For the Schoolmaster. "The Study of Reading Lessons." THE Massachusetts Teacher for May contains an excellent article upon this subject. Every teacher should read it; but I suspect that the result of the perusal would be to suggest questions similar to the following: 1. How was sufficient time found to proceed in this methodical way without interfering with the recitation in other respects, and is the writer of that communication able to have a similar lesson every day? 2. What number of scholars and assistants belong to the school, for with a strong inclination to adopt this plan, I suspect that the teachers of the Providence schools with two hundred scholars and four teachers would find it difficult, while acknowledging its utility, to stop the mill-horse round of exercises to ask the important questions pertaining to every reading lesson, and so are obliged to satisfy their consciences by simply hearing the reading lesson without being able to follow the example of the Massachusetts Master. tablishing public libraries for the use of their inhabitants, and of levying, for that purpose, a tax equal in amount to one dollar for every taxable inhabitant. This plan of township libraries has been already tried in the State of Indiana with entire success. It is altogether a better one than the New York plan of school-district libraries, which has proved to a great extent a failure. The money which, divided among a number of school districts, is frittered away to very little purpose, would suffice to purchase a town library of considerable extent, composed not of books, as is pretty much the case in our school libraries, adapted to children merely, but proper for adult reading. These township libraries once established, would be likely to receive large accessions from the generosity of individuals, and might serve as a center of reunion in point of attraction in connection with debating clubs or societies for mutual improvement, which could keep many young men from taverns and haunts of dissipation. From Report of the Commissioner of Public Schools. 3. Supposing the scholars to be pleased with the additional interest thrown over the reading lesson, how were the minds of the parents disposed towards this innovation upon the usual course of reading lessons? Did Is that community which thus possesses the not those who felt sufficient interest in the right to demand for its sons a full education, the school exercises of their children, to and holds the power to enforce that right, and know what they were, tell their children, as I which systematically neglects the performance have known, that they wished the teacher to of this high duty, less guilty than the parent attend more to the reading part of the exerwho proves so recreant to his trust as to doom cise, and not spend so much time in asking his child to ignorance and to all possible forms questions? Will not the experience of teach- of brutality and selfishness? And is not every ers verify the assertion that the majority of member of the body politic-tax-payer or parents look upon the reading lesson as the non-tax payer, parent or otherwise-responmost important exercise of the school, and sible for some portion of the work to be done? would rather hear their children say that they But whatever measures we adopt should be had read four times a day after a common fash-prudent, well-considered, and if possible, such ion than once in the improved system of ask- as have been tested and tried elsewhere. Shall ing questions? If the parents can be suited, we inquire for such measures ? how few teachers are willing to make themselves unpopular by adopting a plan known by themselves to be more suitable for the improvement of their pupils. A PARENT. AN excellent bill has been introduced into the Pennsylvania Legislature giving to the cities, boroughs and townships the power of es Before however we enter directly upon the further prosecution of this inquiry, let it be said that some measures and tendencies are, however desirable they might seem in the abstract, even to a majority of the commonwealth, to be totally avoided. And first, while we demand that all our education shall be imbued with the highest moral influences, and shall have respect and reverence to the high and holy sanctions of divine truth and religion, we must also conscientiously and strenuously insist that all attempts to inculcate sectarian formulas, or to demand a preference for the observance of any peculiar religious rite or ceremony shall be avoided. it not be conclusively shown that houses and lands more rapidly increase in value-that stocks and bonds are more secure-that capital yields a larger per cent,-and that every noble virtue and excellent grace flourishesthat all good deeds and honorable sentiments abound more, and thrive more vigorously and permanently in a community, that gives early and faithful instruction to all its children, than in one which totally neglects this duty, or performs it but imperfectly? The religious sentiment may very properly be implored, to contribute