the day of December next, and that James Peddie, Esq., be requested to address the con

vention at that time.

A. D. GAGE, President.

J. N. WESCOTT, Secretary.

WESTCHESTER.

We extract the following interesting account from the Westchester Herald, whose able editor, Mr. Roscoe, has ever manifested a deep and enlightened interest in the cause of common schools.

The only cause of regret in reading the proceedings of this Convention is the small attendance of town superintendents. Not only have they suffered a great personal loss, but the whole county shares in it, for they would have return. ed to their duties with greatly increased zeal to discharge them faithfully.

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We congratulate the County Superintendent on the prospect of sympathy and cordial co-operation from the inhabitants of Westchester. We have room to publish but a few of the solutions.

SCHOOL CONVENTION,

At Tarrytown, on the 24th of September. As we have stated our absence from the convention, in consequence of other engagements, the reader will observe that we derive the following account of the speeches and spirit of the convention from the notes of an intelligent member of that body, who was present during all its session.

The Convention was organized by calling the County Superintendent, JOHN HOBBS, Esq., to the Chair, and the appointment of GERRIT VERMILYEA and NELSON MABEE, Teachers, as Secretaries for the session.

Mr. Holmes, of Greenburgh, made some remarks on the propriety of the appointment of a Committee of practical Teachers, for the purpose of reporting to the convention a suitable system for the daily order and manner of exercises in Common Schools.

The committee having beca appointed, (see proceedings,) in the afternoon, the publishers of School Books present were allowed twenty minutes each to present and explain the peculiar characteristics of their respective works. Mr. Smith presented his Arithmetic, and remarks on the rules and the method of teaching. Mr. Frazee presented his Grammar; gave an explanation of his rules, and a very able lecture on the method of teaching that science, which occupied about 3-4ths of an hour.

should be very short, but their exclusive attention should be required while reciting, and that it is of more importance for children to be attentive listeners than good arithmeticians.

Mr. Holbrook lectured in a familiar way, and exhibited his School Apparatus, with small cabinets of minerals, and dwelt on the importance of explaining different kinds of stone and minerals to scholars. He stated, that the collection of minerals by children, induced the Legislature of Tennessee to appropriate $800,000 more to the use of common schools the next year; a much greater sum than had been formerly ap propriated. He exhibited too, specimens of curiosities that had been sent from Oregon, made by an Indian woman, in exchange for curiosities sent to them from the cabinets of children in Philadelphia. Also several curiosities from Mexico, sent by the natives there, and from the Fejee Islands, interspersed with anecdotes. money in form of beads used by the natives; and a belt made by an Indian boy in Mexico; drawings made in Africa and in Vienna as returns for drawings by children sent out; show. ed a specimen of the husks spoken of in the parable of the prodigal son; and spoke of the interest caused by inciting children in making specimens to send to foreign countries; of the civilizing and industrious influence in schools in the city of New-York; showed an elucidation of the 47th problem of Euclid, made by one of the ragged streets boys in New-York; and exhibited drawings made by children in the public schools of the city.

The publishers of School Books were again heard; Mr. Strong presented the Science of Government, by Andrew W. Young, and a Classi cal Spelling Book, by A. B Chapin.

Another gentleman presented Miss E. Robbins' Works. Copies of Greenleaf's Arithmetic, were also distributed to teachers by an agent présent. In the afternoon Mr. Palmer again lectured, on Moral Reform in schools. He remarked that the morals of children were too much ne. glected,that it had been too much the fault of teachers and parents, to make the pupils all head and no heart. Fathers, mothers, brothers and teachers ought to inculcate good moral principles in children. Moral education teaches the precepts of the pure in heart, Are our teachers capable of all required of them in moral culture? He feared not, and offered a plan to qualify them; the conscience must be aroused, not allowed to lie dormant. Adverted to the duty of ministers on the religious culture of children, and said that although teachers and superintendents could not reach parental influence, they could come very near to it, because the rising generation would carry out their precepts.

