As the present is an age of experiment, as well as improvement in the modes of teaching, the author ventures to suggest the introduction, into our American schools, of a part of the explanatory system of instruction, so successfully practised in the Edinburgh Sessional School under the direction of Mr. Wood.* And he cannot better explain this system, in its application to the exercise of reading, than by presenting an extract from Mr. Wood's valuable work. 'Before entering upon the consideration of the reading department, it may be proper to premise some general observations, on that method of EXPLANATION, which has been so highly approved of in the Sessional School. Its object is threefold: first, To render more easy and pleasing the acquisition of the mechanical art of reading; secondly, To turn to advantage the particular instruction contained in every individual pas sage which is read; and, above all, thirdly, To give the pupil, by means of a minute analysis of each passage, a general command of his own language. 'It is of great importance to the proper understanding of the method, that all these objects should be kept distinctly in view. With regard to the first, no one, who has not witnessed the scheme in operation, can well imagine the animation and energy which it inspires. It is the constant remark of almost every stranger who visits the Sessional School, that its pupils have not at all the ordinary appearance of school-boys, doomed to an unwilling task, but rather the happy faces of children at their sports. This distinction is chiefly to be attributed to that part of the system of which we are here treating; by which, in place of harassing the pupil, with a mere mechanical routine of sounds and technicalities, his attention is excited, his curiosity is gratified, and his fancy is amused. In the second place, when proper books are put into the hands of the scholars, every article, which they read, may be made the means, not only of forming in their youthful minds the invaluable habit of attention, but also of communicating to them, along with facility in the art of reading, much information, which is both adapted to their present age, and may be of use to them the rest of their lives. How different is the result, where the mechanical art is made the exclusive object of the master's and the pupil's attention! How many fine passages have been read in the most pompous manner, without rousing a single sentiment in the mind of the performer! How many, in which they have left behind them only the most erroneous and absurd impressions and associations ! *See the Account of the Edinburgh Sessional School,' published by Munroe & Francis, Boston. "But, in the last place, they little know the full value of the explanatory method, who think it unnecessary, in any case, to carry it beyond what is absolutely essential to enable the pupil to understand the meaning of the individual passage before him at the time. As well, indeed. might it be maintained, that, in parsing, the only object in view should be the elucidation of the particular sentence parsed; or that, in reading Cæsar's Commentaries in a grammar school, the pupil's sole attention should be directed to the manner in which the Gallic war was conducted. A very little reflection, however, should be sufficient to show, how erroneous such a practice would be in either case. The passages gone over in school must of course be very few and limited, and the direct information communicated through them extremely scanty. The skill of the instructor must therefore be exhibited, not merely in enabling the pupil to understand these few passages, but in making every lesson bear upon the proper object of his labors, the giving a general knowledge and full command of the language, which it is his province to teach, together with as much other useful information, as the passage may suggest and circumstances will admit. As in parsing, accordingly, no good teacher would be satisfied with examining his pupil upon the syntactic construction of the passage before him as it stands, and making him repeat the rules of that construction, but would also, at the same time, call upon him to notice the variations, which must necessarily be made in certain hypothetical circumstances; so also in the department, of which we are now treating, he will not consider it enough, that the child may have, from the context or otherwise, formed a general notion of the meaning of a whole passage, but will also, with a view to future exigences, direct his attention to the full force and signification of the particular terms employed and likewise, in some cases at least, to their roots, derivatives, and compounds. Thus, for example, if in any lesson the scholar read of one having done an unprecedented act," it might be quite sufficient for understanding the meaning of that single passage, to tell him that "no other person had ever done the like; " but this would by no means fully accomplish the object we have in view. The child would thus receive no clear notion of the word unprecedented, and would therefore, in all probability, on the very next occasion of its recurrence, or of the recurrence of other words from the same root, be as much at a loss as before. But direct his attention to the threefold composition of this word, the un, the pre, and the cede. Ask him the meaning of the syllable un in composition, and tell him to point out to you (or if necessary, point out to him) any other words, in which it has this signification of not, (such as uncommon, uncivil) and, if there be leisure, any other syllables which have in composition a similar effect, such as in, with all its modifications of ig, il, im, ir, also dis, and non, with examples. Next investigate the meaning of the syllable pre in composition, and illustrate it with examples, (such as previous, premature.) Then examine in like manner the meaning of the syllable cede, and having shown that in composition it generally signifies to go, demand the signification of its various compounds precede, proceed, succeed, accede, recede, excced, intercede. The pupil will in this manner acquire not only a much more distinct and lasting impression of the signification of the word in question, but a key also to a vast variety of other words in the language. This too he will do far more pleasingly and satisfactorily in the manner which is here recommended, than by being enjoined to commit them to memory from a vocabulary at home as a task. It is very true that it would not be possible to go over every word of a lesson with the same minuteness, as |