Directory_and_Chronicle_1842 — Page 570

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Report of the Morrison Education Society.

OCT.

been taught to read English. Things which are familiar to every child of ordinary understanding in England and America, and which the writers of juvenile books take it for granted, will be understood by their little readers, are new and startling to these lads, because they are entirely foreign to the subjects on which the Chinese expend their thoughts. Indeed either of the boys in this class could instruct the best teacher I ever saw among them, in many matters of the commonest observation and occurrence.

Early in the year this class read in the above manner, were ques- tioned on, and reviewed, Gallaudet's Child's Book on the Soul, a little work well known and highly appreciated on both sides of the Atlantic. It is designed to teach some of the simplest truths in men- tal philosophy. They were much interested in it, the more, because they could understand it, and have of their own accord made frequent allusions to what they then learned. They also took up the book of phrases before mentioned when speaking of the other class, and committed the whole of it to memory. Since that time, they have studied Guy's Geography, and Peter Parley's Method of telling stories about the world, which is principally filled with incidents in English and American history, related in a manner at once calculated to in- terest a child, and to fasten them upon his memory, as well as cha- racteristic of its well known author. They have also carefully studi- ed and recited, an abridgment of Hume's History of England, as far as to the time of Henry VIII.

We continued to be destitute of arithmetics till a few months ago, when a supply came from England, together with a variety of other valuable school-books, through the kindness and liberality of Mr. Fox, who procured and sent them out. But having been obliged to adopt some plan to teach the science of numbers, I resorted to al- gebra, having a few copies of a work on that subject at hand. It will be perceived, that it was premature to take up that study before arithmetic had been well attended to. But necessity was my apology. For a considerable time, the boys were kept at the solution, upon the black-board, of literal equations, framed for the occasion. Thus they learned to perform the fundamental, and some of the higher operations in algebra, and proceeded to the solution of simple equa- tions containing two, three, and four unknown quantities. Their algebraical knowledge was therefore considerably advanced, before they were furnished with a book. Colburn's Algebra was then given to them, and they have proceeded to about the 40th page of that hook, which is pretty closely filled with questions throughout.

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