"First I learn

." "Well, what do you learn?"

To which the boy, rendered stupid by fear, replies

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"Please, Sir, I don't know.” "You saucy blockhead— there, take that, and that, now you stand there, and never move from the spot until you have committed the whole of the question, word for word, to memory. In an instant give over crying, or I shall give you something to cry for, what are you sobbing for?" 'Please, Sir - I cannot help — it." “You cannot help saucy again I'll make you help it, – there -there- and there, now you will remember that the rod bites, if you cannot remember your task." True, the boy will probably remember to the day of his death that he was cruelly thrashed because he could not repeat the answer to the question on the Articles of Belief.

A wise teacher, in the place of thrashing his dull pupil, would assist him in completing his task, by first impressing the ideas contained in it on his memory. After having read the answer twice or thrice over, he might proceed as follows: "The answer to this question contains three parts. The first relates to God the Father; the second to God the Son; and the third to God the Holy Ghost. Let us now break down the ideas contained in the first part. In whom have we to believe? "In God the Father." "What is God here said to be?" "He is said to be the Father." "What have you to do in reference to God the Father?" "I have to believe in Him." "What did God the Father do for you?" "He made me." "What did He make besides?"

made all the world."

"He

Proceeding in this way, the judicious teacher might analyse the whole of the answer; after this is done, the pupil would probably find little difficulty in committing it to memory.

7. The memory should be cultivated in relation to common things and every-day events.

The most ordinary and trifling occurrences may be made a source of intellectual improvement: as the habits of animals, or the manners of a people; the construction

of articles of furniture and clothing; the structure of a feather, a leaf, or a flower: the mode of building houses, or the making of a pin; and so on.

The difference of information found amongst men does not depend so much upon the number of sights which they may have witnessed, as upon the remembrance of the ideas which these sights are calculated to suggest. Mr. S. never goes a journey, no matter how short, without being able to amuse his family by relating to them some incident, or to describe to them something new. "I don't know how it is," says Mr. B., who had travelled over the world for the mere sake of locomotion, "that my friend Mr. S. finds so much to talk about. He cannot go a journey of a dozen miles, without having had adventures enough to serve a man for a lifetime; for my part, I have visited most of the great cities in the world, but I can hardly get people to listen to my stories." The fact is, Mr. S. was an observing man, and never allowed an opportunity to slip without storing his memory with useful facts; with him every new event became the nucleus of a new series of thoughts.

8. Instruction should be given on a regular and connected plan.

Every lesson should have its proper time assigned to it, and it should always be given at that time. A subject should never be taught by fits and starts; for nothing so much enfeebles the recollection as sudden leaps from one branch of knowledge to another. When the foundations of one science are fairly laid, then another one may be commenced; but a schoolmaster, like the blacksmith, should never have too many irons in the fire. "Nothing," says Abercrombie, ": appears to contribute more to progress in any intellectual pursuit, than the practice of keeping one subject habitually before the mind, and of daily contributing something towards the prosecution of it." Important subjects of knowledge, having thus had time for their roots to spread themselves in the soil, become as it were incorporated with the mind itself.

II. The memory is strengthened by all those exercises which tend to cultivate the habit of attention.

We have already explained some of the most important artifices which may be employed in the cultivation of the habit of attention; the following, however, deserve especial notice in relation to the faculty of recollection. 1. Interrogate your pupils upon what they may have read.

2. Get your pupils to put questions to each other, at the end of a lesson; and also to talk together, after school hours, about the subjects of the day's instruction.

3. The pupils should write, IN THEIR OWN LANGUAGE, what is most important for them to remember.

These notes should be neatly and methodically written, they should not be mere extracts from books, or verbatim reports of lessons.

4. Make your pupils FAMILIAR with important principles and results.

It is not sufficient for your pupils simply to remember important principles and results, they should remember them perfectly, that is, in such a way as it would be impossible ever to forget them.

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James," a teacher might say to his pupil, "have you learnt the fourth line of your multiplication table yet?" "Yes, Sir, I said it to you yesterday." "It is true, my boy, you said it. but it was done with some hesitation. You must learn it so thoroughly that nothing can put you out when you are called upon to repeat it. Now you go on with the fourth line, while I repeat the fifth, and we shall see whether you put me out, or I put you out."

As a matter of course, James is put out; whereupon the teacher might go on to say,-"Now I have put you out." "Well, Sir, but I could have said it correctly if you had not jarred with me." "Exactly so. But do you think that I could put you out in repeating the alphabet? -let us try."

"Here. you see, I cannot put you out, because you

have learnt the alphabet perfectly. Now it is equally important that you should learn the multiplication table perfectly."

CHAP. V.

CULTIVATION OF THE INTELLECTUAL FACULTIES, CONTINUED.— ON THE CULTIVATION OF IMAGINATION AND TASTE,

THERE is no faculty of the mind which requires more careful culture than that of imagination. When properly regulated and directed, it may be made to contribute to the development of all that is noble and estimable in our nature. It forms an essential element of inventive genius. By imagination we are enabled, as it were, to place ourselves in the situation of others, and to sympathise with them in their distress, or to participate in their sorrows. A man deficient in imagination, however estimable he may be in his general conduct, is usually unsocial, illiberal, and selfish. On the other hand, a person with a wild, misguided imagination, occupies his mind in the pursuit of idle dreams and delusions, to the neglect of all those pursuits which are calculated to ennoble a rational being. The imagination should always be kept under the control of reason, and it should never be allowed to wander too long at discretion, amid beautiful and fallacious scenes, so as to impair the judgment. The unrestrained indulgence of imagination often exercises an enfeebling influence over the other powers of the intellect; but a properly regulated imagination gives strength to all the other faculties, and adds a charm to existence.

"His the city's pomp:

The rural honours his. Whate'er adorns
The princely dome, the column, or the arch,
The breathing marbles, or the sculptured gold,
Beyond the proud possessor's narrow claim,
His tuneful breast enjoys. For him, the Spring

Distils her Dews, and from the silken gem
Its lucid leaves unfolds: for him, the hand
Of Autumn tinges every fertile branch

With blooming gold, and blushes like the morn.
Each passing hour sheds tribute from her wings;
And still new beauties meet his lonely walk,
And loves unfelt attract him. Not a breeze
Flies o'er the meadow-not a cloud imbibes
The setting Sun's effulgence-not a strain
From all the tenants of the warbling shade
Ascends, but whence his bosom can partake
Fresh pleasure, unreproved."

To cultivate the imagination, we should exercise it on legitimate objects, and this should be done in harmony with the development of the other powers of the mind. The imagination is exercised (1) By fictitious narratives; (2) By compositions of the poet and the orator, addressed to the passions; (3) By sallies of wit and humour; (4) By works of art addressed to the sense of the beautiful.

The man who excels in all, or any, of these productions of imagination, is said to have an inventive genius; but it is obvious that this must depend quite as much upon the strength of the faculty of reason, as upon that of imagination. Geometers and scientific discoverers are often much indebted to the fertility of their imagination. Persons of extraordinary power of imagination are not unfrequently deficient in judgment. Why? certainly not from any want of harmony between these faculties, but rather from the want of a proper educa tion; for a man of philosophic intellect must have a vigorous imagination: the genius of the poet and that of the mathematician are more nearly allied than people generally suppose.

I. The picturing style of teaching (described in relation to the cultivation of memory) is one of the best means of developing the imagination of children.

Very few of our works of imagination are simple enough for the comprehension of a child, the sen