moral world, and as much literary training as their time will allow. About two-thirds of the day, as a rule, might be given to Knowledge, and one-third to Literature; music, drill, and gymnastics being counted apart from both. It seems vain to discuss any more special adaptation to the supposed exigencies of the general mass of the people.

APPENDIX.

FURTHER EXAMPLES OF THE OBJECT LESSON.

To illustrate still further the forms, conditions, and limitations of the Object Lesson, I will refer to some examples as set forth in works on Teaching. Numerous attempts have been made to give a fixed and methodical character to the lesson, for the guidance of young teachers.

Almost enough was said in the text regarding the Lessons on the Natural History type, both particular and general. The conditions in these are few and intelligible. The teacher's difficulties culminate in the third kind of Lesson-Causation, which carries us into one or other of the primary sciences. Cause and effect is at once the simplest and most impressive experience, and the most abstruse and distasteful. Nothing yields a greater charm to the child than firing off gunpowder; but, to bring anyone to the point of fully explaining the fact, needs a long course of very dry instruction. Causation cannot be excluded even from the lessons of the Natural History kind; a lesson on coal or charcoal must say something as to its combustion, but it does not (if properly managed) enter upon the theory of combustion in Chemistry. A lesson on Iron would, probably, state its melting under a high heat, but would not descant upon the laws of heat in general. One of the leading precautions regarding the Natural History Lessons is, to avoid

being led away to the lessons of Primary Science. It is in these last that the dangers and difficulties are of the subtlest kind, as has been partly illustrated in the text. Because we are not bound to give the full explanation of a fact—which explanation supposes a perfectly arranged sequence of topics, as in a course of Natural Philosophy, Chemistry, or Physiology— we are apt to suppose that sequence does not need to be considered at all. We further suppose that it signifies little how many different lines of causation we enter upon in a single lesson. Again, there is a struggle between the empirical form and the rational explanation, to the detriment of both. It is only when we feel that the rational explanation is wholly beyond the powers of the pupils, that we elaborate an empirical statement with due care. The following is an example of a careful empirical statement, in dealing with the topic of Energy or Work, as measured by the raising of weights. Its object is to express the relation of velocity to height, which the pupil is supposed not to be capable of understanding on mechanical principles: A body shot upwards with a double velocity will mount not twice but four times as high-a body with a triple velocity not thrice but nine times as high.' Again, if cannon balls are directed at a compact mass of wooden planks, a ball with a double velocity will pierce four times as many planks, a ball with triple velocity nine times as many.' The more conscious we are that we cannot give the scientific reasons, the more do we aim at a precise statement of the empirical fact; and facts so given are perhaps the very best scientific statements that can be deposited in the mind at an early age. The rule in Rhetoric, of separating, in statement, a fact from the reason of the fact, is seldom thoroughly complied with when we aim at giving both.

For further illustration, I select the following example given by an able writer on Education. The Object adduced is the Teapot Spout and Lid.

'I. THE SPOUT. Bring out that its top is higher than the

EXAMPLES OF THE OBJECT LESSON.

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level of the teapot. What is that for? Suppose one to be lower, say half as high. What would happen when water was poured in? Give facts and illustrations so as to educe and establish the following points:

'1. Fluids easily yield to pressure.

2. Pressure is conveyed to them in all directions.

3. So long as there is no pressure in the spout to outbalance it the fluid must rise.

So

'4. Infer that the water will rise to the same height in the spout as it is in the teapot. Illustrate also by syphon, and by pipes conveying water from reservoirs to houses.' much for the spout. The teacher is to expand these hints as directed.

This is a lesson in the Primary Sciences, and brings out laws of Cause and Effect. As I have often urged, the teacher must settle in his mind whether it is to be an empirical or a reasoned lesson, or how far rational explanations can be carried under the circumstances; that is to say, among other things, what has been the preparation by means of previous lessons or knowledge anyhow obtained. Without being aware of these points, we cannot judge altogether of the propriety or impropriety of the lesson. In the Author's series there is no other lesson that obviously leads up to it; although in the course of explaining a great variety of familiar things, a teacher may be conscious that he has paved the way for what he now proposes to do. On the face of the scheme, we may say that too much appears to be undertaken for one lesson, and that, for so great a lesson, the start from a specified object is illusory. The theme of the lesson is the first chapter in the regular course of Hydrostatics, embracing the fact of fluidity under pressure, with its many consequences; and to give such a lesson effectively, the teacher would need to have on his table a great many objects, without distinguishing any one more than the others. The title should at once suggest the scope of the lesson: 'About Water and other Liquids and the way that they rise to their level.' In Balfour Stewart's Science Primer, we see

exemplified the mode of conducting such a lesson by the help of well-chosen experiments, wherein simplification is carried much further than it could be by any teacher acting on these hints; there being, moreover, the advantage of numerous previous lessons given in a systematic course of Natural Philosophy. Many lessons on the mechanics of motion and gravity, with reference to solid bodies, should precede such a lesson on liquid bodies. It is a lesson very ill suited for isolation, even on the most rigid empirical plan. Children might be previously made to understand what is meant by 'level,' but this needs a distinct effect at explanation. The teapot and syphon lesson might be given empirically by saying that the water in the teapot, or syphon, or any similar thing, rises to the same height in both channels; this involves only easy notions. All explanation on first principles should be forborne, as clearly beyond the capacity of the pupils supposed to be addressed. They might be made to grasp the fact, and then be shown the consequences of pouring some more liquid into the mouth of the teapot, and at one leg of the syphon (a glass syphon with the bend downwards is the better instrument); the rise in the other leg is then seen, until the same height is reached in both. The illustration is varied and extended, when the syphon has a long leg and a short; the water poured in at the long leg flows out at the other, which no longer holds it at the proper height. The pouring out from the teapot, by lowering the spout, is then adduced as the same fact. This is a good example of an empirical object lesson on an interesting and recurring phenomenon; while at the stage when it is first given, the impression would only be spoiled by converting it into a reasoned truth, based upon the fundamental laws of motion, gravity and fluidity.

The illustration with the teapot and syphon would be enough for one lesson. A further lesson might overtake the case of pouring water at one end of a trough to see it flowing to the other end, until the surface came to rest; which might be made to appear an example of the same principle of equal