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wounded, but not a man in our town taken prisoner. Business is dull here this winter, but we are looking forward for the good time coming,' and content themselves with small sales and ditto profits. The longer we stay here the better are we pleased with the people and the place-all we lack is the friends we left behind.' I wish when spring opens you could see a way open to visit us. Our house is a western one, but M- says if you will come here she will show you how comfortable you can be made even in a log house. Our family consists of us, brother R-, Mehitable, (our kittie,) and the chickens, Our house is one block north of the church, one east of sister A-'s, one west of the post office, and one south of the public; now could you not find us were you to come out west?

civilized.' We have people here from Wisconsin, Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, New York, and New England. The yankees here, as everywhere, I believe, take the lead; and it is as true now as it was in days of old, that the wise men come from the east. Our Doctor Jewett has gone to New England on a lecturing tour, hoping thereby, to induce people to settle in this vicinity. Do the U-people keep me in the liquor trade yet? if so, tell them to ask Doctor Jewett, he can tell who sells it here and who does not. If he brings me in guilty, I will leave town, change my name and join the Indians.

Give our best love to both of you. Tell me all the news as soon as convenient, and believe me, as ever,

Truly, your cousin

WALTER."

Is friend Mowry with you? if so, tell him I love him, and if he will write to me he will get as good as he sends-all but the good.

There is not much Nimrod about you, I believe, but this is a great place for wild geese, ducks, pigeons, partridges, quails, rabbits, prairie chickens, deers, foxes, &c., &c. The lakes and rivers abound in fish. If I should tell you what large pickerel they catch here, I am afraid you would call it a fish story, but if you will dine with us some day, I will drop one of them a line to be with us. M- had some scruples, about cooking some fish the other day because I told her that the man I bought them of hooked them, but she saw the joke in time to prepare us a good dinner.

Mathematics.

If there is anything in the world that resembles the ladder which the patriarch saw in vision, along which, forms of light and truth did come and go through all the night, it is Mathematics. By it we creep up round after round, out of the dust of this great cemetery, and descend with torch-like truths that blazed around the throne; the burning lamps that light the legislative chamber of the Infinite.

Where they curb the mountain spring;where they put a nerve of thought into the bosom of the sea; where they make the gray canvass glow with the twilight sky, or fling a spidery web amid the clouds and thunders of Niagara, there you will find Mathematics.

Among the additions to our town the past season, may be found a meeting-house bell One moment it gauges the dew-drop, that and a village belle, a new school house and a satellite of sod, and the next, measures the new jail, a brass band and a band of Indians, star-beam that shines in it; now we find it a billiard saloon and a reading-room, two guiding the painter's hand as he parts with bowling allies and two new ministers. You his pencil, the blank, unbroken wall, and lets can see by the above that we are about half in a cleft of heaven and a break of day; and

now the dialect of Nature's court, wherein her laws are rendered and preserved.

If any gift of propecy remains upon the earth, sure we are, that it has passed from the poet to the mathematician. How much "at home" he walks along the centuries to come; how he foretells the shadow that shall fall on your forgotten grave and ours, and marks the wanderings of gipsey worlds amid the bright encampment of the sky.

number of school districts in each town, corporate or otherwise. No town, however, receives any part of this state appropriation unless it raise by tax a sum equal to one half of the money which would fall to it by such apportionment.

A sum not exceeding three thousand dollars is also appropriated annually by the State for the support of a Normal School, three hundred dollars for Teachers' Institutes, and about five hundred dollars for lectures and addresses in the various school districts on

The anatomy of mathematics is what we oftenest see; but this is to clothe it with its own wardrobe of life and beauty.-B. F. TAY-"the subject of education, and the best modes of teaching and improving the schools."

LOR.

Public Schools of Rhode Island.

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THE general supervision of the schools in this State is vested in a Commissioner, appointed annually by the Governor, with the advice and consent of the Senate, whose duty it is "to visit, as often as practicable, every school district in the state, for the purpose of inspecting the schools, and diffusing as widely as possible, by public addresses and personal communications with school officers, teachers, and parents, a knowledge of the defects, and desirable improvements in the administration of the system and the govern

ment and instruction of the schools."

The

Commissioner makes a report annually, to the General Assembly, upon the condition of the Schools, and suggests modifications and improvements in the general plan of education. This report is made at the adjourned session of the Assembly at Providence.

