172 Transactions. — Miscellaneous. 



industry — the laws which influence production, supply and demand, inter- 

 national communications, shipping practice, freights, insurances, &c., must 

 find a place in school instruction as a preparation for commercial life, and in 

 evening training classes for those in daily employment. 



Industrial occupations all require a knowledge of the elementary principles 

 of mechanics and the physical sciences. Instruction in these departments can 

 be given in our higher schools, and will enable the young manufacturer or 

 artizan to understand the various processes with which he has to deal. 



Agriculture now demands in the country that peculiar education which 

 commerce requires in the town. And that the study of natural science can 

 be made delightful and interesting to our rural populations is proved by the 

 experience of all teachers who have taken the trouble to open the mysteries of 

 nature and explain its operations to the wondering gaze of childhood. The 

 eager desire for information, so strong in the young, may be stimulated into 

 healthy activity as the mind of the child expands to receive and love the 

 teachings of science with reference to his daily pui'suits. Thus, by a diligent 

 culture of the faculties of observation and reflection the foundation is laid for 

 future success in advanced scientific studies. 



An educational course should not be confined to the schoolroom, but 

 classes should be held in the field, the quarry, the manufactory, and the 

 museum, where nature may be seen at work, where mechanical operations 

 may be examined and explained. 



Drawing should form a daily lesson in all public schools. The youngest 

 child will take great pleasure in this exercise, and the importance of early 

 training in art cannot be estimated. The love of all that is beautiful in nature 

 and art, if cultivated in the school, becomes a lasting source of pleasure, and 

 finds expression in the exhibition of artistic skill in the humbler relations, as 

 well as the higher callings of national life. 



4. The German schools now present a most perfect and complete system of 

 public instruction, and many States of Continental Europe have followed their 

 example, and the result of their progress has astonished the world. 



About twenty years ago the first attempt was made to transport the German 

 system into English soil, and Mr John Riintz founded the first Birkbeck 

 school in London. Science training as the basis of education was the system 

 adopted and most successfully carried out ; two important facts were demon- 

 strated to the public mind — First : That children could be made fiimiliar by oral 

 training lessons (illustrated by objects, experiments, &c.), with the elementary 

 principles of physical science, and that they could, by sound business training, 

 be fitted for the practical duties of life. Second : That the schools could be 

 made popular and self-supporting. A staff* of young men and women were 

 trained as teachers under his care, and other schools were soon opened, which 



