the Executive Committee to "arrange business for all meetings," instead of the "annual meeting" merely.

Mr. Pradt resigned as member of the Executive Committee, and Mr. M. M. Flint was appointed to fill his place.

The Treasurer reported a balance of $3.25 in his hands. Report accepted. The Committee on Resolutions reported the following, which were adopted:

Resolved, That every teacher is recommended to give moral instruction every day in school.

Resolved, That the State Superintendent be desired to request District Clerks to allow teachers to attend County Institutes, without requiring them to make up for lost time.

Resolved, That this association tender their thanks to Mr. J. G. McMynn, for assistance during part of the session.

The thanks of the association were tendered to Capt. D. A. Reed, for the presentation of a copy of Colton's Gazetteer of the World; and to Mr. Pradt, for a volume containing reports of the State Superintendent and County Superintendents in Pennsylvania, for 1856.

On motion, by Mr. Holmes, Messrs. Pradt, Holmes and Butler were appointed a committee to draft resolutions, on occasion of the decease of Sumner L. Pearce, late member of this association.

On motion, voted to extend to the citizens of Sheboygan Falls thanks for their cordial hospitality to the members of the association during the session.

On motion, the Secretary pro tem. was requested to revise and prepare the minutes for publication in the "Sheboygan Journal," the "Evergreen City Times," and the "Wisconsin Journal of Education."

On motion, the President was invited to address the association. After prayer by Rev. Mr. Pradt, and the singing of the doxology, association adjourned sine die.

E. L. BISSEL, Sec. pro tem.

N. C. FARNSWORTH, Pres't.

the

BOSTON SCHOOLS.-The Boston public schools have 23,749 pupils, whose average cost of tuition for the last five years was $14.41. For the precceding five years, (from 1845 to 1850,) the average cost was $15.45. The net expenditures of the city during the year, for carrying on the public schools, including the repairs of the buildings, salaries, furniture, fuel, and all incidental expenses of the same, amounted to $291,406.28. The whole expenditure on account of schools amounted to $441,139.08. The appropriations for the schools for the financial year 1856-7 are as follows: Salaries of instructors, $228,000; incidental expenses, $67,000; repairs, alterations, and improvement of the school-houses, $40,000. Total appropriation, $335,000.

From the Ohio Journal of Education.

A COURSE

OF

COMPOSITION.

In the July number of the Journal, we inconsiderately promised to present an outline of a Course of Composition, adapted, in our judgment, to Classified or Graded Schools. With some diffidence, we now proceed to do so.

It has been remarked that there is danger of empiricism in education. This is too true. There is also equal danger of speculatism, if I may be pardoned the barbarism. All educational methods need to be subjected to the actual test of the school-room before their absolute correctness can be predicated. In general arrangement they may be correct; in detail, very faulty. The inventer of a mower, or reaper, is obliged to submit his work to trial. What seemed to him an undoubted success, often proves a comparative failure. Difficulties, hitherto unseen, are now detected and obviated; improvement after improvement is added, until finally his efforts are crowned with success. So in education. All true methods must be the joint results of theory and practice. For the truth is, there are very many "lodged spots," hidden hummocks, bogs and stones, in the educational field. The following is, therefore, presented for trial:

COURSE OF COMPOSITION.

FIRST STEP: FIRST READER SCHOLARS.

Letter-Making, by the use of slates and blackboard.

Instruction and

copies upon board; first in print, and then in script characters. Short and diversified exercises.

SECOND STEP: SECOND READER SCHOLARS.

Word-Making.-This exercise might include-1. The copying of Special Lessons on slates. The writing of the names of familiar objects in the school-room; the names of the different kinds of food, of trees, of flowers, of birds, of insects, &c. (See "Object Lessons," Cin. Schools, page 157 of Journal. 3. The writing of the names of brothers and sisters, of playmates; then the names of persons, with the common titles of Miss, Mr., Mrs., Esq., Dr., Rev., Hon., M. C., M. A., B. A., D. D., LL. D., etc. Special attention should be given to the correct use of capitals, and, also, the use of the period after abbreviated names. 4. The copying of paragraphs or verses, important maxims, the Ten Commandments, etc.

THIRD STEP: THIRD READER SCHOLARS.

Sentence-Making. This exercise may include-1. The writing of short sentences, expressing the use, quality, etc., of the familiar objects, whose names were written in the First Step. (See "Object Lessons.") 2. The writing of sentences, including certain words, previously selected by Teach

or. 3. The writing of sentences, dictated by Teacher, containing the more common abbreviations. (Example: John Lucas died on the 10th inst.) 4. The writing of all requests made to the Teacher; also short notes to persons, containing a single wish or request. 5. The correcting or rewriting of sentences incorrectly written. 6 The writing of brief letters; properly dating, directing, addressing and subscribing them.

FOURTH STEP: FOURTH READER SCHOLARS.

Sentence-Grouping, or the arranging of sentences so as to make a deseription, or narrative. This may include-1. The writing of letters. Great attention should thus early be given to this subject. 2. The writing of brief narratives or anecdotes, related by the Teacher or some scholar. 3. The writing of brief descriptions, suggested by questions. (See Brookfield's First Book in Composition.) 4. Fhe changing of versos of simple poetry into prose, etc.

So far, the chief object should be to impart the ability to produce a correct manuscript-to thoroughly drill the scholar in the elementary prineiples of written language.

