vi PREFACE. 



conversing and receiving instruction. The ob- 

 ject 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 

 commended to the conductors of other theatres 

 of education, to enable their liliputian corps 

 dramatiques 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 delight of intellectual activity judi- 

 ciously 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 exami- 

 nation of objects 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 familiarized, the business of classifi- 

 cation 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 commencing ' Lessons 



