struct in what is familiarly called "the common branches." This expression includes reading, writing, spelling, arithmetic, geography, history and grammar. They should know something of animated nature; something of the science of mind, of its powers and operations. It will be well, if they have extended their thoughts to other departments of knowledge; well, if they are so far acquainted with music, as to lead and aid the children in singing.

The teacher of a common school will have under her care children, who, if they can pronounce their names intelligibly, do not know the letters that compose them. She will have under her care some, who, from vitiated associates, and, it may be, from the negligence and bad example of parents, have received impressions, which it will concern her to correct. She will have others, also, who have wisely commenced the course which they should be encouraged and assisted to pursue. On such materials she is to operate, adapting her instructions to their respective ages, capacities and wants. In this she will be furnished with the trial, and will give proof of her ability and merit. She must, then, have a competent knowledge of young minds; of the influence of association over them; of their comparative powers and susceptibilities; of the motives by which they can be suitably influenced. She should also feel that sense of the importance of the character and improvement of young children, which will strengthen the cord that binds her to their interest and to her profession. It should be in her power and disposition to make herself acceptable and intelligible to children; to bring the communications of her mind to a level and in contact with their minds and thoughts.

It is the teacher's duty, while endeavoring to gain the attention of the children to her directions, to be considerate and judicious in what she requires of them. She should never require what they cannot render; what would too severely tax their minds and memories; what would not be, or appear to them to be, reasonable. She should not overburden them with words

which are acquired with painful effort, because they are to them without interest and without meaning. She should not think, that the repetition of answers from the text books will make philosophers, astronomers, or chemists of any, before they can read intelligently. She should not believe that the power to repeat mood and tense, rule upon rule, and page after page, with infinite volubility, proves an acquaintance with grammar, arithmetic, geography, history, or rhetoric. Her duty is more concerned with inducing children to think and understand, than merely to utter words in prescribed form. It will be a point with every good teacher to instruct her pupils, as soon as they can receive such instruction, in the reasons implied, as well as in the given language. To understand a principle she will consider far more important to her scholars, than to repeat a rule. She will think less of preparing them for a fine recitation, than for the benefits to be derived from mental discipline. She will consider it important, early to exercise and improve the memory, but not to the neglect of instructing the mind to reflect, compare and discriminate. And young children who can readily return the answers to questions in the precise order in which they stand, and in the given language, should be prepared, by thought and reflection, to render intelligent answers to questions, proposed in different order, and not found in their lessons, in their own unborrowed and simple language.

Since much of the business of education consists in teaching or in learning to think correctly, and fitly to express thoughts; children should early be taught to reflect, to reason, and to express in familiar language the meaning of what they read and study. But they should not be required, and, I might say, they should not be permitted, to study or read what they cannot comprehend; for this would be unfavorable to their interest in books, and to their mental improvement. It is not the number of books read, or the number and length of lessons repeated, that forms scholars; but the valuable thoughts that have place

in their minds, that are usefully operating there, and that can be rendered, when required, in suitable language. The child's mind, as respects thought and action, though called to exert itself in the work of improvement, is not to be left alone and unassisted. It is the teacher's duty to aid the child in gaining and developing thought; but not to think for the child; to bring out and exhibit its nature, in concurrence with its own efforts, as well as "to pour the fresh instruction o'er the mind." For their own mental and moral improvement children should be taught to labor. The price of that improvement, and the value of that improvement, will be the amount of the labor bestowed by the child. The powers of the mind, as well as those of the body, require action for their development and preservation; and they are strengthened and invigorated by seasonable, sufficient and well-directed efforts. Make every thing in the course of education as easy as possible to children, however young, and you do them a positive injury; for you take from them the necessary stimulus to exertion, and you leave nothing for the trial of their power, for the proof of their ingenuity. That child will much longer need leading-strings than would otherwise be necessary, who is not required to aid himself in learning to walk. They will not acquire true independence of thought and action, who have others always ready to think and act for them. The teacher should give to children that attention which promotes a seasonable and healthy, not a premature growth of the mind; which tends to keep them within the boundaries that appropriately belong to their age and character. There is a kind of independence of spirit in some children, which requires to be restricted. And there is a kind of dependence or timidity of spirit in others, early to be guarded against, which prevents the full growth of the mind; which enfeebles its best energies: which tends to hold it in a state of imbecility in every subsequent period. Children should be taught, as early as they can understand, the strength and value of their powers; and, though always modest and respect

ful they should sometimes be left to think and act on their own responsibleness. And it should never be forgotten, that the best mode of early instruction does not prevent children from mental labor, but takes care to provide for them the necessary instruments with which to labor, and to afford needful aid in the right exercise of them.

The spirit of curiosity, or of useful inquiry, common in young children, is a favorable indication, and ought not to be disregarded. Ingenious and ingenuous children are disposed to ask many interesting questions. In this inquisitive disposition, both by parents and teachers, they should be indulged, encouraged, commended. The rightly qualified teacher will patiently and gratefully lend her ear to such inquiries, and her voice of instruction to the earliest desire of information so proposed. Always encouraging the love of useful knowledge, she will distinguish the desire of such knowledge from idle and impertinent curiosity. And she will not hesitate, on some occasions, to say to her young inquirers, that she cannot answer all their questions, for some of them she does not understand. This, I am persuaded, will be far more beneficial to teacher and scholar than evasive and incorrect answers. It will be to them a seasonable lesson of ingenuousness and plain-dealing; and to find, that, with all their information, their teachers know not every thing, will be an encouragement to interested learners. The ardent minds of youth will thus be aided in their efforts to go forward. Nor will their respect for their teachers be impaired by this evidence of their frankness and truth. And who can tell us how many highly gifted philosophers, statesmen, poets and historians, might have been raised from the comparatively unimproved classes, by suitable encouragement given to their early inquiries; men, who have been lost to literature and the sciences, by the checks and reproofs administered to their youthful and laudable curiosity!

It is the duty of the teachers of whom I am speaking, to make their instructions correspond to the respective ages, capa

cities and wants of their scholars. In whatever they teach, confining their requisitions to common branches of education,— such as can be understood in common schools,—much depends for success on beginning as well as on proceeding right. The first position should be understood before the next is taken. And harmony should be maintained between the progress in what is read and studied, and progress in intellectual power. Every teacher of such schools will find it among her wise regulations, to use for the readings and recitings of her classes, books which are not above their capacity, and to forbear introducing for those purposes, however highly recommended and suited to schools of a different character, such books as require more mental progress than her scholars have made. The judicious selecting and adapting of school books for the use and to the character of the scholars, is a point of much importance, and, I cannot doubt, receives far less attention than it deserves. It would be well for many of our common schools, if their female teachers were consulted, as the competent advisers of the school committees, in their selection of books. I will here take the liberty to remark, that, though flooded with books, school books and Sunday school books, for all ages and all classes, we have not a supply of precisely the books that are needed. And I will take the liberty also to enter my protest against a practice that has been quite too common. It is this: the names of many respectable individuals have been obtained, as endorsers to the public, in favor of books designed for schools, without a thorough examination having been given to their claims for this purpose; and thus books of little value have sometimes acquired an undeserved reputation. Education, in many schools, has suffered, and is suffering, from this cause. And here permit me to add, that while it is well to patronize books suited to the wants of the community, no respectable individual should give his name in favor of any which he has not thoroughly examined. There are, in numerous instances, in our common schools, books for