Owing to the position and surroundings of the school buildings, which, though not apparently extensive as seen from the street, contained a considerable courtyard and a spacious garden, the scholars enjoyed perfect freedom of exercise, and could play just as they liked in courtyard or garden; with the result, moreover, of thereby affording a most important opportunity to the various teachers of becoming really intimate with the characters of the boys they taught.  And there grew up out of all this a voluntary resolution on the part of the teachers that every teacher should take his boys for a walk once a week.  Each adopted the method he liked best; some preferred to occupy the time of the walk over a permanent subject; others preferred leaving the subject to chance.  I usually occupied my class with botanising; and also as geographical master, I turned these occasions to profit by leading on my boys to think for themselves and to apprehend the relations of various parts of the earth’s surface:  on these and other perceptions gained in this way I based my instruction in physiography, making them my point of departure.

The town was at once my starting-place and my centre.  From it I extended our observations to the right and to the left, on this side and on that.  I took the river Main as a base line, just as it lay; or I used the line of hills or the distant mountains.  I settled firmly the direction of the four quarters of the compass.  In everything I followed the leading of Nature herself, and with the data so obtained I worked out a representation of the place from direct observation, and on a reduced scale, in some level spot of ground or sandy tract carefully chosen for the purpose.  When my representation (or map) was thoroughly understood and well impressed on every one’s mind, then we reconstructed it in school on a black board placed horizontally.  The map was first sketched by teachers and pupils between them, and then each pupil had to do it by himself as an exercise.  These representations of the earth’s surface of ours had a round contour, resembling the circular outline of the visible horizon.

At the next public examination of the school, I was fortunate enough, although this first attempt was full of imperfections, to win the unanimous approval of the parents present; and not only that, but the especial commendation of my superiors.  Every one said, “That is how physiography[54] should be taught.  A boy must first learn all about his home before he goes further afield.”  My boys were as well acquainted with the surroundings of the town as with their own rooms at home; and gave rapid and striking answers as to all the natural peculiarities of the neighbourhood.  This course was the fountain-head of the teaching method which I afterwards thoroughly worked out, and which has now been in use for many years.

In arithmetic I did not take the lower, but the middle classes; and here also my teaching received cheering encomiums.