I think there is another process which, perhaps, is almost more useful. Suppose your class or division to consist of forty boys; let each ten choose a president or helper-the boy who is to look out words in the dictionary, and so forth-then give each ten boys four or five books, with a marked paragraph, containing a few rather difficult words. The task of each ten boys is to help one another to speak accurately, to understand the separate words, the drift and sense, and sum total of the passage.

Let them lay their heads together, after each has on his slate made a list of his difficult words. I believe a teacher need only look on, and he will see the forty boys all busy in the task of self-instruction. I suppose the study of this sentence completed, as well as the boys are able; then the teacher or master (not a young boy teacher) returns and says, "Let us hear what bench No. 1 has to tell me; have you any new words to explain to me?" The list of words will probably give rise to some useful observations, possibly some quotations from Scripture, from a hymn or psalm.

"What have you learnt from the sentence you have read?" Perhaps the principal point has been overlooked. The teacher leads to it by a question or two; then he reads the sentence aloud, and then it is read by some of the boys; and then some point or other is written on slates. The four benches have probably each had a different sentence; but before the lesson is over, the forty boys will have possessed themselves of the four sentences, and of the meaning of all the words.

This is a point, I believe, miserably overlooked in almost all education. The habit of looking out the meaning of words in a dictionary, ought to be acquired as soon as possible.

The method of self-instruction I have described, might, I believe, be used with children of all ages, past infancy. I know a very little class, if they have each a card, with an easy sentence, or story, or fact in natural history to learn to read, will, with a little helper or president of the class, help one another to master the cards, change their cards, and be ready, when the teacher returns, to talk over all the cards. From the very first, make a point of clear, distinct utterance of each separate word, each separate letter. Good reading will follow of its own accord I believe, if you only allow them to poke out the sense, for themselves, of sentences really adapted to their age and capacity. By the odious. method of allowing sound to precede sense, all good effect from reading is nullified.

MORE THOUGHTS ON THE SIMULTANEOUS SYSTEM-SELF-INSTRUCTION,

I cannot help fearing that the simultaneous gallery instruction, unless used very judiciously and occasionally, may have its dangers. I wish very much this subject should be deeply considered before it is adopted as part of a system in our future National Schools. The danger in my mind is this, that knowledge, or a sort of knowledge, is poured in on the young mind, which has not been earned by labour. "In the sweat of thy brow thou shalt eat thy bread." I am pretty sure the mental . bread should be earned in the same way; experience almost daily convinces me of this truth, and leads me to suspect we are on the brink of error when we use oral instruction without much judgment and caution. Should not the gallery instruction be used occasionally to draw forth from the children an accurate account of the knowledge they already possess to arrange it-to enable them to state it in good clear language?

I think there would be no danger in giving lessons, if one suggestion I made were carefully attended to, that, after every lesson, the writers should be required to write on slates, or on the wall, the substance of a short lesson from memory, and the non-writers to dictate what they remembered, with some assistance from the teacher, and to see it written on the black board, and afterwards to read their composition from the board. This writing the subject of every short lesson, gives a habit of reflection and arrangement of language, and cannot be done without mental effort; surely mental effort, judiciously proportioned to the age and capacity of the pupil, should be required. The Simultaneous method of instruction, I suspect, wants some modification, in order to secure this object. The Monitorial method certainly steers clear of the error of excitement; but it stultifies the faculties, and has the most pernicious effects, as you are aware. My great wish is, to improve on the simultaneous method, and to introduce more of Selfinstruction. I will now try to describe a plan I should myself much like to try on a small scale first, and afterwards even in such a school as the Norwood School; and I will suppose the room arranged, as it is there, with dropping green baize curtains. Let me suppose four

benches-

1

2

3 4

I suppose, for an experiment only, at first six boys on each bench

my whole class twenty-four; but if, as I think, it would succeed, I should double the number. Each bench to choose its president; a dictionary allowed between two benches: let us suppose the book, "The Juvenile Reader," or any other book or books you please, and let each bench have an appointed short sentence to study: let the sentence not be too easy-difficult enough to occasion some degree of exertion to unravel it thoroughly (I am now imagining the head class of the school), but it would be easy to adopt the same plan to all above infant classes. Each boy has his slate before him, and makes a list of the words in the sentence he does not understand. The boys and president consult over the meaning; the president looks, if needful, in the dictionary; they all study their sentence, collect the upshot in their minds as well as they can; then, when the teacher returns to them, he asks what words they have made out-what they have learned from their bit of reading. Perhaps he detects some words they have overlooked, of which they do not know the meaning; he asks for synonymous words, opposite words; then each bench gives some little collected account of the substance of the sentence-perhaps they omit the leading point; the teacher draws their minds to it. Then he reads aloud the sentence to them, and then he invites them to select a reader to come out to him to read it like him to them; each bench goes through the same process-at the end of which, the twenty-four or forty-eight boys have possessed themselves of four sentences; then they write on their slates a few lines, each boy what has chiefly struck him; or the president writes what his bench suggests, and reads aloud his slate. Now I know it will be said, this is all very well for well-instructed boys, but not for little ignorant workhouse boys; but though I have supposed an upper class, I think I could modify the sort of lesson so as to make it suit very ignorant and very young children (of course not infants).

