THE READING LESSON AND ITS U

EADING is the key of a school curriculum. It opens t not only the treasures of literature, but also all that his education which he obtains through the use of books. importance of teaching it well, and from the right point of v is that of its content.

Reading as an art gets its value not from itself, but from which it is put.

Through the reading lesson, the teacher has a wider oppo influencing the child's life than through any other study.

First. She can make it a means for the better comprehen other subjects of his curriculum. This is a simple, but pr important, use.

Many a failure in geography, history, and arithmetic is inability of the children to read understandingly the textthose subjects.

The teaching of reading should by no means be confined of School Readers. Every lesson employing a book should b lesson. The teacher should see to it that the pupils are a the books they are required to use. They should often be as aloud in class from various text-books.

Not only so, but they should be led to trace out and see t of the subject in hand to the other subjects of their schoo literature, and to life. Excursions should be made conti related fields of fact and idea, to be found in the Readers a available literature.

It is not the purpose of the authors that one of these higl be read through consecutively. The selection to be read o ticular day should be chosen to meet some immediate need of as determined by the geography, history, language, or natur by its appropriateness to the mental or moral condition of th

The reading lesson should often constitute a part of the some other subject. While the pupils are interested in so belonging to a particular branch of study, at once, as a

It is important that children acquire early the habit of looking upon reading and all other arts as means to ends, and not as ends.

Second. The reading lesson enables the teacher to introduce the child to the true study of literature. All literature, whether found in these Readers or elsewhere, should be treated with the respect worthy of its dignity, and not as mere material for a reading exercise.

Every literary production used for a reading lesson should be approached by the teacher and the class as a treasure-house of fact, idea, or beauty. Its excellencies, whether of matter or style, should be made apparent by discovery on the part of the children, if possible.

The reading lesson should be primarily a literature lesson. The children should regard it as a search after hidden treasures, and through it they should learn how to approach books, and what to look for in reading. They should be taught to distinguish superiority of style, to see the beauty and aptness of figures of speech, to discover the fine shades of thought and feeling which the author has brought out by his choice of words. They should be led to consider literature not only intrinsically, but extrinsically as well. They should find out the relations of the literary production to the author's own life, to contemporaneous events, to history, to other facts and ideas within the child's range of vision, to other literature, and to life. Especially should they be directed to other reading similar in style, thought, or subject.

Third. Through the reading lesson the teacher can to a large degree direct the general reading of her class, not only in school but at home. This is one of its most valuable functions. Children read poor or vicious books because they do not know others, or do not know how much more interesting the better books are.

The reading lesson should lead to literary voyages of discovery to the public library and other sources of supply. Through it, children should become accustomed to the use of books, and be led to love them.

Care should be taken that the books suggested be within the range of the children's comprehension and interest. It is well for the teacher occasionally to take the class to the library and show them how to find what they need, and then to send them often for books for their individual use and that of the class.

By these and other means, the reading lesson may be used to clarify and amplify the treatment of all the subjects of the curriculum, to teach the child discrimination in regard to literature, to cultivate his taste for the truly excellent, and to introduce him wisely, pleasantly, and permanently to the world of books, and through books to a richer life.