%. s^. •Ti-^ w w IMAGE EVALUA I ION TEST TARGET (MT-S) ^^ // {/ ^. ^^ ^^^ % J^/ iA C/u % ^ 1.0 I.I 11.25 12.8 3.2 M 2.2 M. ill 1.6 o / "^"^^'.^ l, or an article on a special subjet, as of sea-faring life, ballooning or aerial navigation, — the arts, sciences and manufactures, — coiiimerci^il subjects, — civic mat- ters — legislative, parliamentary, etc., — articles relating to our peace or war relat ons with neighbouring or foreign coun- tries — social topics — cosmography — meteorology, etc. ; it is quite another thing : the child has to be stopped every now and then and in fact very frequently, as to its appre- ciation of the meaning of a word, the signification of a host of abbreviations and so forth. I have seen graduates from our convents, well up in a sufficiency of botany, conchology, and several of the other ologies, who had not the least idea of what a ward of n. city means — what an alderman — having the most indefinite idea of the meaning of the word taxes or assessment — as to where the money comes from and how raised to pay for city gas ar electric lighting, fire or other service, paving, cleanipg, etc.— of why and how the country is divided into states or pro- vinces and counties, townships and the like — of the extent of .civic, state or Jegislative, congressional or parliamentary jurisdiction,— of the jn'erogatives of a Monarch, President,Gov- ernor General, Lieut. Governor, Senate, House of Commons House of Lords, Privy Council, Council of Ministers, etc. ; of the difference between a Circuit, a Superior or a Supreme Court, a Court of Revision, an Exchequer Court, etc. In an Owher sphere : what diflTerence there is between a boat, a skiff, a schooner, a yacht, a brig, bark, ship, etc. — what a pontoon, a slip, a landing stage, — what the meaning of an ocean grey- hound,, of the abbreviatiop S. S. as for steamship — a compart- ment in an ocean liner, a bulk-head, a scuttle, a coal-bunker, a locker, and the hundred and one terms of nautical phraseo- logy — the " crows ne^t " as allowing, on account of the spher- icity of the earth, of a more extended field of view from the mast head of a vessel — the t^rins employed in whaling, " sealing" sailing, fishing in general, hunting, sporting, etc. It is surprising anu may be it should not be, that a child otherwise well informed for its age, can not tell the con- secutive daj's of the week, months of the year, the number of days in each, the hours in a day, how to read the hour on the dial of a clock or watch — possibly because the teacher happening to know it, imagines the pupil does, m — 5 — that things like these are .> be taught and learnt at home. And there are many " object lessons" which in reality are but •* word lessons " of things that can be explained or under- stood without the object, or when the object can not be had nor seen, or the seeing of which would add nothii>g to the facility of comprehension of it by the pupil. A child may thus be told or made to understand that an armored vessel, is one lined with iron or steel plates to keep the enemy's bullets from piercing it — that a compartment vessel is one divided into sections by so many, so called " bulk heads," so that when after a collision at sea, or fouling on a crag of rock, one compartment is burst into, and when the bulk head doors are closed, the disrupted secti''n may till with water, without endangering the safety of the vessel- -that even the double skin is a protection, in, that the outer skin may be pierced without the inner suifering ; and occasion may here be taken to tell the child that if the Victoria keeled over and went down, after being struck by the Garaperdown — the Bourgogne by the other vessel ; it is because there was a longitudinal bulk head or division along the centre of the vessel, whereby the water flowing in at the breech, instead of spreading to the opposite side of the vessel and thus leaving it in a state of equilibrium — displaced the centre of gravity, or made the vessel side-heavy, which caused it to tilt over until the water rushed in at the side scuttles, ports or openings, thus upsettidg the vessel and making a total wrecfk of it by causing it to founder. ^ ' ' ' "* '' It is surprising in this respect how much can be told or explained in a very few words. It adds nothing to any one's knowledge of how glass is made of molten sand, to have a pieCe of the material by you, when it is to be seen in. every window of the house ; and in a very few words can be explain- ed, how plate glass" is cast on a steel or iron table, rolled into equality of thickness and polished off; and how sheet glass is made by dipping up some