The commands are printed on little slips of paper which are folded and all held together by an elastic band with a series of brown cards containing the adjectives used in the commands. Here is the material prepared:
—Fill one graduator with water to the point of over-flowing, and another not so full. Notice the form assumed by the surface of the water in each case and apply the proper adjective: convex, concave.
—Take various objects such as filter paper, cloth, a sponge, and see whether water can pass through them, applying the adjectives: permeable, impermeable, porous.
—Take a piece of clear glass, a sheet of black paper, a sheet of oiled paper; look at the light through them, applying the adjectives: transparent, opaque, translucent.
Object lessens demonstrating comparative weights may also be given by putting successively into a glass of water, oil, alcohol colored with aniline, a piece of cork, a little leaden ball (to be dropped). Then the command would be:
—Compare the weights of water and of colored alcohol; water and oil; water and cork; and water and lead. Then tell which is heavier and which is lighter than the other.
As an answer the child should give a little written exercise something like the following: Water is heavier than oil, etc. The children actually perform these little experiments, learning to handle graduators, funnels, filters, etc., and to pour the last drops of water very carefully so as to obtain the concave and convex surfaces. They acquire a very delicate touch in pouring the colored alcohol and oil on the water. Thus they take the first step into the field of practical science.
To continue the study of adjectives of quality, there is a series of commands relating to the comparative and superlative. An example of the comparative crept into these experiments on weight. Here are additional commands where the little slip and the brown cards are kept together.
—Take the blue stairs or any other objects and put with each object the proper adjectives from the following list: thick, thin, thickest (Ital. grossissimo), thinnest (Ital. finissimo).
—Take the eight tablets of the color you like best, arrange them according to shades and apply the proper adjectives of quality from the following: light, lightest, dark, darkest.
—Take the series of circles in the plane insets, and pick out the circles which correspond to these adjectives: large, small, intermediate.
—Take the cloths or other objects adapted to these adjectives: smooth, smoothest, rough, roughest, soft, softest.
—Take the cubes of the pink tower or any other objects adapted to these adjectives: large, largest, small, smallest.
—Grade a number of objects according to weight so as to fit these adjectives to them: heavy, heaviest, light, lightest.
Adjectives of Quantity
commands (Individual Lessons)
Just as above, the slip is tied with the series of brown cards by an elastic band. Thus a group is formed. In our material the following three groups are available: