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THE

MOTHERS' TREASURY.

AN EASY WAY OF TEACHING THE
ALPHABET.

T has been thought by many that one of a child's hardest
lessons is the learning of the alphabet: the method pro-
posed endeavours to render it one of the easiest. The
principle of the plan is to assist perception by an attempt
at imitation. One letter, or rather a large and small
letter, having the same sound, must be learned perfectly
before another is attempted.

Begin by setting up a single, plain, large, bold letter before the children you are about to instruct, telling them its name, and taking care that they pronounce it correctly. Show them the same letter in different sizes and colours, that they may understand it is the form they have to remember, and that the colour and size do not alter it. Try to impress this form on the memory by making cheerful remarks, all having some striking allusion to it such as,-Our friend A is like a sugar-loaf, narrow at top and broad at bottom; or,

A is an archer

That stands with a stride;

His head is held high,

And his feet are spread wide.

The happier you are in your remarks, the more likely will you be to succeed with your little friends.

After some time spent in this manner, tell the children to watch you, for you are going to do something. Then form the letter on the floor with sticks or laths for the straight lines; and with string, red tape, or coloured worsted, should the letter have any curved lines in it, asking the children what you have made? They will soon see that you have been forming the letter, and will be both surprised and pleased.

And now comes the first imitative exercise on the part of the children, whom you are to invite very gently, cautiously, and kindly to try their hands in making the model letter with laths and tape. Their early attempts will be very rude; but by degrees, some succeeding better than others, they will acquire more confidence and make rapid progress. Encourage them when letters are well made, and mildly point out their defects. This method of letter-making will soon become very amusing to the children, who will narrowly regard each other's efforts and try to surpass them.

Be very careful to keep up the kindly tone and point and sprightliness of your conversation on the letters, for this will put a smile on the faces of your little scholars, and make them feel at ease; while it helps them to remember what otherwise they might not retain. Thus, for instance, on introducing the letter B to their notice, you may say that it is something like a humble-bee, almost divided in two; or,

Bouncing B would look well

If his body were thinner;
But perhaps Mr. B

Has been eating his dinner.

These joking remarks have much influence on the minds of young people, in keeping them cheerful and lightening their labours.

In the next exercise the model letter is imitated with a piece of chalk-white, red, yellow, or green-on a black-board or slate. Let the young people see you copy the letter, to give them courage, and then put the chalk into the hand of one of them, that he or she may try to do the same. At first there may be a backwardness in venturing on such an achievement, but ere long every one will be anxious to be handling the chalk. It will be seen, too, that each is as much elated with success as a pupil of the Royal Academy when copying a painting of the old masters.

In the third exercise an advance is made beyond the chalk outline. As a reward to such as have acquitted themselves well, let each of them have a slate and a slate-pencil. Set them a neat small pattern of the letter, and encourage them to do their best; they will try, and most of them will, in a degree, succeed. To test their progress, remove from them both the model letter and the copies, and require them to form the letter afresh with the laths and tape, the chalk and the pencil, and then to pronounce its name. By this threefold process of imitating the letters of the alphabet they are impressed on the memory, and the young people will acquire in a short time what has usually occupied a long time to attain.

The plan thus set forta may be altered as the case may require, and, no doubt, greatly improved; but it is an easy plan, a pleasant plan, and a profitable plan, and is greatly to be preferred to the method which has so much tried all our heads, and so much oppressed all our hearts in our childish days. A large board painted black, a good sized slate, thin strips of wood of different lengths, a few pieces of red tape, chalk of different colours, with cheap little slates and slate-pencil are all the things which are required to teach the alphabet thoroughly in an infant school,— pleasantly exercising the senses of the children, and calling forth their imitative powers.

If it were only for the amusement that this method of teaching the alphabet provides for infant children it deserves to be popular;

but when regarded as a means to accomplish an important end, it has a tenfold claim on our attention. It helps the teacher, it amuses the scholar,

And forces far away to flee

The nursery bugbear A, B, C.

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THE PRAYER-MEETING IN THE HOUSE

OF MARY.

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HEN Peter had considered the thing, he came
to the house of Mary the mother of John,
whose surname was Mark; where many were
gathered together praying
(Acts xii. 12).

This was a prayer-meeting held in a private house, and I want to urge upon the followers of Jesus Christ to use their own houses more frequently than they now do for holy purposes. How largely might the Sunday-schools in London be extended if all the better instructed gathered together Bible Classes in their own houses, and taught them during the Sabbath-day; and what a multitude of prayers would go up to Heaven if Christians who have suitable rooms would frequently call together their brethren and neighbours to offer prayer. Many an hour is wasted in idle talk, many an evening frittered away in foolish amusements degrading to Christians, when the time may be occupied in exercises calculated to bring down untold blessings upon the family and upon the Church.

Prayer-meetings at private houses are very useful, because friends who would be afraid to pray before a large assembly, and others who if they did so would be very much restricted in language, are able to feel free and easy in a smaller company in a private house. Sometimes, too, the social element is consecrated by God to promote a greater warmth and fervour, so that prayer will often burn in the family when perhaps it might have declined in the public assembly. I never knew the little Church of which I was pastor, before I came here, to be in such a happy condition as when the members took it into their heads to hold prayer-meetings in their own houses. I have sometimes myself attended six or seven in an evening, running from one to another just to look in upon them,-finding twelve in a kitchen, teu or a dozen in a parlour, two or three met together in a little chamber. We saw a great work of grace then; the biggest sinners in the parish felt the power of the gospel, the old saints warmed up and began to believe in young people being converted, and we were all alive by reason of the abundance of prayer. Brethren, we must have the like abundance of prayer; do pray that we may have it.-C. H.Spurgeon.

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DAMSEL, I SAY UNTO THEE, ARISE."

Mark v. 9-42.

OULD the creatures help or ease

us,

Seldom should we think of
prayer;

Few, if any, come to Jesus,
Till reduced to self-despair:
Long we either slight or doubt Him,
But when all the means we try
Prove we cannot do without Him,
Then at last to Him we cry.
Thus the ruler, when his daughter
Suffered much, though Christ was nigh,
Still deferred it till he thought her
At the very point to die.

Though he mourned for her condition,
He did not entreat the Lord,
Till he found that no physician
But Himself could help afford.
Jesus did not once upbraid him,
That he had no sooner come;
But a gracious answer made him,
And went straightway with him home:
Yet his faith was put to trial,
When his servants came and said,
"Though He gave thee no denial,
'Tis too late, the child is dead."

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LADY PENNINGTON'S ADVICE

ON THE MANAGEMENT AND EDUCATION OF INFANTS.

СЯРНОЯ

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OME few general rules may be laid down that will equally suit all children in the earliest stage of infancy; but these cease to be of use as soon as the temper, or rather natural dispositions, can be discovered. Those inherent propensities which every child may, I think, be said to bring into the world with it, must then be closely attended to, in order to form an advantageous plan of education. These natural features of the mind are as various as those of the face, and it is as difficult to find two children with whom exactly the same method of instruction, or the same sort of correction will suit, as it is two constitutions that require exactly the same kind and quantity of food and medicine.

The tempers of children are frequently spoiled by the mistaken opinion that they are hardly intelligent creatures the first six months; for the indulgence then given them fixes an obstinacy that is afterwards with great difficulty, if ever, conquered. From the moment of their birth they should be treated as rational

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