shingles that rain, and in winter snow, is admitted in such quantities as to cause the plastering to fall, and leave a free circulation of air through roof and wall overhead. Others are in such condition that the scholars cannot be warm or comfortable in ordinary weather, in the winter. Others are in such a situation, that a good teacher will not engage in the school on account of the condition of the house. Others again are located in a place, the most unpleasant for children, near a swamp or marsh, as the land there is of the least value, or on some bleak summit, rendered inaccessible by ice or snow a considerable portion of the time in winter, or on the north side of a hill, the last place which should be selected as a site for a school house, with no play ground to make it a pleasant retreat for children. And a privy is considered as such an unnecessary appendage to a school house, that there are a number of towns in this county that have none in them. In other towns they are not, I regret to say, in a much better situation, on account of their being kept in such a miserable condition. But there are districts which have large and commodious school houses, kept in good repair, with seats furnished with backs for the smaller scholars, and arranged in such a manner as to make them comfortable for the whole school. The room being ventila. ted in the proper manner, by lowering the upper sash of the windows, to let the impure air pass off and to protect the children from currents of air; these have a good supply of fuel for winter, wood sawed and piled up in the woodhouse, ready for use, and a good well of pure water near, with fit accommodations for the children to enjoy exercise.

GENERAL REMARKS.

without having any opportunity of explaining or illustrating the lesson.

That a more thorough examination of teachers and schools is required, in order to promote their welfare, is evident; and until this is accomplished, our schools will not flourish, and afford suitable means for the improvement of the juvenile mind, or satisfy the expectations of the community. DAVID G. WOODIN, Dept, Supt. Com. Schools of Columbia Co. Austerlitz, Sept. 29, 1842.

CORTLAND COUNTY.

METHOD OF TEACHING.

The cardinal, and to a greater or less extent, universal defect in the system of teaching in our schools, consists in a constant appeal made to the memory, instead of the understanding-the thinking and reflective faculties. The higher powers of the mind are thus not called into action. Mere names or facts, isolated from their meanings and logical connexions, though stamped in characters seemingly indelible, on the memory, are soon swept away by the abrasion of that mighty current of incidents which fill up the sum of human life; and if retained, to what end? The boy who has been shewn merely mechanically, how to obtain the answer to his problem, though he should be able in after life to recollect the process, so far as that particular problem is concerned, is as incapable as he would otherwise have been, of solving other questions resting on principles precisely analogous. Instead of a principle, he learned a fact -a mere fact, barren and worthless for all the practical purposes of life.

I do not believe the full and glaring extent of the evil here complained of, is known to the proprietors of our schools. It was not certainly by myself, before the execution of official duties forced upon me the painful discovery. If the evil is generally understood, its consequences would seem to be but very imperfectly appreciated. Take, for example, the study of our language. The pupil is taught to spell words-to read words-and as if to carry absurdity to its climax, to parse words-utterly ignorant of the meaning of those words! Not only their precise definitions are not known, but in the words not in common colloquial use, in most instances no approximation to their meaning can be given. And, as would be the natural inference, where such a state of things exists, this igno. rance is not confined to the pupil. Many teach

There is evidently an improvement in the character and condition of the district schools in this county. In many districts a higher grade in the qualification of teachers is required; and the people realize that the character of the school depends entirely upon the character of the teachers. Acting upon this opinion, the services of those teachers are secured who can accomplish something more than merely in. struct the young, in the first principles of an education; who inspire a thirst for knowledge, believing the object of school instruction is to implant in the youthful mind a desire for improvement, and to teach things and not words. But still there is very much to be done. In some districts there is a diversity of opinion upon the subject of our schools, some wishing to employ a teacher who is well qualified, and others act-ers of much experience, and respectable reputaing upon the principle that a cheap teacher will answer and endeavor to thwart the designs of those who want a good school; thus causing a division, and the consequence is they have no school for half of the time, and the school while continued is often worse than none. In many schools, the scholars are so irregular in their attendance that they make but little or no proficiency in their studies. Another evil loudly complained of is the variety of text books. Teachers cannot classify their scholars; in numerous instances, there are as many different books as scholars; thus preventing any arrangements of pupils into classes, obliging the teacher to hear each scholar separately, the recitations being gone through in a hurried manner,

tion, when called upon to define the words they have pronounced for spelling, heard read, and heard parsed for twenty years, fail utterly!

