to their station in society, but merely to the circumstances, which may be connected with a continuance in their present station. How many masters and mistresses, from old age, or from blindness, have been under the necessity of applying to their servants to read to them, and have, at length, been compelled to abandon this desirable expedient, from no other cause, than the disgust arising from the coarse and vulgar pronunciation of the reader! In nothing, however, has the reading of our pupils been more commended, than with regard to the management of the natural pauses and the emphases, which has not escaped the attention of the most scientific teachers, and is entirely to be ascribed to the pains bestowed on the cultivation of their understanding, for which no artificial system of rules can at all compensate.

In teaching to read, it is of consequence that the youngest classes, before quitting their early tables, which are to be made the foundation of their future reading, should be able to pronounce all the words with great accuracy. But with regard to the middle stages, we are by no means friendly to detaining the class in a particular lesson, till all the individuals who compose it shall be able to exhibit the unnatural aspect, (sometimes presented at public examinations,) of reading with the same facility and elegance, as the best scholars in the most advanced classes. This naturally degenerates into an exercise more of mere memory, than of reading properly so called, and unnecessarily limits the field for the communication of useful knowledge.

L

In the Sessional School, the children are now taught to spell from their ordinary reading lessons, employing for this purpose both the short and the long words as they occur. Under the former practice in the school, of selecting merely what are longer and apparently more difficult words, we very frequently found the pupils unable to spell the shorter and more common ones, which we still find by no means uncommon in those, who come to us from some other schools. By making the pupil, too, spell the lesson, just as he would write it, he is less liable to fall in future life into the common error of substituting the word their for there, and others of a similar kind. In former times, the practice prevailed of telling a long story about every word which was spelt thus, in spelling the word exemplification, for instance, even a child in the higher classes used to say, "ex, ex; em, em; exem; pli, ple, exemple ; "fi, fe, exemplefe; c a, ça, exemplefeca; tion, "shun, exemplefecashun; six syllables, and ac"cented on the penult syllable." This, obviously, as a general practice, was a great waste of time, and is we believe almost universally exploded. In our own school, the pupil, in spelling, merely names the letters, making a marked pause at the end of each syllable. If the child too be required to pronounce the word correctly, there can be no necessity in every case for the technicalism, (if we may so speak,) of naming the accented syllable, more than for specifying the particular sound of each vowel in the word.

CHAP. XVI.

DAILY RELIGIOUS EXERCISES.

And now, he cried, I shall be pleased to get
Beyond the Bible,-there I puzzle yet.

CRABBE.

WE formerly described the Religious Instruction given to the children attending the Sunday Schools, connected with the Edinburgh Parochial Institutions. But if we would indeed render this instruction effectual to their benefit, and make it become as it were incorporated with themselves,-" grow "with their growth, and strengthen with their "strength,"-something more than weekly training is absolutely essential for this purpose. Every suitable opportunity must be seized for throwing light upon the truths, and enforcing the obligations of religion. Nor only so we must not merely avail ourselves of the occasions that offer, but must, especially in the education of the lower classes, whose means of domestic instruction are frequently

but scanty, specially set apart a portion of every day for this purpose.

The business of the Sessional School, as we have elsewhere noticed, both commences and concludes every day with prayer. All the books used in the school contain a large proportion of Religious and Moral Instruction. The earliest of them are in a great measure composed of little incidents selected from Scripture History. From the time that the children are able to read it with tolerable ease, the Bible itself is put into their hands; it is thenceforward read as a part of their daily instructions, along with any other exercises which may be required of them; and, while they remain in the school, it never ceases to form an important part of their studies. It is not there, as in many other schools, dropt when the children advance a certain length neither can they ever boast that they are 66 now out of the Bible." In the very highest class of the school, which is most occupied with other studies, the Bible also is by means of a proper husbandry of time most read. In that class as well as the one immediately below it, a systematic reading of Scripture has been adopted, which has been found highly beneficial in making its different parts bear upon and illustrate one another. On Monday, one chapter at least is read from the historical books of the Old Testament; on Tuesday, a chapter or more of the Gospels or Acts of the Apostles; on Thursday, a portion of the Prophets, Psalms, Proverbs, or Ecclesiastes; on Friday, a portion of the Epistles; on Wednesday, (which is the only day

on which Scripture itself is not read,) an hour is devoted to examination on the Catechism and Scripture Biography; and on Saturday, the children are examined on the whole Scripture Reading of the week. It is very remarkable how often the passages of Scripture read in this way, in the course of a week, throw light upon each other, the passages read in the Gospels being fulfilments of the predictions read in the Prophets, and the passages in the Epistles, bearing reference to customs or incidents recorded in those, which were read from the Historical Books.* This method, accordingly, has been found by the children both most interesting and instructive. The nature of the examination on Scripture will, we trust, be easily understood, from what has been already said regarding explanations in general, and particularly regarding those which are given in the Market Street Sunday School. One thing only we would remark on this subject, that the examinations on the Bible are strictly confined to such, as may enable the pupils to understand the passages read, or augment their religious knowledge. Questions regarding orthography, grammar, and the general meaning of the language, are invariably reserved for those other books, which always accompany the reading of the Bible.

* As a striking instance of this coincidence, we may mention, that in the very week in which we are revising this part of our second edition, the children have happened to read, in regular course, the 110th Psalm, and 12th Chapter of St. Mark's Gospel; in which last we have an account of the manner in which our Lord, by means of that Psalm, confounded his adversaries.