FOR

CHAPTER III.

OBJECTS.

Natural Objects.

'OR this kind of exercise choose some natural object common to the region. An ear of corn, a stalk of corn with ears, roots, and tassel, an apple, a grain or stalk of wheat, a cobblestone or large pebble, a blade of grass, an orange, a potato and plant, a piece of wood, a section of a tree, a butterfly, a handful of earth, etc., etc., are easily obtained.

The first lesson should be conversational, and the facts to be used in a composition-lesson to follow should be mostly obtained from the children by means of the conversation; they may be on such topics as the origin, uses, history, varieties, properties, qualities, parts, their uses, their relation to the whole, and growth of the object selected.

The potato and all other garden vegetables are interesting subjects for lessons, and can be made especially so by means of drawings, done at the lesson. Most city children know nothing of these

plants, except as they see their edible parts prepared for the table, or in the market.

Example:

The potato plant; whole plant, with large and small tubers, roots and rootlets, flowers and fruit, carefully brought to the schoolroom. (See Ruskin's "Queen of the Air," II., paragraphs 74-90.)

The second lesson on the same object concludes the talk, adds new facts found out by investigation, and begins arranging and writing carefully all information so gained in the form of a composition. The order of topics may be placed upon the board. The third lesson may be an invented story, in which the object is conspicuous.

NOTE I. The teacher ought to know more than the pupils about the object; not necessarily all that they together know.

NOTE II. The teacher may instruct older pupils to read for information on certain topics, as the origin and history, but to read only-to copy nothing.

NOTE III. After several lessons, on various objects, require pupils to arrange their paragraphs for themselves.

Manufactured Objects.

A shoe, a piece of calico, silk, woolen cloth, or carpet; a knife, a pair of scissors, a needle, a coin; a bottle, a pane of glass, a dish; a book; a straw hat, a button, a ring; a hoe, a rake, an axe.

First, Conversation, as above. Examples of questions which may be asked; How made? For what? Of what? By whom? Where? When? Uses? Whose designs? Fashions, and whose? Good qualities? Prices? History of use? How they came to be made, perhaps? Will you bring specimens? Make drawings.

Treat as the natural object in the preceding pages, so far as practicable, making three or four lessons, ending with an invented story in which the object is of importance.

NOTE I. An example of this last must be given at the board by the teacher.

NOTE II. A beginning may be made, even in very young classes, of writing schemes or plans for compositions after a series of such lessons. But this is not necessary until later. If the teacher has been careful to train the pupils to habits of order in thought as well as in material surroundings, there will be no very great need, if any, of such work. Practice and feeling will soon make such method almost habit.

CHAPTER IV.

LIVING BEINGS.

Domestic Animals.

EGIN with the familiar domestic animals;

BEGIN

otbain from the pupils in the first lesson all the facts they know about the one selected; add to these such as they can learn by close and careful questioning and by observation of the living animal when practicable. (These first lessons are not necessarily given in the schoolroom.) Let such questioning consider, mainly, external characteristics: notice form, color, size, manner of walking, manner of lying down and rising, feet, toes, claws, hoofs, ears, teeth (why sharp, or otherwise?), movements of the lower jaw, angle of spine (vertical, as in man? or horizontal, as in the ox?) shape of head, facial angle, skin, covering of skin, eyes, eyelids and pupils, nose, mouth, tongue, motions, etc. Question further about food, habits, intelligence, use to man, place in nature, kindred animals, and their resemblances to this and differences from it.

At the next lesson or lessons, (1) ask for a

written account of these facts, properly arranged. (2.) Add, orally, some account of the origin and history of the creature, species, varieties, etc., for which consult encyclopedias and works on Natural History. (3.) Use also whatever knowledge the pupils have about other animals of the same family. (4.) Ask for true stories about their own or their neighbor's animals of the same kind. (5.) Finish with an invented story.

Suggestions: Dog (wolf, fox); cat (tiger, lion, leopard, wild-cat); horse, cow, pig, sheep, goat.

In hoofed animals, show that the toes are solidified and covered with horn, and why; show the extent of the foot, and that most quadrupeds walk on their toes (that is, are digitigrade); name the bones of the legs to classes familiar with simple facts in human anatomy; show the differences between the feet of cats and dogs. Call attention to the modes and varieties of locomotion in animals.

Birds.

Begin with an object-lesson on the common hen, or some other domestic bird well-used to being handled. Find out all that is known by the pupils about birds in general; if practicable, see with them wild birds or birds in museums, and study the types of the orders, and their characteristics (feet, bill, food, habits, plumage, eyes, song); the birds of the ground, of the lower