tions. There must be a continuous cultivation of it, if real and permanent benefit is sought.

(79.)

"The eldest class were first exercised in mutual trials of spelling and etymology. One pupil proposes a word, and another spells, gives the meaning, and also the etymology; the latter with an unexampled degree of minuteness and accuracy. For example, a girl having spelled and defined subordination,' gave the etymology of it thus, sub under-ordo ordinis order—at being made-ion, quality or act,'—and thus with every one of the numerous words proposed."

(80)

"This was a capital exhibition of the highest kind of tuition, especially in Etymology, this boy, who, Mr. says, is inferior to some of his absent class-fellows, being at home in giving Latin, Greek, and (in one instance, at least) Saxon roots of words."

(81.)

"None of them could explain, and it was plain none of them understood the meaning of the word adaptation,' upon which the whole scope and bearing of the lesson depended. Mr. the teacher, complains that he has too many things to attend to, to be able to give explanatory lessons. He does, however, teach a little Etymology-even Latin roots-and this is apt to suggest the idea of a desire to do something striking and for effect, without any reference to its bearing upon the grand object of all such teaching, viz. to give fuller and more exact knowledge and intelligence with respect to the lessons read."

(82.)

"They read tolerably well, and know a good many meanings. of words, but not in the exact manner of the etymological method. The explanations given here are only by equivalent

phrases. Thus immense' is explained 'great,' but of the original meaning they have no idea. It is an evidence of the general progress of the schools, however, that paraphrastic explanations are beginning to be unsatisfactory."

(83.)

"An acquaintance with the meaning of words was exhibited, and some knowledge of the more familiar portions of Etymology (prefixes, affixes, &c.) which form such important aids to the intelligence of those who acquire no classical learning."

CHAPTER XIII.

METHOD OF TEACHING-GEOGRAPHY.

Great Increase in Number of Pupils learning Geography-Its Application to other Lessons-Instance of Benefit arising from the Study -Advantage of beginning with familiar Localities-As in Holland -Physical Geography-Deficiencies-Memory Work-Slavery to the Book-Maps presented by Lord Fife, &c.

THE increase in the cultivation of this branch, since the year 1833, is striking. In January of that year, of 7412 pupils then attending 137 schools, the number learning Geography was only 175. During the whole year 1832-33, the number was 582 out of 10,645 scholars enrolled. The number during the year 1841-42, was 4032 out of 13,291 pupils enrolled. The proportion has thus risen from 1 in 18 to 1 in 3.

The mode in which this branch is conducted is generally intelligent, and many Teachers attend to the proper application of it in aid of other lessons, especially those read from the Bible. It is

worthy of the consideration of most, however, whether an extended scope might not be given to the study, so as to embrace more of general information, connected with countries and places, than is yet afforded. An illustration of the interesting use which may thus be made of this branch of instruction, will be found in the extract from the Report of the Clerk's last visit to the school of

The following extract from the Report of the school of, in 1836, affords interesting evidence of important benefit accruing indirectly from the introduction of Geography in that school. "Mr. mentioned a fact, singularly illustrative of the benefit of teaching a variety of branches. A grown up lad, who was at school today, has always been of a rather slow and dull capacity, and took no interest in any thing he learnt until Geography was introduced. That, however, awakened a dormant faculty, and he engaged in the study with interest and success, and continues still to manifest a lively curiosity, not only in regard to the geographical situation of places, but as to the habits and history of the people. Mr.

says, he has no doubt that if the lad's mind had not been roused and attracted by this study, his distaste for learning was such that he would, in all probability, have been taken from school and put to work before he was able to read his Bible to any purpose."

* No. 91.

The extract appended regarding the school of shows, in an interesting manner, the practical effect as well as tendency of this study, combined with other circumstances, in extending inquiry and knowledge.

Mr. Mackenzie, the Deputy-Keeper, recommended, when visiting some of the schools in Aberdeenshire, in 1842, the introduction of a map of that county, in the initiatory stage of Geography. This would, undoubtedly, be very advantageous in giving at the outset a practical reality to the pupil's notions of the points of the compass and the relative positions of localities, by his observing the delineation of these with respect to places well known to him. It is by this philosophical process of gradual induction from the near and familiar to the more extended and remote, that Geography is taught in the schools of Holland. "In teaching Geography, they begin with a plan of the town where the school is situated, drawn on a large scale on the wall, and the pupils are made to distinguish the cardinal points and the direction of the streets; they are afterwards shown a map of the district-then that of the province— and so, by degrees, to the map of the world. All these maps are on a large scale, and few places are marked upon them, in order to avoid confusing their first ideas. They do not make use of ordinary maps until they have nearly done with the subject, and they finish with giving a summary no

* No. 84.