The minds of children may easily be rendered kind by a wise cultivation; and by the want of it, will easily become unfeeling and cruel. Children should be taught, the first moment they are capable of being taught, a lively tenderness for the feelings, the sufferings and the happiness of all beings (serpents or reptiles not excepted) with whom they are conversant. Every child should be invariably instructed to exercise kindness toward animals, and to shun cruelty, even to an insect.

Dwight's Theology.

INFLUENCE OF MATERNAL PIETY.

When I was a little child, said a good man, my mother used to bid me kneel beside her, and place her hand upon my head, while she prayed. Ere I was old enough to know her worth, she died, and I was left too much to my own guidance. Like others, I was inclined to evil passions, but often felt myself checked, and as it were drawn back, by a soft hand upon my head. When a young man, I travelled in foreign lands, and was exposed to many temptations. But when I would have yielded, that same hand was upon my head, and I was saved. I seemed to feel its pressure as in the days of my happy infancy, and sometimes there came with it a voice, in my heart, a voice that must be obeyed-" Oh! do not this wickedness, my son, nor sin against thy God."

INTELLIGENCE.

SCHOOLS IN MADAGASCAR.

The missionaries of the London Society in this Island, have established, with the sanction and under the patronage of the king, Radama, nearly 30 schools since 1820; which, in March 1826, contained 2051 scholars, many of whom were good readers and writers, and had made very respectable progress in arithmetic, geography, and other branches of education. "The progress they have made in the knowledge of the christian religion," say the missionaries, "is truly gratifying." The king attended the annual examination, and enters with great interest into all its details. The missionaries give his address to the children at the last examination; which would not suffer by a comparison with those of great men, on similar occasions, in a christian land.

SCHOOLS IN INDIA.

The eighth annual report of the Calcutta Baptist Missionary Society, published in the autumn of 1826, states the following remarkable fact. "A great number of rich natives have established gratuitous schools in their own houses for the children in their immediate neighborhood; to which their parents naturally send them, both for their greater convenience, as well as to gratify those by whom these schools are supported." This shows that they have learned the value of education, from mission schools, and that light is rapidly rising on their gross darkness. Rec. & Tel.

BOSTON SCHOOL SOCIETY.

A society with the above designation has been formed in Boston, the object of which is, "to extend the advantages of education to all the children of the poor in the city."

SABBATH SCHOOLS IN MAINE.

The managers of the Maine Sabbath School Union have commissioned several young gentlemen, students in theology, to visit different parts of this State, and labor to awaken increased interest and exertion in behalf of Sabbath Schools.

Christian Mirror.

SABBATH SCHOOL LESSONS.

The system of giving rewards in Sabbath Schools is going out of use, and also the practice of reciting as much as possible. It is now practised, to give limited and uniform lessons, without any other rewards than the privilege of using a juvenile library. The editor of the Visitant says, "In every case that has come within the reach of our knowledge, the new system has been attended with success, and has given to the children a deeper interest in the school, than the old plan of rewarding with tickets. The library system affords the richest reward, is equally esteemed by the scholars, and produces the greatest amount of good." Rec. & Tel.

ERRATUM.-In No. 11, page 173, line 10, after class insert room.

THE TEACHER'S GUIDE is published semi-monthly, at one dollar a year, to be paid within the year if delayed beyond that time, $1,50. To those who procure subscribers and pay in advance, every sixth copy gratis.

PORTLAND: A. SHIRLEY, Printer-J. L. PARKHURST, Editor.

Let us notice what is done in the initiatory course of a child just transferred from the company of an ignorant nurse to the care of an Abecedarian. We find him put into a spelling book! And what is a spelling book? A spelling book may be defined to be a work designed to teach children the visible representation of all the words constituting our oral language, without the least regard to the ideas intended to be associated with these visible signs. In this book children are kept a year or more, spelling thousands of words (if we dare call that a word which is not understood) which they never heard of before. A continuance of these exercises renders their powers of attention, association and memory so torpid, that they will spell even the most familiar combinations of letters, such as cat, dog, cake, and not think of either a cat, a dog, or a cake.

If it is a true maxim that knowledge must consist of ideas; and that unless we convey ideas, we communicate no knowledge; what can be said of a plan of teaching that makes no higher pretensions than that it teaches the shape and color of letters; that supplies no other ideas than the black marks of the printer's ink*. The combinations of these letters are as perfect

* The difference between oral and printed or writtet language is so great, as to constitute them two distinct languages. The one may be called the language of the eye, the other the language of the ear. These two should be so completely united in one act, that the sound or oral word, shall bring before the imagination the written or printed word; and also the idea for which both the oral and written words stand; and so vice versa. Unless this point is attended to in the first lessons given to a child, as well as through a whole course of teaching, obscurity will only become more obscure. In the spelling book, this principle is not acted on, and consequently everlasting clouds and darkness hang over the minds of chil dren. So much attention is requisite to name the individual letters in a word, (commonly called spelling,) that the child is unable to recall to mind the meaning conveyed by the sound of those letters. And at this business of spelling, the poor creature is kept so long, that habs it may forever afterwards prevent his mind from taking a rational course..

