nished with comfortable seats. No danger of poison from tainted air, for its ventilator is visible above the hooded door. No danger of dampness, for the shingles are closely laminated. No danger that the passer-by will insult its pupils with the cry of "school butter," for the neat edifice compels respect. When neatness, taste, convenience, comfort, health, can be secured so cheaply, is it not amazing that so little attention is paid to those great factors that serve so largely to relieve childhood of many of its pains, and those destroying conditions that sow the tares of such a frightful after-harvest in the minds and bodies of manhood and womanhood?

PHRENOLOGY IN THE SCHOOL-ROOM.

W. B. HIGHGATE, HOLLY SPRINGS, MISS.

THE remark was once made that we could tell no more from the bumps on a

man's head what his abilities were than we could tell from the composition of an elephant's hide, what was inside of him. Is this true or not? That is the question. Can we not discern the signs of the times from the appearance of the heavens, and, if so, then can we not discern the disposition of a person from the appearance of the face and the formation of the head? Both phrenology and physiognomy are indispensable instruments with which we may acquire this much desired knowledge. The face is an indelible index to the mind. The knowledge gained from the face and the protuberances of the head can be relied on equally with that gained by the walk, the actions and even the voice. The study of the face is of as much importance as the study of any text-book in our common schools. This study is of importance to people of all classes, but particularly to the school teacher and others who are constantly associated with the young. In the purchase of an animal men are very particular to notice all of its qualities. How much more particular should a teacher be when, for the first time, a pupil comes into his presence. It is impossible to say with what care he should notice the whole person before him, scrutinizing the face, and even the formation of the neck. When, for the first time, a pupil enters the schoolroom, look him straight in the face and read him. Many will say that this is of no use. What can we find that will not be objected to by some one. Possibly a few examples will suggest a more serious reflection, if no more, even on the part of the most skeptical. The examples which will be mentioned are some which have not been noticed by all school teachers. A pupil enters your school-room for the first time; look at him first, talk to him afterwards; see, first, will he learn easily, and behave nicely; or will he be the dullest, and, at the same time, the most troublesome boy in the school. Here are some marks which will impart this information almost at once. If the pupil in question has a round head, with short, thick neck, firmly set between his shoulders, mark at once that he is stubborn, and shape your course accordingly. If, in addition to these two qualities above mentioned, the pupil has a fullness under the eye, or, as it is termed, calculation, he will be a good scholar in mathematics. This same quality (calculation) may be noticed in the slow pupil-the one who is always the last. He is slow but sure in all his classes. The pupil with the high forehead will be very

obedient, but possibly not such a good scholar. The "extra" smart boy in his books is likely to be extra smart in his mischief. The boy with the round, full face makes the hard thinker and the successful scholar. The quick step while walking is indicative of the busy-body. Such pupils may be good in their studies, but will always be getting in trouble. The face which is always wreathed in smiles, means more than sunshine. A smile should be on the face of every pupil as he enters upon the duties of the day, but behind the face which is always smiling, particularly if the pupil moves slowly, there lurks more mischief than is supposed to dwell within such an angelic frame. These are but a few of the secrets which are divulged by the face. These secrets cannot be hidden even by those who are the most skilled in disguising their feelings and failings, but may be read with as much ease as the lines on any page. How often is it that we find the question asked in our school journals, "How shall I govern my large pupils?" or kindred questions. The question is as easily answered as asked. Study their dispositions, as indicated by their faces, and you will find no trouble with those who to others have been at all times of the most refractory character. Try the experiment of face-reading. There is no better field for the practice than in the school-room. It will cost nothing, and is a perfectly honorable practice. It will bring valuable information to the teacher regarding the government of the school-room; in fact, it will be the key to his success. Will some one try the experiment and let us know the result through the next ECLECTIC?

OUR LIBERATORS.

