The trouble of rightly using such lessons has caused them to be almost entirely laid aside in very many existing infant schools, and in too many instances the mere learning and repeating of sounds by rote, or what may very properly be called the "parrot system," has been introduced in their place.

But I yet hope that the good sense of the public will in the end remedy such defects.
In such cases the memory is the only faculty exercised, and that at the expense of those that are higher.

Where this is persisted in, the infant system is rendered nugatory, and my labours are in vain.

It therefore cannot be too strongly insisted on, and too frequently repeated, that one of its most fundamental principles, as regards the unfolding, properly and easily, of the intellectual faculties, is to communicate _notions_ and _ideas_ rather than words and sounds, or at least to let them be done together.
As before stated, the gallery had its origin in my desire to teach the children simultaneously.

It enables a teacher more readily to secure their full attention in all oral lessons, and establishes a sympathy between them.