child, which ripens into gloominess in mature scene of her narratives and descriptions; and life-a legacy of discomfort and unhappiness was obliged to confess that she was no more always. unjust to us than we were to her; that she did Bad temper is oftener the result of unhappy not exaggerate our defects more than we did circumstances than of an unhappy organization; the faults of her book; that it was as fair a it frequently, however, has a physical cause, picture as we had a right to expect from an and a peevish child often needs dieting more English woman who had her reputation and than correcting. Some children are more prone fortune to make at home as a writer, and espeto show temper than others; and sometimes on cially in the department of fiction; that, after account of qualities which are valuable in them- all the deduction to be made for carricature, selves. For instance, a child of active temper- esprit, national prejudice, and the injustice of ament, sensitive feeling, and eager purpose, is attributing to the country in general what bemore likely to meet with constant jars and longed only to a part, there was still a large rerubs, than a dull, passive child; and if he is of siduum, and by no means a caput mortuum, of an open nature, his inward irritation is imme- truth, keen observation and artistic skill. We diately shown in bursts of passion. If you re- were, however, almost unanimous in voting her press these ebulitions by scolding and punish- to be what her name, Trollope, expressed; and ment, you only increase the evil by changing in taking her as the type of European detracpassion into sulkiness. A cheerful, good-tem-tors of our free country, popular institutions pered tone of your own, a sympathy with his and intelligent people. trouble whenever the trouble has arisen from no ill-conduct on his part, are the best antidotes; but it would be better still to prevent before- and spirited pen of her son, "North America, hand, as much as possible all sources of annoyby Anthony Trollope," strikingly illustrates ance. Never fear spoiling children by making both how much progress we have made in a third of a century, and yet more, what progress them too happy. Happiness is the atmosphere the English have made towards a just appreciain which all good affections grow the wholtion of us. Many of our readers, doubtless, some warmth necessary to make the heart-blood have either read, or will read this work, which,. circulate healthily and freely; unhappiness is the chilling pressure which produces here an in- published in some common year. would have flammation, there an excrescence, and worst of made quite a sensation among us; but I am sure that they will be among the last to make all, “the mind's green and yellow sickness ill-temper."-Exchange. any objection to the transcript upon our pages of the observations which it contains upon American Education. Nor are these reprinted

From the Massachusetts Teacher.

The volume, scarcely yet dry, from the facile

American Education, as Seen by English merely for the sake of the many in our profes

Eyes.

sion whose time for general reading, like my own, is nearly absorbed by the daily reports of • It is commonly useful, it is sometimes pleas- the scenes and events that so thrill and haunt ant, to see one's self in the mirror of another's us. It seems eminently proper that such a tesobservations and opinions. Self-reliant as we timony to the value of national education, and may profess to be, there are few of us who do to the excellence of that education in our counnot like to take a peep into this mirror, when try, should have its record on the pages of an an opportunity is presented. Hence, English educational journal. And certainly, this prescritiques on our country are much more read ent year, there can be no cry that the Teacher here than by the community for which they is not practical enough, even should we extend were written. We may knit our brows, we and vary a little, for a single month, the range may scold, we may be genuinely angry, but still of selection and discussion for its pages. It is we read. Some of my readers doubtless re- well, at times, to look away from the practical member the excitement produced among us, details of our daily work, both to see what oththirty years ago, by a book through which a ers are doing, and also to learn their judgement clever woman took revenge upon us for her of our own efforts. We are thus strengthened lack of financial success in that city which is in the right; we may be corrected in the wrong. praised as the "Queen of the West," and de- It will certainly be without any feelings of preciated as "Porkopolis." I read the book jealousy that we shall read the author's hearty upon the ground which she made the chief commendation of the New York schools.

SCHOOLS IN NEW YORK.

of sixteen, might not select as favorite points either the hypothenuse, or the ancient methods of populating young colonies.

