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fully dispensed with; but, in the true old New England spirit, education and religion have been regarded as indispensible necessities, which neither states, nor towns, nor families could afford to sacrifice. Even when the

parent has been compelled by the straitened condition of his purse to withdraw his elder son from college, and his daughter from the

ey, appropriated to the support of public fashionable boarding school, he has willingly schools, is judiciously and economically ex-paid his taxes for the support of the public pended. Not that the duty or the expedien- educational institutions in his town. He has ey of furnishing the means of education by felt that the training of the younger children the state and the town is doubted at all. But could not be postponed, that the common many seem disposed to question whether the schools must be sustained at all hazards. best results, which are attained, or which we Nay, the very misfortunes of the public have may fairly hope to reach, can not be secured been changed into blessings in many of our at less expense. The financial distresses of the villages. The poor operatives, whose unceaspast winter have directed general attention to ing round of daily toil had never left them this subject, though many of the best friends time for intellectual culture, have availed of education had, before this crisis, given it themselves of the leisure, which has been their earnest consideration. We are glad to forced upon them, and have devoted the hours perceive that, even under the overwhelming of the past winter to earnest and useful study. disasters of this year, scarcely a single town They will long remember the season, which in New England has voted to lower the grade opened upon them so full of forebodings and of its schools. Everywhere it has been felt darkness, as the brightest and most fruitful, that the school and the church must be the which they have ever enjoyed. It has been a last to suffer from those pecuniary embarrass-beautiful spectacle to see manufacturers, merments, which have forced almost every family chants, and men in every avocation and conin the land to curtail their current expenses. dition, contributing liberally of their diminAmusements and luxuries have been cheer-ished wealth to furnish opportunities for the

unemployed laborers to secure their mutual in the higher schools may tempt them to dis

improvement.

All these facts indicate how deep-seated is the conviction in the American mind that the education of the young must be secured. It would cheer the gloomy heart of a misanthrope, it would stop the mouth of a European declaimer against our absorbing utilitarianism, to observe how large a proportion of the public funds is devoted to the maintenance of schools. We rejoice in a public sentiment, which responds so promptly to all reasonable demands, that the friends of education feel constrained to make. And now that towns with exhausted treasuries are considering whether they may not be compelled to retrench their ordinary expenses, we think it is proper for us teachers, committee-men, and directors of education to practice the most rigid economy, which is consistent with wisdom, in the management of our schools.

We teachers are not exempt from weakness, which leads a man sometimes to underrate the true value of other pursuits and interests in comparison with his own. We must not forget that a town is as much bound to feed its paupers as to teach its children, to take care of its roads as to adorn its school houses, to compensate its civil officers as to pay us our salaries. We must see that our zeal for our noble profession does not make us unjust to these, who are not so enthusiastic as we are, does not make us clamorous for a larger share of the public income in our field of labor, than a just regard for the diverse interests of a mixed community would allow us to claim.

burse more freely in that single department than they ought; or an unworthy desire to outstrip a neighboring and rival town in vain decorations of school houses may lead them to make the same mistake. We in this state have been peculiarly fortunate in the choice of the men, who have directed the expenditure of money for our schools, and we have heard no men speak more strongly than some of them of the perils to which we allude.

A great deal of expense has been incurred in many parts of New England by changing text-books with needless frequency. This has been a subject of so general complaint, that it is hardly necessary to enlarge upon it here. It is well known that persistent agents shower their new books

"Thick as autumnal leaves that strew the brooks of Vallambrosa,"

Mak

down upon teachers and committees. ing school books has become a regular trade like shoemaking or blacksmithing, and the peddlers of the freshly manufactured didaetic wares can every day in the year furnish you a new article, which will surpass all its predecessors in variety, simplicity, and sterling worth. Now, to resist this army of volu ble persuaders, whose ears seem not to be affected at all by the monosyllable of negation, and whose patience survives all the procrastination of which most of us are capable, is certainly not always easy. And yet we must not be driven by their clamorous cries. We must remember that it is a serious thing for many a laboring man to provide his children Men, who have the charge of public funds with new sets of books. We deem it a good to be devoted to education or to any object, rule never to change an old book for a new should also remember the peculiar dangers to one, unless the latter possesses a very marked which they are exposed. They are likely to superiority to the former. Let the teacher be less careful in its disposal than they are in supply the deficiencies of the old one by oral the management of their private business. illustrations. Let him, by continual study, A worthy desire to furnish superior facilities' render himself every week a new and improv

ed edition of what he was at the beginning of sympathy with the parents, whose generosity the term. He will thus be more to his school is so largely taxed in this age of manifold than all the books which they can buy of wants and manifold charities, and by showing traveling agents. in every way that the educational institutions, which are confided to our care, are worthy of all the encouragement and support, which they can receive. The citizens too, must remember that while the cost of everything else has been increasing so rapidly for the past ten years, they must not expect to provide for the education of children as cheaply as formerly.

