pleasure, even when the objects which first produced them are removed. Those ideas are nothing else than renewed representations of what we have at any time perceived or felt through the medium of the organs of sensation. Having received such impressions or ideas, the mind has the faculty of contemplating them at pleasure, whether their objects be present or absent-of combining them together, of compounding and decompounding them, and of modifying, comparing, and examining them, in an infinite variety of lights; by which means it is enabled to enlarge the objects of its perception and contemplation, and to acquire an inexhaustible treasure of other ideas, distinct from the former, though necessarily resulting from them. Such is the origin and progress of all our knowledge-and thus the human mind pursues its course from simple perceptions and trains of ideas, and from one discovery and chain of reasoning to another, till it rises from the first dawnings of reason to the full blaze of intellectual light, and to the height of moral improvement.

These considerations evidently point out the mode in which instruction ought to be communicated, and the objects towards which the youthful mind should, in the first instance, be directed-for want of attention to which, many of our school-books are nearly as inefficient for the purpose intended as if they had been written in a foreign language. I have just now lying before me two initiatory books lately published, entitled, "First" and "Second Books for Children," in which there is not a single sentence conveying the idea of a sentiment or fact, nor even a single word, that will produce an idea in the mind of a child-every page being completely occupied with such sounds as these" gra, cre, dre, dro-gaff, puff, groff, sniff-gyve, gyre, gybe-baffle, socle, struggle, &c. &c. Such books can never be interesting to the young, and must present to their view nothing but a bleak and thorny path to the temple of knowledge. Nor will such vague sentences as the following, with which our primers abound, produce a much better effect :-" 'My son, walk not in the way of bad men; for bad men go on in sin all the day.-Set thy heart on the right way, and mind the law of the Lord.-Do not break the laws of God, and shun the ways that lead to death," &c. Such sombre sentiments and exhortations, however sound the morality they inculcate, can never produce a well-defined idea in the mind of a child, or excite to moral action, and consequently cannot have the effect of producing pleasing emotions and a taste for knowledge.-Every sentence of a child's lesson should convey to his mind a picture or representation of some object; and it is quite possible to accomplish this end, by simplifying our descriptions, and selecting those sensible objects which are calculated to attract attention, and which may be presented to the view. For example :

not covered with clouds -The stars shine forth at night-Snow is white.-Rain comes from the clouds Gold is yellow; silver is white; copper black.-Trees grow in the fields; they have roots, is red.-Lead is heavy; cork is light; coal is branches and leaves.-Flowers grow in the fields and gardens;-some of them are red, some are grows in the fields: when it is ripe it is cut down, white, some are yellow. others are blue —Corn and ground into meal, and then baked into bread. tail-A bird has a beak, two eyes. two wings, -A dog has a head, two ears, four feet, and a two legs, and a tail; it is covered with feathers, it chirrups and sings, and flies through the airWhen we strike a small bell with a key, it sends forth a sound.-When we shut our eyes. all appears dark around us, and we can see nothing When we open our eyes, we can see the sky, the clouds, the fields, the trees the houses; and men, women, and children, walking along the road, or

"The sun shines -The sky is blue, when it is

sitting in the school -The sun rises in the east, and when he rises it is day; when he sets in the west, it is night, and the stars appear in the sky.

-The sun shines upon the trees, the houses, and the water, and every thing looks bright and beauti

ful when he shines upon it. He shines in all countries. over all the earth.-He is so bright, that we

cannot look at him, but when he is covered with thin clouds. If you take a piece of red or green glass, and hold it between your eye and the sun, you may look at him without hurting your eyes.The sun gives us light and heat, and he is the most bright and glorious work of God that can be seen in the whole world," &c.

