ordinary sense of supplying a reason or argument, we are not bound to deal with its abstruse signification in Kant's philosophy.

I doubt whether the teacher is called upon to dwell specially upon the ambiguity of words. Although many words have plurality of meanings, yet in every good composition, the ambiguity is resolved by the context, so that the difficulty is got over for the time. Continuous reading both brings out ambiguity and meets it. There should be some special reason for entering on the subject, and it should be done upon some method; it is too wide for desultory treatment. A passing question may be allowed, after the pupils have had opportunities of encountering some word in more than one acceptation, provided always that it refers to subjects within their grasp. The word 'post' is an obvious example. So 'vice,' 'air,' 'box,' 'burn.'

4. The Figurative uses of words give a wide scope to the teacher's explanations. Here he can do much to assist the pupils, and can work in a definite line of procedure.

Figures that have by iteration lost their figurative character, and become the ordinary designations of things, as fortune,' 'spirit,' 'meeting,' 'court,' 'conception,' do not call for notice.

The proper Figures are those where there is an apparent stretch of meaning that to the youthful mind needs to be accounted for and justified. A wind of doctrine,' a 'sea of troubles,' 'a surfeit of reading,' 'stony adversary,' 'ventilate an opinion,' the morning of life,' 'noble blood, simplicity of manners,' have an effect of surprise when first heard ; and the curiosity that they awaken may be made use of to impress the meaning. This supposes that the source of the figure is something already understood. Far-fetched allusions are to be explained only under favourable circumstances.

5. It is necessary to take account of the natural or spontaneous process of ascertaining the meanings of words, after possessing a stock sufficient for understanding the drift of ordinary language. This is by a kind of tentative and induc

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tive process. On first hearing a strange word, we are often able to judge from the connection what it is likely to mean. Some one has committed a fault, and has been severely censured. The child understands the meaning of committing the fault, and expects some sort of penal consequence to follow; it is not described as punishment, yet it is something approaching it. Perhaps it means 'scolded.' This surmise is all that can be made out of the occasion. Let there, however, be a second and a third repetition of the word :-'A writer in the newspaper censures the Town Council;' 'the Council deserves praise rather than censure.' It is now plain by an induction of these additional instances, that censure is something different from punishment; it means something painful that we can inflict even upon superiors, and the instrumentality is language.

We begin early this operation of guessing at the meanings of words, from a collation of different instances, and carry it on to the last. What is necessary is that the general meaning of the situation be understood. A passage should be intelligible on the whole; and if so, some advance will be made in divining the sense of an outstanding word. In rendering aid to the struggling intelligence of the pupils, the teacher has to meet the case thus: The army moved forward to engage the enemy, and left its baggage in the rear with a guard.' 'What does baggage mean?' 'You see it is something belonging to the army, not wanted immediately for fighting.' There is no better test of the general understanding of a passage, than the ability to guess from it the likely meaning of an unknown word. We could not reasonably expect the teacher to follow this up on the instant with varied examples for inductive comparison. Yet the operation is quite within reach, and contains the essence of what is meant by Induction in the highest walks of science.

6. It must seem obvious that very important leading terms should not be discussed under the circumstances that we are

now supposing. Such words as gravity, polarity, vibration, affinity, reciprocity, beauty, diplomacy, statute, formality, emblem, civilization,-would each form the topic of an express lesson, or else depend for their explanation upon a methodical course of their several departments of knowledge. It may so happen, however, that the purpose of their employment does not involve their most scientific use, and that they can be explained for the occasion without a rigorous definition. ‘Statute law,' or 'according to the statute,' could be made sufficiently intelligible for a passing allusion, although belonging to the technicalities of Jurisprudence. The word 'nature' is one of very abstruse signification, but its passing uses can often be made plain enough. The teacher, in such cases, should be aware that he is not called upon to expound such terms according to their full and exact definition. The lesson-books are somewhat misleading in this respect. The authors do not consciously make the distinction between an explanation for the purpose in hand, and a thorough, complete, and final definition. They naturally think that a word brought up in the course of a lesson should be disposed of there and then ; and that one of the purposes of the lesson is to bring forward important terms with a view to their being satisfactorily explained. This idea, pushed to the extreme, would disintegrate the lesson, and resolve the teaching into a course of dictionary work. The best and foremost use of a reading lesson is to impart a connected meaning, each part having a perceptible bearing upon every other. The portions that are clear should serve to illuminate those that are dark; and this operation should not be interfered with by digressions for exhausting the meanings of chance terms.