But while we strive to conduct the schools on the principles of strict economy, we beg our patrons,—and by them we mean all the

citizens,-to bear in mind that true and wise economy often requires an expenditure rather than a hoarding of money. A given sum may enable us to elevate the schools to a certain

standard, where they will be of service, while half that sum would not enable us to render them half as good. It is not economical to dispense with anything essential to respectable success. It is not economical to have poor school houses, poor apparatus. poor books, or poor teachers. Our very existence as a nation depends in a great measure upon the diffusion of education, and therefore it is no better economy to stifle our schools than it is to starve a man, whom you wish to employ as a laborer. Whatever is really necessary to render the schools good should not be esteemed dear. The people should and will furnish it cheerfully and promptly. We have no fear that they will take a retrograde step. While they ought to insist that the contributions which they so readily make to sustain our excellent system of public instruction, shall not be expended carelessly or unwisely. we feel sure that they never will withhold their money, when our schools have a reasonable claim upon their sympathies and their

purses.

We and they must heartily coöperate. Our aims are the same. Sad would be the day, when through an ill-judged parsimony on their part, or an ill-judged extravagance on ours, jealousy and antagonism should arise. Let us strive to avert it by discretion and wisdom, by the most effective use of the means at our disposal, by the manifestation of our'

The salaries of teachers must be greater now than they were then, and a proper allowance must also be made for larger incidental expenses. Let us all, parents and teachers, consider the difficulties, with which we have to contend, in a kind and fraternal spirit. In actual practice we have many delicate questions to settle. Our mutual relations are

pleasant and profitable, but in order to maintain them we need forbearance, patience, and charity. May we never peril the interests of education and the welfare of our nation through our want of those graces of character.

For the Schoolmaster.
The Rule of Nature.

SOME people require more sleep than others. To say that a pig sleeps ten or twelve hours, that a goose sleeps less than half that time, or that Wellington "turned out" when he turned over on his iron bedstead, is no argument to prove either the period or the length of sleep which is necessary to any man. The order of Nature must be followed. This can be determined best by the observation by each man of himself. So with the amount and quality of food, drink and clothing. Whatever is generally hurtful must be shunned. Man would do well to apply literally the command, Know thyself.

We were not made for ourselves only.

"Forsan et Haec Olim Meminisse Juvabit." Listen to familiar voices,

THE following beautiful poem was read by Miss Mary C. Peck, of the graduating class in the Girls' High School, at the recent anniversary of the Providence High School Association, composed of the graduates of the school. The authoress has consented to its publication in the columns of THE SCHOOLMASTER at the earnest solicitation of her friends.-ED.

As to the ancestral homestead

Comes the wanderer faint and weary,
To refresh his drooping spirit
At the hearthstone of his fathers;
From the fount that gave them vigor,
Draw pure water and be strengthened;
So, unto these founts of wisdom,
Ere our souls have known the shadow,
Ere the blossoms of affection

Feel earth's blighting breath upon them.
We have come a band of wanderers,
Come to seek new strength and counsel.
Far beyond the hills and oceans-
I have heard it sung by poets-
Lie the valleys of the Rhine-land,
Fresh and verdant as the morning,

Soft and dewy as the evening,
From afar the mists uprising,
Woo the wanderer, home-returning,
Like the fabled bow of promise:
Once again he treads the footpaths
By his own imperial river,
Sees the grape vines heavy-laden,
Hears the homeward song of reapers,
And o'er all the pleasant uplands,
Sloping down the dreamy valleys,
Creeping o'er the vine-clad cabins,
Steals the laughing, genial sunshine,

And the wanderer lifts his trembling hand,

In a prayer for his native clime,

For a blessing on the father-land,
A blessing on the Rhine.

So with us as backward turning,
We retrace remembered footpaths,
See dear, unforgotten faces.

