feelings than others of less importance and less authority. And he should then carefully lead the attention to each part separately, and teach the little pupils to pronounce the words distinctly and slowly as he may point to them. The lesson should never be so long as to induce a feeling which even approaches to weariness, and it should be at all times accompanied with an explanation of the meaning of every more difficult word, and every clause as he proceeds. He will find very considerable assistance in this part also of his duty, in previous narrative and conversation, and in the use of suitable pictures. If thus the subject have been first explained from the mouth of the master, and illustrated by a representation of its principal features, the lesson will be read with the greater interest, and will be far more likely to infix itself on the memory and the heart.

WRITING, and SEWING, or KNITTING, are introduced into these schools, in the higher classes, the one of boys and the other of girls, for the purpose of teaching them to exercise manual ingenuity; for variety in their lessons; and to prepare them for the course of instruction in the parochial schools.

The mode of proceeding in the communication of the art of writing is the following. In

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the first place, the pupils must be instructed in the forms of written letters, until they are able to read them as fluently as the printed letters, with which they meet in their common lessons. Having thus communicated the idea, we have laid the best foundation for the art itself. For the attainment of this, let a large board, painted black, be prepared and suspended on some conspicuous part of the wall of the room; and on a suitable desk, so placed as to afford an easy view of the board, let the slates be laid, on which the lesson is to be performed.

Now letters, as works of art, may be divided into the most simple elementary forms. These incipient forms, in an order constantly approaching to the construction of letters, and not the letters themselves, should be to infants the introduction to writing. When they are able to imitate them with sufficient accuracy, that which is afterwards necessary will follow without perplexity and with little effort.

When the teacher has prepared and arranged the incipient forms of the letters, he may then at the periods allotted to this lesson, place his class before their slates, and having himself set the copy with chalk on the black board, superintend their first efforts. His object should not be rapidity of progress, but exactness of imita

tion. It will be desirable to have one side of the slate plain, on which the first efforts of the learner may be made as inclination may guide him. The other side may have two compartments. The upper may be divided into squares, and the lower into ruled lines. He may then sometimes divide his black board into compartments, similar to those which have been drawn on the slates, and place the copy in one of them, in order that the idea of place and position may be communicated; and for obvious reasons, he may sometimes proceed to describe the form which is to be imitated, between lines.