38 54 Huntingdon, East, J. B. Sherrick, Mars Hill, Ind., New Alexandria, Carroll, Chanceford, Alex. Mechesney, 18 86 John Reece, 20 09 John M. Stewart, 32 80 Henry Arnold, 95 12 Valentine Trout, 217 71 Jacob Dattisman, 134 07 Alfred Weaver, 47 15 136 12 William Grove, John E. Booner, Manchester, West, Daniel Wolf, Shrewsbury twp., John Blasser, C. Sharzberger, Elias Witmer, Eml. Wallick, Daniel Kraber, 32 80 163 18 221 81 over by the old Secretary to his successor, who is to fill and forward them immediately, as directed in the blanks. For the boards whose annual reports are made after the organization no such blanks are needed. It is hoped that this duty will be promptly attended to. It is illegal for the same person to hold at the same time the office of President or Secretary and Treasurer of the school board, or President or Secretary or Treasurer and Collector, except in the case provided for by the proviso of the 39 section of the school law, as found on the 43 page of the "School Law and Decisions." Warrants for the State appropriation cannot be issued upon affidavits which show that two offices are held by one director, except in such a case as is provided for by the law referred to. STATE NORMAL SCHOOLS. The annual examination of the students in these institu tions, who desire to receive diplomas as teachers, will be held during their respective approaching examinations, of which due notice will be given by the proper authorities of each school. The following from the official department of the Journal of July, 1864, is republished, in order that teachers may avail themselves of the privileges of the schools herein offered to them, if they desire to do so. This will be an important opportunity for teachers, and 266 91 it is hoped that there will be a general attendance. 184 91 225 50 947 10 TO DIRECTORS AND SUPERINTENDENTS. By the act of 1865, as found on page 95 of "School Law and Decisions," section 75, the affidavit or certificate and the annual report are to be forwarded to this department at the same time. They should be made out and sent to the County Superintendent immediately after the school operations for the school year, for which they are made, have closed, and they cannot be made before. The warrant for the State appropriation cannot be issued, until both these documents are on file in this department. If Directors send the affidavit to the County Superintendent without the report, it should be retained until the report has been received. This course will be much less troublesome to the Superintendent, as well as to the clerks in this department, who have charge of these documents. It should be remembered by Directors and Superintendents, that the law positively requires "the certificate and report to be transmitted to the Superintendent of Common Schools, on or before the fifteenth day of July, of the school year succeeding the one for which they were made." TO SECRETARIES. Again we call the attention of the Secretaries of the School Boards, to the importance of furnishing this department with the names and P. O. address of the officers of their respective boards, immediately after the organization of the new boards. This is absolutely necessary with those districts from which reports have been received previous to the organization, for in such reports the names of the old officers appear, and unless the newly elected Secretary forwards the names of the new officers to this office, it cannot be known here who they are. Reports made out after the organization of the new boards will contain the names of the new officers. Blanks, will be sent to the Secretaries of the old boards, whose annual reports were made out and have been received prior to the new organization, which blanks are to be handed In order that directors, teachers and others may know what is meant, in the law, by the term "Practical Teacher," the following extracts from the Normal School law are made: "Actual teachers of common schools in good standing, who shall produce satisfactory evidence of having taught in common schools during three full consecutive annual terms of the districts in which they were employed, may also be examined at the same time and in the same manner with the regular students of their proper Normal Schools, and if found equally qualified shall receive certificates of scholarship of the same kind." Sec. 177. "That no certificate of competence in the practice of teaching shall be issued to the regular graduate of any of said Normal Schools, till after the expiration of two years from the date of graduation, and of two full annual terms of actual teaching in the districts in which such graduate taught, nor to any teacher who shall hold a full certificate of scholarship without having been a regular student and graduate, unless upon full proof of three years actual teaching in a common school or schools, nor in