afflictions,-who can conceive an idea of the condition of South America, when I tell you she is like a man who being sick refuses to take the simple remedies tendered him-common education-in order to be fit for liberty and republi canism.

Our poor whites do not endeavor to rid themselves of the moral discouragement in which they have been brought up, and the wealthy whites, educated after the colonial traditions of Spain, appear indifferent to evils not befalling them, directly nor indirectly, though they are the cause producing the disorders that destroy or stop the increase of wealth. It is your mission, gentlemen, to extend the benefits of education, from enlightening centers, over distant places covered still with shadows. We have to convey the light over the whole country, because the spots considered to be bright are only a twilight where night and day are yet in strife. You have the example so near, the results are so tangible, the fruit is so ripe as to be presented with all the perfections of form, color and exquisite taste; while to talk of common education among us is to speak of something unknown and remote. It is an utopia that only the course of time and generations can see realized.

The influence of law is powerless under such unpropitious circumstances. The legislator himself appears to be indisposed to believe and little solicitous, and when it is proposed to apply the income of the State to the diffusion of education, the people, able to pay contribution, do not comprehend their own interest in this new expenditure they are not accustomed to. I have witnessed in a South American legislature the sanction without opposition of the budget of war for four millions of dollars, and the bringing about of a stormy discussion over the amount of two thousand dollars, directed to support an educa. tional paper like the Massachusetts Teacher. A Congress composed of enlightened young men and of old patriots have been opposed for ten years to the sanction of a law levying a tax for the common education of the people.

Societies so constituted need some external action to correct their errors of judgment in regard to the means of getting out of the vicious sphere in which they agitate themselves in useless strife; and this external action has to work on them, and commences to work already from the United States. The greatness attained by this country is for others a matter of admiration, but admiration is followed by examination, and this will descry the secret spring, the regulator of this youthful machine, which is the general diffusion of education, and the spontaneous and constant efforts of the best citizens to carry it into effect.

Your labors, therefore, will not limit their wholesome influence to the Southern States. There stands besides far South America where some of the bright sparks of these discussions will go to shine, penetrating wherever the clouds darken, and an aperture shall be opened to let them in. The immortal efforts of Horace Mann are familiar to some of my countrymen. They know how far

the American Association of Instruction has succeeded in twenty years of exist ence, with steadiness and zeal; and now they will know through me that you are preparing to finish the great work commenced by that great man, which is generalized by this benevolent institution.

A practical idea commences to be patronized in those countries, and only the

war kindled either by the political errors of Europe or stirred up by some barbarian coming out of the American forest, can delay its execution. Such is the idea of conveying to South America the complete systems of education with the laws and institution of North America, and with the intelligent men who might carry it into effect.

This idea is fully patronized by the government of my country, inasmuch as it will save rehearsals and errors inherent to inexperience. The day is not far distant when competent men, zealous missionaries of the great cause of education will be persuaded to come from the United States to direct normal schools, to be superintendents of schools in cities, and professors of both sexes by the hundred. to initiate the great march they are anxious to undertake, and which is delayed for want of reliable and experienced guides.

What a propitious occasion to display the energy of the American people? What a magnificent task for the noble ardor of the educationists? having a world before them, to perfect the work in one place, to initiate it in another, with a certain success, with the approbation of whole populations, and having before them the blessings of the coming generations.

Then the discussions of the Superintendents of Schools when assembled anew at Cincinnati, on the banks of the Ohio, or at St. Louis, in Missouri, on the Mississippi, would be repeated like an echo by the friends of education on the banks of the Oronoco, the river Plata, or at the skirts of the majestic Andes. That day is approaching, and the labors of this meeting in Indianapolis, will do a great deal to accelerate its welcome.

[For the Educational Monthly.]

WORDS ARE POOR.

Yea, words are poor at best; but feeble signs,
How dead and insufficient to convey,
Of Nature's aspects countless, changeable,
One lively and exact similitude.

A few imperfect names of perfect things,
Some general terms for action, quality,
And obvious relation,-these are all
The instruments with which e'en Poesie
Essays, laboriously essays in vain.

To represent a single blade of grass,

To imitate a bird-song, or to tell

How looks a cloud, or feels a breath of wind.
Not even Shakspeare, to whom language gave
Such God-adjusted, full obedience

As water gives to that which makes it flow,

Or flowers give to that which makes them bloom,

Not even he could write what yonder child

Sees in the rose held in his loving hand.

W. H. V.

School Officers' Department.

The articles included in this Department have special interest to school officers. Those not otherwise credited, are prepared by the editor. Brief communications from school officers and others interested in this feature of the MONTHLY, are solicited. Questions of interest to township boards of education, will receive due attention.

TOWNSHIP BOARDS OF EDUCATION are required by law to provide, by a township tax, the funds necessary to sustain the schools under their control "at least twenty-four weeks each year," and the funds thus provided are required to be so distributed that the several schools may be continued in session the same length of time each year. The intention of these provisions is clear, but their practical execution is attended with some difficuty, owing to the fact that the township boards have no control over the wages paid teachers. The duty of employing teachers and fixing their wages is entrusted entirely to the sub-district directors, who may in their contracts exceed or fall short of the estimates of the board. In one sub-district a teacher may be employed at $50 a month and in another at $25, and the school in the former continued as long as in the latter-not exceeding twenty-four weeks when such continuance will exceed the appropriations of the township board. Whatever the wages paid, the directors have the right, and it is their duty, to continue their school in session at least twenty-four weeks, and the board must "foot the bill." By paying lower wages than the directors of the other sub-districts, they may continue their school longer, reaching, it may be, twice twenty-four weeks each year. In other words, while towship boards are required to furnish the necessary school funds and to distribute the same equitably, they can fully control neither the amount of funds expended nor the continuance of the schools. They can simply require the continuance of the schools at least twenty-four weeks, and forbid their longer continuance if the funds appropriated are exhausted.