Such simple lessons may be made to produce a well-defined idea in the mind of every child, by exhibiting to his view, at the moment he is reading, the very object which his lesson describes; and if the object is not present, it may be represented by an engraving. When his lesson states that "lead is heavy, and cork is light," a piece of cork and a piece of lead of the same size may be put into his hands, which will not only convince him of the fact, but will enable him afterwards to recognize these circumstances. When he reads that "a bell, when struck by a piece of iron, produces a sound," the experiment may be exhibited before him-which circumstances will have a powerful tendency to arrest his attention, and keep alive his interest in the subject of his lessons.

The first class-books for schools should, therefore, be confined chiefly to descriptions of the appearances and qualities of such objects as may be exhibited to the senses of children, and instantly associated with the vocables of which their lessons consist. Descriptions of the form and habits of animals, such as the dog, the cow, the ass, the mole, the elephant, the rein-deer, the camelopard, &c.—of regetables, the parts of which they consist, the places where they grow, the manner in which they are produced and cultivated, their fruits and flowers, and numberless varieties of minerals, their various qualities, colours, and appearances, the places whence they are procured, the processes through which they pass, and the uses to which they are subservient in human life-might form one department of an initiatory class-book. Descriptions of the more obvious phenomena of nature, such as the apparent motions of the heavens, the rising and setting of the sun, the phases of the moon, the movements and aspect of the clouds, the phenomena of thunder and lightning, winds, rain, hail and snow; the most striking objects which appear in towns, villages, and throughout the fields, on hills, mountains, valleys, rivers, and sea-coastsmight form another department of a schoolbook; care being taken that the descriptions be sufficiently simple and vivid, and that long and hard words be as much as possible avoided. Descriptions of some of the innocent games and amusements of the young, accompanied with delineations of some of them, might likewise be introduced. As a supple

ment or companion to a book of this kind, descriptions might be given of the particular objects connectel with the locality in which the school is situated. In the first place, the school itself, with the various objects it contains; the trees, flowers, and shrubbery which surround it; the roads, streets, lanes and walks, and the most remarkable public buildings it contains-might be particularly described, and the descriptions accompanied with a plan or map of the place and its vicinity, and views of the most interesting objects, rural and architectural, which are connected with it. Such descriptions would always be read with interest by the young, and would excite them to habits of observation and reflection, besides affording them materials for conversation in their social walks and intercourses. Children are always extremely fond of having their ideas of sensible objects enlarged, and view, with a great degree of interest and pleasure, the representations of them in wellexecuted engravings. Yet, strange to tell, when I attended school, it would have been considered as a crime to have looked into a book which contained engravings. I recollect of a boy having brought to school a copy of "The Three Hundred Animals," but it was carefully concealed from the teacher, and from most of the scholars, through fear of punishment. We were so anxious, however, to see the novel figures it contained-the magnified picture of the louse and the flea, the bee-hive, the peacock, the elephant, and the whale-that we gave pins, marbles, cherry-stones, gooseberries, and even sometimes a whole halfpenny, to the proprietor, for half an hour's perusal of it.

Some persons will perhaps be disposed to object, that such lessons as I now allude to are either trifling, or, at least, not so important as the moral lessons generally introduced into our initiatory books. In reply to such an insinuation, it may be sufficient to say, that it can never be unimportant to convey a well-defined idea of any object worthy of being known, to the mind of a child, if it is admitted that the great object of education is to communicate the elements of thought. And as to producing moral impressions, every pious and intelligent teacher has an opportunity afforded of impressing the minds of his pupils with a sense of the Goodness, Omnipresence, and Agency of God, every time he is teaching a lesson which is descriptive of the works of nature. Morality can never be effectually taught to the young by vague exhortations, and general rules and maxims,-more especially when such exhortations are not thoroughly understood. If we wish to impress the youthful mind with the odiousness of vice, and the excellence of virtue, we

must fix upon particular actions, apply to them moral rules or precepts, and illustrate, by familiar examples, their nature and tendency. Every teacher has daily an opportunity of directing the attention of his pupils to certain actions, both good and bad, which appear in their general conduct; and the judicious remarks he makes on the temper and dispositions manifested by particular individuals, will make a more definite and lasting impression upon the minds of the young than can be produced by the mere reading or repetition of moral maxims or general rules. And every child who has been regularly taught to understand every sentence he reads, and to exercise his judgment upon it, will undoubtedly be better prepared than others for forming a judgment of the propriety or impropriety of certain moral actions, when they are explained to him with simplicity and clearness. In a more advanced stage of education, however, moral lessons, accompanied with examples of virtues and vices, may with great propriety be introduced.

