truly marvelous. We must, therefore, without overstraining them, or giving them too much to learn, make them clearly see from the first that this is not the spirit in which they must approach repetition. For this purpose (1) we must choose only the very finest specimens of the literature; (2) we must give abundant time for hearing frequent revisions; (3) we must encourage the repetition of it, not as "lines," but as poetry, with force and grace; (4) we must hold out as a reward for successful industry, that when a certain portion is thoroughly mastered no more will be required during the whole of the term except the revision of what has been learned.

13. Pronunciation.-As regards pronunciation, something will depend upon the school for which the pupil is being prepared, and on the versatility of the pupil.

The syllabus issued by the Professors of Latin at the Universities of Cambridge and Oxford at the request of the Head Masters of Schools sets forth a scheme of pronunciation now published in many First Latin Books, and used in the highest forms of a few of the principal Public Schools, as well as in the majority of the High Schools for girls. But in the lower forms of Public Schools this pronunciation is not yet used, or only in a very few instances.

The teacher must therefore choose between the advantage of a method of pronunciation which is recommended by the best authorities as at least approximately correct, and which rapidly communicates to the pupil the " quantities" of the syllables, and, on the other hand, the possible inconvenience to the pupils in being compelled to change their pronunciation when they pass from the tutor to the school.

But for the hesitation of one or two Head Masters this system would probably be now in use among all the classical schools; and the next wave of reform in matters educational is likely to re-introduce it with general acceptance; but for the present it must be considered an open question. The Author's experience, however, has been that pupils taught on the new system can, without any difficulty worth mentioning, adopt the old when needed, while retaining much advantage from their knowledge of the new.

Of course, in quoting familiar Latin proverbs and phrases that are, as it were, Anglicised, the English pronunciation would naturally be adopted.

54. GEOGRAPHY.

The object of teaching a child geography is, firstly, to give him information about the countries and nations of the globe, but secondly (which is the more important object of the two) to implant in him a habit of seeking, and a faculty in acquiring, further information on these points for himself.

Geography may be divided into two kinds: (1) Descriptive and Physical; (2) Historical and Commercial.

The former deals with the phenomena of Nature and their causes, so far as they concern the physical features and climate of the different parts of the earth; the latter deals with the earth as peopled and modified by man, the demarcation of countries, cities, populations, and exchangeable products. So far as it deals with physical causes, geography trains the reason; and so far as it is descriptive, it creates interest in the variety, and admiration at the beauty of the world. Again, historical geography supplies information without which it is difficult to understand history; and commercial geography shows us how the different countries of the earth are connected together by the natural exchange of their several products.

It is evident that, until a boy is fairly advanced in history, historical geography cannot be taught except in outline; or, if taught in detail, cannot be easily recollected for want of the necessary associations with historical facts; and in the same way the details of commercial geography, for a boy unacquainted with the details of the commercial relations of different countries, will be dull and difficult to remember.

The conclusion from all this is, that it is not wise to overload the young memory with lists of statements about populations, commercial products, minute details of boundaries, lengths of rivers, heights of mountains, and the like, until the mind, by familiarity with history and the facts of commerce, is made duly receptive of such teaching. The teacher of geography should avoid, as far as possible, teaching any fact that is not (somewhat obviously) worth remembering; otherwise, it may be taught, but will not be permanently remembered. And as historical and commercial geography do not appeal to the reason, but to the memory, the facts which they teach are of no use as an exercise of the rational faculty; and, unless they can be remembered, it is better that they should not be taught at all.

The following detailed rules spring from the above general considerations.

1. Begin early by stimulating the child's imagination with pictures of Tropical and Arctic regions, as different as possible from our own country, so that the child may realize something of the greatness and grandeur of the world, and may be curious to know as much as possible of its wonders and varieties.

2. Teach him how to make a map of his street and the immediate neighborhood (or, if he is very young, begin by showing him how to make a plan of a room or a garden). After he has made several attempts on slips of paper of different sizes, show him an enlarged ordnance map of the same neighborhood, and make him understand how the same place may be represented by maps on a different "scale."

3. Pass at once to a map of England, on which mark the town and county in which the pupil lives. Then show him England in a map of

Europe. The object of this is to prepare him to realize in some degree the relative size of the objects to which geography will introduce him.

4. Then tell him that Europe itself is but one among several continents that cover the surface of the earth, which is not flat, but a globe. And here produce a small globe, which the boy may take out of its frame and handle; and help him to recognize England upon it.

5. By means of a compass, show how to determine the North and South; and point out that the sun is always South about twelve o'clock, Southeast about nine A. M., Southwest about three P. M., etc. Encourage the child to make for himself a rough kind of sun-clock, by means of a vertical stick casting a shadow.

6. When the child has thus arrived at the conclusion that the sun moves, point out to him (using the illustration of two railway trains) that the phenomenon he sees might be caused by the earth's moving.

Then, either with the portable globe and a candle-or (far better) with the aid of the interesting model called a Tellurium,' if one can be procured-which exhibits the earth revolving on its axis and in its orbit, round a light representing the sun-show him the causes of the phenomenon of day and night, summer and winter, and how the earth is but as one of the planets which he may see by night moving in the heavens.

7. Hence show that it is day in New Zealand when it is night with us, and that at noon in New Zealand the sun is in the North, not in the South.

