38o THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



take the earth in his hand, he might peel or scrape off the soil as 

 we take a carpet from a floor, only the soil would seem much 

 thinner than the carpet, because the earth is so big. All had 

 traveled in railway trains, and had such impressions of their 

 swiftness that this illustration was used : Suppose we start for 

 the center of the earth on a train. Traveling day and night, it 

 would take nearly a week to reach the center, and another week 

 from there to the surface again ; and all day while we watched, 

 and all night while we slept, we should be rushing through the 

 rock ; and if we came out through the thickest layer of soil, it 

 would take but a few seconds to pass through it. Then, telling 

 them to open their eyes, I took a peach whose rind was thin and 

 peeled smoothly from the pulp, spoke of the giant as I drew off 

 the rind, and told them that the soil is thinner on the rock ball 

 of earth than that rind on the peach. A few remaining minutes 

 were spent in observing some pine trees and barberry bushes 

 growing near. 



On the third day, after reading the sentences already on the 

 board — of which each child besides his own read one or more oth- 

 ers — the following sentences were easily elicited : " Children eat 

 plants and animals. Animals eat plants and animals. Plants get 

 food from the soil. The soil comes from the rock. Rock decays 

 to make soil." These were written on the blackboard, read, and 

 copied by the children as on the first day. This was the natural 

 science, reading, and writing of the third day. In number, the 

 children added and subtracted ones by making groups and joining 

 and leaving one another. In geography the first lesson was re- 

 called, and the terms east and west associated with the appropri- 

 ate points. 



On the fourth day, after the children had retold what they 

 had learned in the science lessons, they were shown a globe, and 

 asked to imagine one as large as the room would hold, and how, 

 to represent the earth, they must think it all rock, with only a 

 thin layer of dust to represent the soil. In geography they were 

 shown a map of the school -room, and led to see its relations to the 

 room, and the relative positions of objects in the room and on the 

 map. The next day, on another map, they traced their route to 

 the country, and located the field and ledge of rock where their 

 question was answered. In the fifth day's science lesson the chil- 

 dren were led to speak of rain and wind as washing and blowing 

 off the decayed rock and exposing fresh surfaces, and so increas- 

 ing the decay, and to give the following summary : " Without 

 decay of rock there would be no soil ; if no soil, no plants, no ani- 

 mals, no people." In reading they had seventeen sentences, which 

 they read without hesitation and wrote with some resemblance to 

 the originals. In number, none failed to count to ten and to add 