Some may likewise be disposed to inquire whether I intend to set aside exercises on the powers of the letters and the clementary sounds. Although I do not attach so much importance to such exercises as has generally been done, yet I would not altogether set them aside. Lists of monosyllables, exemplifying the long and short sounds of the vowels, and the pronunciation peculiar to certain combinations of the consonants, might be pasted upon cards, and hung up in view of the different classes; on which they might be occasionally exercised, rather as a kind of interlude or amusement than as a serious task. But it appears quite preposterous to confine a child for four or five months to the pronunciation of mere sounds, to which no ideas are attached. And, from a good deal of experience, I am convinced that the true pronunciation of words is to be acquired more from reading interesting lessons, and from the occasional remarks of the teacher on particular sounds as they occur, than by long and tedious exercises on the orthography of the language.

In a more advanced stage of education, after the pupil has read two or three small volumes consisting of such easy descriptive pieces as those alluded to above, a volume consisting of selections of a higher order may be put into his hands. So early as the year 1809, I had formed, and partly executed, the plan of a volume of this description, calculated to excite the attention of the young, to convey real knowledge to their minds, and to render the exercise of reading pleasant and profitable. In some papers connected with

this projected work, I find the following "General outline of Contents."

1. Short and familiar lessons. 2. Narratives of real occurrences and facts. 3. Juvenile Biography-comprising anecdotes and lives of young persons who had made early progress in knowledge: early life of Sir I. Newton, of Ferguson the astronomer, of Pascal, Gassendi, Grotius, Crichton, Horrox, Baratiere, &c. &c. 4. Selections from Sured History: History of the creation and fall of man-of the deluge-of the destruction of Sodom-of the lives of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, and Samuel,—of the deliverance of the Israelites from Egypt, and the leading events which befel them in the wilderness and in Canaan-of the life and translation of Elijah-of the deliverances of Jonah, Daniel, Shadrach, Meshech, and Abednego; Paul, Peter, &c.-of the circumstances which attended the birth, transfiguration, crucifixion, resurrection and ascension of Jesus Christ, and the preaching of the Apostleswith illustrative remarks and observations, a map of the land of Judea, plans of the tabernacle and temple, and figures of the sacred utensils and vestments used in the Jewish worship. 5. Descriptions of objects connected with Natural History and Natural Philosophy: Forms, habits, and instincts of animals, with anecdotes; Natural curiosities—such as basaltic columns, boiling springs, icebergs, glaciers, volcanoes, whirlpools, natural bridges, subterranean caverns, Banian tree, &c.; Brief description of the parts and functions of the human body-the organs of sense, and the different kinds of knowledge they communicate. Phenomena of Nature in the atmosphere and the heavens: Properties of air-weight and pressure of the atmosphere, with descriptions of a few simple illustrative experiments; Descriptions of thunder-storms, luminous and fiery meteors, the aurora-borealis, the clouds, the rainbow, the ignis-fatuus, rain, hail, dew, waterspouts, hurricanes, sounds and echoes; Descriptions of the mechanical powers-of electrical, magnetical, and optical instruments -of the apparent motions of the heavenly bodies of the more interesting phenomena connected with the earth, and the other bodies which compose the solar system, &c. 6. Illustrations and descriptions of certain arts and trades: Pin-making, weaving, printing, papermaking, glass-blowing, &c. 7. Useful hints on various subjects: On taking care of books

cautions respecting the preservation of health-the dangers arising from fire, confined air, noxious gases-the prevention of accidents and infectious diseases-rules for the promotion of order, cleanliness and acti