in the street, he will use again the improper expressions. Nothing can correct this but the cultivation of a desire to improve in the use of language, and to get rid of the faulty expressions.

This is study of the language in the commencement, by breaking away from faulty terms, and interesting the children in higher and better expressions. A child's language always comes in accordance with his wants. Increase the desire of a child for new words, and new words will come. In other words, stimulate him to higher wants and higher feelings, and you do much to encourage his proper use of language. When the language is demanded, you have an opportunity to come in and give the proper expression for the new thoughts. He who cultivates the thoughts of children will do most to cultivate their language. Their language will follow their thoughts, and continue to do so through life.

That suggests another thought, which is, to make the subject of language an indirect, but not a direct subject of teaching and discipline; let it come in as the means of expressing thought. All that the teacher can do to lead his pupils to think, from the objects around, from their reading or in any way, should be made the means of instructing them in the use of language. It is a great mistake not to lead children to think more; and by not suffering them to talk to us enough. Let them come and tell the little events that have happened in their plays, mark their language when they tell their stories; note the errors, and let them be brought up before them and the correction made; follow this process, and they will learn to use the language correctly, without any rules of grammar. Every teacher who is successful with children allows them to come up and tell their stories, and talk about what has happened.

Another thing. Children in primary schools should begin to write early on slates, and write sometimes expressions of their own. I do not know when this should begin; but there will be a time when they should write. When they do begin, by all means let them write their own thoughts in their own way. Then you may correct the faulty expressions better than you can orally; for now they can be seen, and will make a stronger impression. Now is the time to begin elementary criticisms, to teach children about the use of the capital letters and punctuation. They should be taught to write or print

with facility. It is a good plan, at a more advanced period, but before studying grammar, to let a part of the questions in geography be answered in writing. It will take time, but it will accomplish much in learning to express thoughts properly. The slates may be exchanged among the pupils, criticisms made, and the elements of criticism discussed. Some of the forms of expression used might be put upon the blackboard. But this is not studying grammar; it is not yet time to study it. This work should go on till children reach high degrees of attainment, and have higher thoughts, and have had an opportunity to see and read; and then we may rise in our process of teaching language. We may then apply some of the technical principles of language.

Write a sentence, and they can see and examine it as well as they can examine a tree; the sentence may be divided into parts, and they can examine the parts, having their attention called to them, and having those that are defective pointed out. This will be entering upon the technical teaching of the language. Now their attention can be drawn to the words.

At length, it may be necessary to distinguish a word which represents some one of the objects with which they are familiar, and they can find that one name applies to one object, and another to another; and they will find that there are words in the language, which apply, all through, to objects. Thus they have advanced in an easy way, all the time correcting the language used, and all the time endeavoring to elevate their language; all the time learning to express their own thoughts, and acquire the use of the pen and pencil. In this way, all the parts of speech may be easily taken up somewhere; I do not pretend to say when. Somewhere, it may be profitable for a child to take a text-book, marking the distinctions of the parts of speech, and agreement of these parts with each other.

Then how shall the text-book be used? It seems to me it would be one of the most unfortunate things to take up the book, and learn it page by page, with the rules and exceptions and statements; it would be the worst thing that could be done. The child would thus be at once broken off from the natural order which he has been pursuing, for he would be drawn away from the subject to the book. If he learns a sentence, he learns it as a part of the book, and not as a definition of what he has been using before, as he ought to learn it. He is now prepared to learn the definition of a noun, of a

verb, of any part of speech. Let him learn it, and then apply it and make the distinction, as he may be called upon to do. But he will not commit the whole to memory; what he has learned will be scattered in different parts of the book. The teacher may guide him, and direct him to the particular part of the book that is applicable. He may then learn the connection between the words, and he may do that in his own. language or from the text-book.

So, part by part, in the whole course, he is advanced until he is prepared to take the text-book and learn the principles, and apply them skilfully, thoughtfully, understandingly. This whole thing is a matter of growth; the child grows up to it.

There is one thing especially to be remembered; that we are apt not to take up the study of the English language as a vital matter. It is treated too much as if it were a dead language.. We are too apt to take the language and analyze and discuss its principles, far in advance of the thought and capacity of children, rather than the language which they express themselves. We make a mistake in this, as we do not fall into line with their sympathies and go on in teaching the English. language in connection with their thoughts. If the teacher, after the children have reached the point when it is proper totake the text-book, keeps up the habit of giving living formsof language that children will understand, teaching the English language will be no more difficult than any other teaching. Providence, R. I. SAMUEL S. GREENE.

