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For the Schoolmaster.

The School Teacher.

ledge of surrounding objects which a child gets in its early years is got without help if they will remember that the child is self-taught in the use of its mother tongue-if they will estimate the amount of that experience of life, that out-of-school wisdom, which every boy gathers for himself-if they will mark the unusual intelligence of the uncared-for London gamin, as shown in all the directions in which his faculties have been tasked if further, they will think how many minds have struggled up unaided, not only through the mysteries of our many other studies he is hardly qualified to irrationally-planned curriculum, but through pass an examination; yet he is called a good hosts of other obstacles besides; they will find scholar, and considered, by many, a competent

THERE are many teachers considered well qualified to teach because their knowledge and wit in some particular branch of study is superior to their competitors. For instance: here is a teacher who has an extensive knowledge of mathematics, so far as performing examples is concerned, and the more difficult in this branch is that which interests him the most, while in

it a not unreasonable conclusion, that if the subjects be put before him in right order and right form, any pupil of ordinary capacity will

teacher. Another is found to have no difficulty in parsing or analyzing the most difficult sentences; is quite familiar with Homer, Virgil and Cicero; but would utterly fail in giving instruction to a class of beginners in any branch so that they would understand it.

surmount his successive difficulties with but little assistance. Who indeed can watch the ceaseless observation, and inquiry and inference Teachers who are quick to conceive new ideas going on in a child's mind, or listen to its acute will expect the same of their pupils, and will remarks on matters within the range of its faculties, without perceiving that these powers do not so readily understand. be impatient in giving instructions to those who Because the which it manifests, if brought to bear systema-thing looks very plain to the teacher's mind, he tically upon any studies within the same range, thinks that it does also, or should, to the child's. would readily master them without help? This need for perpetual telling is the result of our stupidity, not of the child's. We drag it away

Says Charles Northend: "The business requires a heart full of devotion to the work, and a peculiar and happy faculty for interesting the young, and imparting instruction clearly, added to sound common sense and good judgment, and a certain tact emanating from all these a faculty not quite describable, hardly imitable, but really indispensable.” Teachers who understand human nature and have an extensive knowledge of men and things, and who are looking for opportunities to impart this knowledge to their pupils in their daily lessons, that they may interest while they instruct them, will be successful. SHUNNOCK.

from the facts in which it is interested, and which it is actively assimilating of itself; we put before it facts far to complex for it to understand, and therefore distasteful to it; finding that it will not voluntarily acquire these facts, we thrust them into its mind by force of threats and punishment; by thus denying the knowledge it craves, and cramming it with knowledge it cannot digest, we produce a morbid state of its faculties, and a consequent disgust for knowledge in general; and when, as a result partly of the stolid indolence we have brought on, and partly of still continued unfitness in its studies, THE aborigines of Australia have no idea of the child can understand nothing without explanation, and becomes a mere passive recipient the world, the witness of their actions, and their a supreme divinity, the creator and governor of of our instruction, we infer that education must future Judge. They have no objects of wornecessarily be carried on thus. Having, by our method, induced helplessness, we straightway In short, they have nothing whatever of the ship, even of a subordinate or inferior rank. make the helplessness a reason for our method. Clearly, then, the experience of pedagogues. cannot rationally be quoted against the doctrine we are defending. And whoever sees this will see that we may safely follow the method of nature throughout may, by a skillful ministration, make the mind as self-developing in its later stages as it is in its earlier ones; and that only by doing this can we produce the highest Solomons dere; but I soon found dere was some power and activity. as pick fools dere as I was."

character of religion, or of religious observance, to distinguish them from the beasts that perish.

AN old Dutchman, who, some years ago, was elected a member of the American Legislature, said, in his broken English style: "Ven 1 vent to the lechislatur I tought I vould find dem all

Education.

creasing lustre until it had leaped into an imperishable flame.

IT has become an universally conceded and In this our day, the young, instead of being indisputable fact, that in the diffusion of intel-compelled to credit implicitly an abstract and ligence and the advancement of popular educa- dogmatical assertion, are led by first principles tion, this country takes precedence of all others; to examine it for themselves, to analyze its every to this, no doubt, is mainly attributable our part, to discover the connection between cause greatness as a nation, and our prosperity as a and effect, the premise and conclusion, and havpeople. To this, under heaven, we are indebt-ing done this, to reunite the disparted links ined for our blessings, civil and religious, social and political. A free press, free speech and free institutions, have been made the basis of a system of national polity whereon is being built up a superstructure enduring and immovable as the firm foundation on which it rests.

to an unbroken and connected chain, harmonizing in every part.

