and generic names are very useful in their way; but nature and her works are best studied, loved, and appreciated in action, in life, not in death. Even the inorganic world has its vital phenomena, — its force in action. - Much better it is for a child to learn crystalography by observing the manner in which solids are born of liquid solutions, than by looking at a few labelled specimens in a dusty box. Plants and animals should be seen, if possible, in their native haunts. What the beginner most needs is a taste for nature, habits of observation, and a method of investigation, - not laws, conclusions, scientific categories and results. The summing up of facts and final statement of principles is the work of trained thinkers, not of unpractised school-children. The tyro needs knowledge-abundance of definite knowledge. The reason it is so hard to interest boys and girls in scientific text-books may be seen, when we recollect that these books are mainly summaries and general statements, dependent upon a vast accumulation of facts and experiments, that the boys and girls have not witnessed. On the very first page of the book the pupil is told that "science is knowledge reduced to system;" it is the teacher's duty to draw the inference that, without some knowledge to begin with, it is absurd to suppose it possible to possess any science whatever. Science is not ignorance reduced to system. The pupils must be induced to take notice of what lies around them, or else all at tempt to teach principles and laws is hopeless. They must study things and their properties, and learn to distinguish what is significant in nature from what is not. Country teachers have peculiar facilities for acquainting themselves and their pupils with the material of natural science, and they are scarcely excusable if they neglect their opportunity. Soils, stones, springs, trees, moss, birds, insects, snails,— ten thousand objects of interest may be brought under the observation of the farmer's children. Let the scholars be induced to study the natural history of their own homes. Put into their hands such books as White's "Selbourne," and "The Fairy Land of Science." Ask them to write compositions about familiar natural objects. Take them on excursions. Make them realize the significance and worth of the familiar. Teach them the use of the eye, the microscope, but, above all, the use of their mind. Bring them close down to nature that they may feel her mysterious life, and catch the spirit of her operations. There is a just complaint that scientific teaching is apt to be sapless and soulless. It is a pity if instruction tends to narrow the pupil's mind, -to make him underrate other knowledge than that of bare facts, and to depreciate other than scientific culture. The practice of amusing children with the curiosities of natural history, chemistry, etc., without creating correct habits of study, or any real interest in the more substantial parts of the subject taught, is an evil that besets primary teachers. It is easy to interest children in wonders, but minds that are habitually aroused by novelty are almost sure to lapse into hopeless lethargy when the novelty has lost its charm. Many have experienced how hard it is to make anything of a class that has had the edge of its appetite for study blunted by feeding on scientific marvels for a few months. The curiosities of botany and zoölogy, the brilliant experiments of chemistry and physics, ought to be distributed along the whole course of study, and be utilized as a gentle and constant stimulus. It is as unwise to expect to develop a taste for scientific study by a course of highly seasoned, marvellous lectures, as to create a healthy desire for plain food by a preliminary diet of spice and confectionary. Inverting the usual order, I give, as the close of this brief sermon, a pregnant text from the scripture of J. J. Rousseau, who says "Among the many admirable methods taken to abridge the study of the sciences, we are in great want of one to make us learn them with effort." 13. HOW TO SAY IT. The use of language is to set the mind free and send it forth that it may influence other minds. The mind in print flies around the globe. Words are deeds. He who speaks well, or writes well, does service as practical as the sowing of grain, the steering of a ship, or the curing of a wound. Language is the most potent instrument that human power wields. The useful end of intellectual education is to learn to think, and the value of thought is measured by its adequate expression. Therefore teachers should not undervalue grammar and rhetoric. The art of saying, sums up and tests all mental acquisitions. "I know it but can't tell it" is the same as "I possess but cannot use." But the use of knowledge is to use. Pupils must be trained to put their intelligence into the breath of life which awakens the vocal chords, and into the ink which talks from the written page. Young folks are apt to assume that they cannot make composition. It is easy to prove to the dullest child that he possesses power to speak and write. Take down in shorthand the answers he gives to your familiar questions, and you have a literary composition. Let the boys and girls translate tongue into pen; let them put down from their fingers what just now fell from their lips. How teach a child to write sensibly and simply? You had better study how to prevent him from losing the tact which comes to him naturally. Babies of five are often more expert at telling their meanings and feelings than are the students in the rhetoric class. Wonderfully fresh, idiomatic, and succinct is the oratory of the nursery. How beautiful, direct, and graphic the first letters written by boys and girls who have never been at school! Children love to communicate themselves. They are voluble and eloquent. The class in composition should be the most interesting class in school, because it should bring into use all the pupils' knowledge, thought, feeling, and personality. But the fact is, the composition class, in the generality of schools, is abhorred by both teacher and pupils. We begin wrong, and then go on from bad to worse until we have quite spoiled the natural faculty of language. We ought not to expect a pupil's school composition to be more correct or original than his average talk. When he can tell a story gracefully, then he may write it. Teach composition in every recitation. Awkward words and half-formed thoughts require correction in the geography class as much as in the grammar class. But criticism is not what is wanted so much as encouragement. Above all, do not expect learners to impart what they have not received. The substance of the composition is the main thing, the form is secondary. Perfection of form, elegant phraseology, bookish style, are never to be encouraged. The smooth, elegant, conventional essay, abounding in Latin derivatives, betokens feebleness and not power. Such finished productions are too often praised by teachers on Friday afternoon. No sham more pitiable than the ordinary school composition unless it be the ordinary graduating address, which is, indeed, the school composition gone to seed. |