RELATION TO READING AND LITERATURE. 269 



of the teacher, in the best form, and often supplemented 

 by thoughts gained from literature. The lessons should, 

 however, be rigidly truthful or accurate, and should be 

 models of clearness and order. 



While the teacher should gain the lessons mainly 

 from the pupils, she can, by her questions and sugges- 

 tions, determine the character of the lessons, and can 

 thus influence much of the expressive work of the in- 

 dividual pupils. 



If the reading-lessons gained from the children are 

 based on their observations ; if they are truthful, clear, 

 and orderly; if the children see that in these lessons 

 the teacher accepts only the statements which tell in 

 the clearest way what each child knows to be true ; if 

 they perceive that the teacher puts the statements in a 

 certain order, and gradually understand the reason for 

 that order, the children will be apt, in subsequent ex- 

 pressive work of their own, to follow their teacher's 

 example. 



If, on the other hand, the teacher accepts for these 

 lessons any statement the children may make, whether 

 based on observation or a mere guess, whether true or 

 half true (the worst kind of a falsehood), whether clear 

 or hazy, and writes these sentences on the blackboard 

 just as the children happen to give them, without 

 sequence or order, the lesson is not merely of little 

 value as a reading-lesson, but is positively harmful to 

 the children; it becomes a means of drilling them in 

 telling in the wrong way what they have seen, a means 

 of establishing bad habits of expression. 



