was strictly philosophical, strictly progressive, and strictly easy. But not a word of a rule; not a word on the history of weights and measures; not a word on the politics of Germany; not a word on the intricacies of exchange; not a word on any similar matter, but simply arithmetical problems.

How was it used? First, the teacher went to the board, and the scholars were alert to know what was coming. Previously, however, the lesson of yesterday was reviewed. The teacher then said, the lesson is in multiplication; and he put down an example and went through the process, requiring the scholars to follow him closely; and then called on the scholars to explain the process. Having gone through with the lesson in this way he said, upon such a page of this book you will find so many problems, and they are all done on the same principle; you must work them for your next lesson. The following day they would have them done; and having reviewed the lesson of the previous day the new lesson would be taken up. Thus each lesson was reviewed from day to day, and every pupil studied and recited all the lessons and thus became thoroughly familiar with everything. I believe that method just as good for children in America as for Saxons.

I have mentioned one evil resulting from the indiscriminate use of text-books, which is the great number of books. I think there should be no text-books in arithmetic except collections of prob. lems. I think the honored book called Colburn's Arithmetic is a much abused book. We use it too much, and at an improper time. I do not intend my little boy shall touch Colburn's Arithmetic till he is twelve years old, at least.

Another difficulty in the way of using text-books is the prominence it gives to special topics. Whether knowledge or discipline is the main thing sought by education, it is perfectly certain that knowledge must be the first object of effort. The duty of the teacher is to impart knowledge, to the end that training may follow as a result. There is too much of a disposition to regard the mind as a machine, and turn the crank; too much tendency to lay unholy hand upon this ark in which in which is God's image. My own little boy, five years of age, knows the names of about a hundred wild flowers; he knows the name of every bird that sings in

the morning when he wakes; he is familiar with all beautiful things as any child, and I intend that he shall learn the simple laws of nature first; and when his mind reaches the state that he can understand the abstract processes of reasoning, I intend he shall be made familiar with them. But the teacher is the parent of the majority of children in all that concerns their education. If you restrict teachers to certain methods, you defeat the very end of teaching. Every good teacher should have large liberty; and teachers need that liberty in order to become good. To force them to use unnatural methods is the way to spoil them. They must adapt themselves in topics as well as methods to circumstances. I do not object to spelling or reading books, though the reading-book need not be a collection of elegant rhetorical phrases. Let the teacher interest the children in knowledge for its own use; let him inculcate in all that he teaches, great and fundamental principles. A great deal that is taught of geography is stuff. I do not believe much in that which is taught as geography, which involves a knowledge of the boundaries of all the states, and does not include the reasons why cities are where they are, and reasons why rivers flow one way rather than another, the effect of climate, etc. But these are the last things you will find taught. It seems to me that what children ought to learn they do not learn; and what they need not learn they do; and this appears to be the result of making so many text-books. I do not believe we need text-books in geography. The method advocated by Mr. Fay is the one which I think is the best and natural method; I never have seen any other to equal it. Teaching in the Saxon schools is on that plan; and I do not believe we shall have any good teaching in this science until we adopt something like it. The pupils need maps, the teacher globes, and that is all.

Again, take the subject of English grammar, "the most abstract absurdity that ever was taught," as Henry Ward Beecher says. There is no one respect in which young people are more outrageously imposed upon now a-days, than this of English grammar. What is gained in our schools, in general, from the time spent on this study?

If by English grammar is meant the ability to write, and read,

If

and speak the English language correctly, then it is not taught. every teacher had a copy of Greene's grammar, which she was not allowed to carry into the school-room, and no scholar could have a book, I think some knowledge of grammar could be taught. But so long as the knowledge of it is confined to text-books, I do not believe boys and girls will come any nearer to it. There is such a thing as good English, and when you hear it, it sounds almost like a foreign language. This is what should be taught by precept and example.

Sitting one evening on a porch at a hotel in Paris, I heard two persons not far from me in conversation in the Italian language (the most melodious of tongues). On the other side of me there were sitting two English officers, and while listening to their conversation I could not make out the dialect till I began to distinguish the words.

