Emerson.] 224 [January 7, 



how it is to be presented, while it is the part of the pupils 

 to listen attentively and to remember. This they will easily 

 do, and, to show that they do remember, they may be easily 

 led to give an account, in writing, of what they have heard. 

 Every lesson will thus be not only an exercise of attention 

 and memory, but a lesson in the English language, proper in- 

 struction in which is very much needed and very much 

 neglected. Whenever a pupil does not fully understand, the 

 teacher will have the opportunity, while he is at the black- 

 board, of enlarging and making more intelligible. 



Wherever the teacher shall be successful in adopting this 

 true and natural mode of teaching, the j^oor text-books which 

 now infest the country will be discontinued, and those who 

 now keep school will become real teachers ; school keeping 

 will be turned into teaching. When this method is fairly in- 

 troduced, we shall hear no more of long, hard lessons at 

 home, nor of pupils from good schools who have not learned 

 to write English. 



The advent of Agassiz is to be considered a most import- 

 ant event in the Natural History of the country. The ex- 

 ample of his character, his disinterestedness, his consecration 

 to science, his readiness to oblige even the humblest and most 

 modest, his superiority to self-interest, his sincerity and ab- 

 sence of all pretention, his enthusiasm in all that is noble — 

 all these recommended not only him, but the science he pro- 

 fessed. Never was a life more richly filled with study, work, 

 thought ; and all was consecrated, not to the benefit of him- 

 self, but to the promotion of science for the good of his fellow 

 creatures. 



For many years Mr. Agassiz has seemed to live only for 

 the advancement of natural history, by the building up of 



