Hi ' ." "" &' .. "..: ') i,-- M4iilvT''"''tV,illKIISilnlSKIKItKFvK1KBIBi' to No. ). Visit to this ihjiimo schools op Munich. 375 fg m. -nriiwr(irMM- mbm-i i cr.s, in tliu scliool in question, was in stiueting u class of girls in tho tlrst year. Each lonelier nsiuilly retains the same class through two or three years, thus lessening the number of changes of teach ers. There is no co-education of the sexes in the schools of Bavaria, except for spe cial reasons. From the lowest class to the highest, '.lie sexes study and recite in different rooms, and even on the play, ground, they do not coino in contact. Yet I did not converse with a single teacher, who did not warmly advocate co education, as the more natural method in the public schools. Indeed in the "Model Department" of the Normal school of Munich, this theory is put in actual prac tice, and boys and girls sit upon the sumo benches in the school-room. Gymnastic exercise is made a promi nent feature of the instruction. Separate buildings are provided therefor, titled up with every modern apparatus and conven ience, and separate rooms for the sexes. Each teacher is expected to give in struction in gymnastics each devoting a certain number of hours weekly to this department. Each child performs twice a week, and the exercises are attended with songs, designed expressly as an ac companiment. The chil is never lost sight of by the teacher; i i his sports on tho play ground at .vatched over and superin tended as rigidly as his lessons in the class-room. Should the teacher mix with tho children, to suggest and introduce new games to lay aside his dignity lor an hour, and become a child with them iii their romps, I would raise no word of dissent; but to stand over them ever as a warder and director, seems to mo to bo a monstrous trespass upon tho m st sacred rights of the child, calculated to rob the spring-time of life of its freshest and most unalloyed joys. Often, as I have paused on thoptreet to wnich these children at their games, and have observed tho bash, ful, mechanical motions, the spiritless, solemn movements, unenlivened by a single ringing shout, and memory brought back to mo tho rollicking, bois terous scenes of my own 'common school' days; did the one before mo seom like a painful, unnatural farce, and I felt half tempted to spring over tho fence, and drive oil' tho dread sentinel, whose bane ful gaze was friezing the gayety of tho lit tie victims, and bid tho latter laugh and scream, and roll inthodirtto their heart's content. A peculiar institution connected with tho scliool is tho Kitchen, where to those children whoso parents live at a dis tance, or do not wisli them to return at noon, are served a bowl of soup and a portion of bread and meat, at a cost of 8 Pfcnnigc (2 cts.) per diem. To tho chil drcn of tho needy it is served gratis. The children are then conducted to the 'Work Room,' where for the remainder of tho hour, they are employed in various kinds of useful labor and manufacture. We were shown beautiful card-baskets, lamp, mats, all manner of toys, brackets exec uted with scroll saws &c, some of them showing great dexterity and skill, and made by both girls and boys. I know not how I shall bo able to ex. press my admiration for the methods of instruction employed, which seem to bo perfect in accordance with nature. Tho question and answer system is ut. terly ignored. The whole tendency and bent of the method is to develop find to train the perceptive faculty, to teach obser vation, in short to lead to personal inde pendent thought on tho part of tho child. In teaching reading and tho alphabet tho "word. method" in employed as tho on ly rational one. Tho prominence given to "object lessons" throughout tho -whole course, is worthy of special regard. Not only is the child given a glance into iho principles of Natural Philosophy, Botany, Chemistry mid other brandies of natural history, but even geography and arilhmo. tic are thus taught. In tho former sci. once no regular text-book is employed n ii