A spider, a living specimen of which may be easily procured,
may be
made a very instructive gallery lesson; it may prevent the fears and
foolish prejudices against ugly yet harmless insects, which often
remain through life. Part of a bush may be procured with a real web
and spider upon it, so that its beautiful and highly curious web may
be also exhibited to the children, its uses may be also pointed out,
and a short history of the little animal's habits may be given, but
not before their opinions have been taken on the object, which may be
done in a similar manner as that which we pointed out in the former
lesson, and then the teacher may proceed thus:
You have told me that this little creature is called a spider, and
some of you think it very ugly, and say you are afraid of it, but
sensible children will not be frightened at a spider, because they
will remember that they are very harmless little things, and have not
got a sting as the wasp and bee have. They are very ugly, to be sure,
but every ugly insect is not to be called a nasty creature, for some
are very useful, notwithstanding their not being as handsome as
others; and spiders are very useful too, although very few people know
how to make use of them; but they little think that the poor little
insect which they brush off the wall, and trample under their feet,
can tell them what weather they are going to have, as sure, and surer
than a weather-glass. When the weather is going to be fine it peeps
its head out of its hole, and stretches out its legs; and the farther
its legs and head are out, the longer will the fine weather stay. When
the weather is going to be very bad it goes farther back; and when
very dreadful and stormy weather is going to come, it turns its back
to the door of its hole and its head inside. In winter, when frost and
snow is going to commence, they make their webs very fast, and by this
you may know the frosty weather is coming; so you see, children, that
spiders may be useful to know what kind of weather we shall have.
Spiders are very cunning; they live on flies; but they could never
catch them, only they are able to weave a strong web, which they do
in
a place where the flies often come; and when a poor fly gets into the
web, the spider runs out and soon kills it, and then drags it up to
his den, where he eats it at his ease, and hides the wings and skin,
that the other flies may not see them; but if an enemy stronger than
itself comes to his web, the spider remains in his hole till the
danger is all over. Some spiders that live in countries far away are
a
great deal larger and uglier than our spiders; but we need not be ever
afraid of a spider, because they can neither bite nor sting us, and
are very curious insects.
Q. What have I been telling you about? A.
The spider.
Q. Are you afraid of it?
A. No, you told us it would do us no harm.
Q. Are spiders very ugly?
A. They are.
Q. Should we think badly of them for this?
A. No.
Q. Who made the spider?
A. God.
Q. Does he not make every animal, whether handsome or ugly?
A. Yes.
Q. Can spiders be of use?
A. They will tell us what weather we are going to have.
Q. When it is going to be fine what do they do?
A. They put their legs and head out of their hole.
Q. When it is going to be bad weather what do they do?
A. They turn their heads round and go into their holes.
Q. When the weather is going to be very cold and frosty what do they
do?
A. They build their webs very fast.
Q. What do they live upon?
A. Flies.
Q. How do they catch them?
A. By making webs.
Q. When a fly gets into their web what do they do?
A. They kill it and eat it.
Q. Are the spiders in other countries larger than ours?
A. Yes, in some places they are much larger and uglier.
Q. Who teaches the spider to make its web?
A. God.
Q. Could any man in the world make a spider's web?
A. No, no one could do it.
The teacher may then add thus:--Thus you see, little children, that
every living thing has some merit of its own, and can do many things
which we cannot do, although God has given us the means to become so
much wiser than they; and be sure you are not frightened at them, nor
put them to unnecessary pain. Some other day I will tell you what is
the shape of the spider's web, and shew you what a number of regular
figures the spider's web is composed of.
Almost every object, however simple it may be, will form an
instructive gallery lesson; thus for example, you may take a piece of
bog-turf, and after submitting it to the inspection of the infants,
you may inquire, What is this? If it be in a country where turf is
used, a general exclamation will inform you of its name; if not, you
may find a better and more familiar object for your lesson. When you
have got the name, you may then ask its uses, and will soon find that
the children are well acquainted with them. You may then proceed
to give your own information on the subject in something like the
following words, taking care that you use no word that the children
do
not themselves understand, or that you have not explained to them.
Little children, look at what I hold. You have told me it is a piece
of bog-turf, and it is used to make fires. In Ireland turf is more
used to make fires than coal, because it is very plentiful there, and
many of the poor people in Ireland build their houses of it, and
when they keep them well mended and covered, they are very warm ands
comfortable, and they burn good turf fires in their turf houses; but
some of them are lazy, and do not keep their turf houses mended, so
the rain comes in, and they are very miserable, and so will all idle
lazy people be. I hope no little child here will be lazy, Now I will
tell you where they get all this turf, they dig it out of the bogs.
There are bogs in England; they call them mosses or fens, and in
Scotland there are bogs, but the bogs in Ireland are much more
plentiful. Some of them are so very large that you cannot see across
them, and a great many birds live amongst them, such as wild ducks,
and geese, and cranes, and herons, and snipe, all of which I will tell
you about some other time. Those great bogs are very wild, lonesome,
dreary places; no person can live on them, because they are so wet and
soft, and they are full of great deep holes with water in them, which
are called bog holes, and if any person fell in they would be drowned.
Sometimes in the middle of this great bog you will see a pretty green
island, where the land is firm and strong, and the grass is nice and
sweet, so that the poor people make a dry path across the wet bog to
these islands, that they may drive their cows, and goats, and horses
to feed there; and some of these islands are very pretty places, and
look so green in the centre of the black bog. Those bogs which are now
such wet, black, nasty places, were once forests of great trees, as
large as any you children ever saw, and pretty bright rivers ran
through those forests, and nice birds sang in the branches, and great
stags eat the grass underneath; we will read about the stag at some
other time. This was many hundred years ago, and there were very few
people living then in Ireland, and by degrees, when the trees got very
old, they began to fall down into the rivers and stopped them up, so
that the water could not flow on, and the rivers overflowed all the
nice forests, and the trees all fell, so that when some hundred years
passed they were all down, and the branches rotted, and the grass and
clay became wet, like sponge, and the whole of the nice shady forests
of great trees became what we call bogs, and the remains of those
pretty branches and leaves, where the birds used to sing so sweetly,
has become turf, like this piece which we have for a lesson; and when
men are cutting this turf out, they often find the great trunks of
those trees, that many hundred years ago were so green and beautiful,
quite black and ugly, but still so hard that they can scarcely be cut,
and these old trees are called bog-oak, and the cabinet-maker buys
them and makes them into beautiful chairs, and tables, and presses,
and many other things, and they are quite black, and when polished you
little children might see your faces in them. Thus you see, my little
children, that there is nothing which God has made which is not very
wonderful and curious, even this piece of bog-turf, which you would
not have heard about if you did not come to the infant school to learn
about so many useful and curious things.
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