the order-colour, form, size; which is as good as any other order, but not better.

In the various notions relating to Society, we have the same correlations, the same suspense of meaning till the correlations are adduced. A State implicates Ruler and Subject; neither is understood until both are explained. The order is immaterial.

In the Physical Sciences, also, mutuality of action is the rule. In the communication of force there are always two parties, the giver and the receiver, and one must be mentioned first; yet until the other is also mentioned, the fact is not complete.

Thus, then, provision must be made in the expository arts for bringing together correlatives in the way best suited to the several cases. The case is no real exception to the law of logical sequence.

2. The mixing of notions of different degrees of advancement and difficulty, is a thing that cannot always be avoided. An explanation should contain only matters already understood; but fully to adhere to this in the early stages is next to impossible. There must be mental blanks corresponding to many of the names presented to the young mind; sometimes, to a degree fatal to the understanding of what is brought forward; sometimes, permitting of a partial understanding, enough to be a stepping-stone to something farther, and in time to the complete knowledge of what is at present incompletely known. Although unavoidable, this is still an evil; and should be kept within the narrowest possible limits. Until all subjects can be composed on one level of intelligibility, and every subject have its proper order in the line of studies; and until no pupil be ever in

trodnced to the higher without sufficient mastery of the lower, there will be these blank spots in the minds. of learners; the intellectual comprehension will be arrested every now and then from the want of some essential piece of knowledge.

In all subjects there must come up at the threshold names that cannot be adequately understood until the pupil has made some progress. A vague provisional surmise is the only thing possible; perhaps the whole field of view is darkened in the meantime; and yet it may be competent to go forward with simply glimpses of meaning. Partly by proceeding, in spite of defective insight, partly by going back to a fresh start, the various notions come to one another's aid; what was dark grows clear.

It is in scientific or rational explanation, that is to say, science, properly so called, that the breach of sequence is most felt. When we are gathering in promiscuous facts, objects, impressions, without any attempt to explain, class, or reconcile them, we are not bound to any order. Whether we see a waterfall or a windmill first does not signify. So when our education consists chiefly in learning names, there is little that can be called sequence. Further, between one story and another story, one poem and another poem, there may be no priority assignable.

As a great part of early teaching is avowedly desultory, empirical, matter-of-fact, preparatory, the order of presentation seems of little moment. The preference is determined by opportunity, and by the awakened interest of the pupils. Objects are impressed in the mind at the time when they are advantageously brought forward, whether in school or out of school. But the

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teacher should thoroughly understand the level that he is working at; he should not obtrude the connecting doctrines that make the knowledge scientific. The moment he aims at this, his situation is entirely altered; he must now chalk out a scientific scheme and follow it in rigid order.

Stories, poetry, histories, descriptions of travels, of places, of animals, are very mixed in their nature; the less intelligible and the more intelligible go side by side. The child picks up the crumbs of meaning and of interest that suit its advancement, and leaves the rest. There is no reason, however, why the effort should not be made to keep the whole composition to one level.

3. The gratification of the feelings interferes at this point, as at so many others. There may be enough in a composition to give pleasure, without its being understood. The mere form of poetry, the jingle of verse, has this effect: the melody of the words concurring. So there may be touches that bring out emotion, on a slender basis of understanding. Poetry serves this end; likewise the unction of religious and moral sentiments.

4. Impatience to advance to matters of interest may make us hurry over intermediate and preparatory matters, or proceed without these. This is an effect of solitary study; one of the uses of the public teacher is to stem the tendency, When left to ourselves we do not always see what necessarily lies between us and the goal we are aiming at.

5. The language memory, which is at its height somewhat prior to the maturity of the abstractive power, carries a great many things in the unmeaning state; and

the more we are endowed with it, the farther we can go in dispensing with the full comprehension of what we are laying up. It is often said that a knowledge of meaning, in the shape of cause and effect, or other rational relationship, is the best aid to retentiveness; but this is conditional. A good language memory dispenses with all that.

We avail ourselves of the language stage of the mind to forge adhesive links that are not so easy afterwards. Principles, maxims, theorems, formulas, definitions, that need to obtain a firm place in the memory, may be given a little in advance of their being fully understood. The licence must not be abused. For one thing, the memory will not receive them, if they are wholly devoid of interest; there must be something either in the form of the words, or in the substance, to engage the feelings, otherwise the anticipation is no economy. Rules in verse have this advantage. A scientific formula may have a certain pomp of language that impresses before it is understood. If the subject affects the emotions, a faint glimmer of meaning is enough; or one part understood may buoy up a good deal that is not.

Pithy antithetic forms are easily committed in advance of the understanding of them. 'A line is length without breadth,' is very abstruse in meaning, but very easy to carry in the memory. 'All liquids seek their level,' by dint of shortness and personification, obtains an easy access to our stock of remembered forms. The proverbial saws that we are accustomed to hear, are stamped on the recollection long previously to our being able to comprehend them. A long, prolix, un

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melodious, dry, and unintelligible statement might be committed through the urgency of the schoolmaster; but, however valuable it might be, in the day when it is fully revealed, there would be little gained by the process.

6. It is possible in the subjects that most depend on connection, to pick up detached propositions with their illustrations, and to hold them with a certain amount of understanding. This is, in fact, to repeat the empirical stage, after we are embarked in the rational or scientific career. A great many minds find themselves unable to keep up with the consecutive strain of a demonstrative science, and yet seize hold of portions of the reasoning, such as to pass muster in examinations; being only thrown out when called upon to reason from the commencement.

Like retaining knowledge by the mere language memory, this is a very insufficient mode of learning, and ends in the possession of scraps, without system or method, and without that reproducing power that a deductive science gives when once fully mastered.

7. It is not a breach of sequence to cull precepts from different sciences, and apply them to practice. The rules of Arithmetic can be put in operation without the reasons. This is still the empirical stage, where no sequence is observed. Provided only the terms of the rules are understood, we can carry them out in practice, while ignorant of the general subject, and wholly unable to give the reasons for them. In certain cases the working of the rules is not affected by ignorance of the sciences that they spring from; it is only in the higher arts, as Mechanics, Engineering, Medicine, Statecraft,