[a mystery] to the child as were the secret symbols of the Egyptian hieroglyphics to the "profane vulgar." We are sorry that this is almost universally true, and we blush when we behold the degraded stupefaction superinduced on all the mental faculties by this absurd mode of teaching. Were St. Paul living, we feel assured, that he would unite with us in opposing such a system of instruction, for he says, "I would rather speak five words with the understanding than ten thousand in an unknown tongue."

After the spelling course come the reading exercises, and here we see the bad consequences of previous habits. The child reads like a stupid automaton, the mind having no other concern in the affair than to direct the vocal organs in the enunciation of a series of sounds. Even when the lesson is on a level with the capacity of the child, it will require the most laborious and incessant reiteration to confine his attention to the connection of thought. But what are we to expect, when his lessons are above the level of his mind?-nothing but that dullness should beco:ne more dull. It is unfortunately true that most reading books for children are of this cast, and fit only for a mature mind to comprehend. What an absurdity to set a child of seven or eight years of age to reading extracts from the elaborate essays of Johnson, Addison, Blair, &c. By this practice, the habit of reading without thinking, will be lastingly riveted*. Some accidental circumstances not unfrequently occur which may tend to rouse a scholar from the mental torpor induced by this course of instruction. He may in after life get into some active situation, which will force him to bend his attention to the meaning of words. He may be obliged to hold mercantile or other corres

The selections of reading lessons in general use, are not suited to the capacities of children under the age of twelve or fourteen years. Both the subjects and the language are much above their comprehension. Murray's reading books indicate much taste an I piety in the choice of the lessons; but they are no more calculated for the comprehension of chil dren, (as they are at present taught,) than the armor of Saul was for the stripling David. Mr. Murray has done much for the youth of our time, and deserves their warmest thanks; but his reading selections, are, to use a cant phrase, too good for children. The reading lessons in his spelling book are an exception to this remark. There is none of his works, in which he has displayed more judgment, than in the composition and choice of the reading exercises in that little work. They are excellent both in matter and manner.

But there is no school book that forms a gradation between those lessons and the elevated range of his other reading books. The works of Mrs. Barbauld, Mrs. Trimmer, Dr. Akin and Miss Edgeworth, might probably fill up the chasm. They have all learned to think like children, but, excepting Mrs. Barbauld, not yet to speak and write in the style of children. Their style for the most part, overshoots the limits of a child's vocabulary.

Mr. Murray's spelling book is the only one that has the semblance of being designed for children. It is surprising that he did not see the absurdity of introducing spelling lessons, without intending the words contained in them to be defined and explained by the teacher. Had he adopted an arrangement suited to this end, and extended his series of interesting reading lessons, he would have introduced a new era in the art of teaching.

pondence with several persons. This will bring him to think with his pen, and lead his mind to know the force of words.

But should the scholar not meet with these advantages, and grow to manhood with his load of evil habits pressing on him, he will exhibit one of the thousand instances that surround us, of a man whose mind is quite unfledged; who has a distaste for every intellectual enjoyment; to whom a book is an annoyance, because the eyes of his mind were rendered blind by looking at signs, instead of seeing the things signified; who, when he reads, cannot infuse into his enunciation, the soul and tone of a thinking being, but,-pardon the expression, reader,—effects little more than the humdrum monotony of a hand organ. Christian Monitor.

THE PESTALOZZIAN PRIMER.

The Pestalozzian Primer or first step in teaching children the Art of Reading and Thinking. By John M. Keagy, M. D. Harrisburg, Pa. 1827. 12mo. pp. 126.

Acknowledging our obligations to the author of the above work for his politeness in sending us a copy, we have now taken it up for the purpose of introducing it to the notice of our read

ers.

The author informs us in the preface, that of the various "books used in acquiring the first rudiments of our language," he has found none of any use to him, in the composition of the primer, except Murray's Spelling Book, and Neef's Method of Teaching; to which "he is indebted for some useful hints." The primer, however, is "very different from either of those."

In the introduction, we have a brief view of the general principles on which early intellectual education ought to be conducted. The author insists much on the utility of visible objects, as a means of communicating instruction, and enabling the mem ory to retain it. He says, "We think in pictures and scenes." "The more we reduce our knowledge to this form, the more perfectly will it be remembered. This truth should, therefore, be made a leading principle in the education of the intellectual faculties." He then refers to maps, to historical and biographical