Resolvable to the same radical error in the theory of teaching, the want of a systematic habit of familiar explanation and demonstration, of analysis and synthesis, on the part of the teacher and pupil, is observable in the other departments of science pursued in our schools. In arithmetic, for example, though the black-board hangs in the school-room, it was rarely used for explanation or demonstration, when I entered upon my official duties. The ability to explain and elucidate is one of the highest and rarest accomplishments of the teacher, and one which does not always accompany the highest grade

That order and obedience are the first aim of

of scientific attainment. The evils which result all intermediate times, the air and aspect of a from its disuse in schools are obvious. Un- beast of prey ready to pounce upon its victim. practised by the teacher, the more intricate"I do not find it necessary to whip often," is propositions in the higher branches of study are the self-gratulatory remark frequently made by not clearly grasped by the yet untrained mind such men, "but when I do, I make a business of the pupil; unpractised by the pupils, in the of it." first place, the teacher can have no surety that the proposition is fully mastered by the learner; and in the second, if so mastered, that the impression on the understanding and memory are sufficiently clear and well defined to be permanent. No scholar can be unaware of the fact that the mind will often grasp with seeming clearness, the solution or demonstration given by another, yet if left here, will subsequently find itself utterly unable to repeat the steps of that solution; and the indistinct perception of the truth will grow dimmer and dimmer until entirely lost.

GOVERNMENT AND DISCIPLINE.

That the government of the school should be a moral government, instead of one of mere force; that the higher and better parts of the child's nature should be appealed to, to keep him in the path of duty, instead of his dread of bodily suffering, is a truth much more generally recognized and acted upon than formerly. The practice of laying down a set of rules, or by laws, for the regulation of the school, and using the rod or the ferule for every infraction of them, the only gradation in punishment being in the number of the blows inflicted, is fast wearing away. So far as severity or laxity of discipline is concerned, in the ordinary acceptation of those terms, more err on the side of the latter than the former. Yet, among those who incline to neither extreme of bad government, it is rare to find a decided instance of good govern

ment.

The mild, dignified and uniform exterior, the same to-day and to-morrow, and under every change of circumstance; the earnest an ever manifest solicitude in the pupil's welfare; the kind and well timed word of encouragement to the well-doer; the no less kind, and the fervent appeal to the moral sense, the pride and the feelings of the wrong-doer; the cool, patient, and strictly equitable examination, and subsequent punishment in cases of gross delinquency; how rarely do we find qualities and practices like these united in the same person?

There are, in fact, very few teachers who properly appreciate the high importance of a correct system of school government, or have given to the subject anything like a proper degree of investigation and reflection. And the public have investigated and considered the subject still less. With both, the mere preservation of a certain degree of order, or rather, a certain degree of silence and submission, during school hours, appears to be all that is regarded as coming within this department of duty; and it would seem to matter little by what means subordination is preserved, if it can be done without too great a severity and frequency of corporal discipline. If it is effected by hiring, by scolding, by threatening, or by a mixture of all three, it is all the same; and I have seen teachers who were regarded as prodigies of successful government, who kept their pupils in a state of crouching alarm, by occasional instances of terrible severity, and by wearing at