'Till the very air seems vocal,
'Till our souls with thought are haunted,
And relieving Time's thick shadows
Poured around the Past's gray landscape,
Lighting Retrospection's valleys,
Streams the mellow Memory sunshine.
If in the eyes before me now I see
The light that springs from kindred sympathy,
If holy thoughts have sanctified this hour,
And memory wakened with a voice of power,
If every soul in its calm fulness be,

A spark, the essence of Divinity,

And each impression on it made shall last
When stars decay and Time itself is past,-
Then does this hour with such deep meaning

fraught,

Require some weighty theme, some noble thought,
Some lesson which the growing soul may weave
Into its texture and from thence receive
An active principle,-a living power,
An inspiration guiding every hour.
But how shall lips, untouched by sacred fire,
Attempt to breathe such thoughts upon the lyre
How shall a mortal dare a lesson give,
Whose silent influence must forever live?
But feeble melody our souls can wake,
Faint on the mind th' immortal dawnings break,
Still, Aspiration spreads her heavenward wings,
To catch some glimpses of diviner things.
Still, the weak hand immortal seed may sow,
From whose small germ a tree of life shall grow,
Whose leaves shall be for healing,-its increase
Be fruits of joy, and blessedness, and peace.
So, here our simple strain some truth may teach,
Although unblest with the "set phrase of speech,"
Though measure harsh, and prosy verse combine
To mar the smoothness of our fledgling rhyme,
Still in the light of friendship o'er us cast,

'T were well awhile to commune with the Past,
And while high hopes and gentle mem'ries throng.
Forget the humble tenor of the song,
From wisdom's high-road pluck a wayside flower,
And seize the lesson of the passing hour.
How fair adown the mellowing lapse of years,
Our olden scenes, our childish life appears.
When the young soul, too lately out of Heaven

To lose the purity its air had given,
From earth's temptations needeth no defense,
Save its own childish trust and innocence,
When virtue's self dispensed her inborn light
To guide our footsteps in the path of right:
Before the unsophisticated mind

Had learned that evil lurked in all mankind,

Ere sin and doubt had dimmed our clearer sense,
Or passion marred the buds of excellence,

Vanity; be strong, be wary,
Keep thy spirit pure within,
So the heart's uplifted flower-cups
Heavenly dews at last shall fill,
And come down upon the spirit
Like a fervent "peace, be still."
So our souls, with childlike vision,
Shall discern the heavenly dawn,
And our gray decline be gilded

When our hand plucked the rose and found no With the colors of the morn.

thorn,

And all life wore the colors of its morn,
When life's gray horologe was hid with flowers,
And mirth and beauty crowned the rosy hours,
While childhood's smiles made rainbows of our

tears,

And hope, light-footed, chased the fleeting years.
Such are the joys which o'er life's current throw
The childhood sunshine brightening as it flows,
Which make those days of olden bliss to be
The holiest Meccas of our memory.

Among the pleasant, childish scenes of mine,
Insured by memory from the wrecks of Time,
Comes up before me with its orchards brown,
The picture of a quaint New England town.
A good old town of Puritanic rule,

Blest with its humble church and district school.
Oh ! more than marble wall or pillared dome
That ever graced the classic shades of Rome,
My soul goes backward to revere and bless
That sacred spot amid life's wilderness.
Hushing all strife, to dream, I stand once more

Yet vain the thought; for memory's distant fields In the old haunts so dearly loved of yore,

Only regret for wasted pleasures yield,

Not twice the golden sunset gilds the eve,
The fading rainbow no new tints receives.
Ne'er to the wasted rose is incense borne,
And ne'er to man the freshness of his morn.
Yet those, those days are gone forever more,
We may retain the purity they wore,
And our child joys be but earnests
Of the joy that is to be.

Though the rose-flush of the dawning

Come no more to you and me,
Know it is the healthful spirit
Which the childish charm imparts.
Weighty troubles, fleeting bubbles,
Do not vex the earnest heart.

And oh friends, when ye shall mingle
In the selfish crowds of men,

Take your childish prayers for safe-guards,
Ye will need them then.

Dash aside the poisoned chalice
Pleasure's votary idly sips;
Worldly joys, like fruits of Sodom,
Turn to ashes on the lips.

What is life that we should love it
With its nothingness and sin?

And wake the summer echoes with my play,
Or hide amid the fragrant tufts of hay,

Wade through the brook, or climb the garden wall

To catch the golden russet in its fall.

Hard by a brook, beneath its roof trees low,
The old red school house stood. The mosses grow
Around the door-stone trod by childish feet,

I seem to see e'en now my old pine seat,
The whitewashed walls, frescoed by winter rains,
The unpainted desks, the little window panes,
And that huge lofty desk, where sat so long
The patient teacher of th' admiring throng;
One of those luckless wights whom fate constrains
To smuggle knowledge into country brains;
Himself, encyclopædia, to unlock

All truth from "ABC" to "hic, haec, hoc."
Not such the picture which our time presents,
Our schoolrooms are a type of excellence,
And if some knotty question, hard to find,
Should chance to slip the teacher's burdenedmind,
Some friendly book unties the Gordian knot,
And to its place restores the truant thought.
In these fair halls of ours, the former scenes,
Of school-girl visions and of school-boy dreams,
How many a hopeful youth, with wise intent,

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