In places where coal is most burned, a piece of it may be made the medium of a very useful and instructive lesson, being so familiar an object, their attention will be arrested by its being made the subject of a lesson; and their curiosity aroused to know every thing about it.  When the teacher asks what is this, the simultaneous shout, of “a piece of coal,” will convince him that he has arrested their attention; and a few questions will exhaust their stock of information on the subject—­they will tell him its uses are to make fires to boil up their dinners, &c. &c.  He may then proceed as follows:—­You see, little children, this piece of coal; look at it attentively; it is black and shining; and you all know will burn very quickly.  The places from whence all coal is brought are called coal mines; the men who dig it out of the ground, and the ships that carry it over the sea, are called colliers, and the place where the coals are got is called a colliery.  The coal mines are deep holes made very far under the ground, in order to get at the coal; some of them go under the sea.  The colliers live a great part of their life, in those dark holes, in order to get us coal to make us fires to dress our food, and very often are killed, either by the falling in of the roof from above, or from a sort of air called fire-damp, which, if touched with any fire, will blow up like gunpowder, and will kill any person that is near it; the poor colliers are also often smothered by the bad air that is in those damp, dark holes; so you see, little children, what dangers they go through, in order to get us coal, which we could very badly do without.

How very good God is to us; he made this coal under the earth that we might have nice fires to dress our food, and warm ourselves by in cold weather; we should be very thankful to him for all his great blessings, and should never do anything to make him angry with us; he is very sorry when he sees a little child naughty, because he has done every thing to make us happy, and we never can be so if we are naughty and bad.  Bad boys and girls are never happy, and God does not love them when they are so, and it is very sad to make God angry with us.

Coal is very useful for other things besides making fires to dress our food, and to warm us.  Many things that are very useful could not be made without it.  The gas that lights the streets is made from coal, and when the gas is taken from it what is left is called coke, which makes a very bright warm fire.

The teacher that properly enters into the spirit of these lessons, may find in the simplest objects, a never-ending source of pleasure and instruction for his infant pupils.  No person who is not qualified to give proper and really useful gallery lessons is by any means fit for a teacher of infants; to learn the mere routine of an infant school is not very difficult, but this will be of no avail if the teacher have not qualifications of a much higher order, which will enable