touch bottom. A little ungraceful struggling sometimes develops a skill and strength which wading in shallow ponds would not have brought out! A boy will never learn to read, certainly, if he is never put into lessons where he will find words and sentences which will need to be explained to him. This is the very work which the teacher is employed to do,— to help the pupil in understanding the lesson, or surmounting the difficulty which he could not overcome alone. But while the scholar is allowed to advance in the face of difficulties, let him be obliged to master them as he progresses; to go over every sentence and paragraph and page, until he can pronounce every word, understand every sentence, and give it the proper expression in reading. In this way only can he prevent his unconquered words from harassing him in the rear. If the difficulties before him are really too great for him to surmount with reasonable aid from his teacher, he should wait until further drilling on easier fields has given him the skill and strength to advance successfully. If the child's studies are too simple and easily mastered, he will lack the proper stimulus to effort. If they are quite beyond his present reach, do not burden and perplex him with unavailing attempts, which will only dishearten and retard him.

Teachers, again, are liable to error in giving too much or too little aid to scholars, both at recitation

and beyond the hour of reciting. An academic teacher once announced to his class in algebra his purpose to give them no aid whatever in the entire term. He assigned as his reason for this course, his desire to have them acquire the habit of thorough independence in study. No matter to what inferior motives the class ascribed his singular determination. This was doubtless far better than to have aided them at every step of minor difficulty. But the course which he adopted was an unwise extreme. The teacher becomes, in such a position, a mere hearer of lessons, not an instructor. I have oftener noticed the contrary extreme; the teacher assisting the pupil at every slight difficulty, when he should have left him to study longer upon it unaided. It is a difficult and delicate duty for a teacher to determine when to aid his pupil, and when to refuse. His principal care should be to give him such assistance, when he gives him any, as will lead the pupil to a solution of the difficulty, rather than to solve it for him. The latter is oftener the easier course, but it is not the true teaching. In the sense intended by a prime minister of England, in giving directions to the tutor of one of her princes, teachers should endeavor to make themselves useless to their pupils. In doing this, they will so help them as to make them independent of their aid in similar difficulties in future lessons.

In some branches of study the text-book can give

only the prominent outlines of the science; leaving more or less of filling up and illustration to be done by the teacher, or to be drawn from other sources. Some teachers are prepared to do this. Others, unfortunately, hardly comprehend the contents of the book itself. Teachers of the latter class will not be in danger of aiding their pupils too much by imparting large additional knowledge. The former may fall into the error of attempting, in this way, more than is meet. In the first place they may consume too much of the time assigned for recitation, in this kind of supplementary lecturing. The subject in hand may be one of special interest to the teacher; as chemistry, or mental philosophy, or geology. His knowledge of these subjects is such that he finds pleasure in ranging beyond the contents of the textbook, and bringing in stores of facts and illustrations to instruct and entertain his class, while they, with a few hurried answers, escape the task of thorough recitation. Now while this may be, for the present, very pleasant to the teacher and pupils, it is not a wise use of time which belongs to the class for recitation proper. It is a loose and slip-shod substitute for a careful statement, by the pupils themselves, of the well-arranged principles which the book contains. And since the pupils cannot expect to acquire an exhaustive knowledge of the science in their school course, it is better for them to become thoroughly

familiar with its fundamental principles, and to acquire the power of stating them clearly and readily, than to receive, undigested and unarranged, a larger amount of miscellaneous facts from the lips of the teacher.

The same tendency to over-talk is often seen in the other exercises of the school-room. I have known, in some schools, a great waste of words in diffuse and pointless lecturing; mere loose talk which makes no impression on the pupils save that of weariness or disgust. The teacher should not be dumb before his school, but should talk briefly, with point, and to the purpose. At his recitations, let his classes do the reciting, not himself. He may add a few pertinent illustrations with much advantage. And in the general exercises of his school he should not destroy the effect of his remarks by making them too often and too lengthy.

The question is sometimes raised, whether recitations should be conducted by topic, or by question and answer. Here, again, my doctrine requires me to say, not exclusively by either method. Older

pupils, in some branches of study, may be properly required to give the whole surface of the lesson in paragraphic statements, without the aid of questions. But the teacher, in his turn, needs to draw out the pupil's knowledge of hidden points and related ideas; and of course the exercise then becomes one of tion and answer. For younger scholars, in some

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branches, I believe, moreover, in printed questions or directions, to aid him in taking hold of the author's statements, and putting the subject-matter of the lesson in form to be recited. Of course no wise teacher will rely upon printed questions to the exclusion of his own; and as fast as the capacities of pupils will warrant, he will train them to use the topical method.

The practice of reciting in concert is often carried to an unwise extreme. Individual members of the class, being thus relieved from the necessity of giving independent answers, will often evade the more difficult points, or rely upon those around them to help them through. Even in reading, it begets a style of movement and intonation, necessary to the concert exercise, perhaps, but injurious to the easy and natural expression which the child should acquire. Yet the practice of reading in concert need not be entirely abandoned, as some have maintained. For a few minutes' change, it may enliven a dull exercise, fix better the attention of the whole class, or encourage diffident pupils. There is some force, too, in the argument that each individual, in a class of eight or ten, will derive more advantage from answering all the questions put to the class than any one of them could do by answering but two or three questions in the whole time of reciting. This method of conducting recitations, however, should be allowed only as the exceptional practice, not as the general rule.