applications or dull discourse, the simple lesson which the tale or fable or poem teaches. All these precautions it is necessary to take if the nascent imagination is not to be repressed or misdirected, and if the readinglessons which appeal to this faculty are not to be robbed of that charm which makes them attractive, and which stimulates the pupils to extend a technical power which has many such pleasing stores in reserve.

If this careful regard to the imagination of the young be obligatory on the instructors of children of all classes, how much more is it incumbent on the teacher of the children of the poor? Divorced as they are by poverty, and the want of sympathetic response in their elders, from the pictures, fables, poems, and narratives which surround, in lavish profusion, the children of the middle and upper classes, they have but the one chance which the day-school affords of obtaining food for their starved imaginations. Nor will the teacher err, if, departing from his book, which, if justice be done to other subjects, can yield but a limited supply of such material, he introduce tales into the schoolroom, to be read as rewards of good conduct. The time so occupied will assuredly not be wasted; for, apart from the indirect moral instruction which he will thus convey through the imagination, he will shed sunlight and warmth on the tender mind, without which a genial and healthy growth is impossible.

But if the dreams and wonderings of the young imagination demand such cautious and sympathetic treat

ment, with how gentle and tender a hand must we approach the vague and timid aspirings of the Religious instinct, and the small perplexities and keen sensibilities which belong to the infancy and childhood of the moral sentiments. Here too, unhappily, the school has to supplement, nay, too often to be a substitute for the moral and religious training which ought to be the work of the home. The influences of combined love and awe which accompany spiritual teaching in families more favourably situated, the careful consideration or the wise negligence, are denied to the great majority of primary-school children. It becomes, therefore, the special duty and privilege of the schoolmaster to supply this want: with paternal affection to dissociate morality and religion from harshness of manner and tyranny of will, to cast the light of divine love over the invisible, and to introduce the young early to the Gospel story, and its personal relation to them. This subject will be handled more fully hereafter. It is touched on here in order to give it its due place in the education of the growing child, and therefore in his Reading-lessons, which we presume to be co-extensive with his moral as well as his intellectual experience, to reproduce that experience in a more perfect form, and to satisfy in some degree the vague desires, and to complete the imperfect conceptions which it rouses into activity. In this way the child early, but insensibly, becomes alive to the fact that books contain a true reflection of himself, that they answer his questions and please his

imagination, and are consequently among the best companions and friends of his life.

Thus we find that by liberally interpreting the Reading-instruction of the school we educate not only the understanding but the whole nature of the pupil. That is to say, we take up the raw material of the child's experience, giving it that shape and definiteness, development, and completion, which, unaided, it would never attain, save in the vigorous and powerful brain of the few. The result of this treatment is, that the young groping mind begins, under the wise guidance of its instructor, to feel its path less devious and perplexing observation, the beginnings of knowledge, and the words which denote these, gradually take the orderly arrangement and solidity which afford a substructure for the future growth; hesitating questionings about the nature and causes of things receive the satisfaction befitting the pupil's age; the half-hidden, half-revealed dreams of the imagination receive a legitimate and healthful encouragement; the uncertain dawnings of the moral and religious sentiments emerge into a clearer light, though still clothed with mystery, as they must ever be. This is the process of elementary education, and this the work of the elementary teacher. In such an education he finds his best auxiliary in teaching to read, and by rightly teaching to read he implicitly educates.

The work of teaching to read is thus to be identified with that of training the young to a good habit of the moral nature (in the largest sense), as well as of

same.

the intellect. The materials of both the teaching and the training, and the methods of both, are the From first to last the seemingly mechanical process of instruction in a technical art is in truth a living and life-inspiring method, resting on a sound, and to that extent a scientific knowledge of the human mind. The reading-book is no longer the exclusive object of master and pupil, but merely the text-book of a higher aim-education. As such, it is not only the auxiliary of his method, but a kind of fixed typographical embodiment of that method. It represents in visible form that intercourse between the mature and immature mind, which is the educative process. This method of teaching Reading accordingly may be fitly distinguished from others as the Educative Method.

To conclude the intelligent reading must also fulfil our requirement of being intelligible. To aim at æsthetic reading, except in those few fortunate primary schools which retain their pupils to the age of thirteen or fourteen, is futile; but such reading as will convey to an auditor, with accuracy, distinct enunciation, and emphasis, the thoughts of the prose or poetical lesson of the day, is not only possible, but easy of attainment. The pupil who does this, does more than simply absorb the mental product of others. The spirit and colour, as well as the thought, of the lesson enter into him; and in the act of reproducing these for the benefit of his audience, with suitable emphasis and intelligence,

Not only

they in a special sense become his own. are the sentences themselves a second time appropriated by the art of elocution, but the style and character of the piece, whether didactic, imaginative, humorous, or pathetic, are brought into relief, and exercise their peculiar power as fosterers of the germs of taste.

If intelligible reading of this kind is to be attained easily or at all, the teacher must give the key-note of the reading when the child is in the initiatory stage. The foundation must be laid at the base, not in the middle, of the building, and laid by the teacher himself. Good reading is the successful imitation of a good model, and it is a work of time. No one can leap into the art, or read well to order.

Subsidiary questions as to the means, the manner, and the expedients whereby the method of teaching reading is more or less successfully applied, fall to be considered in another portion of this Report, where I comment on the means most generally adopted in the schools visited.

OBJECTS AND METHOD OF TEACHING WRITING.

The practical purpose, namely, facility and distinctness, to be kept constantly in view-Letters to be turned to use as they are learned-The power to be applied to copying on slates-Writing from dictation.

The particular purpose at which the teacher ought to aim in teaching Writing is the power of writing from dictation the sentences of the reading lesson,