What a beautiful exemplification of the power of poetry was that remark of the old carpenter who had been a companion of Burns: 'And it seemed to him that the country had grown more beautiful since Burns had written his bonnie little sangs about it.' Now, of all the fine arts, poetry possesses justly the first place as to its power to raise the emotions. There is scarce any one emotion of human nature beyond its reach." How rich is English literature in poems suitable for children! How ripe the harvest awaiting the hands of the cultured teacher!

The value of literary culture to the teacher is seen, fourth,

IN ITS GOVERNING POWER.

Authority lies at the foundation of all successful teaching. First the law, then the gospel, then grace. A failure at the point of government is a failure at all points. The wisdom and resources of Solomon could avail nothing where the teacher's authority is not respected and felt as a power every moment. But with this established, the relations between teacher and pupils may be cordial, with no loss of authority on the one hand, or of respect on the other. Much of the trouble in the school-room arises from the inability of the teacher to keep all the pupils busy at all times. A lesson is assigned with reference to the average ability of the class, as it should be. But the bright, active pupil, finishes his lesson before the allotted time has expired, and then, with nothing to do, falls into mischief, often with no intention of creating a disturbance or doing wrong. This is the teacher's time to place a suitable book into his hand, or to encourage him to commit to memory a few lines from some poem which interests him, or to write a story about some bird whose habits he has been studying. The resources of the cultured teacher will never fail to meet the needs of the moment, and to preserve the school from an outbreak of disorder.

Fellow teachers! The perils of a pernicious literature are pressing hard upon us. With every click of the printing press bad books, obscene pictures, and vile pamphlets are multiplied. With every increase of transportation facilities this evil influence is disseminated over our land. It finds its way even into our homes, to the ruin of both our sons and daughters. Its corrupting and blighting power is felt in our schools and in society. What are we doing to stay its power? In our daily work we are seeking to create a taste and appetite for reading; but what are we doing to purify that taste and feed that

appetite? We cannot escape the responsibility. The power of evil must not feed in the green of the world." We must combat this evil, and that, too, in the only reasonable way-which is to use the good to displace the bad. We must control the reading of our children, or "perish by our own prosperity." And this work must begin in our homes. It must begin with the babe on its mother's knee, in the lullabies that cradle the child to rest. It must continue through childhood and youth until our children shall go forth from home and school with fixed habits and cultivated tastes to make places and a name for themselves in the busy world. After all, it's not the hours of play and study that we are to guard, so much as the hours of ease and rest.

A child of two years, who cannot talk, will listen with delight to a story about something within the range of its experience; and will manifest pleasure at every new feature of the story. I know a home (and it is by no means an exceptional one) where the mother has been accustomed to read to the children from their tenderest years. Now at any time these active, noisy children will leave their play to hear their mother read. Especially when

The day is done, and the darkness

Falls from the wings of night,

do these children gather around their mother's knee and ask :

Read from the treasured volumes

The poem of thy choice,

And lend to the rhyme of the poet

The beauty of thy voice.

Then comes in precious cadence a poem from Alice Cary or Mary Howitt, a tale from Andersen, a myth from Hawthorne, or a story from the Bible. Thus day by day do these children enjoy the precious companionship of the best books, and, as they learn to read, to pass their moments of rest from play and study with these friends whom they learned to love at their mother's knee.

The teacher stands at the gateway of every child's future. For years the best hours of the child's life are committed to his care. The fathers and mothers of the next generation are to receive in a large measure impulse and character from his hands. To the teacher, therefore, society must and will look for leadership in the work of destroying the evil of pernicious literature by creating and supplying a demand for good literature.

Let not the teacher complain that his efforts will not be appreciated.

These efforts may, for a time, be disregarded, but they will win success at last. The teacher himself can afford to wait for his crown. Every school-room ought to have a small library of selected books adapted to the age and to the studies of the children in that school; but such a library will be of little use until the teacher knows how to use them. Whenever the teachers of Ohio [Va.], as a class, awaken to the value of a thorough personal culture as a means to successful teaching, the first great step toward victory has been taken, and may I not say that they have already taken this step in the organization of the Ohio [Va.] Teachers' Reading Circle, whose beneficent influence has been widely felt during the past year? We meet to-day upon the shore of one of the great lakes of a continent. The rhythmic swells of Erie's waves never cease to break upon these protecting rocks. Upon these waters in lake, in river, and in ocean, floats the commerce of the world. From their bosom spring those vapors which fall again in fruitful blessing upon many, many lands. But beautiful as are these mighty waters, and bountiful as are their enriching gifts, I remember that from almost every shore, beneath almost every swelling tide, there sets a perilous undertow to destroy every noble life that may come within the reach of its treacherous power. In like manner, beneath the beautiful and bountiful life created by the power of pen and press, there is an undertow of perilous evil from which only the concerted effort and wisdom of teachers and parents can save our children, our homes, and our country.-Ohio Ed. Monthly.

