Dr. Vater at Leipzig.

old, and lasts till fourteen. These children were, therefore, between six and seven. In one year, a certain Dr. Vater taught thera to read, write, and reckon. His method of teaching was as follows:-Each child had a book with pictures of objects, such as a hat, a slate, &c. Under the picture was the name of the object in printing and writing characters, and also a couplet about the object The children having opened their books, and found the picture of a hat, the teacher showed them a hat, and told them a tale connected with one. He then asked the children questions about his story, and about the hat he had in his hand-What was the colour of it? &c. He then drew a hat on the blackboard, and made the children copy it on their slates. Next he wrote the word "hat" and told them that for people who could read this did as well as the picture. The children then copied the word on their slates. The teacher proceeded to analyse the word "hat, (hut)." "It is made up," said he, "of three sounds, the most important of which is the a (u), which comes in the middle." In all cases the vowel sound was first ascertained in every syllable, and then was given an approximation to consonantal sounds before and after. The couplet was now read by the teacher, and the children repeated it after him. In this way the book had to be worked over and over till the children were perfectly familiar with everything in it. They had been already six months thus employed when I visited the school, and knew the book pretty thoroughly. To test their knowledge, Dr. Vater first wrote a number of capitals at random on the board, and called out a boy to tell him words having these capitals as initials. This boy had to call out a girl to do something of the kind, she a boy, and so forth. Everything was done very smartly, both

Dr. Vogel and Dr. Vater.

by master and children. The best proof I saw of their accuracy and quickness was this: the master traced words from the book very rapidly with a stick on the blackboard, and the children always called out the right word, though I rould not follow him. He also wrote with chalk words which the children had never seen, and made them name first the vowel sounds, then the consonantal, then combine them.

Its

I have been thus minute in my description of this lesson, because it seems to me an admirable example of the way in which children between six and eight years of age should be taught. The method (see Rüegg's Pädagogik, p. 360; also Die Normalwörtermethode, published by Orell, Füssli, Zürich, 1876), was arranged and the book prepared by the late Dr. Vogel, who was then Director of the school. merits, as its author pointed out to me, are :—1. That it connects the instruction with objects of which the child has already an idea in his mind, and so associates new knowledge with old; 2. That it gives the children plenty to do as well as to learn, a point on which the Doctor was very emphatic; 3. That it makes the children go over the same matter in various ways till they have learnt a little thoroughly, and then applies their knowledge to the acquirement of more. Here the Doctor seems to have followed Jacotot. But though the method was no doubt a good one, I must say its success at Leipzig was due at least as much tc Dr. Vater as to Dr. Vogel. This gentleman had been taking the youngest class in this school for twenty years, and, whether by practice or natural talent, he had acquired precisely the right manner for keeping children's attention. He was energetic without bustle and excitement, and quiet without a suspicion of dulness or apathy. By

First knowledge of numbers. Grubé.

frequently changing the employment of the class, and requiring smartness in everything that was done, he kept them all on the alert. The lesson I have described was followed without pause by one in arithmetic, the two together occupying an hour and three quarters, and the interest of the children never flagged throughout.

§ 9. Dr. Vater's method for arithmetic I cannot now recall; but I do not doubt that, as a German teacher who had 'studied his profession, he understood what English teachers and pupil-teachers do not understand, viz., how children should get their first knowledge of numbers. Pestalozzi and Froebel insisted that children should learn about numbers from things which they actually counted; and, according to Grubé's method, which I found in Germany over 30 years ago, and which is now extending to the United States, the whole of the first year is given to the relations of numbers not exceeding ten (see Grube's Method by L. Seeley, New York, Kellogg, and F. L. Soldan's Grube's M., Chicago). In arithmetic everything depends on these relations becoming thoroughly familiar. The decimal scale is possibly not so good as the scale of eight or of twelve, but the human race has adopted it; and even the French Revolutionists, with all their belief in "reason," and their hatred of the past, recoiled from any attempt to change it. But in accepting it, they endeavoured to remove anomalies, and so should we. Everything must be based on groups of ten; and with children we should do well, as Mr. W. Wooding suggests, to avoid the great anomaly in our nomenclature, and call the numbers between ten and twenty (i.e., twain-tens or two-tens), "ten-one, tentwo, &c." Numeration should by a long way precede any kind of notation, and the main truths about numbers should

Measuring and weighing. Reading-books.

be got at experimentally with counters or coins. In these truths should be included all that we usually separate under the "First Four Rules," and with integers we may even from the first give a clear conception of the fractional paits of whole numbers, e.g., that one third of 6 is 2.*

Actual measuring and weighing, besides actual counting, go towards actual arithmetic for children.

All this teaching, if conducted as Dr. Vater would have conducted it, would not give children any distaste for learning or make them dread the sound of the school bell.

§ 10. I will suppose a child to have passed through such a course as this by the time he is eight or nine years old. Besides having some clear notions of number and form, he can now read and copy easy words. What we next want for him is a series of good reading-books, about things in which he takes an interest. The language must of course be simple, but the matter so good that neither master nor pupils will be disgusted by its frequent repetition.

The first volume may very well be about animals—dogs, horses, &c., of which large pictures should be provided, illustrating the text. The first cost of these pictures would be considerable, but as they would last for years, the expense to the friends of each child taught from them would be a mere trifle.

§ 11. The books placed in the hands of the children should be well printed and strongly bound. In the present penny-wise system, school-books are given out in cloth, and

* Tillich's boxes of bricks (sold by the B'ham Midland Educational Supply Company, and by Arnold, Briggate, Leeds), are very useful for "intuitive" arithmetic: for higher stages one might say the same of W. Wooding's "Decimal Abacus" with vertical wires.

Respect for books. Grammar. Reading.

the leaves are loose at the end of a fortnight, so that children get accustomed to their destruction and treat it as a matter of course. This ruins their respect for books, which is not so unimportant a matter as it may at first appear.

§ 12. After each reading lesson, which should contain at least one interesting anecdote, there should be columns of all the words which occurred for the first time in that lesson. These should be arranged according to their grammatical classification, not that the child should be taught grammar, but this order is as good as any other, and by it the child would learn to observe certain differences in words almost unconsciously.*

Here I cannot resist quoting an excellent remark from Helps's Brevia (p. 125). "We should make the greatest progress in art, science, politics, and morals, if we could train up our minds to look straight and steadfastly and uninterruptedly at the thing in question that we are observing. This seems a very slight thing to do; but practically it is hardly ever done. Between you and the object rises a mist of technicalities, of prejudices, of previous knowledge, and, above all, of terrible familiarity." Perhaps

There are In

*The grammar question is still a perplexing one. spectors who require children (as I once heard in a remote country school) to distinguish "7 kinds of adverbs." Then we have children discriminating after the fashion of one of my own pupils, (I quote from a grammar paper,) "Parse it." "It is a prepreition. Almost all small words are prepreitions." In such cases it is very hard indeed to find any common ground for the minds of the old and the young. The true way I believe is to lead the young to make their own observations. The way is very very slow, but it developes power. I have lately seen an interesting little book on these lines, called Language Work by Dr. De Garmo (Bloomington, Ill., U.S.A.)

GG