of the molten stuff on the end of a — 6 — tube or hollow bar of iron, blowini^ and swint^inj^ it the while, into the shape of a cylinder or muff ; cutting nwny the ends, splitting, und how, along its length, flattening out and cutting into squares. Brick is easily explained as puddled or tri- turated clay, pressed into a mold, pressed out ngain, laid in the sun to dry for weeks, and then baked, and how piled and tired for the purpose. Coal can be exp ained t( be not a manufactured article; but indigenous — or nianufactureiJ at God Almighty's bidding or in obedience to His laws of nature, from forest growths and how, in successive layers with strata of stone between ; and how, this stone got there, is told in a few words of how the Sun evaporates the sea, these vapours, clouds — the clouds, rain — the rain, rills and rivulets —these last becoming rivers, washing down sand and debris of frost disintegrated rock, into estuaries, lakes and seas, forming sediment deposits, thereafter chemically, physically and mechanically hardened into stone — and thus the inter- mittent beds of stone and coal in the coal measures, by suc- cessive submergence and upheaval of the earth's crust under the effects of internal heat and steam and other seismic action. How coton is from a plant or grows, furs from animals, worsted as seen hanging from the ovines— how tissues are made like wicker work by being woven — how into fabrics by woof and warp and shuttle — how metals as lead and iron and copper are made liquid by heat and cast into moulds — the moulds ho\'' made with sand and in two or more parts to allow the models to draw — how cores are made and held in place for hollow ware. How light travels instantaneous, how of sound (roughly 1000 ft. per second) arid how thus distances can bj computed in certain cases — how the earth is surrounded by an atmos- pher of air and how this air presses at it^ surface — feathers being a proper simile to show how there is no pressure, uo weight at top, while 15Ib below — and how this pressure is il- lustmted by a saucer or dish of water with a tumbler in it up side down, the air displacing the water, while by burning out its component oxygen, its quantity is reduced and the waiter then forced up into the tumbler by the preponderating out- side pressure on the water in the disli. ftntl both like the billiard ball that rebounds from the cUiShioij^.; or, bringing it homo to the child : like the marble, rebounds or returns from the wall against which it is thrown. What a vacuum is, and how formed in a barometer, or thermo- meter tube, an'^' this by being kept closed by the finger until plunged beneath the surface of the mercury ; the pressure of the air thus Alls it and to a depth or height indicative of pouncis. per inch ; and how when its surface rises to fine weather, it is convex; and concave or the contrary of convex when descending to foul or rainy weather. The same with the thermometer : when the mercury fills or descends into tK© billb upon contraction by cold and rises in the tube by eixpatision under heat — the zero point, as in the centigrade, iiojdicative of the temperature of melting ice is thus attain- ed ijkud so marked on the tube ; the upper point or that of boiling water by plunging the instrument therein, and the degrees; of hea,t from to 100 divided and registered on the tube. How of a small one, the bulb placed and held beneath the tongue with closed lips shows the temperature of tlie blood. The differences betwen the thermometers : the Centi- ffraidi^, th<3 Rheailmur, the Farenheit. - ; " . " How these instruments are used or utilized : the oaro- ipj^er as indicative of heights or altitudes in. a balloon or on aslane of oscillation, and how Deve'rthe)^^, After an hour G»r less, the plane of motion of the ])e^i^)tiM ^111 be fotfttd to be obDque to the line, to wh'tlih yo^ ^ftftfetj |)«iPi»llel, .,■: —10— •'-''■■ ->■ /'i : Take hold of a paper triangle and cut off its three apices or corners and placing them together, along a straight line, show how they fit and touch and form two right angles, ami that therefore when two angles of a triangle are known, the third is known ; thus illustrative of how inaccessible dis- tances are arrived at, and when ths base is equal to the dia-neter of the earth, or even less, the moon's distance or the : sun's can be therefrom predicated by sighting to it from either, that is from each end of ?t or both ends simultane- , ously ; or when the base is that of the diameter of the earth's orbit, and angles taken therefrom at six months interval to a star, the star's whereabouts can be told or how , far off it is. And