'EACHERS, even the best of them, do not usually put into their work a suffireplenish themselves from high sources. They need something a little more to the purpose than what they ordinarily get at training schools and institutes. To lift them from one groove, to set them down in another, even of a higher, is quite beside the purpose. The valuable thing is to give them liberty. They must see things from a rarer elevation. Only thus can they give to their work permanent and commanding qualities. But who shall fit them for so noble a service? We answer, the great thinkers and poets. He who has read adequately such a work as Jowett's Plato has been so fashioned. Whatever his methods, they will be the methods of a quick spirit. Besides, they will contain what is above all methods the sanity and passion of a liberator. The persistent study of any of the great systematic thinkers will quicken one's apprehension and valor. The rich and imaginative prose of such writers as Bacon and Burke and Coleridge, has a somewhat different but not less gracious and sufficient virtue.

It must be remarked, however, that these writers yield their best values only to the sincere reader. It is not perpetual gazing, but clear seeing, if but for a moment, that lifts the intellect. The inventor quickens invention. When in reading one cannot give, as well as receive, the exercise is without vivacity cr benefit. An intimate and searching acquaintance with books, just as an intimate and searching acquaintance with nature, demands serene moods and alert

faculties. Another hint may not be without value. It is best at some time to concentrate our efforts to read the weightiest pages of the great masters a hundred times, till their words and thoughts sink surely into the intellect and memory. The mere ability to quote a line or so, is like taking a twig from a forest when it is the forest itself you want.

But the great systematic thinkers are not our only lifting friends. The poet enriches us with even a purer health and power, because he is a juster and more central preception of truth. Chapman, who knew how to write firm and vital verse, says of Homer;

"You cannot more the point of death control

Than to stand close by such a living soul."

Only a fresh spirit can do commanding work. Here is expressed the inestimable value of poetry. It teaches cheerful and affirmative living and thinking. A single sonnet from Chapman or Ben Jonson, from Milton or Wordsworth, puts a finer health into the intellect and a better courage into the veins.

The teacher, then, who would do an adequate work, must acquire the habit of drinking at mountain springs. It may require a little climbing, but it is worth while to go to the heights, if only to get a breath of fresh air. The brave thinker is such only by virtue of a perpetual provocation and enlargement. His work is valuable in proportion as he is nourished by the scholar's highest thought and hope.

There is just now a sort of educational Philistinism which pleases itself with worshipping the mechanical instead of the vital. But there is better thought in the air than this. The admirable thing is to work one's self to those heights where that thought freely circulates. Instead of being pedantically directed how to take such step in the journey, it is better to be fashioned by those wiser spirits who prepare us to walk sure-footedly and alone. At least he who would awaken as well as guide a fine intelligence must, himself, be reinforced from the highest sources. The conditions under which teachers are compelled to work, the lack of leisure, and the supposed necessity of adaptation to the common folly, may prevent their possessing as wide and gracious accomplishments as they could desire. Yet something of what is best, they can still know. Now and then a precious intelligence will be committed to their charge. It should be their care that, by habitual contact with the best thoughts, they shall be able to fit fair instruction to fair faculties. He who goes to his morning work with even so much as a fine English sonnet in his mind will, thereby, be the better fitted to give brave and efficient instruction. However much one may know of technical methods, it is still wise to keep the mind open to some higher influx of pure power. It is good to know even one adequate mind; and he who knows half a dozen such-ridiculous as the assertion may seem to some--is well read.-North Eastern Journal of Education.

MONTGOMERY SEARS, Boston's boy millionaire, gave his intended bride a $50,000 necklace.

WHERE IS YOUR SCHOOL HOUSE?