either case without the production of a certificate of good moral character, and satisfactory discharge of the requisite duration of Professional duty, from the board or boards of directors in whose employment the applicant shall have taught, countersigned by the County Superintendent of the proper county or counties." Sec. 178. It will be seen by the above, that to entitle a person to a State certificate, he must have taught at least two full an nual terms, if he be a graduate of a Normal School, and if not, three full years of teaching are requisite. The fair inference is, that those who make application expect to become professional teachers, to make it a business not merely for a few months but years at least. Neither is it expected that the State certificate shall be granted to those who have taught a great length of time and, who are about to retire, but want the document as a compliment. In short the term "Practical Teacher,” means an individual who has practised teaching for several years and intends to practice it for years to come, or for life. It appears also, that those who have heretofore received certificates of scholarship only, are, at this examination, to be inspected by the board of examiners as to their competency in the practice of teaching. It is an honor to a teacher to be every way qualified to receive a State certificate-the highest authority and the greatest mark of respect known to the school department; and it is hoped that teachers in different sections of the State will make strenuous efforts to obtain these documents. QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS. 22. QUESTION: Does the repeal of the State tax change the maximum of the school tax, that can be raised in the several districts? ANSWER: It does not. The act of February 23, 1866, exempts the real estate of the Commonwealth from taxation for State purposes. The act of April, 1844, imposes a State tax upon all real and personal property made taxable by law for State and County purposes. The school law of May, 1854, declares, that the school tax shall not exceed the amount of State and County taxes authorized by law to be assessed. Now, inasmuch as the act of February, 1866, repeals the State tax on real estate only, that on personal property still remains, and the maximum of school tax remains unchanged. Soldiers' Orphans. NUMBER OF ORPHANS ordered to be admitted to the dif 4th of July, at Philadelphia. The proposed visits to the respective county seats on that day, will therefore not take place, and the Principals will hold their schools in readiness to be represented at Philadelphia. OBITUARY. ELIZABETH STEFFEN, born September 11, 1857, daughter of John P. and Elizabeth Steffen of Mount Pleasant Mills, Snyder County, and a pupil of the McAlisterville Soldiers' Orphan School, died of Pneumonia on Sunday, May 20, 1866, after great but not protracted suffering,. Her mother was present with her during the last week of her illness, and, at her request, the remains were sent to the place of her residence to be interred. Thus one of our little flock has gone-the first out of the school. And although it is only one out of some 220 pupils received since Nov. 1864, (nearly nineteen months,) yet it casts a gloom over all, and awakens feelings of the tenderest solicitude among the whole family. G. F. McF. NEW SCHOOLS. WHITE HALL: A school for Orphans of the more advanced class has been opened at the White Hall Academy, in Cumberland county, David Denlinger, Esq., Principal. This school is about three miles west of Harrisburg, and on the turnpike leading from Harrisburg to Carlisle, by which, or by the Cumberland Valley Railroad, which passes near the school,-it can be reached, either from the east or the west. JACKSONVILLE: A school for the more juvenile Orphans, ferent Schools and Institutions, and the number actually will be opened on Monday, the 4th of June, at Jacksonville, ORD. AD. 124 104 101 48 154 122 194 128 in attendance, to June 1st, 1866. Susquehanna " 1333 1054 Bucks Columbia 46 Cumberland Huntingdon Juniata County 234 151 Lancaster "" 16 10 124 153 134 118 146 113 106 107 Total of the more advanced pupils, Pittsburgh & Allegheny O. As., Allegheny Co. 92 65 Pittsburgh & All. Childrens' Home, Allegheny Soldiers' Orphans Home, 29 20 34 4 30 29 Zelienople Farm School, Butler Jacksonville Center Lancaster Co.,106 St. Vincent's O. Asylum, St. Josephs Orphan Home 71 66 11 11 93 40 Perry "160 141 Philadelphia, 217 175 67 52 43 44 12 12 4 4 33 22 13 11 13 4 19 34 43 20 1083 783 St. Vincent's Home, St. John s O. Asylum, Episcopal Church Home, Lincoln Institution, York Orphan Home, York Co., Total of the more juvenile pupils, in Centre county, of which the Rev. D. G. Klein will be the Principal. Jacksonville is a pleasant village, about three miles south of Howard, a station on the Bald Eagle Valley Railroad, and about 15 miles west of Lock Haven in Clinton county. This railroad extends from Lock Haven on the West Branch of the Susquehanna to Tyrone city, on the Juniata, and thus affords great facilities, by means of the railroads connecting at those points, for reaching the school. SCHOOLS YET REQUIRED.