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                         The Ontario Readers.

                             THIRD READER.

               AUTHORIZED FOR USE IN THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS
                     OF ONTARIO BY THE MINISTER OF
                              EDUCATION.

                               TORONTO:
                   THE W. J. GAGE COMPANY (LIMITED).

    Entered according to Act of the Parliament of Canada in the
    Office of the Minister of Agriculture by the Minister of
    Education for Ontario, in the year of our Lord one thousand
    eight hundred and eighty-five.




PREFACE.


The plan of the Third Reader is the same as that of the Second, with
the exception that a few historical lessons have been introduced, and
two lessons which may serve as an introduction to Physical Science.
The botanical lessons supplement those given in the Second Reader.
These, and the lessons on Canadian trees, and all lessons relating to
things in nature, should be made the subjects of conversation between
the teacher and his class, and should form a basis for scientific
instruction. The pupils should be led to study nature directly. To this
end they should be required to obtain (wherever possible) the natural
objects which are described in the lessons, and to examine them, and to
form opinions for themselves concerning them.

Similarly, every lesson should form the subject of conversation--before
reading, during the progress of the reading, and after reading:--the
teacher eliciting from his pupils clear statements of their knowledge
of it, correcting any wrong notions they may have of it, throwing
them back upon their own experience or reading, and leading them to
observe, compare, and judge, and to state in words the results of their
observations, comparisons, and judgments. Some of these statements
should be written on the blackboard, and then be made the subject
of critical conversation; others might be written by the pupils at
their desks, and afterwards be reviewed in class. In this incidental
teaching, it should be the teacher’s aim to develop the previous
imperfect knowledge of the pupils concerning a lesson into a full and
complete knowledge. This can best be effected by judicious questioning
and conversation.

The illustrations of the lessons, as in the Second Reader, are intended
to aid the pupils in obtaining real conceptions of the ideas involved
in the lessons. Children vary greatly in capacity for imagination. It
is essential, however, to the proper understanding of a lesson, and
hence to the proper reading of it, that a child be able to imagine the
persons, actions, objects, described in it. The illustrations will
aid in developing this power of imagination, and the teacher by his
questions and appropriate criticisms, and by a judicious use of his own
greater knowledge and experience, will aid still more in developing it.

In the poetry great care has been taken to select not only such pieces
as children can easily comprehend, but also such as are in themselves
good literature. Many old favorites have been retained, their worth as
reading lessons having been proved with generations of school children.
In the reading of poetry the teacher must constantly assure himself
that the pupils clearly understand what they read. Children have a
natural ear for rhythm, and a fondness for rhyme. Hence they easily
learn to read verse being insensibly charmed by its melody. But they
cannot, with equal facility, comprehend the poetical meanings, the
terse expressions, and the inverted constructions, with which verse
abounds. Much more time, therefore, should be spent by the teacher,
in poetry than in prose, in eliciting from his pupils the meanings
of words, phrases, and sentences. He should not rest satisfied until
the pupils can substitute for every more important word, phrase, and
sentence of a poem, an equivalent of their own finding. He must be
certain too that they understand the substitutions which they offer.
Conversation and questioning will here, as elsewhere in school work,
help him in effecting his purpose.

The exercises which are put at the end of