Adult School Union,' 723 schools, 7300 teachers, and 49,619 scholars; all of which were transferred to the American Sunday School Union.'

Increase in 2 years 104,506

At this present time, the American Sunday School Union,' gives employment to fourteen printing presses, and prints on an average 432,00 18mo. pages a day. In its several departments there are about 150 persons engaged, exclusive of paper makers. The issues from the Depository, during the first half of the fourth year, beginning in May last, amounted to $26,254, and the receipts for books to $20,111.

There at least 2,500,000 children, between the ages of five and fourteen, in the United States alone. Of this number, 250,000 are receiving the benefits of Sunday school instruction.

NOTICES.

Sequel to the Analytical Reader; in which the original design. is extended so as to embrace an Explanation of Phrases and Figurative Language. By Samuel Putnam. Portland. Shirley and Hyde. Boston. Hilliard, Gray, Little, and Wilkins. 1828. 12mo. pp. 300.

The book, to which this volume forms the sequel, we have mentioned more than once in the Journal; and have expressed our opinion that teachers would find it serviceable in aiding their exertions to render the daily reading lessons of their schools intelligible and useful. Fortunately for the young, there are many excellent Readers, with which every school may now be supplied; all of which aim at something more than merely to furnish the requisite sentences and paragraphs for the practice of reading, and generally convey much useful information. Among these, the Analytical Reader and its Sequel are peculiarly entitled to rank as eminently valuable, for the copious exercise which they afford for the cultivation of an early and accurate knowledge of the phraseology of the English language. This important point in education, has, we fear, been too much overlooked; and we are gratified with the appearance of the present volume as an indication of an increasing attention to good instruction in our native tongue.

The plan of the work is thus mentioned in the preface to the Sequel.

We have confined the text of nearly all our selections to the left hand page, thus reserving one half of the space to the various objects which we will now proceed to designate.

One prominent purpose, to which we have devoted the right hand page, is definitions. All the words, which were attended with any difficuly, we have transferred to this page, and appended to them their meaning. In this way no recurrence will be necessary to the pages of a dictionary. The words are explained according to their connexion, and thereby shades of meaning elicited, which the dictionary would not contain. In many instances, combinations of words, or phrases, are defined by corresponding words or phrases. And sometimes, when the original term was easily understood, a more difficult synonymous phrase has been inserted, in order that the pupil might acquire a

larger compass of language and phraseology, and, especially, that he might accurately understand the various idioms of his mother tongue.

In some cases where a word has a variety of significations, perhaps of contrary import, the whole number has been attached. This, it is thought, will be a profitable exercise to the powers of comparison and judgment. It will cultivate the important habit of discrimination, while it brings into view, in some measure, the copiousness and extent of the English language.

The system of questioning is intended to aid both the teacher and the scholar. The teacher is furnished with hints and queries, which he will pursue at pleasure. The scholar may find questions beyond his ability to answer, or some answers not perfectly satisfactory. These doubts may lead him to inquire of the teacher, and thereby a most important object will be gained. If he is excited to ask half a dozen questions, it will be of more permanent benefit to him, than as many pages of explanations from his instructer.

The most difficult words in orthography are also transferred to the right hand page. Experience has convinced us, that spelling ought always to accompany reading. The scholar should learn to spell the word as he sees it, in the connexion in which he will ever afterwards see it. He should be taught to connect the form with the meaning, rather than to associate in his mind long columns of words, which have no connexion except in sound.'

The National Spelling Book and Pronouncing Tutor; containing Rudiments of Orthography and Pronunciation on an improved plan, by which the Sound of every Syllable is distinctly shown according to Walker's Principles of English Orthoepy; with progressive Reading Lessons, designed for the use of Schools in the United States. By B. D. Emerson, Principal of the Adams Grammar School. Boston. Richardson and Lord. 1828. 12mo.

pp. 168.

*

This Spelling Book bears every mark of having been compiled with strict reference to the actual purposes of instruction. Great pains have evidently been taken to render it highly superior in character, and worthy of becom ing a national work. Speaking comparatively of this book, the author seems to us to have been successful in all that he has undertaken. He has, by a strict adherence to Walker, thoroughly prepared the pupil for the use of the common dictionary; and by rigidly preserving the orthography of Johnson, has given a degree of classical character to elementary instruction in the English language, The notation adopted is that of Walker, with one or two valuable additions, which render the system more complete. In another edition, however, we should be glad to see a sixth sound marked for the letter O we mean that which occurs in love, done, one, nothing, &c.

The chief improvements claimed by Mr. Emerson, are the following: 1. "That this spelling-book precisely points out the pronunciation of each syllable in every word according to Walker's Principles of Orthoepy ;-2. That it does this on a plan easily comprehended by the learner, and without encumbering each word with numerous characters or figures;-3. That it contains more matter, on the same number of pages, and in the same liberal type;-4. That the arrangement is better suited to the progressive improvement of learners, and peculiarly adapted to the exercises of monitorial teaching.'

Valuable, however, as this book is, we think that it would have been much improved by an arrangement similar to that of the Franklin Primer, in which the spelling lessons are extracted from the pieces for reading.

THE TEACHER'S GUIDE

AND

PARENT'S ASSISTANT,

DEVOTED TO THE INTERESTS OF COMMON EDUCATION.