"As to the schools, it is almost impossible to mention them with too high a praise. I am speaking here specially of New York, though I might "There may be and to us on the European say the same of Boston, or of all New England. side of the Atlantic there will be, a certain I do not know any contrast that would be more amount of absurdity in the transatlantic idea, surprising to an Englishman, up to that moment that all knowledge is knowledge, and that it ignorant of the matter, than that which he would should be imparted if it be not knowledge of find by visiting, first of all, a free school in Lon- evil. But as to the general result, no fair-minddon. and then a free school in New York. The ed man or woman can have a doubt. That the female pupil at a free school in London, as a lads and girls in these schools are excellently rule, is either a ragged pauper or a charity girl; educated, comes home as a fact to the mind of if not degraded, at least stigmatized by the any one who will look into the subject. That badges and dress of the charity. We English-girl could not have got as far as the hypothemen know well the type of each, and have a nuse without a competent and abiding knowlfairly correct idea of the amount of education edge of much that is very far beyond the outwhich is imparted to them. We see the result side limits of what such girls know with us. It afterwards when the same girls become our ser- was at least manifest in the other examination vants, and the wives of our grooms and porters. that the girls knew as well as I did who were The female pupil at a free school in New York the Romans, and who were the Sabine women. is neither a pauper nor a charity girl. She is That all this is of use, was shown in the very dressed with utmost decency. She is perfectly gestures and bearings of the girl. Emollit mores, cleanly. In speaking to her you cannot in any as Colonel Newcombe used to say. The woman degree guess whether her father has a dollar a whom I had watched while she cooked her husday or three thousand dollars a year. Nor will band's dinner upon the banks of the Mississip you be enabled to guess by the manner in which pi, had doubtless learned all about the Sabine her associates treat her. As regards her own women, and I feel assured that she cooked her manner to you, it is always the same as though husband's dinner all the better for that knowlher father were, in all respects, your equal. edge, and faced the hardships of the world with a better front than she would have done had she been ignorant en the subject."

·

pro

In this speech-making country, Mr. Trollope could not, of course, escape from the school which he has described above, without the release fee of a speech. And his speech seems to have been of a type quite too common in our schools. His mental reserve upon the occasion,

"As to the amount of her knowledge, I fairly confess that it is terrific. When, in the first room which I visited, a slight, slim creature was had up before ine to explain to me the perties of the hypothenuse, I fairly confess that, as regards education, I backed down, and that 1 resolved to confine my criticisms to manner, dress and general behavior. In the next room I was more at my ease, finding that ancient Ro- in qualification of his remarks, is very instrueman history was on the tapis. Why did the tive. When, amid so many other lessons, shall Romans run away with the Sabine women?' we learn the great lesson of health? asked the mistress, herself a pretty woman of "At that school," he adds, " I saw some five about three-and-twenty. Because they were or six hundred girls collected in one room, and pretty,' simpered out a little girl with a cherry heard them sing. The singing was very pretty. mouth. The answer did not give complete sat- and it was all very nice; but I own that I was isfaction; and then followed a somewhat ab- rather startled, and to tell the truth somestruse explanation on the subject of population. what abashed, when I was invited to say a It was all done with good faith and serious in- few words to them? No idea of such a sugtent, and showed what it was intended to show. gestion had dawned upon me, and I felt myself that the girls there educated had in truth quite at a loss. To be called up before five reached the consideration of important subjects, hundred men is bad enough, but how much and that they were leagues beyond that terrible worse before that number of girls! What could repetition of A B C, to which I fear that most I say, but that they were all very pretty? As of our free metropolitan schools are still neces- far as I can remember, I did say that and nothsarily confined. You and I, reader, were we ing else. Very pretty they were, and neatly called on to superintend the education of girls dressed and attractive; but among them all

there was not a pair of rosy cheeks. How would have been more happy in New York than should there be, when every room in the build-in London. It is not that I, who, at any rate,

ing was heated up to the condition of an oven?"

EXCELLENCE OF AMERICAN BDUCATION.

can read and write, have cause to wish that I had been an American. But it is this; - If you and I can count up in a day all those on whom our eyes may rest, and learn the circum

above statement even when the States were not

There is great fairness in the general view which Mr. Trollope takes of the influence and stances of their lives, we shall be driven to coneffects of popular education in this country clude that nine-tenths of that number would The traveller is too apt to make his own coun- have had a better life as Americans, than they try the standard by which others are to be tried, can have in their spheres as Englishmen. The and to judge of their institutions and usages by States are at a discount with us now, in the bethe relations which they sustain to himself, or ginning of this year of grace, 1862; and Enghis class and nation. But, in this case, Mr. T. lishmen were not very willing to admit the leaves his personal preferences quite out of the question; and considers the matter in its bear- at a discount. But I do not think that a man ings upon the welfare of the educated,- of the can travel through the States with his eyes open people at large. He accepts fully the Bentha- and not admit the fact. Many things will conmian standard, of "the greatest good to the spire to induce him to shut his eyes, and admit greatest number;' and admitting this, he is no conclusion favorable to the Americans. Men compelled by his clear-sightedness and candor and women will sometimes be impudent to him; to commend what he does not personally like. the better his coat, the greater the impudence. His testimony is the more valuable, that it is He will be pelted with the braggadocio of equalnot the ardent tribute of the philanthropic the- ity. The corns of his Old-World conservaorist, but the enforced evidence of the calm ob- tism will be trampled on hourly by the purposeserver and cool man of the world. He thus ly vicious herd of uncouth democracy. The commences a chapter which he entitles "Edu- fact that he is paymaster will go for nothing, cation and Religion":

"The one matter in which, so far as my judgment goes, the people of the United States have excelled us Englishmen, so as to justify them in taking.to themselves praise which we cannot take to ourselves or refuse to them, is the matter of education. In saying this, I do not think that I am proclaiming anything disgraceful to England, though I am proclaiming much that is creditable to America. To the Americans of the States was given the good fortune of be ginning at the beginning. The French, at the time of their revolution, endeavored to reör

and will fail to insure civility."

