ters of important district schools, or as Tutors in other training schools. These students would constitute-4. A class of Masters.

As soon as the attainments of the students and pupils appeared to warrant the experiment, an hour was daily appropriate to examination by means of questions written on the board before the class, the replies to which were worked on paper, in silence, in the presence of one of the tutors. This hour is, ou scecessive days of the week, appropriated to different subjects, viz: grammar, etvmology, arithmetic, mensuration, algebra, mechanics, geography, and biblical knowledge. The examination papers are then carefully examined by the tube to whose department they belong, in order that the value of the reply to each question may be determined in reference to mean numbers, 3, 4, 5, and 6. These mean numbers are used to express the comparative difficulty of every question, and the greatest merit of each reply is expressed by the numbers 6, 8, and 10 and 12 respectively, the lowest degree of merit being indicated by 1.

The sun of the numbers thus attached to each answer is entered in the examination-book, opposite to the name of each pupil. These numbers are added up at the end of the week, and reduced to an average by dividing them by the number of days of examination which have occurred in the week. In a similar manner, at the end of the month, the sum of the weekly averages is, for the sake of convenience, reduced by dividing them by four; and a convenient number is thus obtained, expressing the intellectual progress of each boy. These numbers are not published in the school, but are reserved as an element by which we may be enabled to award the certificates of Candidate, Scholar, and Master.

The examination for the quarterly certificates will necessarily also include the inspection of the writing, drawings, abstracts, and compositions. Oral examination will be required to ascertain the degree of promptitude and ease in expres sion of each pupil. They will likewise be required to give demonstrations of problems in arithmetic, algebra, and mechanics, on the blackboard; to describe the geography of a district in the form of a lecture, and to conduct a class before us, ere we award the certificates.

The examination of the pupils will gradually rise in importance, and the quarterly examinations will be marked by a progressive character, leading to the three chief examinations for the certificates of Candidate, Scholar, and Master, which will be distinguished from each other, both as respects the nature and number of the acquirements, and by the degree of proficiency required in some branches which will be common to the three periods of study.

In another department of registration we have thought it important to avoid certain errors of principle to which such registers appear to be liable. We have been anxious to have a record of some parts of moral conduct connected with habits formed in the school, but we have not attempted to register moral merit. Such registers are at best very difficult to keep. They occasion rivalry, and often hypocrisy. On this account we did not deem it advisable to require that they should be kept; but it was important that we should be informed of certain errors interfering with the formation of habits of punctuality, industry, cleanliness, order, and subordination; and registers were devised for noting deviations from propriety in these respects. First, a time-book is directed to be kept, in which the observance of the hour of rising, and of the successive periods marked in the routine of the school is noted, in order that any general cause of aberration may meet the eye at once. Secondly, one book is kept by the superintend ents appointed from among the students to inspect the household work above stairs, another in relation to the household work below stairs, and a third by the tutor having charge of out-door labor. In these books the duties assigned to each pupil are entered opposite to his name. The superintendent, at the expiration of the period allotted to the work, marks in columns under each of the following heads,-Subordination, Industry, Cleanliness, Order,-the extent of deviation from propriety of conduct by numbers varying from 1 to 4.

The register of punctuality in classes is kept by writing opposite to each pupil's name the number of minutes which elapse after the proper period before he enters the class. The sum of the numbers recorded in these books denotes the extent of errors in habits and manners into which any of the pupils fall, and directs our attention to the fact. Such records would, in connection with the re

sults of the examinations, enable us to determine whether, in reference to each period, a certificate of Candidate, Scholar, or Master, of the first, second, or thira degree, should be granted.

The reports of the superintendents are presented to Dr. Kay immediately after morning prayers. The record is read in the presence of the school, and any appeal against the entry heard. At this period the relation which the entire discipline holds to the future pursuits of the pupils is from time to time made familiar to them by simple expositions of the principles by which it is regulated. ** *

This is the household life of the school. Brief hints only of the principles which have determined and regulated the preparatory course can find a place in the remarks we have to offer on the preparatory course.

