Page:Home Education by Isaac Taylor (1838).djvu/228

 occupying them; but on this ground we want something altogether unlike the dry bonesthe statistics, the colour-less bird’s eye views, usually contained in elementary books, intended for children. There may indeed be works which I have not been so fortunate as to meet with, proper for our purpose; but in default of such, the teacher must rely upon his own knowledge of facts, and his command of language; and instead of requiring children to listen to, or to repeat, what they will forget as soon as they can, and what can do them very little service while they may chance to remember itas that Iceland is 'situated between the 63d and 67th degrees of north latitude, and the 12th and 25th degrees of west longitude; is 280 miles in length, and 180 in width; and that its population, according to the last census, is 53,000;and so forth; instead of this, let the scenes, the occupations, the habiliments, of an Iceland family, during their few summer days, and then during their long wintry months, be graphically described (and with an admixture of humour) and aided by the best pictorial representations that may be at hand. Descriptions of this sort, illuminated by the pencil, and vivified, when the means of doing so are available, by poetic extracts, will never be obliterated from the memory: and if this same method be carried forward, round the globe, the result, especially with children of vivacious minds, will be a general invigoration and enrichment of the faculties, apparent ever after in almost every sentence that is written or uttered.

Whatever might now actually be seen, could we borrow the wings of the morning, is the proper subject-matter of the earlier processes of instruction. To this succeeds, or the two may be attended to simultaneouslywhatever would meet the eye, could we sail up the stream of time, and set foot ashore, where might be contemplated the wonders of ancient Egypt, ancient India, ancient Greece, Rome, Judea; and then, of the European kingdoms, at