Many things might be taught, which it is neither advisable nor practicable to teach in the schools established for the instruction of poor children.
Whilst the elements of number, form, and language, may be taught by the means and after the manner recommended in the preceding chapters on the respective subjects, there are other branches of knowledge which might enter into the scope of nursery instruction with great advantage to the children.
As an introduction to _botany_, I would make the children acquainted with the progress of vegetation, _not from words, but from observation_.

I would have three or four garden-pots filled with mould, introduced into the nursery at a proper season of the year; the children should be asked, what is in the pots.--"Dirt," or "mould," will of course be the reply.

They should then be shewn the seeds which are to be deposited in the mould, and assuming in the eyes of the children a prophetic character, the mother or governess should inform them of the process of vegetation, and that about a certain time a pretty flower will make its appearance in the pots: the seeds should then be deposited in the mould, and the pots placed in a proper situation.

It would not be improper to let the children themselves sow the seed; thus convincing them of their power of being useful, and becoming the instrument of so great a wonder, as the transformation of a seed into a flower.

During the time the seed is lying unperceived beneath the mould, the children should frequently be sent to look "if the pretty flower has come up," or questioned as to what they were told concerning it.