the hand and pen in much the same manner as an accompaniment of music aids the voice in making its various waves of melody.

Though the advance in number of columns will necessarily not be as great if the classes have one such lesson a week, yet with the now awakened enthusiasm of the pupils, and increased attention to explanations, a marked improvement will soon be seen in the copy-book which could not be attained by any number of regular drill writing-lessons.

The position of writing-teacher has, like others, its shady and sunny side. But in every occupation there are difficulties to contend with and obstacles to surmount; and Tennyson clothed a true thought in beautiful language, when he wrote-"Shadow and shine is life, flower and thorn."

WILLIAM H. McGUFFE Y.

William H. McGuffey, D.D., LL.D., is the son of a Scotch Presbyterian farmer, and was born in Washington county, Pa., in the year 1800. During the first eighteen years of his life, he enjoyed no advantages of education beyond what were afforded by the rude schools which the frugal country people were able to sustain during the winter months. When William was still a child, his father removed to Trumbull

county, Ohio, and established his family in a log cabin, on a small tract of land which he had recently purchased, the country for miles around being yet an unbroken forest. Here William engaged

with ardor in the labors of opening a farm in the woods; but never allowed manual labor to dull his desire for intellectual improvement. In the intervals of farm-work, he improved every opportunity of gaining knowledge-borrowing books wherever they were to be had, and occasionally, and at irregular intervals, obtaining an hour's instructions from the clergyman of the neighborbood. When about eighteen years of age, he began the study of Latin with borrowed books; and used to walk (once a week) a distance of several miles to the house of the country clergyman, to recite the lessons which he had prepared in the brief intervals of his daily toil.

His father being too poor to aid him in acquiring an education, William began the business of teaching so soon as he could be spared from the farm; and in this way sustained himself until he was enabled to graduate, which he did with distinguished honor, at the age of twenty-five, at Washington College, Pennsylvania, then under the Presidency of that great and good man, Andrew Wylie, D.D., subsequently for many years President of the University of Indiana at Bloomington. So high was Mr. McGuffey's reputation for scholarship, and such a reputation had he already acquired as a teacher, that upon his graduation, he was immediately elected to the Chair of Ancient Languages in the Miami University at Oxford, Ohio. In this chair he continued for seven years, noted for the accuracy of his learning and the thoroughness of his teachings.

In 1829, he was called to the ministry of the Presbyterian Church, in which he has continued to labor ever since, but generally without having any pastoral charge. In 1832 he was transferred to the Professorship of Moral Philosophy in the same University.

In 1836 he was elected to the Presidency of the Cincinnati College, which in that year was reorganized, with a most distinguished faculty, embracing names already eminent in the departments of Law, Medicine and Letters; among which may be mentioned Doctors Drake and Gross, of the Medical Faculty, the latter being the celebrated surgeon who has so long been a resident of Philadelphia; Edward D. Mansfield, LL.D., the Statistician and Statesman; and Judges Walker and Wright of the Law School; and the late General O. M. Mitchel, the astronomer and

soldier, and Professors Telford and Drury in the Academy Faculty. To be placed at the head of such a galaxy of brilliant men was a high testimonial to the eminence which Mr. McGuffey had already attained.

While in the Presidency of the Cincinnati College, he received the degrees of Doctor of Divinity and Doctor of Laws from several Universities, Eastern as well as Western.

In 1839, he was elected to the Presidency of the Ohio Uni versity at Athens. In 1845, he resigned his position at Athens, and accepted the Chair of Moral Philosophy and Political Economy in the University of Virginia.

From the year 1829 to the present time, Dr. McGuffey has, in addition to discharging the onerous duties of the different chairs which he has occupied, been laborious and incessant in the duties of the ministry, aiding and building up feeble churches, preaching generally twice every Sabbath; and has rendered signal service to the cause of education by lectures and addresses in all parts of the United States, but chiefly in the States of Ohio, Indiana, Pennsylvania and Virginia. But the labor by which his name has become most widely known, has been the preparation of the "Eclectic Series" of Readers. His attention having been strongly directed to the defects in existing school books, during his own career as a teacher in primary schools, he availed himself of his first leisure, while in the Chair of Languages in Miami University, to endeavor to supply what he had felt to be a great want. Taking in his own house a class of very young children, he led them step by step, for several years, beginning with the alphabet, noting all that their progress indicated or their mistakes and difficulties suggested, and preparing and modifying the lessons as the necessities of the young mind required; and from this protracted study grew the "Eclectic Series" of reading-books, so familiar in common school instruction during the last twenty-five years.

