nature and facts for the exclusive study of books. It is not advocated that the study of books shall be discontinued; nor need any one fear that the use of object lessons will diminish the amount of book learning that will be acquired by the pupils. On the contrary, experience proves that the little child will learn to read faster and better, under a course of instruction such as proposed, while the older pupils will go forward with more intelligence and ease, when the theoretical statements of the text books are prepared for and illustrated by the be made familiar, helping to prepare the pupil to understand the samo torms when afterwards applied to the earth.

Colors may embrace the simple colors, red, yellow and blue, and some of the common compounds, as green, orange, &c.

Size. Review the measures of primary grade, and complete the tables of those measures, carrying out long measure, for example, to furlongs, miles and leagues, &c.

Miscellaneous. Lessons on plants and animals (quadrupo is), marking] the contrasts and resemblances between different classes, and making littlo lists of those that have a common character. The pupil should also be led to notice tho Divine bonevolence and wisdom shown In the animal and vegetable forms taking care only to notice those that are simple and obvious as the warm coats of animals and the pleasant taste of fruits, their uses for food, &o. Natural scones, as a hill, a plain, a brook or river, may be male topics for lessons and thus some of the elementary notions and terms of goography bɔ gained, and the pupil prepared for that study.

Numbers.-Maltiplication tablo, to 8 times 12; counting by fives and sixes to 100, as by fours iz procooling torm. The Arabic figures taught and the plan for writing tens and hundreds by the same characters shown. Writing all the numbers up to 100, and their composition learned. Miscellaneous mental exercises continued.

Baling.-Webb's Secon 1 Rɔa lor to page 100. It is in connection with the reading leesons that the peculiar work of the Intormoliato grade-the work of learning how to get lessonsbegins. The first step will be to scuro the careful attention of the pupils to the meaning of their lessons, by questioning them on the senso. This should be kept up from day to day till the pupils acquire the habit of reading attentively, and become able to close their books Immolitɔly and give the substance, first of a single satenco, thon of a paragraph, and Anally of a page or entire lesson. The inflections and emphasis should be carefully studied to bring out the true sense of the lesson.

8p:lling the words in the reading and object lessons, by sounds and also by letters, both orally and on their slates. The sounds of the vowels should now be learned, in their ordor, ` and thoroughly practiced, as an elocutionary drill.

Drawing of form3 and simple objects, loaves, trees, houses, &c., and writing words and

numbers.

Sinjing school songs, and Diatonic scale of eight notes.

21 Term-Object Lessons. Forms, the cylinder and cone.

Size-Solil or cubic measure, and some of its applications shown. Dry measure may also be learnod, pint, quart, pock and bushel measures being borrowod for the purpose. Miscellaneous-Objects, plants and animals (birds), continued. Scenery, classes and occugations of men, &c.

plain facts of sense. All teaching in our schools would gain both in vividness and in value if a more frequent appeal were made from the facts as stated in books to the facts as they are exhibited in the world without. Even a picture of some scene in geography or history awakens a new interest in the class; but in all studies that permit it, the use of natural scenes and objects, presented to the actual touch or vision of the pupils, gives a vividness of interest and conception that can be gained by no other means.

Numbers.-Multiplication to 12 times 12; counting by sevens; Miscellaneous mental exer cises; numerical exercises on the measures learned; and notation and numeration, with slate and black board exercises, to 100,000.

Reading. Webb's Second Reader, completed. The pupils may now be required to study their reading lessons at their seats; but the criticism of meaning, in the class exercise, must still go on.

Spelling, continued from first term. The consonant sounds may now be learned in order, and thoroughly practiced in concert.

Drawing. In addition to the regular forms, the pupils may make pictures of the school room and play ground, getting thus their first notions of maps. The points of the compass may be taught them, and marked on their maps.

Singing. Songs and the scales. The natural scale may be now marked on staff lines, on the black-board, and the pupils practiced on the intervals. As the singing is a general exercise for all the pupils of the grade, it need not again be marked in the course, for this grade.

SECOND YEAR.

STUDIES:-Object Lessons, Reading, Spelling, Drawing, Writing, Mental Arithmetic.

· 1st Term.-Object Lessons. Form, miscellaneous objects chosen to familiarize the regular forms, and the pupils may be called upon to name lists of objects having these forms. Miscellaneous objects.

Weight. The idea of weight being given, scales or steelyards may be used to give the various denominations of avoirdupois weights, and the table learned.

Mental Arithmetic. Stoddard's. Pains should be taken to teach the pupil how to get his lessons.

Reading. Webb's Third, or Sanders' 2d Reader, first half of book.

Spelling. Oral and written, from reading book and lists of names of objects of the same class.

Drawing and Writing. Maps of fields, streams, ponds, &c. Writing in script characters on slates.

24 Term.-Object Lessons. Parts of the human body, their structure and uses. Picturen may be given of skeleton and internal organs. Parts of plants more minuely examined, and the different classes of leaves learned. The manufacture of shoes, hats, tables, and of bread, pies, &c., and the operations of agriculture explained.

Geography, taught orally with outline maps.

Mental Arithmetic, and slate and black-board exercises in adding.
Reading.-Sanders 2d Reader completed.

Spelling, Drawing and writing, as in previous term.

But the value of the object lesson is only half told in this added interest to the study of books. The education that transforms children into mere bookworms has been justly condemned by all reasonable people, and not a little of deserved ridicule has been heaped upon schools that make their pupils brilliant reciters from books-prodigies on examination days, but ignorant as babes of the commonest facts of life-ciphering through half a dozen arithmetics, but unable to compute the simple interest on one of their father's notes; flippant

THIRD YEAR.

