involved is important and difficult to impress. There is no end to the labor that can be bestowed upon his lessons by the skilful teacher, one who can use his text-book without abuse, and who teaches his subject not only with, but beyond that.

"Surely," the reader will say, "arithmetic is well taught by everybody, at least in New England!" Yes, but we assume that accuracy in results in the merely mechanical operations, can only be attained by the most faithful practice on the part of the pupil, and the most persevering application of tests by the teacher. Especially is this true when applied to children at the early age at which they are set to master the difficulties of the subject. We have assumed that simple addition is fundamental, and of more importance to future progress and practical life, than any other rule in the science.

Try, now, this experiment,— one we have often made, and sometimes with most mortifying results: assign to the first class in school a ledger column of twenty numbers, containing dollars and cents, for addition; let it be added once or twice, and carefully note the per cent. of correct answers. To teach this one simple operation accurately, even to maturer minds than those we deal with, requires as many columns as there are pages in the ledger, day, and cash books of a mercantile house; and the teacher must put in requisition all his resources of bank and census reports, the numerous arithmetics at command, (meagre, indeed, in this department,) and the American Almanac besides.

Then, there are the puzzles of arithmetic: the teacher will study to avoid these, at least to give them a chapter by themselves. Every book, of any repute, has more or less examples that not 'more than one in a class of twenty of the best children, ever do without assistance; they involve no new or very important principle, and chiefly serve to worry innocent teachers and inflate children with the pride of possessing what is not in any profitable sense their own. A week or two since, a teacher called upon us to find out for her one of these puzzles, that she might be able to explain it to a "smart" boy who would not be content till he had mastered (?) the whole book. Having performed the example, we said, what we think a teacher might better say to his pupil: "This example involves no important arithmetical principle; it is difficult

and puzzling, and the only benefit you can receive from it is in doing it, and if you lack the ingenuity or the power to solve it alone, you might better be employed upon simpler examples and more important principles."

Every branch taught would serve to illustrate our subject as well, but we will not enforce it by anything further. It is clear that the teacher's true life consists in training his own mind to active labor in all his teachings. He cannot breathe freely in the close air of a begrimmed and musty text-book.

In conversation with the author of a work much used as a textbook on grammar, we once expressed our regret that he had not introduced into his books, exercises in false syntax; after explaining to him the trouble we experienced in supplying this defect, he remarked that precisely what we were doing, he had done in every department of grammar, before he had thought of making a book; that he believed it to be of the greatest service to the teacher, to collect and arrange illustrations of his own in every department he teaches, and that only when he comes to do this work as a pleasure, can he hope to attain to eminence in his profession.

THE CREDIT SYSTEM.

THIS plan of marking, sometimes called the merit system, is now generally adopted in most of the graded schools throughout the State. Many earnest and faithful teachers not only keep a careful record of every recitation, but speak in the highest terms of the happy results obtained thereby. Others, willing to give the system its due, yet looking at the great subject of education in a different light, discover disadvantages, which certainly equal, if not exceed, the advantages arising therefrom. All, however, are willing to admit that quite a number of pupils may be found in every school, who have that inherent desire for knowledge and love for study, which enables them to exercise their powers and thus attain a high rank without being unnaturally stimulated by the use of credits, that cost nothing, and upon which a noble mind can but look with contempt.

Others, doubtless, are incited to greater activity and reach a higher position in the class than they otherwise would, were it not for the credit system. But it is a wrong incentive, an unwholesome stimulant, and leads the pupil to value the worthless credit more than the great truths to which the attention may be directed. When scholars are induced to study from such motives rather than from a love for the work, they soon forget the important facts and principles, which should be retained, and remember but little more than their per cent. in scholarship. The remainder, not being favored with the highest order of intellect, necessarily fall below the average rank of the class, and in many cases become discouraged by the facts which the marking system so plainly and publicly reveals. Such scholars, having lost their position and interest in the school, too frequently spend their physical strength in exhausting that of the truant officer, and their intellectual, in wishing the most direful calamities to rest upon the school-house, which, to them, has become more like a prison, than a place for mental improvement.

