dependent upon tastes and pursuits, the length of the present communication forbids our developing.

CONCERNING BOYS' MORALS.

BY W. H. VENABLE.

PUBLIC School teachers, if honest, will generally admit Spencer's conclusion in reference to boys, that to avoid euphemism - they are small savages. We may call boyhood the Thor period of life. Its leading characteristic is, hammer. It is rude, pitiless, exacting, without conscience.

Spencer's ideas of the "discipline of experience" seem sound. Our usual attitude of antagonism to the boyish instincts, is hurtful. It is also dishonest. We affect surprise at conduct which observation has repeatedly taught us to expect. It is said, "Boys will be boys." Better say, "Boys must be boys." Boyness is not a result of will: it is a result of natural development. Be hopeful. Let the boys grow. It won't do to pick flower-buds open. Have patience. Wrapped within are beautiful forms, gorgeous colors, and delicious odors. Some buds never blossom. Some boys never mature, but wither into a premature manhood, retaining the faults, but not the vitality, of youth.

There is very little pleasure in the thought of a perpetual boy an immortal Thor.

Our mental ejaculation to the boys is that by which the benevolent Cheruble was wont to address his brother: "Devil take you, Ned; God bless you!" Devil take the fact of boyhood, but God bless the promise of development.

Yet boyhood has its uses, and, as a transient state, its features of interest to all. Boyhood, heavy-booted, slouch-hatted, patchedcoated, quarrelsome, bashful, bold, tyrannic! We admire its Brobdignagness, its insatiable curiosity, its supreme indifference to society and propriety.

It is the great museum of life. It is pregnant with surprises. New facts are revealed every hour. Actions, passions, thoughts, things, are learned as we learn the alphabet. We know not their meaning at first. Afterwards we combine them into expressions of

awful significance. It is long before we begin to spell out theoretic ethics.

Time and experience develop the high principles of benevolence, pity, love, self-sacrifice. Boys will not always stone pigs and pull off birds' heads; not always monopolize the choicest apples, and beat their little brother for complaining. They soon find out the limitations of their power and their pleasure. Nature's restrictions can not be overcome. Her stern laws are better than our precepts. We cry, "Avoid that precipice!" but to him we would save, a glance into the yawning chasm is worth a million warning trumpObstinacy waded into the river of sin, undaunted. After a while he felt the fingers of Death clutching at his feet from below. Then he screamed in terror and sought the shore, and never dabbled in the black waters again.

ets.

The most we can do for the boys, morally, is to teach them to recognize the consequences of violated law. Throw them on their own responsibility. Self-reliance is the basis of moral character. Do not say, "Do this, and this, and this, and this, and this." Say, "Do right—your idea of right, not mine." Tear away the external supports, the penal ties, the excuses. Let the boys struggle alone with Apollyon. It is good for the moral muscles. Vernon, Ind., Nov. 27, 1861.

FORE-FATHERS' DAY.

[The following extract from an article in the Maine Teacher, entitled Fore-Fathers' Day, our readers will find of some value.]

OUR readers all understand that the landing took place on the 11th of December, Old Style. The question then to be settled is, whether ten or eleven days should be added, to reduce that date to the proper date, New Style. What is the origin of this difference of dates, known as Old Style and New Style? Simply this. One year is a revolution of the earth around the sun- from an equinox, or any other point agreed upon, to the same point again. The nearest number of whale days in this annual revolution was determined to be 365, and thus the years were reckoned for centuries. It was ascertained, however, that this period was five or six hours less than an exact year. Julius Cæsar, therefore, in the century preceding the Christian era, sought to correct this discrepancy between the astronomical and civil year, by adding one day, once in every four years, to the month of February. To correct the error of 80 days, already accumulated in the progress of cen

turies, he added this amount to the ordinary year of 365 days, making one year of of 445 days. This was called the Year of Confusion.

But again: this six hours, added to each 365 days, proved too large an increase, by about eleven minutes annually. So that another discrepancy between the computed return of the sun to the equinox, and the actual return, or between the civil year and the astronomical, was slowly accumulating; a difference of one day in 131 years. Thus in the year 1582, when the error had amounted to ten days, Pope Gregory proposed the necessary correction, by dropping ten days from the reckoning, and calling the 5th of October the 15th. To prevent the accumulation of the like error in the future, he proposed to omit the leap year every 100th year, except each 400th. By this method the error cannot amount to one day in 2500 years. Now note, that while the Pope's order was obeyed, and his arrangement adopted without much delay in the countries of Catholic Europe, it was not regarded in England until 1752, when Parliament adopted the New Style, by ordering the 3d of September to be called the 14th, adding 11 days to their reckoning, — or shortening that year by that amount.

Why 11 days? Because the English kept leap year in 1700, while those who followed the Gregorian Calendar, or New Style, omitted it. The Russians still follow the Old Style; and the difference between their dates and ours, is now 12 days, because they made leap year of 1800, and the Gregorians did not.

With so full an explanation, we can now easily settle the question, whether we should call the 11th of Dec., Old Style, the 21st, or 22nd, New Style. Remember that the Gregorian, or New Style, retains the leap year in every 400th, and so of course in 1600.

