the birds used to sing so sweetly,
has become turf, like this piece which we have for a lesson; and when
men are cutting this turf out, they often find the great trunks of
those trees, that many hundred years ago were so green and beautiful,
quite black and ugly, but still so hard that they can scarcely be cut,
and these old trees are called bog-oak, and the cabinet-maker buys
them and makes them into beautiful chairs, and tables, and presses,
and many other things, and they are quite black, and when polished you
little children might see your faces in them. Thus you see, my little
children, that there is nothing which God has made which is not very
wonderful and curious, even this piece of bog-turf, which you would
not have heard about if you did not come to the infant school to learn
about so many useful and curious things.

This will perhaps be enough of information for one lesson; and having
thus infused it in an agreeable form into their minds, you may proceed
in the manner before mentioned to get it back from them, in order to
impress it more firmly on their understandings; and if this be always
done in the proper manner, they will become as familiar with the
subject, and learn it as quickly as they would the tissue of nonsense
contained in the common nursery tales of "Jack and Jill," or, "the old
woman and her silver penny," whose only usefulness consists in their
ability to amuse, but from which no instruction can be possibly drawn;
beside which, they form in the child's mind the germ of that passion
for light reading which afterwards, in many instances, prevents an
application to any thing solid or instructive. Being in themselves the
foundation stone on which a huge and useless mass of fiction is piled
in after years, the philosophical mind will at once perceive the
advantage of our system of amusement mingled with instruction,
and perceive that upon its simple basis a noble structure may be
afterwards raised; and minds well stored with useful lore, and
capable of discerning evil in whatever shape it presents itself, and
extracting honey from every object, will be farmed, which, when they
become numerous, will cause a glorious change in the moral world, the
first germ of which will be traced to the properly managed gallery
lessons of an infant school. Having asked the children if they are
tired, the teacher, if he receives an answer in the negative, may thus
proceed:--

Q. What have we been hearing about? A