might be easily taught, if taught properly, without overburdening the mind of an intelligent pupil, before he had arrived at the period suitable for subjective study.

While treating of the education of the perceptive powers, I should have spoken of drawing as an important auxiliary. The acquisition of this accomplishment calls into exercise the most earnest use of the perceptive powers. It gives accuracy to the eye. It develops the taste, and teaches to select and dwell upon the elements of the beautiful. With proper instruction, this delightful art might be learned as universally as penmanship. That we could make every pupil an accomplished draftsman, I do not affirm, any more than that we can make every one a finished penman. We should, however, improve the perceptive powers and the taste of all, and 'wherever a talent for the fine arts has been bestowed, we should thus arouse it from its slumber, and place it at once in the course of development.

I might easily pursue these remarks into the higher branches of education, but our time is already exhausted. I ought rather to apologize for obtruding these suggestions upon an audience who have had far larger experience than myself in this department of our profession. I know, however, that you will receive them with your accustomed candor, and that I address an assembly of teachers who are perfectly able to correct my errors and supply my deficiencies.

Ladies and Gentlemen; the profession which we

have chosen has, like every other, its peculiar trials. The seed which we sow does not commonly bear its appropriate fruit, until long after it has passed out of our sight. Our best efforts in behalf of our pupils are frequently those which are most rarely appreciated. But let us remember that truth is the daughter of time. The results of honest and faithful effort will, in the end, be acknowledged; but whether acknowledged or not, there they remain, and they can never be annihilated. We labor not to shape rude matter into forms of beauty or magnificence, but to cultivate the immortal mind, to invigorate the intellect, and adorn with social grace and elevate by Christian principles, the spiritual nature of man. Let us, then, with renewed zeal and overcoming faith, address ourselves to the duties that are before us. Who can tell how much of the weal or woe of the coming generation depends upon the labors of us and our associates. Let us not be weary in well-doing, for in due season we shall reap if we faint not.

LECTURE II.

THE PROMINENCE WHICH SHOULD BE GIVEN TO FACTS IN EDUCATION.

BY WORTHINGTON HOOKER.

THE child on the day of his birth begins a course of education or training which is to go on through life, varying at different stages with the varying circumstances of his condition. This broad view of education is the only one which will lead us to correct conclusions. The narrow view of it, which is so commonly taken, as a course of training that begins when the child is introduced into the schoolroom, has led to many errors. The instruments or means by which education from the first is effected are the senses and the muscles, - the senses bring the inlets of all knowledge, and the muscles bring the outlets, by which all knowledge is communicated. The mind of the child begins at once to exercise these instruments, in other words, it begins to train or educate itself through these means of its communication with the world around it. This education is threefold. 1st. There is a train

ing of the mind in the use of the senses in acquiring knowledge. 2d. There is a training of the mind in the use of this knowledge, thus gathered, by its powers of reflection or reasoning. 3d. There is a training of the mind in the communication of its knowledge through the muscles by the language of natural and arbitrary signs.

The material of all knowledge comes, then, to the mind through the senses, that is, by observation, for the mind may be said to observe through the senses. This material, or stock, as it may be called, is made up of facts or phenomena, which the mind thus observing, reflects upon, and from them deduces general truths or principles. These two processes,

-the gathering of the material and the using of it in reasoning, are in some measure distinct, though they are often mingled together. The process, also, by which the knowledge thus obtained, is communicated, is a distinct one. It is important to bear in mind in education that these three processes not only require different modes of training, but should be cultivated in different degrees in the various stages of the mind's progress. This truth will be exemplified as we proceed.

From what has been said, this general proposition may be stated in regard to education, namely, that the facts or phenomena which are the basis of the mind's knowledge, should furnish the chief material for the instruction of the mind.

This proposition is true, first, if we look at facts as distinguished from the general truths which are deduced from them. The abstract should, as a gen

eral rule, be made less prominent in education than the concrete. Training in the observation of facts should be considered as the great business of the teacher. This is true of the whole course of instruction, but it is especially true of its early part.

That this training should be the great business of the teacher in the case of the child will be obvious, if you look at the characteristics of the mind in childhood, in distinction from those which it presents in riper years. The mind may be said to have two kinds of reasoning power, that is, if reasoning be considered as consisting in making inferences. The first or lower kind of reasoning is possessed by the brutes in common with man. It depends entirely upon mental association. Both the animal and man, associating one fact with another, make inferences from this association. The relation of cause and effect is to a great extent learned in thi way. Quite a large portion of our knowledge is acquired by means of this power. But there is a higher kind of reasoning, that man has in distinction from the brutes, which enables him to discover general or abstract truths.

The first or lower kind of reasoning is developed at the beginning, and is the child's means of acquiring general, or rather associated, views of phenomena in his observations. The higher kind of reasoning power is developed later and quite slowly. This being so, no attempt should be made to indoctrinate the child in abstract truths; but his mind should be guided in the accurate observation of phenomena. His mind would in this way lay