-NOTICE. The number of applicants from the western portion of the State is now increasing so rapidly, that additional schools for their accommodation must be provided. The undersigned will therefore attend at the Monongahela House, Pittsburgh, on Tuesday, June 5th, 1866, to confer with Principals or owners of Academies or Seminaries, who may be willing to devote their property and efforts to this purpose. Present accommodations for not less than 75 pupils, of both sexes and from 10 to 16 years of age, are required in each case, with an understanding that the capacity of each institution accepted be increased, as soon as practicable, so as to accommodate 150 pupils, and that not less than 20 acres of arable land and the necessary out-buildings, &c., for farming and gardening, be attached to each. One such school is desired near the centre of the district composed of Erie, Warren, Venango and Crawford counties. One near the centre of the district composed of Clarion, Armstrong, Jefferson and Indiana. One near the centre of the district composed of Fayette, Greene, Washington, Allegheny and Westmoreland. One near the centre of the district composed of Somerset, Bedford, Blair and Cambria. And one in or near the county of Elk. Inquiries by letter, for further particulars, will be promptly attended to. THо. H. BURROWES, Sup. Sold. Orphans. LANCASTER, PA., May 21, 1866, ORPHANS OF PENNSYLVANIANS IN REGIMENTS OF in them, of the establishment of schools similar to those OTHER STATES. HARRISBURG, April 15, 1866. To His Excellency, A. G. Curtin, Gov. of Penn'a, SIR-My late husband was offered a situation, as clerk, by his uncle, at Bridgeport, Connecticut, and being in ill health at the time, accepted it, but was not long there before the draft; and, fearing that he would be drafted, enlisted in the 23d regiment of Connecticut volunteers, and was killed at Brasher city two years ago last October, whilst in the military service. I have been obliged to make my own living since, and provide for my little boy, who is not quite five years old, and as my health has given way, I find it impossible to get along and take proper care of him, for when I am able to work I must be away from him, leaving no one to look after him; and, therefore, would like very much to get him into one of the schools for Soldiers' Orphans, which our State has so generously provided, if the regulations governing them will permit. My husband would not have enlisted in an Eastern regiment, but for the circumstances I have stated to you, as this was our home. Please do all you can for my little boy. With great respect, your obedient servant, (Signed.) LOUISA E. SUTTON. EXECUTIVE CHAMBER, Harrisburg, April 16, 1866. Respectfully referred to the Hon. THOS. H. BURROWES, Lancaster city, Pa., Superintendent of Soldiers' Orphan Schools, with request, that he will give this letter his attention, and return an answer. By order of the Governor, H. H. GRAGG, Military See'y. LANCASTER, April 17, 1866. SIR-Mrs. Louisa E. Sutton's letter to you, compels me to call attention to this whole subject, and to suggest the propriety of communication, on your part or by your direction, with the other States. Almost daily I am obliged to disallow such applications as that of Mrs. SUTTON; and now that our Soldiers' Orphan Schools are becoming better known and more popular, the number is likely largely to increase. Something must be done, on the one hand, to prevent imposition on our own State by subjecting her to the support of the orphans of other States, and, on the other, to prevent the suffering of these poor children-many of whose cases are as hard as that of the son of Mrs. SUTTON, and who are in danger of utter neglect in consequence of their divided claim. In addition to this class of children who have lost their place in our schools by their fathers leaving this State, there is another class who are liable to suffer :-I allude to the orphans of citizens of other States who entered and died in Pennsylvania regiments. One or the other of these classes should certainly be admitted to the schools; but which ought to be, is a question of some difficulty. My own mind has inclined in favor of the admission of the children of persons from other States who joined our regiments, and thus, to some extent, became Pennsylvanians. Being our soldiers, I think we should prefer them to persons, who, to get a larger bounty, turned their backs on their own State, and became the soldiers of other States in our time of need. In addition to this, the verification of their claims is more easy than in the case of members of