utterly ignorant and untrained, their faculties dormant, their minds vacant, their motions clumsy. They must learn to listen and to understand. They must have practice for hand and eye. We must arouse and interest them while we teach. Perhaps they are indifferent at first; but every lover of children knows by what they are attracted. Under gentle leading, they will soon begin to observe, to imitate, to be occupied with whatever is placed before them.

They will assort pebbles and shells, noticing resemblances and differences in color, shape, and markings. They will watch the ways of familiar animals, their kittens at home, the dogs, horses, pigeons, in the city streets; and will soon begin to tell, in broken speech, what they see and know, and to be ready for the written word-symbols of their simple thought.

run?

What happens when

What they do with each

This is the time for a variety of simple oral lessons on the parts of their own bodies, How they walk, jump, What good actions the hand and foot have? What bad actions they may have? they prick or cut their fingers? special sense, and what it does for them? and so on. The teacher can appeal to their love of flowers, courage the care and enjoyment of plants in the schoolroom. She can examine with them the parts of a flower, each child holding one, not at first to get their names,

en

but to cultivate the observation of resemblances and differences. She can watch with them the opening buds and the fading flowers; and so, in time, pass from the beauty to the use of blossoms in forming fruits or seeds.

When children have been attracted by flowers, they will pass readily to lessons on other organs of the plant, to the simple study of leaves, stems, roots; their differ ent forms and uses.

It is unnecessary to refer to the great advantages which country teachers have for such instruction. Their resources are unlimited. We would rather encourage the teachers of our city schools to bring a little of the freshness that surrounds child-life in the country, to their pupils, who are denied green meadows with buttercups and dasies, and barn-yard animals.

Should the question arise, Is this practicable? we answer, "Yes, if we only remember how simple the beginnings should be, and how easily a child is pleased.” The veriest weed is a treasure, if we make it tell its story.

Here let us quote an enthusiastic teacher's report of resources for simple plant-lessons:

As the first step in the right direction, let the teacher provide a few flower-pots or plates of clean sand, and suggest that the children bring some seeds, such as beans, peas, morning-glories. Then let the ready little hands drop them into the moist sand, and the busy brains wonder what they will do down in the darkness. When the seedlings start, have a second set planted, and, a few days later, a third. When the largest seedling is four or five inches high, have more seeds of the same kind, — beans, we will say, soaked in water for a day. When this is done, systematic study can begin. Let the children carefully remove the bean-plants from the sand, and place them in a series running from the largest down to the soaked seed. Then let each child read for himself the wondrous revelation, guided only by well-directed questions. "Do not" says Professor Goodale, "show the pupil what he ought to see with his own eyes and without help. The teaching which is advised in these lessons is based upon the belief that the pupil must earn his facts."

Each child should discover the wee plantlet tucked away in its snug little house. He should see how one part, in growing, points upward and the other downward. If some in the class wonder whether the little root would not grow toward the light if the bean

were planted the other side up, let them try the experiment, and prove that no coaxing can persuade it to be untrue to itself.

In course of time the children will come to know that the plant is only the developed plantlet, and will identify the parts of the one with their rudiments in the other. While doing this, the question will arise, where did the plant get its food while growing? By insisting upon close observation, and by skilful questions, the teacher can lead the children on till the thought comes to some one that the "snug little house" was filled with food. Sure enough the secret is found out, for this was a store-house from which the plant drew its nourishment till, as Professor Goodale happily remarked, "it was old enough to earn its own living." [From the "Primary Teacher." March 1879— p. 213.]

And again

In another school our eyes fell upon a sponge, which was doing what Mr. Hale would call "its level best as a flax-raiser. Beside it, on moistened blotting-paper, barley was growing, while a few bean-plants were left in the sand, out of many that had disappeared while telling the story of their birth.

Something, however, beyond this spot of greenness attracted us. A part of an old fire-escape that had spent its days in idleness had now caught the spirit of the times, and allowed itself to be converted into "The Childrens' Cabinet." On the shelves, freshened with bright-tinted paper, were thirty-four varieties of woods, all brought by the children.

