coasts and harbors all over the world; and of the sea-ports, with their commercial relations. And would not this be the best practical geography for boys?

During the whole of the course, it is intended that the drawing of maps should be continued, and all the natural features of the earth indicated. The last part of geography studied, should be the arbitrary divisions made by human politics. By associating this, however, with the history of nations, as the other parts of geography were associated with natural history and biography, it will be more easily remembered, and those parts of the world will be best known, which it is the most important to know accurately. When these political divisions are considered, the children can draw them on their maps, and indicate the places of the towns.

Is it not obvious, that geography, studied in this way, might put into the mind some adequate conception of the face of the earth? while the common plan fails to touch the imagination, and terminates in nothing but a knowledge of maps, which is not sufficiently interesting to be retained in the memory. For it is a fact, which every thoughtful teacher must have observed, that nothing is permanently remembered, which does not touch the heart, or interest the imagination. Years are given by children to the study of geography, and yet scarcely any person retains an accurate recollection of the relations of places to each other beyond their school days, so as to dispense with the constant use of a map. It would not be so, if the thoughts wandered over the real earth, with all its pomp and garniture, instead of being fastened to that linear hieroglyphic, the much lauded map; which is perhaps a necessary evil; but certainly is an evil, when it precludes the mind from forming within itself a real picture of the original. Beauty and magnificence are inspirations, and secure the constant recurrence of the mind, and lingering of the thoughts, over whatever fact they asssociate themselves with; and enable us to learn it by heart,-which very phrase, like most of our idioms, is full of spiritual philosophy: Why, then, should not these associations be brought to the aid of memory in attaining a knowledge of geography?

LATIN.

About a third of the School were formed into a Latín Class, immediately on its commencement; and an hour a day was set apart for Latin lessons, and that portion of time was always given to it. When only three lessons a week were given, more than an hour was assigned.

They commenced by learning a portion of the Historia Sacra, with the English, thus: the first phrase was translated to the whole class, and each was called on to repeat it. By the time each, all round, had repeated it once, all had learned it by heart. At the end of each sentence, and of each paragraph, the whole was reviewed. In three months, one little girl, under seven years of age, had learned sixteen sections. Some who then began Latin, or who were absent a good deal, or were not so quick to learn, did not accomplish more than two. But all learned thoroughly all they studied, spelling and defining every word, even into the discriminations of grammar.

At the same time there were parallel lessons in Grammar. They learnt the paradigms of the regular congregations, though not within the first three months; and could parse verbs in the course of six months. They also learned to discriminate the parts of speech, and had various grammatical exercises, corresponding as much as possible, to Mr. Alcott's lessons in English Grammar. Besides these, some of the older, brighter, or more advanced children, wrote the exercises in Leverett's Latin Tutor, upon the conjugations and declensions.

It is justice to myself, however, to state, that this plan of teaching Latin, was not exactly according to my own ideal; but was adopted, because it was the best one that could be pursued, in the circumstances, more especially with relation to the circumstance that the learners were not to be continued in Mr. Alcott's school to fit for college, but were to be removed from it to other Schools, with whose methods some harmony must be kept up, for the sake of not puzzling the children. The above exercises are very good to precede the discipline of the Boston Grammar School, for instance; and will be found not an undesirable introduction to the methods pursued in that very

great improvement upon classical education, the school kept in Boston, by Mr. Henry Cleveland and Mr. Edmund Cushing But my own personal notions about teaching Latin, I will take this opportunity of giving; and it will be seen, at a glance, that such a method could not be incorporated into Mr. Alcott's school, in which the learning of Latin is but a collateral object, introduced, in order to take away the necessity, many parents would otherwise feel, of taking away their children, at an earlier period than Mr. Alcott is willing to spare them.

But it would be my method, a method I have myself 'pursued in some instances with pupils of my own school, whose education has been entirely confided to me, to wait until the pupil had been well trained in all such exercises on English as Mr. Alcott begins with, and then to commence Latin, by presenting the theory of the language to the imagination.