We know of few things more pleasing or instructive than that of an hour's visit to one of our common schools. There will be found abundant material for meditation and study. There we may oftentimes read the history of

Foremost in importance are justly to be ranked our common schools. To dwell upon the the man in the lineaments of the child. Yet is excellence of these institutions of learning, to not the face always the index of the heart or of speak of their beneficial effects and the mighty the mind, neither is seeming dullness a proof of influence which they have exerted, and the great the absence of intelligence. In the rough, unresults which they are destined to accomplish, cultivated spirits we may at times regard, there were to multiply words uselessly. These things shall lurk that germ of intellectual wisdom, have not been "done in a corner," but are "seen which, if rightly watched and tended, will shoot up into a mighty tree whose top shall pierce the clouds.

and known of all men."

How different is the teaching of the present day when compared with that of even a preceding generation. We can remember well the nervous intonations of the old preceptor as we vainly endeavored to decipher the mysterious characters which scowled at us in formidable and black array from the dog-eared and dilapidated primer. We remember, too, the withering look of unbending severity with which he was wont to survey us from his elevated stool; all hilarity was frozen by a frown all short-comings reprehended by the rod. In process of time, however, under his birchen administration, the worthy didascalos imagined that all requisite proficiency had been attained, and so we parted. "Good, easy

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It behooves every friend of education, every friend of his country and of humanity at large, to aid all efforts which are being made to promote and prosper this great cause. Every added school house reared within our land strengthens and beautifies "our borders." These are

the blessings which, wherever they descend, meander like fertilizing streams through a parched and thirsty ground, converting the arid waste into a fruitful field, yielding odorous shrubs and fragrant flowers and stately trees, the leaves whereof shall be for the healing of the nations."-Lynn Reporter.

Genius and Child-like-ness.

man!" He was unconscious that the conclusions at which he had arrived were not inferences deduced from our own perception and We have often thought that these two charapprehension of facts, not the result of convic- acteristics are commonly found together, and tions attested by our own judgment, but a blind the following comment on Hans Christian Anreliance on the assertions of others we had dersen, the Danish author, by a reviewer in the grasped at the shadow and lost the substance. National Quarterly, is confirmatory: As in an ill-fed fire, the barely ignited or decey- "The secret of Andersen's genius lies in the ing embers are smothered at the onset by the fact that he is essentially and always a child. sudden pressure of useless and pernicious fuel, He is a child in his memory, and in his fancy so were the first feeble glimmerings of undevel- and feelings. His own time of childhood seems oped genius either overshadowed or totally ex- always to be present to his mind, furnishing intinguished by the heterogeneous and impenetra- cidents and characters to his purpose. He ble mass thrown over and around them; where- weaves bits of colors from his own history into as, had they been fanned with care and fed with the fabric of his story. The Red Shoes' is a judgment, the latent spark, kindling into activi- reproduction in sterner form of his own little ty and brightness, had glowed with rapidly in- experience, as he tells it in his life: An old

female tailor altered my deceased father's great- lacking in professional spirit. And, the board of coat into a confirmation suit for me; never be- directors, or the citizens of the district, who do fore had I worn so good a coat. I had a'so, for not provide some of the remaining helps we have the first time in my life, a pair of boots. My enumerated, are, to say the least of them, either delight was extremely great; my only fear was excusable upon the plea of honest poverty, or that everybody would not see them, and there- else deplorably blind to the best interests of the fore I drew them up over my trousers, and thus helpless youth who are entrusted to their care. marched through the church. The boots creakAnd here, much as we approve of the educaed and that inwardly pleased me, for thus the tional instrumentalities enumerated, and others congregation would hear that they were new. that might be mentioned, we would have the My whole devotion was disturbed; I was aware of it, and it caused me a horrible pang of conscience that my thoughts should be as much with my new boots as with God. I prayed him earnestly from my heart to forgive me; and then, again, I thought of my boots.'"

From the Pennsylvania Teacher.

The Common School Teacher.---No. 4.

OTHER HELPS MEANS OF PROFESSIONAL
IMPROVEMENT.

young teacher remember that all educational helps cannot be mathematically adjusted to the wants of every school-room, no more than all men could be made to subscribe to the same religious creed. Herein many zealous teachers go astray. The art of teaching school is not of the exact sciences, and it never will be. It is not a Procustean bed, upon which whole schools may be laid, and the peculiar habits, dispositions, advantages, disadvantages, and surroundings of the pupils be summarily abbreviated or In the preceding article we have briefly re- lengthened to suit the stereotyped regulations, ferred to the helps of a teacher which are addi- or the settled convictions of the teacher. A tional and subsidiary to the ordinary text-books. rule or system may work well in one district, In doing so, we noticed only those helps which and be the source of much mischief in another; are regarded by all enlightened educators as the or, if there be no other objection to its introduccommon school teacher's legitimate assistants-tion, various physical causes may exist which without which, no matter how richly he may will render that result impossible. For inbe intellectually endowed, or how largely his faculty of aptness to teach may be developed, much of his labor will pass for naught, and many of his highest hopes be blasted.

