d 'pay our earliest attention to the development of
the child's power to grasp the truths of space and time.' Dr. Hill has,
however, taken in these papers a step in a needful direction; and
perhaps the best we could at first expect, are hints and an
approximation toward a much desired result.

We may fairly assume that Mr. Willson's answer to the question, What to
teach? is in some good degree embodied in his elaborate series of
'School and Family Readers,' of which the first six of the eight
contemplated volumes have already appeared. These Readers aim to replace
in a good degree the more purely literary materials of most of their
predecessors, with a somewhat systematic and complete view of the more
generally useful branches of human knowledge. They begin, where the
child is sure to be interested, with studies of animals, illustrated
with good and often spirited drawings, and proceed through Physiology,
Botany, Architecture, Physical Geography, Chemistry, etc., up at last,
as is promised, to Mental and Moral Philosophy, Natural Theology,
Rhetoric, Criticism, Logic, the Fine Arts, including that one of those
arts, as we presume we may class it, with which pupils of the rural
schools will have best cause to become acquainted, namely, Gardening!
Readers on this plan have long been known in the schools of Prussia and
Holland, and are even lately well received in England, in the form of
Mr. Constable's popular series; though apparently, when finished, the
American series will be more full and complete in topics and treatment
of them than any preceding one. Of course, restricted space, and the
range of maturity of talents addressed, compel the presentation in
simplified form of scarcely more than 'a little learning' under the
several heads; and the compiler sensibly tells us his aim is not to give
a full exposition of any theme, but rather, 'to present a _pleasing
introduction_ to science.' We may grant, in the outset, that most pupils
will really comprehend, in and through the reading of it, but a modicum
of all the high and large fields of knowledge here intimated to them;
but who that can now look on his school-days as in the past, does not
remember how many grandiose sentences he was then called on to utter in
cadence duly swelling or pathetic, but of the meaning of which he had
not the most distant approach to a true comprehension? It was _ours_
once to be of a class whose enunciative powers were disciplined by
repeate