CHAPTER III.

INSTRUCTION. The three important branches.--The objects which are really most important.--Advanced scholars.--Examination of school and scholars at the outset.--Acting on numbers.--Extent to which it may be carried.--Recitation and Instruction.

1. Recitation.--Its object.--Importance of a thorough examination of the class.--Various modes.--Perfect regularity and order necessary. --Example.--Story of the pencils.--Time wasted by too minute an attention to individuals.--Example.--Answers given simultaneously to save time.--Excuses.--Dangers in simultaneous recitation.--Means of avoiding them.--Advantages of this mode.--Examples.--Written answers. 2. Instruction.--Means of exciting interest.--Variety.--Examples.--Showing the connection between the studies of school and the business of life.--Example from the controversy between general and state governments.--Mode of illustrating it.--Proper way of meeting difficulties.--Leading pupils to surmount them.--True way to encourage the young to meet difficulties.--The boy and the wheel-barrow.--Difficult examples in arithmetic.

Proper way of rendering assistance.--(1.) Simply analyzing intricate subjects.--Dialogue on longitude.--(2.) Making previous truths perfectly familiar.--Experiment with the multiplication table.--Latin Grammar lesson.--Geometry.

3. General cautions.--Doing work _for_ the scholar.--Dullness.--Interest in _all_ the pupils.--Making all alike.--Faults of pupils.--The teacher's own mental habits.--False pretensions.