For the Schoolmaster. A Dream of Childhood. BY ANNIE ELIZABETH. A dream of other years last night I thought I trod the pathway bright, And gathered there was many a form Some that have ceased to brave life's storm, The well remembered school house rose I passed the time-stained portal through, And there arose before my view The same band was assembled round That years ago was there, And long forgotten names I found Upon that record fair. Oh, where are now the youthful band Far by the verdant prairie's side, In wild delight now roam. Rut some have found a resting place One sleeps within a sheltered nook We read together from one book Long years have past since some were laid A gleam of light too fair to fade, Soon as the morning hour drew near But sweeter than the voice of song, That dream of other days. For the Schoolmaster. The Teacher's Vocation. The Change in Twenty-Five Years - American Institute of Instruction-Norwich-The Free Academy-The Central School. THE writer of this article is a teacher, and never did he feel prouder of his profession than now, after an experience extending through more than a score of years. During this period the teacher's calling has steadily advanced in dignity and public favor until it is recognized by the intelligent and liberal in every community, as second to no other in importance and respectability. In all necessary facilities and qualifications there has also been a corresponding progress. The old fashioned school houses,-low, narrow, and ill furnished-have, to a gratifying extent, given place to commodious structures, fashioned according to correct principles of architecture, externally pleasing to the eye, and fitted up internally with a careful regard to comfort and convenience. I might here present a long catalogue of specifications, calling attention to the extent to which these buildings have been furnished with books of reference, maps, libraries and apparatus; to the higher liberality of the men who conceived and talent, superior qualifications and increased brought it into being. It is magnificent in compensation of teachers; to the advantages itself and complete in all its appointments. afforded by normal schools, teachers' institutes, and other educational facilities, but this is not my purpose. I simply add, in this connection, that no one whose observation has not extended through the last twenty-five or thirty years, can adequately appreciate the educational improvements of the present. Whatever can be derived from books of reference and expensive apparatus has been made abundantly available. Its teachers are of the highest order. Funds, promptly furnished, have given it existence and support hitherto, and funds, permanently invested, have been abundantly supplied for its continued support. I have never been more deeply impressed In the language of Rev J. P. Gulliver, at its with the extent to which the means of public dedication, "This institution had its origin instruction have been improved than during in efforts, repeatedly defeated, to provide for the recent meeting of the American Institute all classes in the community, an education adof Instruction, in the beautiful city of Nor-equate to the demands of their future occupawich, Connecticut. This meeting must have tions. This is still the desire of its friends. been, for all the teachers who attended it, the They have no wish to unfit the scholars of distinguishing event of their summer vaca- this school for the ordinary employments of tion. Omitting all allusion to the picturesque life. But they do wish to prepare them for a beauty of the city, its princely mansions, its high success in whatever employments they opulence, and the intelligence and hospitality may engage. They intend that mechanics and of its citizens; the successful energy that has merchants, and navigators, and agriculturists been here exerted in the cause of education shall be educated here, who, by superior culalone, is sufficient to give this city an enviable ture and learning, shall becomǝ masters in distinction among the many of our land. The their business. They intend that young la Free Academy, which we might almost mis- dies shall be educated here, not to flit like take for the palace "the name of which was butterflies through the world, as beautiful called Beautiful," except that the way to it and as useless as they, but to adorn society, is broad and guarded by no lions, is an object to mould the mind of youth, to be the honorwhich, once seen, is never to be forgotten. ed heads of well-ordered households, and to To say that it is in every respect admirable, is charm by the beauty of an elegant culture the least compliment that is worthy of it. and a disciplined mind. They wish to offer Thirty years ago the man that should have to the poorest boy in the community, who as proposed to erect, by private subscription, an pires to join himself to the the noble fraterniedifice for the purposes of free education at ty of scholars, the opportunity to fit himself an expense, including fixtures, of nearly for- for the university or the scientific school. ty thousand