The English language, in its majestic fulness and power, is concealed from most of our children by the heap of grammatical chaff heaped upon it by over-zealous devotees of Lindley Murray. The children are defrauded of their birthright.

I listened for a half hour to the tones of voice of those English officers, without the slightest interest in what they were saying, from the sheer delight in the music of the tones and the rhythm of the sentences. It is such a language as no nation ever spoke, the Greek not excepted. It seems to me that this want of a proper use of the language should be laid at the door of text-books. I would not have text-books in grammar inside of the school-room; but I would have every teacher master of some one good system of English grammar, and then I would require the language to be taught first, and the principles of grammar to be skilfully cduced from it.

The great question, after all, is, what is a text-book? I cannot define it. I never heard anybody define it. But I will repeat my protest against the idea of text-book instruction, and then add a suggestion or two in regard to what a text-book is.

No instruction can be successful, in the way I have attempted to portray, which does not proceed from the warm heart and active mind, and the earnest purpose of a living teacher. I would, as far

as possible, in every school, from the lowest to the highest, have oral instruction, and nothing else; and I would give the text-book its place as the foundation stone of oral teaching. In other words, I would make the text-book the teacher's tool for giving oral instruction. A text-book must be either an exhaustive treatise upon a subject, or a book of suggestions. A text is a suggestion, and that is the reason why the passages of Scripture taken by clergymen as the basis of their sermons are called texts. The text-book must then be a collection of texts; it must not be a book for scholars to use at all, but for teachers to use in instruction. According to this, an educational work is not a text-book. In teaching the classics, therefore, I would dispense with grammars at the outset, and show pupils the principles of construction as they crop out in the phrases of the language. The grammar for reference should be an exhaustive treatise on the elements.

Then we have distinctly two sorts of text-books; one to excite the mind and furnish the food for the mind of him who educates himself. These must be exhaustive treatises. The other kind is that which I have suggested as proper to be used in teaching arithmetic; which are collections of texts, for the guidance of the teacher. I should be very glad to hear a definition of a text-book which would cover all its legitimate uses. I do not believe one can be given. There is an objective use, and a subjective use; and I do not see how any one book can have both features.

The sum and substance of all I have said is that we must come back to this live, enthusiastic, energetic teaching; and the exercise which Mr Mason gave as an illustration of his method of teaching music, may stand for a model for us, in its philosophy, in all teaching.

The reform demanded, if the idea of oral instruction outlined in these remarks be the true one, is radical and must have time; but that it is desirable and that it must eventually come there can be little doubt.

Mr. Smith, of Dorchester. Do I understand the gentleman from Worcester to say that the English language should be taught at all?

Prof. Thompson.-Yes; before the English grammar is taught.

Prof. Thompson. — At no particular time; but constantly. Mr. Smith Some time before one is eighty years old? Then how would you teach it?

Prof. Thompson. - Before one is fifteen years old, and in the excellent and philosophical way which was described by Mr. Smith, in two recent numbers of the Massachusetts Teacher.

Mr. Smith. The way described in the Massachusetts Teacher is just the way not described this afternoon.

Editors' Department.

NATIONAL EDUCATIONAL CONVENTIONS.

THE Educational Conventions, held in Trenton, N. J., during the week, commencing August 16, were eminently successful. The most ample and generous arrangements for the entertainment of teachers and for the transaction of the work of the several associations, had been made by Prof. John S. Hart, LL.D., Principal of the New Jersey Normal School, and his associates, upon the local committee. The presence of more than a thousand educators, from thirty states of the Union, put the hospitality of the citizens to a severe test, which was triumphantly borne. All honor to the large hearts and the liberal purses of the people of Trenton!

We have not space sufficient to contain a detailed report of the doings of the three associations. Only the main points can now be mentioned.

NATIONAL SUPERINTENDENTS' ASSOCIATION.

The fourth annual meeting of the National Superintendents' Association was held on Monday, August 16th. The first paper presented was prepared by Rev. Charles Brooks, of Medford, Mass. It argued earnestly in favor of the establishment of a national system of education. Dr. Edwin Leigh, of New York, read a memorial in behalf of the large number of children who received but little education even in the common schools.