Dr. McGuffey is still in the prime of his intellectual life; and is distinguished as a clear, original and vigorous thinker, and an impressive speaker. He makes no show of oratory; but in lucid statement, felicitous illustration, and cogent logic, he has few equals in any profession.

For the Ohio Educational Monthly.

MY GIFTS.

A radiant

gem, most

pure and rare,

I cherished once with tenderest care:
I loved it for its rays of light,

Which, calm and steady, blessed my sight;
That all might praise I showed my gem-
'T was claimed for my King's diadem;
Weeping, I gave my jewel up,—
Crying, O King, pass by this cup!

My King with firm and kind command,
Stayed all my struggling 'gainst His hand.
Then "let me die," in haste I cried,-
"I'm faint and sick, such ills betide
The path that is marked out for me;
And I'm so weary-Let me be
To earth as though I had not been;
Open, O grave, and take me in!"

One warm and genial summer day,
A flower sprang up beside the way
I trod with trembling feet and sore,—
I thought upon my ills no more
While its pure fragrance filled the air;
But said, "Away far hence with all
my care!"
Alas! there came a night of frost:
Flower and fragrance both were lost.

Again I cried with sudden dread,
"Would God that I this day were dead!
My way grows dark and darker still;
Not so, O heaven, but as I will!"

I know not if my impious prayer

Reached high as heaven and entered there;
I only know I saw no more

The gem and flower I saw before.

The night hung heavy, damp and chill

Above my head, and darker still
Around my heart were gathering fears;

My eyes were wet with bitterest tears,
When 'mid the clouds there shone a light,-
A star had risen on my night!

I sang: "My sorrows now are o'er;

There's light above me evermore!"

CLEVELAND, O.

It sent one quick, full, quivering ray
Into my heart, then went its way.

Now flowers may wither and gems depart,
I'll only say, "Be still, my heart;

And wait the gleaming of that star
That shines beyond the clouds afar!"
Even so, my Father, let it be,

Since good it seemeth unto Thee.

E. L. B.

GOVERNOR COX ON COMMON SCHOOLS.

[In his late Inaugural Address, Governor Cox paid the following just and eloquent tribute to our common school system:]

Our common school system is to be fostered and improved, and there is nothing in which our people have a deeper interest than this. If there be any one thing to which, under Providence, more than to another, we owe our safe passage through our recent perils, I believe it is the intelligence which our common schools have universally diffused. It has not been simply the power to read, but that larger and wider culture which has made the American people capable of weighing and deciding upon grave arguments of right and policy in the midst of greatest excitement. The Government appealed to them as to men able to comprehend any arguments of State policy, and the steady loyalty of the people and their persevering support of the national cause was in direct proportion to the intelligence and education of different States or communities. I will even go further, and declare my belief, that outside of the immediate theater of hostile operations, the cause of the Government never lost anything by the most untrammeled freedom of public discussion and printing, because the people were always able to detect the sophisms of disloyalty, and their patriotic purposes were strengthened rather than weakened by seeing the whole force of the enemy they had to meet. Among the safeguards of our liberties and guaranties of the permanence of our institutions, I reckon our school system the very chief Blind and devoted love of country may exist under a despotism, if ignorance be the mother of a superstitious or a childish attachment; but liberty and republicanism can be built on no other solid foundation than intelligence in the whole mass of the people. A wise self-interest is made the basis of all scientific political economy, and when a whole people have learned to estimate that interest truly, besides loving their country dearly, you have ground for faith in the stability of their Government, such as can be got in no other way. It is because of the general conviction that our common schools may be made to secure this result, that there is an equally general belief that no money used for public purposes is so well invested as that which supports our school system.