the regiments of other States. But, till some uniform rule be adopted by our neighbors in these matters, I have not felt it safe to recognize either the one class or the other; because my decision might not be that elsewhere adopted. Now, that this matter is becoming somewhat embarrassing, and that the other States seem disposed to follow the example of Pennsylvania in providing for their Soldiers' Orphans, I would respectfully suggest, that the attention of their authorities be called to the subject, and that some just system of reciprocation be adopted. Each State should agree to provide, either for the orphans of all its deceased soldiers, irrespectively of the State character of the regiments in which they served and died, or to confine itself to membership in its own regiments, regardless of place of birth or residence at the time of enlistment. It may be added, that calling the attention of the other States to the matter, at this time, may also be promotive, you have so successfully founded in this. Very respectfully, your obedient servant, (Signed.) THO. H. BURROWBS, Sup't Soldier's Orphans' Schools. His Excellency, A. G. CURTIN, Governor of Pennsylvania, Harrisburg. letter, Governor Curtin has directed, that the following cirIn accordance with the suggestion contained in the above cular letter be forwarded to the Governors of the several loyal States: CHAMBER, Harrisburg, Pa., April 25, 1866. } correspondence. SIR-I beg leave to call your attention to the foregoing for the support and education of destitute Orphans of This is the third year of the system, adopted in this State, Soldiers and Sailors, and the Legislature, at the session just closed, made an appropriation of three hundred thousand dollars for its continuance. If your State has made any provision of a similar charnature proposed by Mr. BURROWES, or any other, that may acter I will be glad to establish an arrangement of the our law. secure to these destitute children the aid contemplated by Very respectfully, your obedient servant, A. G. CURTIN. EXAMINATION OF THE SCHOOLS. AMOS Row, Esq., Examiner of Sold. Orp. Schools. SIR: You will examine, as rapidly as practicable, all the schools for the more advanced pupils, and report in writing on the following points: 1. The sufficiency of the school room arrangements for teaching; with the size, means for ventilation and heating, and furniture and apparatus, both of the main study hall and the recitation rooms, and your opinion of the number of pupils each school can now accommodate in these respects, and the means, if any, in progress for enlargement or alteration. 2. The number of Teachers now employed; with your opinion of the fitness of each for his or her assigned duties; and especially that of the Principal teacher of each school, in reference to the method of instruction intended to be introduced. 3. In making these visitations, you will also embrace such of the schools for the more juvenilo, as you can conveniently reach, and examine all their pupils, so as to be prepared to report the names of those who shall be fitted for transfer to the more advanced schools at the close of the summer vacation. Our heart was lately made glad by the gift of a copy of Webster's largest sized Dictionary. We turn over its pages much as Sinbad the Sailor looked about him in the Valley of the Diamonds-bewildered in thinking how rich it is. Within its lids are the hues that Milton gave to Paradise; the living colors that lent reality to Shakspeare's people, as, by the miracle of his mind, they swelled the census of all time-colors that the lapse of years cannot wear away, and the touch of death cannot fade. Therein are words of eloquence that have thrilled THE TEACHER'S SOLILOQUY-NO. 3. the world; therein the wardrobes of the olden time SCHOOL HOUSE-SIZE-VENTILATION-AIR MADE IMPURE BY BREATHING,-BY INVOLUNTARY PERSPIRATION. yet meet for a later wearing. Old loves have been breathed; old vows have been registered; old songs “Well, a beginning has been made"-continues have been sung in those same words. Old war cries your teacher, as he retires to his room on the evenare on those pages; syllables for the living and ing of the first day's teaching of his present term. dying; words for the glowing lips of prophetic "It is too soon to form correct opinions of my voice; utterances for all truth. It is to the mind-school, of course, and my patrons are still less But of one thing I feel competent this Dictionary now before us-what the simple ele-known to me. ments the chemist sometimes gathers in his hand, to judge, and that is my school house. My expectaare to the world of matter; and we shall never be tions were not high; for I knew too well that school done wondering how myriad forms of strength and houses are the last class of buildings into which imbeauty are forever evolved from words; how the provements are introduced. But