dollars, exclusive of a lot of more Their motto is - Every employment is dignithan six acres most delightfully situated, in a fied and honorable to one who is determined city whose population amounted to but little to excel." Such was the noble purpose of the more than ten thousand, would have been noble founders of this noble institution. deemed scarcely less than a fit candidate for the mad house. Yet it was done. There it The Central District School building is scarcely less creditable to the enlightened lib stands, beautiful, noble, FREE! It is a proud monument to the philanthropy, enterprize and erality of the citizens of Norwich than the Free Academy. This edifice, which is most admirably arranged for the accommodation of their system of graded schools, was erected at a cost, for ground and buildings, of more than thirty-seven thousand dollars. It is a model building as s whole, and in all its details. It is only those who are familiar with the hostility and opposition encountered by all school reforms of importance, twenty-five or thirty years ago, that can adequately appreciate the self-denial, energy and perseverance of those who have transfered the account of them from the page of speculation to that of history. For the Schoolmaster. To Prayer. FROM THE FRENCH. I. F. C. How mad to hope for happiness below, While blessings few and far between appear. More sounds of wailing than of mirth arise; More tombs than cradles do we here behold; And beauty fades before th' enchanted eyes, As night blots out the sunset's red and gold. The heavenly artist, Hope, can never paint And, undeserving, bear the martyr's palm. We would that o'er our path the light should steal, Our guiding star above serene and pure; That e'en the angry lightning might reveal The soul arises when we bend the knee; To Him whose presence can from sadness free. HESIL. For the Schoolmaster. Etymological Study. To one who is familiar with the schools of Philadelphia and Eastern Pennsylvania, the absence of all study and instruction in etymology in the boasted schools of New England is "passing strange." Geography, it may be, Grammar, the Sciences, and perhaps Arithmetic are taught by methods superior and to a greater extent than in the above-mentioned section of our common country. But you may go through whole counties, and I do not know but whole states even, and find not a single school where any adequate attention is given to the beautiful and highly important study of etymology. Scarcely a school have I seen in Rhode Island where the origin of words was made a separate study. In a few instances indeed have I found the teachers of the ancient classics giving some oral instruction in respect to the derivation of words. I do not wish to set myself up as a critic, or to be so bold as to attempt to instruct or judge the talented educators of New England's sons, so highly and so deservedly honored for their intelligence wherever they are found, the world over, but I know the teachers of Rhode Island will not think me intrusive for respectfully asking their attention to this subject of etymological study. I think they will pardon a friendly stranger who, while traveling in New England has gained highly important information and been vastly instructed by the several hundred schools he who thinks he shall be a better teacher as the result of this visitation, if he suggest to them that there are beauties in the English language, intensely interesting historical incidents connected with the derivation of words, and great advantage accruing from the study of this science, of which it would seem, to a traveler, that the teachers of New England have never dreamed. has visited in four of the Eastern states, and is transferred to a family; the "stock" or "stirps" is that from which it grows, and out of which it unfolds itself. And here we may bring in the "stock"-dove, as being the "stock" or stirps of the domestic kinds. I might group with these, "stake" in both its spellings; a "stake" in the hedge is stuck and fixed there; the stakes" which men wager against the issue of a race are paid down, and thus fixed or deposited to answer the event; a beef-"steak" is a piece of meat so small that it can be stuck on the point of a fork; with much more of the same kind." PHILOLOGOS. Allow me, in conclusion, to introduce a short paragraph illustrative of the subject, (which however may be familiar to very many, but which they may not have profited by as they ought,) from "Trench on the Study of Words:" For the Schoolmaster. "Take the word "stock;" in what an almost infinite number of senses it is employed; SUCH is the constitution of man that he is we have live "stock," "stock" in trade, the capable of becoming fitted for states of life village "stocks," the "stock" of a gun, the for which he was once wholly unqualified. "stock" dove, the "stocks" on which ships The human mind is susceptible of great are built, the "stock" which goes round the changes, from the circumstances in which it neck, the family "stock," the "stocks," or is placed and from the attention and culture public funds, in