listener seem to see and hear things. If a teacher be fond of children she may to some extent acquire this art by carefully noticing what interests and amuses them. When she wishes to speak to them of something which they have not seen, she should lead up to it very gradually by careful comparison with things familiar to them. She should never trust to verbal explanations and illustrations, however clear or minute, when she can possibly get the thing itself. She should be on her guard against any abuse of what is called "elliptic" teaching, to which inferior infant schoolmistresses far too frequently have recourse. How silly and useless it is for a teacher to say "Glass is transthen pause for the children to say, "parent." "Wood is o-," children, "paque"; and so on for many minutes at a time. A skilful teacher will avoid the necessity of using hard words. She has to teach things, not words. Infants learn nothing by repeating after their teacher, "Iron is fusible, malleable, ductile," &c. Whatever meaning such words convey to the teacher's mind, they can convey none to little children. To them they are hard sounds, difficult to utter, and nothing else. If they are to learn anything of iron, they must be reminded of what they have seen a blacksmith doing, or might see their teacher doing with a piece of iron wire and a fire, and must have their attention drawn to various things made of iron in the room.

2. Reading.

In reading and spelling good results are often attained only by an undue expenditure of time and toil. Teachers might spare both themselves and the children great weariness if they would recognize the difficulties created by the fact that the names of our letters seldom form the least clue to their sound, use, or power, when combined in syllables and words. They would then see that they have to solve simultaneously, yet without confusion, two problems, each of which is the converse of the other, namely, to enable children :

(1) To recognize and sound at sight the combinations of letters in syllables and words.

(2) On hearing syllables or words sounded, to write correctly

the combinations of letters which represent the sounds they hear.

It is not easy to discover on what, if any, principle the readingsheets and primers commonly used are based, but it is certain that in few schools as yet is the teaching of reading based on natural principles. Nothing but long habit could close teachers' ears to the absurdity of saying "see oh double-you, cow," and so Such absurdities follow naturally from the practice of beginning by teaching children "their letters," i.e. their names instead of their powers.

on.

Good use should be made of children's eyes to familiarize them gradually with those combinations of letters which are most frequently used; of their ears to associate the correct sounds of those combinations with their appearance; and of their

powers of mimicry, to induce them to imitate the movements of their instructor's lips and tongue, so as to repeat every sound correctly after her. A skilful teacher will take pains to keep out of sight in the earlier stages of reading lessons, all such irregularities of vowel sounds as are found in ". 66 "where," there," "one," and sundry other monosyllables, which are far more difficult to a child than long words like " Mesopotamia," in which no unusual power of any Vowel occurs.

One of the most successful teachers of reading to infants attributes her wonderful results to the following system. She takes a class of four-year-old children and makes them sound accurately after her all the "voices" or powers of each vowel regularly used in English. The children are not shown the signs which represent those sounds, i.e. the letters, until they are able to sound all the voices accurately. By carefully withholding all irregularities of sound, and gradually combining the vowels with consonants sounded phonically, she enables children at six years of age to read fluently from advanced books.1

Purity of intonation, clearness of articulation and enunciation, a good ear, and strict attention to secure from the children accu

1 The teacher referred to uses Sonnenschein and Meiklejohn's English Method of Learning to Read. Reading sheets, primers, and books based on the same principle are now being published by several firms.

rate reproductions of every sound uttered by the teacher, are absolutely essential to the success of the system. The results to be achieved, however, more than repay the personal trouble required to ensure them. To the teacher as well as to the taught it is infinitely less wearisome and more interesting than what is called the alphabetic system.

A beginner must carefully refrain from telling children the names of any consonants in the earlier lessons. A little practice will soon enable any one to sound them "phonically," and indeed the very effort to give the force of a consonant apart from a vowel has a tendency to improve articulation. Thus, after children have learnt to recognise and sound at sight the combinations 'ad' and 'ade,' the teacher, instead of saying 'bee' and 'emm' on showing the letters b and m prefixed to either, will bid the children watch her lips and imitate their movements as she forms them into the shape required for pronouncing 'b' and 'm.' She will then give as much of the effect of each of these consonants as can be given without any vowel before she unites them with the syllables and utters or allows them to utter the words 'bad,' 'mad,' 'bade,'' made.'