its proper share to the force that is to carry forward this glorious cause. For has it not been demonstrated by the history of nations, not a few, that true knowledge is the handmaid of piety, and the great promoter, as well as supporter, of right morality and devout worship? Secondly, we must take especial pains to beware of trenching upon the proper parental privileges, at least in such a way as to lessen in any degree, the sense of parental responsibility, in the soul of father or mother of the child we ask to educate. We may, and we often do in cases of juvenile crime, override the parental prerogative, but this should in all cases, if possible, be so done as to heighten the parent's notion of that solemn responsibility which must forever cling to him, who presumes to introduce an heir of immortality into this world of sin and trial. And if a paasks alone to discharge the high duty that he owes to his offspring and to society, and will educate the child by his own fireside, or wishes to provide tutors and do this work at home, or in a selected spot, and if he will but ac-appealed to from the school room itself-from complish the work, he does all that can be demanded of him. He has so far discharged his obligations that his fellow-men must neither complain nor censure. These, and other formers of public opinion, should be called into the arena and marshalled into the work, which we propose to accomplish-the complete education of every child in the Commonwealth. They should be the pulpit,-from the bench of the Judge and from the forum of the advocate,-from the hall of the legislator and from the homes of the people, from the printing press, and from the workshop, until a correct and faithful public opinion is formed;-" a public opinion," in the words of the Hon. Horace Man, "a public opinion whose peremptory demands are far more sure to be obeyed, without the forms and sanctions of statute law, than any, or than all laws could be, without the exactions of such public opinion.” Let every voice and every agency, that promises good, be enlisted, and employed in speaking and in acting upon this great subject, till it is everywhere considered the basest of crimes, to be a parent, and then deliberately or thoughtlessly, to deprive the child of the blessed boon of obtaining all the free knowledge he can acquire; or, to be a citizen, and connive at or allow a child to live in this intelligent age without be The first step in our approach to the cure of these evils, growing out of absenteeism, truancy and irregular attendance on our Public Schools, must have reference to the formation of a proper public opinion. Information relating to this point should be spread broadcast' over the whole land. The sentiment of parental love and duty should be appealed to. For it can be shown that love and duty both unite to command the parent not to plunge his offspring-brought here by no choice of its own, but by the will of another-into deplorable misery, and not to bind that offspring in chains in a lower rank, when an education would assuredly have raised him high and honorably. The desire for pecuniary prosperity should by no means be neglected in these appeals, for it is clearly susceptible of demon-ing, if no other way offers, compelled to learn stration that a child well educated is worth far more, for more manual labor, than one ignorant. The interest of those who have no A public opinion thus universal, and thus children, as well as their sentiment of benevo- powerful, will operate like the law of gravilence, should be called into service-for canty on all the various professions and employ so much of truth, as shall raise him above the danger and the suspicion of barbarism. ments, compelling them to act harmoniously Much also may be done, and something for the accomplishment of the great design of must surely be done by voluntary benevolence our school law-universal education. Parents spontaneously springing up in the hearts of will then be made to feel, as they ought al- the members of a neighborhood. Clothes can ways to feel, that a great portion of the dis- be provided for the destitute; comforts supgrace which an ignorant child brings upon a plied; care administered to the sick, and incommunity; that a large share of that ill-firm, so that the almost infant nurses of the fame with which an illiterate and stupid boor still younger, or of the aged, may be released must begrime a society; that a vast amount of to acquire that education, which shall fit such the injury and loss which a man uneducated, juvenile patience and zeal for virtue, honor and therefore only half available for any em- and extended usefulness, rather than for obployment, manual or mental, must entrail up-scurity, ignorance, and for possible sin and on a people; that a large portion of the guil- shame. We must remember that love is betty influence to corrput and deprave, which a ter than law for the profitable correction of benighted and brutish man will always carry any evil, and indeed that the law which canwith him like