which money is invested, and which it receives. On this susceptibility, the other "stocks" very likely besides these. whole system of education is founded. A What point in common can we find between person's estimate of the value of education them all? This, that they are all derived will be very much in proportion to the strength from, and were originally the past participle and vividness of his belief in the capacity of of "to stick," which as it now makes "stuck," the mind for cultivation. On this same bemade formerly "stock;" and they cohere in lief will depend his hope for the intellectual the idea of fixedness, which is common to ev-improvement of individuals as well as for the ery one. Thus, the "stock" of a gun is that elevation of nations in the scale of civilization in which the barrel is fixed; the village and social improvement. Were the mind in"stocks" are those in which the fcet are fast-capable of acquiring knowledge, of securing ened; the "stock" in trade is the fixed cap-discipline, of experiencing development, the ital; and so, too, the "stock" on the farm, al- occupation of the teacher would be gone and though the fixed capital has there taken the his office have no existence. Were nations shape of horses and cattle; in the "stocks," also incapable of improvement in the arts of or public funds, money sticks fast, inasmuch life and destitute of the power of mental and as those who place it there can not withdraw or demand the capital, but receive only the interest; the "stock" of a tree is fast set in the ground; and from this use of the word it social elevation under the appliance of the H company him to the cathedral. They peeped through the key-hole, and what was their moral redemption of the barbarous tribes of the earth under the influence of Christianity. The fact that mankind are susceptible of im- consternation to behold the great divine friskprovement by culture is a fact full of signifi-ing about in wild undress to the inspiration cancy in its bearings on the cause of educa- of his own music. Soon after, he met them in a manner becoming his character; but observing signs of astonishment in the party, he said that without his music, he would have been incapable of his public duty. tion and the hopes of our race. The plant and the animal are not required to become a different thing from what they already are at the moment of their mature growth. The purpose of their existence is realized in It was in music that the wicked Saul sought its full extent by the fact alone of their mate-relief when the Lord in anger sent an evil rial nature and physical organization. But spirit to trouble him. For thus it is written: with man it is quite otherwise. He is destined for improvement. This is the law of his being. Instinct is less in man than in the animal, because man is constituted with this susceptibility for development — the power of acquisition the capability for advancement and elevation. The physical man, however admirable may be his organization is not the true man. Man as a barbarian, or as a corporeal giant, is not all he is capable of being. He has a higher nature and a higher mission. He has a susceptibility for improvement - for intellectual, social and moral culture. The barbarian may be made a civilized man. Under the influence of education in its largest sense he may be elevated to a high position of honor, enterprise and happiness. Here is the warrant and the security for systems of education. For the Schoolmaster. WIMBAS. THE power of music as a recreation is seen in the case of the celebrated divine, Bourdaloue. It is said that he was accustomed to allay the excitement of his mind after the composition of his eloquent sermons by very uncanonical behavior. His attendants were one day mightily scandalized and alarmed by hearing a very lively tune played on a fiddle, in his room, while they waited without to ac. "And Saul's servants said unto him, Behold now an evil spirit from the Lord troub leth thee. Let our lord now command thy servants, which are before thee, to seek out a man who is a cunning player on a harp and it shall come to pass, when the evil spirit from the Lord is upon thee, that he shall play with his hand and thou shalt be well. And Saul said unto his servants, Provide me now a man that can play well, and bring him to me. Then answered one of the servants and said, Behold, I have seen a son of Jesse the BethChemite, that is cunning in playing, and a mighty valiant man, and a man of war, and prudent in matters, and a comely person and. the Lord is with him. Wherefore Saul sent messengers unto Jesse and said, Send me David thy son that is with the sheep. And David came to Saul and stood before him; and he loved him greatly, and he became his armor-bearer. And it came to pass, when the evil spirit from God was upon Saul, that Dayid took a harp, and played with his hand : so Saul was refreshed, and was well, and the evil spirit departed from him."-First Samuel, 16th chapter. ALLOW a boy to run at large one year in indolence, and you have laid the foundation whercon will be built his future ruin. |