NE more influence, which is of more importance than most trustees of edu

oppose, school a place,

and I shall have done for the present. It is to have a pleasant school-house. Give the children a school-house that is habitable and looks inhabited—a place that in its order, neatness, comfort, and judicious ornamentation may remind them of home. Set your school-building in some beautiful spot, adorn it with the appliances of art, and let both art and nature become with you co-educators of immortal souls. There is, in our lovely land, no lack of pleasant places in which we may cast the lines of youthful school-life. There are such places all around us. Yet it seems at present as much the creed of the average schoolcommittee to erect their buildings on some barren and famine-stricken spot which nature has long "left out in the cold," as it is the orthodox faith of railroad contractors to place their depots in places where you cannot by any sort of strategic movement see any portion of the town they are supposed to ornament and dignify. Why they do so is one of the great many things for which I am utterly at loss to account-unless it is because there are wise people still extant who believe that safety consists in not seeing beyond your nose, and that all duty should be confined with a decorous dullness, that to be respectable one must be duly dismal.

"For my part I say nothing, lest we clash
In our opinion,"

and only stop to express the charitable hope that soon all such old fogies may be-gathered to their grand-mothers.

A PUNCTUATION PUZZLE.

THE following article forcibly illustrates the necessity of punctuation. It

can be read in two ways, making it a very bad man or a very good man, the result depending upon the manner in which it is punctuated. It is well worthy the study of teachers and pupils:

"He is an old and experienced man in vice and wickedness he is never found in opposing the work of iniquity of any of his fellow creatures he is always ready to assist in destroying the peace of society he takes no pleasure in serving the Lord he is uncommonly diligent in sowing discord among his friends and acquaintances he takes no pride in laboring to promote the cause of Christianity he has not been negligent in endeavoring to stigmatize all public teachers he makes no effort to subdue his evil passions he strives hard to build up Satan's kingdom he lends no aid to the support of the Gospel among the heathen he contributes largely to the evil adversity he pays great heed to the devil he will never go to heaven he must go where he will receive the just recompense of reward."

-AND

SOUTHWESTERN JOURNAL OF EDUCATION..

A Monthly Magazine conducted by leading | The OFFICIAL ORGAN for State Departments Teachers of the Southwestern States. of Public Instruction.

T. C. H. VANCE, Carlisle, Ky.

EDITORS: H. A. M. HENDERSON, Frankfort, Ky.
W. H. CAMPBELL, Carlisle, Ky.

STATE EDITORS:

[M. C. DAVIS, Montgomery, Ala.
JULIUS W. THOMPSON, Lonoke, Ark.
B. M. ZETTLER, Macon, Ga.

H. A. M. HENDERSON, Frankfort, Ky.
WM. L. SUTTON, Sardis, Miss.

M. A. WARREN, Columbia, S. C.

TERMS-One copy, one year, in advance, postage paid, $1; single copies, 15 cents; specimen numbers free. Remittances-Single subscriptions may be sent at our risk; in remitting sums greater than $1, obtain check or draft, or inclose in registered letter.

All business communications should be addressed "Eclectic Teacher Company, Carlisle, Ky." Matter for insertion, either in the general or advertising columns, should reach us by the 15th of the month.

CARLISLE, KY., APRIL, 1877.

SHOULD you not get your ECLECTIC by the 15th of the month, drop us a postal card.

SUBSCRIBE for THE ECLECTIC TEACHER, the only educational journal South of the Ohio river.

THIS journal had its beginning last July, nine months since, and has risen from zero with scuh rapidity that it now reaches several thousand readers. As a specimen of its growth, we cite Panola County, Mississippi, this county having sent one hundred and nineteen subscribers since the 1st day of January.

66 on the wing."

A SCHEME is talked of by which we are to have a University A first-class steamer is to be chartered for the purpose, it is claimed, of a scientific expedition around the world." It is not a pleasure excursion, but a body of teachers and students engaged in scientific exploration and study. A limited number of students-less than one hundred-will be in charge of a scientific corps of instructors. All is vanity, saith the preacher; nevertheless, we envy those whose privilege it will be to board that steamer and quit the haunts of inland college halls. A first-class steamship is to be fitted up so as to afford all necessary convenience for study and recitation. The expedition will