l Sciences in all their branches,
Vegetable and Animal Physiology, the Political and Social Sciences; which
should be presented in the order in which the attention and desire to
learn could be aroused.

It will hardly fail to strike the mind of the reader that nothing has yet
been said about giving instruction in the use of those tools for acquiring
knowledge, reading, writing, ciphering and drawing. The true teacher will
understand the omission. The commencement of the instruction in reading,
writing, ciphering, drawing, and in spelling, would take place as part of
the object lesson which should be adopted as the first step to knowledge,
and should be retained in the most advanced classes as the most perfect
method of applying the knowledge which has been acquired. It would soon be
understood by the pupils that the power of reading, of writing, of
designing and of calculating is essential to the acquirement of knowledge,
and to any thing like extent and variety of information on subjects
relating to individual and social well-being. The desire of acquiring this
knowledge would quicken the faculties of the children, augment their
industry, and lighten the labors of the teacher to an indefinable extent.
The teacher who should fail to impart a moderate degree of skill in these
arts to most, and of excellence to many, at the same time that adequate
progress was made in the study of the sciences we have named, should be
deemed unfit for his profession, and not be allowed to relieve himself
from disgrace by magnifying the difficulties of his task or by complaints
of the idleness or want of capacity of his pupils. As children will take
interest in what they learn in proportion to their understanding of its
bearing upon their own happiness, and upon their actual life and
surroundings, the knowledge of themselves as beings acted upon by
surrounding objects and by their own kind, should be carefully imparted to
them simultaneously with the knowledge of the qualities of the surrounding
objects destined to act upon them.

Children thus worked upon by skilled and earnest instructors; led to find
out and observe the properties of that Nature of which they form a part;
their minds nourished by the enjoyment which follows the mastering of
every difficulty, and the addition of every fresh item of knowledge to
their previous store; trained also in habits of healthfulness and of
amiability; will not only cheerfully give themselves to stu