The students have been stimulated in their application by a constant sense of the practical utility of their intellectual labors. After morning prayers, they are from day to day reminded of the connection between their present and future pursuits, and informed how every part of the discipline and study has a direct relation to the duties of a schoolmaster. The conviction thus created becomes a powerful incentive to exertion, which might be wanting if those studies were selected only because they were important as a discipline of the mind.

The sense of practical utility seems as important to the earnestness of the student as the lively conviction attending object teaching in the early and simplest form of elementary instruction. In the earliest steps an acquaintance with the real is necessary to lively conceptions of truth, and at a later period a sense of the value of knowledge resulting from experience inspires the strongest conviction of the dignity and importance of all truth, where its immediate practical utility is not obvious.

Far, therefore, from fearing that the sense of the practical utility of these studies will lead the students to measure the value of all truth by a low standard, their pursuits have been regulated by the conviction, that the most certain method of attaining a strong sense of the value of truths, not readily applicable to immediate use, is to ascertain by experience the importance of those which can be readily measured by the standard of practical utility. Thus we approach the conception of the momentum of a planet moving in its orbit, from ascertaining the momentum of bodies whose weight and velocity we can measure by the simplest observations. From the level of the experience of the practical utility of certain common truths, the mind gradually ascends to the more abstract, whose importance hence becomes more easily apparent, though their present application is not obvious, and in this way the thoughts most safely approach the most difficult abstractions.

In the humble pursuits of the preparatory course, a lively sense of the utility of their studies has likewise been maintained by the method of instruction adopted. Nothing has been taught dogmatically, but every thing by the combination of the simplest elements, i. e. the course which a discoverer must have trod has been followed, and the way in which truths have been ascertained pointed out by a synthetical demonstration of each successive step. The labor of the previous analysis of the subject is the duty of the teacher, and is thus removed from the child.

Having ascertained what the pupil knows, the teacher endeavors to lead him by gentle and easy steps from the known to the unknown. The instruction, in the whole preparatory course, is chiefly oral, and is illustrated, as much as possible, by appeals to nature, and by demonstrations. Books are not resorted to until the teacher is convinced that the mind of his pupil is in a state of healthful activity; that there has been awakened in him a lively interest in truth, and that he has become acquainted practically with the inductive method of acquiring knowledge. At this stage the rules, the principles of which have been orally communicated, and with whose application he is familiar, are committed to memory from books, to serve as a means of recalling more readily the knowledge and skill thus attained. This course is Pestalozzian, and, it will be perceived, is the reverse of the method usually followed, which consists in giving the pupil the rule first. Experience, however, has confirmed us in the superiority of the plan we have pursued. Sometimes a book, as for example a work on Physical Geography, is put into his hands, in order that it may be carefully read, and that the

student may prepare himself to give before the class a verbal abstract of the chapter selected for this purpose, and to answer such questions as may be proposed to him, either by the tutor or by his fellows. During the preparatory course exercises of this kind have not been so numerous as they will be in the more advanced stages of instruction. Until habits of attention and steady application had been formed, it seemed undesirable to allow to the pupils hours for self-sustained study, or voluntary occupation. Constant superintendence is necessary to the formation of correct habits, in these and in all other respects, in the preparatory course. The entire day is, therefore, occupied with a succession of engagements in household work and out-door labor, devotional exercises, meals, and instruction. Recreation is sought in change of employment. These changes afford such pleasure, and the sense of utility and duty is so constantly maintained. that recreation in the ordinary sense is not needed. Leisure from such occupa tions is never sought excepting to write a letter to a friend, or occasionally to visit some near relative. The pupils all present an air of cheerfulness. They proceed from one lesson to another, and to their several occupations, with a elasticity of mind which affords the best proof that the mental and physical et fects of the training are auspicious.

In the early steps toward the formation of correct habits, it is necessary tha (until the power of self-guidance is obtained) the pupil should be constantly un der the eye of a master, not disposed to exercise authority so much as to giv assistance and advice. Before the habit of self-direction is formed, it is ther fore pernicious to leave much time at the disposal of the pupil. Proper inte lectual and moral aims must be inspired, and the pupil must attain a knowled of the mode of employing his time with skill, usefully, and under the guidan of right motives, ere he can be properly left to the spontaneous suggestionshis own mind. Here, therefore, the moral and the intellectual training are the closest harmony. The formation of correct habits, and the growth of rig sentiments, ought to precede such confidence in the pupil's powers of self-dir tion, as is implied in leaving him either much time unoccupied, or in which labors are not under the immediate superintendence of his teacher.

