T. Now try to remember everything you have at home that your father and mother can not raise nor make on the farm but must buy. (Sugar, furniture, books, etc., are named.) How do your father and mother pay for these?

John. Father always has a "great lot" of wheat and corn, more than we want, and he sells what he has to spare, and has the money to buy other things with.

Chas. And my father sells "lots" of wool, and some cows, and horses every year. That is the way he got money to build our new

house.

T. Then it is by farming, that the farmers get not only food but their clothing and all their living. Now can you think of any one who gets a living in any other way?

John. Mr. Brown makes shoes.

James. Mr. Gray has a saw-mill, and he buys logs from the farmers' woods and saws them into lumber and sells the lumber. And sometimes he makes lumber for the farmers, and they pay him for it.

George. My father has a grist-mill, and he "grinds" for the farmers, and they pay him in flour; and sometimes he buys what wheat they have to spare, and grinds it and packs the flour into barrels and sells it.

(Other examples of manufacturing people are given, as the blacksmith, the cloth-dresser, the cabinet-maker, etc.)

T. We have then quite a number of people about us who are not farmers, but spend all their time making articles of different kinds out of things which they buy from the farmers or other people. How do they get their food?

James. They sell some of the things they make to the farmers, who don't have time to make them for themselves, and then the farmers sell them the things they want.

T. Here then is a second way of getting a living, that is by making things and selling them to other people who can't well make them for themselves. Can you recollect any one who gets a living in still another way?

George. Mr. Shaw keeps a store. He buys goods in the city and brings them here and sells them to the farmers and the village people.

John. Mr. Smith has a stone-quarry where he gets large nice stones, such as they cover the road-side with in the village.

These two ideas discussed in a manner similar to that of manufacturing, will make the children acquainted with a simple phase of the two other great resources by which the material wants of civilized life are supplied, that is, mining and commerce.

Then a little talk about the work of the school-room, and of the church, will present to their minds another class of wants, the supplying of which affords a livelihood to another class of persons. Now a little talk about the Constable and Justice of the Peace of the neighborhood, whom all country children know to be employed in keeping disorderly people in order, will give them a first glimpse of a system of government that controls all the people just as the rules of school control the scholar.

There will, therefore, be found here in these simple things, with which the children are just as familiar as with the faces of their companions, the means for the future illustration of the whole organization of civilized society,- that is, a division of labor in the great business of supplying our bodily wants, provision for intellectual and moral culture, and a system of government controlling and directing all things for the greatest good of every class of the people.

III. Position and Distance.-After these lessons on the country, in the midst of which the children live, there would follow lessons in which they are taught to determine the cardinal and semi-cardinal points of the horizon, by reference to the rising and setting sun. This should be applied by them in determining the direction of each home from the school, and if the teacher desire, of the several homes from each of those nearest it.

Next would be lessons on extent, in which they are taught to recognize and draw the inch, the foot, and the yard, and for practice find the several horizontal dimensions of the school-room, and its surrounding lot, the length, breadth, and height of articles of the schoolroom furniture; the distance of the fixed pieces from each other, and from the walls, etc.; the width of doors and windows, and their distance from each other, and the corners near them. The mile, halfmile and quarter-mile, they will learn approximately by ascertaining the distances of their homes from school. It is desirable that they should, if practicable, learn it absolutely by actual measurement, and thus have a correct standard to which to refer distances that may be given them in future study. These lessons on the points of compass and on extent are necessary as a preparation for the maps they

are now to construct.

IV. Maps.-The first idea of a map should be given by drawing the school-room. The children have, as will be perceived, all the data necessary, that is, they know the size of the room, and the position of all its furniture, and the size and postion of its doors and windows. They have but to determine upon a scale, the need of which they will see from the impossibility of making the map the size of the room; to be told that the north side is to be placed at the top of the map, etc., and they can commence work. As the map of the neighborhood or school-district is a little more difficult, the following may be of value in indicating the manner in which such a lesson is given.

T. Now that we have learned all about the forms of the land around us, and the position of the buildings, the streams and other things, we will draw upon the board a map that shall show how they are all placed together. In drawing the map of our school-room, we found the length and the width of the room by measuring it, and then we drew one inch in length and width on the map for every foot in the room. Let us find how large a country we are to map now. Who lives furthest from the school on the north? (Hands raised.) How far to your home, Mary?