school government, is most true. That it is necessary for the good of the scholar, for its effects on his mind and character, as well as on his present literary progress, is a proposition which will never be disputed by a man of intelligence. But in securing this end, the teacher should never forget that he is dealing with moral and accountable beings. Children are capable of understanding and appreciating the distinctions between right and wrong, far earlier in life than is generally supposed. Appealing to these considerations, teaches the child self respect. "Treat him like a man," as the phrase is, and he will attempt to act up to the character thus assigned him. I have seen a boy who had been pronounced an incorrigible reprobate, and flogged almost into a state of physical callousness, become dutiful, affectionate, and emulous in the path of duty, by a new teacher assuming the control of him, who commenced by treating and trusting him as if he had never departed from that path. The teacher who assumes the charge of a school should fortify his mind with more than "triple brass" against the entrance of those prejudices against particular pupils, which injudicious persons are usually found so willing to instil into him, under the mistaken idea that they are friendly cautions. And should there be those, who by their own or by the fault of their teachers, have become hardened and are prone to disobey, they should, beyond all question, be objects of peculiar charity and forbearance-of the gentle and attractive inflences of sympathy and kindness. Where force has been tried and failed to break the stubbornness of the disposition, its continuance only hardens, as pounding hardens steel; the attempt should then be made to fuse the feelings of the offender in the crucible of love.

That the rod must be resorted to in some extreme cases, cannot be denied. Its use is sanctioned by intelligent experience, and if it were wanting, the high authority of inspiration. But I hold the following to be well established principles: That it should not be used, except as a last resort, and after all other suitable means have failed; that its use should never be threat ened, as "do this, or I will whip you," or considered the common and only penalty of offence; that it is better for both teacher and pupil to to keep the rod out of sight, as if it were expected and anticipated that it would never be necessary to resort to it.

Grotesque punishments, calculated to expose the offender to laughter and derision, though frequently very effectual in deterring from the repetition of the offence, are not, on the whole, profitable. They blunt the sensibilities and degrade the pupil in his own estimation With what hope of success could the higher and better feelings and principles of the child be invoked, who had just been treated as if he possessed none, and made to play the ape, for the diversion and scorn of his fellows?

The best method to keep children orderly in schools is, as a general rule, to keep them em

The District School Journal.-This valuable

ployed and amused. Should any reasonable advancement of education. Many of them oriman expect the child of five or six years, or in-ginally the pioneers in an untrod wilderness, deed of any age, to sit bolt upright for three few or none of them having possessed early adwhole hours, except during one or two recita- vantages at all equal to those which their lations of five minutes each, and a play spell of bors and their privations have procured for about the same length? Should the scholar, their children. they little dream that they can during the remaining two hours and three-quar- become the efficient coadjutors of scholars and ters, be required to sit immovable and silent as educationists, in the high task of improving our a statue, with the mind and body equally unem. common school system; still less, that their coployed, and this too, on a seat, as it often hap- operation would prove the mightiest lever of pens, too high to allow his feet to reach the educational progress. To correct this error, floor, with no back to it, or one which is entirely and enlist this co-operation, I conceive to be one perpendicular? Let him who thinks so, try the of the first and most important duties of a deputy effects of such an experiment on himself. There superintendent. are innumerable devices by which the teacher of tact can divert the attention of his pupils, and publication, containing in a condensed form the preserve them from lethargy on the one hand, most important educational statistics and inforand disorder, uneasiness or mischief on the other.mation of the day, and by a beneficent provision More frequent play spells, in the case of very in our laws, sent gratuitously to every school small children; permitting them to stand on district in the state, is doing an incredible their feet when fatigued; the use of slates to amount of good, in popularizing a species of form letters or pictures, and a thousand inde: knowledge so important, and hitherto so little scribable expedients, conduce to this end, and attended to; and by keeping every portion of add to the happiness, progress. and the physical the state advertised of the educational improve. health of the pupil. When it actually becomes ments, discoveries, etc., made in the most fanecessary to directly punish with the rod, the vored regions of it, and in other countries. As circumstances of the case should be coolly and the vehicle of the official communications of the patiently inquired into; the decision or sentence Superintendent, it possesses a peculiar value to pronounced without anger, and on strict princi- all in any way connected with our common ples of equity; and the penalty inflicted as schools. Yet I am ashamed to say, there are though it were a painful but unavoidable duty. districts in Cortland county which do not take When revenge nerves the arm and anger gives this paper from the pest-office. The prejudices impetus to the blow, and when these passions and misapprehensions which have existed in respeak their revolting language through the lation to it, are however fast wearing away.

countenance and the words of the misnamed instructer, it requires no vaticinatory spirit to foretell the effects of his ministrations-of the living example, opposed though it may be, to the dead precept.