In the preparatory course, therefore, the whole time is employed under sup intendence, but toward the close of the course a gradual trial of the pup powers of self-guidance is commenced; first, by intrusting him with cert studies unassisted by the teacher. Those who zealously and successfully emp their time will, by degrees, be intrusted with a greater period for self-sustai intellectual or physical exertion. Further evidence of the existence of the p er qualities will lead to a more liberal confidence, until habits of applica and the power of pursuing their studies successfully, and without assistance, attained.

The subjects of the preparatory course were strictly rudimental. It wil found that the knowledge obtained in the elementary schools now in exist is a very meager preparation for the studies of a training school for teac Until the clementary schools are improved, it will be found necessary to g the very roots of all knowledge, and to rearrange such knowledge as the p have attained, in harmony with the principles on which they must ultima communicate it to others. Many of our pupils enter the school with the bro provincial dialect, scarcely able to read with fluency and precision, much with ease and expression. Some were ill furnished with the commonest ru arithmetic, and wrote clumsily and slowly.

They have been made acquainted with the phonic method of teaching to practiced in Germany. Their defects of pronunciation have been corrected large extent by the adoption of this method, and by means of deliberat emphatic syllabic reading, in a well-sustained and correct tone. The prin on which the laut or phonic method depends have been explained at consid length as a part of the course of lessons on method.

We have deemed it of paramount importance that they should acq thorough knowledge of the elements and structure of the English language lessons in reading were in the first place made the means of leading them examination of the structure of sentences, and practical oral lessons were on grammar and etymology according to the method pursued by Mr. W the Edinburgh Sessional School. The results of these exercises were tes

the lessons of dictation and of composition which accompanied the early stages of this course, and by which a timely sense of the utility of a knowledge of grammatical construction and of the etymological relations of words was developed. As soon as this feeling was created, the oral instruction in grammar assumed a more positive form. The theory on which the rules were founded was explained, and the several laws, when well understood, were dictated in the least exceptionable formulæ, and were written out and committed to memory. In this way they proceeded through the whole of the theory and rules of grammar before they were intrusted with any book on the subject, lest they should depend for their knowledge on a mere effort of the memory to retain a formula not well understood.

At each stage of their advance, corresponding exercises were resorted to, in order to familiarize them with the application of the rules.

When they had in this way passed through the ordinary course of grammatical instruction, they were intrusted with books to enable them to give the last degree of precision to their conceptions.

In etymology the lessons were in like manner practical and oral. They were first derived from the reading-lessons of the day, and applied to the exercises and examinations accompanying the course, and, after a certain progress had been made, their further advance was insured by systematic lessons from books.

A course of reading in English literature, by which the taste may be refined by an acquaintance with the best models of style, and with those authors whose works have exercised the most beneficial influence on the mind of this nation, has necessarily been postponed to another part of the course. It, however, forms one of the most important elements in the conception of the objects to be attained in a training school, that the teacher should be inspired with a discriminating but earnest admiration for those gifts of great minds to English literature which are alike the property of the peasant and the peer; national treasures which are among the most legitimate sources of national feelings.

Those who have had close intercourse with the laboring classes well know with what difficulty they comprehend words not of a Saxon origin, and how frequently addresses to them are unintelligible from the continual use of terms of a Latin or Greek derivation; yet the daily language of the middling and upper classes abounds with such words-many of the formularies of our church are full of them, and hardly a sermon is preached which does not in every page contain numerous examples of their use. Phrases of this sort are so naturalized in the language of the educated classes, that entirely to omit them has the appearance of pedantry and baldness, and even disgusts persons of taste and refinement. Therefore, in addressing a mixed congregation, it seems impossible to avoid using them, and the only mode of meeting the inconvenience alluded to is to instruct the humbler classes in their meaning. The method we have adopted for this purpose has been copied from that first introduced in the Edinburgh Sessional Schools; every compound word is analyzed, and the separate meaning of each member pointed out, so that, at present, there are few words in the English language which our pupils cannot thoroughly comprehend, and from their acquaintance with the common roots and principles of etymology, the new compound terms, which the demands of civilization are daily introducing, are almost immediately understood by them. We believe that there are few acquirements more conducive to clearness of thought, or that can be more usefully introduced into common schools, than a thorough knowledge of the English language, and that the absence of it gives power to the illiterate teacher and demagogue, and deprives the lettered man of his just influence.