I confess the one blind Bard of England found in them the dialect of in which I am to pass the winter with a large school, Eden; and Avon's Swan, sinew for Richard and song disappoints me, and fills my heart with sad forebodfor Ophelia. What flowers of fancy-what truths ings for the future. I can hardly think it possible with hearts of oak, spring from those inky words that the wealthy district in which I teach is satisfied what monuments are built of them-what battle- to crowd a teacher and fifty boys and girls, each ments of strength. How firmly they lie anchored, one no doubt dearly loved by affectionate parents, like mountain quarries, in the ledges of the argu- into a small dingy house like mine. It is 35 feet ment; how lightly they spread their dewy wings, long, 20 feet wide, and 10 feet from floor to ceiling* like the morning, in the flying of their song. What and consequently if otherwise empty, could contain chimes are waiting to be rung; what blades are ready for the wielding hand; what Gilead balm for the wounded heart. Trumpets to be blown for Liberty-zephyrs to be breathed for Love. And these are only words of which we are writing-words in that volume whose pages are trampled thick with prints of barefoot thought, waiting to be sandalled, and go forth with resounding tread over the iron threshhold of the press, into the world, as went the diluvian dove, never to return. Why, the compactness of our republic, depends not so much upon the Fourth of July-soon to be celebrated as it does upon this Dictionary. There is a oneness of thought in a oneness of word; a common language is the dear repository of a common past, and those who have the same syllables for "home" and "mother," for "hearth" and "heaven," can never be less kindred. There are other Dictionaries, but to Webster we turn with sentiments of almost filial affection, for while by the aid of his guiding hand, we made our first journey safely into "words of one syllable," so in later years we have resorted to his "Unabridged" as an exhaustless well of "English"undefiled." Thus endeth our chapter. "A great ado about a mere Dictionary," quoth the reader. Well, it is the custom now-a-days to talk fluently and earnestly about small things. But we contend, that a Dictionary-especially Webster's-is not a "small thing." We doubt not, that if the question could be put to a vote in Erie county, or Lancaster county, or any other county wherein Education is properly appreciated, it would be decided by an overwhelming majority, that the Dictionary next to the Holy Bible, is the most valuable of all books. ERIE, Co., May, 1866. I. B. G. but 7000 cubic feet of air. "Now by reference to that excellent and reliable work, the Encyclopedia Britannica, I find that ‘a cubic foot, or more, of air is involved, or mixed and contaminated, with the air discharged from the lungs at each expiration, independently of that affected by the skin.' As most persons, particularly children, breathe at least twenty times per minute, not less than twenty cubic feet of air are thus mixed and contaminated every minute, or the entire 7000 cubic feet my room contains in seven minutes ! But in view of the fact, that those in my room being children, may not vitiate the air so rapidly, and with a desire to be very liberal in my calculation, I will assume that each person consumes and vitiates but five cubic feet per minute. At this rate, which is below most estimates, it would take my fifty pupils just twenty-eight minutes to render the air of my room unfit to sustain human life, by breathing alone! Some of the parents and directors in my district would doubtless disbelieve me were I to state these appalling facts to them. But they are facts which people may disbelieve but cannot refute. "The lungs of a full grown man are found, by calculations just as accurate as those which determine with such unerring certainty the occurrence of an eclipse, to contain eighteen millions of little air cells, the walls of which are lined with minute blood vessels. Every beat of the heart sends into these ten pounds—of blood laden with particles of waste little blood-vessels two ounces-every minute nearly and decayed matter collected from all parts of the system. *The exact dimensions of a school house in which an average of fifty pupils were confined during the whole of last winter! "Now, when air is taken into the lungs by breath- the stupifying influence experienced this afternoon ing, the oxygen, which is one-fifth of the atmosphere in school, and which I noticed so plainly on many in bulk, mingles with this blood, while the nitrogen, forming the remaining four-fifths of the atmosphere, is charged with all the foul and diseased particles of matter contained in the blood, and is then thrown out of the lungs in the form (mainly) of carbonic acid, totally unfit to be breathed again. Those who have talked face to face with persons having what is called a bad breath, know how offensive air becomes when taken into the lungs and then expelled. "But why not let in the pure air of heaven, so abundant and free without? Because I cannot.