A CHAPTER OF PROVERBS.

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both hands." The Scotch proverbs equally moral have a more caustic tone and a broader humor. "He that teaches himsel' has a fool for his maister." "The miser wad rake hell for a bawbee." "Lippen to me, but took to yoursel'." Ye wad do little for God, if the deil were deid." No one can fail to contrast the directness of these Caladonian proverbs with the delicate implication of their Spanish relatives.

Proverbs in which rhyme and alliteration have been called in as aids to memory are so numerous and so general that we would almost imagine rhyme to be the mother tongue of proverbs. Birds of a feather flock together;" "Safe bind, safe find;" "He who would thrive, must rise at five; he who has thriven may sleep till seven;" "No pains, no gains;" "East, west, home is best " are well known and excellent examples of this class. But such alliteration "Out of debt, out of danger;" "A cat may look at a king;" *All is not gold that gliters" are just as abundant. Another common form is that of pleasant exaggeration as when the Arab says of a man whose luck never forsakes him, "Throw him into the Nile, and he will come up with a fish in his mouth."

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Purely selfish and immoral proverbs cannot be passed over. That they exist, such abominable maxims as "Every man has his price;" Every man for himself, and the devil take the hindmost ;" and, "Count after your father" are witnesses. But they are comparatively few in number, and in the estimation of the vast majority worthy of a much more severe condemnation than Lord Chesterfield's.

We have unfortunately no space left to notice the birth of various historical proverbs, nor yet to examine that large and interesting class which come distinctly under the head of "Ecclesiastical." By such we do not mean those only which had their origin on the hills of Galilee and in the cities of Judea; but also the wise saws of Herbert, and South, and Barrow; the maxims with which Knox clinched his arguments and Jeremy Taylor fastened the "nail in a sure place." In this field Matthew Henry is rich beyond all comparison. His "Exposition" is "a mosaic of proverbs on a basis of sandalwood." Many of them, indeed, are the old current coin of the world, but others bear the image and superscription of Matthew

Henry; as, "Many a beau becomes a beggar." "God blesses the giving hand and makes it a getting hand." His proverbs are like "steel in a fountain, the sparkle pleases the eye and the tonic strengthens the heart."

Closely connected with ecclesiastical proverbs are those mottoes which our pious ancestors engraved on their dining tables, on the lintels of their houses, on their signet rings, and carriage doors— hopeful earnests of that day when the prophecy of Zechariah shall be fulfilled and on "every pot," and upon the bells of the horses"Holiness unto the Lord" shall be inscribed.

So it is not the poverty but the wealth of this subject that is embarrassing; for their is no phase of life, no shade of character, which has not passed through the alembic of the great heart of humanity, and become a proverb.-Christian Union.

RELIANCE ON GOD.

If thou hast ever felt that all on earth
Is transient and unstable, that the hopes
Which man reposes on his brother man,
Are oft but broken reeds; if thou hast seen
That life itself "is but a vapor," sprung
From time's up-heaving ocean, decked, perhaps,
With here and there a rainbow, but full soon
To be dissolved and mingled with the vast
And fathomless expanse that rolls its waves
On every side around thee; if thy heart
Has deeply felt all this, and thus has learned
That earth has no security,-then go
And place thy trust in God.

The bliss of earth

Is transient as the colored light that beams
In morning dew-drops. Yet a little while,
And all that earth can show of majesty,
Of strength, or loveliness, shall fade away
Like vernal blossoms. From the conqueror's hand,
The sceptre and the sword shall pass away;
The mighty ones of earth shall lay them down

And Desolation's ivy hand shall wave
O'er all that thou canst see, - blot out the suns
That shed their glory o'er uncounted worlds,-
Call in the distant comets from their wild
And devious course, and bid them cease to move,
And clothe the heavens in darkness. But the power
Of God, his goodness, and his grace, shall be
Unchanged, when all the worlds that he has made,
Have ceased their revolutions. When the suns
That burn in yonder sky, have poured their last,
Their dying glory o'er the realms of space.
Still, God shall be the same,

In majesty, in mercy: then rely

the same in love,

In faith on Him, and thou shalt never find
Hope disappointed, or reliance vain.

361

CASKET.