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schools,
Whole No. attending winter schools, 25,893
Average No. attending winter schools, 19,281
Average length of summer schools, in

weeks and tenths of a week,
Average length of winter schools, in
weeks and tenths of a week,
Average wages of male teachers, per
month, including board,
Average wages of female teachers, per
month, including board,

The sum of fifty thousand dollars is annually appropriated for school purposes from a permanent fund. “Of this, thirty-five thousand dollars is distributed among the various towns in proportion to the number of child-Number of summer schools, ren therein under the age of fifteen years; and fifteen thousand dollars is apportioned among the several towns in proportion to the

Male teachers in summer schools,
Female teachers in summer schools,
Number of winter schools,

17.8

17.6

$34.50

$20.34

390

89

412

457

270
311

Male teachers in winter schools,
Female teachers in winter schools,
Amount of money expended on school
houses, in building and repairing, $33,084
Amount of money received from gen-

$49,996

eral treasury for support of public schools, Amount of money raised by town taxes for support of schools, Total amount of money from all sources available for support of public schools, -American Educational Year Book.

$79,740

$151,843

Lines to My Teacher.

BY ISABEL C. BALLOU.

THE following ode was read at the "Reunion of the Young Ladies' High School," at the close of the last term, when Hon. JOHN KINGSBURY, LL. D., our present School Commissioner, who had been the teacher of the same school for thirty years, and who had over five hundred graduates during his admin. istration, closed his connection with the school: "Hail to the chief, who in triumph advances,"

Trumpet and pibroch, to greet him, may sound; We, to OUR chief, give five hundred bright glances, Smiles from one lip to another, go round.

OPPOSITION.- — A certain amount of oppo-
sition," says John Neal, is a great help to
man. Kites rise against, and not with the
wind. Even a head wind is better than none.
No man ever worked his passage anywhere in
a dead calm. Let no man wax pale, therefore Hail to the chief of five hundred
because of opposition; opposition is what he
wants, and must have, to be good for anything.
Hardship is the native soil of manhood and Than that which history to us has given,—

Dear will his greeting seem,
Where'er his face may gleam,

Under the bright sun, or where the dark shade is;
Then let our welcome be,
Long live JOHN KINGBURY;

self-reliance. He that cannot abide the storm
without flinching or quailing, strips himself
in the sunshine, and lies down by the way-
side to be overlooked and forgotten. He who
but braces himself to the struggle when the

young ladies.

Thirty long years of his life has he striven,
Battling with Ignorance; harder, by far,

Europe's remarkable "Thirty Years' War."

Long has he fought, and well;

But for his shot and shell,

Lexicons, at us, '

their "parts of speech "thundered. Then give him all respect;

He, who for Intellect

wind blows, gives up when they have done, Fought, and has conquered, this valiant five hundred.

and falls asleep in the stillness that follows.

THE AQUARIUM.- Take a tank, if the sides are of glass all the better, and in it place gravel and broken stone to represent the bed of the

Presidents of our most wonderful nation,

Find it hard work to rule men at their will;
What would you think of the nice situation,
Forty-three school girls, at once, to keep still.
Hark! from the sky a sound
Comes through the air around,

sea; then nearly fill it with sea water. The And from the depths of the lowermost Hades.

"Shall we not praise him, then,
Champion of married men ;

He who kept silent five hundred young ladies."

plants of the sea will soon begin to be developed, in forms of extraordinary variety and beauty. Introduce the animals of the sea, fish, eels, turtles, crabs, &c., any and all of them, and the exhibition becomes an interesting and useful study. Just now there is a great rage Nor, when our forms in our wrappers are shrouded,

for these tanks in the parlors of England and

thousands of homes are adorned with them.

No more shall we, in our ante-room crowded,

Sad, of the length of our lessons complain;

Shall we e'er hear of such kissing again.

Kisses to right of us,

Kisses to left of us,

Kisses in front of us, volleyed and thuudered,

And we shall see no more,

What we have seen before,

Out of the school-house door, charge OUR five hundred.

But he has left us :-in vain we lament him;
Vain, to his High School we call him again;
For as Commissioner, Governor has sent him,
ALL of our High Schools to superintend.
But when we meet again,
Where'er we may be then,

Under the bright sun, or where the dark shade is,
Let us all shout with glee,

Long live JOHN KINGSBURY;

Hail to the chief of five hundred young ladies.

Progressive Development of the Human

Faculties by Education.

