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EDUCATIONAL TEXT-BOOKS.

CUYOT'S CEOCRAPHIES.

"Incomparably superior to anything published."- Prof. AGASSIZ.

"One of the ablest Physical Geographers of the world."- Prof. J. A. DANA.
"Greatly superior to any work of the kind published."- Prof. JOSEPH HENRY.

The astonishing success which Prof. Guror's Geographical Text-Books have already achieved over one hundred thousand copies having been sold in the year that has elapsed since their first introduction-is the most emphatic endorsement possible of their pre-eminent merits. Hundreds of our leading instructors, including some of the most distinguished scientific minds of this country, and, indeed, of the world, have emphatically endorsed them as containing the only true and the only philosophical method of developing Geography as a science. The Text-Books are rapidly finding their way into schoolrooms throughout the country, and from all those into which they have been introduced, we have emphatic and unanimous testimony that they have made the study of Geography a pleasure, instead of tedious drudgery, and that scholars of all ages pursue it with a zest and enthusiasm to which they were strangers under the old system of learning by rote.

Prof. GUYOT's series now includes the following Text-Books:

I. Primary; or, Introduction to the Study of Geography.

One quarto volume, with over 100 elegant illustrations.

II. The Intermediate Geography.

In one quarto volume, elegantly illustrated, containing forty-five Maps, of which twelve are fullpaged Maps, engraved in the highest style of the art, colored politically and physically, embra cing colored diagrams for the construction of the Maps of each Continent, and also colored diagrams, with full instructions for drawing the Maps of the separate States of the United States.

III. Common School Geography.

In one royal quarto volume, with numerous illustrations, containing twenty-three Maps, of which five are double-page Maps, engraved in the highest style of the art, colored politically and physically, embracing also diagrams for the construction of Maps of each Continent.

TO TEACHERS.

Teachers desiring to examine these Text-Books can procure them at the following prices: THE PRIMARY, 75 cents; THE COMMON SCHOOL GEOGRAPHY, $1.50; THE INTERMEDIATE GEOGRAPHY, $1; or the three books will be sent together to teachers for $3

Pamphlets containing testimonials from instructors who have practically tested Prof. GUYOT'S Geographical Text-Books will be sent to any address.

FELTER'S POPULAR SCHOOL ARITHMETICS.

This series of Arithmetics is more perfectly graded and more truly analytic; it teaches the pupils self-reliance more effectively than any other series, and at the same time contains five times as many examples for practice. The series comprises the following books:

Felter's First Lessons in Numbers (illustrated) for pupils commencing the study of Numbers.

Felter's Primary Arithmetic, mental and written, with and without answers.

Felter's Intermediate Arithmetic (revised edition), with and without answers.
Felter's Practical Arithmetic (follows the Primary), with answers.

Felter's Commercial Arithmetic.

Felter's University Arithmetic (in preparation).

Felter's Intellectual Arithmetic (in press).

Teachers' Manual of Arithmetic – Prepared expressly for the use of teachers, and contains the best methods of oral, class, and individual instruction.

TO TEACHERS,

Copies of these Arithmetics will be sent to teachers by mail, postage paid, on receipt of 30 cents each for "Intermediate," "Commercial," and "Practical," and 15 cents each for the "First Lessons," "Primary," "Intellectual," and "Manual."

CHARLES SCRIBNER & CO., .. 654 Broadway, NewYork.

ADDRESS

GILMAN H. TUCKER,

135 Washington Street, Boston,

New England Agent.

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BOOKS AND READING: a Lecture; by W. P. ATKINSON. A few copies, the
balance of the edition, for Sale by NICHOLS & NOYES, 117 Washington Street. Price, in paper,
30 cents; cloth, 50 cents. [We insert the above in answer to frequent inquiries.]

