362 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



the balance. That corrective may, in certain cases, be supplied by 

 the subject-matter of the books read, if it is required that they shall 

 be intelligently understood. At the same time, such a requirement 

 must be very positive and direct in order not to be evaded. Though 

 the Education Department does at the present moment require from 

 children in elementary schools, not merely an intelligent style of read- 

 ing, but also (in the upper standards) an acquaintance with the subject- 

 matter of the books read, it would naturally be felt to be extremely 

 hard that a child should be declared to have failed in reading because 

 he or she showed a want of proper observation. But we should like 

 to see this whole topic of intelligent acquaintance with the subject- 

 matter of the books read removed from the mere art of reading, and 

 constituted into a separate subject by itself say into a class subject, 

 such as geography and grammar are now. If this were done, it would 

 not be hard upon a child to demand from it some amount of observa- 

 tion as well as intelligence. If, for instance, the reading-book referred 

 to any agricultural operation, such as harvesting, or to some well- 

 known plant or flower or vegetable, or to cattle, or to birds, whether 

 migratory or permanent in the country, then in a country school the 

 children might fairly be questioned so as to bring out what they them- 

 selves had observed on these matters. In a town school questions 

 might be asked on other matters to which reading-books would also 

 now and then make reference railways, stations, the different public 

 buildings and their uses, the trades or manufactures specially practiced 

 in the town. We can not but think that there is a real gap in the 

 training of children in the poorer classes, and that the step we here 

 recommend might do much to fill it. 



It is true, and we note the fact with pleasure, that the Education 

 Department has of late encouraged methods of teaching geography 

 which brine: out that side in which it is connected with direct obser- 

 vation. The suggestion that in every school the meridian line should 

 be marked on the floor, in order that the points of the compass may 

 be practically known, is a valuable one in this direction. Still more 

 so is the suggestion, almost amounting to a requirement, that "good 

 maps of the parish or immediate neighborhood in which the school is 

 situated should be affixed to the walls." But of course the value of 

 these appliances depends on the way in which they are used. The 

 meridian line may be marked with exactness, the map of the parish 

 may be unexceptionable, but if the knowledge of these points is not 

 interwoven with the daily teaching it will be fruitless. And we can 

 not but regret that the Education Department should treat geography 

 as a subject inferior in importance to grammar. This is to place the 

 abstract before the concrete, which is contrary to all natural and true 

 method. We are sure that it needs far greater skill to render a gram- 

 mar-lesson really fruitful and beneficial than to render a geography- 

 lesson so. When grammar is made almost a necessity, while geogra- 