The

This work will be published monthly, by S. G. GOODRICH, 141, Washington Street, Boston. Wait, Greene, & Co. Court Street, are general Agents, and will supply subscribers. terms are one dollar a year, payable on delivery of the June number; if payment is delayed beyond that time the price will be one dollar fifty cents, payable on demand. No subscription will be taken for less than a year-all remittances by mail must be post paid.

All communications respecting the editorial department should be addressed to S. G. Goodrich; those which respect the other departments of the work, to Wait, Greene, & Co. No. 13, Court Street.

NEW SERIES.

MAY, 1828.

NUMBER 2

POPULAR EDUCATION.

[From the Prospectus of the French Journal of Education.]

We have engaged, in publishing our prospectus, to present at the end of this periodical work a picture of human knowledge, and we now think it our duty to explain the plan upon which we intend to regulate our proceedings, and the end for which we undertake this work.

It would doubtless be absurd to wish to make all men learned and erudite, but it is just and useful to the general interest of society, to offer to every member of it the light which may direct them in the different careers which their various birth and fortune call them to follow. Ignorance can never be a blessing instruction proportioned to the wants of each individual can never be an evil. Every resource is offered to those who wish to make researches in the different branches of knowledge which the genius of man has conquered; but they are almost entirely wanting to those who only seek general knowledge, for the wants or for the pleasures of life. It is this void which exists in our library of instruction that we would endeavour to fill. shall not then confine ourselves entirely to purely scientific details; but there are few sciences which have not their use; for it is necessity, much more than curiosity, which has been the prime mover of the researches of the human mind. It is to this point alone that we shall confine ourselves; thus, to proceed methodically, after having offered to the earliest age the sources

2

We

of elementary instruction which will aid in the development of its rising intelligence, we shall present to the child, then to the young man advancing into life the picture of various knowledge, the utility of which his mind and heart must acknowledge at every new step in his career.

Geography, history, mathematical and physical sciences, the different branches of natural history, reduced to their general principles, and considered in the point of view which philosophy most regards, that of general utility, will alternately, in our work pay their tribute to the rising generation, and bend to the level of its intelligence until it can rise to their height.

There surely is not a man, in whatever condition Providence may have placed him, or whatever may be the profession he embraces, who will not one day congratulate himself for having acquired a tinge of these different branches of knowledge. Some will be directly useful to him in his profession; others will add to the pleasures of his life, or soften its pains. What merchant, navigator or traveller has not felt the necessity of knowing a little geography? How many mothers have regretted not being able to trace upon a map the steps of their sons in the midst of dangers or on distant voyages; and not being able to represent to themselves the distance which separated them, the climate under which they lived, the manners of the people among whom they dwelt.

In what age can history have an object of greater or more general utility, than in that which is one day to fill the most instructive or most terrible of its pages?

To what industrious pursuit are geometry and mechanics in their general principles, entirely foreign? And if we consider the numerous applications of chemistry and physics to the arts and manufactures, to what class of men will they be found entirely useless?

It is to natural history that the physical history of man belongs; and it is that which furnishes him with the most valuable knowledge and means for the support and prolongation of his existence. In short, could botany and the most useful of the arts, agriculture, find men indifferent to the benefits, whose fertile sources they open and make known?

Such are, in a few words, some of the considerations which made us devise the plan which we have announced, and in the execution of which we are zealously occupied-for offering to childhood and youth the means of acquiring early a general idea of all the knowledge which the human mind has succeeded in conquering from nature and from time.

EFFECTS OF EDUCATION.

[The following paragraphs are extracted from "The Effects of Education upon a Country Village. An Address delivered before the Brighton School Fund Corporation, March 30, 1828. By G. W. Blagden, Pastor of the Evangelical Congregational Society, Brighton, Mass.' We regret that this valuable production came to hand so late as to render it impossible for us at present to do any thing more than merely mention it, with our most earnest recommendation to all our readers, whether parents or teachers, and indeed to all who take any interest in the best prosperity of their country.]

In the first place, education teaches the inhabitants of a village to avail themselves of their present, natural advantages.

When Sir Isaac Newton beheld an apple fall from a tree, he beheld nothing more than thousands of his countrymen were witnessing almost every day. Why was it, that the apple, thus seen by him in common with such multitudes, was so differently improved by its respective beholders? Why did his fellow men unconcernedly behold the same phenomenon occurring perhaps day by day, without any other reflection than that an apple had fallen to the ground; while he, commencing with that simple fact, advanced link by link in a chain of inferences, resulting from the operation of cause and effect, until, with almost divine intuition, he could comprehend and demonstrate the motion of worlds? It was because Newton possessed a mind, naturally strong indeed, but greatly improved by education. It was this which enabled him to make the fall of an apple the commencement of a theory which astonished the world. Look at that farmer; why are his grounds so clean and well cultivated, compared with those of his fellow-husbandmen? Why are his fences good, and his barns full, and his trees thrifty? It is because he has obtained from books, or from experience, or from both, a fund of practical knowledge. The same truth holds

good as well of collective bodies of men, as of particular individuals. Why does that little village, situated on one of the most barren and rocky tracts of land in New-England, exceed in neatness, and fertility, and every domestic comfort, the Cherokee town, situated perhaps in one of the richest and healthiest districts of Georgia? It is because the minds of the inhabitants of the one, are so superior to the minds of those