of training to these qualifications has never yet been established to any extent-means have hitherto been wanting in the foundation of normal and model institutions for combining a knowledge of principles with practice, so as to bring the didactic art to any degree of perfection. However well educated an individual may be in himself, and however much he may have read and studied books on education, when once he really puts his hand to the work of instructing others, it is at least long before he can find himself at home in the practice. He will find a want of method in all his procedure, both as regards the form of putting questions, and the kind of questions and exercises to be put, in order not only to inform properly, but to train the intellect and guide the moral powers, which the mere reading of educational works can never supply. Neither is it enough that he may have seen another skilful teacher successfully practising the art, or have attended as a spectator at some well-regulated school. He may continue there for years scrutinising the best systems, examining the best modes. of framing questions, and witnessing the superiority of moral influence over physical terror in governing the disobedient, and all the mechanical movements and organisation of the classes. But, if he does not throw himself into the work, and with sections of the children practise the same modes, endeavour to acquire the same aptitude for communicating instruction, and developing the intellect and moral faculties, and the same means of gaining a moral control, for all practical purposes he might as well never have entered the institution. To undergo some probationary course of this kind, is, therefore, the paramount duty of every one who would undertake the responsible duties of a trainer of youth.

CHAPTER V.

FEW persons are really aware that there is any difficulty in conveying instruction to the minds of children beyond the fact of getting that same instruction into their own minds, and still fewer how difficult it is. It has been said to be natural to some people to acquire this aptitude, and it may be so to a certain extent; but such individuals must form an exception to the general rule. There are grown-up people to whom, from a natural infantile simplicity and playfulness of manner, children have a much greater affinity than to others of graver habits. And there are some who from a certain facility in narrating striking incidents, or ordinary incidents in a striking manner, will attach children to them, and make their communications sink deep into the minds of the latter. But such instances are by no means more frequent in ordinary life, than the occasional phenomena of certain individuals exhibiting a natural genius for poetry or painting. In the one case it depends upon a superabundance of animal spirits and good humour, and on the other, upon a certain concreteness of intellect and minuteness of detail, giving the power of so individualising abstractions as to render them visible and captivating to the young mind. A mother is almost the only grown-up person who can naturally accommodate herself to the

dispositions of her own children, and to this extent she ought to be a model to the teacher of others. But in order to acquire any measure of this pliancy of manner, the man of a different moral habit must be educated up to it. Above his own natural inclination and habits there must be superinduced an artificial nature similar to those dispositions with which he is expected to sympathise; and equally must a return be made to the simplicity of nature in picturing out his ideas, and rendering them visible to the concrete intellect of his pupil, before the latter can derive instruction from him. The opinion expressed by Pope concerning "writing," is equally applicable in this case.

"True ease in teaching comes by art, not chance,

As those move easiest who have learned to dance."

Let us reflect for a moment what is the nature of this art. It is simply a process of painting, or picturing upon the mind of another, the same image that is in our own. All description, as every one knows, is analogous to the art of painting. In the former case, the image is presented to the mind through the ear, and by words; in the latter, through the eye, and by colours. But the object of both arts is the same, namely, the communicating of ideas; and hence the necessity teachers are under, of resorting to pictures and diagrams, to aid in their verbal descriptions. From a painting, however, the whole idea rises in the mind at once; but from a description, the image is slowly unfolded, and only seen by the mind vividly or otherwise, according to the accuracy of the description. If, then, it be a difficult art, and one in which few excel, to transfer to canvas the image of an object in such a manner as to convey to the mind a correct idea of its prototype, it is evidently much more so,

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to call up in the mind ideas of absent objects in a palpable form by means of mere words. It matters not how vivid the impression may be on our own minds; in endeavouring to convey a copy of this to another, we may only make a caricature. Any one, not an artist, may have as correct an impression of a landscape upon his mind as an artist himself; but it is only the latter who can transfer a copy of that impression to the canvas, so as to enable others to have the same idea or impression. And so is it with the teacher; it matters not how learned his own mind may be, how well replenished with ideas, and how vividly soever he sees them—there is a power beyond this necessary to produce copies of these ideas on the minds of others. And the difficulty is increased from the circumstance of a matured intellect receiving its impressions in a different way from that of an immature. The cultivated mind of an adult is like a more highly prepared and sensitive surface, that can catch the impression at once, and even through a dim medium; the mind of a child must undergo a preparatory process, and be subjected to the most favourable influences, before it can take up the picture. And, in fact, it is just this preparatory process that forms the legitimate province of a teacher's operations, rather than the painting. Unaware of this, the unskilful teacher commences instructing his pupil by the same means by which he attained his own knowledge. He communicates mere abstractions, that can never lay hold upon the unpolished fabric of the young mind, or at least be retained there any time; and those terms to which he may be accustomed to attach certain ideas in his own mind, can awaken no corresponding train of thought in the mind of a child. They are like unassimilated food in the animal system, communicating no aliment to the frame, and only

[impeding digestion, or similar to the painter's undiluted materials stuck upon the canvas, instantly to fall off again. For example, what idea can arise in the mind of a child regarding a "rich farmer," if he be represented as an opulent agriculturist?" or of a "falsehood," described as "an act of moral turpitude?" yet such are the terms in which many teachers delight to revel. They deliver themselves of their ideas lucidly enough, perhaps, if grown people were their auditors; but a little cross-examination of children after such lecturing would show that it was mere writing upon sand. Perhaps a better illustration of this sort of verbal instruction cannot be given, than by repeating the following anecdote taken from the "American Annals of Education." "A gentle man, not long ago, took up an apple to show a niece sixteen years of age, who had studied geography several years, something about the shape and motion of the earth. She looked at him a few minutes, and said with much earnestness, Why, uncle, you don't mean that the earth really turns round, do you?' He answered, 'But did you not learn that several years ago?' 'Yes,' she replied, 'I learned it, but I never knew it before.'" It certainly is very evident this young lady must have had one of these identical learned preceptors of whom I am speaking. It cannot be supposed that she would be ignorant of the usual vocabulary of astronomical and geographical names, so fluently reiterated at fashionable schools, but for want of some tangible illustration, some picture, ocular or verbal, of the earth's revolution, her mind was as much a blank on that branch of study as before she went to school. And without a close scrutiny into the matter, any one may deceive himself in this way. A single word beyond the comprehension of a child may nullify a whole description, and irreparably mar the