MASSACHUSETTS STATE TEACHERS' ASSOCIATION.

The twenty-seventh annual meeting of this association was held in Boston, Oct. 20, 21 and 22. The opening exercises were held in Lowell Institute Hall, on Thursday evening, the 20th inst. The teachers assembled were first addressed by Professor Agassiz of Cambridge. He was greeted with applause as he stepped to the front of the platform. A part of his address we give in substance:

"Fellow-teachers, I speak to you this evening with a diffidence unusual to me for it is my custom to speak upon those subjects with which I have become familiar by study. Yet, as I am about to return to Europe, perhaps never to return, an experience of more than fifty years in teaching may justify an attempt to make some suggestions to you, who have already learned so much by your own

experience. I intend to speak of some of the defects of our public schools, and this subject renders me diffident.

"We are too well satisfied with what our public schools have accomplished, and too proud of them. They have accomplished much; they have secured to us our republican government; but they have not produced among the masses of our people that culture which is the proper product of good schools. Proof of this lack of culture is evident wherever men gather in public places. The language we hear in our streets, the language and the manners of a large proportion of those who graduate at our public schools, give evidence of this lack of culture.

The methods of teaching are defective. I cannot approve that method which tends to the exercise and development of little else than the memory.)

"Another evil of our system is, that classes and schools are too large. When I see the large school-houses in which hundreds of pupils are gathered, I am often painfully reminded of the crowded barracks of soldiers. In these school buildings, the large classes placed under the care of one teacher (necessitate a mechanical uniformity, and prevent the teacher from adapting himself to the individual wants of his pupils.

"Another defect is found in the way in which we apportion to the teachers the branches to be taught. (We require one teacher to teach too many branches. One man cannot know everything. When so much is required of one teacher, he ought to be a walking cyclopedia. Since this is impossible, text-books are resorted to. Most of these are worthless; they are made by book-makers, and put up in a form that will sell well.) They are made for the purpose of making money. The pupil needs to be taught, not by the unmeaning phraseology of text-books, but by the living, loving voice of a teacher.

"Again we need more teaching of the things themselves, in place of the verbal exposition of things. Normal schools should be furnished with the means of fitting teachers to teach the elements of the physical sciences. Teachers should be prepared to unfold to pupils, in a clear manner, the history of the earth. They should become skilful in teaching the elements of mineralogy and chemistry. Why

EDUCATIONAL MEETING.

363

so much time spent in studying grammar?) Did Homer study any grammar? or did Cicero finish his masterly orations by the rules of any treatise upon grammar? These men produced their inimitable works when technical grammars were yet unwritten.

"The public are demanding, and will soon imperatively demand, that those teachers should be employed who can open the book of Nature and teach from its pages.

"The great fact is now beginning to be realized that the knowledge of nature has conferred upon man a power that all the classic literature and famous art of antiquity failed to bestow."

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Our limits forbid a suitable notice of the carefully-written address of Rev. A. P. Peabody. His subject was Words." The address contained many striking illustrations of the history with which many of our words are freighted, as they come to us from the centuries.)

The forenoon of Friday we spent in the High School Section of the association. The programme was somewhat formidable; but the absence of Professor Morse, who was to occupy the first hour, led to a deviation from the expected order of exercises, so that the subject of English Grammar came up. The questions proposed were: "Is it advisable to continue the study of English Grammar in its present artificial form? If not, what measures ought to be adopted to secure a more rational introduction to the study of the English Language?" With the above questions for her subject, Miss Jellison, of the Girls' High and Normal School, read a paper that secured the closest attention of those present. She began by showing that the civilized world wasted in salutes, &c., 150,000 rounds of powder per day, at the cost of 900,000 francs. All this while people are starving. The comparison was drawn with the waste of power in children by useless time spent on some subjects. An interesting experience of a young lady in her attempts to gain knowledge was given. When she became a teacher she taught what was given to teach, and grammar was her stumbling block; all the text-books are theoretical; if any purpose is arrived at by the text-books, that purpose was unaccomplished, all the good gained was certainly outside the "science of grammar.' The pupils had the means and not the end. One harm was the distaste caused in the pupil for language. A second was the demoralization of teachers in endeavoring to reduce