Q. What have we been hearing about? A. Turf. Q. What is the use of turf? A. To make fires. Q. What other use is sometimes made of it? A. To build houses. Q. Where do they build turf houses? A. In Ireland. Q. Are they not very cold? Q. No; if they are kept mended, they are not. Q. What do you call people, when they like to sleep in the cold rather than mend their houses? A. Lazy. Q. Is it bad to be lazy? A. Yes; very bad. Q. What do we call it besides being lazy? Q. Being idle. Q. Are idle people very happy? A. No; they are always miserable. Q. Right; and I hope no little children will be ever idle; they should always try to be useful, and do all they can to help their friends. Now tell me, where is the turf got From? A. From bogs. Q. What are they called in England? A. Mosses and fens. Q. Are the bogs in England larger than in Ireland? A. No; the Irish bogs are the largest. Q. What animals live in the bogs? A. Some sorts of birds. Q. Do men and women live in them? A. No. Q. Why not? A. They are too wet and soft. Q. What very dangerous places are in some parts of them? A. Bog-holes. Q. What are they? A. Deep holes full of water. Q. What did I tell you were in some parts of these bogs? A. Nice green islands. Q. Are they of any use? A. Yes; the people put cows and horses to feed on them. Q. How do they get across the bog? A. They make a kind of rough road over to them. Q. What do they cut the turf with? A. A sort of spade with two sides. Q. What is this called? A. A Slane. Q. When the turf is cut, what do they do next? A. Put it in heaps to dry. Q. What were those great bogs many hundred years ago? A. Beautiful forests of fine large trees. Q. What flowed through those forests? A. Nice bright rivers. Q. What sang in the trees? A. Pretty birds. Q. What eat the grass? A. Fine large stags and deer. Q. How did those beautiful places become ugly black wet bogs? A. The trees, when they got old, fell into the rivers and stopped them up. Q. What did this cause? A. The water flowed over the banks. Q. What harm did this do? A. It made all the nice grass wet and marshy. Q. What more? A. It rotted the roots of the trees. Q. What happened then? A. They all fell down. Q. In some hundred years, what did all those forests become? A. Great bogs. Q. Are any of the trunks or bodies of those old trees ever found? A. Yes; many hundreds are yet far under the bogs. Q. Are they of any use? A. Yes; they are useful to make chairs, tables, and presses. Q. What colour are they? A. As black as a piece of coal. Q. When they are polished, do they look nice? A. Yes; so bright you can see your face in them. Q. What is this wood called? A. Bog-oak. Q. Will you all try to remember this lesson? A. We will. Teacher. That is right; for little children should always remember the pretty things that their teacher takes such trouble to tell them.
In places where coal is most burned, a piece of it may be made the medium of a very useful and instructive lesson, being so familiar an object, their attention will be arrested by its being made the subject of a lesson; and their curiosity aroused to know every thing about it. When the teacher asks what is this, the simultaneous shout, of "a piece of coal," will convince him that he has arrested their attention; and a few questions will exhaust their stock of information on the subject—they will tell him its uses are to make fires to boil up their dinners, &c. &c. He may then proceed as follows:—You see, little children, this piece of coal; look at it attentively; it is black and shining; and you all know will burn very quickly. The places from whence all coal is brought are called coal mines; the men who dig it out of the ground, and the ships that carry it over the sea, are called colliers, and the place where the coals are got is called a colliery. The coal mines are deep holes made very far under the ground, in order to get at the coal; some of them go under the sea. The colliers live a great part of their life, in those dark holes, in order to get us coal to make us fires to dress our food, and very often are killed, either by the falling in of the roof from above, or from a sort of air called fire-damp, which, if touched with any fire, will blow up like gunpowder, and will kill any person that is near it; the poor colliers are also often smothered by the bad air that is in those damp, dark holes; so you see, little children, what dangers they go through, in order to get us coal, which we could very badly do without.
How very good God is to us; he made this coal under the earth that we might have nice fires to dress our food, and warm ourselves by in cold weather; we should be very thankful to him for all his great blessings, and should never do anything to make him angry with us; he is very sorry when he sees a little child naughty, because he has done every thing to make us happy, and we never can be so if we are naughty and bad. Bad boys and girls are never happy, and God does not love them when they are so, and it is very sad to make God angry with us.
