The desideratum here desired is to be found by the teacher in the method, now very extensively known, of drawing lessons from useful truths, and then applying them to the future probable circumstances of the pupils. For example, when a child reads, or is told that Jacob was punished by God for cheating his brother and telling a lie, the great object of the parent or teacher is to render these truths _practical_,--which the question, "What does that teach you?" never fails to do. The child, as soon as he knows the design of his teacher in communicating practical truths, and is asked the above question, will tell him, that he ought never to cheat his neighbour, or tell a lie. The application of these lessons, when thus established as a rule of duty founded on Scripture, is as extensive as the circumstances in which they may be required are various;--and the teacher has only to suppose such a case, and to ask his pupil, if he were placed in these circumstances, what he should do. The dullest of his children will at once perceive the duty, and the source from which he derives confidence in performing it. There is no difficulty, as we have seen, in drawing and applying practical lessons in cases of urgency, where experience and the common sense of the individual prompt him to it;--and this attempt to imitate Nature in less urgent cases, and especially in hearing, or in the more artificial operation of reading, has been found in experience to be completely successful. We shall endeavour to point this out by a few familiar examples. Let us for this purpose suppose, that one of the boys formerly mentioned is accompanied by his teacher, instead of his companion, and is approaching the soft ground which lies between them and the house. Before they arrive at the spot, his teacher tells him, that the marsh before them is so soft that even a child's foot would sink if he attempted to tread upon it. The boy might hear, and perfectly understand the truth, and yet he might not at the time think of the use to which it ought to be put. But if the teacher shall immediately add, "What does that teach you?"--his attention would instantly be called, not so much to the truth itself, as to the uses which ought to be made of it, and his answer in such a plain case would be ready, "We must not cross there, but seek a road to the house by some other way." Now here the fact was verbally communicated; and although the object was in sight, and the use of the fact might in some measure have been anticipated so as to suggest the answer, yet a little consideration will shew, that a similar effect would have been produced by the question, had the parties been in the house, or had the truth been derived from reading, and not from the oral communication of the teacher.