vi PREFACE. 



pupils conversing and receiving instruction. The 

 object my sister has proposed to herself is to place 

 a volume in the Teacher's hands which shall help 

 him to re-act with his pupils the scenes that are 

 here described. It is not a drama offered for 

 perusal in the closet, but a manager's copy com- 

 mended to the conductors ef other theatres of 

 education, to enable their liliputian corps dramati- 

 ques to assume the same characters, play the 

 same parts, and I will not say, " fret their little 

 hour upon the stage," but enjoy the genuine de- 

 light of intellectual activity judiciously directed. 



A want of order and arrangement in the early 

 part of ' Lessons on Objects/ has been alleged as 

 a blemish in that work ; but, in point of fact, its 

 miscellaneous character was a studied feature, as 

 better suited to the intellectual state of the pupils. 

 Their first step should be the examination of ob- 

 jects as nature presents them, or rather as they 

 see them in nature, that is, either as insulated or 

 as associated only by accidental connection. When 

 ideas are formed and correct expressions familiar- 

 ized, the business of classification commences, the 

 lessons assume a more scientific character, and 

 the pupils are prepared to enter on the province of 

 Natural History. The training, then, which 

 ' Lessons on Objects ' will have supplied for com- 

 mencing ' Lessons on Shells,' will consist princi- 



