INTRODUCTION. 5 



reading lesson in which to teach a child that the hard 

 things of life are to be grappled with and overcome. 

 A mistake also, I think, is that toilsome process of 

 explanation which I sometimes find teachers following, 

 under the impression that it will be " parrot work " 

 (as the stock phrase of the "institutes" has it) for 

 the pupils to read anything which they do not clearly 

 and fully comprehend. Teachers' definitions, in such 

 cases, I have often noticed, are no better than dic- 

 tionary definitions, and surely everybody knows that 

 few more fruitless things than dictionary definitions 

 are ever crammed into the memory of a child. Bet' 

 ter far give free play to the native intelligence of the 

 child, and trust it to apprehend, though it may not yet 

 comprehend nor be able to express its apprehension 

 in definition. On this subject I am glad to quote so 

 high an authority as Sir Walter Scott : " Indeed I 

 rather suspect that children derive impulses of a pow- 

 erful and important kind from reading things which 

 they do not comprehend, and therefore that to write 

 down to children's understanding is a mistake. Set 

 them on the scent and let them puzzle it out." 



From time to time I have allowed my pupils to give 

 me written reports from memory of these essays, and 

 have often found these little compositions sparkling 

 with pleasing information, or full of that childlike fun 

 which is characteristic of the author. I have marked 

 the errors in these exercises, and have given them 

 back to the children to rewrite. Sometimes the sec- 

 ond papers show careful correction — and sometimes 

 the mistakes are partially neglected. Very often the 

 child wishes to improve on the first composition, and 

 so adds new blunders as well as creates new interest. 



There is a law of self-preservation in Nature, which 



