chapter of Nehemiah so close together. How-night I read by myself. At twelve, my father bound me to my brother, a printer, in Boston, and with him I worked hard all day at the press, and cases, and again read by myself at night." ever, catching a new idea, he took another start. "Well, but, my dear sir, you certainly differ from the learned world, which is, you know, decidedly in favor of the languages." "I would not wish wantonly to differ from the learned world," said Ben, "especially when they maintain opinions that seem to be founded on truth. But when this is not the case, to differ from them I have ever thought my duty; and especially since I studied Locke." "Locke!" cried the Governor with surprise, 66 you studied Locke!" "Yes, sir, I studied Locke on the Under-man here, be aiming at any thing but to quiz standing three years ago, when I was thir-me?" teen." No, indeed, please your excellency, re"You amaze me, sir. You studied Locke plied the captain, "Mr. Franklin is not quizon the Understanding at thirteen !" zing you. He is saying what is really true, for I am acquainted with his father and family." The Governor then turning to Ben said, more moderately, "Well, my dear, wonderful boy, I ask your pardon for doubting your word; and now pray tell me, for I feel a stronger desire than ever to hear your objec tion to learning the dead languages.” 66 Why, sir, I object to it principally on ac count of the shortness of human life. Taking them one with another, men do not live over forty years. Plutarch, indeed, puts it at only thirty-three. But say forty. Well, of this full ten years are lost in childhood, before any boy thinks of a Latin grammar. This brings the forty down to thirty. Now at such a moment as this, to spend five or six years in learning the dead languages, especially when all the best books in those languages are translated into ours, and besides, we already have more books on every subject than such short-lived creatures can ever acquire, seems very preposterous." "Why, I should as soon think of transplanting a pine-apple from Jamaica to Boston." "Well, sir, a skillful gardener, with his hot-house, can give us nearly as fine a pineapple as any in Jamaica. And so Mr. Pope, with his fine imagination, has given us Homer, in English, with more of his beautics than ordinary scholars would find in him after forty years' study of the Greek. And besides, sir, if Homer was not translated, I am far from thinking it would be worth spending five or six years to learn to read him in his own language." "You differ from the critics, Mr. Franklin; for the critics all tell us that his beauties are inimitable." "Yes, sir, and the naturalists tell us that the beauties of the basilisk are inimitable too." "The basilisk, sir! Homer compared with the basilisk! I really don't understand you, sir." 66 Why, I mean, sir, that as the basilisk is the more to be dreaded for the beautiful skin that covers his poison, so Homer for the bright colorings he throws over bad characters and passions. Now, as I don't think the beauties of poetry are comparable to those of philanthropy, nor a thousandth part so important to human happiness, I must confess I dread Homer, especially as the companion of youth. The humane and gentle virtues are certainly the greatest charms and sweeteners of life. And I suppose, sir, you would hardly think of sending your son to Achilles to learn “Yes, sir, and when painted in the colors which Homer's glowing fancy lends, what youth but must run the most imminent risk of catching a spark of bad fire from such a blaze as he throws on his pictures ?" "Why this, though an uncommon view of the subject, is, I confess, an ingenious one, Mr. Franklin; but surely 'tis overstrained." "Not at all, sir; we are told from good authority, that it was the reading of Homer that first put it into the head of Alexander the Great to become a hero: and after him of Charles the twelfth. What millions of human beings have been slaughtered by these two great butchers is not known; but still, probably not a tythe of what have perished in duels between individuals from the pride and revenge nursed by reading Homer." "Well, sir," replied the Governor, "I never heard the prince of bards treated in this way before. You must certainly be singular in your charges against Homer." "I ask your pardon, sir, I have the honor to think of Homer exactly as did the greatest philosopher of antiquity; I mean Plato, who strictly forbids the reading of Homer in his republic. And yet Plato was a heathen. I don't boast myself as a Christian; and yet I am shocked at the inconsistency of our Latin and Greek teachers (generally Christians and Divines too,) who can one day put Homerfinto the hands of their pupils, and in the midst of their recitations can stop them short to point out the divine beauties and sublimities which the poet gives to his hero, in the bloody work of slaughtering the poor Trojans; and the next day take them to church to hear a discourse from Christ on the blessedness of meekness and forgiveness. No wonder that hot-livered young men thus educated, should despise meekness and forgiveness, as mere these." "I agree he has too much revenge in his cowards' virtues, and deem nothing so gloricomposition." ous as fighting duels, and blowing out brains.” Gough on Water. THE following is another of Gough's apostrophes to water. Its beauty, however, becomes more conspicuous when recited by the world-renowned lecturer: of more than regal splendor, home of the healing angel, when his wings bend to the woes of this fallen world. 