I was sorry to find one thing among us which ought not to exist, here or elsewhere-the habit of substituting for the wise man's instrument of correction, what is, in my own view, much more objectionable. Blows upon the head, and vio. lent shaking of the body, are so unfavorable to health, and as objectionable in other respects, as plain whipping. There is no magic connected with the pain produced by the rod, to render it injurious or to render pain given by the hand, the fist, a rule or a club, more salutary. If corporal punishment is ever to be inflicted, especially on the young, I know of no instrument better for this purpose than a very small rodthe outery about its degradation to the contrary notwithstan ling. Less injury to the frame work of the system, physical or moral, in proportion to the pain given, is the result, than in any other form of corporal punishment.

In saying this, however, I do not wish to justify the frequent or indiscriminate use of the rod; for while I would retain the right to use it, in all large public schools, in the case of certain ill governed pupils of all schools who have been accustomed to yield to nothing else, I am quite confident that in nine cases in ten, in family or school, it is worse than useless.

Teachers fall short or fail in one point, all over the country. They do not give credit enough to their pupils. An old maxim says the devil should have his due; but if so, our chil dren certainly should have theirs. I will explain my meaning. Teachers are much in the habit, especially when visitors are present, of disparaging their pupils in various ways. They are represented as uncommonly "noisy," or unusu. ally "idle," or as speaking “too low," or recit ing" badly;" perhaps as uncommonly faulty in all these particulars. Now it is a law of human nature, as irrevocable as was that of the Medes and Persians, that we tend to become what we are taken to be. If taken to be noisy, turbulent, vicious, ignorant, &c., especially before others, we almost inevitably become so. This is un questionably the reason why many parents and teachers have bad children and pupils.

Now suppose that after an experience of 6,000 years, on this plan, the tables were to be turnedsuppose for the next thousand years we should pursue exactly the contrary course-a child is taken for example, to be disposed to behave well and only treated like a villain when he has proved himself to be villainous: would not such treatment, through a few successive generations, greatly change the aspect of the world we live in? Might we not then begin to talk about a millennium?

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I was greatly struck with the conduct of one teacher in Windham county. He did not cry out every three minutes, or every three seconds: "too much noise!" or 46 silence!" and perhaps mount his platform or a bench to be sure of be ing heard; his knowledge of human nature had taught him a more excellent way-" how glad I am," he would say, now and then, to find the school so still to-day;" or, "how glad I am to see so many attending to their own business;" or "I see quite a number of scholars who are studying their lessons well;" or "I am glad so many hold their pens well. I am of opinion I could count six or eight who hold their pens nice. ly! One, two, three," &c. By the time he had begun to count, there would be six or eightperhaps twenty-more, who would get their pens in the right position, that they too, might be counted. So of the custom of "counting up" the well behaved pupils. Many who were dis orderly when he commenced his ' one, two, three," &c., would sit as straight as candle rods by the time he was ready to enumerate them. Or a class of young scholars was called upon to read, half of whom, partly from habit, and partly from diffidence, scarcely raised their voices beyond a mere whisper in that case, instead of complaining or scolding, the teacher seizes his opportunity to commend some pupil, as soon as he conscientiously canyou have done nobly," he says; or you have spoken up like a man;" Or, I am glad to find that three of the class have spoken up well, (or read well,) this time through; next time, I hope to have four who speak loudly.

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Can any individual doubt, for one moment, in regard to the effect of such a course of treat ment, especially when it is an every day thing, and not affected? For if it is used as a Sunday dress is, or if seen to be done affectedly, it does not succeed so well. If any one doubts, let him make the experiment, either in family or school. I wish to see some sixty thousand of these experiments in the families of Connecticut, and some one thousand five hundred and ninety-nine in the schools.

ARITHMETIC.

I have already spoken of the manner of teaching writing which begins to obtain among us. Arithmetic, like writing, is taught rather better than formerly, though it is taught, even now, very imperfectly. The greatest improvement which has been made consists in putting into use the black-board.

