First annual report of the Williams Secular School.

  • Williams Secular School.
Date:
1850
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: First annual report of the Williams Secular School. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    ledge as their most valued recreation. Object-lessons are given daily to the younger children—generally by Miss Carmichael, sometimes by Mr Williams, and occasionally by one or another of the ablest moni- tors. These lessons are conducted so as to afford some general and rudimentary ideas on various branches of knowledge, and on the meaning and application of the ordinary words and scientific terms which the sensible properties of the objects illustrate, in order to preparo the children for those systematic courses of instruction in the sciences, which constitute the chief business of the advanced classes. By presenting to the youngest children a piece of metal, of rock, of glass, of wrood, &c., and examining experimentally its most obvious properties,—such as colour, texture, hardness, cohesion, odour, specific gravity, fusibility, &c., &c., and naming them by their proper scientific designations—which thus taught are more easily understood and remembered than less definite and accurate terms,—the pupils are prepared for the advanced classes, where the higher phenomena of nature, and the mechanical and chemical laws which regulate them, are studied. In Geography all that is visible on the map,—the distribution of land and water, and of mount ains, valleys, and plains, the courses of rivers, and the relative situations of the various countries and their chief cities; also the climate, plants, animals, and the most prominent customs and physical peculiarities of the people of different nations,—may be presented to the minds of children of from five or six to ten years of age, and rendered intensely interesting to them ; and whatever in- terests a child is understood and remembered. When they have passed through this preliminary training, they are ready for the advanced classes, in which they are instructed in the relations of our planet to the heavenly bodies, and the forces which determine its movements among them ; the structure of the earth’s crust, and the changes it has passed through, and is undergoing ; the constitution of the atmo- sphere and of the waters of the earth, their mutual relations and their influences on the solid foundations upon which they rest; the pheno- mena and laws of climate and meteorology; and the moral and intel- lectual characteristics, the social and political institutions, and general history of the inhabitants of different countries. The object-lessons are also made introductory to Physiological and Moral Science. A bone, a skull, the whole skeleton, an anatomical diagram or preparation, is sometimes made the subject of an object- lesson to the younger children; and thus they become acquainted with the general structure, and some of the functions, of their own bodies, preparatory to entering upon a regular course of Physiology. Rudimentary ideas of their own mental faculties are afforded, by leading them to enquire how they know that an object is brown, or hard, or odorous, &c. ; and thus the organs and functions of the senses