just her'e the t3acher must be reminded that it suffices that some plausible way of doing the thing be ^ intimated to the pupil, even if it be not one of the actual or practical modes of doing the thing — as it might be greek to him to talk about the transit of Venus, which would lead to . a much longer explanation ; while the base and angles system is brought home to him in a few minutes by a mere pen or ,pencil sketch on paper or on a black board with chalk. Show how every triangle is the half of a corresponding parallelogram and thus how its area is equal to its base into half its height or vice-versa ; and how thus by dividing any, figure into triangles iis area can be made up of its components • and how, of a circle, a similar division into triangles by lines drawn from its centre shows at once that the sum of bases, or the circumference, into half the radius, gives the area. Show how, if the heat while descending into the bowels of the earth increases as it does by say one degree in 50 ft., the temperauure at 80 miles would be such that all its components would be in a state of fusion or incandescence and how thus it is supposed of the earth, that it was at one time in a molten or fluid condition, as stiil evidenced by volcanoes or by its protuberance at the equator, and how the surface has cooled down into a crust, and that crust thrust — 11 -^ tip and down into hills and hollows as a pie-crust is by th« Action of the steam beneath it. How an atmospihere, which may primarily have been of vapor, due to the earths incand- escence, condensed itself into water when the earth's crust had cooled down sufficiently to allow of it and 'how, as already iStated, the sun has acted and still acts, pumpiiig or sacking up the water of the sea and lakes and rivers, which driven by the wind to colder mountain heights is there ndensed back into rain and by its action, forming ohanndls for itself along the depths of valleys, has eroded, hollowed out mount- ainous areas into various and deeip channels and how the sttiff from these has been carried along and deposited on th(^ flats and hdlows of the earth and formed beds oif »tone or strata whic9i now constitude the geological crust of our ftlairet ; and how animal and vegetable growth has been thus buried ttnder, and now revealed again to us after centuries, by aew channels being dvtg in these very strata, or in biifcr- rowing into the earsth for coal and salt ani"! metals, gold rtnd silver axkd the like and lead and iron, or in boring !for arter- sian weftls, tunnelling through mountains for railways and GB/nals and drainage purposes. The child ef proper age can be taught how to appreciate the fraction -of a eecond, by being made to let pass between its t*humb and finger the leaves of a book, which, as they fly pa«t, can be seen and felt; and however incredulous that it l*eq«ire8 200,0)0 sheets of gold leaf to make up an inch, can not but admit and be convinced of it, on being toiid that a f " cube of gold can be beaten and thinned out until *t reaches an area equal to 20 X 20 feet or 400 feet supepficiail. It can be taught to understand the motion of the earth around the sun, and df the moon simultaneously around thd earth, 'by aucrh asin>iie as that of a bicycle supposed to travel ttround a circular area, enclosed or not, with say a light or any '6bj«ct at it-; centre to represent the orb of day — where, 6»ce:aroun;| tJli.i-coai-.se will be the year, while every turn df .■1 the wheel in going around will be a day, and the smaller or steering wheel, and because smaller and revolving quicker on its axis, and thus presenting itself in succession to every portion of the larger wheel or earth, simulate the moon in :ts motion around our planet. Now all this my children know, and have been taught in a series of successive lessons, and only as a word came along in their readings to me, suggestive of the necessity of an explanation. Yes, they know thus much of astronomy without ever having had it taught to them at school' or convent or at college, though they may have been taught it when more advanced ; but knew it all from me before that, and if not so thoroughly, at least, in so far as their inquisitive minds were hankering after the information. My girls and boys have as yet. been taught no chemistry, no physics, no geology, no climatology ; but they have now the make up of the earth in their minds eye. They know that carbonic acid gas is expelled from the lungs and taken up by vegetable nature — that fchis gas is heavier than common air and lurks in wells and caverns and in cellars and how to tell of its existence by lowering a lighted