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. 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, Feel earth's blighting breath upon them. Soft and dewy as the evening, And the wanderer lifts his trembling hand, In a prayer for his native clime, For a blessing on the father-land, So with us as backward turning, 'Till the very air seems vocal, A spark, the essence of Divinity, And each impression on it made shall last fraught, Require some weighty theme, some noble thought, 'T were well awhile to commune with the Past, To lose the purity its air had given, Had learned that evil lurked in all mankind, Ere sin and doubt had dimmed our clearer sense, Vanity; be strong, be wary, 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, tears, And hope, light-footed, chased the fleeting years. Among the pleasant, childish scenes of mine, Blest with its humble church and district school. 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, Though the rose-flush of the dawning Come no more to you and me, And oh friends, when ye shall mingle Take your childish prayers for safe-guards, Dash aside the poisoned chalice What is life that we should love it And wake the summer echoes with my play, 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, I seem to see e'en now my old pine seat, All truth from "ABC" to "hic, haec, hoc." |