TESTS OF CHILDREN'S KNOWLEDGE.

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before he begins, about what he intends to talk, so that he may not run one subject into another.1 His questions and the proper answers should form a connected catechism upon the subject-matter of the lesson, that is, when his object is to teach. When he is merely examining it is different; for as in this case he proposes to test what is known, and not to impart methodically arranged information, it is allowable to take a wider latitude, and not only allowable, but judicious.

Map to be rolled up in examining upon geography. In examining a class, if the object be to test whether the pupils know the map or not, the map should be exposed; but if the object be to test whether they know geography, the map should be rolled up. The map is used for teaching geography, but not for examining upon it.

Two methods of testing the children's knowledge of what has been already taught to them. (1) Let the teacher place a black-board beside the map selected, and having directed the class to confine their statements to some one branch-as either the rivers, peninsulas, or the countries, &c.—let him require each boy in turn to name and point out an example, and give some fact connected with it. This fact should be one which the child had already learnt from the master's teaching. The master should now write on the black-board the name of the example given, to serve as a guide for the closing part of the lesson. Thus, if the first child select the Danube (the map being Europe, and the subject the rivers), he may say, pointing to the map, 'The Danube is the largest river in Europe; it rises in Baden, and flows east into the Black Sea.' The teacher will then write the word Danube, or an abbreviation of it, on the black-board. The next child may select the Volga, and in that case the master writes this word below the other; and so on, until all the children have named examples.

When all have done so, the master should select any boy at random, and pointing to the first word written on the black-board, require him to trace the river out, and tell exactly what was first said of it. He will then call upon another child to do the same with the second name, and so on.

This plan of examination secures the attention of the class, and,

1 Several masters are now adopting the plan of first describing the great mountain ranges of a country, then the rivers rising on each side of the watershed and passing through the intervening valleys; next, the chief towns along their banks, and

on the line of coast; and lastly, the political divisions of which these towns are the capital, and with which their names are associated.'-Min, of Council, 1851, p. 1013.

See also 'Outlines of Geography,' by Professor Pillans.

by the repetition involved, it fixes the information conveyed more firmly in the minds of all.

(2) Select the two boys from the class who are best informed on the maps. The class can then be separated into two divisions, having these boys as heads, by their alternate calling of the remaining pupils to either side. The abilities of the pupils will in this way be pretty fairly balanced. When thus arranged in two lines (A and B), the first boy in A asks a question of any boy on the opposite side, which if he answers requires no further action. The head in line B puts a question in the same way to any boy in division A, his own dignity and the teacher's interference always preventing his questioning opponents of marked inferiority. If the boy questioned is unable to give the answer, the questioner supplies it, and in return is questioned by the former, his failure in answering counterbalancing the defect on the other side, but provided he answers the defaulter in the first case becomes his prisoner, and takes his place behind his captor, having while in that position no voice in the competition. In the event of a boy having already secured a prisoner, he can save himself from imprisonment by setting the captive free. The questions are asked in this way alternately from side to side, the teacher acting as umpire, and deciding the legitimacy of question, answer, and result. The field from which the queries are selected should be previously apportioned and adhered to in the lesson; care being taken to reject questions on trivial or unimportant places, which the love of victory may incite the children to employ. Of course the division having the greater number of prisoners at the termination of the lesson carries the victory. This is called by the children, prison-bar, from its resemblance to that game; and as they take great pleasure in it, it might be occasionally practised, especially on wet days, with considerable advantage.

When text-books are to be used. Text-books on geography, like text-books on grammar, are necessary merely to complete the picture whose chief features have been already sketched out by oral teaching; they should not, therefore, be put into the child's hands until he knows the Map of the World well. When this is the case, the text-books may be used to assist the maps-which are but text-books in another form-and the instruction must be more systematic and minute.

Order in which continents, &c. may be taught from them. It is difficult to say to which of the continents the teacher should first attend, and in what order they should follow each other, so as to provide, as well as possible, for the numerous cases in which children are forced to leave school before they learn a complete course. I think the following arrangement as good as any :

USE OF GLOBE IN TEACHING.

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Teach first. Europe, in connection with the child's own country.

Secondly. Asia-the broadest features not already known-together with the next most important part of the British Isles.

Thirdly. America, as Asia, in connection with the remaining part of the British Isles.

Fourthly. Africa and New Holland, and British Dependencies. Finally. A minute knowledge of the continents, with a revision of Great Britain and Ireland.

Such an arrangement introduces the child at an early stage to a knowledge of his country, and will therefore tend to remove the stigma, which is sometimes deservedly attached to many schools, that their pupils can give minute descriptions of Siberia or Patagonia, for instance, but cannot tell anything of the British Empire, or even of the counties, &c. of their native land.

