moral home preparation, I would assign the first place to the cultination of a spirit of reverence for authority, and of cheerful, affectionate, and prompt obedience. I know not but I might go farther, and say, a spirit of unhesitating, unquestioning obedience, based, not always upon a full perception, at the time, of the reasonableness of the command, but upon heartfelt reverence for the authority of him who gives it, and affectionate confidence in the goodness of his inten

with labors, so harassed with vexations, that we cannot spend the time, nor take the pains necessary to secure the needed preparation." In answer to statements like these, I would say that it is not optional with parents whether they will give their children any preparation for school or not. Some preparation they must give, whether they will or not. It is only for them to determine what kind of preparation they will give, whether it shall be of a kind adapted to advance or to retard their subsequent progress. The dispositions and the soundness of his judgment. tions of children are in the daily process of formation, I have sometimes thought that this suggestion their habits are constantly becoming more and more points at what may be regarded as one of the greatfixed, and their feelings are hourly assuming a more est defects in our present modes of education, and and more determinate character, and exerting a more one of the greatest blots upon the character of the controlling influence over the conduct. If you neg- age. The rising generation manifest, too generally, lect the cultivation of right dispositions, habits and a want of reverence and a spirit of insubordination. feelings, that very neglect will minister to the rapid These traits are exhibited by our children in our growth and early maturity of those which are wrong. families, and by far, too often they are suffered to If you cannot spend the time or take the pains to train go uncorrected there. As these tendencies are not your son to habits of ready obedience, he will, through suppressed in the family, are not nipped in the bud your neglect, be daily forming habits of disobedience. by parental effort, they soon exhibit themselves in If you are not careful to cultivate in your children a the street and in the school. The struggle with them sacred regard for truth and a conscientious devotion to there is often ineffectual, and we discover them in duty, they may, through your neglect, be gradually more mature strength among our young men, in their acquiring the very opposite characteristics. And these reckless disregard for all the maxims of mature age, vicious habits, the result of neglect, will soon become and all the lessons of enlarged experience. The as fixed and as inveterate as any which can be culti-same traits are seen in that disregard for the wholevated with care and pains-taking. Your children, then, some laws of the land, which we too often witness, I would say to parents, nust for a year or two, be and in that indifference to God's requirements, which under home influences. It is for you to determine is so widely prevalent in the community. And this whether those influences shall be good or bad. Your defect, so great in itse f, and so deleterious in its inchildren will go from the family to the public school fluences, demands particular notice in this place, Dr-cisely what they are made, in feeling and charac- because it operates as a great hindrance to the proter, by the influences to which they have been sub-gress of the school, and because it is to be removed jected at home. They will carry with them either vicious habits and dispositions, which have been suffered to take root and gather strength through parental neglect, or virtuous habits and dispositions, which have been cultivated by judicious care and faithful discipline on the part of parents. It is then for you to determine whether you will permit your children to enter the school, with habits formed through negli gence, which will hinder their intellectual progress, or send them, with those cultivated with care, which shall prepare them for the more successful pursuit of the studies to which the attention may there be directed.

by efforts at prevention, on the part of parents, in the training of early childhood, rather than by any subsequent application of specific remedies, on the part of the teacher And not only so, but this want of reverence, and spirit of insubordination, is a fault, which parents are very apt to neglect until it is too late. Their feeling is, that children, during the earlier years of childhood, are too small to be the subjects of faithful discipline. They say to themselves, in a spirit of self-justification, let them go now while they are small, when they are older they must be made to obey. When they are older they are sent to school, before they have learned to obey at home, with the feeling that the teacher can easily correct any wrong habits of this kind that may have been acquired, that, with the established rules, and the regular exercises of the school, this can be more easily accomplished than at home.

