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Edinburgh Sessional School . 331
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wished to be communicated is too often learned merely as the task of the day , and obliterated by that of the next . It is very true , that it would not be possible to go over every word of a lesson with the same minuteness as that we have now instanced . A certain portion of time should therefore be set apart for this examination : and , after those explanations have been given which are necessary to the right understanding of the passage , such minuter investigations only may be gone into as time will admit . It is no more essential that every word should be gone over in this way , than it is essential that every word should always be syntactically parsed . A single sentence well done may prove of the greatest service to the scholar in his future studies . "—Pp . 142-147 .
" In the Sessional School , as we formerly mentioned , along with some other arrangements of the Madnis system , the Directors naturally at first introduced the method of explanation practised under that scheme . Its raeagerness and insufficiency , however , were soon apparent . It , to a certain extent , undoubtedly secured the attention of the children , but it left them still very ignorant of the meaning of what tlicy read in school , and destitute of that command of their language which might enable them to read with pleasure and with pro-fit elsevvhere . Our anxious aim , therefore , was to infuse more life and energy into the system , and to render it more rational and intellectual , —to make the pupils understand . as well as rend , use as well as ' name their tools . ' In accomplishing this object , we were in some measure guided by the recollection of our own early education . How different , we well remembered , in point both of interest and utility , from the dry translations of ordinary teachers , were Dr . Adam ' lessons , enlivened as they were with every species of illustration , etymological , grammatical , historical , antiquarian , and geographical , bearing reference one while to the sayings of the wise ancients , at another time to the homely proverbs of our own country ! How much better did his pupils acquire a knowledge of the idioms of the
Latin language , from the variations which he required them to make in the construction of the passages which they happened to read , than from all the rules in his grammar I While the formal lessons , which he was himself in the habit of prescribing as tasks , from his own excellent work on Roman antiquities , were generally most irksome , and forgotten almost as soon as read , the lesson of to-day expelling that of yesterday from the memory , how much more pleasingly , distinctly , and durably were the same instructions impressed upon the mind in an incidental form , through the medium of the ordinary reading ! Such an illustrative method of instruction , we were led to think ,. ought to be made the fundamental basis of all teaching , while every more artificial detail should be resorted to merely as an adminicle . If in one respect our own seminary , composed entirely of children destitute of so many advantages , presented a less promising field for its exercise , it was one , we conceived , on the other hand , in which for this very reason , it was particularly required . The experiment was accordingly tried : and the sprightliness and vivacity , the mental activity and culture , the love of reading and extent of information , which it produced , were of the most gratifying nature . The school now attracted the particular , though unsolicited , notice of the public . And if it has thus been the means , not only of conferring the most important benefits upon the hundreds who have been educated within its walls , but also of extending these benefits beyond its own limits , by securing to the important subject of education a greater share of public attention , and rendering it more rational and less mechanical thuu it had hitherto too frequently been , its conductors have good reason to feel themselves amply rewarded for all their toils . "—Pp . 155 — 157 .
Such is the principle of the method pursued in this school . We now come to its application . In spelling , the chief improvement introduced is , that of putting no unmeaning sounds into the mouth of a child , such as bat
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), June 2, 1829, page 381, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2573/page/13/
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