Similar remarks might be extended to style. It is equally obvious that the educated use sentences of a construction presenting difficulties to the vulgar which are frequently almost insurmountable. It is, therefore, not only necessary that the meaning of words should be taught on a logical system in our elementary schools, but that the children should be made familiar with extracts from our best authors on subjects suited to their capacity. It cannot be permitted to remain the opprobrium of this country that its greatest minds have bequeathed their thoughts to the nation in a style at once pure and simple, but still inaccessible to the intelligence of the great body of the people.

In writing, they were trained, as soon as the various books could be prepared, according to the method of Mulhauser, which was translated and placed in the hands of the teachers for that purpose.

In like manner, in arithmetic, it has been deemed desirable to put them in possession of the pre-eminently synthetical method of Pestalozzi. As soon as the requisite tables and series of lessons, analyzed to the simplest elements, could be procured, the principles on which complex numerical combinations rest were rendered familiar to them, by leading the pupils through the earlier course of Pestalozzi's lessons on numbers, from simple unity to compound fractional quan tities; connecting with them the series of exercises in mental arithmetic which they are so well calculated to introduce and to illustrate. The use of such method dispels the gloom which might attend the most expert use of the con mon rules of arithmetic, and which commonly afford the pupil little light to guid his steps off the beaten path illuminated by the rule.

While these lessons have been in progress, the common rules of arithmet have been examined by the light of this method. Their theory has been e plained, and by constant practice the pupils have been led to acquire expertne in them, as well as to pursue the common principles on which they rest, and ascertain the practical range within which each rule ought to be employed. T ordinary lessons on mental arithmetic have taken their place in the course of struction separately from the peculiar rules which belong to Pestalozzi's series These lessons also prepared the pupils for proceeding at an early period in similar manner with the elements of algebra, and with practical lessons in m suration and land-surveying.

These last subjects were considered of peculiar importance, as compris one of the most useful industrial developments of a knowledge of the laws number. Unless, in elementary schools, the instruction proceed beyond knowledge of abstract rules, to their actual application to the practical nec ties of life, the scholar will have little interest in his studies, because he will perceive their importance; and moreover, when he leaves the school, they be of little use, because he has not learned to apply his knowledge to any pose. On this account, boys who have been educated in common elemen schools, are frequently found, in a few years after they have left, to forgotten the greater part even of the slender amount of knowledge they acquired.

The use of arithmetic to the carpenter, the builder, the laborer, and ar ought to be developed by teaching mensuration and land-surveying in eler ary schools. If the scholars do not remain long enough to attain so high a r the same principle should be applied to every step of their progress. The tical application of the simplest rules should be shown by familiar examples soon as the child can count, he should be made to count objects, su money, the figures on the face of a clock, &c. When he can add, he should before him shop-bills, accounts of the expenditure of earnings, accounts of In every arithmetical rule similar useful exercises are a part of the ar teacher, whose sincere desire is to fit his pupil for the application of his edge to the duties of life, the preparation for which should be always sug to the pupil's mind as a powerful incentive to action. These future should be always placed in a cheering and hopeful point of view. The repetition of a table of numbers has less of education in it than a drill balance-step.

Practical instruction in the book-keeping necessary for the management household was for these reasons given to those who acted as stewards; a were kept of the seeds, manure, and garden produce, &c., as preparato course of book-keeping, which will follow.

The recently rapid development of the industry and commerce

* See a description of Mulhauser's method, p. 250.

+ It is somewhat remarkable that since this paragraph was written I should have letter from one of the principal directors of a railway company, in which he informs m frequent recurrence of accidents bad induced the directors of the railway to make a amination into their causes. The directors rose from this inquiry convinced that these were, to a large extent, attributable to the ignorance of the men whom they had been