Coal is very useful for other things besides making fires to dress our food, and to warm us. Many things that are very useful could not be made without it. The gas that lights the streets is made from coal, and when the gas is taken from it what is left is called coke, which makes a very bright warm fire.
The teacher that properly enters into the spirit of these lessons, may find in the simplest objects, a never-ending source of pleasure and instruction for his infant pupils. No person who is not qualified to give proper and really useful gallery lessons is by any means fit for a teacher of infants; to learn the mere routine of an infant school is not very difficult, but this will be of no avail if the teacher have not qualifications of a much higher order, which will enable him continually to pour instruction clothed in simple language, into the minds of his pupils; simplicity is the life and soul of gallery teaching; without this, the breath is wasted, and time is spent in vain. To teach infants we must reduce our language to their tender capacities, and become, in idea and words, one of themselves. Having given the children your information on a piece of coal, you now proceed to get it back, as follows
Q. Little children, what have we been speaking about? A. About coal. Q. What colour is it? A. Black. Q. Is it anything besides? A. Yes; shining. Q. What are the places called from whence coal is got? A. Coal-mines. Q. What are the men that dig it out of the ground and the ships that carry it over the sea called? A. Colliers. Q. What is the place called where the coal pits are made? A. A colliery. Q. What are coal pits? A. Deep holes dug to get at the coal. Q. Are the colliers in danger down in these deep pits? A. They are. Q. From what? A. From fire-damp? Q. What is it? A. A sort of air that blows up like gun-powder. Q. From what more are they in danger? A. The roofs falling in. Q. From what more? A. From bad air which often smothers them. Q. What is made from coal to light the streets? A. Gas. Q. What is coal called after the gas has been taken from it? A. Coke. Q. Does coke make a good fire? A. Yes; very bright and strong. Q. Who made the coal? A. God. Q. What should we be to him for it? A. Very thankful. Q. How can we shew we are thankful? A. By being very good. Q. Is God glad to see a child naughty? A. No; he is very sorry. Q. Does he love naughty children? A. No; he does not. Q. Are naughty children happy? A. No; very unhappy. Thus every lesson may be made not only a vehicle for conveying instruction, but also of instilling into the infant mind a reverence, a sense of gratitude and love towards that great Being who called us all into existence; this should be never lost sight of, in giving the child those primary sentiments, reverence and gratitude towards its God, you lay a basis on which doctrinal religion may be afterwards built with more advantage. The child thus early trained in such feelings, conveyed in a manner so admirably adapted to its tender mind, can scarcely fail, unless it possesses a heart of great natural depravity, of becoming a good man, and it is thus that infant schools may become a great and lasting blessing to the country. But where this is overlooked—where the vital principle of the infant system is rejected, and the mere mechanical parts alone retained, as to any great and lasting benefit, it will be a complete and unhappy failure. That the grand object of the infant system may be accomplished, namely, of raising up a generation superior to the last, both in religious, moral, and intellectual acquirements, an immense caution and great experience in the selection of teachers is required; till proper teachers are universally provided the infant system will never be really successful: success does not merely consist in universal adoption and extension, if it did it would be now really so. But another thing is wanting before it can be called successful, that is, it must be understood.
None can understand it but thinkers, and deep thinkers, and thinkers in the right direction. Merely to glance around and gather scraps of knowledge from the various, "ologies" in existence, which the "march of intellect" has brought into being, and which were unknown to our forefathers; and then to force them on the young memory at random, may be to teach what was not before taught, but it is not to display any new method of teaching; any more efficient way of communicating knowledge. Those who would truly understand the infant system, must think for themselves, and observe the workings of the young mind, mark the intellectual principles which first develope themselves, strive to understand the simple laws of mental action; and all this that they may know how to teach in accordance with them. When this is fairly done, perhaps the whole that is recorded in this book, may be thought more valuable than it is at present, and be found a not unworthy subject to devote a whole life to become acquainted with and elucidate both practically and theoretically. Others then will, perhaps, not be quite so audacious in unjust plagiarisms. When Columbus had made the egg stand on an end all others could then do it. When he had discovered America, every one said they might have done it also. All great and important truths are simple, and when presented to the mind, although unknown before, seem as if they had been well known, there is such an accurate consistency between the mind and them. This leads me to suppose that there is simple and useful truths in my volumes, as every one seems to take them for their own. I can only say that they have cost me many and many an hour of close observation, and deep and independent thinking. I have devoted my whole life for the good of others, and have injured myself and family, that I might do so. To rescue little children from vice and misery, and to have them placed under physical, intellectual, moral, and religious discipline, has been the delight of my heart, and the object of my life. After this labour, to have my inventions pirated, my plans made use of in part, and in the rest spoken against; to have others to reap the fields that I have sown, and at the same time traduce and injure me; to be thus thrust out as it were from my rightful employment, and left in comparative obscurity as old age begins to draw on; requires a spirit stronger than that of man, and a heart more than human, not to feel it, and feel it deeply. I care little for myself, but regret most to see spurious systems of infant education palmed upon the public by ignorant persons, and thus deprive them of a great benefit which they might possess.
