56 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



system of Pestalozzi had been taught and the practice of the art 

 had been illustrated to thousands of students in the Normal 

 Schools and teachers in the Teachers' Institutes in the State of 

 Massachusetts. 



Of the system of Pestalozzi everything was then known that 

 is now known, although the application of the system may have 

 been improved in these thirty years. 



Much credit is due to Dr. Sheldon, the founder of the Oswego 

 School, but it is manifest that in 1859 he was ignorant of the edu- 

 cational condition of the country, and consequently he sent across 

 the Atlantic for information which he could have obtained in New 

 England. 



As to the system of Pestalozzi there was nothing new but the 

 system. The mode of teaching had been exhibited occasionally 

 and unsystematically through many long years. In my boyhood, 

 in the thirties, the scholars in a country village school were trained 

 in the science of astronomy by outdoor lessons in clear evenings 

 and with the aid of a celestial globe. In Morse's Geography, pub- 

 lished in the last century and prepared by the father of the in- 

 ventor of the telegraph, physical geography is made the primary 

 fact of the study, thus anticipating Guyot, whose system was 

 based on the teachings of Pestalozzi. 



The opening questions of Colburn's Mental Arithmetic, " How 

 many thumbs have you on your right hand ? How many on your 

 left hand ? How many on both hands together ? " contain and 

 express the rudimental truths of the Pestalozzian system. 



In one particular Pestalozzi stands with Bacon : Pestalozzi 

 did not discover a new method of teaching. Bacon did not dis- 

 cover a new method of reasoning. Each systematized a desultory 

 but long-existing practice. 



Great hopes are entertained bj manufacturers from M. Obardonnet's method 

 of making silk from wood-pulp, which has been set in operation at Besan^on, 

 France. The pulp, having been carefully dried, is treated for transformation 

 into collodion, similar to that which is used in photography. This collodion, 

 which is sticky and viscous, is inclosed in a stiff receptacle, furnished with a 

 filter in the lower end. An air-pump sends compressed air into the receptacle, 

 by the pressure of which the collodion is passed through the filter into a horizon- 

 tal tube furnished with three hundred cocks, the spouts of which are made of 

 glass and pierced with a small hole of the diameter of the thread of a cocoon as it 

 is spun by the silkworm. The collodion issues through these holes, when the 

 cocks are opened, in threads of extreme delicacy, of which it takes six to make 

 one of the consistence required in weaving. This thread is hardened, previous to 

 winding, by water, which takes up the ether and alcohol of the collodion, when 

 it becomes as resisting and brilliant as ordinary silk. It is made slow of combus- 

 tion by treating with ammonia. 



