The native Virginian. [volume] (Orange Court House, Va.) 1867-187?, 1870-02-04
BOOK NOTICE.

me f7taoS0phy Of Teaching, by Natha-
Mol Sands, one of the executive Com
mittee for the Care, Government and
Management of the College of the City
| of New York.
| In this somewhat "advauced" theory
OF education, the embryo and the in
FAINT approprlating what they need for
their physical growth, and, more plaus-
IDLY, the child gaining its earliest know
ledge OF the world about it, are used as
Illustrations for the mode in which the
heart and mind should gain their moral
and intellectual growth under the fos-
tering care OF the teacher, in the later
as well as in the earlier years OF school
Instruction. The same thirst for know
ledge which has caused the child to pass
IN thirty months without painful effort,
ana without teacher, from a state of
entire ignorance to knowledge of so
much, not only of toys, dogs, borses,
fruits, food, clothes, music, friends and
parents, but even of whole language
which it speaks, the same thirst should
be used not only as the chief aid in I'M
parting useful instruction, but as the
chief guide in deciding what instruction
is needful.
Consistently with these principles,
we are told to take ehildren's games and
other amusements as one evidence of
what they want to be, and therefore
should be Taught. Their pets guide us
to Natural History, their flowers to b.
tany. Their interest sometimes origi
mating in their own minds, and some
times suggested and stimulated by the
judiciors teacher. may be used to I'M
part knowledge the functions of the
organs oftheir own bodies, ofthevarious
articles of food, clothing, of dwellings,
of roads, OF government, of great num-
Der of practical matters which .he su-
thor sums up as including "Natural |
the Mathematical and Physi- |
cal Sciences in all their branches. Veg
etable and Animal Physiology, the Po-
lstical and Social Sciences, which should
BE-. presented" he adds, not without
need, sin the order in which the atten-
ton and desire tn learn could be arous-
ed"
1t is conceded that little OF all this
could be given through books. oNa-
lure and the teacher must be the only
books to be employed until considera-
pie progress has been made by the pu-
,il.''
Not only libraries, laboratories, mu-
Gums and observatories, but work.
hops are required for the schools, and
is asserted that "every well-order-
d school should be an industrial
chool," and most specifically that
the farm, the factory, the shop, the
ounting house and tho Kitchen, should
aeh have Its type in the school. "
he Appendix is a memorial addressed
the committee controlling the Col I
zee of the city of New York by Mrs.
ands, as one of its members to dissuade
lem from filing the chair of Ancient /
languages, then vacant. He gives us
the last and most serious aspect ofthis /,
uestion, the pernicious influence of !
assical studies upon the morals and i
laracter Of the student" alt should il
OF be forgotten that Greeks and Ro- q
ANS alike lived by slavery, (Which is
'bbcry) by rapine and plumber, yet
e, born in Christian community, r.
hicil lives by honest labor. propose to
'pregnate the impressionable minds
youths with the morals and litera-
re OF nations of robbers" OF
-