the influence of these agencies! The efficiency of the public school is, in his judgment, determined largely by the absence of all "appendages!" They are a prolific source of poor spelling, writing and reading, and where they have been introduced, "there are probably a hundred that can not write a letter correctly, where there were ten before." Teachers' institutes are held to be a possible good, but their value and influence are as yet not perceptible in the schools.

The argument against graded schools is a specimen of the lucid character of the writer's logic. Here it is:

"There can be no doubt that a much more systematic and thorough course of instruction may be given to 100 children by assigning to one the whole work of teaching the art of reading and spelling; to another the whole work of teaching writing; to a third the whole work of teaching geography, and so of grammar and arithmetic, instead of committing them to one teacher, and expecting him or her to instruct in all these branches. And a still farther advantage would result from their occupying separate rooms for the purpose. But the practical question is, whether the branches required by law to be taught in the public schools, can not be taught with sufficient system and thoroughness by competent teachers under the ordinary arrangement of classes?''

Again:

"It may be very true that it would be cheaper to build one house large enough to accommodate 100 pupils, and employ teachers for them when properly graded, than it is to purchase ground, erect and furnish two houses that will be convenient for fifty pupils each, with a teacher competent to teach well all the branches.' But the great end contemplated by the law is to diffuse a knowledge of elementary branches!"

This may be very clear and satisfactory to the writer, but we frankly confess that it passes our feeble comprehension.

On pages 94 and 95 we find ". a feasible and sensible scheme" for checking "the growing evil of an endless variety and multiplicity of common school textbooks." The State is to turn publisher and bookseller, to monopolize the entire business, to interdict peremptorily the use of other books, “and thus shut (?) the door against all abuses and impositions in this form!"

But we do not intend to let the excessive and often ludicrous "old fogyism" of this book blind us to its excellences. It contains an earnest plea for more efficient and thorough instruction in the "road-side schools" of the country where the great body of our youth are to be fitted for life's duties, and it certainly contains abundant evidence that these schools need better school-houses, better sites, better text-books, and better teachers. It urges, not too strongly, that the personal habits, manners and moral character of our youth should receive more attention. All this is well, and we would urge all who wish to see our schools attain this reasonable standard of excellence to disregard the author's advice to go backwards. Excellence will not be found in that direction. Nor will it suffice to say that what is needed is a public sentiment that will build and furnish better school-houses,-that will demand and pay for better school instruction. How is such a public sentiment to be created? Largely through the agency of successful and skillful teachers. They must by their actual success create the very public appreciation that will reward them. What agencies can be relied upon to raise up teachers who shall be competent for this work? An answer to this inquiry will show that a public school system needs such "appendages" as teachers' institutes and normal schools.

PROGRAMME OF DAILY SCHOOL EXERCISES.*

What are the advantages of a programme of daily exercises, allowing a definite amount of time to each exercise? What are some of the difficulties encountered in arranging such a programme for an ungraded school? Why is it better to divide the school into three or more grades, and arrange the programme for each grade? What is the advantage of a study table in which the work of the pupils at their desks is marked out and directed? What is your plan of regulating the study of your pupils ? How would you provide for oral instruction, slate exercises, etc., in your daily programme?-Questions on the Theory and Practice of Teaching.

In compliance with the request of a number of our readers, we submit what we regard a practical answer to the questions above, selected from the series officially recommended to boards of examiners.

The multiplicity of the duties which make up the day's labor of the teacher renders it necessary that these duties be reduced to as complete a system as possible. System lengthens the teacher's hours. It enables him to pass from one duty to another without unnecessary waste of time, and to give to each the rela tive attention which its importance demands. But there can be no system in the school room without the proper division of the teacher's time. He must not only know the order of his duties, but also the amount of time that can be devoted to each. This will enable him to use each moment to the greatest possible advantage. But the advantages of a definite programme of school duties are not confined to the teacher. Such a programme aids the pupils in the preparation of their lessons, and promotes diligence and good order. To this end it should not only prescribe the time and order of the recitations, but it should regulate the work of the pupils at their desks. In other words, it should include a study table as well as an order of recitations, and the whole should present a plan of school work so simple that it may be easily carried out by the teacher. In arranging such a programme for an ungraded school, the teacher will, however, meet with serious practical difficulties. The multiplicity of the recitations and exercises to be provided for, renders it exceedingly difficult to allow to each a definite amount of time. The sub-divisions are too small to be easily marked, even when the school is supplied with a clock. It is true that this difficulty is heightened in many schools by an unnecessary number of classes. But when the teacher has properly classified his pupils, he will still find it difficult thus to "time" his recitations.