taper ere they dare go down themselves — They know how a speaking trumpet acts, and how the rays from a light house go off together on their evrand of humanity — how the simultaneous report from a whole regiment of rifles, is heard in successive detonations due to the time sound requires to reach the ear from further and still further off". They can be made to understand how the velocity of a shot can be computed even though unseen' by breaking, in its flight, or passing through a screen at given distance and thus making known the time of transit by electric or instantaneous registration of the fact. And there are a thousand other things which can be taught and inculcated, and where the difficulty is not in doing but in awaiting the word suggestive of so doing, of an explan- ation : as that a steam or gas, or air engine is riiade to go by ^ .V —13— ,.A:.. introducing steam into nnd at one end of a cylinder and at one side of a piston — af test preluding by, what is a cylinder, and how made and what a piston, and the piston rod, and a word as to the forcj or pressnre of steam as evidenced in its raising of the cover of the tea kettle — the piston thus blown or pushed towards and to the other end : and then by automatic (acting spontaneously or of itself) machinery closing the aperture by which the steam or compressed air entered at that end ; opening the exit or outflow port at same end and simultaneously the adit or entrance at the other end, to blow the piston back again and so on — for this action is hidden and cannot be seen though easily imagined ; while, as to the mode of communication by the piston rod to the machinery through one end of the cylinder or of its cover ; you may have explained or may explain this to the child next time you are on board a ferry boat, where the piston rod and its connecting links to a cross head working back and forth or up and down in an opposite pair of guides, is seen to swing the working or the " walking beam " so called, about its pivot on the supporting shears or trestle ; the other end following suit and with it the connecting rod revolving the single or double crank ,and this the axle or shaft ; and this last, the paddle wheels; and these, by pressure against the water, moving the boat forward or backward when the action is reversed — and this action, as by the time you reach the boat, you may have ^forgotten all about the teaching, may be apprehended even without the seeing of the real thing, by the working of your arm in imitation of that of the connecting rod or crai.k. And how much more may be imparted without the use of any of the scientific terms or illustrative models of mech- anics, or the fatiguing of the child's mind with technical or scientific terms until later on at college : Centre of gravity balance a fork or tea spoon, or a knife's edge, and there is where the centre of weight is or the zero point, the weights I- I equal- on either side of it; and, balancing a pair of scizzom^ show how the centre of weight or gravity is not at the middle oi: its length, that a gun or cannon is heavier at the breoh l^hani at the muazlej and that of two men cun-ying a log of tjapering timber, he bears the greater load who is at the bigger end of it and that to be fair, each man must tak« his tmsn at thftt. y.-j.r... i^ ■■..:,■ ' ■., . .'■. i^.v- The action of ordinary weighing scales is plain to any pnp, even to the youngest intelligence ; that is when the arms q«e equal; and show the child, when balancing at the end of fV board Qver a saw horse in the yard, how if his end of the board be twice the length the other, he can balance two of his own weight at the shorter end and thus the action of' the l^vv^r scales; and how when he can. weigh and knows the iruie of three and is given a t«4>le of specific gravitties, (ex- plaining, that this is the weight ofan ofrequal bulk of any thing JIS- compared with that of as much water) any < ne can. lind the. volume of such an irregular or unmea^urable ''ing as- a i^tatue or piece of bronze or of any carved work by weighing it and then the rule of three — And how in like manner, after findipg the volume or cubical contents of a piece of statuai-y, of such an iiregular thing tits a chair, an , ill-shaped, log of wood> a piece of stone rough fix)m the quary, it may be mea- suj!'ed;in a box by the sand or, sawdust or water it displaces fi^nji its weight got at again by specific gravity and rule of three — that in the same way, in the absence of a pair of scales or other device for weighing, the weight of a tub of butter could be got at, and that to arrive at the proportion of voids or vacua, or hollows