WHAT MAY NORMAL SCHOOLS DO TO FORM RIGHT HABITS OF THOUGHT AND STUDY IN THEIR PUPILS.

There is an old maxim that children should be taught that which they are to practice in after life. For obvious reasons this has been the subject of much dispute.

In the first place, much that is practical depends upon that which is purely theoretical; and in the second place, much which can never be practical in the ordinary meaning of the maxim, is, considering the child's whole nature, as thoroughly practical as anything he can be taught.

For years theorists have quarrelled over courses of study, the plain, matter-of-fact men insisting upon an adherence to the maxim; others claiming that the studies which merely disci

pline the mind should take precedence. Of late years there has been a compromise between these factions; or, rather, both have carried their points, as is usual in arguments. But in either case, or in both combined, the great object of the schools and of the courses of study, is to have the pupils acquire as much matter as possible. Now admitting that both are right, it would seem that in this sense both are wrong. If the matter of a child's ordinary school course is ever so well chosen, it can only be a beginning; a foundation upon which he himself must build the superstructure of culture and growth. This being true, it becomes very important that the manner of building the foundation should be an index of the whole work. In the school he should not only learn how to do the work of the school, but how to go on working after he gets out into the world. To this end he must learn how to study and how to think. He must learn how to paddle his own educational canoe, and to steer it as well. Then by proper exertion and ambition he may drop his oar into one of the many rowlocks of life, and help to move the world onward.

Children cannot be taught how to study and think properly by one who himself is but indifferently qualified. Therefore Normal Schools have an important duty in this respect. As the pupils in these schools are taught, so will they teach; and the influence of their work will go on forever.

What, then, are right habits of thought and study? and how shall they be established in normal pupils?

Neither question is easily answered. There must be a profound love of truth, and a desire for investigation; a sound logic, or knowledge of the laws of reasoning; the power to read rapidly and to observe closely; and the ability to generalize, and to apply facts to the purposes of life.

Culture includes much more than is usually taught in schools. It cannot be tested by written examinations nor expressed by a per cent. It consists more in what a man can do, than of what he remembers. It implies an understanding of the real uses of knowledge, and of the true purposes of life.

To make teachers who shall have this love of truth, and broad culture, Normal Schools must in the first place choose their material more carefully. Everything that comes to a mill will not make flour. At the first all those who will make teachers cannot be separated from those who will not; but it does not take long to determine them. It is difficult, some

times to make pupils understand it, but it is far better for all concerned to retain only those who have at least a moderate amount of talent for teaching.

Perhaps the first important thing for the pupil-teachers to learn is the proper use of books. It is useless to cry down textbooks. All books are text-books, whether used in schools or not, and teachers must know how to use them. The practice of memorizing lessons is going out of fashion in association speeches, and educational papers. It still sticks fast in the schools because pupils are not shown how to use books in any other way. I remember with much pleasure the young graduate of Amherst who first taught me how to get a lesson in Physiology by reading it. There was a large class of us in the high school, and we began as usual by memorizing the whole lesson. He forbade it, and showed us the better way; we were astonished that such a thing could be done.

The reading lessons in schools should be made to develop this power. Too much elocution is taught. The lessons of the day should be read in class for the ideas in them, without particular reference to the tone of voice or the quality of the emphasis. If a class thoroughly understands a paragraph in the Natural Philosophy, nine out of every ten of them will read it well.

But it is no easy matter so to read a lesson as to notice and remember all that is important in it. Pupils will skim it at first, and it is for the teacher to show them how to dive for the complete ideas and hidden meanings. All the nooks and corners should be laid open in the class; every possible view brought to light and discussed. Then will the pupils begin to see the ideas in the words of the book, and they will soon learn how to dig them out and to throw away the shells in which they lie. There must be a broad preparation on the part of the teacher. It is not enough that he look over the lesson in the book. If he only does that, he will question the class with the book before him, either actually or mentally; and as a consequence the class will be confined to it in their study. They can have no rope longer than his halter.

Cultivation of the memory, however, must not be lost sight of. Many are running to the extreme. Intellectual power depends largely upon the memory; and in turn the best use of the memory depends upon the ability so to collate and join facts together as to form the knowledge of a subject into a compact, closely-related whole. There can be no separation of the two.