Lessons for committal to be small. The lessons marked out for each evening's study should not be too large, and prior to the committal to memory the pupils should go over them upon the map-either the maps at the school, or atlases which for this purpose they should all be obliged to purchase. They will thus be able to get the lessons off more quickly and more correctly, and to understand them better.

Globe, use of, in the earlier lessons. Up till now I have merely referred to a globe once, and that to show the connection existing between portions of the same ocean and continent when separated on the map. Thus far I think it necessary in the beginning, and also probably to give the children true ideas of the position of different countries in respect to each other, and their distance asunder; but, in my opinion, it is very far from correct to use a globe regularly from the first, or to commence geography at all by discussions upon the shape of the earth, its size, measurement, lines, &c.

A child's notion that the World is a plane may be allowed for some time. The child's notions of the world as a level surface, dotted here and there with hills and valleys, inasmuch as they are very natural and unproductive of any serious error, should be allowed to continue for some time. Very little good, if any, ever results from violently overthrowing the preconceived notions of a child, no matter how erroneous these notions may be: they should be gradually corrected by the child himself. It will not do to tell him that he is wrong, and that a certain other thing is right. He should have the materials placed before him which will enable him to conclude for himself that he is so. When a child, for instance, supposes the world to be a plane, he certainly makes a mistake; but instead of blame, he is rather deserving of praise for

having brought his senses to bear correctly upon the things around him. Everything he sees or knows tends to make him think so of the world, and it would be unnatural for him to think otherwise. He merely commits the error of judging from a paucity or incompleteness of data. The teacher's duty is, therefore, not only to tell him that he is wrong, but to place before him the facts he did not know of, and the very same mind that previously drew the wrong conclusion will now draw the correct one. It is on this account that I have recommended first the use of maps. As he advances and is capable of understanding the proofs of the earth's sphericity, he may begin the study of globes and mathematical geography.

Proficiency for each class. It merely remains for me now to sketch out the proficiency of each class in accordance with what I have just written. Geography can be introduced at a very early age, and that without occupying much of the master's own time; for, after the child has acquired correct notions of what is meant by the words town, country, &c., the map teaching may safely be left very much to monitors. Even without monitors, if the maps are exposed before their view, the children will be able to collect a good deal of information by themselves. Geography also forms an agreeable change from the other subjects of their school course; but that the young children may not weary of it, their lesson should never be allowed to extend beyond fifteen or twenty minutes. The following is the minimum which, I think, every teacher should expect from his classes :—

1st. Should know the oceans, continents, and their relative positions.

2nd. The subdivisions of the oceans, and continents, together with the outlines of Ireland (or England, or Scotland, as the case may be).

3rd. All this, together with the chief lakes, rivers, mountains, capes, &c., in the two maps-World and Ireland.

4th. In addition to this, the text-book of Europe and Ireland. 5th. The whole of the text-book fairly, but that part relating to the British Isles well; and, in addition, a fair knowledge of Dr. Sullivan's 'Geography Generalised.'

CHAPTER VIII.

HOME LESSONS.

Necessity for. A child has so much to learn, and so little time, if in the poorer ranks of life, to learn it in, that it is not only necessary to establish a judicious and economical system of instruction in school, but it is also exceedingly important to arrange such a course of studies as will make every moment out of school available that can, consistently with other duties, be devoted to learning. Hence the necessity for what are called Home Lessons.

They extend the school hours. The school hours are about four daily; if, therefore, a boy's studies were limited to that portion of each day during which he was in immediate connection with his teacher, there would be exactly five-sixths of his time remaining, from which, if we deduct a large allowance for sleep, for taking food, for recreation, and for those small household duties that children are occasionally called on to perform, there would still be a considerable margin unprofitably employed, and which, being generally spent in idleness, would be so far counteractive of the improvement effected during school hours. And when we consider how very few years make up the entire school life of the majority of children, we cannot but attach to this loss the greatest weight. Home lessons are a most important means to mitigate the evils of short attendance and prolong school life.

Their moral influence. But besides the advantage thus springing from a judicious appropriation of time and continuance of mental effort, during a period which would otherwise be devoted to idleness, there are other advantages of no less importance attending the introduction into the school course of home lessons; one of these, and by no means the least important, is the moral influence which they exercise. Those lessons are not prepared under the master's eye; they are prepared at home, away from his control, and are, therefore, performed chiefly from the child's sense of duty. But a boy who does things because it is his duty to do them, is morally advancing, and the exercise that constantly affords him the opportunity for so acting must be regarded as an admirable means for moral culture.1

1 Home lessons create habits of by the dictation or presence of the obedience to motives not suggested master, but coming directly from the