This difficulty may be overcome, in a good degree, by dividing the school into three grades, and allowing a definite amount of time to the exercises and study of each grade. Grade A may include, for example, all pupils in written arithmetic or above the Fourth reader; Grade B all pupils in the Third and Fourth readers, and Grade C all pupils below the Third reader. This gives a general idea of what is meant by three grades of pupils. Each grade, may and usually will, contain two or more classes in each branch of study. This arrangement will also classify the pupils for oral instruction and general exercises-a matter of great practical importance.

A programme similar to the one here recommended, was published in the thirteenth volume of the MONTHLY (1864). It has received the indorsement of many practical teachers,

With a view of aiding inexperienced teachers in preparing a programme of school work upon this plan, we submit the following:

RECITATION AND STUDY TABLE.

"10: 10.

do.

Spelling.

"10:20. Spelling.

Do.

"10: 30.

Written Exercises. Spelling.

Spelling and Numbers.
Reading.
Do.

❝ 10:40.

Recess for the whole School.

"11:00. Geography.

Reading.

"11: 20.

"11: 30.

Do.

"12:00.

Geography.

Sentence-making.

Reading.
Sentence-making.

Oral Lessons.

(Grades B and C dismissed at 11:30.)

AFTERNOON.

The words in italics in the above programme indicate the order of recitations, and the words in Roman the lessons to be studied or the work to be done by the pupils at their desks. While, for example, the different classes in grade A are reciting their lessons in arithmetic, the classes in grade B are preparing their lessons in mental arithmetic, and the classes in grade C are learning to count small numbers or to add the smaller digits by means of marks upon the slate, kernels of corn, or other objects. The number of classes in arithmetic in grade A will determine the amount of time that can be devoted to each class. The programme only regulates the time to be devoted to each grade. At the close of the twenty minutes, the classes in grade B are called, and the pupils in grades A and C commence preparing their spelling lessons, the latter by printing the words upon their slates.

The advantages of such a programme are evident. It divides the teacher's time into intervals of sufficient length to be easily marked by reference to a time-piece-a clock being preferable for the purpose. It affords the smaller pupils the necessary variety and change of employment, and enables the teacher to see, at a glance, that the proper duty is receiving attention. By appointing a monitor in each of the lower grades to distribute and collect the slates, the teacher may, with little trouble, examine every slate exercise of his little pupils in drawing, printing or writing, sentence-making, etc.-exercises that should receive early and constant attention.

The "oral lessons" of grades B and C may include lessons in direction, home geography, number, color, form, qualities of familiar objects, etc. The exercises in "sentence-making" should receive careful attention with a view of preparing the pupil, at an early age, to write a neat and creditable letter. The pupils in

grade A may prepare their written exercises in the forenoon and

in the afternoon.

copy the same

No mention is made in the table of moral lessons, physical exercises, and music. Singing may be made a part of the opening exercises of the schoo!, forenoon and afternoon. A half hour each week may also be set apart for an additional exercise. Moral instruction may be imparted as a regular exercise once or twice a week, and also whenever a fit opportunity occurs. Brief physical exercises should occur at the close of each hour not broken by a recess, and one or two regular exercises each week may be provided for. The teacher's weekly programme, if not his daily, should present a complete and harmonious system of instruction and discipline.

In

The above programme, though more specially adapted to ungraded country schools, may be suggestive to primary teachers in towns and cities. many of our graded schools too little attention is paid to the study of pupils their desk or seat work. Every twenty minutes should bring a change of employment to young pupils.