in a load of broken stone, by far the simplest way would be to weigh an equftl bulk of solid stone and then of so much of the solid bulk as wou|4 fill the same space when broken and then compare the two. And a thousand other things which do not suggest theipgielyes to the writer's mind just row, and which, even i^ tl^fj);^ did, need not, here be enlarged. opj may be taught ftt _ 1j5_ ' - ■ . • ■ home as by tho masiJer or mistress as mer« " worrl lessonB*'''. h6 school, devoting half an hour every day to this mosfeusefnl' task and thus your child become acquainted vkrith, made-to» know a host of useful things and without its being said' that h© has been taught mechanics, physics, optics, phonics of phorl*- etics, and, othei^ ic& and giving him or her the air of knowing as much as those that have, or at any rate of such subjects aS; are talked, of in ordinary conversation. , ^ ,, <- .,„/ The ten years old can be advised of what windipoWQR is and he knows it already in a way by having been^ blQWij- about by it, and as to how measured by a boird and, spring; and. he can be maiqle to put his knowledge to the ijest by hauling on a spring, or pressing one back into the containing box of the so called "jumping jack " — or by trying the force o^ an elastic rubber band and he thus gets an idea of what* the force of a cyclone may be, A child will see and does that ^ horse is stronger than a man ; but to what extent, no mom than you, may known: yourself without inquiry. Bookstall you what a HI P. is 33,000 lbs. raised to the height of on^; foot in one minute of ti.ae ; and this is ^ 33 panes going and 33 paces returning or at the rafep of tmo> ! ' ! I III I, — 16— > paces in one second of time, lie will at the end of his minute be back to tackle another load and then another and during a 10 hours-a-day work he will thus laise 600 times (600 minuter in 10 hours) 330 lbs. or 198,000 lbs. during ins day or about 160,000 if he is at it for only 8 hours. j, ;t ?"' Of course the pupil will not see at once how the power of water or of a water fall may be appreciated or arrived at; but this can be put to him in so simple a manner that he can- not fail to understand it. He or she surely knows and now at any rate that gymnastics are taught every where, that if you swing a rope over a cross head or bar, he or she who pulls the harder at it, will master the " tug of war " — that if forces are equal, the rope will not move or only, by a tug, to go and by aaother to go back again. The children see that two of themselves or would at any rate be ready to admit, even if the thing were only put to them in so many words, that two of themselves of equal weight would form a counter- poise. — Now you say to the little one, looking up and direct- ing its attention to a curtain pole accross the head of a window, and let the gauze curtain or any other represent the descending sheet of water and if there be no curtain then you can imagine it just the same: suppose my boy this sheet of water falling loosely as it does and giving no adequate idea of the power it exerts at bottom, be gathered to- gether as by a funnel at the head of the fall and to come down in a box or tub or a succession of them ; do you not see that each of these if tackled by a rope over the roller to an equal weight of water on th€' other side would just coun- terbalance, as when you and your chum swing at the opposite ends of a board resting on a roller or pivot at the centre. Yes — You see therefore that the weight of water coming down from the one side could raise up or nearly so an equal weight on the oth-r side ; wherefore the power of a fall of water is, allowing for friction of machinery, equivalent to raising the same weight of water to the same height in - .„;,-,.: .'.^ ^ ■ ; -17- 'i ^.,:^.;/;.:■^V.;■^r:: the same time, and the time and weight being known the H. P. can be calculated by rule of three. But the water that falls need not be weighed — its weight is known already as 62^ lbs. to the cube foot is ; br.t of course the quantity going over must be ascertained, and this, it l^ pld-n, can be done b^ the easy process of finding how quick it travels, as evidencei' by a chip or stick thrown into a quiet an-l regular reach oi" tlio river above the fall, and as the breadth and average depth will give the area of section • this into the number of feet of its velocity per minute will do the rest, that is give the quantity of feet of water which if multiplied by 62 1 lbs. its weight, and this by the feet in height of the fall will give the so called foot-pounds and as the H. P. as seen is equal to ^33,000 foot-lbs. per minute, the