Mary. One mile.

T. Who lives furthest on the south? How far to your home, John?

John. A mile and a half.

T. How far then from Mary's home to John's?

Children. Two miles and a half.

T. Now there are very many feet in every mile. Do you think we shall be able to draw one inch for every foot in this map? That would be impossible. We will draw instead only one foot for every mile. What then will stand for half a mile? What for a quarter? Our school-district does not have walls to begin with, as the schoolhouse has, but it has roads on each side of it, and several crossing it, which will answer just as well; for when we have these we can easily put the houses in their place beside them. In what direction does this road that passes the school-house extend?

Children. North and south.

T. Mary lives one mile north from the school. How long then, and on which side of this mark, which I place for the school-house, shall I draw the line for the road?

Children. Draw it one foot toward the top of the board.

T. Now I have drawn it. On which side of it is your house, Mary? Here is the mark for the house. John, will you tell me how to draw the road to your house?

John. It goes south just a little way, just a few yards, then ends, and I go on the State road east about the same distance, and then another road goes straight south to our house.

T. Then how long am I to draw that south road?

John. A foot and a half, for the little turns don't count anything in a mile and a half.

In

The road was then drawn, and the house located as before. the same way was found the greatest distance to be drawn on the State road to the east, and to the west; then the position and length of the little cross-roads leading off from each. This being done, the point at which the several little streams crossed the roads was given by the children most familiar with each. Then the children living between the school-house and these extremes, located their homes; then the public buildings of the neighboroood, the inn, church, post-office, etc., were located at the proper distance from the school-house. Then followed the little groves belonging to each farm, the marshes, etc., the map produced giving with tolerable correctness the typography of the district.

The children may now be encouraged to make at home, under the direction of their parents, maps of the farms on which they live. This will not only have the advantage of giving to the children additional practice of a pleasing kind, but it will also please their parents, and awaken in them an interest in the work of the school. The great value of these exercises, in a geographical point of view, is the practice they give in determining relative positions in the comparison and estimation of distances, and in the constant association of the map with the region represented, which is as we have seen so essential to the correct use of the map in future. When a habit of accuracy in these respects is thoroughly formed, a great step is taken in preparation for the future systematic course of geography. The child has now obtained all his own locality has to give him, and may enter on his journeys, being prepared to derive the greatest possible benefit from them.

NONE are so fond of secrets as those who don't mean to keep them; such persons covet secrets as a spendthrift covets money, for the purpose of circulation.

PENMANSHIP IN THE COMMON SCHOOLS.

BY H. W. ELLSWORTH, TEACHER IN NEW YORK CITY PUBLIC SCHOOLS.

THE question, can all our children be taught to write a good hand is settled, settled in the affirmative.

The question, how can this grand result be best and soonest accomplished, has hardly been asked.

Surely no branch of popular education exceeds this in importance and universality or is more worthy of the attention of educators.

The importance of penmanship as a branch of study in the common schools is but just beginning to be appreciated.

In most cities and important towns of the land this subject is already taught scientifically upon principles as clear and satisfactory as its hand-maid drawing.

The results of such a method have convinced educators that by such means only can we expect to secure the desideratum of a good hand-writing to every pupil who comes fairly under the influence of our common school system.

While such evidences of progress are manifested in our leading schools there yet remains a class denominated from their location, country schools, represented by far the largest majority of school population, still encumbered with the ancient methods upon which our forefathers depended, viz.: Imitation and Practice.

These terms in their vaguest sense seem to have complete possession not only of the public mind, but of the minds of teachers themselves. The writing exercise has consequently become an unmeaning and uninviting ceremony; willingly omitted to make room for those of a more interesting, but not more important nature.

While it is indeed true that imitation and practice are the chief means by which penmanship is acquired it is all important to the pupil to know how to imitate and how to practice, that he may, in short, know how to write.

Copies are the means usually relied on as the subjects for imitation by learners until the mind becomes sufficiently impressed with the forms and essentials of writing to dispense with the necessity of their presence. Copies should, therefore, contain that, and that only, which it is designed shall be imitated, and should moreover, be so ex