The children are highly delighted with these pictures, and, of their own accord, require an explanation of the subjects.  Nay, they will even ask questions that will puzzle the teacher to answer; and although there is in some minds such a natural barrenness, that, like the sands of Arabia, they are never to be cultivated or improved, yet I can safely say, that I never knew a child who did not like the pictures; and as soon as I had done explaining one, it was always, “Please, sir, may we learn this?” “Please, teacher, may we learn that?” In short, I find that I am generally tired before the children; instead of having to apply any magisterial severity, they are petitioning to learn; and this mode of teaching possesses an advantage over every other, because it does not interfere with any religious opinion, there being no body of Christians that I know, or ever heard of, who would object to the facts recorded in the Bible, being thus elucidated by pictures.  Thus a ground-work may be laid, not only of natural history, but of sacred history also; for the objects being before the children’s eyes, they can, in some degree, comprehend them, and store them in their memories.  Indeed, there is such attraction in pictures, that you can scarcely pass a picture-shop in London, without seeing a number of grown persons around the windows gazing at them.  When pictures were first introduced into the school, the children told their parents; many of whom came and asked permission to see them; and although the plates are very common, I observed a degree of attention and reverence in the parents, scarcely to be expected, and especially from those who could not read.

It is generally the case, that what we have always with us, becomes so familiar, that we set little store by it; but on being deprived of it for a time, we then set a greater value on it:  and I have found this to be the case with the children.  If the pictures we make use of in the schools be exposed all at once, and at all times, then there would be such a multiplicity of objects before the eyes of the children, that their attention would not be fixed by any of them; they would look at them all, at first, with wonder and surprise, but in a short time the pictures would cease to attract notice, and, consequently, the children would think no more of them than they would of the paper that covers the room.  To prevent this, and to excite a desire for information, it is always necessary to keep some behind, and to let very few objects appear at one time.  When the children understand, in some measure, the subjects before them, these may be replaced by others, and so on successively, until the whole have been seen.