number of foot-lbs. divided by this 33,000 lbs. will give the H. P. of the fall or river. ■;;,,• ^ -^r ,^'\^ And don't you Mr teacher ever be at your wits ends for an illustration or a simile. If it be winter, and the ferry boat not at h'^nd, or the travelling season net yet inaugurated, and even if it were, and you have no time for that ; any round thing as a tobacco box, or twist a piece of paper into one and Gtick or pin it and it will stand you in good stead of your engine cylinder for explanation of piston action back and forth — and as for levers, and even if the box orcylender be octagonal or square, that makes no odds as to the action you wish to illustrate — and if the saw horse li6s buried be- neath the snow or has been mislaid or loaned and this mode of elucidation not at hand ; take hold of a round ruler or even of a bit of wood, or a book on edge, and now a flat ruler and load this at either end with paper weights, or books or what not and thus explain the lever, and while you'r at it, }»ow it acts where the fulcrum is at one end of it with the power between weight and fulcrum, or the weight between the other two. If you have no sphere at hand, or even if you have, an ; ! ii; OtPange or an apple may suit the purpose jnst as well or beit- ter ; put a pin or tack in it on one iiide,or tlie Droken ond of atuatoh and let that be you, and one attheoppx4te side will be y^ou*' antipode, and as to why you dout ^all off, assHniate ^yonr weight aqd iteiiuoncy 'tov^ards the ca»th to an a itrac- tJion which it is, the attiaction of a magnet being a good simile f— and why the fly falls not from the ceiling, and how the boy lifts a eitone, his leather suoker as it is called when stiiek 4)0 'fche atone and then an attem,pt made to pull it otf, its ritifing at centre, as the fly's leg at the centre of his elastic £oot,^CfkU8ing it, when pulled on to rise at centre and thus ]eiave ft vacuum against which the pressure ol: the atmosphere relicts to hold the fly in place, and so solidly the stone that the boy can left it adhering to his disc of leather. ■ , t Agriin, to exemplify day and night, thrust a 'bod^kin through your apple or your orange, or a knitting neetlHe, or a pen (handfle, a'Howing it to protrude a little at the ends ; andon yo^r tftble have a lamp or light of some kind, and let a corner of the ceiling be the pole ot the heavens or the pole star ; and hoM your tiny sphere in a way that its axis (the pen handle) point towards the star, and inclineit- in a way that the light do strike it at the equator or thereabouts, or half way betweein #ie poles ; and then revolve it in your fingers, and you thiis show the lighted and tinlighted or the lit and unlit sides of , your tiny er -th, an ! the succession of day and night ili any la- titude or at any distance from the equator — days and nights equal when the sun is directly over the equator or its rays to earth at right ang esto the axis. And now move around .the light or sun as the earth does in its annual revolution ' «bout the sun, and so you get the seasons and in one position ()he day longer than the night, and in the other the nright longer than the day. And for the phases of the moon, let another pupil armed with another and smaller orange or apple, stand opposite to you or (between you and the sun, and hold his ball iu^a line .1!' — ly — with the light "nd eartii ; and there you have the " no moon" phase, and by sending th« child with it to the other side of the light, the all or whole or full moon phase, and then moving half way back, the half moon ;• ase and that : \/axing or waning or facing East or West according to the jido on which the sun light strikes it. Now there is no use in further illustration of these sim- ple modes of demonstration ; for those given are suggestive of others and let me again insist in conclusion, on the advisa- bility and necessity of these " word lessons ", and as the words will not come of themselves, or if they do crop out, may do so in a way unsuggestive of the necessity of an ex- planation ; let me insist on these reading lessons of every day, and on various subjects, with the very object of conjuring up th?3 words for explanation ; as when they thus occur in the body of a phrase, and are pertinent to the sense thereof, the necessity of their being understood is much more forcibly brought home to the child, than if you merely fish for them in a dictionary ; in the same way that the solution of a problem in geometry is made more pertinent, more interesting when we know that it has some necessary relation to an engineer- ing or architectural problem which can nov. be worked without it.