stance, the reading of the Bible as a devotional exercise might be productive of good in a school composed of Protestant children, but the same practice would manifestly be the cause of as There are other helps of analogous character much evil, if transferred to a Catholic district. not regarded as essential to the teacher's success, The common school teacher has no right to innor claimed to be capable of universal applica- culcate, in any manner whatever, his religious tion, but, nevertheless, of sufficient importance views on pupils whose parents profess an anto demand the thoughtful attention of our young tagonistic faith.

friend, and, under favorable circumstances, t> Again: We are a believer in the doctrine that warrant a fair trial at his hands. The principal a school library is a good thing in every schoolof these are: A school library; a set of out-room, but we would not advise a teacher whose line maps; a cabinet of natural curiosities; phi- engagement embraced only a four months term, losophical apparatus; an assortment of arith- to attempt the establishment of such a library metical blocks; and a school newspaper. All if it did not already exist. So, also, we have of them assist the intelligent teacher in impart- never known a teacher to disapprove the circuing instruction to his pupils - some of them latior, among pupils able to read, of a day might very properly have been introduced in school paper, like Clark's School Visitor; but, the chapter which treated of the attractions of when the parents of pupils, in the language of the school-room. With regard to the question, a director, whose letter is now before us, “are Who should supply these helps the teacher, or so poor, that they can hardly keep bread in his employers? - we answer both. The teacher their houses over night," the instructor of those who does not collect from nature's museum a pupils would scarcely be justifiable in soliciting dozen or two of her commonest curiosities; or from them subscriptions to even Mr. Clark's exfashion, in a leisure hour, at the shop of a neigh-cellent little monthly. The true teacher should boring mechanic, a syphon, or prism, or set of be a thorough student of human nature, and arithmetical blocks,— is, in mild terms, sadly should possess the faculty (and we incline to

the opinion, that all may possess it, if they The true school of the soldier is the tented field, choose) of adapting himself to the circumstan- with a bold, defiant enemy before him, to be ces by which he is surrounded. We are all the beaten and subdued: the true school of the creatures of circumstances we do not make teacher is his own school-room, with a few them. Our success in this world depends upon choice educational works on his desk, and a our taking advantage of favorable circumstan- certificate of membership in the county or disces, refusing to be discouraged by the unfavora- trict institute in his pocket. And what of each ble, and always, as Carlyle expresses it, doing of these? This:the duty that lies nearest.

So much by way of conclusion to a brief reference to some of the school-room helps of the earnest, intelligent teacher. We come now, by a natural transition, to notice the means he may employ in fitting himself for the practice of his profession.

I. The School-Room. Nineteen-twentieths of all the children that are born into the world are naturally honest, truthful, confiding, anxious Even the believers in the severest form of total to learn, and possessed of warm, loving hearts. depravity must admit this. Little children are the only innocent persons in this guilty world. No young teacher springs full-formed from They never defraud you; never hold the word the halls of any college, academy, or normal of promise to the ear, and break it to the hope; school. We hope we do not undervalue any of never attempt to humble you that they may be these honored instrumentalities in the forma- exalted. That man has lived to little purpose, tion of the teacher, and especially the one last who has not learned much from little children. named; but we are far from attaching to them The more he becomes like them, the nearer does that importance which many educational wri- he approach to that perfection which is not of ters claim for them. Given a creditable profi- earth. But, alas, that all parents are not as litciency in the branches of a collegiate, academic tle children! The home influences which suror normal school education, and the teacher is round the youth who fill our schools are as vastill but little else than the unchiseled statue in ried as the leaves of the forest when touched by the block of marble. The host of incompetent the frosts of autumn. To be able to govern graduates acting as teachers all over the land, aright the pupils who compose any individual whose education stopped with the receipt of school requires an acquaintance with the mantheir diplomas-it, indeed, it had ever com- ner in which those pupils are governed at home, menced fully attests the correctness of this as well as with every shade of their respective opinion. To vary somewhat Poor Richard's dispositions. To be able truly to educate their trite saying: Experience keeps a dear school, mental and moral faculties, and properly to dibut teachers will learn in no other, and scarce rect their social and physical qualities, requires in that. In this they are not unlike the mem- a knowledge of the kind of coöperation afforded bers of any other profession. How much faith or opposition interposed under the parental roof, do we all have in the physician who has grown as a daily personal contact with and sympathy gray in the treatment of all the ills to which for every pupil. This is the part of the teachflesh is heir; and how little in the beardless er's education which cannot be learned at the boy, who, for the first time, hangs up his shin- institution in which he acquired his knowledge gle in front of the little frame building across of mathematics and the languages - a feature the street. What young lawyer does not know of his calling which makes every new school a how difficult a thing it is to obtain a respecta- new world to him, and the mind of every new ble position at the bar; and what young minis- scholar a terra incognitia to be explored and ter does not quake with fear, lest some of his peopled. We need scarcely add, as a concluhearers should discover where he borrowed his sion to this paragraph, the reflection that will last sermon. To leave the learned professions, occur to the mind of every reader that, the and seek an illustration in the warring elements life of the teacher, from manhood to old age, is around us: How much more rehance is placed but a succession of experiments in the art of in the veteran officer, who earned promotion at teaching; nor, the other thought-that, the the cannon's mouth, than in the "Brigadier General of Volunteers," who

"never set a squadron in the field, Nor the division of a battle knew More than a spinster!"