— The windows of the school house are only four lights high, of 8 by 10 glass, and so put in, that I cannot lower the upper sash, while I dare not raise the lower sash or open the door without letting a heavy draft on the pupils sitting near by. There are no other means of ventilation, none except a trap-door in the ceiling. But as the light warm air that rises is purer than that which sinks to the floor (carbonic acid) I dare not open the trap door or I will lose it, and, besides having worse air to breathe, my room will be too cold. 64 pupils. It was the same influence too that affected Selected Articles. WHAT SHALL CHILDREN STUDY? under the nom de plume of "Timothy Titcomb," "A professor in one of the prominent colleges of New York has lately remarked that the peculiar defects of the students under his charge, relate to So, having no alternative, my children must, the primary branches of education. He says that during the next 28 minutes breathe the same air students who come well fitted for college in the over again, and exhale it still more foul and loath- studies prescribed-students much at home in the some. Yet even now they are not done with it, for dead languages and the mathematics-cannot write good English, and find it impossible to spell what it is still half an hour until recess, during which time they write correctly. It is not a month since a letter they must take into their lungs this nauseous, dis- was shown to us from a New England college, writease-producing mixture of carbonic acid and exhala- ten by the representative man of a literary society, tions from the human system, no longer deserving And to come nearer home-to the children among which revealed a lamentable lack of spelling book. the name of air, for the third time! Dr. Dio Lewis, whom we move daily-we know a little girl, quick when speaking of the many serious, often fatal dis- to learn, who has attended the best schools that eases arising from inhaling impure air, exclaims:could be procured for her all her life, a girl who can "I would prefer to have my son remain in utter ignor-who has been through Colburn's First Lessons and play Mozart's Sonatas with good taste and effect, ance of books rather than to breathe, six hours understood them, who has studied Geography, Hisevery day, such a poisonous atmosphere." And who tory, and Grammar, yet who, in the writing of a will say he is wrong? Now bad as this is in any letter occupying a page and a quarter of note paper, school, another feature makes it still worse in mine made fifteen blunders in her Orthography. Now who is to blame for this state of things? -and no doubt also in many other schools. "I notice one family of children that are badly consumptive. Their lungs are evidently fast wearing out-decaying in fact and the decayed matter is thrown out, and infused into the air which healthier children breathe! Others are bilious, scrofulous and the like, and further taint the air. Nor is this all. Not a few give evidence of dirty under clothing, dirty feet and bodies, and various skin diseases. And not only is the air thus polluted by being breathed and rebreathed, but it receives an additional taint from involuntary perspiration which is constantly going on and exhaling foul odors from probably six millions (nine millions on a full grown man,) of tiny little pores, found on the bodies of each of my pupils! "The matter is becoming a serious one, alike with parents and children, and it will be well to inquire into it by the aid of the lights of experience. There what they learned of History, and Geography, and are very few parents in the world who can recall Philosophy, and Astronomy, before the age of thirteen, as anything of positive value to them. We would like to have every man and woman who takes interest enough in this article to read it, try to recall and survey the actual practical benefits resulting from the early pursuit of these studies. How much do you know about them now, that you learned them? Do you remember a single valuable fact of History, or Geography, or Philosophy, that you acquired then? Are you not painfully conscious that the months and years which you devoted in your childhood to the acquisition of dry rules and facts, of whose value and relations you knew nothing, were thrown away? Do you not feel that if, "Must I and my pupils pass months thus cooped the English language in a legible hand and in a preduring those years, you had been taught to write up in such a loathsome, unhealthy, energy-destroy-sentable style of composition, you would have gained atmosphere? Horrid thought! I almost feel again something that would be of incalculable value now? |