Now, then, from 1582, when the New Style was ordained by the Pope, by making the ten days' difference, to 1620, when the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth, no further difference had accumulated, and there was but ten days' difference of reckoning between Pilgrim and Pope, at that time. But the Pilgrim in 1700 kept his leap year and the Pope did not; so that when in 1752, Parliament ordered the adoption of the Pope's style, Parliament and Pilgrim alike were 11 days behind Pope Gregory, and had to add that amount to bring them together. Had we adopted the New Style in 1699 instead of 1752, we should celebrate the 21st. Now we must celebrate the 22d, as the day in New Style corresponding to the 11th in Old Style.

Hence it will be seen that our late Thanksgiving, 21st Nov., did not correspond to the date of "the signing" on board the May Flower, 11th Old Style, by one day. We should have celebrated that day on Friday, the 22d. Sabbath, the 22d of this month, is the New Style anniversary of the "Landing." But Saturday, the 21st, is of course the only day appropriate for the school celebrations which we suggested at the commencement of this article.

One other point. If any persons were anxious to celebrate the anniversary of the Landing, on the day corresponding as nearly as possible to that of the "Forefathers," in absolute time, they must take the date of that event, Old Style, Dec. 11th, and add the two days' error which would have accrued in the 240 years since elapsed, had the Old Style continued in use. On this principle, we should observe, not the 22d, but the 13th of December.

Resident Editors' Department.

1861-1862. RETROSPECTIVE AND PROSPECTIVE.

ANOTHER year is ended. Its record is complete. What good, what ill, was done, is written down - forever. No wish, no tears, can erase a single line. Day by day, the year's book was ever filling, until now, the last page is full. The recording angel writes the FINIS, and shuts the volume of 1861. As teachers, how stands our record? Has it a pleasing look? Or do we shrink from its story? With the fingers of Memory; let us turn the leaves, one by one; and with the eye of Truth, bravely scan each page. Here stand the high resolves that marked the opening year. Have they been fulfilled? Let Memory and Conscience answer. Read on. Page by page re-utters every word that parted our lips in our school-room, during a long year. How pleasant to read our words of cheering approval, of timely encouragement, of kindly advice, of affectionate remonstrance, of heart-felt sympathy. They now give to us the happiness they once gave our pupils.

Mark those stern rebukes! Were they just, and needed? If so, we would let them remain untouched. But, see! What mean these many bitter reproofs?these scathing epithets ?-these scornful revilings?these unjust judgments?- these merciless decrees of punishment? Whose little son or daughter deserved to be thus addressed? Alas! that the record of any one of us should be dishonored by words like these! See numbered here the tears we caused to flow without just cause; the emotions of anger-perhaps of revenge-awakened in young hearts by our severity; the feelings of discouragement created by unmerited disparagement of earnest efforts.

How many of us can pass from page to page, onward to the last, without shuddering at some things we have said, or done? How many of us would willingly permit the fathers and mothers of the children entrusted to our care, to read exactly what we have said, and to know just what we have done, to their sons and daughters, during the year just ended? Whose record is so pure, that he would open it to the gaze of the world?

But while we find here much that we would gladly recall, let us believe

that we all meant to do our duty; that we have done some good; that many grateful hearts will remember what we tried to accomplish for them; and that the failures and defects of the past will not attend our future efforts.

Whatever be the character of our past year's record, — whether in all respects honorable or not, we may, at least, draw encouragement from our successes, wisdom from our failures, and warnings from our faults. The days of another year have begun their story. A fresh volume, whose white pages are unimpressed by good or ill, lies before us. We may write therein what we will. And what will we? Shall we not illumine its first leaf with high resolves, with humble faith, and with a heart-felt devotion to a noble work? Shall we not, day by day, so direct our actions, so measure our words, so realize our responsibilities, so discharge all our manifold and arduous duties, that every line shall bear evidence of our wisdom, fidelity, and success?

Let us place our standard high above selfishness and all mean motives. Let us use our highest endeavors to promote the welfare of our pupils, and of the profession to which we belong. Let us faithfully, gladly, each to the best of his ability, labor to advance the cause of a broad, Christian education. Thus shall we so fill up the record of the new year, that we may, at last, reverently lay the volume on the altar of God, an humble, but acceptable offering to His service.

WILL YOU HELP?

THIS brief question is addressed to our brethren of Massachusetts: Will you help? Help in what? Listen a moment, kind brother or sister, and we will tell you. A few of us teachers have been requested by the Directors of the State Teachers' Association, to take charge of the editing and publishing of the Massachusetts Teacher for the year 1862. As an inducement to accept the charge, the Directors proposed to pay us a certain compensation. Although we all would have been glad to avoid the labor and responsibility attending the work proposed, we have consented to do the best we can, but upon two conditions: first, that we shall be permitted to decline all pecuniary offers; second, that our associates throughout the State shall give us a helping hand.

Now, fellow-teachers, we like our own ease as well as do any of you. It would be pleasant, when the usual labors of the day are over, to sit down to a quiet evening, free from all thoughts of copy, and proof-reading, and