But in what does this home preparation of which I am speaking, consist? and how is it to be secured? In answering these questions, I might point out what would, perhans, in theory, appear very beautiful, as to the part which parents should take in the intellectual training of their children, the time that should be Let us spend a few moments, then, in the careful daily devoted to their lessons, and the vigilant super- consideration of this subject of obedience. What is vision that should be constantly exercised over their desired, is, that parents before sending their children studies. But would such a suggestion, beautiful though to school, shall establish within them a deep reverit might appear in theory, admit of being generally re-ence for all properly constituted authority, and shall duced to practice? Would parents, in the various train them to habits of cheerful, unquestioning, walks of life, would the professional man, would the prompt obedience, based, not always upon the full merchant in the city, or the husbandman in the coun- perception at the time, of the reasonableness of the try, would the mother, with all her household cares command given, but upon confidence in the good upon her, ever attempt to carry out such a suggestion intentions and good judgment of the person who into daily practice? And if they should attempt it, gives the command. I am aware that this may be would they succeed? I think not. I wish therefore regarded a strong statement, and as opening the way to present a view, which to my mind seems equally for the exercise of tyranny on the part of parentsimportant and far more practicable. For I sincerely if it does so, the danger is to be guarded against, not by believe that the inost needed, the most important, allowing the child to question the command, or to and the most effectual preparation, which parents disobey it with impunity, but by awakening parents can make for the school, must be a social and moral to a deeper sense of their responsibility to God, for preparation, must consist in laying well the foundation of correct oral and social habits, and in the cultivation of right social dispositions and moral feel ings. In pointing out the details of this social and

the manner in which they exercise their authority. It is not meant that the child shall have no reason to give for his obedience, but that his reason shall be an affectionate regard for the person who gives the

command, rather than his own distinct perception at the time, of the propriety of the command itself. For example, there is placed upon the table a liberal supply of rich cake. The child is inclined to indulge to excess. By so doing he will endanger his health. The parent, for reasons satisfactory to himself, and having reference to the welfare of the child, but without time for the full explanation of them, simply and pleasantly, but yet decidedly, forbids further indulgence. What is desired, is, that the child should at once cheerfully, submit, without hesitation, murmuring or questioning the propriety of the prohibition, that he should turn away to his pursuits or his amusements, with readiness and cheerfulness. And yet, it may be that the child can see no danger in further indulgence, and can, consequently, discover no good reason why the prohibitory command should be given, bat obeys, under the influence of an affectionate regard for the father, and with the confident belief that there is some good reason, which, could it be fully explained, would prove perfectly satisfactory. This supposed case illustrates precisely the trait which we wish to have parents carefully cultivate in their children, the habit of prompt, cheerful, unquestioning obedience. As a teacher, in times past, I have had some placed under my charge, who brough with them into the school this controlling and pervading habit, and who, if denied a favor upon which their affections had been strongly set, went at once about their regular pursuits, with as great cheerfulness as they could have manifested, had their request been granted; and the pleasure of teaching such, afforded me a glimpse of what would be the satisfaction and the efficiency of the teacher's labors, were the whole to bring with them from their homes the same well established habit of obedience.

the evil be nipped in the bud. If it is not thus early checked, and in its infantile weakness destroyed, it will take root and expand, until it becomes too powerful for control. The spirit of insubordination is often awakened, and the habit of disobedience, in some degree, formed, in consequence of parental neglect or mismanagement, before the child is nine months, or at farthest, two years old. Or in other words, the foundatior is thus early laid of a habit, which is never afterwards fully overcome; a habit which constitutes one of the greatest hindrances to the progress of the school, and which materially affects the character of manhood. The young child is forbidden to touch this or that. He watches the countenance of the parent, to see if there is any real meaning in the prohibition. He tries the firmness of the father by touching the forbidden object, softly, perhaps, and with a cumming air. The father laughs and says no more. The command has been given and broken. The child has sought to have its own way and succeeded. The spirit of insubordination has been awakened, and a commencement has been made in the formation of a habit of disobedience. On the next occasion the child is more resolute, and persevering, and enters the contest from a vantage ground secured by previous success. Every repeated indulgence strengthens the spirit of insubordination, and confirms the habit of disobedience. And by the time the child is old enough to enter the school, he has become a fit subject for the severest disciplinary dealings of the teacher. Had a different course been pursued at first, a widely different result would have followed. If, when the child first touched the forbidden object, he had been taught, even by slapping the hand, if necessary, that the prohibition was given in earnest, and would be enforced, he would have In order to secure this prompt and affectionate easily yielded, an act of obedience would have been obedience, parents should manifest such a regard for rendered, a habit of obedience would have been com the child's best welfare, and so deep an interest in menced, which, by subsequent regular and judicious securing for it all present enjoyment, within the treatment, might have been confirmed, and rendered bounds of safety and propriety, as to awaken feelings influential over the conduct of the whole after life. of love and of confidence. And then, too, parents It is desirable that parents should train their childen to may strengthen these feelings by taking proper op- this habit of ready obedience, because, at the period portunities, when the child is in the right state of of life when this can be most easily done, their chil feeling, and will listen calmly and pleasantly, to ex-dren are under their particular control, and because plain to his full comprehension all the specific rea- there is no item of home preparation which will consons of certain commands, which have been pre-tribute more than this to the assistance of the teacher, viously given, and to which prompt obedience has been required, the propriety of which can now be more fully perceived than before obedience had been rendered. If these courses are pursued with the child, they will inspire and maintain confidence in the good intentions of the parent, and will serve to quell the doubts that may at any time arise, by the thought that the father would not have given the command had he not good and satisfactory reasons for so doing.

