finally, on a few main points on the United States as a whole. Do not attempt to overload the memory with the local geography of all the States, as given in most of the text-books. As the school geographies are designed for use in all parts of our country, they are necessarily crowded with details to meet the wants of each State or locality. The sensible teacher will omit all that properly belongs to the local geography of States other than that in which the pupil resides.

"Most of the geographies," says Superintendent Eliot, "contain an extraordinary amount of matter, not only useless to the few who can master it, but injurious to the many who cannot."

7. Do not expect your pupils to know more of a lesson than you remember without referring to the text-book. If you forget details, it is a sure sign that your pupils will, and therefore it is best not to require such details to be learned at all.

8. Having fixed on the main outlines to be learned, take frequent reviews upon them in order to fix them firmly in the memory. [See Part III., "Geography," sec. vii.]

9. It is almost impossible for children to remember the name and location of a place unless some association is connected with it. You must illuminate geography by means of history and descriptions.

10. If you have a good relief globe, make use of it regularly, even in your higher grades. Use the outline maps also. Secure, if possible, a set of cheap German papiermaché relief maps of the grand divisions. The cost is trifling, and the value great. From these maps, the pupil will be able, in a few hours, to form an idea of plateaus, mountain-ranges, plains, and general configuration

that an ordinary map fails to give, and which no verbal descriptions can convey.

11. It will be a pleasant variation from routine work to let your pupils write short compositions about the countries included in their regular text-book descriptions, or about imaginary voyages or travels.

12. In general, blackboard map-drawing in the rough is better than labored drawings with pen or pencil. Mapdrawing should not be made a hobby of; kept within due limits, the exercise is good, but it often runs into a waste

of time and labor.

13. Let beginners draw first a map of the schoolroom, then of the schoolhouse and grounds. As they advance, let them draw upon the blackboard, from the open book, on a large scale, an outline map of their own State, and, if possible, of their own county. Then let them outline the grand divisions, etc. Finally, require them to outline off-hand, from memory.

14. Require every class to draw on the blackboards, at least once a year, an outline map of their own State and

of the United States.

15. Relieve the monotony of daily lessons by exercises intended to stimulate and amuse. Show pupils the pictures, from illustrated magazines or papers, of beautiful or grand scenery, or of great natural curiosities, and read any short, vivid description of them by travellers.

I. GEOGRAPHY MATCHES.

Every pupil that fails, or repeats a name given before, must sit down. Continue until all but one are seated. 1. Name a city in the United States, and tell in what State it is.

2. Name a river in the United States, and tell into what it flows.

3. Name a city anywhere on the globe, and tell in what country it is.

4. Name any river on the globe, and tell into what it flows.

5. Name a sea, and tell where it is.

6. Name some useful vegetable production, and tell where it grows.

7. Name some manufactured article, and tell where it is made.

8. Name some cabinet curiosity, and tell where it may be found.

9. Name a town or city in our country beginning with the letter B, C, etc.

19. Name a country or a state; and give its capital city.

11. Let the first pupil name a city or town, and tell in what country or state it is; the next in order must name another beginning with the last letter of the town or city previously named; and so on.

II. CLASS EXERCISES IN GEOGRAPHY.

I. Let one pupil describe some city, and the others guess the name of it.

II. Let one pupil think of some city in the United States, and the others guess its name by questioning as follows:

1. Is it in the Northern, Southern, Middle, or Western States? Ans. Northern.

2. Is it a seaport, or an inland city? 3. Is it a large city, or a small one?

Ans. A seaport.
Ans. A large city.

4. Is it New York? Ans. No.

5. Was a battle ever fought there? Ans. Yes.

6. Is it Boston? Ans. Yes.

III. Let one scholar describe some river, and the others

guess its name.

IV. Let one pupil name some city situated on a river, and the others tell the name of the river.

V. Let the teacher take an imaginary voyage, exchanging products at various ports—the pupils to guess the ports.

وو

1. "WHOEVER undertakes to instruct youth in history,' says the German educator Niemeyer, "as the value of that science requires, must regard equally the memory, the understanding, and the feelings.”

2. There is no "patent method" for teaching history. In this study, more than in most other elementary school branches, the teacher, by his skill, tact, and stores of information, must clothe the skeleton of facts with the flesh of imagination, and breathe into it the breath of life. But, rightly pursued, it has the two characteristics of a useful study-namely, good mental exercise and useful information.

3. Let the advance lesson in the text - book be read aloud in the class. Call attention to the leading facts to be memorized, and let the pupils mark them with a pencil. A considerable part of the history is intended, not to be memorized, but merely to be read.

4. Of the early discoveries treated of so fully in the text-book, single out three or four to be learned, and let the remainder alone. In the period of settlements, select the four great centres-namely, Virginia, Massachusetts, New York, and Pennsylvania; the remaining settlements belong properly to local State history. Out of the numberless details of Indian and colonial wars, select only