I conclude these illustrations of improved School Furniture, by inviting the reader's attention to two styles of Drawing Desk. And I am glad to know that the subject of Drawing is attracting, and deservedly too, an increased share of public attention. Too much attention can hardly be given to it, unless to the exclusion of other and equally fundamental branches; nor can attention be directed to it at too early a period of the child's attendance upon School.

"Drawing-whether of maps, the shape of objects, or of landscapes-is admirably adapted to discipline the sense of sight. Children should be encouraged carefully to survey and accurately to describe the prominent points of a landscape, both in nature and in picture. Let them point out the elevations and depressions; the mowing, the pasture, the wood, and the tillage land; the trees, the houses, and the streams. Listen to their accounts of their plays, walks, and journeys, and of any events of which they have been witnesses. In these and all other exercises of the sense of sight, children should be encouraged to be strictly accurato; and whenever it is practicable, the judgment

they pronounce, and the descriptions they give, should, if erroneous, be corrected by the truth. Children can not fail to be interested in such exercises; and even where they have been careless and inaccurate observers, they will soon become more watchful and exact.

"It is by the benign influence of education only, that the senses can be improved. And still their culture has been entirely neglected by perhaps the majority of parents and Teachers, who in other respects have manifested a commendable degree of interest in this subject. That by judicious culture the senses may be educated to activity and accuracy, and be made to send larger and purer streams of knowledge to the soul, has been unanswerably proved by an accumulation of unquestionble testimony. Most persons, however, allow the senses to remain uneducated, except as they may be cultivated by fortuitous circumstances. Eyes have they, but they see not; ears have they, but they hear not; neither do they understand. is not impossible, nor perhaps improbable, that he who has these two senses properly cultivated will derive more unalloyed pleasure in spending a brief hour in gazing upon a beautiful landscape, in examining for the same length of time a simple flower, or in listening to the sweet melody of the linnet as it warbles its song of praise, than those who have neglected the cultivation of the senses experience during their whole lives."-Mayhew on Education, pp. 191 and 192.

It

A gentleman of large experience, and of close observation, many years ago remarked at a convention of County Superintendents of Common Schools, in the State of New York-It is singular that children learn so MANY things out of School, and so FEW things, in School. The remark impressed me, as I doubt not it did other Superintendents present; and twenty-five years of experience as a Teacher and a School Officer, have convinced me that it is no less singular than true.

It then becomes us to inquire why this is so. If I mistake not, the reason consists in the fact that a much more natural method of instruction has commonly been pursued out of School, than has hitherto been generally practiced in School. In School, until within a few years,-and in too. many Schools it is still true,-children say their A, B, C's three times a day, but do not learn them in months. Out of School they see objects, become familiar with their uses, and learn their names. In School, many a child has said his A, B, C's twenty-six times without learning one of them; while out of School, the same children may have each learned the names and uses of twenty-six things the first time they have seen them.

In this life, the senses constitute the great medium of communicating knowledge to the human mind; and especially is this true of sight and hearing. While, then, the skillful parent or teacher addresses the minds of his children through the sense of hearing, he will greatly increase the interest of his young learners by addressing, also, their

sense of sight, through which the strongest impression can be made upon the mind. Especially is this important during the first years of a child's instruction, whether at home or in School.*

Mr. F. C. Brownell, Secretary of the Holbrook School Apparatus Company, 413 Broadway, New York, has kindly furnished me the following cuts, which represent samples of an extensive range of simple and ingenious, though cheap Apparatus for Schools. The various articles here referred to, together with improved Apparatus and School Furniture generally, may be obtained at the office of the Secretary, as above, or of Mr. George Sherwood, President of the Company, at 194 Lake street, Chicago, to whom I have already referred as supplying orders for improved School Furniture.

Several of the articles represented in miniature, in the foregoing cut, I am enabled to illustrate singly in the following pages:

*This subject cannot well be pursued to a greater extent here. In the writer's work on the Means and Ends of Universal Education, an entire Chapter of about fifty pages is devoted to "the education of the five senses," to which the reader is referred.

A skillful Teacher will turn the Numeral Frame to good account in teaching many things. It was primarily employed for teaching small children to count. It may, however, with equal advantage be used as a medium of addressing the minds of children through the eye, while we speak to the outer ear, in illustrating all of the simple, and some of the more complex operations upon numbers. By this means the first lessons of children may be rendered more attractive, and impressions thus made upon their minds will be stronger and more permanent. In the use of this simple instrument, addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division, may be well illustrated, as may also many of the principles of fractions.

It may be turned to admirable accouut in illustrating our Decimal Currency and decimal fractions. By its use, also, the square of any single figure may be readily shown. The roots of all perfect powers expressed by not exceeding two figures, may likewise be readily illustrated by it.