and the progress of the school. While by so doing, parents would be pursuing a course which would contribute most directly and most powerfully to the promotion of their own peace and happiness, and to the harmony and good order of the family.

A BAD ROOM FOR HEARING.

Mr. J. Scott Russell, has thus lucidly explained one of the causes of bad qualities in the construction of a All will admit the importance of the spirit and room. He shows that in a large square room, of te the habit of obedience. When is this spirit to be cul- usual form, the reflection of the same sound is cartivated, when this habit formed? May not these ried to the speaker's ear by different paths and in ifdesirable results be most easily secured during the ferent periods of time: the result of which, is the conearlier years of childhood, and through the judicious fusion of successive sounds and syllables with each discipline of the family school? The child has no other, and so a prolific cause of indistinct hearing.-decided proneness to disobey, simply because it It requires another principle to afford the remedy for loves to be disobedient. It is true that children, like these evils, which Mr. Russell believes to be quite men, are fond of having their own way, and much new. He calls it the principle of non-reflection and prefer to follow the promptings of their own wills, lateral accumulation of the sound wave. It was origthan to yield to the will of another. And here is the inally suggested to him by the observation of a simi commencement of disobedience. It is in the earliest lar phenomenon in the wave of the first order in period of childhood. And, at that time, it is only water. This wave he considers to be the type of the desire to have one's own way, a simple tendency to sound wave; and on examination, he finds experidisobedience, not the head strong spirit, or the con- mental evidence of the same phenomenon in the later firmed habit. Here, then, in earliest childhood, wave. He has observed that at angles below 45°

may

a

the sound wave is no longer completely reflected from the surface on which it impinges, and, that when the obliquity of the wave to the surface is 60°,a phenomenon follows of total non-reflection, and the wave continues merely to roll along the surface in a direction parallel to it. This fact furnishes a ready means to remedy the evils so often produced by the reflections, and echo, and interferance of sound in public buildings. Wherever it is possible to place flat or curved surfaces at such angles that the direction of the sound shall be very oblique to the surface, it may be harmlessly disposed of, and prevented from injurious reflection. This is exactly what the stalls of a choir, the side chapels of a cathedral, and the partitions of boxes in an opera-house, do so successfully for buildings of a large class. The same principle enables Mr. Russell to explain the whispering gallery of St. Paul's (which is circular), and another equally celebrated, mentioned by Saunders, which is perfectly straight. The same principle also explains the conveyance of sound along the smooth surface of a lake, and over the flat surface of a sandy desert; as well as the extraordinary reverberation or accumulation of sound in some portions of a building-Sharpe's London Magazine.

IMPORTANCE OF EDUCATING THE FARMER. It is calculated that the division of the occupations of men of the United States is nearly in the following proportions:

Number engaged in Internal Navigation,

፡፡

purse. Parents ought to know that he who pats their child upon the had, calling him a good boy, or writes diatribes against whipping, is not necessarily the most benevolent man that lives, although that good mothers and weak fathers seem disposed to think so.

KIND WORDS DO NOT COST MUCH.-They never blister the tongue or lips. And we have never heard of any mental trouble arising from this quarter-Though they do not cost much, yet they accomplish much:

1. They help one's own good nature and good will. Soft words soften our own soul. Angry words are fuel to the flame of wrath, and make it blaze the more fiercely.

3d. Kind words make other people good natured: Cold words freeze people, but hot words scorch them, and sarcastic words irritate them, and bitter words make them bitter, and wrathful words make them wrathful.

There is such a rush of all other kind of words in our days that it seems desirable to give kind words a chance among them. There are vain words, and idle words, and hasty words, and spiteful words, and silly words, and empty words, and profane words, and boisterous words, and warlike words.