AGENTS OPERATING FOR THE IMPROVEMENT OF

THE SCHOOLS.

As a general thing, the great preventive of popular co-operation, is popular apathy, or rather a want of knowledge of the necessity of such co-operation. It is common to charge the inactivity of the people in educational matters, entirely to indifference in reference to the whole subject, in other words, indifference to the good of their offspring. Observation has brought me to a different conclusion. That there are instances of stolid and brutal indifference; that there are occasional instances of those who are so ignorant themselves as to be entirely insensible to the benefits of education, is no doubt true. But having again and again seen the tear of uncontrollable emotion start from the eyes of those pronounced the most callous and indifferent, at even the casual praise bestowed on the progress and attainments of their children; having again and again listened to the earnest and feeling promise to thereafter discharge the duties which a parent owes to the schools," from not only those who are usually the most active in such matters, but from men even whose entrance into the school-room excited a smile of wonder and derision, I have learned to be slow in arriving at that conclusion which pronounces a father or mother ever indifferent to the welfare of their offspring. The people at large have not been taught that they have a duty and a labor to perform in this matter, or brought to the knowledge that they can so effectually aid in the

AGENTS OPERATING AGAINST THE IMPROVE-
MENT OF OUR SCHOOLS.

Districts too large or too small.-In densely populated districts, particularly in villages, the school is frequently entirely too large to be placed under the care of a single teacher, and in sparsely populated country districts, the opposite evil prevails. In the former, the overtasked teacher has no time to do justice to his school. Every suggestion for improvement is met, and necessarily so, with the plea of a want of time. Every exercise is hurried, and the proper explanations or illustrations are entirely precluded. Schools in many of our villages, are kept in this condition for years, from a reluc tance to weaken them by division. If the dis trict is divided, and as it would generally result, two small ones formed out of it, the expense of maintaining two highly qualified male teachers, becomes onerous. The gradation or union system offers a ready and unexpensive method of obviating the effects of an over-crowded school, without falling into the opposite difficulty. By placing the advanced scholars under a teacher of corresponding attainments, and the smaller under a female teacher whose services can be more cheaply obtained, and who is better calcu lated to teach them, the progress of both departments is sufficiently accelerated to far more than compensate for the small additional expense. Strange as it may appear, a system, the benefits of which would seem to be so obvious, is too great an innovation on long established customs, to be introduced without difficulty. Crowded districts continue to submit to the disadvantages of their situation, or prostrate their energies, and place it out of

Dissentions in School Districts.-It is humiliating to enumerate contention between neighPoor Teachers for Poor Schools.-Parents and bors, as one of the hindrances to the success of trustees are often found entertaining the opin-ren must drink at the same common fountain of our schools, or to think that men whose childion that a poorly qualified teacher will answer knowledge, should pollute and dry up the waall the purposes" for a backward school. I have been repeatedly informed by inspectors, ception as they are desolating in their effects. ters by animosities, often as trivial in their inthat it is a common occurrence for the trustees Yet that such a state of things exists with far of these backward districts to present a teacher too great frequency-that the disease oftentimes concededly deficient, for examination, and demand a certificate for him almost as a matter of assumes a chronic and almost incurable formright, on the ground that he is "qualified to school districts, holding intercourse with their an educational officer constantly traversing the teach their school, and they are able to employ inhabitants, and often compelled to act as the no other." And inspectors have frequently giv-arbiter of their differences, cannot but know. en their certificates to such applicants, on condition that they should teach a particular specified school of this class!

dence. It might not be expedient, however, to
place the minimum of attendance higher than
two or three months, for this purpose.

HENRY S. RANDALL,
Dept. Supt. for Cortland Co.

DISTRICT SCHOOL JOURNAL.