We cannot but sympathize with Mr. T. in the illustration which he draws from his own experience. Many of us have had experiences similar in kind if not in degree. Yet we cannot admit that the example is quite apropos. For insolent porter was a foreigner, and had never the chances are three to one that the careless,

bad the benefit of an American education. The most discourteous are, in general, either those who have never learned to be courteous, or those who, conscious of having been depressed, feel that they must now assert their equality, and are afraid that civility would be mistaken for servility. We admire the candor with which the author reasons on the case, supposing, as he does, that he had been ill-used by native Amer

icans.

ganize everything, and to begin the world again with new habits and grand theories; but the French, as a people, were too old for such a change, and the theories fell to the ground. But in the States, after their revolution, an Anglo-Saxon people had an opportunity of making a new State, with all the experience of the "I shall never forget my agony, as I saw and world before them; and to this matter of edu- heard my desk fall from a porter's hand on a cation they were, from the first, aware that they railway station, as he tossed it from him seven must look for their success. They did so; and yards off on to the hard pavement. I heard its unrivalled population, wealth and intelligence poor weak intestines rattle in their death-strughave been the results; and with these, looking gle, and, knowing that it was smashed, I forgot at the whole masses of the people, I think I my position on American soil and remonstrated. am justified in saying,- unrivalled comfort and It's my desk, and you've utterly destroyed happiness. It is not that you, my reader, to it,' I said. Ha ha ha!' laughed the porwhom in this matter of education, fortune and ter. • You've destroyed my property,' I reyour parents have probably been bountiful, joined, and it's no laughing matter.'

And

then all the crowd laughed.

-

Guess you'd part gratuitous, which had fallen upon the nabetter get it glued,' said one. So I gathered up tion, had already amounted to the sum of the broken article, and retired mournfully and £800,000; and I think also that I read, in the crestfallen into a coach. This was very sad, document which revealed to me this fact, a very and for the moment I deplored the ill-luck strong opinion that government could not at which had brought me to so savage a country. present go much further. But, if this matter Such, and such-like, are the incidents which were regarded in England as it is regarded in make an Englishman in the States unhappy. Massachusetts, or rather had it from some and rouse his gall against the institutions of the prosperous beginning been put upon a similar country; these things, and the continued ap. footing. £800,000 would not have been esteempliance of the irritating ointment of American ed a great expenditure for free education simpbraggadocio, with which his sores are kept op-ly in the city of London. In 1857, the public en. But though I was badly off on that rail- schools of Boston cost £70,000, and these way platform, -worse off than I should have schools were devoted to a population of about been in England, all that crowd of porters 180,000 souls. Taking the population of Lonround me were better off than our English por- don at two-and-a-half millions, the whole sum ters. They had a 'good time' of it. And this, O now devoted to England would, if expended my English brother who hast travelled through in the metropolis, make education there even the States and returned disgusted, is the fact cheaper than it is in Boston. In Boston, durthroughout. Those men, whose familiarity was ing 1857, there were above twenty-four thouso disgusting to you, are having a good time of sand pupils at these public schools, giving more it. They might be a little more civil,' you say, than one-eighth of the whole. population. But and yet read and write just as well.' True; I fear it would not he practicable for us to spend but they are arguing in their minds that civility £800,000 on the gratuitous education of Lonto you will be taken by you for subservience, don. Rich as we are, we should not know or for an acknowledgment of superiority; and where to raise the money. In Boston it is raislooking at your habits of life,-yours and mine ed by a separate tax. It is a thing understood, together. I am not quite sure that they are acknowledged, and made easy by being habitaltogether wrong. Have you ever realized to ual, as is our national debt. I do not know yourself as a fact that the porter who carries that Boston is peculiarly blessed; but I quote your box has not made himself inferior to you the instance, as I have the record of its schools by the very act of carrying that box? If not, before me." that is the very lesson which the man wishes to teach you.

-

SCHOOLS IN BOSTON.

The mirthful spirit of the following sketch "If a man can forget his own miseries in his does not in the least impair its value. "Why," journeyings, and think of the people he comes says Horace, "may not a man tell the truth, to see rather than of himself, I think he will and yet have his laugh?" We cannot hesitate find himself driven to admit that education has in identifying the school of "young Brahmins;" made life for the million in the Northern States and I could myself, from my own experience in better than life for the million is with us. They the other school, more than parallel the Miltonhave begun at the beginning, and have so man-ian discussion, which our author found so very aged that every one may learn to read and write, entertaining.

