8i6 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



the lever into equal parts, adjusting weights, little or more work with 

 metal, according to taste and time the wood may be finished in oil, 

 varnish, or paint. 



2. A good lesson in form can be given upon it. 



3. It affords an excellent exercise in drawing. ' - - 



4. There can be performed a series of simple experiments involv- 

 ing no mathematics. These may be made the basis of a series of 

 simple language-lessons, the children observing the experiments and 

 describing what is done and the results. 



All this prepares the way for experiments involving arithmetical 

 processes and leading to the law of the lever's action. I can imagine no 

 better way of teaching ratio and proportion than through the results 

 obtained from this series of experiment. The stimulus, interest, defi- 

 niteness of thought coming from this method would more than com- 

 pensate for the extra time. 



5. The story of Archimedes and the discovery of the principle 

 of the lever would interest a class of almost any age. Nothing could 

 be better to cultivate language and develop the historical sense than 

 the reproduction of such stories in oral and written speech. 



This illustrates the uses to which I would put every piece of appa- 

 ratus in our exhibit. 



There is another very important item. The forms in which arith- 

 metical quantities are actually put in commerce and science should be 

 forms in which they come before the children in the schools. They 

 should learn the ordinary business forms and operations, and should 

 get a sense of the values of industrial products, in connection with 

 their regular work in school. 



These can be taught incidentally in connection with such language- 

 lessons as I have indicated punctuation, forms of address, and nearly 

 all the mechanism of writing, as ordinarily treated in works upon ele- 

 ments of composition and rhetoric. 



During the last year, in my own teaching, I have had the repro- 

 ductions of lessons in physics, geology, and natural history, put in 

 forms of letters, advertisements, etc. The novelty added to the inter- 

 est, while the many changes in the form of reproduction changed the 

 point of view, stimulated thought, and caused the work, as a whole, 

 to make a deeper impression. 



The special value to the pupils of our schools, of the work involved 

 in such an industrial course as we have indicated, would be : 



1. The cultivation of observation and judgment, the discipline of 

 hand and eye, obtained in this way, would not be second to that ob- 

 tained in any other way. 



2. The course in mathematics, together with the course in language 

 and geography, could be made the means of acquainting them with 

 those natural products and forces which underlie all industries and all 

 arts. 