STUDIES.-Object Lessons, Reading, Spelling, Geography, Physiology, Mental Arithmetic, Composition, Drawing, Writing, dc.

1st Term.-Object Lessons, continue the study of plants (flowers and fruits), air, winds, rain, snow, and manufactured articles. The pupils, it should be remembered, are to observe and tell what they have observed rather than to learn what the teacher knows. Knowledge lying much beyond their power of observation or discovery is of but little use to them yet. Reading. Sanders' Third Reader, first half.

Spelling by lists of names, made by pupils, and by dictation exercises, short sentences dictated by teacher and written by pupils.

Geography.-Cornell's Primary.

Physiology-Hooker's First Book in Physiology.

The pupils having been prepared by the object lessons which have given the elementary notions and much of the language of these branches, may now profitably begin their study in text books. At the outset the lessons should be first read in the class, and the pupils having learned the sense of the new words used and got some clear idea of the lesson, may perfect the study at their seats.

Mental Arithmetic continued, and black-board and slate exercises in notation, addition, subtraction and multiplication.

Composition. Pupils may now begin to write on their slates little composition on the objects used in their object lessons.

Drawing, of maps from the geography, &c.

Writing, on slates and black-board.

2d Term.-The studies of the first term are continued through the second.

Throughout this grade the teacher should read daily, to the pupils, for half an hour at least, from such books as the Rollo Books, asking the pupils questions, and giving familiar explanations, when needed.

GRAMMAR SCHOOL GRADE.

TIME, THREE YEARS.-FIRST YEAR.

1st Term.-Reading. Sanders' Fourth Reader, first half.

Spelling. Lessons made up daily of names of objects, qualities, actions, &c., of same class, as names of parts of a house, of articles of dress, of fruit trees, of mental actions, of colors, of trades, of tools, &c., the pupils giving the number of words needed for a lesson, and the same class being continued through several successive lessous, or until they can and no more words of that class. These lessons, when studied and the lists corrected, may be recorded by each pupil in a blank book.

parsers in grammar, but blunderers in speech, and unable to write correctly half a dozen sentences of their mother tongue. Whatever may be said of our knowledge of literature and science, our knowledge of the nature and uses of common things and our skill in common affairs-that knowledge and skill that constitute the implements of our daily work and influence-are obtained not from books, but from the action of our own senses and the exercise of our individual powers. Nature's volume lies ever open before us, and the education is

Practical Aritmetic through four ground rules and reduction. Mental Arithmetic continuod, occupying a portion of cach recitation.

Geography of North America, and United States. Map drawing is to be continued tin Geography is finished.

History of United States to Revolution. Studied with a constant reference to maps, and a chronological table to be made by pupils.

Object lessons, one each day, and a composition written thereon daily through the year. The ability to write correctly is so important an acquisition, that composition ought to be taught by daily exercises in it.

Writing with a pen, daily through the year.

21 Term.-Fourth Reader completed. Spelling continued. Practical Arithmetic, to malaplication of vulgar fractions, with a short exercise in mental arithmetic at each recitation. Geography of United States completed, with maps drawn by pupils.

History of United States, completed, its geography mastered and completo tables made of the chronology.

1st Term.-Reading, Spelling and analysis of words. The spalling lessons to be made of words of common suffix or prefix, or formed from common root.

Practical Arithmetic, complete.

Book-keeping or Latin.

Analysis of English Sentence, Welch's.

21 Term-Algebra.

Book-keeping, or Latin.

Analysis of English Sentence.

HIGH SCHOOL GRADE

The course of high school studies will be more or loss extensive, according to the number of pupils in the district, and its ability to maintain a corps of teachers. Without attempt

altogether defective that does not prepare us to read intelligently her pages and learn her lessons. As the powers of accurate and intelligent observation is one of the most useful results of a true education, so the fixed habit, established in childhood, of using that power, is one of the surest guarantees of an intelligent and successful life. Nature becomes replete with instruction to him who thus habitually observes her phe

nomena.

The object lesson has for its first and chief design to culti. vate the power of observation. The child is told to look and see, and encouraged to tell all he sees in the objects presented. From these he is sent forth to find similar objects in nature around him. His rambles in the green fields, through the wild forests, and by the purling brooks, are converted into school times. Even his plays are made to continue his instruction. He comes to realize fully the poet's vision, and finds

"Lessons in trees, books in the running brooks,

Sermons in stones, and good in everything."

PRIMARY SCHOOL STATISTICS.

School Inspectors' reports for the school year ending the first Monday of September, have been received from six hundred and fifty-eight townships and cities; an increase of ten over those reported the previous year. Detailed exhibits, by counties, of the statistics reported, will be found in the tabular statements at the end of this volume. The following is the general summary for the year:

Number of districts in the State,..

Increase for the year,.............

Graded or union schools, (included above,)...

4,203

109

103

ing to mark out a course of studies, I will only indicate what those studies may be: Algebra, Geometry, Natural Philosophy, Rhetoric, Natural History, Botany, Geology, Chemistry, Moral and Mental Philosophy, and Ancient and Modern Languages.

Those pupils who are preparing for College should be permitted to begin Latin in tho Grammar school.

It will be found that some pupils will, especially in the primary grade, do two years work in one. These must be passed to the next grade as soon as they are fully prepared. Others will need to be retained in the grade a year or more longer than the time indicated.