FIFTH STEP: FIFTH READER SCHOLARS.

Composition Proper, or the discussion of themes, in which Invention, Arrangement and Style largely enter. Didactic, persuasive and argumentative writings are included under this head. A more extended analysis of this step is unnecessary. It is fully presented in the common works on English Composition, or Rhetoric.

The above is a mere skeleton or outline of the subject; the skillful Teacher can easily fill it out. The adoption of this, or a better Course of of Composition, securing a complete division of labor, is, in our judgment, greatly needed. Between the different grades of school, early instruction in this important and useful branch of education, is now sadly neglected. PORTSMOUTH. E. E. WHITE.

THE EDUCATOR VS. THE TEACHER.

THE educator draws out latent powers.-The teacher puts in a given task. The educator considers, the worse the material, the greater skill in working it. The teacher does his task, and charges the material with the result. The educator knows his subject to be infinite, and is always learning himself to put old things in a new form.-The teacher thinks he knows his subject, and finds it more irksome every day.

The educator thinks nothing done till the food he gives his pupils is digested and craved for.-The teacher thinks everything done when he has poured out something before them.

The educator encourages. -The teacher furnishes.

The educator has faith in great principles.-The teacher is the slave of little vexations.

The educator is a boy amongst boys in heart; in judgment a man.—The teacher has the hardness of a man, with the want of thought of a boy.

The educator in punishing, considers what is best, not what is deserved. The teacher applies a fixed penalty.

The educator deals in exhortation and hope.-The teacher in truisms and lamentation.

The educator is animated by a high and true ideal, towards which he is ever finding some response, even in apparent failures.-The teacher's ideal is a shallow dream of selfish success, the non-realization of which leaves him apathetic and querelous in his work, sceptical of goodness, hardened in his own opinions, and closed against improvement.

The educator, as he believes in his principles and rules, earnestly strives to be the best example of them himself.

Unpunctuality makes authority grating.

Little charges make authority contemptible.

Little interferences make it hateful.-Clerical Journal.

PRAYER

For the Journal of Education.

FOR

PUBLIC

SCHOOLS.

DID you ever hear any? The Clergy think prayer in public schools well enough, but prayer for them who can bear? which of them practices? Who understands a moiety of the supplication for "institutions of learning" to have reference to these? Is this oversight, or wilful evasion? Do the reverend gentlemen fear mentioning public schools in a church prayer will be called sectarianism? Do they fear it may be called "meddling with politics;" or is there some secret, heavenly propriety for the oversight which the clergy alone perceive? Is it impudence to ask? Is it not as wise to pray a good institution higher as a bad institution lower?

Prayer for colleges are regular and zealous.-In fact, men of letters have have been coaxed by prizes to write their importance into notice.

While they contain unction, juice, pudulum for colleges, is it possible they are unfit for common schools?

Are prayers mere red-herrings which cure Englishmen but kill Frenchmen?

Ethically considered, a good day-school and a good Sunday-school are a “distinction without a difference." Clerically considered, they seem as unlike as a horse chesnut and a chesnut horse.

SHEBOYGAN.

D. J. H.

SCHEMES

From the Normal.

OF MENTAL TRAINING.

THERE are at least four distinct methods of training the mind; all of which should be combined, in order to make a well-stored, systematic, independent, and ready scholar.

ACQUISITION. The first of these is Acquisition. Many teachers seem to suppose this is all. They urge their pupils, by every incentive in their power, to acquire large quantities of words from books. Grammar, Geography, "Arithmetic rules," can be recited by whole classes, from one end of the book to the other. Yet scholars may be less logical, less inclined to investigate for themselves, less able to express their own thoughts in their own language, than before the stuffing process commenced.

. Acquisition is essential to the full development of the mind, undoubtedly. But let it be the acquisition of ideas, rather than words; of principles, rather than rules; the power to retain truth, and its relations, rather than book enunciations of formulas and dogmas.

GENERALIZATION.-The second method of mental training is Generalization. Books are, for the most part, systematically arranged, as the author supposes; though many are wretchedly botched in this particular. The student, however, is not led to see and appreciate this system, or want of system, as the case may be, in the general arrangement of the work, and in the more minute details of the several subjects embraced. His attention is seldom called to the fact, that there is any system in science, any where; and much less, even by good teachers, generally so called, is the pupil required to systematize a subject for himself. The teacher does not generalize, or systematize; he takes books as he finds them, knowing no more of his advancement in the subject than is indicated by the number of pages he has passed over. Hence the necessity of book-marks for such a teacher. But will he train his pupils any better than himself? Let such a teacher set himself to work, and make out OUTLINES of all the branches in which he is engaged, and fill up those outlines as he proceeds with the subjects, carrying out a logical and symmetrical arrangement to the most minute particular. After having thus systematized the ideas of his Text-Book, and the kindred ideas of other books pertaining to the subject, let him generalize the results of his own observation and experience. Thus, he learns to make the necessary connection between his books and his life, between dogmas and facts, between verbal images and material objects. He will then have such a Geography, Grammar, Natural Philosophy, Chemistry, as he can obtain from no book-store, and to him, as I conceive, immensely more valuable. But if the teacher ceases to be a parrot, and begins to use his reason, by pursuing such a course, why not train his pupils in the same manner. Such a teacher, such a scholar, thus trained,