On this point Niemeyer says, “The teacher should begin by talking with his pupils about those objects which are, at the time, affecting their senses directly. Pointing to these objects, he asks the pupils to name them. He then passes on to things that are not present, but that the children have seen or felt before. At the same time he exercises their powers of imagination and expression by making them enumerate what they are able to recall. Suitable material: everything in the schoolroom; the human body; everything pertaining to food, dress, comfort; things found in the fields, in the garden, in the yard; animals and plants so far as they are known by the children.” 114. The next step consists in pointing out the main facts of a given whole, the relative position of these parts, their connection, and their movability, if they can be moved without damage. To this are properly linked the simplest facts concerning the uses of things. At the same time children are taught how they must _not_ use things, and how, instead of ruining them, they ought to look after them and use them with care. The abundance and number of things, their size, form, and weight, should likewise be referred to as early as this stage, and should furnish occasion for comparisons. But something more is needed to give distinctness to the ideas of pupils, and to prepare the way for future abstract thinking. Beginning first with the objects, we derive from them the predicates by searching out the attributes; this done, we must in turn make the predicates our starting-point, and classify the objects under the heads thus obtained. This distinction has been made before by Pestalozzi; it is one of fundamental importance in the preparation for generalization. While engaged in such work pupils will of themselves learn to compare, to discriminate, and, in some instances, to observe more accurately: erroneous notions due to an active imagination will be corrected by the appeal to experience as the source of knowledge. 115. Of what remains to be done, the most important task consists in securing a comprehensive view of a somewhat extended time-series, of which objects, together with their natural or artificial origins, are members. An elementary knowledge will thus be gained, especially of the simplest facts about manufacturing processes, and about intercourse among human beings, which facts will serve subsequently as the groundwork for instruction in natural history and geography. But for history also the way must be prepared by referring, although only in the most general way, to times when the utensils and tools of the present had not yet been invented, when the arts of to-day were as yet unknown, and when people were still without those materials that are now imported from foreign countries.