The classical languages admit of being so presented; for they are works of art,-splendid exhibitions of the plastic genius which is manifest in every production of the Greek and Roman mind. Sound was looked upon by the Latins, as a material, and the very element of air was hewn and carved into harmonious and beautiful forms, to give outness to the movements and modifications of their thought. In modern languages, words are, as it were, shapeless, elemental blocks; every modification of thought requires a separate piece to express it. The accessory and auxiliary ideas to the action and object, stand around them, like the attendants on a savage king, without uniformity of dress, or trained step and air. But the Latin language may be considered the architecture of sound, the theme syllables of the verb, or the noun, being the blocks of articulate air, representing the unmodified action or object, which come out from the Roman mouth, defined in form as with a graver's tool, every stroke of which, expresses another shade of thought. And if the accidents, of these main subjects of discourse, require new blocks of material, yet even these are all subordinated, and obliged to present themselves, in a correspondent form to the words they qualify, or for which they stand. The communication of this

theory immediately arrests the learner's mind, and fixes his attention upon those tables of terminations, which it is generally such weary work for the memory to master.

Having communicated this theory, I would, in the next place, present tables of the terminations of the verbs, choosing the most regular to begin with; but while the pupils are learning them, and those variations of meaning which they indicate, I should take some author of the Augustan age, (I have sometimes begun with the bucolics of Virgil,) and teach translation by word of mouth. For I am sure it will be found, that the meanings of words may be fastened on the memory by the teacher's being the dictionary, a great deal more quickly and effectively, than by the use of a lexicon: for the animating influence of the teacher's mind, in tracing the history of the word from its material root, into its imaginative applications; in associating its sound with the English derivations from it, whenever there are any in opening the learner's mind to the appropriateness of the author's present application of it, which may be always shown in a real classic author; and finally, in leading him to observe its euphonious location in the sentence, an object so constantly kept in view by the Latin authors, whether of prose or poetry; is all powerful, to keep the acquiring mind of the learner in that cheerfulness, good will, and vividness of imagination, which is essential to readiness and retentiveness of memory.-And while, by means of the vocabulary thus attained, there may be perpetual exercises of the knowledge gained by the tables of termination, a ground work is forming for parsing lessons of a more philosophical character. As soon as a passage of fifty lines has been thus learned with the English mearings, the teacher must begin to explain the theory of case, and show what general relations are indicated by the several changes, discriminated in the grammar by the terms nominative, genitive, dative, &c., the force of which technical words is involved in such an explanation. Then the syntactical rules should be taken up and each word explained, and the pupil required to find out, by means of the English sense, (which he has learned by heart,) whether any words, in the passage before him, afford instances of its application. If children have been well exercised, beforehand, in the

analysis of English, and have learnt the various force of English prepositions, the parsing of latin substantives will be learnt with very great rapidity and thoroughness in this way, long before the tables of termination are presented, which are so great a tax to the memory, and so little assistance, after all, in determining the case of a word. These tables of termination however can be given at last-and will have their use, especially as applied to the adjectives and other subordinate parts of speech.

The successful pursuit of this method requires several conditions, however. In the first place it requires previous discipline in the English language; a discipline, which even on Mr. Alcott's method could seldom be completed before a boy was nine years of age, if he began at six or seven. It would also require the best and freshest hours of the day; and must be the main object of the student's attention for a time, with some degree of freedom in the use of his voice to help his ear. With these conditions, there are few boys of ten or twelve years of age, who might not learn so much Latin in a year as to be able to read with facility, and without farther teaching, all the Latin books, preparatory to college life. Farther teaching on collateral subjects would indeed be useful; and that higher teaching might be appreciated, which consists in discriminating the characteristic styles of authors, by an observation of those relations with which his mind is most familiar, indicated by his favorite syntactical and etymological rules of construction.

ARITHMETIC.

Arithmetic was taught from the opening of the school. The younger scholars were provided with Fowle's Child's book of Arithmetic, and the older ones with Colburn's First Lessons, and learned lessons in them; though those who studied Latin had but little time for Arithmetic, and did not make any great progress.

These Arithmetic lessons were always studied at their desks, and the results of each question written, sometimes on the black boards, and sometimes on their slates; and when the lessons were recited to Mr. Alcott, he required from them an account of the process.

Besides this, a course of lessons on numeration, and the