ELECTION OF TRUSTEES.

We republish Sec. 12 of the new School Act, that those districts who choose these important offices in the autumn, may act for the best interests of the schools. Upon the trustees mainly depends their improvement; with their zealous co-operation, the district school may be made the nursery of an intelligent, virtuous and prosperous people.

the essential duties of the teacher, and until they are fulfilled, our schools will continue to disappoint the hopes of parents and philanthropists, and betray the highest interests of society.

To aid in displacing bad, and introducing good methods into our schools, is a leading object of this Journal; and in laboring to accomplish it, we have presented the various plans in use in the best schools of this country and Europe, and we trust, not without effect. At this time, we shall briefly describe an exercise, which we found some years since in successful operation, in a small district school in Ontario, and which we have since introduced into many schools in this county with gratifying results. Though original with the young teacher from whom we borrowed it, it is almost identical with exercises that have long been popular in the best schools of Europe.

AN EXERCISE ON TOPICS.

Sec. 12. The trustees of each of the several school districts next hereafter to be chosen, shall be divided by lot into three classes, to be numbered one, two and three; the term of office of the first class shall be one year, of the second, two, and of the third, three; and one trustee only shall thereafter annually be elected, who shall hold his office for three years, and until a successor shall be duly elected or appointed. In case of a vacancy in the office of either of the trustees, during the period for which he or they shall have been respectively elected, the person or persons chosen or appointed to fill such vacancy shall hold the office only for the unex-them familiarly, and for them to reply in concert. pired term so becoming vacant.

LIBRARY MONEY.

We call the attention of trustees to the following important provision of the School Law:

Sec. 15. And no portion of the library money shall be apportioned or paid to any district or part of a district, unless it shall appear from the last annual report of the trustees, that the library money reeeived at the last preceding apportionment was duly expended according to law, on or before the first day of October subsequent to such apportionment.

METHODS OF TEACHING.

At the beginning of the last half hour of the day, when the pupils are usually too weary to study with much profit, and too restless to be controlled without difficulty, let the teacher by signal, direct the books to be put aside, and the pupils to ar range themselves conveniently for him to talk to

The teacher announces something familiar and inter-
esting, as the subject of the exercise. Suppose it to
be iron. The children are first asked to name the
common metals. They reply iron, lead, copper, tin,
silver, gold. Which are the precious metals? What
is the most useful metal? What are its uses? Or
what is made of it? Let the children name over
everything they know to be made of iron, and if
any of the more apt scholars anticipate the slower
minds, let the teacher so order the exercise that
every child will impart all the knowledge he pos-
sesses. In this manner they will be taught to think;-
and the same children who a few moments since
were sluggish, wayward and restless, will now be
animated and happy. The teacher next tells them
some interesting facts about iron; in what state it
is found; how it is separated from the ore; made
into steel, and of its immense increase of value by
being formed into the springs of watches, &c., &c.
The children are then told to write it on the last
page of their copy books with the date of the month.
A subject is now given out for the morrow.
pose it to be salt This is written on the black
board, or on a slate hung on the wall, in large let-
ters, and the children are directed to come pre-

The rote method, the mere repetition of words, although the worst, is the most common in our schools. It appears most frequently in teaching grammar, where technical rules are often applied with exactness to the difficult poetry of Milton and Thomson, by pupils who cannot write a simple sentence without violating the most common principles of language; and the same evil pervades to some extent, every branch of education. What is in the book is recited, but not understood; the memory is often crowded with facts, that lie like foreign substances in the mind, imparting no vigor to its faculties, because not assimilating with the knowl-pared to tell all they know about it ;-how, and edge already acquired.

To break up this slavish dependence upon the book, to awaken curiosity, animate and guide inquiry, form habits of thinking soundly, judging independntly and acting rightly;-these are the appropriate.

Sup

where it is made? Where it is found in masses? Where there is a salt mountain? A salt desert? What is the comparative strength of our salt springs, and of ocean brine? What are the uses of salt, &c., &c. The following day the exercise is attended to;