mies and public schools. To remedy this evil the present classification has been adopted, and therefore must be strictly adhered to.

The mornings will be devoted to the study of the languages,-the afternoons to arithmetic, geography, history, and other English branches. The boys will all be required to study English grammar more or less critically according to their age and other acquirements. They will also be required, when sufficiently advanced, to study two other languages-either Greek and Latin, or French and Spanish, at the option of their parents; or, if preferred, they may study one of the ancient and one of the modern languages,—and, when sufficiently advanced, they may study both the ancient and modern.

The first three weeks of each Term will be spent,-the mornings in recitations in the grammars and exercises of the languages designed to be pursued during the remainder of the Term,-and the afternoons in writing and in acquiring the general principles of drawing. These will be the only lessons given in writing, and the only ones in drawing, except to such of the larger boys as may have time for extra lessons in that branch. As these preparatory leslessons will be indispensable to their success in the subsequent course of studies, no pupils can, for obvious reasons, be received after the first week in the term, unless prepared to sustain a critical examination, in the lessons which shall have been recited by the classes they may wish to join.

Class Books.

As some novelties will be found in the list of books adopted for the classes in this school, it may not be amiss to say a word or two in their defence. The younger lads, from six to ten years of age, who are just commencing their classical labours and whose progress must necessarily be comparatively slow, irksome, and difficult, will be furnished with every proper assistance to cheer, enlighten and facilitate their advances. The plan of Mons. Bolmar, of the PhiJadelphia High School, in teaching French, has been tried with young beginners in this school, with happy success. As there does not appear any sufficient reason, why the same plan would not be attended with the like success in teaching other languages, it is concluded to adopt that plan, whenever the proper books can be obtained, with the younger pupils in Greek and Latin. But when a lad has read enough in any language to have attained a considerable copia verborum, and especially when he has arrived at an age of sufficient maturity to reason and investigate for himself-then to have a translation lying before him while getting his lesson, may indeed save him the trouble of consulting his dictionary and enable him to read more of an author in a given time, but it is believed to be equally certain, that it will make a superficial scholar and an indolent boy.

NOTICES.

WORKS IN THE DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION,

Poetry for Schools, designed for Reading and Recitations. The whole selected from the best Poets in the English language. By the author of American Popular Lessons. New-York. White, Gallagher, & White. 1828. 12mo. pp. 396.

To make a good selection of practical readings is by no means easy; and the task becomes still more difficult, when attempted in the form of a school book. The finest strains of poetry become very soon the common property of compilers, and are copied so often as to be absolutely hackneyed. To give any degree of originality to a selection, the editor must have recourse sometimes to passages that have been overlooked, or which have not been immediately and universally admired.

With these hindrances to success the author of the above mentioned volume has had to struggle; but she has acquitted herself very creditably to her taste and discernment. In a few instances, however, we could have wished, that the selection had been such as to substitute pieces of a gentler and more attractive character for those whose chief merit is force or passion.

The explanatory introductions to the various extracts are a prominent and an excellent feature of this compilation. They serve to show that a vast deal of useful information and of moral instruction may be blended with the reading of poetry; and they furnish teachers with a good model for conducting such lessons when drawn from other sources. This volume, we think, will prove an excellent reading book, as it furnishes not only a good selection of pieces, but renders these highly intrresting; and this is the readiest and the surest way to produce an animated, distinct, and natural elocution. The book thus acquires an additional value, as conducing to one of the finest and most useful, though among the rarest accomplishments of the female sex.

BOOKS FOR CHILDREN.

The Child's Botany; with illustrative Engravings. S. G. Goodrich. Boston. 1828. 18mo. pp. 115.

It is objected to some of the modern facilities for imparting instruction, that they produce a premature application of the mind, and set the little learner a thinking when it would be better as well as more natural for him to be at play.

This juvenile Botany takes a middle course, and furnishes a moderate series of mental exercise, blended with active recreation and sedentary amusement. It will prove, we think, a favourite volume with mothers; as it requires from them occasional assistance as well as superintendence, and does not go deeper into the science than, with the aid of the book, an intelligent mother easily may.

Works of this class we think peculiarly valuable: they have an excellent mental tendency; they bring the senses into frequent and gentle action; they call for the exercise of attention and discrimination; they improve the memoory by constant use; and they cultivate taste and imagination by an early acquaintance with nature in its most beautiful forms. Publications such as this would serve to vary and enliven elementary instruction in all schools for young children; but they seem peculiarly adapted to the system introduced in infant schools.

The Child's Botany is, as nearly possible, what its title indicates,-a treatise on this subject, rendered perfectly familiar, and brought down even to the capacities of young children. In making use of the work with very young learners, some of the lessons in classification and arrangement will, no doubt, have to be postponed till a second or third course. Much improvement as well as gratification will be derived, however, from the explanations in the early part of the book, and especially from the attempts to procure and preserve specimens of the various sorts of plants which are accessible to children in their daily or occasional walks.

The engravings illustrative of the various lessons are exceedingly neat and

accurate.