The eyes of the little ones looked with pride and delight upon this, their first collection. Nor was their interest confined to the school-room, as the teacher learned one day somewhat to her dismay, be it said, when looking over the writing books. A number of the best blotters were missing, and when, without suspecting their fate, inquiries were made, it was found they had been converted into "gardens." In twenty homes "a garden " was growing in the middle of March! As we happen to know that these are homes of want, where art, even in its simplest form, never comes to make poverty more endurable, we can but rejoice over the touching picture of these happy children watching their little oases, and who can tell what flowers may bloom in their lives from the seeds sown in their paper "gardens." [From the “Primary Teacher." May 1879-p. 271.]

In further illustration of our point, let us quote from a teacher's notes of lessons on Insects, given to a class of children from ten to twelve years of age:

First comes the lesson on the grasshopper. Every child is provided with a preserved specimen, pinned to a small strip of cork, to aid in handling it. The children can tell that grasshoppers leap in grass; some have seen green grasshoppers in shrubs. Wherever they have visited in the summer, they have found grasshoppers, and they therefore conclude that these little insects are very abundant.

From lessons already given on the simpler animals, the scholars have formed a habit of placing their specimens with the heads turned away from them, the most favorable position for observation. They then see the body with organs on either side, which the teacher calls appendages, writing the word on the blackboard. They observe that the two sides of the body are similar, like the sides of their own bodies, and that the horny skeleton is outside, and not inside like the horny frame-work of the sponge or their own bony skeleton.

Most of the class describe the body as divided into three parts. The head is examined, with its great checkered compound eyes and tiny single eye. The interest increases when the middle part, or thorax, is described; for George says it is made of two rings, and Mary is positive there are five, while Joe, remembering the lesson on the lobster, thinks there are three, because there are three pairs of legs.

The teacher is appealed to, but she only says, "We will leave the question an open one. Perhaps when we have studied more insects we shall gain a little light."

"The forward part of the thorax is like a broad collar or cape," says one. "It moves," says another. "The head moves with it," says a third. "It has a funny little spine," says a fourth. The abdomen is next described.

"It is ringed like the lobster's," remarks Joe, always on the alert to detect resemblances. "It has a seam on each side." "The rings are movable." Other observations are made, and then the appendages are studied. The children describe the jointed antennæ, and the stout teeth with the delicate little jaws.

A blackboard drawing of the mouth-parts enlarged makes the subject clearer. Elsie has seen a grasshopper eat, and is eager to tell what she knows.

The short legs with their tiny claws, and the long leaping legs, interest the children; and at last, at the suggestion of the teacher, they are ready to spread out the wings. The two pairs of wings are observed and compared, and the pupils are led to infer that the second pair is the more useful in flight.

So far the teacher has not given her pupils a single fact. They have earned their facts by their own work, and given them to the teacher.

Now she plays on a common steel file with a quill-pen, and shows them how an eminent naturalist has set the "Songs of the Grasshoppers to music. She briefly describes the wonderful air-tubes and air-sacs in the grasshopper's body, which they can see for themselves when older. She tells them to look for young grasshoppers in July, and to find out how they grow; to see how the large grasshoppers use their feet in leaping, and how they breathe.

Later a description of the grasshopper is written. This is a language as well as a science lesson. Several pupils, however, instead of writing descriptions, make preparations of the insect, by separating the three parts of the body with their appendages and glueing them on card-board. These preparations are placed in the school cabinet, and are valuable additions.

When the grasshopper is familiar, typical insects of the different orders are observed and compared with it. . . . .

One spring day an aquarium was placed on the teacher's desk, in the form of a preserve jar with larval dragon flies, whirligigs, water-boatmen, snails and toads' eggs, all waiting to teach lessons of wondrous truth and beauty to the boys and girls.

The problem, "How shall I obtain the necessary specimens for class instruction?" which perplexed the teacher at first, was soon solved, while, at the same time, she found in the children's enthusiasm and increased mental activity, the inspiration that lightens her labors.

Proper material, right method, and enthusiasm for the work, these are the necessities. Better never havę Natu