- have so managed that almost every one does "At the three high schools in Boston, at learn to read and write. With us this cannot which the average of pupils is five hundred and now be done. Population had come upon us twenty-six, about £13 per head is paid for free in masses too thick for management, before we education. The average price per annum of a had as yet acknowledged that it would be a child's schooling throughout these schools in good thing that these masses should be educat- Boston is about £3 per annum. To the higher ed. Prejudices, too, had sprung up, and hab- schools any boy or girl may attain without any its, and strong sectional feelings, all antagonis- expense, and the education is probably as good tic to a great national system of education. We as can be given, and as far advanced. The onare, I suppose, now doing all that we can do; ly question is, whether it is not advanced furbut comparatively it is little. ther than may be necessary. Here, as in New

“I think I saw, some time since, that the York, I was almost startled by the amount of cost for gratuitous education, or education in knowledge around me, and listened, as I might

have done to an examination in theology among brings home your purchases, the girl who young Brahmins. When a young lad explain-stitches your wife's dress, they all carry with ed in my hearing all the properties of the differ- then sure signs of education, and show it in ent levers as exemplified by the bones of the every word they utter." human body, I bowed my head before him in unaffected humility. We, at our English schools, never got beyond the use of those bones which he described with such accurate scientific know. ledge.

RESULTS OF THE SCHOOLS.

"So much for the schools, and now for the results. I do not know that anything impresses a visitor more strongly with the amount of books In one of the girls' schools, they were read-sold in the States, than the practice of selling ing Milton; and, when we entered, were dis- them as it has been adopted in the railway cars. cussing the nature of the pool in which the Personally, the traveller will find the system Devil is described as wallowing. The question very disagreeable, as is everything connected had been raised by one of the girls: a pool, so with these cars. [But we need not copy a decalled, was supposed to contain but a small scription of what is so familiar to us all.] * amount of water; and how could the Devil, But the numbers of the popular books of the being so large, get into it? Then came the ori-day, printed and sold, afford the most conclugin of the word pool,—from 'palus,' a marsh, sive proof of the extent to which education is carried in the States. The readers of Tennyas we were told, some dictionary attesting to the fact,—and such a marsh might cover a large son, Thackeray, Dickens, Bulwer, Collins, expanse. The Palus Mæotis' was then quot-Hughes and Martin Turper, are to be counted ed. And so we went on, till Satan's theory of by tens of thousands in the States, to the thoupolitical liberty,

sands by which they may be counted in our own islands. I do not doubt that I had fully fifteen copies of the Silver Cord' thrown at my head in different railway cars on the conti

'Better to reign in hell than serve in heaven.' was thoroughly discussed and understood. These girls of sixteen and seven.cen got up one nent of America. Nor is the taste by any after another, and gave their opinions on the means confined to the literature of England. subject, how far the Devil was right, and Longfellow, Curtis, Holmes, Hawthorne, Lowhow far he was manifestly wrong. I was at ell, Emerson and Mrs. Stowe are almost as tended by one of the directors or guardians of popular as their English rivals. I do not say the schools, and the teacher, I thought, was a whether or no the literature is well chosen, but little embarrassed by her position. But the there it is. It is printed, sold and read. The girls themselves were as easy in their demeanor disposal of ten thousand copies of a work is no as though they were stitching handkerchiefs at large sale in America of a book published at a home. dollar; but in England it is a large sale of a book brought out at five shillings.

"It is impossible to refrain from telling all this, and from making a little innocent fun out "I do not remember that I ever examined the of the superexcellencies of these schools; but rooms of an American without finding books or the total result on my mind was very greatly in magazines in them. I do not speak here of the their favor. And, indeed, the testimony came houses of my friends, as of course the same rein both ways. Not only was I called on to mark would apply as strongly in England, but form an opinion of what the men and women of the houses of persons presumed to earn their would become from the education which was bread by the labor of their hands. * A given to the boys and girls, but also to say what porter or a farmer's servant in the States is not must have been the education of the boys and proud of reading and writing. It is to him girls from what I saw of the men and women. quite a matter of course. The coachmen on Of course it will be understood that I am not their boxes and the boots as they sit in the halls here speaking of those I met in society, or of of the hotels, have newspapers constantly in their children, but of the working people, of their hands. The young women have them althat class who find that a gratuitous education so, and the children. The fact comes home to of their children is needful, if any considerable one at every turn, and at every hour, that the amount of education is to be given. The re- people are an educated people. The whole of sult is to be seen daily in the whole intercourse this question between North and South is as of life. The coachman who drives you, the well understood by the servants as by their man who mends your window, the boy who masters, is discussed as vehemently by the pri