be the parent of many others, which would gradually arise as their necessity would be appreciated from the perceived success of the first.

6) "The wages of teachers are not sufficient to induce teachers so well educated to engage in the profession."

At present this is true; for wages are generally graduated according to the aggregate merit of the profession, and this hitherto has not been very great. People will not pay high for a poor article; and a disproportionate quantity of poor articles in market, which are offered cheap, will affect the price of the good with the generality of purchasers. But let the good be supplied in such quantities as to make the people acquainted with it, and it will soon drive out the bad and command its own price. The establishment of a Teachers' Seminary will raise the wages of teachers by increasing their qualifications and augmenting the real value of their services; and people eventually will pay a suitable compensation for good teaching with much less grudging than they have hitherto paid the cheap wages of poor teachers, which after all, as has been well observed, is but "buying ignorance at a dear rate."

NOTES.

NOTE A. CHINESE EDUCATION.

THERE is a regular system of schools in China of two kinds, the people's schools, and schools for the nobles. The course commences when the child is five years old, and is continued very rigorously, with but few and short vacations, to the age of manhood. In the people's schools the course consists of four parts, each of which has its appropriate book. The first is called Pe-kia-sing, and contains the names of persons in 100 families, which the children must commit to memory. The second is called Tsa-tse, and contains a variety of matters necessary to be known in the common business of life. The third is called Tsien-tse-ouen, a collection of 1000 alphabetical letters. The fourth is San-tse-king, a collection of verses of three syllables each, designed to teach the elements of Chinese morals and history. Such is the provision for the common people.

For the nobles there is a great university at Pekin, the Koue-tze

kien, to which every mandarin is allowed to send one of his sons. The candidate for admission must go first to the governor of a city of the third rank for examination, and if approved, he receives the degree of Hien-ming. He then goes to the governor of a city of the first rank, and if he maintains a good examination there, is admitted to the university.

A mandarin is annually sent out from Pekin to visit the higher institutions in the larger cities, and to confer degrees on the pupils according to their progress. A class of 400 is selected and passes through ten examinations. The 15 who have acquitted themselves best in all these examinations, receive the degree of Sinoa-tsay, the most important privilege of which is that they are no longer liable to be whipped with the bamboo. Rich men's sons, who cannot always obtain this degree by a successful passage through the ten examinations, can procure the equivalent degree of Kien-song by paying a stipulated sum into the public treasury. Having attained either of these lower degrees, the pupil after three years can offer himself at Pekin for the higher degree of Kin-jin, which must be obtained after rigorous examination. The successful applicants for this honor, after one year longer, can demand at Pekin an examination for the highest academical degree, that of Tsin-tse. He who obtains this is congratulated and feasted by his friends, he is regarded with veneration by the people, is eligible to the highest office in the state, and may be raised by the emperor to the dignity of Han-lin.

The emperor himself is required to be a man of learning, and the care of his early education is committed to a special college of learned men called Tschea-sza-fu; and he is regarded in law as the educator and instructor of his people, as well as their ruler. In each village there is a public hall where the civil and military functionaries assemble on the first and fifteenth of every month, and a discourse is delivered to them on the Sacred Edict. This Sacred Edict contains 1) The principle of Khong-hi, an ancient emperor. 2) A commentary by his son Young-tching, who reigned about the year 1700, and 3) A paraphrase by Wang-yeou-po. It was translated into English by Rev. W. Milne, Protestant Missionary at Malacca, and printed in London in 1817.

In the above brief sketch, it is plain that the Chinese have a great veneration for learning, and that the emoluments and honors of the empire are designed to be accessible to those only who have taken. academical degrees. But the whole system is arranged to make them Chinese. It excludes everything of foreign origin, it admits neither improvement nor variation, and the result is manifest in the character of the people.

Some, however, of our modern improvements have long been known and practised in the Chinese schools. Such as the practice of the children reading and repeating together in choir, the art of mnemonics, and others of the like kind.-See Schwartz's Geschichte der Erziehung, Vol. I. p. 68-75.

NOTE B.-PRUSSIAN SCHOOLS, A FEW YEARS AGO.

The following questions and answers are from Dr. Julius's testimony, before the Committee of the British House of Commons in 1834, respecting the Prussian School System.

"Do you remember from your own knowledge, what the character and attainments of the school masters were, previous to the year 1819?

I do not recollect; but I know they were very badly composed of non-commissioned officers, organists, and half-drunken people. It has not risen like a fountain at once. Since 1770, there has been much done in Prussia and throughout Germany, for promoting a proper education of teachers, and by them of children.

In your own observation has there been a very marked improvement in the character and attainments of school masters, owing to the pains taken to which you have referred ?

A very decided improvement."

Dinter in his autobiography gives some surprising specimens of gross incapacity in teachers, even subsequent to 1819. The following anecdotes are from that interesting work: Dinters Leben von ihm selbst beschrieben.

In the examination of a school in East Prussia, which was taught by a subaltern officer dismissed from the army, the teacher gave Dinter a specimen of his skill in the illustration of his Scripture narrative. The passage was Luke vii, the miracle of raising the widow's son at Nain. "See, children, (says the teacher,) Nain was a great city, a beautiful city; but even in such a great, beautiful city, there lived people who must die. They brought the dead youth out. Sec, children, it was the same then as it is now-dead people couldn't go alone-they had to be carried. He that was dead began to speak. This was a sure sign that he was alive again, for if he had continued dead he couldn't have spoken a word."