In general, in teaching arithmetic, the order of things is still very much inverted. Instead of teaching a child how to use his thinking pow. ers, our ordinary course teaches him how to get along without using them. The old fashioned method which prevails among our farmers-or which did prevail half a century ago-of "reckoning in their heads," as it was called, is greatly preferable to the method of our schools-that of doing every thing by figures, and of having no mind about it. Our fathers were the true mental arithmeticians after all; and not our young disciples of Colburn. We are deceived by names. The name of Mental Arithmetic, when applied to that which is only an apology for thinking, will not answer the purpose.

I, have been obliged to tell them how to find out!

But the preparatory knowledge of which I have been speaking, much of it, is as indispensable in geography as arithmetic. In neither branch do our schools begin at the beginning. I found seven able mathematicians in one of our schools. They had been through Day, Simpson and others. They had also been through the modern geographies, Woodbridge excepted. His would discipline the mind more. Yet I did not find that three of these seven, or seven in the whole range of my travels, had any adequate ideas of the width of a river which was said to be 40 yards wide. How many times the length of the school-house, or width of the road, 40 rods be, they no more knew than how to find out "perpetual motion." I asked a school that could recite learnedly about the boundaries of towns, states and countries, how the school-house was bounded and how the country about it was divided, but nobody could tell. And if teachers have any correct ideas in their heads of this truly elementary kind, they are wiser than I believe most of them to be; and wiser, certainly, than most parents.

SLATE AND BLACK BOARD. The truth is, that instead of affording a little incidental aid in school, the slate, blackboard, hand and tongue, should be almost every thing. I value books and hard study as highly as any man; but as a means to such an end, I value these instrumentalities much higher. In our* 1600 schools we have, as I have before shown, about 1000 black-boards. Of these, however, not more than 250 are large enough to be of much service. They are seldom over three or four feet long, and three wide. He who should go through the state, and introduce proper slates and black-boards and teach the teachers how to use them, in geometry, the alphabet, spelling, reading, writing, arithmetic, grammar, geography-in truth every thing-would perform a more important service to his country than has been performed for it by any one man-Wash

An immense amount of preliminary training is necessary, before arithmetic will be pursued to much advantage, by the aid of books, slates, or blackboards, in school or family. Very few children in our schools-as I have fully proved to parents and teachers a hundred times over-have any ideas in their heads while working at their sums. What boy who has "been through" with his Adams, his Daboll, his Emerson, or his Smith, has any clear conception of the things, with the names of which he has been freely dealing? What dollars and cents are, he may know full well; but what does he know of an inch, a foot, a yard, a rod, or a mile? Or of an ounce, pound, or hundred weight? Or of a pint, quart, peck or bushel? Or of a gill, gallon, or hogs. head? I have asked our sage pupils-some of them in the higher mathematics to tell me how much a rod was, by marking off the distance on the wall of the school-room; I have had them vary in their measure from eight feet to more than twenty! I have asked hundrels how many cubie or solid feet there were in a snowball or block a yard square; and how many times six feet (and what remaining fraction) there were in a rod; and in nine cases in ten the teacher, or

formed a great work; but the redemption of the rising generation, in our schools, from their slavery to processes which drown all mind, and benumb all moral sensibility, is a work still greater, on which, too, much more is depending.

Twenty years ago, I knew of but one or two teachers in the state, who made it a point to keep all their pupils supplied-even at their own expense-with small siates, for instruction or amusement. Now there is a greater number than one or two, perhaps there may be fifty. Twenty years ago, I knew of but two common school libraries in the state; now I know of many. They are, however, designed for the pa. rents of the district, (who never read them) rather than for the pupils, as were those of twenty years ago. Nor has it been common, till within a few years, to ornament a school room. The idea that the school is essentially a part of the family-that what would render children happy at home would make them happy at school; and that at a very little expense the school-room might be made to resembe a parlor rather than an old barn or a ruined church, is but just begin. ning to find lodgment in the brains of our teach. ers, committees, or parents. Perhaps it will be

* Connecticut.