WE quote the following valuable remarks from the introductory address delivered before the American Institute of Instruction, at their twenty-fifth annual meeting, in Providence, August 8, 1854, by Rev. Dr. WAYLAND:

"So far as I see, in the course of instruction marked out for young persons, but little respect is paid to the progressive development of the human faculties. A certain amount of time is allotted to education, and the earlier the age within which this period is passed over, the better, and the greater the number of studies that can be crowded into it, the more satisfactory is supposed to be the result. If a pupil can be made to repeat the textbook correctly, it is all that is demanded. Hence we see in the courses of study for mere children, subjects which can only be comprehended by the mind at the period of manhood. The result is unhappy. The pupil leaves school, as it is said, thoroughly educated, but utterly disgusted with the studies which he has pursued, and resolved hereafter never to look at them again; a resolution to which he frequently adheres with marvellous pertinacity. But this evil is confined to no grade of schools. It exists, if I mistake not, in our

more advanced seminarles of learning. Many of our pupils are employed in studies which they cannot understand, and in which, of course, they can find no pleasure. I know very well that I read Cicero's Orations ten years before I could understand an oration of Burke. I read Tacitus long before I could comprehend Hume; and Horace when I had no power of appreciating Burns. I had finished my course in rhetoric some years before I had any distinct conception of beauty of style; and long after I had gone through Stewart, I should have been puzzled to distinguish between perception and conception. I presume that now we are doing better, but I should not be surprised if there were found many now studying the Greek tragedies, who can see no beauty in Shakspeare, and poring over the "Oration on the Crown," who would think it a task to read an oration of Webster.

I fear that it is from this cause that our pupils take so little interest in their studies. They come to them as to a task, glad when the task is intermitted, and happy when it ceases altogether. This should not be so. The use of the intellectual faculties is intended to be a source of happiness, and there must be some error where this result does not follow from the use of them."

BOYS AND GIRLS.-Speaking of the plan of separating the sexes in school, Mr. Stowe, the celebrated Glasgow teacher says:

"The separation has been found injurious. It is impossible to raise girls as high, intellectually, without the boys as with them; and it is impossible to raise boys morally as high without girls. The girls morally elevate the boys, and the boys intellectually elevate the girls. But more than this, girls themselves are morally elevated by the presence of boys.Boys brought up with girls are made more positively intellectual by the softening influence of the female character."

Simplicity in English Dress.

IN families of many of the nobility and gentry of England, possessing an annual income which of itself would be an ample fortune, there is a greater economy of dress, and more simplicity in the furnishing of the dwelling, than there is in many of the houses of our citizens, who are barely able to supply the daily wants of their families, by the closest attention to their business. A friend of ours, who sojourned, not long since, several months in the vicinity of some of the wealthy landed aristocracy of England, whose ample rent-rolls would have warranted a high style of fashion, was surprised at the simplicity of manners practiced. Servants are much more numerous than with us, but the ladies made more account of one silk dress than would be thought here of a dozen.

The Cause of the Gulf Stream.

The deep sea soundings of Lieut. Berryman have done much to confirm a previous theory as to the cause, or one of the causes, of the Gulf Stream. It is ascertained that, at a depth of two thousand feet, in the straits of Florida, the temperature of the ocean is only three degrees above freezing, while in the deep soundings on the telegraph route it is found the temperature is ten to fifteen deegrees below the freezing point. Hence, according to well-known laws, the comparatively warm and light waters of the gulf, made lighter by the masses of fresh water from the Mississippi and other rivers, rise and flow off towards the colder regions of the north. At the same time, the denser waters of the northern Atlantic make their way southward to restore the equilibrium. Thus there are two currents, an upper They were generally clothed in good, sub- and an under, flowing in contrary direction. stantial stuffs, and a display of fine clothing The upper is apparent and well known as the and jewelry was reserved for great occasions. Gulf Stream; the under is frequently demonThe furniture of the mansions, instead of be-strated by the fact of immense icebergs, reaching turned out of doors every few years for ing down thousands of feet below the surface of new and more fashionable styles, was the the ocean, being seen floating southward same which the ancestors of the families for against the surface current. several generations had possessed; substantial and in excellent preservation, but plain and without any pretensions to elegance. Even the carpets on many suites of parlors had been on the floors for fifty years, and were expected to do service for another half century. With us how different is the state of things. We are wasting an amount of weath in this country on show and fashion, which, rightly applied, would renovate the condition of the whole population of the world, and Christianize and educate all mankind.-Exchange.

THOSE who apply themselves too much to little things commonly become incapable of great ones.

FIRE IN A SCHOOL HOUSE.-On Friday morning a fire was discovered near a flue in one of the public school houses in Harlem, N. Y., and dense volumes of smoke poured into one of the large rooms, when Mr. Jacob Warner, one of the teachers, said to the scholars :

66

Now, boys, recollect my previous instructions- leave the building in order, and all will be saved." At the usual signal the children,500 in number, rose from their seats, and without any undue excitement, left the burning building. The firemen soon arrived and extinguished the flames before the building was much damaged.

KEEP your school-room clean.

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