which they do not understand. Another rule of the school is, that no boy ever knows any thing you tell him, or is improved by any thing you do for him: it is what he tells you, and what he does. for himself which is alone ufeful.

In the evening at difmiffing, for the day, the progrefs for each class is registered by the teacher or affiftant in a book ;-number of leffons read; pages or lines gone over in these leffons; and hours thus employed, in three adjoining columns; and fo with catechism, religious inftruction, writing, ciphering, and all the tasks of the day. These are added weekly and monthly, and compared, by the mafter and teacher, with what was done the preceding day, week, and month. In like manner, each boy, employed in writing, ciphering, or fuch tasks as, though fimultaneous as to the clafs, are performed individually, and not collectively, regifters for himself all his daily operations in the last page of his copy, or ciphering book; which are compared, by his teacher, with what he did the day before, and what other boys of his clafs and standing do-and fo weekly, and monthly. The page, in which these registers are kept, is

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ruled into thirty-one parallel lines, fo as to last a month, and into as many columns as there are daily entries to be made. In the beginning of each month the book, and page of the book, &c. where the class begin to read, are entered.

The examination of the black book should regularly take place once a week, on Saturdays for example, and a jury of good boys be felected among the teachers and fcholars, to try the culprits. It is essential to the wellbeing of the school that its rewards and punish-· ments, which are left to discretion and circumstances, be administered with equal and distributive justice. It is not to be forgotten that temperate and judicious correction is more effectual than that which is intemperate and fevere; that praise, encouragement, and favour, are to be tried before difpraife, fhame, and difgrace; confinement between school hours, and on holidays and play-days, which your teachers enable you to inflict, is to be preferred to corporal punishment; and even folitary confinement to fevere flagellation. But at all events, the authority of the master must be maintained by difcipline, in one shape or

other. I cannot, however, forbear repeating · my opinion, founded on experience in this country, that with equal justice (the great prop of discipline and contentment), confinement with a task in charity schools, between schoolhours, or on holidays, may fuperfede corporal punishment.

It deferves to be particularly remarked, that this system hinges on the teachers of each clafs; and that their station muft, in one fhape or other, be rendered desirable, and an object of emulation. And also that, if circumstances required it, almost every other regulation may be difpenfed with.

To fum up all, never prescribe a leffon or task which can require more than a quarter, or at most half an hour for the learner to be completely master of it; never quit a letter, a word, a line, or a verse, or a sentence, or a page, or a chapter, or a book, or a task of any kind, till it is familiar to the scholar,

PART II.

OF THE PRACTICES OF THE ASYLUM.

CHAPTER I.

Introduction.

-Pudeatne me in ipfis ftatim elementis etiam brevia docendi monftrare compendia?

In the former part of this effay, I have stated the system of the Male Asylum, and the plan on which it is conducted; and I have endeavoured to unite theory to practice, by elucidating the principles on which this system refts. It is the mode of tuition by the scholars themselves, which conftitutes the fyftem: and this plan of conducting the fchool is ef fentially requifite to the fuccefs of the inftitution. Wherever this fcheme is followed, there is the Madras Syftem; and wherever a fchool is conducted independently of the agency of the scholars, there another fyftem is followed. But befide this fyftem, there are ifolated practices, which were also contrived

E

at the asylum, to abridge labour in the art of teaching and learning in their different elementary steps. Such are the proceffes of alphabetical writing on fand or flate, reading by fyllables, fpelling without tedious and uselefs repetitions, &c. But thefe form no part of the above system, and do not arrange themfelves under the general law of tuition, which has been explained. Thefe detached, · subsidiary, and auxiliary practices, may go along with any other fyftem, and be introduced into any school, conducted in the common, or any other mode.

may

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They differ from the fyftem, as art does from science. The fyftem, consisting of a series of confecutive laws, linked together in the closest union, and depending on a common principle, affimilates itself to a science, however humble that science be. Its general laws apply alike to every ftage and branch of elementary Education. The practices which follow are of a widely different description. Circumfcribed in their operation, each of them applies folely to the peculiar step in the progrefs of elementary Education for which it is framed. Confisting of a set of fubordinate devices or helps in tuition, and not