Page images
PDF
EPUB

OBJECTS

IN THE

NATURAL CREATION.

In the course of the following lessons, certain expressions are sometimes used which the Instructor should previously explain.

Natural and artificial.

What is the difference between a natural thing and an artificial thing? When I say a thing is natural, I mean that it is in the state in which God causes it to be: when I say a thing is artificial, I mean that it is not in the state in which God made it, but that it has undergone some change in the hands of man.

Give me an instance of a natural thing: give me an instance of an artificial one.

Is a butterfly natural, or artificial? A blade of grass? A pen? A table? A chair?

Animate-inanimate-dead.

What do I mean, when I ask whether a thing is animate?—I mean to ask whether it possesses animal life.

What is the difference between a dead thing and an inanimate one?-A thing is said to be

inanimate, when it does not possess animal life, and never had it: we say a thing is dead, when it once had life, whether animal or vegetable, and has been deprived of it.—Give me instances of things animate, things inanimate, things dead.

[blocks in formation]

How do you know it to be an acorn ?

[The child will find some difficulty in answering this question; he will probably at first, give an answer which will only amount to saying that he does know it: the Instructor may gradually lead him to perceive something of the process which has been taking place in his mind. Did you ever see this acorn before?But you have seen substances of the same kind as that now before you, and you have heard them called acorns; you observed a certain appearance, or certain qualities in those acorns, which you remember-you now see in the object before you the same appearance and qualities as in other acorns, therefore you conclude this substance is an acorn.Let us consider what faculties of your mind may have been in exercise. The Teacher will bring down his expressions and explanations to the capacities of the children, and lead them to perceive

that they may have exercised, perception-observation-memory-comparison-reasoning—

judgment.]

By which of your senses can you discern the acorn and its qualities ?

By which can you not discern them?

Describe the shape of the acorn.— -Where is it largest? Where is it smallest ?

What colour has it? Has every part the same colour?

Is the acorn rough, or smooth? What part is rough-what smooth?

Does any other quality strike the eye?

What has the acorn at the top? What has it underneath?

Is the cup firmly united to the acorn?

Separate the cup. When, or in what state, was it most firmly united? Why?

Why has the part of the acorn within the cup, a different colour from the other part?

Is the acorn a natural, or an artificial production?

Is it animate or inanimate?

To what kingdom of nature does it belong? To what class of vegetables?

To what genus?

What part of the oak was it?

To what part of the oak was it attached? What is the natural cause of the acorn falling

from the oak?

What nourished it on the oak?

How was nourishment conveyed to it?

What was there in the earth to give nourish.ment?

How is the moisture of the earth made to rise and circulate to the acorn?

Whence does the oak come?

Where were once the root-the trunk-the branches?

Could all be contained in the acorn?

Might this acorn become an oak? How? What effect would be produced, were it put into the ground?

Does the acorn shoot in one direction only? What takes place before the acorn shoots? [The outside corrupts.]

What part of the acorn shoots?

Of what use is the outside?

What booomes of it at last?

Is there any part of you which is like the outside of the acorn?

And what will become of your body, when it is laid in the ground?

* Various trains of thought, may at different times be pursued with respect to the same object.-In commencing the lesson, the Teacher might say, where is the acorn now? Is it conscious that it is in my hand? Am I conscious of it ?— Is the acorn active or passive?—Why did I take the acorn into my hand? I took it into my hand, that we might examine it, and that we might reflect upon it. By what means are we to examine it? Of what senses is it chiefly the object? What qualities can you discern in it by the sense of sight? What by the sense of feeling?-We said that we might examine the acorn by means of our senses; what acts and examines through our senses? [The mind examines through the medium of the senses.] What powers of mind

II.

Tell me the uses of the acorn.

Do many acorns often grow on the oak?
What is the number of this acorn?

What may you say of its age?

What is reckoned the general age of an oak? How long is it in attaining its full growth? And how long may it be in decaying?

If an oak bear acorns every year, can you at all calculate the number it might produce in its time?

And if each of those acorns were sown, might not they also become oaks ?

And would not these oaks again produce acorns in their time?

How incalculable then, is the number of oaks and acorns, which this single acorn might produce!

[We are lost in the thought of the numbers here presented to us. It cannot be expected that the mind of a child should receive a clear

can be exercised with respect to the acorn?-Such a course of questions, might, with little variation, apply to almost any object.

The Teacher may at times consider objects with respect to some one prominent feature; vegetables for example :

1. With reference to the process of growth.

[merged small][ocr errors][merged small][ocr errors][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small]
« PreviousContinue »