the slime of a serpent's trail, not be shown to be founded on the broad and must fall upon himself, who has been so blind, immutable principle of love is not only a so selfish, or so willful as to neglect the op- worthless, but a cruel thing, and will almost portunities so persistently thrust upon his no- necessarily become an engine of injury. tice for making his offspring-poor though they are in this worlds's goods-educated, refined, and influential, equally with the offspring of the richest. Such a negligent parent deserves not only to "feel How sharper than a serpent'a tooth it is If in If vice, as it is in many cases, be the cause of absences, efforts must be directed to repress that. If avarice, as in other cases it is, be the cause, this must be overcome. difference or poverty are the causes of such evils as we complain of, then the one should, if possible, be kindled into zeal, and the other should be removed. If fear of religious instruction, or sectarian domineering, or physical coercion, keep the children from the schools then these things should, in all their repulsive features at least be banished. Religious instruction, as distinguished from moral training, belongs to the family or to the church; sectarian interference never should be allow but also to feel how bitter and how damning it is to be made a moral outlaw by the spontaneous action of a righteous public opinion, setting a mark upon him indeed, but sparing him to be, like the first murderer, a monument and a terror to all such as shall presume to introduce children into the community, and then dare to deprive them of the high prerog-ed to look at the school; and physical coeratives which that community provides and dispenses, as the great Jehovah does air and sunlight to all its citizens. sion, in all its extreme and offensive modes, certainly, can be dispensed with. All these are general measures and depend not on any one man, or town, or district alone, but on all men alike; and if they could be made to operate constantly they might be sufficient of themselves to cure the evil we de Every teacher too, who asks for a license to teach in the State or town ought to feel that in an especial manner a part of the work of diminishing absences, and promoting attendance at schools, and of perfecting the educa-plore. But the difficulty in trusting to them tion of the whole people, devolves upon him. Many are the ways and the means by which he can aid in this noble duty. He can make school a pleasure instead of a weariness, and bind the hearts of children to it instead of re pelling them from it. He can reach many a parent and drive from him opposition or indifference, and thus accomplish a part that could have been done by no coercive means. exclusively is that no one individual is specially commissioned and empowered to apply them; hence in some localities something further may be needed. A YOUNG urchin in a Scottish school while cyphering on his own slate, put the following poser to his teacher: "Where dis a' the figures gang tae fin they're rubbit out?" A Pean to the Printer's Art. BY T. B. ALDRICH. THE Southern Cross, the Northern Bear, The ebb and flow of purple seas, The pulse of flowers that throbs through Earth, The Mind a wider orbit has Than Sun, or Moon, or Earth, or Mars! A Thought can grasp immensity, And wring the secrets from the stars! The Elements are slaves to Man: He links the hills, he spans the Sea, And he has made the Lightning-fiend A tame and servile Mercury! His hand has taken the shapless ore, And, with a subtle skill, designed A little "font of type" to bear The impress of the deathless Mind! Go forth a pure evangel, Thought! Let War's red gonfalons be furled! Go forth, and with thy teachings break The manacles that bind the world! Go forth with holy lips of Peace! Pour oil upon the wounds of faith! The toiling Brain! the ready Pen! The head that holds the peerless cup Of knowledge to the lips of men! Lost-A Lady's Charms. "LOST, between Eighth street and the Jersey City ferry, a valuable set of charms, belonging to a lady, and much valued as a gift," with the usual, &c., about a reward to any one who will restore these lost charms. Alas, poor lady! no amount of reward will ever bring them back. Lost charms are lost forever; much valued as they undoubtedly were, they are valueless now. A gift, were they? Yes, true, the gift of nature, if they were charms of a beautiful face or perfect form. If they were charms of a sweet temper and agreeable manners, they were charms of a cultivated mind-charms that may be worn where nature has denied the boon to face and form. Perhaps they were only the charms of dress, charms that are often lost in these days, in our uncharming muddy streets. But these are charms that any milliner and dressmaker can restore. The charms were a gift! Ah, that implies that they were purchasable charms, not those that come without money and without price, like the charms of woman's worth, of beauty of body and mind. Charms that money can buy -what are they? Pshaw. Here, as we read