:

more the teacher can bend his mental powers to the comprehension of his pupils, and the closer he can bring his own heart into sympathy with theirs, the greater will be his success in educating their understandings and ruling their spirits.

II. Educational Works.

Many of our most become visible to the eye, and compose the vapromising teachers, we have observed, do not rious species of cloud? Are these particles simseem to be aware of the fact, that scores of ply drops of diminutive size - mere water-dust, books have been published in explanation of the if we may so speak - or are they vesicular, that teacher's duties and responsibilities, and in pre- is, little balloons, consisting of an aqueous film sentation of various theories of teaching and with air or vapor inclosed? What is it compels conducting a school. The number of those who them to condense and occasionally to descend in do not take an educational journal is equally torrents, accompanied by fearful explosions of large. To all such we have this one word of electricity, or to freeze into lumps of ice as large friendly advice to give: There is such a thing as oranges or pumpkins? These, with many as a teacher's library, embracing works of prac- other questions, have been thorns in the sides of tical value, prepared by some of the leading meteorologists, which theorists have endeavored educators of Europe and America. Those writ- to extract with various degrees of skill. Descarten by such American authors as David P. Page, tes supposed that the vesicles were little spheres Charles Northend, and George B. Emerson, are of water rendered buoyant by the materia subentirely devoted to the instruction of the com- tilis of space. Dr. Halley suggested that the mon school teacher. He should not be without rise of the vapor-storms might be due to a flathem. The wide-awake teacher will also feel tus, or warm spirit, or perhaps to a certain kind the want of an educational journal that will ac- of matter whose conatus might be contrary to quaint him monthly with the educational trans- that of gravity.' Franklin contended that moistactions in his own State, and with the experi-ure was dissolved in the atmosphere as salt is ence and suggestions of brother teachers around dissolved in water; but that when repudiated, him, whose hands he may never be permitted to the aqueous particles still remained in suspengrasp. If the board of directors, by whom he sion by adhering to the molecules of air. Mr. is employed, do not pay him a salary sufficient Rowell's hypothesis is That the atoms of to enable him to purchase the books and sub-water, being so minute, are, when completely scribe for the periodical we have indicated, he enveloped in their natural coatings of electricity, is the heir to a sore misfortune: if they do pay rendered so buoyant as to be liable, even when him a sufficient salary, and he neglects to feed in their most condensed state, to be carried off his mind with the thoughts of those who have by slight currents of air; but if expanded by honored and still honor the profession of his heat, their capacity for electricity being increaschoice, then is there a great fault committed, ed by their increase of surface, they are then and our friend is not blameless. rendered buoyant at all times, and are buoyed

III. Institutes. It is assumed that no argu-up into the air by their coatings of electricity; ment is necessary to show the necessity of the when, if condensed, they become positively Institute as the only profitable means for the electrified, but are still buoyed up by the elecinter-communication of thoughts and experience tricity, till, on the escape of the surcharge, the between common school teachers, and for the particles fall as rain.' In other words, the wainstruction of those members of the profession ter-atoms are enabled to rise when their electric who have not been educated under the most fa- charge is augmented by heat, but compelled to vorable auspices. “Iron sharpeneth iron; so a fall when the surplus is withdrawn. If the vaman sharpeneth the countenance of a friend." por, when condensed by cold, should be in a In the succeeding chapter, What an Institute position to part with a portion of its electricity, should be, will engage our attention. J. M. S.

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How Much do You Know About Rain ?

the particles will approach each other by virtue
of their natural attraction, and thus become
visible as clouds; but if the surcharge totally
descend as rain."
escapes, they will unite into large drops, and

On that subject, here is a wise word or two: Now, familiar as we are in practice with the subject of rain, we may well wonder how it A gentleman was once praising the personal could ever rain at all. Seeing that water is charms of a very homely woman before Mr. many hundred times heavier than air, by what Foote, the comedian, who whispered to him, means, it has been asked, does it climb into the And why don't you lay claim to such an acatmosphere and continue floating in the thin complished beauty?” "What right have I to altitudes which the cirri undoubtedly attain? her?" said the other. "Every right, by the How is the vapor condensed into particles which law of nations, as the first discoverer!"

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