Guide to the Kindergarten and Intermediate Class; and Moral Culture of Infancy.

not to be overstrained in childhood, but it is to be used. Where it is left to itself, and remains uncultivated, it shrinks, and that is disease. A child is not able to direct its own attention;

of the just," is so universally related, that he cannot go alone at all. He is entirely dependent at first, and never becomes independent of those around him, any further than he has bee

e. It cultivates the senses, by giving them the work of discriminating colors, sounds, &c.; sha

state their colors, forms, and properties of various kinds, is no painful strain upon the mind. It is just what children spontaneously do when they are first learning to talk. It is a continuation of learning to talk. The object-teacher confines the child's attention to one thing, till all that is obvious about it is described; and then asks questions, bringing out much that children, left to themselves, would overlook, suggesting words when necessary, to enable them to give an account of what they see. It is the action of the mind upon real things, together with clothing perceptions in words, whi

duck, for instance, is better than to have the wild duck to look at, leading the child to talk about it, describe it, and inquire into its ways and haunts! They do not see that this study of the things themselves exercises the perception, and picturesque memory, which is p

h and reality. There is nothing perhaps which would conduce more to sound morality and earnestness of character, in this country, than that object-teaching, as proposed in Mr. Sheldon's "Elementary Instruction," should pervade the primary schools. It would require a volume to go into object-teaching, in such detail as to serve as a manual for teachers; and happily the work of Mr. Sheldon's, just named, precludes the necessity of my doing so. It is published broadcast over our nort

ed by a different letter, and every letter has one sound, cultivates the classifying powers, as learning to read English cannot. With children whose vernacular is English, it is absolutely injurious to the mind to be taught to read the first thin

ntaneous. Out of their answers series of questions will be suggested to the teacher, w

and inanimate,-what lives and what exists without manifestation of life. Th

they will spread themselves out, displaying their inward parts in the most beautiful manner. Every child in the class should have his turn at the object, if there are not objects enough for each,-should tell what he sees, and be helped to words to express himself. This, I must repeat, is the true way of learning the meaning of words; and leaves impressions, which no dictionary, with its periphrases and mere appr

efinition, or a poem, which can be recognized by the general imagination. A child whose vernacular is English will easily see that a bit is something bitten off, and so is smaller than the mouth; but that morsel me

would know all that is known, nay, much that has been once known and long forgotten. But the study of objects not only gives significance to words, it educates the senses, and produces the habit of original attention and investigation of nature. These do not come of themselves, as we see in the

of children to flowers.[D] Mrs. Mann's "Flower People" is also full of facts, carefully studied out. This is a charming book for children to read in, when they shall come to read. It is a great pity that the latest edition, published by Tick

be obliged to confine themselves to older pupils, who are able to study books and only need to have some one to set their lessons and hear them recited; while persons of originality and rich culture will be reserved to discover and bring out the various genius and faculty which God has sown broadcast in the field of the race, and which now so often runs into the rank vegetation of vice, or wastes into deserts of concentrated mediocrity. Then this season of education will command the largest remuneration, as

hat is called scholastic training, in a state of mind to receive from it the highest advantages it is capable of giving; free from the dis

the last than the first years of the Kindergarten; for they go over into the second stage of education. O

child geometrical facts in a practical way; as well as counting, and all of arithmetic that