'O water for me, bright water for me! And wine for the tremulous debauchee !" Arithmetical Slate. "Water! O, bright, beautiful water for me! Water! heaven-gifted, earth-blessing, Ir has been considered until very lately that flower-loving, water! It was the drink of the wooden frame of a common slate could Adam in the purity of his Eden home; it be made to serve no other purpose than that mirrowed back the beauty of Eve in her un- of keeping the slate itself from being broken. blushing toilet; it wakes to life again the If it accomplished even this while the owner crushed and fading flower; it cools, O how was cyphering out an education, it was congratefully! the parched tongue of the invalid; sidered as having done the state some service. it falls down to us in pleasant showers from But modern ingenuity has imposed an addiits home with the glittering stars; it descends tional duty on the frame. An inventor has to us in feathery storms of snow; it smiles copyrighted what he calls the "arithmetical in glittering dew-drops at the glad birth of slate." His invention consists in increasing morning; it clusters in great tear-drops at the width of the frame to an inch and a half, night over the grave of those we love; its and pasting thereon a neatly-printed slip name is wreathed in strange, bright colors, by which extends all round and on both sides of the sunset cloud; its name is breathed by the the frame, on which appears in tolerably large dying soldier, far away on the torrid field of type all the principal tables of the Arithmetic. battle; it paints old forts and turrets from a The quantity of information which the frame gorgeous easel upon your winter windows; it is thus made to bring directly and constantly clings upon the branches of trees in frost- under the eye of the learner is surprisingly work of delicate beauty; it dwells in the ici- great. There is, first and most important, the cles; it lives in the mountain glacier; it forms multiplication table, table of fractions, all the the vapory ground-work upon which God different tables of measures, Federal and Engpaints the rainbow; it rushes in pearly streams lish money, interest, compound interest, from the gentle hill-side; it makes glad the per cent, discount, par value, and various sunny vales; it murmurs cheerful songs in other leading lessons in knowledge which the ear of the humble cottager; it answers every pupil should have indelibly impressed back the smiles of happy children; it kisses upon his memory. All these lessons, from the pure cheek of the water-lily; it wanders their position on the frame, are constantly like a vein of molten silver away, away to before the learner. He cannot escape from the distant sea. O! bright, beautiful, health- them. Turn in which direction he may, his inspiring, heart-gladdening water! Every-eye inevitably comes back to them a hundred where around us dwelleth thy meek presence: times a day. It is impossible that a boy could twin angel-sister of all that is good and prec- not thoroughly learn a series of lessons thus ious here: in the wild forest, on the grassy pertinaciously set before him. The whole is plain slumbering in the bosom of the lonely very effectually protected from wear and tear mountain, sailing with viewless wings through by a transparent varnish of great hardness the humming air, floating over us in curtains and durability.-New York Tribune. EDITOR'S DEPARTMENT. Benefit Street Grammar School. We present below some statistics of this school, with regard to attendance, and commend them to the attention of our teachers. MR. CHARLES HUTCHINS. THE friends of education in Rhode Island will be very sorry to learn that this accomplished and eminently successful teacher, who has been for four years the efficient Principal of the Benefit Street Grammar School, in this city, has left us. He has been called to the sub-mastership of the Dwight School, Boston. Salary, $1200, with an annual increase of $100 for four years. Mr. Hutchins is a devoted teacher. He is laborious and persevering-two qualities which are emphatically the sine qua non of a successful teacher anywhere. One of our city papers thinks that the Boston people ought to congratulate themselves on their ability to secure from us such teachers. It will be remembered that their recent Superintendent, Hon. Nathan Bishop, was called from Provi dence. In supplying, for two weeks, the vacancy occasioned by Mr. Hutchins' resignation, we had ample opportunity to observe the result of his instruction. The classes which had been under his especial charge gave evidence of having had thorough and systematic teaching. The order and discipline of the school was simple and complete. Rarely have we seen a school where each one knew his place and kept it his duties and discharged them, more completely than in this school. The rules were few and simple, and were well observed. There was no friction of the machinery, but everything moved with the