heir faces.

Music may then be used. It should be a very simple march, the rhythm
of which is not obvious at first, but which accompanies and enlivens
the spontaneous efforts of the children.

When they have learned in this way to master their balance the
children have brought the act of walking to a remarkable standard of
perfection, and have acquired, in addition to security and composure
in their natural gait, an unusually graceful carriage of the body. The
exercise on the line can afterwards be made more complicated in
various ways. The first application is that of calling forth rhythmic
exercise by the sound of a march upon the piano. When the same march
is repeated during several days, the children end by feeling the
rhythm and by following it with movements of their arms and feet. They
also accompany the exercises on the line with songs.

Little by little the music is _understood_ by the children. They
finish, as in Miss George's school at Washington, by singing over
their daily work with the didactic material. The "Children's House,"
then, resembles a hive of bees humming as they work.

As to the little gymnasium, of which I speak in my book on the
"Method," one piece of apparatus is particularly practical. This is
the "fence," from which the children hang by their arms, freeing their
legs from the heavy weight of the body and strengthening the arms.
This fence has also the advantage of being useful in a garden for the
purpose of dividing one part from another, as, for example, the
flower-beds from the garden walks, and it does not detract in any way
from the appearance of the garden.

SENSORY EDUCATION

[Illustration: FIG. 5.--CYLINDERS DECREASING IN DIAMETER ONLY.]

[Illustration: FIG. 6.--CYLINDERS DECREASING IN DIAMETER AND HEIGHT.]

[Illustration: FIG. 7.--CYLINDERS DECREASING IN HEIGHT ONLY.]

My didactic material offers to the child the _means_ for what may be
called "sensory education."

In the box of material the first three objects which are likely to
attract the attention of a little child from two and a half to three
years old are three solid pieces of wood, in each of which is inserted
a row of ten small cylinders, or sometimes discs, all furnished with a
button for a handle. In the first case there is a row of cylinders of
the same height, but with a diameter which decreases from thick to
thin. (Fig. 5.) In the second there are cylinders which decrease in
all dimensions, and so