I think the strikingly bad effects of the Bell and Lancaster plan may perhaps throw us into another error, the too-exciting plan.

There is a certain calm, sedate state of mind-a determination to apply the mind to the subjects before us-a feeling that it will require some effort to master it, which it must be our endeavour to excite and render so habitual that it becomes naturally associated with the act of opening the book, and taking the pen; but then to secure this, it must be felt experimentally, "that past labour is present delight." There is certainly a peculiar delight in mastering that which we have just sufficient strength, with some exertion of that strength, to master. In all manual labour you see this peculiarly the case-with boys carrying weights, throwing stones, &c. I believe this is also the case in skilful

good education, with respect to mental labour; but there must of course be great care never to allow, in either case, of overstraining the powers.

I am aware that the sort of study I should like to see introduced, does not admit of any showing off to visiters. A school at work in the way I imagine presents rather an unintelligible scene to visiters, boys laying their heads together, muttering to one another in clusters. A practical eye would at once be struck by the quiet self-instructing process going on, but visiters want to see well-arranged rows of children talking about animals, vegetables, and minerals, giving lists of towns, rivers, and mountains; and religious visiters want strings of Scripture texts. I own I should be most anxious to put an end to these sorts of display. I should wish rather to have an examining-room, and to allow intelligent judges and those who want to investigate the subject, to have certain classes in this room, and give them some subjects to work out, to write upon, to read or converse about; and afterwards those who wished it, might walk round the room. But it is my idea that the mass of visiters want to see a sort of regular system, something like clockwork machinery, and I believe this militates against real instruction; except in the case of singing, when, of course, children stand in regular forms. I had always rather that intelligent visitors should themselves examine a class in their own way, assisted by the director who introduces thein there, than that the master should display his teaching and haranguing powers. A master, let me repeat it to you again, should always keep himself in the back-ground-his merits should be known by the results of his methods. I almost invariably detect a little deception when I am told by a master, he is going to question off-hand on a new subject. I invariably soon discover by the children's answers, that the questions have before been asked and answered; that there is some show.off in the business; and this has a bad effect on the moral atmosphere.

I have run on unreasonably on this topic; I have only one or two more words to add on the points I am anxious about in pauper schools.

1. That very good distinct articulation and proper pronunciation should from the first be made a point of. Very slow distinct utterance, when words are spelled or dictated for chalk writing; h's not put in, or left out; we may as well get this right as leave it all wrong.

2. That very gentle as well as very distinct intonation of voice in reading, should be insisted on; all noise may thus be avoided. Distinct utterance is always audible without raising the voice; and it has a good moral effect; it subdues and humanizes the temper.

3. That from the first, composition in accurate language should be taught. What! teach children of five years old composition! Yes; a child of that age may dictate a sentence to me which I may write before him, and he may express properly his own ideas or knowledge; his age, the occupation of his parents, their residence, or any familiar subjects. Only teach children to arrange and express in good language what they know, and they will soon know more. Thoughts give birth to words, and in their turn words generate thoughts. Our inattention to the study of language, to the classification and arrangement of words, and to their exact meaning, is, I believe, one of our great oversights in education.

I am not speaking now of Wood's system of making children learn the roots, the affixes, &c. I have in view the arrangement and increase of thoughts by means of arranging and adding to our expressions.

(To be continued.)

REWARDS IN SCHOOLS.

[We have elsewhere inserted some remarks on the subject of Rewards, from the report of Messrs. Martin and Medley. Those remarks rést upon the high authority of Mr. Slade, whose character, wisdom, and experience, will, we are sure, have a weight with our readers to which no words of ours can lay claim. Leaving his testimony to produce what effect it may upon our valued correspondents, we very cheerfully insert their replies to the article in our April Number.]

SIR,

To the Editor of the Educational Magazine.

In your April Number you gave us an article on "Rewards in Schools," in reference to which I venture to trouble you with a few remarks. I do not see into the subject sufficiently to have come to a decided conclusion upon it; and as I neither am, nor "call myself" a practical man, it is with real diffidence that I thus meddle with it. For so powerful is the influence, for good or evil, of rewards on schoolboys, that I should incur the guilt of doing them cruel wrong, if I were ignorantly and erroneously to lay down the law on such a matter; and therefore I am most anxious to protest against the following observations being considered in the least degree authoritative: their object is simply to point out some facts to which your view does not evidently, though it may really apply; and to elicit that application from you if you think my case demands it.

Your principle is, that there is something in the child which can be drawn out of his sensual nature, made to look above it, and to be master over it; and that therefore it is often needful to keep down this sensual nature by punishment, but can never be right to gratify it by rewards. Now let us