with great effect by some individuals, both in Sabbath and day schools. The understanding, as well as the verbal memory, being exercised, the children are naturally more quiet in church, and less troublesome to their teachers, who, in general, undertake the task of superintending them; and a similar effect will be produced in regard to those children who individually accompany their parents.

Could we persuade parents, then, of the inestimable boon which such a course of training-secular, elementary, religious, and moral-would prove to their offspring-bearing in mind, as they ought to do, that a period of life is fixed by Act of Parliament under which labour, as well in factories as in mines, is prohibited-what a moral revolution would be produced among the masses, reaching in its effects to generations yet unborn! If our country is ever to be morally raised, it must be by directing strong and united efforts to the training of the young. We would here, therefore, call the attention of legislators, clergymen, and teachers, to the important fact, which all the statistics of crime-all the experience of the most devoted philanthropists prove-viz., that in proportion as you religiously and morally train the youth of a country, you are laying still firmer the basis of national prosperity, and bringing into operation an engine for effecting the greatest good, exercising as they do a powerful reflex influence on their parents and relations at home.

CHAPTER XXIV.

ORAL SECULAR GALLERY LESSONS.

TRAINING gallery lessons, in natural science and the arts, are found to be not merely a highly intellectual exercise, but are valuable to persons in every rank of society, whether master, servant, or workman. Whilst they are particularly valuable to persons in the humbler walks of life, in fitting them for manual and other labour, they are also important as the foundation of a more extended knowledge of science, to those whose circumstances may enable them to prosecute their researches still further. To the former, these school exercises may be all the theoretical knowledge on such subjects they can ever acquire. To the latter, a thoroughly analysed or pictured out training lesson day by day, will be found an elementary exercise greatly superior to the ordinary mode of merely reading lessons or lectures, even when accompanied by explanation.

The teaching of science orally by gallery lessons, is a new and additional branch in popular schools, and that it ought to form a distinct feature in education, even for the children of the poor and working classes, will appear, when we consider the importance of servants (male and female), workmen, and mechanics, having a correct idea of things and of scientific terms. The workman, in consequence, would know better the meaning of relative terms, even in the drudgery of manual labour, and he might be left to execute much by a

simple order scientifically expressed, which he cannot now do without the closest superintendence; and although the mechanic must have acquired a practical knowledge, at least of the terms and science of his particular profession, yet early school training in science and scientific terms would have expanded and exercised the mind of many a person, humble in rank, but of powerful intellect, so as to have produced many more James Watts than we now have, whose genius and discoveries might have enriched mankind, and added to the domestic and social comfort of all. How difficult it is to get a workman out of a beaten track, or, if he be a genius, to fix him in any track at all!

It is evident, that although some points of science, from observation, reading, and conversation, do force themselves upon the young mind, and may be made available when a person attends a course of public lectures in after life; yet, the fact of his knowledge having been gathered up at random, without arrangement or system, leaves him very much in the dark as to the basis on which all or any science rests.

Visitors sometimes say, What have the children of the poor to do with science? let them learn to read their Bibles, and repeat their Catechism, that's the education suitable for the poor. Science, however, is valuable alike to the mechanic and the man of business, in promoting the arts of life, so indispensable to the wealth and comfort of all ranks of society. If the bold and clear outlines of science be given to all ranks, each may maintain his proper place in the scale of its ascension. The poor man, if he chooses, may advance beyond the limited period of his elementary school education, and the man of leisure and scientific research may rise as high as he pleases; whilst the genius, of whatever grade, acquires enough to enable him to prosecute his studies, and take his just place in society. But we rise a little higher in our gallery training lessons, and use scientific terms, expressive of scientific principles, such as are used by lecturers on natural philosophy,

in consequence of which, it is still urged by some, WHY TEACH SCIENCE to children in an elementary school? What can they understand of latent heat, the radii of a circle, centrifugal and centripetal forces, gravitation, electric fluid, and innumerable other more complex terms? Now, we have to say, that all such terms can be simplified, and when reduced to simple terms, they can be understood by children of a few years old. Having these outlines clearly analysed by familiar illustrations, so as to communicate the idea in the first instance, they can then be made to understand the most complex terms, expressive of the most complex movements and conditions. For example, the motion of a child round the circular swinging-pole in the play-ground, may illustrate, in some measure, how the moon keeps in its orbit round the earth, and the latter, or any other planet, round the sun; in other words, what is meant by the centrifugal and centripetal forces. The proper course of education in science has too generally been reversed; and the reason why so many adults stop short in their progress, and cannot educate themselves (for education ought only to close with life), is, that they have committed to memory technical terms, which, not having been pictured out and illustrated, are not understood; and also, that the minute points of science have been given before the great outlines were drawn.

The philosophic terms which a public lecturer finds it necessary to use, are not thoroughly understood by the youth; they have not been explained, far less pictured out to his mind's eye. He does not therefore see the bearing of each point of the premises laid down, or the conclusions to which the lecturer arrives, and at the close he is found oftentimes to have acquired no distinct impression of the actual lesson, which otherwise might have been received. He may applaud the lecturer as being a clever man. 'It was an excellent lecture!' What beautiful experiments he performed!' 'How remarkably bright he made the gas to burn, and what an

explosion it produced!' But the lecture itself he has not comprehended. This is the every-day experience of the young and the old in attending public lectures on science. It would have been otherwise after a course of early school training.

The lessons during the first stage, or the outlines, at whatever age the child commences his course, ought to be exceedingly simple, and should comprehend a number of the more obvious things in nature and in art, which every child ought to know in their great outlines, before he is perplexed with minute points, or the use of technical terms; a knowledge of which he gradually acquires as he advances from stage to stage.

As a child, I wish to know what wheaten bread and oaten bread are; the distinction in quality, and how they are made; how butter and cheese are made; what salt is; how wine is made, and of what composed; what brown and loaf sugars are; the nature of tea and coffee, with the places where they are produced, and how they are brought to the condition in which they are found when used at home at the fireside; the distinction between wool, cotton, flax, and silk, both how they are produced, and why more or less warm.

The child ought to be made acquainted with articles of furniture. These are continually presented to his notice, and they afford the means of exercising his powers of observation, and training him to think. Their nature and relative qualities ought to be made familiar to him.

The natural history of the more common animals, domestic and foreign, is also an object of interest and a means of enlargement to the young mind, particularly when united with a short history, not merely of the habits of the animals themselves, but of the countries and inhabitants in and among which Providence has placed them, and the peculiar adaptation of each to its own particular circumstances. As a child, I wish to know why the swallow is not seen during winter; why the hen has open, and the duck webbed feet; with other