8. Now returning to earth, draw attention to the natural features, mountains, rivers, lakes, and seas.

Show the pupils how miniature rivers are to be seen in the walks of gardens and of parks, or of hedge-sides, where they may see on a small scale winding streams, cataracts, lakes, and deltas. Then show them one of the best kind of raised maps; or, better still, model a mountain region for them yourself in clay,' and show how the passage of the water may be determined by the shape of the land. Hence, make them clearly understand the nature of a watershed.

9. Draw for your pupils, and teach them to draw, the course of a river from the source to the mouth, fed by tributaries, showing them that a river's course always chooses the lowest ground, so that it cannot be straight, like that of a canal; and warn them that a river must never be represented (as some boys represent it) flowing up hill.

10. Passing now to the map of Europe, call attention to the principal mountain ranges, rivers, etc., and at the same time indicate something of their historical importance in determining the boundaries of nations. Then rapidly teach the names of the different countries. Show, in the case of England, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Germany, and Russia, how the existence of a large extent of sea-coast, or

1 To be seen at Messrs. Laurie & Co., Publishers, Paternoster Row, London. This suggestion is borrowed from Mr. Fitch's Lectures on Teaching,

its absence, how plains or mountains influence the history and character of a people.

11. Next take the principal rivers, and, making imaginary journeys down them, mark the principal cities on their banks, associating each name with some intelligible and interesting fact of history or comAlso point out the commercial importance of navigable rivers. 12. Now, taking ship, make a number of imaginary voyages from port to port, naming the seas traversed, the islands and some of the points passed by, and the straits passed through.

merce.

13. Next arrange the countries of Europe, first, in order of magnitude, and second, in order of population, pointing out how the order differs in the two cases.

It is quite unnecessary that the pupils should commit to memory the numbers of the populations of all the countries in Europe; but they will find much less difficulty in remembering the order in which the different countries stand; and then if they can remember the exact population of two or three, they will have a fair notion of the rest.

14. After this, the teacher may be guided by circumstances as to the direction his lessons shall pursue. But, for an English boy, the British Colonies may naturally be presented as the next subject for study.

15. In order to show the pupils how to utilize and augment their knowledge of Geography, the teacher should now take a brief sketch of the wars of Napoleon, and show them how to follow the outline of the history rapidly in their maps, omitting details; or he might do the same thing more simply with a brief life of Hannibal.

16. It will be seen that in all these lessons sketched above, not much room is left for the "text-book."

Geography is really a very difficult subject to teach, especially for Oxford and Cambridge men, not trained to teach, and unaccustomed to the use of the blackboard; and because of its difficulty, many teachers prefer to trust entirely to the book, "setting lessons "out of it, which are to be "repeated" to the teacher.

Thus taught, Geography is of very little value. The text-book, in order to be complete, generally arranges all the facts and objects of one kind together, e.g. the capes, cities, lakes, rivers, etc. Hence the order of the text-book is not the order, of the traveler. But the child who is learning geography ought to learn it, as far as possible, in the same order and with the same interest as though he were traveling across the country.

Moreover, in the complete lists of the text-books many unimportant facts are mixed with some that are important, and if the child learns all these promiscuously, he learns too much, and a great deal more than he can associate with intelligible and interesting ideas. Hence whereas he might have remembered a few things, if a few had been well selected, he now forgets everything, because the teacher has eliminated nothing

Nor is this loss of information the only evil. He has also failed to form the valuable habit of connecting the names of places with characteristic events and facts, and has lost the active curiosity and interest which would have stimulated him, all through life, to ask, whenever he heard or read about some striking incident, "Where is that place? How did the place influence the event?"

17. Map-drawing may be made a useful exercise if it accompanies a study of the history of the country, and if the pupil is limited to a few of the more important towns, and obliged to state, in writing, his reasons for selecting them. Without some such precaution, boys will put in names wherever they will produce the prettiest pictorial effect, without the slightest regard to their historical or commercial importance; and it is needless to say that maps so constructed are positively mischievous.

More useful than elaborate map-drawing is the art of drawing rapid sketch-maps from memory, the pupil inserting only such towns as are prescribed by the teacher.

18. The last, but most important conclusion to be deduced from the foregoing remarks is that no one should teach geography who is not perfectly familiar with it himself.

The speaker should never need to take his eyes off the class or off his pupil to look at the book, and should be able rapidly and unhesitatingly to draw a map upon the blackboard without reference to an Atlas.

To make one's pupils see anything—and that is a principal object of geographical instruction—it is necessary that the teacher should (either with his eyes or with his imagination) have previously seen it himself; and the ideal Instructor in geography is one who, with all the qualifications of a teacher combines the experience of a traveler, who has actually seen what he describes; but next to this comes he who has, by reading and study, so completely mastered the outlines and coloring of the region he is describing, that he can speak of them as if he had seen them.

55. HISTORY.

"My own experience as a child," writes Preceptor, of early teaching in History, was derived from the mere reading of text-books, the result being that, after I had read two of them from beginning to end, I retained nothing except one or two mental pictures of little Arthur being blinded, Essex receiving a box on the ear, Rufus shot with a chance arrow, the original Briton colored and tattooed; and as my one interesting historical problem-a perplexity with regard to the important part played in history by what was called in my books a' cabinet,' but at home a 'chiffonier.'"

Preceptor proceeds to pour contempt on the early teaching of History, declaring that it "goes in at one ear and out at the other." A great number of good teachers will endorse his opinion; but the legiti