COMMON EDUCATION.

ELEMENTARY INSTRUCTION.

[For the following article we are indebted to the same writer from whom we received that on primary education, which occurs at page 26 of the first No. of the Journal for the present year. These observations will be found, we think, directly applicable to most elementary schools in their existing condition, and conducive to their practical improvement.]

methods by which We believe there

In this article we propose to suggest a few elementary instruction may be given to the young. are many of those very useful members of the community, the teachers of primary schools, who daily feel the responsibleness of their profession, are deeply interested in the rising welfare of their pupils, and sincerely disposed to adopt any judicious means which shall issue in their improvement. Possessing sufficient independence of mind to think for themselves, and to estimate things by their intrinsic utility, they are prepared to receive any suggestions which aim at the intellectual and moral advancement of the rising generation; and they are aware that it is the fate of every thing valuable and interesting in the progress of mind, and the improvement of society, to be ushered into the world. under the name of innovation, and regarded as unnecessary and chimerical.

Before entering, however, upon the direct subject of this article, we would state the general principles by which, we conceive, instructers should be guided in the discharge of their high and peculiar duties.

Instruction should be spontaneous; and those to whom the su

perintendence of the young is entrusted, should distinctly keep in view, as the surety of their success, that the minds upon which they are operating, not only for time, but for eternity, are endowed with internal principles of action, with self-guiding powers; and that their chief concern should be, to study those principles; to call forth those powers; and, by a natural adaptation of manner, and subject, and circumstance, to cooperate with them in the good work of progress. They should distinctly understand that the mind itself is the chief agent which is to achieve its own advancement; that all within it that is simple, and beautiful, and individual, should be preserved; and allowed to work out its way, in those pure channels which nature has traced; and that its symmetry and perfection, essentially depend upon that gradual, and equal, and spontaneous order of advancement, for which it is fitted by its all wise Author. Perfect liberty of action, is the thing which can preserve those individual and original features enstamped on every mind; and which it should be the duty and the delight of the teacher, to carry out in their just prominence and beauty; for by such varieties is human society sweetened and blessed.

Instruction should not only be spontaneous but social. Oral communion with the young, on the part of the instructer, is admirably suited to convey accurate knowledge to the inquiring intellect, and to throw a living interest around a subject, which written instruction can never impart; and is peculiarly favourable to the moral development of the heart; the great purpose and end, of all tuition.

Instruction should likewise be rational. Reason, the distinguishing attribute of our nature, should not be debased by the inculcations of authority, or the deceptions of prejudice and error. Truth is its natural element, and in this it should be allowed to dwell. As friendly companions, on whom the goodness of God has conferred the high privilege, instructers should accompany their pupils in the pursuit of truth; clothed with no other authority, assuming no other superiority than previous experience has given them.

We now proceed to describe some methods of tuition, by which a knowledge of the elements of common science, may be communicated to the young-confining our remarks to what is strictly rudimental.

In formal instruction, the first exercise in which the young learner should engage, is Enunciation. By this is meant, the full and accurate utterance of the elementary sounds of our lan

guage.

And here exercises may be given, sometimes before the child knows the forms, or the names of the elementary sounds, as represented by letters addressed to the eye. The teacher may, in the first place, address the ear. He may enunciate the various sounds of our language; commencing with the simple or vowel sounds, which all children express with correctness, and proceeding to the complex, or consonant ones, which are but modifications of the others; and require the little observer to imitate the tones of his voice, fixing his attention on the teacher's mouth and lips. When the ear of his little auditor is able with precision to discriminate the several sounds of our language, and his voice to enunciate them clearly and distinctly, he may help the pupil to the next step in the natural gradation of ad

vancement.

This is Reading, and differs from enunciation only in this :the sounds instead of addressing the pupil's ear, through the voice of the teacher, here address his eye, in the form of significant signs. The eye, therefore, becomes the medium through which those sounds must be suggested to the ear, and uttered by the voice; and as the characters which represent those sounds can have no natural connexion with the sounds themselves, but are in this respect entirely arbitrary; this becomes a very difficult step for the little pupil to take, without the aid of some natural or associating appendage. Pictures, representing the subject of tuition, may therefore be used at this time, with great advantage, and certainly, with great pleasure, to the learner. Calling his little pupil to him, and pointing to him some object delineated by a picture, or perhaps occasionally the object itself in its tangible and visible form, with its name written near or upon it, the teacher may help him to enunciate its name, and to associate with that object its name, and likewise the general appearance of the letters by which that object, and its name, are represented to the eye and by a succession of similar efforts the pupil may, in due time, acquire such knowledge of the names, and general appearance of their spelling, that whether the objects themselves, the pictures of them, or the word representing them, be presented, the same ideas will be suggested to his mind.In like manner may the quality, appearance, and changes of objects be presented, and their names suggested to the young learner-gradually and almost imperceptibly, he may be led to read little sentences, containing the words which have thus been illustrated in pictures and actions, though, as yet he may be entirely ignorant of the name of a single letter-for he reads not