ciation of words and letters, in the elementary lessons before mentioned. 15. The elements of penmanship may be very conveniently taught, so far at least as regards the forms of letters, by the use of the black board and the slate. 16. Simple exercises in arithmetic may be prescribed in the same way. 17. Formal lessons in geometry and astronomy can only prove useless, or worse than useless, to very young children. But a few of the solids, corresponding to the shapes of common objects, may be used, to good advantage, as the basis of correct ideas of form. Thus far apparatus and other illustrations may prove highly useful, 18. Teachers of elementary schools should, if possible, prepare themselves for teaching the rudiments of drawing and singing.* 19 A great means of immediate improvement in the business of teaching, may be found in the opportunities afforded by the instruction imparted at the meetings of Lyceums and teachers' associations; if these are aided, as they always should be, by the use of an extensive and well-selected library, and are regarded as merely the outer gates of knowledge, whose inmost treasures are never to be won but by the efforts of individual diligence and personal investigation. * Much assistance, in relation to vocal music, may be justly expected from a work now in press, compiled by Mr Lowell Mason, from materials collected by Mr William Woodbridge, during his residence in Germany and Switzerland. LECTURE IV. ON THE SPELLING OF WORDS, AND A RATIONAL METHOD OF TEACHING THEIR MEANING. BY G. F. THAYER, PRINCIPAL OF CHAUNCY-HALL SCHOOL, BOSTON. THE subject on which I have been appointed to address you, is, I am aware, when compared with many others, of inconsiderable moment. Still, it was thought to be worthy the attention of this Association; and, in accepting the invitation of your Committee to treat upon it, my duty to them and to you, requires, that it should receive all the consideration which its intrinsic importance demands. I shall detain the Institute but for a very short time, in this lecture, because its subject is one very simple in its nature, and not fairly admitting that scope, which those of a more diversified character might seem to invite. It is a matter of fact topic, which demands simple statements, rejecting all ornament and amplification. I shall, therefore, be brief, plain, and direct; and not aspiring to offer a single new idea on this branch,-lying at the very threshold of the temple of education,-to those who have ministered any long time at its altar, I shall hope rather to aid those who have been recently invested with its robes. |