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It seems to me that the method of teaching the classical languages, now in use, is radically defective, that it obtains absurdly insignificant results for the time and labor expended, that it wastes the advantages of excellent grammars, lexicons, and critical editions in which, it has been said, the classical languages are distinguished above all others, and that not only everything that is attained, but a great deal more, might be gained by the introduction of a different method of study. I do not propose here to say much about the study of the classics in college. My purpose is rather to speak of elementary instruction. It is proper that at college most of the time given to the classics should be devoted to a critical study of the authors who are read. But in the manner in which students are now prepared, when they ought to be giving their attention to a critical study of the classic authors, they are usually puzzling over elementary difficulties of language, which they ought to have mastered at school. It is absurd that a student who has for six years made an almost daily study of a language, should ever feel a temptation to consult a translation, except for an occasional word, or in some very perplexed passage. If a man in six years cannot

attain a certain facility in the use of a language, he must either be mentally deficient, or have studied it on a bad system. Of course he cannot acquire it perfectly, but few people can be said to know perfectly even their vernacular tongue.

It is a matter of wonder how the present system of classical study could ever have come into use, for anything more contrary to the natural principle of learning a language could scarcely be conceived. There can be but one reasonable way of learning a strange language. About the details, men may differ, but the general principle is, that a foreign tongue should be learned in the same way in which we acquire our own. We learn our own language by imitation, so as to use it with fluency, before we know anything of its grammatical structure. Indeed, many college graduates have never read a line on the subject of English grammar; they know what they do about it, only by their acquaintance with the general principles of language acquired in classical study, and might be more easily puzzled by a difficult question in the grammar of their own language, than in that of Greek or Latin. And yet they use their own tongue with fluency and correctness, while in Greek and Latin they have acquired little or no facility. But if it is not easy to see how the present system of classical instruction could have come into use, it is evident that it would be a labor of Hercules to change it. Hume says that men, in general, are governed in their conduct far more by habit than by reason; and this fact, the foundation of all false conservatism, causes a groundless confidence in the value of the present system to be deeply rooted in the minds of many. But it seems to me that the future position of classical study as a part of general education in this country must depend in great measure on the introduction of a different method of teaching, by which people will feel that adequate results are obtained for the time and labor expended. Fortunately, there is enough of good authority for such a change. Milton (quoted in one of the works of which I shall speak below) says: "We do amiss to spend seven or eight years merely in scraping together so much miserable Greek and Latin as might be learned otherwise, easily and delightfully in one year." Nor does he stand alone in this opinion.

Mr. George Long (formerly fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge,) holds, in reputation, a place among the foremost of living English scholars. His editions of the classics, his translations and his historical works display the highest qualities of scholarship. There is an additional reason why American students should feel an interest in him. He was in his youth the first professor of the classical languages at the University of Virginia. Jefferson, by whose efforts this institution was established, determined to have only men of the highest talent and attainments that could be got, for the new professors, and he sent abroad to find such. He said that he would have sent to New England, but that the colleges there would, of course, keep their best men for their own professors, and that he did not wish to have the second-rate scholars of New England for the first-rate scholars of Virginia. Mr. Long has given his attention to this subject of elementary classical instruction, and a few years ago published a volume of selections from Cicero to be used on the system which he recommends and describes fully in a preface of thirty-six pages.* He advises a return to the system used by Roger Ascham, the preceptor of Queen Elizabeth, as set forth in his work entitled "The Schoolmaster." A considerable part of Mr Long's preface consists of quotations from Ascham. In giving an outline of the system, I shall let both, as far as space will allow, speak in their own words.

The first thing to be learned in the system, consists of the various forms of declension and conjugation, and next, "the right joining together of substantives with adjectives, the noun with the verb, the relative with the antecedent." After these are mastered, Ascham says, that the master should read to the scholar," the Epistles of Cicero, gathered together, and chosen out by Sturmius for the capacity of children," in the following way.

"First, let him teach the child cheerfully and plainly the cause and matter of the letter; then let him construe it into English, so oft, as the child may easily carry away the understanding of it; lastly, parse it over perfectly. This done thus, let the child by and

*M. Tullii Ciceronis Cato Major sive De Senectute, Lælius sive De Amicitia, et Epistolæ Selectæ, with notes and index, by George Long. London, 1857, [published in the series called “Grammar School Classics."]

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