a little further on in this singular advertisement of lost charms, the story is told. Nothing but tinsel-so are half the charms that ladies treasure most highly-gilt, brass imitations of nondescript quadrupeds, fish, fowls and creeping things, and things mechanical that could only creep, not go; all dangling to a watch chain, and called "charms." These are the charms that are lost. Let them go, and cultivate a kind that will last forever.N. Y. Tribune.. From the Philadelphia Ledger. Discoveries of the Last Half Century. THERE has been no period since the commencement of the world in which so many important discoveries, tending to the benefit of mankind, were made as in the last half century. Some of the most wonderful results of human intellect have been witnessed in the last fifty years. Some of the grandest conceptions of genius have been perfected. It is remarkable how the mind of the world has run into scientific investigation, and what achievements it has effected in that short period Before the year 1800 there was not a single steamboat in existence, and the application of steam to machinery was unknown. Fulton launched the first steamboat in 1807; now there are 3000 steamboats traversing the waters of America, and the time saved in "travel is equal to 70 per cent. The rivers of nearly every country in the world are traversed by steamboats. In 1800 there was not a single railroad in the world. In the United States alone, there are now 8797 miles of railroad, costing $286,000,000 to build, and 22,000 miles of railroad in England and America. The locomotive will travel, in as many hours, a distance which in 1800 required as many days to accomplish. In 1800 it took two weeks to convey intelligence between Philadelphia and New Orleans; now it can be accomplished in minutes by the electric telegraph, which only had its beginning in 1843. Voltaism was discovered in March, 1800. The electro-magnet in 1821. Electro-typing was discovered only a few years ago. Hoe's printing press, capable of printing ten thousand copies an hour, is a very recent discovery, but of a most important character. Gas light was unknown in 1800, the first display of gas light being made at Bolton and Watt's foundry in Birmingham, on the occasion of the peace rejoicings of 1802. The gas pipes in and around London are now said to extend upwards of 1100 miles. Every city and town, of any pretence, in the civilized world is lighted with it, and we have the announcement of a still greater discovery, by which light, heat, and motive power, may all be produced from water, with scarcely any cost. Daguerre communicated to the world his beautiful invention in 1839. Gun-cotton and chloroform are discoveries but a few years old-Schonbein's patent for the former being enrolled in April, 1847, and the latter, which has been described as the greatest boon conferred on suffering humanity, having first been brought into use in 1850. Astronomy has added a number of Battles of the Revolution. A CORRESPONDENT of the Norfolk Herald has taken the pains to compile the following table, showing the comparative losses of life sustained in the battles of the Revolution. He says he may have made some trifling errors, but that the statistics are mainly correct. The table should be preserved for future reference: Lexington, April 19, 1775, Camden, Aug. 16, 1780, British. American 273 85 1860 403 400 200 600 400 1000 50 400 900 800 800 new planets to the solar system. Agricultural Eutaw Springs, Sept. 8, 1780, chemistry has enlarged the domain of knowl-Yorktown, Oct. 17, 1780, (sur.) 7072 From the Boston Saturday Evening Gazette. Despotism in Schools. edge in that important branch of scientific research, and mechanics have increased the production, and the means of accomplishing an amount of labor which far transcends the ability of united manual efforts to accomplish. Ir has been urged that the discipline on ship The triumphs achieved in this last branch of board is too strict and the power too absodiscovery and _nvention, are enough to make lute; that courts in their judgment are too apt the last half-century as that which has most to encourage this despotism by sustaining ofcontributed to augment personal comforts, en-ficers in their power, or by infliction of mere large the enjoyments, and augment the bless-nominal punishment for what seem serious ofsings of man. What will the next half-cen- fences against humanity. But on the ocean, tury accomplish? We may look for still greater within the limits of a ship, with the disprodiscoveries; for the intellect of man is awake, exploring every mine of knowledge and searching for useful information in every department of art and industry. portion of twenty or thirty men against one with no back door to retreat from, it seems almost right that absolute power should be placed in the hands of the officers. There is no such excuse, however, for placing so much LEARNING is preferable to riches, and virtue power in the hands of school masters, and if to both. the power is thus placed care should be taken |