Facts recorded in Scripture may be given orally as gallery lessons, taking care to exhibit some picture representing the subject proposed for the lesson—take, for example, the finding of Moses—which represents the daughter of Pharaoh coming down to bathe with her maidens, and also the infant Moses in the ark, cradle, or boat, which was made for the purpose. The subject is then to be propounded to the children as follows, and the teacher is to take care to repeat it clearly and distinctly in short sentences, and to be careful that all the pupils repeat it as distinctly after him; by thus means the essence of the story is infused into the minds of the children, with the addition of their being taught to repeat all the words distinctly and properly, which will assist their pronunciation very much when they begin to read the lesson described in another part of this work.
"And the daughter of Pharaoh came down to wash herself at the river, and her maidens walked along by the river's side, and when she saw the ark among the flags she sent her maid to fetch it, and when she had opened it she saw the child, and behold the babe wept. And she had compassion on him; and said, This is one of the Hebrews' children. Then said his sister to Pharaoh's daughter, Shall I go and call to thee a nurse of the Hebrew women, that she may nurse the child for thee? And Pharaoh's daughter said to her, Go; and the maid went and called the child's mother. And Pharaoh's daughter said unto her, Take this child away and nurse it for me, and I will give thee thy wages; and the woman took the child and nursed it, and the child grew, and she brought hum unto Pharaoh's daughter, and he became her son, and she called his name Moses: and she said, Because I drew him out of the water."—Exodus ii.
Q. What does this picture represent? A. The finding of Moses. Q. Who came down to wash herself at the river? A. Pharaoh's daughter. Q. Who was Pharaoh? A. The king of Egypt. Q. What is Egypt? A. A country in Africa. Q. What is Africa? A. A part of the earth on which we live. Q. Where did her maidens walk? A. They walked along by the river's side. Q. When Pharaoh's daughter saw the ark amongst the flags, what did she do? A. She sent her maid to fetch it. Q. And when she opened it, what did she see. A. She saw the child. Q. What was the ark? A. A sort of boat made of rushes, such as grow in the river. Q. Would not the water get into this? A. No; it was kept dry inside by pitch and slime. Q. What were the flags that the ark was among? A. A sort of plant that grows in rivers. Q. Did the child laugh? A. No; it wept, and she had compassion on him. Q. And what did she say? A. This is one of the Hebrews' children. Q. What did his sister say to Pharaoh's daughter? A. Shall I go and call to thee a nurse of the Hebrew women? Q. What is meant by his sister? A. The sister of Moses who stood to watch what would become of him. Q. What did she ask to call a nurse for? A. To nurse the child. Q. What did Pharaoh's daughter say? A. Go. Q. Who did the maid fetch? A. The child's mother. Q. When she came what did Pharaoh's daughter say to her? A. Take this child away and nurse it for me. Q. And what did she say she would give her? A. Her wages. Q. Did the woman take the child? A. Yes; and nursed it. Q. What became of the child? A. It grew, and she brought it unto Pharaoh's daughter, and it became her son. Q. What name did she give him? A. She called his name Moses. Q. What for? A. Because she drew hum out of the water. Q. Look at this picture, what is the girl holding over Pharaoh's daughter's head? A. A sort of umbrella. Q. What is she holding it up for? A. To keep away the heat of the sun. Q. Were there slaves in those days? A. Yes. Q. Is the little girl holding the umbrella meant to represent a slave? A. Yes. Q. Do you know what a slave is? A. A person who is taken from his home and made to work for nothing and against his wills.