There is a class of words that, occurring in this way, might be finally disposed of by one stroke of explanation, without interrupting the proper course of the lesson. They are such as are not important enough to be leading terms in science, but yet contribute to the expression of important facts or doctrines. The following are a few at random.

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'Salvage,' what is saved from a wreck; 'veteran,' a soldier who has been in the service long enough to have full experience, but not worn out (opposed to a fresh raw recruit); 'frontiers,' the front, or border of a country; 'retrograde,' going backwards instead of advancing, contrasted with 'progress;' variegated,' marked with different colours; 'reservoir,' a place where water is stored, to be run off when wanted; simulate,' feign or pretend to be something that we are not, with a view to deceive, while 'dissimulate' is to conceal what we are doing for the same end; opposed to both is avowing openly what we are doing.

For this class of words, the explanations in the notes to the lesson, should be careful and exact. The teacher cannot be expected to provide off hand definitions that will hit the precise points; this is the business of the lesson annotator and the dictionary maker.

7. It is useful to reflect upon the efficacy of the regular or systematic lesson in giving the correct meanings of words in entire groups. For example, every scientific lesson contains a number of important terms; and these occur in correlated groups. When we enter upon Geometry, we are taught to conceive point, line, curve, triangle, square, circle, &c.—all in connection; the agreements and contrasts, and the regular sequence, make the definitions easy. Parallelogram or polygon, occurring as a passing word in a lesson, is explained, if at all, at a great disadvantage.

The same effect takes place in other instances. Thus, in a lesson on a ship, many strange terms have to be brought forward; and the quickest way of arriving at their meanings is to learn, by one continuous stroke of application, all that relates to the ship.

There are certain crafts or industries that, from being more familiar to us than others, are oftener quoted and referred to, both for information, and for figurative allusions. Such are agriculture, building, navigation, trading, criminal justice, and,

perhaps above all, military operations. These have each their peculiar terms; we gather up the meanings by scattered allusions, on the tentative or inductive plan. The process might be shortened by a few compacted lessons, that would set forth in methodical array all the chief parts and processes in each department, with the appropriate designations. A lesson on the military art would be very taking to youth of ten or twelve; and would be a collateral aid to the narratives of campaigns, which are so largely drawn upon in reading manuals.

8. Although I have proposed to restrain the licence of passing explanations, by an indication of the bounds that should be set to it, thereby precluding the more elaborate and thorough modes of defining, I may still be permitted to remark, that the teacher should know what, in the last resort, thorough defining is. For all notions that are ultimate (as equality, succession, unity, duration, resistance, pain, &c.), and many that are composite or derivative, there is no definition possible except the appeal to particulars; which brings us back, after a long round, to what was said as to the mode of imparting Abstract Ideas. In lessons that are properly and strictly knowledge lessons, the handling of particulars for this great end needs to be as familiar as household words. Although its sphere is in the leading terms of science and the higher knowledge, yet it may admit of occasional application to passing terms and allusions. The word 'hallucination' could be happily explained by two or three examples, real or supposed, of persons suffering under mental delusion. So a ceremony could be illustrated by a few select instances. As these explanations necessarily occupy time, and are a new direction to the pupils' thoughts, they should be either given at the beginning of a lesson, by way of essential preparation, or be held as matters reserved, the lesson being completed by help of a mere provisional gloss.

I will now make a concluding observation as to the composition of Reading Lessons. It is desirable to exclude from these lessons, as far as possible, all terms that cause trouble to the teacher and distraction to the pupils. If a learned name occurs,