Dictionary of the English Language. The latest and best Biographical Dictionaries,-one peculiarly American, one Universal, and one Classical. Two Gazetteers, ---one of the United States, and one Universal.

6. Other books for reference, pertaining to Natural History, Agriculture, Manufactures, Arts, Commerce, &c., and others of a more miscellaneous character; of which twenty, thirty, fifty, or a hundred volumes might be judiciously selected, kept in the school-room, and some of them be brought into daily use, to the great benefit and happiness of both teachers and pupils,--to the permanent improvement of our schools, and the elevation, intellectually and socially, of our whole community. These miscellaneous books for reference might, under suitable regulations, during the intervals between the summer and winter schools, be used as a library and go into the families of the District.

Let me add, what I was forgetting, though not of small importance in any point of view, there should be,

7. Pictures---instructive, impressive pictures of men, scenes, events, and various animals, and other objects. Within the last twenty years, the arts of making and multiplying pictures of every class, have so greatly advanced that the cost of those of great excellence is now comparatively small. Peale's Court of Death, and Burnham's Horse Fair, can now be had each for $1, and portraits of some of our most distinguished men for about the same price.

If all this cannot be done at once, let it be begun this year, advanced next, and so on, until every school-house shall be well furnished. It would not cost a very large sum. $100, if wisely expended, would make almost any of our District school-houses a new place, as to attractiveness and means of intellectual improveWINDSOR.

ment.

OUR CORRESPONDENTS are informed that we have all articles not published in safe keeping. Several of them will appear in the next number.

THE GOT-UP EXAMINATION.

Few things are more instructive than shams. The sham school exhibition is, in one respect, at least, a model instructor. It is prepared in this wise: A set of questions is selected early in the term, and the scholars are drilled for weeks on them, until the questions and their corresponding answers, lie right along side each other and in regular order, in each child's mind. The result is readiness and accuracy in the show, so far as accuracy had been attained in the preparation of the farce.

Now one of the most essential principles of true teaching has been assumed and carried out here. The questions have been brought repeatedly, and in a fixed order, before the pupil's mind.

We have here, then, the mind called to attend frequently to the same object, and advantage taken of one form of the law of association, both of which are strong points in the discipline of the memory.

Now let us, who strive to teach well, derive what good we can from the examples which we see so often successful. Let us present such questions, and in such ways, as to arouse the understanding, as well as to fill the memory, and in such order that the association of them shall be one of logical connection, rather than of mere sequence, and then repeat and re-repeat, review and rereview, as persistently as does our model, and we shall shame the shams and benefit our schools.

E. C.

GEOLOGY; for Teachers, Classes, and Private Students. By Sanborn Tenney, A. M., Lecturer on Physical Geography and Natural History, in the Massachusetts Teachers' Institutes. Illustrated with Two Hundred Wood Engravings. Philadelphia E. H. Butler & Co. 1860. Pp., 320.

As the natural resources of a country are more and more developed, so much the more will those sciences relating to the products of the soil claim the attention of the people. To an agricultural community, no one of the natural sciences is more intimately related than Geology. It reveals to the industrious

and intelligent farmer the origin and quality of the soil-makes known the means of restoring his waste fields-directs him to the deposits of the natural fertilizers, that have been accumulating for ages-gives him an interest in all the more important principles of the mineral, vegetable and animal kingdoms-and, moreover, adds a charm to toil, because it stimulates the mind, and leads it by degrees from one field of investigation to another, until the labor of the hands is lost sight of in the pleasures of the intellect.

Several attempts have been made to simplify the text-books on this subject, so as to bring the study within the reach of the common reader. These experiments have proved abortive, because the writers have pre-supposed their readers acquainted, to some extent, at least, with the tributary sciences; and, hence, by neglecting to give a proper description of the common minerals, and the most essential facts in regard to Anatomy and Botany, have failed to supply an increasing want.

The book before us does not, so far as we have seen, pre-suppose a knowledge of the relative sciences, but gives a clear and minute account of the principles and substances necessary to make it entirely intelligible. The fact that nearly all the woodcut illustrations have been copied from the geological reports of the different States, and represent distinctly the geological formations of our country, adds new interest to the reader.

The Glossary, containing the pronunciation, etymology and definition of all the scientific terms used in the work, is a great help to the young reader. No doubt, improvement will be attempted, and probably made, on the work before us, but, in our opinion, no book, treating of the elementary principles of Geology, has ever yet appeared, so complete in itself, and so well adapted to the general reader, as the one whose title heads this article. We bespeak for it a large circulation, and hope Mr. Tenney will be well rewarded for his labor, and that his publishers will reap a rich harvest for the beautiful style with which they have adorned and made so attractive this valuable elementary treatise on Geology.

S.

A MOTHER'S INFLUENCE.

How touching the tribute of the Hon. T. H. Benton to his mother's influence:

"My mother asked me never to use tobacco; I have never touched it from that time to the present day. She asked me not to game; and I have never gambled, and I cannot tell who is winning and who is losing in games that can be played. She admonished me, too, against hard drinking; and whatever capacity for endurance I have at present, and whatever usefulness I may attain in life, I have attributed to having complied with her correct wishes. When I was seven years of age, she asked me not to drink; and then I made a resolution of total abstinence, at a time when I was sole constituent member of my own body, and that I have adhered to it through all time, I owe it to my mother."

SMOKING TESTED.-The Dublin Medical Press asserts that the pupils of the polytechnic school in Paris have recently furnished some curious statistics bearing on tobacco. Dividing the young gentlemen of that college into two groups-the smokers and non-smokers-it shows that the smokers have proved themselves in the varions competitive examinations, far inferior to the others. Not only in the examinations on entering the school are the smokers in a lower rank, but in the various ordeals that they have to pass through in a year, the average rank of the smokers had constantly fallen, and not inconsiderably, while the men who did not smoke were found to enjoy a cerebral atmosphere of the clearest kind.-Vt. Chronicle.

ENERGY.-The longer I live, the more certain I am that the great difference between men is energy-invincible determination -an honest purpose once fixed, and then death or victory. This quality will do anything that can be done in the world; and no talents, no circumstances, no opportunity, will make one man without it.-Belmont.

TUA ET MEA MAXIME INTEREST.

I was not a little amused, the other day, at a translation of the above sentence, given by one of the larger girls in my Latin Reader class. After saying that she had been more successful than usual in getting out the lesson, she pronounced the sentence, and then rendered it as follows: You and I are exceedingly interesting! at the same time closely eyeing me rather than the text-book. The other members of the class looked first at the teacher and then at the fair translator, evidently questioning both the literalness of the translation and the propriety of thus applying it. It was evident that they, too, claimed an interest in the mea, if not in the tua.

B.

THE SECRET OF ELOQUENCE.-I cwe my success in life to one single fact, viz: that at the age of twenty-seven, I commenced, and continued for years, the process of daily reading and speaking upon the contents of some historical and scientific book. These off-hand efforts were made, sometimes in a cornfield, at others in the forest, and not unfrequently in the distant barn, with the horse and ox for my auditors. It is to this great art of all arts that I am indebted for the primary and leading impulses that stimulated me forward, and shaped and molded my entire subsequent destiny. Improve, then, young gentlemen, the superior advantages you here enjoy. Let not a day pass without exercising your powers of speech. There is no power like that of oratory. Cæsar controlled men by exciting their fears; 'Cicero by captivating their affections and swaying their passions. The influence of the one perished with its author; that of the other continues to this day. Henry Clay.

From the Latin word pono are derived about 250 English words.-Worcester's Quarto Dictionary.

Truth is the property of God; the pursuit of truth is what belongs to man.