actual things which the terms of the table
represent. He may learn to say "sixty seconds make a minute, sixty
minutes make a degree, three hundred and sixty degrees make a circle,"
with no more idea of the things expressed by this formula of words, than
the parrot who has been taught to say, "You are a big fool." If the
teacher will show the child an actual circle, with the degrees, minutes,
and seconds marked, and will let him count them for himself, so that he
has a real knowledge of the things, he will then not only commit this
formula of words to memory more easily, but the knowledge itself will
promote his mental growth. He will be feeding on real knowledge, not on
its husks. So in learning about inches, feet, yards, rods, and miles,
let the teacher, with foot-rule and yard-stick, show what these measures
really are, let him by some familiar instance give the child an idea of
what a mile is, and then let the memory be invoked to store up the
knowledge gained. So with ounces, pounds, and hundred-weights. So with
gills, quarts, and gallons. The common weights and measures are as
necessary in the school-room as are spelling-books and arithmetics. The
actual weights and measures, so far as possible, should be exhibited,
should be seen and handled, and the child's mind made to grasp the very
things which the terms express, that is, he should first get real
knowledge, and then he should store his memory with it in exact words
and forms of expression.

This is the true mental order. Knowledge first, then memory. Get
knowledge, then keep it. Any other plan is like attempting to become
rich by inflating your bags with wind, instead of filling them with
gold, or attempting to grow fat by bolting food in a form which you
cannot digest.

Some teachers, in their fear of cramming children with words, spend
their whole time and energy in awakening thought, and none in fixing
upon the memory the thoughts which have been awakened. They are so much
afraid of making children parrots, that they discard rules entirely in
teaching, or require pupils to frame rules for themselves. This is to go
into the opposite extreme. The rules and formulas of science require the
greatest care and consideration, and a large and varied knowledge. Few
even of men of learning and of those specially skilled in the meaning of
words and the use of language, are qualified to frame scientific rules
and propositions. To suppose that young children, just begi