BY MARCIUS WILLSON, AUTHOR OF "WILLSON'S HISTORICAL SERIES," "SCHOOL AND FAMILY READERS," SECOND EDITION. NEW YORK: HARPER & BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS, FRANKLIN SQUARE. 1863. EducT 98.63.878 HARVARD COLLEGE LIBRARY By Exchange Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year one thousand eight HARPER & BROTHERS, In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the Southern District of New York. See the APPENDIX for an "Approximate Programme" of a course of Elementary INTRODUCTORY. THE PRINCIPLES ON WHICH THE SYSTEM OF OBJECT TEACHING IS BASED. 1. The System not New in Principle. THE system of instruction by "object" teaching, as it has been called, but which we should prefer to call the Development System, is nothing new in principle or purpose; for it is fully carried out in Nature's teachings in the early years of childhood; and it is the system upon which nearly all valuable knowledge has been accumulated in the progressive civilization of the race. It is to a degree, however, new in its application to the methods of early school instruction, in which we think we shall show we have most departed from Nature and from enlightened experience. 2. Nature's System of Teaching. It is known that the child, from one to four years of age, acquires knowledge far more rapidly than at any subsequent period of life. In these three years it has attained great proficiency in a language of peculiar intricacy, speaking it with considerable fluency, and mastering many of its most difficult idioms; it has learned to recognize, and give the names, and know many of the qualities and uses of a thousand objects; and this it has done by keeping the senses of touch, taste, hearing, sight, and smell-the perceptive faculties-in almost constant and pleasurable activity. These active workers have seldom wearied of their self-imposed labors, and never been injured by over-exertion; for the natural exercise to which they have been subjected has been to them health and strength, and the in terest the mind has taken in their acquisitions has made every toil a pleasure. And yet, at this period of life, all the powers and faculties are comparatively feeble, so that we are forced to the conclusion that whatever the mind has accomplished is attributable chiefly to the system of instruction which has been pursued. Nor is it the mere acquisition of knowledge that has been thus early accomplished. The perceptive faculties have had that kind of training which has peculiarly contributed to give them accuracy and vigor: the attention has been cultivated by presenting to it objects of interest and of suitable variety: memory has been pleasurably, and hence profitably exercised: reason and judgment have had presented to them the materials for their early cultivation; and the germs of the moral nature have been developed in the early emotions of infantile joy and sorrow, followed by feelings of sympathy, and the first notions of right and duty. We believe there are some very important principles in this system of Nature's teaching, that should be considered and adopted in arranging a system of school instruction. We purpose to point out a few of these principles, hoping, by showing how far we have departed from them, to indicate a system more in accordance with that of Nature. 3. Early Development of the Perceptive Faculties. What are, then, the means by which the child acquires all its materials of knowledge? It may seem a truism to answer that the means or instruments are THE SENSES, which we may class together as forming the PERCEPTIVE FACULTIES; and yet the truth seems overlooked, if we are to judge from the little attention given to the principles upon which they act, and the proper means of their education. The perceptive faculties are developed in early childhood by appropriate exercise upon the objects which are presented to them: and we think the great desideratum is to discover the principles upon which they have thus been exercised in the school of Nature. Let us first take the |