Kind words produce their own image on men's souls. And a beautiful image it is. They soothe and quiet and comfort the hearer. They shame him out of his sour, morose, unkind feelings. We have not yet begun to use kind words in such abundance as they ought to be used.

33,076 Ocean, 56,021 learned professions, 65,255 LAMARTINE'S EDUCATION.-My mother had received Commerce, from her mother, when on her death-bed, a hand119,607 Manufactures, 791,749 some Bible of Royamont,* from which she taught me Agriculture, 3,719,951 to read when I was very young. This Bible had enengravings of sacred subjects at nearly every page. When I had read about half a page with tolerable correctness, my mother allowed me to see a picture; and, placing the book open on her knees, she explained the subject to me as a recompense for my progress. She was most tender and affectionate by nature, and the impressive and solemn tone of her clear and silvery voice added to all she said an aocent of strength, impressiveness and love, which still resounds in my ears after six years that voice has, alas! been mute.-Travels in the East.

Thus it will be seen that those who are engaged in agriculture are three and a half times greater in number than those in all the other divisions. The agriculturists consequently have the physical and numerioal power, and can at any time control every government in the United States, and give tone to public opinion. But do they? No indeed; for how ever powerful they may be in number, they are weak in influence, and this arises from want of proper education. The sixty-five thousand two hundred and fifty-five, engaged in the learned professions, are intellectually stronger than the three millions, seven hundred and nineteen thousand, nine hundred and fifty-one engaged in agriculture, and therefore rule them. It is were not so, seven-eighths of the offices in the country would not be held by lawyers and doc-. tors; nor would all the colleges and high schools be endowed principally for the benefit of the learned pro

fessions.

Farmers, when will you arouse yourselves to the dignity and importance of your calling, and educate yourselves to the height of intelligence which will make you the rulers instead of the ruled of the other professions? There is surely nothing to prevent this, if you will only be true to yourselves.-American Agriculturist.

EDUCATORS.-Upon the importance of Education too much cannot be said or written, provided it be done by the proper persons. There is, however, a class of writers both in England and in this country, who evidently wish to engross the public attention, and to have the privilege of saying all that is to be said on this subject. To these persons, I am doing no injustice, when I say of them, they have an axe to grind. Some of them are seeking political preferment, and all of them wish to gain a well filled

*The assumed name under which M. de Saci published his "History of the Old and New Testaments."

A THOUGHT FOR EVERY DAY.-We see not in life the end of human acts. The influence never dies. In every widening circle it reaches beyond the grave. Death removes us to an eternal world; time deter mines what shall be our condition in that world. Every morning when we go forth, we lay the moulding hand on cur destiny: and evening, whẹn we have done, we have left a deathless impression on our character. We touch not a wire but vibrates in eternity-a voice, but reports at the throne of God. Let youth especially think of these things; and let every one remember that in this world, character is in its formation state-it is a serious thing, to speak, to act.

THE READER-GOLDSMITH AND RICHARDSON.-In a printing establishment the "reader" is almost the only individual whose occupation is sedantary; indeed the gally slave can scarcely be more closely bound to his oar than is a reader to his stool. On entering his cell, his very attitude is a striking and most graphic picture of earnest attention. It is evident, from

THE NAUTILUS.

