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not to read understandingly, but fluently; and in the other lessons, the child thinks only of getting a certain number of words to say over to his instructer just as they are in the book. The following story which went the rounds of the newspapers a year or two since, and was published in most of them without comment, that is, with apparent approbation, affords a good illustration of the common method of teaching :

Rapid Reading and Articulation.-On Sabbath day, May 15, 1825, Miss P. E. of G. daughter of D. E. Esq. read vocally and distinctly, between 7 o'clock in the morning, and 5 minutes before 9 in the evening, the whole of the New Testament from beginning to end.

To boast of such feats as this, or to publish them with approbation, is to teach the young, that in reading, the grand object is, to read rapidly; and that in all their lessons, the grand object is, to get a great many pages. The following may serve as specimens of the ignorance of the older scholars in common academies and schools. A young man 16 or 18 years of age, who soon afterwards became a school-master, was asked the meaning of the phrase "civil war." He replied, that he supposed it meant a war carried on civilly.' Another of the same age, being engaged nominally. in the study of rhetoric, was asked what it was to be fond of novelty. "I suppose," said he, "it means to be fond of reading novels." A young lady, who had made similar proficiency in years, though not, perhaps, in understanding, was reciting a lesson in geography; and, instead of saying that the Chinese swathed their feet in infancy, she said that they wafted them. Not paying any attention to the sense, and probably not kuowing the meaning of either swathe or waft, she had, in getting the lesson, made a small mistake in the orthography of a word. Hundreds of similar instances might be mentioned, if we had taken the trouble to note them down as they occurred.

We trust enough has been said to establish the fact, that children usually understand but a small part of their lessons; and that those who are farther advanced in years, have usually a very imperfect knowledge of what they learn. Need we wonder, then, at the aversion or indifference to their studies which many feel? Think how irksome it would be to an illiterate adult, to commit to memory and learn to spell, day after day, columns and sentences of Latin or Greek. Similar to this is the task, in which young children are employed. And when we consider, that this cause of aversion is frequently combined with the three others before enumerated, we may well wonder how any children, in

such circumstances, can become fond of their books. None, indeed, ever could become so, had not our Creator implanted a very strong curiosity in the minds of children. They, for a time, take pleasure in learning marks and sounds, without knowing what these marks and sounds represent, or to what use they are capable of being applied. And afterwards when they have proceeded far enough to begin to see some gleams of light shining upon their path, their innate love of knowledge affords them so much pleasure, as to make them forget the dark and gloomy way through which they have passed. Thus, some children love their studies, because they understand a little, though it be but a small part of what the lessons really contain. And the reason that youth commonly become more interested in their studies, the farther they advance in them, is not that their curiosity or their love of knowledge increases, but because they are able to understand a greater proportion of what they learn.

5. Some children become averse to learning in consequence of the interrupted and irregular attention which they pay to their studies. When there are long intervals between the lessons, the child forgets what he learned last, his mind becomes occupied with other things, and he loses whatever interest he may have felt in the subject. This evil is greatly increased at school, where the children recite in classes. Scholars who are inconstant and irregular in their attendance, or who go to school so late that they have not sufficient time to get their lessons, not only have their minds diverted to other objects, but find great difficulty in understanding the lessons for want of that knowledge which the class have aquired in their absence. In such cases, if the instructor teaches systematically and thoroughly, he is obliged to bestow some extra labour on the delinquent scholar, to the injury of the rest of the school; and probably, after all, the scholar, if he has been absent some whole days, will be unable to go on with the class, without ratarding their progress, and feeling himself to be plodding in the dark. A letter from a friend engaged in teaching school, contains the following paragraph:

"One of the greatest difficulties that I find in teaching, is occasioned by the indifference and neglect of parents. There are many, who do not send their children regularly to school. A considerable proportion of my scholars have attended but little more than half the time. I have not been able to gain the attention of many of these; and of course they have made but little improvement. It is contrary to my ideas of teaching, to use compulsion; and if you can in

form me how I may make scholars learn, who don't love their book, and but seldom go to school, I should be highly gratified."

We reply, there is no way to make such scholars learn. And parents who keep their children at home in this manner, or detain them habitually in the morning half an hour or more, after the exercises of the school commence, ought not to expect them to learn. A habit of tardy or inconstant attendance, appears to us an evil of so serious magnitude, as to demand the interference of school committees. We apprehend. that in many instances of this kind, all the benefit which the individuals can derive from the little they may learn, is insufficient to compensate for the injury they do to the school at large, by the example they set, the disorder they occasion, and the degree in which they retard the class to which they belong.

DISCIPLINE OF SCHOOLS AND FAMILIES.

The following paragraphs are extracted from a late number of the Journal of Education.