regularity of the clock, without the noise of its constant tick. HIS SUCCESSOR. The successor of Mr. Hutchins is Mr. N. W. DeMunn, of the Grammar School in Boonton, New Jersey. Mr. DeMunn, we understand, is a graduate of the Albany [N. Y.] Normal School, when it was under the care of Mr. Page. He is an experienced teacher, and comes to us highly recommended. May he prove as successful and judicious a teacher, as was the subject of this otice. STATISTICS OF ATTENDANCE. Whole number of scholars belonging to the school for the term ending Feb. 12, 1858, 381. Belonging at the close of the term,-boys, 183; girls, 183. Total, 366. Number of scholars who have not been absent, 210. Number absent only on account of sickness, 96. Per cent. of absence for the term, 2.6. Per cent of absence for other causes than sickness, 0.6. Per cent. of absence for the last fifteen terms-14.5, 8.6, 3.5, 2.3, 3.4, 1.8, 2.7, 2., 1.7, 1.2, 1.7, 1., 1.2, 3.7, 2.6. Number of scholars who have not been absent one term, 210; two terms, 61; three terms, 10; four terms, 11; five terms, 5; six terms, 7; seven terms, 3; nine terms, 2; ten terms, 4; eleven terms, 1; twelve terms, 1; fourteen terms, 1. School Discipline. TO PARENTS. THE chairman of the school committee of the town of Winchester, Mass., has favored us with a copy of his annual report to the town. We quote the following remarks on the above-mentioned subject and commend them to the careful consideration of parents: the discipline of children. Teachers do not covet the privilege. The frequent forfeiture of his word by the parent, and his readiness to forgive without a good reason, as the child well knows, weaken in that child's mind all sense of responsibility, and all reverence for justice. It grows up under a fatal imposture as to the meaning of such words as law, subordination, penalty, etc. It comes to believe that teachers, rulers, and all in authority, and even Deity, will be as weak, and partial, and lenient, and as easily duped or evaded, as pa "The troubles that constantly bubble up in some of the schools, are traced to the family, as streams to their sources. To cure the evil thro' remedies applied in the school-room, is impossi-rents. ble. A fountain is not purified by cleansing its streams. Children must be accustomed to a rigid discipline at home. In almost every example of juvenile delinquency the parents have been recreant to their trust. Said a woman to Philip, "If you have no time to do justice, you have no time to be a king." If parents have no time to be faithful to their children, they have no right to be parents. And they publish their own deep condemnation, when they send their off-spring to school with outbreaking habits of idolence, insolence, and insubordination. Remember, as looks and features indicate family origin, so speech and deportment betray parental habits, opinions, and example. On the play-ground, and in the school-room, children re-produce (perhaps re-duplicate) the ways of thinking and of acting common at home. It is by no means the object of Public School The parent's authority, by the law of nature, is absolute. Implicit submission to it should be demanded. If once you allow that authority to be successfully resisted, the consequences will be dark and terrible. 'Goodness and severity, are the grand principles of God's government, and they must be adopted by parents, to secure the welfare of their offspring, and domestic peace. Very few children, if any, can be fully trusted. What the Germans call untamed selfhood, is a two-fold element, manifesting itself in hatred, when the selfish desires of children are hindered; and in lying, especially in their selfjustifications before parents and teachers. Ev-instruction to form character or to furnish prinil ventures not to be itself.' Hence duplicity in ciples of action and motives. The parent, not speech and action. Too much confidence is reposed in children. Bridles must be put into their mouths. Even the teacher, the parent is the potter, having power over the lump. And the sound of his wheels must be heard within the house, or the clay will then, they will drive, if they are not driven. be marred. Yet still, a teacher of refined manThe blindness of parents to the faults of theirners and broad culture, can finish and color what own children, is proverbial. Impatience with those of others, is equally proverbial. Lenity of supposition is the sin of parents, and the ruin of the young. Let parents accustom their children to obedience; to stern accountability; to the idea of .certain and just retribution at home, and the teacher will have no trouble. Instruments of punishment will then be as seldom used in the school-room, as they are now in the family. Let the thing be reversed. Let parents undertake has been moulded, when the home influences are congenial, true and good. Otherwise his task, like that of the daughters of Danaus, will be to fill everlasting sieves. To sum up all. If you want to enfeeble the authority of a teacher, and render the most earnest and judicious efforts fruitless; if you wish to break up all habits of order, punctuality, studiousness, energy, obedience and reverence in your children, and foreclose all prospect of their future honor and usefulness, you can easily |