THE SECOND ERROR OF TEACHING.

Another error which has prevailed in some places and times is, that the pupil can acquire nothing except by observation or experiment. It assumes that the mind can deduce nothing from given premises, but is a manipulator in the great school of art, where every thing must be reduced to the senses; and because illustration is a very good thing, therefore you cannot have too much of it; and because experiment is a good way for philosophers to make discoveries, therefore it is the best way for children to learn them. Something like this was the theory of J. J. Rousseau, who proposed that a boy should be taken at one season of the year on a hill-top and shown the sun in a certain position, and at another in another-and thus of other things; but how long it will take a boy to go through all the experiments of all the philosophers he has not informed us. Others, however, have improved upon this example, and introduced the world in miniature into the school-room. Cubes, cones, and pyramids, sun, moon, stars, and comets, dance attendance upon their levee; and when these fail, the art of engraving is exhausted to exhibit upon the pages of the school-book things human and inhuman, from the wonders of the deep to "gorgons and chimeras dire." Now, doubtless, good maps, globes, or even a well-executed picture of some great event, and still more a social walk with some instructive friend, who could say, with David, that "day unto

day uttereth speech, and night unto night showeth knowledge," may be made useful aids of a good teacher; for such a one cannot be supposed not to know and adapt to his purpose the strong attractions. of sense for the young; but, on the other hand, neither will he be expected to teach abstract truth by models or experiments.

The fallacy of this error consists in overlooking the real advantage which science confers upon the teacher that of generalization. It is the condensation of knowledge which is the great facility in the art of teaching, afforded by constant improvements. How else could education keep up at all with the accumulation of knowledge? It takes a generation. for philosophy to discover and demonstrate a principle which, in after times, the pupil learns in a single hour.

THE THIRD ERROR OF TEACHING.

The third error, and in a great measure that of our times, is to interpose a patent machinery between the teacher and his pupil; a labor-saving machine by which we shall print off minds just as we print off calicoes: flimsy, parti-colored, cheap enough they are. We get up a long array of text-books, which are so good we hardly know how to choose among them; and which facilitate the art of teaching so much, there is nothing left for the teacher to do except, ast the ancients did with the oracle of Delphos, to ask questions and receive answers. And then we have

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discovered another great facility in teaching: it is rather laborious to lead the pupil up the hill of knowledge, and as the teacher and he have to meet somewhere, why the teacher must walk down; and as the child cannot talk learnedly, why the teacher must talk simply. In this manner the grand desideratum in teaching, as in many other arts, that of getting along by doing nothing, is at last discovered. The pupil and the teacher are both contented. The one has found an easy chair, and the other has no hill to climb.

The recapitulation of these errors, if indeed you are prepared to admit them such, shows them to have one common origin-indolence of thought, on the part of both pupils and teachers. It is not the body merely that has its vis inertia; the soul partakes of that common tendency which has made man, in every age and clime, seek some escape from that law of his nature the necessity for labor. And while we admit, what is certainly true, that mind has an upward principle, seeking new and better things, we must also admit that in the mass of mankind its sensualism has ever overcome its spirituality. Few and far between, angel visits, are those inspirations of intellect which lead the patient scholar in the face of poverty, humiliation, disease, and death to seek the viginti annorum lucoubrationes; to spend the midnight vigil and the morning watch in ascending through the works of God for that wisdom which he sought in vain among men.

It is no libel then upon teachers, to suppose them. possessed of this common infirmity of human nature What Gibbon said of his professors, that they remembered they had a salary to receive, but forgot they had duties to perform, would have been true of thousands of others had they been placed in similar cir

cumstances.

In combating this difficulty, we have here in America, a great encouragement and consolation. There is a vast difference among nations as well as individuals, in the natural activity of mind, and a still greater in institutions, climate, and resources. The American mind comes of a good stock. It has never yielded to any thing on earth in vigor of intellect or purity of purpose. Nor has corruption of manners taken that hold upon it which history tells us was the case with the ancient nations, and of which modern France displays so vivid a picture. Our ancestors, too, have placed it in the midst of institutions, allowing the utmost freedom of inquiry, and tending to the utmost cultivation of heart. If then we have high responsibilities, we have also a full treasury to draw upon.

THE TRUE MODE OF TEACHING.

Let us now recur to the true mode of teaching, as I conceive it, in opposition to the errors we have alluded to; which is nothing more than what the ablest teachers of the world have always followed to teach

the use of their reason. There is one fact in the human constitution so obvious that every body notices it, and every body does or may draw instruction from it. When a man is an infant, no animal is a greater imitator than he; it is then he learns his mother tongue; and thus he does whatever he sees done. But just in proportion as his understanding strengthens, he ceases to imitate, till bye and bye, he reasons upon every thing, glories in his freedom, and seeks new varieties of being and action throughout the universe.

Now this seems an intimation from nature of the only mode by which the human understanding can be successfully improved; and this is by constant inquiry and constant investigation. We cannot go on like the animals, governed by instinct, repeating and imitating the same thing. The models made for them are perfect; but the models of human workmanship are altogether imperfect. The bee may build forever, and if it were gifted with reason, could never build better than it does; but man may build and forever improve.

We have already said the teacher should arm himself with an analytical knowledge of his subject, and that he should then acquaint himself with some of the observed laws of the subtle body upon which he is about to act; and having now determined to use reason as his chief means of instruction, he will have need of all the powers he has acquired. He will find the awakened mind of his pupil ever inquisitive and