"What then is this talent for government? To understand it aright, let us visit one or two school rooms, and look around us. In one, we find order, silence, diligence, and respect to the teacher, and interest in the things taught In another all the reverse-noise, disorder, idleness, and disrespect. Why? This second teacher seems to take quite as much pains-he is all the time anxious and fidgeting, and is as loud in stilling the noise as his pupils are in making it. The other, meantime, seems hardly to be noticing what is going on-is quiet and tranquil as if sitting in his own parlor. Here, in great part, lies the secret-bustle in the teacher begets bustle in the pupil. A calm manner in the master, diffuses a calm over the whole school.* Children are insensibly and mechanically acted upon by the demeanor of those who are over them. We do not mean that this is all the one, with all his calmness unites firmness, resolution, decision, uniformity. The other is not only boisterous, but his feelings are unequal, and he follows their impulses, and holds an unequal, infirm, indecisive rein; sometimes severe, sometimes indulgent;

While we admit the truth and importance of these remarks, we must also take into consideration the length of time during which a teacher has had the charge of the same school or the same scholars, and the habits which these scholars have been forming, perhaps for twelve or fifteen years, under former teachers and under the care of their parents. If a teacher expects that calmness, decision, and uniformity will produce an instantaneous change in the feelings and habits of idle and disorderly boys, he will probably be disappointed.-Er. TEACHER'S GUIDE.

sometimes remembering and sometimes forgetting his promises and threatenings. Here, then, is the case to which we have already alluded; in a school where a settled undeviating order of things goes resolutely and silently on, it is submitted to without question or reluctance, as if it were an established ordinance of nature; but in that where caprice and passion sway, the little subjects of the fickle rule, know not what to depend upon, know not even what is the law, therefore do-as the master does-follow their own humors.

It is the same in families. And when a parent tells us, that he wants the faculty of government, we should say to him in reply In this you condemn yourself rather than excuse. What you want is, not some mysterious talent from nature, but calmness, decision, uniformity. You are unequal in your temper, capricious in your management, irresolute and changeable in your mode of treatment, you follow your feelings instead of a fixed course. If you will always treat your children alike, never depart from the general law, let passion never guide your proceedings, and never forget either a promise or a threat,—you will find that your authority is established. It requires few words; little talking is better than a great deal. It requires no bustie; the more gentle and deliberate you are, the better. Your deportment toward them is the main thing-never too familiar, which it cannot be so long as you are always alike and suffer them not to overlook the due respect-and never too reserved, which it may easily be, if you do not rid yourself of the antiquated notions of parental dignity and distance. In a word, govern yourself by the maxim of a very successful preceptor, of whom we once inquired the secret of the power by which he so easily held sway over his pupils, without scarcely seeming to exert it; and who replied that his main rule of government had always been, Suaviter in modo, fortiter in re-mildness and firmness. In this consists the talent for government. This is what every one may acquire-some to a higher perfection than others—but that parent is inexcusably blameable, who suffers his family to run to riot and ruin, through an indolent persuasion that the talent is not in him.

These remarks on the nature of what is called a talent for government, have anticipated many things which we might have said on the injudicious mode of exercising authority, by means of which many parents lose it. First of all, indeed, they failed of securing it in that beginning of life when it might so easi

ly have been done. They suffered the child, for two or three years, to be uncontrolled, to regard no one's will but its own, to triumph in every contest for the mastery, to learn that its own perseverance would gain anything, and that parental opposition would always give way before it--and then they had to go through the harsh, ungrateful labor of undoing the whole, and changing from the bottom the temper and habits of the spoiled infant. What a task have they imposed on themselves! and how, with a parent's feelings and their former habits of indulgence, can they set themselves about it? By very energetic, determined, and, as we may say, violent remedies, they may cure the evil, and break up the disorder. But from such a course they shrink. They easily relent. They take one step, and repent themselves, and go back. They are irresolute, wavering, inconsistent; now angry at the evil they would cure, and now weakly indulging it. No wonder that they acquire no authority. No wonder that the child learns neither obedience nor respect; for it perceives, it can perceive nothing but this-that it must obey sometimes, but it cannot learn at what times, and it does not see that these times should not be determined by its own humor as well as its mother's. In a word, it soon finds that disobedience is not invariably a crime, and that obedience does not always secure good treatment. There being therefore no fixed rule, it disobeys at pleasure, sensible of the parent's caprice; [and it] ceases soon either to love or respect, to fear or obey. And then, when the filial affection is thus sapped at the foundation, when the heart ceases to beat most fondly, when the mother's image is presented, and a father's name calls up no idea of reverence and awe, then the prime natural restraints of character are gone—the guardians that were set to watch the youthful spirit, and with a mysterious charm keep it pure amid the surrounding contaminations of pleasure and folly which lay snares for it on its entrance to the world, have been made to desert their charge-and it is no occasion for surprise that he rushes eagerly into the haunts of licentious pleasure and loses himself in the ways of sin past recall-for what can recall him whom the voice of parental authority has ceased to reach, and whose filial love is never awakened and touched by the memory of a mother's early love? Or if God, by his providence or word should arrest him, yet what more sad and dreadful than to find his first. repenting and sober thoughts filled with anguish and reproach towards those whose early fidelity might have saved him from shame and remorse, but whose weak and selfish indulgence broke the talisman that would have kept him safe.

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