his outline, that the whole power of his mind is con- of legislators and governments, on the contrary, to procentrated in a focus upon the page before him; and, vide schools and maintenance for teachers; to preas in midnight the lamps of the mail, which illumi- scribe preliminary trials which may insure that none nate a small portion of the road, seem to increase the be appointed teachers who do not understand their pitchy darkness which in every other direction pre- business; and to provide means for depriving those vails, so does the undivided attention of the reader to teachers of office who shall, by their ill success in his subject evidently abstract his thoughts from all teaching, show that they are incompetent to the task. other considerattons. An urchin stands by reading to This being done, the teachers ought to be left freely the reader from the copy-furnishing him, in fact, with to develop their professional abilities. Theirs is, if an additional pair of eyes; and the shortest to attract any be, a liberal profession; aud to success in every his immediate notice is to stop his boy; for no soon- such profession freedom and self-reliance are indiser does the stream of the child's voice cease the flow, pensible.-Wilm. than the man's mind ceases to work; something has evidently gone wrong; he accordingly at once raises his weary head, and a slight sigh, with one passage The interesting poetical fiction connected with the of his hand across his brow, is generally sufficient argonaut or paper nautilus, wherein it is represented to enable him to receive the intruder with mildness as sailing on the surface of the sea, its fragile shell and attention. Although the general interest of lite- forming the hull of its vessel, the two expanded rature, as well as the character of the art of printing, membranous arms being erected and acting as sails, depend on the grammatical accuracy and typographi- while the six tapering arms were used as oars, has, cal correctness of "the reader," yet from the cold-, for ages, rendered that animal an object of interest; hearted public he receives punishment, but no re- and notwithstanding that these particulars have been ward. The slightest oversight is declared to be an proved fictitious, recent researches into its true hiserror; while, on the other hand, if by his unremit-tory have shown the mollusk to be no less deserving ting application, no fault can be detected, he has consideration from its every-day actions, than from nothing to expect from mankind but to escape and the exploded functions poetically ascribed to it. From live uncensursd. Poor Goldsmith lurked a reader in the excessive thinness of the beautiful shell, to which Samuel Richardson's office for many a hungry day in by the way, the animal has no muscular attachment, the early period of his life.-Quarterly Review. and its extreme fragility, it is constantly liable to fracture by being tossed about at the mercy of the waves. When this happens, and it is no unusual occurrence, the animal instinctively repairs the fraeture by a new deposition of shelly matter to the broken portion, by means of the membranons mantle. This circumstance, observed in a number of argonauts kept in confinement in an open cage sunk in the Bay of Messina, by Madame Power, removed the doubts of naturalists as to the animal being really the architect of its own habitation; since the regular increase in the size of the shell to correspond with the growth of the animal was witnessed, as well as the power of repairing the shell when broken either At first, and perhaps for a considerable time, teach-intentionally or accidentally.-Westminster Review.. ers will find some difficulty in applying the explanatory or intellectual method. Children will often be slow How To TEACH CHILDREN.-To make a child aeto speak, or perhaps silent, even when able to give the required explanation, and time, so precious in a large school, will, in consequence, be lost. But this is because they have not been accustomed to give explanations. "Exercise them," therefore, from the beginning, as much as possible upon the meaning of such words and sentences as admit of being defined and explained.” Begin with the easiest and most familiar words; and express yourself satisfied with almost any explanation the child may be able to give-provided he has a conception of its meaning Do not wait for, or expect accurate or any definitions, from Children. Encourage them to say just what they think of it, and they will learn to describe it with ease and correctness.

INTELLECTUAL READING.-As understanding what is read is the great rule for good reading, children should be habituated from the first, to give an uninterrupted attention to the meaning of what they read. With this view, they should be frequently and regularly called upon to close their books, and to give in their own language the substance of the sentence or passage just read. Such questioning, it is evident, fixes the attention of the children upon the subject of their lesson; and the answering in their own words, gives them a habit of expressing themselves in suitable language.

quainted with the mere form of any science is of no value whatever; but every science should be used as a light of instruction, in so far as it shows what are those emphatic-those critical points in the course of Nature's proceeding with which-as the least disguis ed exponents of her order-we ought to familiarize the opening mind. In this respect, science, in its existing state, ought ever to be the guide of the teacher; but he must superadd an art of his own-the power, viz: to present these in the manner that will interest the young. Judging from the texture of most elementary works yet in circulation in this country, one would be inclined to infer that the art of popular exposition is synonymous with toleration for inaccuracy and clumsiness: but, rightly estimated, it requires powers both elevated and rare, not technical knowledge mereGOVERNMENTS AND TEACHERS.-The limited experi ly, but knowledge in the best sense-knowledge that ence of too many friends of education has prevented can rightly discriminate-in regard to the sciences; them from acquiring this most necessary knowledge and, what is still more difficult, the faculty of falling that as the individual disposition of almost every pu- back, by aid of our undestroyed sympathies, among pil requires the educator to modify his mode of train- those impulses and vivid conceptions by which the ing and instruction to suit the particular case, so the external world is interpreted to the warm heart of a individual habits and dispositions of every educator child. The loftiest minds-at least in respect of culsuggest to him the manner in which he can best bring ture-have invariably been those who have written forward his pupils. Much time has in consequence most successfully for the instruction of youth; and 1 been everywhere wasted (or worse) in teaching teach-esteem it a great misfortune, that so few finished scholers their own trade, and laying down regulations ac-ars and accurate thinkers have, amongst us, though cording to which they are to teach. It is the business fit to employ themselves in this work.-Wilm.