Teachers previously accustomed to teach reading alphabetically must not allow themselves to become disheartened by the seemingly slow progress made by children during the first few months. Their steady progress afterwards and the confidence with which they will soon grapple with words will more than repay patient waiting. To ensure good spelling every reading lesson should be followed by transcription of the words newly read and mastered and after that again by dictation of the same words. If words spelt amiss be written out several times the children can hardly fail to become good spellers. Infants should never be asked to spell a word aloud but always to write it down. Reiteration of the sounds "bee-you-en" bun, by way of impressing the spelling on the mind, is in violation of the known fact that spelling depends on the eye not the ear.

3. Writing.

Advantage should be taken of children's natural instincts in their first lessons in writing. They should be supplied with sticks

C

wherewith to form all letters that are made up of straight lines; then with rings and half-rings of cardboard to form letters like B, C, and P. After this they are to be encouraged to draw letters in printed characters on slates and black boards. By such means children learn first the forms, then the powers, and afterwards the names of the letters with little trouble to their teacher and with no little amusement to themselves.

As soon as infants are to write upon slates they should from the very first be drilled to take up their pencils with the SECOND finger and thumb, and to raise them thus held for inspection at the beginning of every writing lesson. The forefinger should point upwards and not be placed on the pencil until writing begins. This drill will ensure their habitual use of the second finger in writing, and counteract the tendency to its disuse in after life. No child should be allowed to write with a pencil shorter than four inches. Tin holders should form part of every school's permanent stock and be supplied to children as soon as their pencils become short. For drawing, not writing, on slates, short pencils may be allowed.

4. Counting.

Counting is best taught by means of pencils, buttons, nuts, or counters. Children should not be allowed to count on their fingers, as that is a habit which it is difficult afterwards to break off. It is important also to have addition subtraction and multiplication tables learnt by heart, and recited or chanted in unison by infants while they are assembling, marching round the room or playground in mid-school time, or preparing to go home. Great pains should be taken to wean infants gradually from the use of actual things to count with, to enable them to pass unconsciously from the concrete to the abstract. If they have been well taught, most children at the age of five will be easily able to add together mentally any number not amounting to more than ten, and to subtract numbers not exceeding seven. At the age of six they will readily add, and write figures up to twenty, and subtract up to ten, and when orally tested in such sums they will answer promptly and correctly.

5. Form and Colour.

The instruction given to infants on Form and Colour is often too mechanical to interest them or to be of any educational value. In teaching shapes, hard names, as pentagon, rhombus, &c. may with advantage be left alone. To be of real use to children lessons on form should be so given as to encourage quickness in counting and accuracy in outline drawing. Advantage should be taken of mistakes in drawing to train their eyes to see things correctly. Attention should be drawn to simple shapes of common objects in the room, as bricks, window-panes, slates, cards, clock-face, &c. In lessons on colour children should not be worried with strings of names of different shades, but should be invited to notice the colours in their clothes, odds and ends of coloured silks and wools; and find out like colours rather than to learn their names. In country schools a teacher should refer to well-known wild flowers, encouraging the children to bring flowers to school daily, and commending good taste in arrangement of nosegays. This may have the effect of gradually training their eyes to an instinctive feeling for harmony of colour. 1 The mistress will of course be careful not to let her own dress show any violation of good taste in colour.

6. Common Objects.

Infants should have well-arranged, thoughtful, and interesting lessons on the common things which they see or use daily, as materials of Food, Drink, and Clothing, Houses and Furniture, and natural events of common occurrence. In all these lessons the simplest words should be used, and they should be led on

1 The laws of harmony and contrast, between secondary colours at any rate, can be easily remembered by the simple device of placing the three primaries, yellow, red, blue, at equal distances from each other round the edge of a circle. Any diameter of this circle will show complementary colours at each end. Thus a diameter starting from red will fall between blue and yellow, that is, on green; one starting from blue will fall between yellow and red, that is, on orange; one drawn from yellow will hit purple or violet. It will be found that the eye is satisfied when red is balanced by green, orange by blue, yellow by violet. For infants these elementary contrasts will

suffice.