The system, also, gives rise to jealousies among those who otherwise would be friends. Have we not seen faces brighten at the failure of a classmate, and even overheard expressions of joy, when, by sickness, a rival had been detained from school? Ought not the system which leads children to rejoice at the downfall of others and renders their hearts less sensitive, tender, and affectionate, to be exercised with the greatest caution, or entirely discarded? It occasions more deception among pupils than any other, or all things else combined. Children, anxious to gain an honorable position in the class, deem it but a slight transgression to add one or two undeserved credits to their report, or to receive assistance from schoolmates, and thus be enabled to give an account satisfactory to the teacher, though extremely dishonest. A lady, while visiting a remarkably well governed class in one of our largest and best ordered schools, noticed twenty-eight cases of deception during a single session. If, in the other rooms of the building, there is the same amount of prevaricating, then the number of falsehoods uttered every week in the school, is four thousand seven hundred and sixty, enough to impair the morals of any community. There are hundreds of teachers in this State, who would willingly trust

uncounted money with pupils who, they know, will deceive in reporting whenever an opportunity presents itself. Now, if a part, perhaps a third, of our scholars have that natural fondness for study, which enables them to attain a high rank as well without as with the system; if another third are urged on by it, though with wrong motives, which render it to them more injurious than beneficial; if the remaining third are thereby discouraged and often driven from school; if it creates jealousies and fosters feelings of unkindness and even enmity; if it encourages, or in any way has a tendency to increase deception, ought we not, as teachers, who expect to give an account of our stewardship, to consider well its influence upon the hearts as well as the minds of our pupils, lest the guilt of others' crimes rest upon us?

H.

UTILITY OF TEACHERS' CONVENTIONS.

Ir may seem unnecessary to maintain the utility of an institution, the advantages to be derived from which are so obvious and so generally admitted; but there is an opinion existing in the minds of a great many teachers and school committees, that teachers' meetings are unprofitable and might be dispensed with. It often happens that nearly all the teachers in a community stay away from a convention held in their neighborhood, from a lack of interest in the proposed proceedings, or from an opinion that it will be a waste of time and money to attend. This opinion existing among the teachers, creates a corresponding opinion in the minds of the committee, who, hence, discourage any attendance on the part of those over whom they exercise supervision. No fault can justly be found with the course of such a committee, when teachers express so freely their indifference about the proceedings of the meeting, or declare their intention in going to be merely to enjoy a recess from their labors, or for the sake, as many of the sisterhood say, " of having a nice time," rather than to obtain new ideas and information regarding their profession, the use of which will increase the efficiency of their labors.

Now that it may be profitable for the teachers of several adjoin

ing towns to assemble, to listen to lectures pertaining to their profession and engage in discussions upon such appropriate subjects as may be presented, is a self-evident proposition. That in many instances such meetings do not prove as useful as they might, is equally clear. And why? Because the teachers do not determine to make them useful by a full and constant attendance upon the meetings, and by a general participation in the proceedings thereof. The teachers who complain of the unprofitableness of conventions, are those who either will not attend at all, or give a merely nominal attendance, showing themselves at about one exercise in four, or looking in at the door upon one of the meetings and then leaving, with the remark that nothing interesting is in progress. Should they grant the favor of their continual presence, it is only as dissatisfied and inattentive hearers. A lecture may have been

prepared with great labor, by the gentleman invited to address the convention, and it may contain many valuable ideas, and yet these teachers see in it nothing valuable or interesting, merely because of a prejudice against conventions in general. They expect nothing and think they find nothing.

The discusssion seems to them dull, because there is a hesitancy on the part of the members of the association to rise and say anything, or because the same individuals carry on the debate, who have, from time immemorial, done the same thing.

Now if these same complaining, disparaging individuals should make it a point to attend constantly upon the meetings of the convention, and add their own voices to those of others, in freely contributing their own ideas upon such lectures or subjects of discussion as might be presented, it is certain they will think differently of the utility of the institution in question. It is in their own power to make the proceedings interesting and instructive. The unwillingness on the part of gentlemen to participate freely in a discussion, before others of the same profession, is somewhat remarkable.

Teachers of acknowledged excellence in scholarship and in fitness for teaching, will sit listening to a discussion carried on by those inferior to themselves in both these respects, but possessing the confidence to rise before an assembly and speak their sentiments, and afterwards go away declaring they have received no profit.