The New and Improved Books, forming a Complete Series, are:

Greene's Introduction to English Grammar,

Greene's English Grammar

AND

42 cts.

67 ets

These Grammers were prepared by Prof. S. S. Greene, of Brown Uni. versity. They are the result of a long and careful study of the language itselt, as well as of the best methods of teaching it. The system by which the principles are here exhibited, is simple and easy of attainment, differing in many essential particulars from that of any other author.

Prot. Greene's connection with Public Schools, Normal Schools, and Teachers' Institutes, has given him peculiar facilities for adopting textbooks to the wants of the different grades of schools, and his success is best manifested by the great and permanent popularity which his books have attained. His previous works have been long and favorable known to teachers and other friends of Education, and are still extensively used in the better class of sehools throughout the United States. He has prepared these last works after twelve years' experience, and it is believed that they are better suited to the wants of pupils and teachers, than any similar works now before the public.

Though so recently issued, these new books are already used in fourteen cities and hundreds of important towns in New England alone. A large najority of the leadidg teachers in the country have given their testimony in their favor.

The above named books will be furnished for first introduction at Greatly Reduced Prices, so that in many cases it will be even more economical to introduce them than to continue using inferior works.

Teachers and School Officers intending to make changes in any of the above departments, and who wish to get the Best Text Books, are request ed to examine these and compare them with contemporary publications.

Copies will be sent for examination by mail (postage paid) on receipt of one third the annexed prices; or they will be furnished gratis on personal application to

Edward Dawley, Boston, Mass., Agent for

Introduction,

Office at Cyrus G. Cooke's Bookstore, 37 & 39 Brattle St.

THE

Vermont School Journal.

Vol. VI. DECEMBER, 1864.

No. XII.

PARTICULAR EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS. FROM THE FRENCH OF MME. DE. STAEL.

It may seem inconsistent, at first, to eulogize the old method which made the study of languages the basis of education, and to consider the school of Pestalozzi one of the best institutions of the age: yet I think both these views can be reconciled. Of all studies, the one which gives the most brilliant results, with Pestalozzi, is mathematics. But it seems to me that his method might be applied to several other branches of instruction, and that it would ensure rapid and steady progress.

Rousseau thought that children before the age of twelve or thirteen years had not the intelligence necessary for the studies which were required of them, or rather for the method of teaching to which they were submitted. They repeated without understanding, worked without learning, and often gained from their education only a habit of performing their tasks without comprehending them and of exerting their cunning in evading the mas ter's power.

All that Rousseau has said against this mechanical education is perfectly true-but as often happens, what he proposes as a remedy is still worse than the evil.

A child, who according to the system of Rousseau would have learned nothing at the age of twelve, would have lost six precious years of his life :-his intellectual powers would never acquire that flexibility which exercise from early infancy alone could give. A habit of idleness would be so enrooted in him, that he would be rendered much more unhappy by speaking to him of work for the first time, at twelve years old, than by accustoming him from the first to consider it a necessary condition of life. Besides, the kind of care which Rousseau exacts of the instructor to fill the place of study and to force knowledge, would oblige each man to devote his whole life to the education of one another, and only grand fathers would be free to commencé a personal career. Such projects are chimerical, while the method of Pestalozzi is real and practical and may have a great influence upon the future progress of the human mind.

Rousseau says, truly enough, that children do not understand what they learn and he concludes, therefore, that they ought to learn nothing. Pestalozzi has stud ied deeply why it is that they do not understand and his method simplifies and graduates ideas in such a way that they come within the grasp of childhood, and the mind at that age reaches the deepest results without fatigue. By passing through every step of the reasoning with exactness he enables the child to find out for himself what he wishes to teach him.

There is no almost in his method. One understands well or not at all; for all the propositions are so closely related that the second thought is always the immediate result of the first. Rousseau said that children's heads were tired with the studies required of them: Pestalozzi leads them in a way so easy, and positive that it costs them no more to becoms initiated in the most abstract sciences than in the simplest occupations; each step is as easy from its relation to its antecedent as the most natural conclusion drawn from ths most ordinary circum

stances. What children tire of, is making them skip the intermediate and advance without knowing what they think they have learned. They feel then a sort of confusion which renders all examination dreadful and inspires them with an unconquerable distaste for work. No trace of this difficulty is found with Pestalozzi; the children are pleased with their studies,-not that they make a sport of them, which as I have already said makes pleasure wearisome and study frivolous.-but they taste the happiness of mature minds, knowing, understanding and finishing their tasks.

The method of Pestalozzi, like all that is truly good, is not an entirely new discovery but an enlightened and persevering application of known truths. Patience, observation, and a philosophical study of the processes of the human mind have shown him what is elementary in thought and successive in its development, and he has carried farther than any one else, the theory and practice of graduation in teaching. His method has been successfully applied to Grammar, Geography and Music, and it is very desirable that distinguished professors who have adopted his principles should use them for all kinds of knowledge. History especially is not yet well understood. The gradation of impressions has not been observed in literature as in scientific problems. In short, much must be done in order to bring education to its highest point, which is, the art of putting oneself behind what he knows to make others comprehend it.

Pestalozzi uses Geometry in teaching children arithmetical calculation; this was also the method of the ancients. Geometry addresses the imagination more than the abstract mathematics.

In teaching, it is well to unite, as much as possible precision and variety of impressions if one wishes to become entire master of the human mind; for it is not the depth of knowledge but obscurity in the way of presenting it, which keeps children from grasping it. They understand