PREFACE. IN writing the following pages my object was three-fold. First, To present the teacher with a method of preparing notes of a lesson on geography for his own individual use in giving such lesson. To be of any service to a teacher, while addressing his class, the notes of a lesson must be short, clear, suggestive; containing little or nothing of the substance of the lesson itself. Second, To give him examples of actual lessons followed out to their minutest detail in matter and manner. Third, To shew the great importance of questioning as a means of instruction. In this last particular many teachers fail; and for that reason I have given the examinations to the first four or five lessons with as much completeness as I could make apparent in writing. It should be observed, however, that in most lessons of a really instructive kind, and in which the pupils are led to take a lively interest, much of an incidental but vastly important character will occur, for which I could not possibly provide. Here the teacher must be left to himself. The lessons were all prepared for the upper division of the Battersea Model School. It is very necessary to bear this in mind. To a younger, and, consequently, lower division, the lessons would have been much shorter, and of a much more simple character. There are, however, some lessons which are fit only for a good first class, as, for instance, that on Jerusalem and its Environs, and all those on the History of Palestine. One essential element of a good lesson is-its adaptation to the capacities and attainments of the pupils. This adaptation can be manifested in various ways; but chiefly in simplicity of arrangement, and simplicity of language. The following lessons, must, therefore, be taken-with the exceptions mentioned-as being adapted to a good first division of a good elementary school. How far others may agree with me in connecting Scripture History, in the manner I have connected it, with the Geography of Palestine, I know not; but I have always found such lessons to be more interesting, and to have made a more durable impression than those in which the Scripture illustrations were omitted. I have also found it to be more effective to read certain passages from the Bible, than to quote them from memory. The former plan carries with it more authority than the latter, and I have often been astonished at the difference. Where the Scripture narrative can be shortly, and appropriately, "pictured out," it is a much better plan than simply telling it. I have never found anything objectionable arising out of this practice. A school should be-as far as a teacher can make it-like one large family; and that kind of language, and that tone of voice, which a wise parent would adopt in teaching his children, are precisely such as a teacher will find to be the most effective in addressing his pupils. G. H. TAYLOR, Model School, Battersea, |