HISTORY IN SCHOOLS.

I heard, recently, the recitations of two classes in history, taught by methods radically different.

To one class a lesson had been assigned to be learned. The recitation consisted of answers to rapidly repeated questions involving names, dates, narrative. Some answers were pertinent and correct, but, as a whole, the recitation was a failure; of which fact the teacher seemed painfully conscious. I found, by questioning, that the majority of the class had forgotten a great deal of what they had studied a few weeks before, or had formed very incorrect notions of its drift and meaning.

The other class had used the text-book as a reader. No long array of facts, names, and dates, had been required to be learned and recited memoriter. A paragraph was read by a pupil, and then talked about, in a familiar manner; the teacher leading and directing the conversation. If there was any thing especially interesting or important in the paragraph, it was read a second time, by another pupil, and then, with books closed, its substance was given, by two or three, in their own language. I found this class had committed a surprising amount of historical data to memory. The teacher informed me that this had been done, almost unconsciously, through constant repetition and reference during class time. I found these pupils, also, quite accurate in their judgments concerning the actors in that part of the world's drama they were reading. Much of the conversation related to men and the motives by which they are or should be governed-thus forming a habit of fair and just criticism, of far greater value than the mere memory of events.

If we define history to be "God teaching by examples," which of these two methods is the better? In answering this question we must bear it in mind that

there is a letter and a spirit of history: the letter consisting of the bare, dry details of events-the spirit, of the thoughts, the ideas, the impulses, the motives, which were the causes, the occasions of these events. One who considers the letter of more consequence than the spirit, will adopt the first method, and endeavor to cram the memories of his pupils with facts. One holding the opposite opinion will make the spirit of history the basis of all his instruction, and use facts as waymarks or tallies only. He knows that they are indispensable auxiliaries to true historical knowledge, but does not think it wise to spend all his own time as well as that of his pupils in their acquisition. The former will pore over and condense statistical tables, decorate the walls of his school-room with historical synopses and "Streams of Time," and endeavor to obtain inspiration by perusing the Annual Register; the latter, while he will not reject any of these aids, will use them sparingly, and read Bancroft, Motley and Merivale. Which of the two feels the beating of the great heart of humanity, and sees the past moving before him, a panorama of life-like realities, and which wanders in a valley of dry-bones, amid the silent monuments of death and desolation? There can be but one answer to this question.

The faults of the first method of instruction are the following:

1. The study is made a task. A certain number of pages must be learned and recited. The pupils learn them, if at all, from compulsion-and what they learn is not history, but its gaunt, lifeless skeleton.

2. The theory of the method is based upon the untenable hypothesis that the facts of history constitute its most important part.

3. Instead of being attracted to the study, pupils are repelled from it by the harshness and dryness of the method. When they leave school their historical reading is ended.

4. The teacher spends the time allotted to the recitation in asking questions and hearing answers, instead of clothing the skeleton of facts with nerve and muscle, and breathing into it the breath of life.

The merits of the second method are

1. The pupils come to the class-room to read and converse, not to be quizzed. They engage in the exercise heartily and willingly—and, when their minds are excited and alert, they commit to memory as a pastime what they would have struggled long to learn as a task.

2. The teacher makes the spirit of history the basis of all his instruction. What the pupils read is a "story founded on fact," to be talked about and remembered because they find pleasure in doing so, instead of facts woven into a dull, condensed narrative, to be conned in silence, and learned because the regulations of the school require it.

3. It enables the teacher to give effective daily moral instruction. Historical characters, their acts, their motives, their surroundings, are submitted to a rigid scrutiny--at each recitation creating some new disgust or horror for vice and crime, or love and reverence for virtue and benevolent actions.

It may be claimed by those prejudiced in favor of the first method, that moral instruction can be added to it, without altering its essential features. I admit it can be, but is it? As a general rule, is it not true that when the questions have been asked, and those usually the printed ones accompanying the text,