Condensed Directions for Teaching the History of the United States.

1. "Whoever undertakes to instruct youth in history," says the German educator Niemeyer, "as the value of that science requires, must regard equally the memory, the understanding, and the feelings."

2. There is no "patent method" for teaching history. In this study, more than in most other elementary school branches, the teacher, by his skill, tact, and stores of information, must clothe the skeleton of facts with the flesh of imagination, and breathe into it the breath of life. But, rightly pursued, it has the two characteristics of a useful study-namely, good mental exercise and useful information.

3. Let the advance lesson in the text book be read aloud in the

class. Call attention to the leading facts to be memorized, and let the pupils mark them with a pencil. A considerable part of the history is intended, not to be memorized, but merely to be read.

4. Of the early discoveries treated of so fully in the text-book, single out three or four to be learned, and let the remainder alone. In the period of settlements, select the four great centres-namely, Virginia, Massachusetts, New York, and Pennsylvania; the remaining settlements belong properly to local State history. Out of the numberless details of Indian and colonial wars, select only half a dozen important points; let the rest go as local State history. So in the Revolutionary War, single out a very few marked events, and have them learned so that they cannot be forgotten. Dwell at length on events that happened in the pupil's own State.

5. Do not attach much importance to chronological tables except for reference. Fix in the minds of your pupils the dates of a few great events, and fasten them there by frequent reviews. A multitude of minor dates may be temporarily learned for to-day's lesson, only to be crowded into oblivion by to-morrow's recitation. "By means of history," says Montaigne," the pupil enjoys intercourse with the great men of the best periods; but he must learn, not so much the year and the day of the destruction of a city, as noble traits of character; not so much occurrences, as to form a correct judgment upon them.” Examination questions, unfortunately, too often run to dates, because such questions are easiest to be asked from the book, and easiest to be credited.

6. Require pupils to become familiar with the details of the history of the State in which they live.

7. Fix in the memory the causes and the results of the War of the Revolution and of 1812, of the Mexican War and the War of Secession; but do not attempt to make pupils remember the dates of many battles.

8. Short biographical sketches of the great men in our history are both interesting and valuable, if they show how, by their character and abilities, they improved the condition of their nation and of the world.

9. In written exercises, train pupils to correct one another's work.

10. A comprehension of the great facts of history, of their causes, results, and relations, is more important than the verbatim memorizing of pages of text-books.

II. In questions for written examinations, confine yourself strictly

to leading events. Include as few dates as possible. Teaching chronological tables is not teaching history.

12. As much as possible assign lessons by topics, and require pupils to recite in their own language. Close the text-book yourself, and you will be better satisfied with your scholars' answers.

13 Supplement the dry condensed statements of the text-book by anecdotes, incidents, stories, and biographical sketches of noted men, drawn from your own memory or from good books. If you are a good story-teller, you will thus make history charming to your pupils. Under the dead mass of dates and political events, you must kindle the fire of enthusiasm by familiar narrative. "If you tell a boy," said a famous teacher, "that in a certain battle General Smith had his horse's tail shot off, he will never forget that, though all else soon becomes a blank."

14. Call the attention of pupils to the progress of the nation in the arts and sciences; to the great inventions and discoveries that have been made; to everything that has improved the condition of the people. Lead them to perceive that, though history is hardly anything but a record of wars and conquerors, yet “Peace hath her victories no less renowned than those of war," and that the most glorious victory of war is that which establishes an honorable peace.

15. "To the youthful spirit," says Russell, "the great attraction of history lies in its pictures of life and action, and in the sympathies which these evoke. To the juvenile reader all history is biography." "All history," says Emerson, "resolves itself very easily into the biography of a few stout and earnest persons."

16. "Of all departments of early teaching," says Bain, "none is so unmanageable as history. Its protean phases of information and of interest, its constant mixture of what attracts the youngest with what is intelligible only to the maturest minds, renders it especially troublesome in early teaching. Nothing comes sooner home to the child than narrative of human beings-their pursuits, their passions, their successes and their disasters, their virtues and their vices, their rewards and their punishments, their enmities and their friendships, their failures and their triumphs."

CLASS EXERCISES IN HISTORY.

1. Call upon each pupil in turn to name some person distinguished in the history of our country, and to state something that he did. 2. To name some important battle, and tell something about it.