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regiments on the field, and set them successfully at work, requires skill and experience such as can only be acquired by much thought and actual observation.

An entire neglect of the grading is another cause of failure, and a third cause may be found in the almost exclusive and disproportionate attention given by some principals to the higher departments, and the serious and fatal neglect of the lower ones. Unless the roots thrive, the whole tree will wither.

THE GRADING OF UNION SCHOOLS.

As has already been stated, the advantages of the union school arise chiefly from the grading. The morc perfect, therefore, the grading, the more certain and marked will be the suc cess of these schools. Many confused notions, and a great variety of practice prevail among the union schools of the State, in the matter of grading, and in some instances no attempt at a careful classification is made, the pupils being merely divided somewhat equally among the several teachers, the larger pupils going to one and the smaller sized to another. In cases, the grading is made upon some such merely arbitrary many other and artificial basis, as upon the books used, or the position of the pupil in some particular study, as reading or arithmetic. The pupils having a first or second Reader are put into the primary department, while those using the higher numbers of the series are assigned, for that reason, to the higher grades. There is, as yet, no generally recognized basis of classification, ánd every teacher does what seemeth good in his own eyes.

The importance of this subject to the success, if not to the safety even, of our school system, induces me to attempt some fuller discussion of it than I should otherwise deem suitable. Many of the Boards of Trustees are awakening to the need of a more efficient grading and organization of their schools, and frequent inquiries are made concerning the true methods and principles of classification.

The answers to these inquiries, while they will be of especial interest to those having anything to do with the management

of union schools, will be of value also to the District Boards and teachers of the common district schools of the State; for each pupil, wherever taught, must pass through the same natural stages of progress, and his successful instruction will depend on the strict observance of the same natural laws. The several grades of pupils will all be found in each primary district school.

It is obvious that any general system of classification must be based upon the natural stages of a child's progress in learning, and upon the studies and methods of instruction naturally adapted to each stage. Any basis less broad than this will require constant modifications, and will admit of no general application to different schools, or even to the same school in the different years of its progress.

Taking, then, the natural stages of education as a basis of classification, the natural grades of a union school are these four, viz :

1. The Primary or beginner's grade, embracing the pupils whose slender knowledge of language and ignorance of reading, as also their undisciplined powers of attention and reflection disqualify them for the study of books, and who must be taught orally.

2. The Intermediate or transition grade, comprising the pupils who, having learned to read, and having obtained some knowledge of words and things, through the oral instructions of the primary grade, are prepared to begin the study of books. The learning of lessons from books differs so widely from the process by which little children gather knowledge through the spontaneous use of their senses, or by conversation with their parents or teachers, that some thorough and efficient instruction should evidently be given in the art of lesson learning. To give such instruction is the main purpose and business of this grade, which is therefore properly intermediate and transitional between the primary or oral teaching, and the periods of mature and independent study of books.

3. The Grammar or common school grade. This grade bor

rows its name from the Grammar schools of the East, and embraces, in general, those pupils who are pursuing common school studies, including, grammar, geography, arithmetic, &c. 4. The High School grade, embracing those who are pursu ing advanced studies.

These two latter grades differ from each other not only in the branches pursued, but also in the general aim of the studies, and in the modes of recitation. In the former the studies approach the character of arts, and are learned and impressed by practical exercises, as cyphering, map-drawing, composition writing, &c. In the latter the studies are pursued as sciences, and approximate more nearly a scientific investigation of prin-ciples and laws.

It will be seen, on a careful review, that every child, in what -ever school he is taught, must pass through these natural stages of progress, though not, perhaps, through all the studies, in his advance to maturity. The advantage of separating the pupils of these several grades into different departments will be evident from a comparison of the exercises and modes of instruction appropriate to each.

1st. In the primary grade, the teaching is entirely oral. The pupil learns nothing from books independently of the teacher. The voice of the living teacher is almost the sole instrument of instruction. By conversational lessons on sensible objects, the pupil's power and habits of observation are developed and his knowledge of language is enlarged. Even in teaching reading to this grade of pupils, the voice of the teacher constantly goes before that of the pupil, interpreting the printed words, and giving the right pronunciation.

The tender age of children, in this grade, demands that the confinement shall be much less severe than in the later grades; more frequent and longer recesses being allowed them, and frequent physical exercises interspersed. It would be well if the school sessions could, for this class of pupils, be shortened to four hours a day.

The power of attention, in these young pupils, is also so un

developed and weak that each exercise should be brief and animated; rarely exceeding ten minutes, and made as lively and diverting as possible. How clear is it that the best interests of these pupils demand their instruction in a separate department organized to meet their peculiar wants.

2d. In the intermediate grade there will be a mixture of oral teaching and the study of text books. The main purpose being to teach the pupil how to get knowledge from books, those great depositories of human learning, and life-long sources of infor mation, much time must be spent with the classes in an oral study of the assigned lessons. Careful explanations of the true process of study must be given, and the pupils abundantly and patiently exercised in the practice of these processes.

Perhaps no part of the business of teaching has been so little cared for, or comprehended even, as this. As soon as pupils have learned to read fluently they have had lessons assigned them, and without a word of instruction as to the methods by which they are to proceed, they have been told to learn the lesson. What wonder that it is so common to see young pupils attempting to commit their lessons by a parrot-like repetition of the words. How futile and disastrous must ever be such a method of study.

Pupils should be taught that the true aim of study is not to recile, and not even to remember; but to know. He who studies merely that he may recite to a teacher, will almost inevitably study superficially, learning the letter and not the sense of the lesson. He who studies merely that he may store his memory will be apt to seize hold upon those artificial associations of ideas which, while they are more easily formed, are also more readily lost, than the true philosophical relations of thought. The pupil who labors to thoroughly understand and know that which he studies, will not only both remember and recite better than others, but he gathers a power and forms a habit which will open to him the whole field of learning.

The oral teaching of the primary grade should be continued to a considerable extent in the intermediate grade. While the

pupil is introduced into the world of books, he should not be permitted to lose sight of the world of facts, of which books are but transcripts. The brief exercises and the frequent reliefs prescribed for the primary pupils will still be needed in this second department.

3d. In the grammar school grade the pupils are engaged in independent study. The teacher simply assigns the lessons, and the pupils learn them by their own unaided efforts. Care must still be used to continue and perfect the habit of thorough and thoughtful study, and the object lesson may still be used, though of an advanced class.

As has been already stated, the studies of this grade are to be largely mingled and illustrated by practical exercises. The pupils have not reached the age of abstract reflection. The mind is still largely dependent on the senses, and needs to correct and ripen its impressions by the labors of the eye and hand. The common method of studying arithmetic, with numerous practical examples to be performed under each topic and principle, is doubtless the true method of study in all branches, for the pupils of this grade. Arithmetic owes much of its popularity as a common school study, to this practical method of teaching it. Were like modes pursued with other studies, the teaching in this grade would gain greatly in efficiency and success. One of the most popular of modern grammars owes its success almost solely to its plan of analyzing sentences by the aid of diagrams. Had it provided equally for synthetical grammar by a system of exercises in the construction of original phrases and sentences it would have left us little to ask for, as far as its methods are concerned.

The recitations of the grammar school grade should be made principally in the form of questions and answers. In the high school, pupils may be required to recite by topics, without the aid of questions; but the pupils of the grammar school will scarcely have reached the strength or maturity of mind that will enable them to comprchend subjects in their logical con. nections and entireness, and to re-produce the lessons of the