In a letter to the king a dismissed school master complained that the district was indebted to him 200705 dollars. Dinter supposed the man must be insane, and wrote to the physician of the place to inquire. The physician replied that the poor man was not insane, but only ignorant of the numeration table, writing 200 70 5 instead 275. Dinter subjoins, "By the help of God, the king, and good men, very much has now been done to make things better."

In examining candidates for the school teacher's office, Dinter asked one where the kingdom of Prussia was situated. He replied, that he believed it was somewhere in the southern part of India. He asked another the cause of the ignis fatuus, commonly called jack-with-the-lantern. He said they were spectres made by the devil. Another being asked why he wished to become a schoolteacher, replied that he must get a living somehow.

SECOND SERIES, VOL. II. NO. III.

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A military man of great influence once urged Dinter to recommend a disabled soldier in whom he was interested, as a school teacher. I will do so, says Dinter, if he sustains the requisite examination. Oh, says the Col., he doesn't know much about school teaching, but he is a good, moral, steady man, and I hope you will recommend him to oblige me. D. Oh yes, Col., to oblige you, if you in your turn will do me a favor. Col. What is that? D. Get me appointed drum-major in your regiment. True I can neither beat a drum, nor play a fife; but I am a good, moral, steady man as ever lived.

A rich landholder once said to him, Why do you wish the peasant children to be educated; it will only make them unruly and disobedient. Dinter replied, If the masters are wise and the laws good, the more intelligent the people, the better they will obey.

Dinter complained that the military system of Prussia was a great hindrance to the schools. A nobleman replied that the young men enjoyed the protection of the government, and were thereby bound to defend it by arms. Dinter asked if every stick of timber in a house ought first to be used in a fire engine, because the house was protected by the engine? or whether it would be good policy to cut down all the trees of an orchard to build a fence with to keep the hogs from eating the fruit?

NOTE C.-SCHOOL-COUNSELLOR Dinter.

Gustavus Frederic Dinter, was born at a village near Leipsic in 1760. He first distinguished himself as principal of a Teachers' Seminary in Saxony, whence he was invited by the Prussian Government to the station of School-Counsellor for Eastern Prussia. He resides at Königsberg, and about 90 days in the year he spends in visiting the schools of his province, and is incessantly employed nearly 13 hours a day for the rest of his time, in the active duties of his office; and that he may devote himself the more exclusively to his work, he lives unmarried. He complains that his laborious occupation prevents his writing as much as he wishes for the public, yet in addition to his official duties, he lectures several times a week during term time in the university at Königsberg, and always has in his house a number of indigent boys, whose education he superintends, and, though poor himself, gives them board and clothing. He has made it a rule to spend every Wednesday afternoon, and if possible, one whole day in the week besides, in writing for the press; and thus, by making the best use of every moment of time, though he was nearly 40 years old before his career as an author commenced, he has contrived to publish more than 60 original works, some of them extending to several volumes, and all of them popular. Of one book, a school catechism, 50,000 copies were sold

previous to 1830; and of his large work, the School-Teacher's Bible in 9 Vols. 8vo., 30,000 copies were sold in less than 10 years.

He is often interrupted by persons who are attracted by his fame, or desire his advice, and while conversing with his visitors, that no time may be lost, he employs himself in knitting; and thus not only supplies himself with stockings and mittens, suited to that cold climate, but always has some to give away to indigent students and other poor people. His disinterestedness is quite equal to his activity, and of the income of his publications he devotes annually nearly 500 dollars to benevolent purposes. Unweariedly industrious, and rigidly economical as he is, he lays up nothing for himself. He says, "I am one of those happy ones, who, when the question is put to them, Lack ye any thing? (Luke 22: 35,) can answer with joy, Lord, nothing.' To have more than one can use is superfluity, and I do not see how this can make any one happy. People often laugh at me, because I will not incur the expense of drinking wine, and because I do not wear richer clothing, and live in a more costly style. Laugh away, good people; the poor boys also, whose education I pay for, and for whom besides I can spare a few dollars for Christmas gifts, and new year's presents, they have their laugh too."

Towards the close of his auto-biography, he says respecting the King of Prussia, "I live happily under Frederic William; he has just given me 130,000 dollars to build churches with in destitute places; he has established a new Teachers' Seminary for my poor Polanders, and he has so fulfilled my every wish for the good of posterity, that I can myself hope to live to see the time when there shall be no school-master in Prussia more poorely paid than a common laborer. He has never hesitated, during the whole term of my office, to grant me any reasonable request for the helping forward of the school-system. God bless him. I am with all my heart a Prussian. And now, my friends, when ye hear that old Dinter is dead, say, 'may he rest in peace; he was a laborious, good hearted, religious man; he was a Christian."

A few such men in the United States would effect a wonderful change in the general tone of our educational efforts.

NOTE D.-IMPROVEMENT OF SCHOOL TEACHERS.

At the commencement of the late school efforts in Prussia, for the benefit of teachers already in the profession who had not possessed the advantages of a regular training, it was the custom for them to assemble during the weeks of vacation in their schools, and under the care of a competent teacher, go through a regular course of lessons for their improvement. Of the entire course a careful and minute journal was kept and transmitted to the government.