The above facts disclose the weak point of the Ohio school system. The management of the schools is divided between the township and the sub-district school authorities. The system is a sort of compromise between the township and the sub-district plan, and, like most compromises, it lacks simplicity and unity. We hope to see the township system, pure and simple, adopted, and the difficulties which now beset the local administration of the schools removed.

WHY SCHOOL OFFICERS SHOULD TAKE A SCHOOL JOURNAL.

[Hon. John Swett, Sup't of Public Instruction of California, devotes nearly five pages of his last biennial report (1864 and 1865), to the California Teacher, the official organ of the State School Department. He urges with great force that it would be true economy for the State to furnish each school trustee (director) with a copy. We condense a few paragraphs:]

It must be borne in mind that the newspapers of the day contain very little strictly educational matter; that few trustees ever have in their possession strictly

educational works; and hence they must remain ignorant of much which they ought to know, unless it be furnished through the pages of a monthly school journal. The suggestions of such a journal on school architecture alone would have saved during the past five years fifty thousand dollars, uselessly wasted on miserably planned school-houses and barbarous school furniture.

*

The school trustees are the immediate executive agents of the Department of Instruction. It matters not how excellent the school law, nor how heavy the school taxes, if the trustees fail in the proper discharge of their duties. They make or unmake the school. * * If they choose to employ an illiterate and incompetent teacher, the public money is wasted. If they erect an illplanned, ill-ventilated, ill-constructed school-house, it remains for many years a monument of their incompetence. If they build none at all, the children remain in hovels which disgrace the State. If they reduce the rate of teachers' salaries to the wages of a common laborer, there is no redress. If they take no measures for assessing a district tax, the children remain untaught or only half taught. If they think an old water bucket, a battered tin dipper, and a wornout broom, all the school apparatus necessary, the teacher must lose half his labor for want of the proper appliances of education. If they make incorrect reports, the errors can not be corrected elsewhere. If they make no returns, the district loses the public money, and the children are defrauded of their rights.

Is the office of school trustee, then, one of little importance? Does it not require good judgment, common sense, experience, and, above all, a living faith in our American system of public schools? Is it not a wise, sound, judicious policy for the State to endeavor to raise the standard of qualification among trustees, and to provide means for thorough instruction in their duties, and in the needs of the schools? The universal complaint is, that school trustees are not interested in their duties, and are negligent in their performance of them.

A monthly journal of education would be generally read, and could not fail to excite a deeper interest on the part of school officers. It must be remembered that trustees are constantly changing, and new men are coming into office who must learn for themselves the routine of business. On the broad ground of true economy, it is the policy of the State to sustain such a journal, for the purpose of keeping in existence a thorough system of education. A salary of fifty cents a year to each trustee would not be an extravagant compensation for their many and responsible duties. If the trustees are awakened to an interest in education, if they deeply feel its importance, the whole community will be made alive.

In a State like this, where there is no class of men who have the leisure and inclination to devote themselves to school interests, where all are deeply immersed in the exciting cares of business, and the struggles incident to all new communities, they need to be aroused to action by special appeals, particularly on educational topics. Intelligence must precede all effective action. No school system was ever supported by ignorance or apathy, and schools are neither indigenous nor self-sustaining; they need mind as well as money-enthusiasm as well as taxes.

Editorial Department.

We take pleasure in acknowledging our indebtedness to examiners in different counties of the State, for needed assistance in placing the MONTHLY in the hands of teachers. But for such assistance the great majority of the teachers of our common schools, for whose benefit the magazine is published, would be ignorant of its existence. Are we not fully justified in claiming that the examiner who uses the excellent opportunity offered him in the discharge of his duties to extend the circulation of the professoinal organ of the teachers of the State, thereby renders the cause of education valuable service? The fact that hundreds of teachers who have thus been led to take the MONTHLY, gratefully acknowledge their indebtedness to it, not only for needed stimulus and encouragement, but also for valuable ideas and suggestions, is the conclusive answer. At the Cincinnati meeting in 1865, the State Teachers' Association recommended to the several Boards of School Examiners throughout the State, that one of the questions asked all candidates coming before them for certificates to teach, shall be "whether they subscribe for any educational journal, and what works they have read on professional topics."

THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW ON STATE EDUCATION.

The July number of the North American Review contains a lengthy review of the pamphlet, entitled “The Daily Public School in the United States." It pronounces it "careful looking," but finds its analysis "not quite so thorough or so methodical as it might seem at a hasty glance." The author's "gloomy" and "disquieting" views, respecting the success of our common schools, are not fully accepted, but some of his most absurd statements are rehearsed as though they were well-authenticated facts. Among these we find the groundless assertion that the attention given to advanced schools is everywhere attended by a neglect of primary schools-a mere assertion unsustained by facts. The truth is, the best primary or elementary schools in the country are found, as a general rule, where high schools and normal schools receive most attention and are the most liberally sustained.

But the Review's explanation of the supposed fact, differs from that of the author. Instead of attributing the low condition of the primary schools to the existence and support of advanced schools, it seeks for the cause in the character of these advanced schools. We quote as follows:

But the real evil, as it seems to us, is that the so-called advanced education often does not aim at education at all, but at something else-at a longer list of accomplishments, excellent perhaps in themselves, and in their proper place important and essen