RELATION TO BEADING AND LITERATURE. 271 



dren. But we must not stop here. A fountain cannot 

 rise higher than its source. If we limit the children in 

 their reading-lesson to their own ideas we narrow their 

 horizon. 



The teacher should introduce facts and thoughts 

 which have not come from the children, but which 

 grow out of or are naturally related to what they have 

 seen and told. This is an opportunity to broaden the 

 knowledge of the children by leading them from what 

 they can see in their little world to what they must be 

 told about the great world, and to give, them the best 

 and most beautiful thoughts from the poets and others 

 about the birds and plants and clouds which the boys 

 and girls have been observing. 



In the reading-lesson about the hairy seeds of the dan- 

 delion or milkweed or thistle, the teacher can introduce 

 something concerning the cotton-seeds with their hairy 

 wings, and concerning the use man makes of the cotton 

 hairs or fibres. In the lessons telling what the children 

 have seen about the habits and nests and eggs of the 

 bluebird, it may be well to add some of the habits 

 which the sharper eyes of Thoreau or Burroughs have 

 discovered. But care should be taken so to word this 

 new matter that the children may be taught the impor- 

 tance and necessity of sharply distinguishing, in all 

 their work, between that which they have gained for 

 themselves and that which they have merely appro- 

 priated from others. 



Very frequently we should introduce into these pri- 

 mary reading-lessons gems from the poets. But they 



