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I get a back-ground of my own, against which my thought begins to assume firm relief. That only deserves to be stigmatized as impractical, which is hazy, half, and insincere. It is high blasphemy to ridicule an enthusiastic man. presence is sacred; but that of the conservative is polluted. Of all the men of our calling, I love and honor most highly one who was once, as an innovator in grammar, hissed and hooted from a meeting of Rhode Island teachers and conservative officials. It occurred years ago, but he remembers the honor. Such valuable experience with mobs is rare.

The theorist seems, of late, in the esteem of

teachers, to have fallen deep into disrepute. There appears, too, to be some good reason for this state of things. That lank, hard-faced man, who is known to have in his travelling-bag a dozen lectures, averaging two hours in length, —who, like a hungry camp-sutler, trails after institutes, ready, for five dollars, to mount the rostrum, and utter forth to simple teachers endless verbiage of "solemn duty," "sacred responsibility," "noble calling," "cause of education," this hollow talker has usurped the name of theorist. May this whole species of theorizing be catalogued, as speedily as possible,

under the head of cant. The true theorist is

In so

For the Schoolmaster.
The City by the Sea.

Он, city by the sea!

What do thy dark waves say,

Of those who sought the distant seas,
From out thy harbor bay?
Oh! sea-girt shore!

From out thy harbor bay!
One little year ago,

It seemeth three to-day,

I saw the ship that bore you hence,
Sail down the harbor bay,
Sweet friend!

Sail down the harbor bay.

The blue waves murmured low
Of sunny isles afar!

I only heard your last good bye
Swell o'er the harbor bar;
Sweet friend!

Swell o'er the harbor bar.

God keep the sailor's soul
Pure as the sunlit sea.

He who can calm the ocean's wrath,
Will surely care for thee,
My friend !

Will surely care for thee.
Remember us, oh! Lord,
That in life's dusky even
Together we may cross the bar
Into the port of Heaven,
Dear Lord!

Into the port of Heaven.

M. C. P.

THE newspapers sometimes present us remarkable items. A Columbus paper, in its account of the Perry celebration at Cleveland, says, "the procession was very fine, and nearly two miles in length, as was also the prayer of Dr. Perry, the chaplain."

A Canada paper reports one of the Provincial mayors, in his address to the Prince of Wales, as follows: "In addition to this, his worship had to say that a procession of Orangemen, with dress or badges half a mile long, was awaiting his royal highness at the landing-place."

A Boston paper puts in the hands of each of the soldiers in a certain Georgia fort, "a breechloading carbine, throwing, in the hands of an

Colt's revolver and a sabre."

he who sees the clearest the possibilities of ed-expert marksman, sixteen rifle balls a minute, a ucation. He is therefore a genial man. far as school-keeping is a mere knack it re- AN applicant for a license to teach, in Ohio, quires no faith, no geniality. But education is defined pedagogue: "An unruly person; one a higher topic, for which self-trust and invincible perseverance are the most excellent qualifications.

who thinks too much of himself." We hope he did not receive the certificate, lest he might have felt it his duty to have verified his definition.

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The Ragged School movement is one the great ness and importance of which it is not possible to overrate; our highest admiration and praise

are due to the benevolence of the noble mind that suggested, promoted and carried it out, with such unexampled success, amidst the most overwhelming difficulties. What would our ancestors say, if they were to find us educating with tenderness and care the outcast and forlorn, the desolate, the neglected and destitute children with whom our cities and towns abound--the

ber of human beings, as they are also to the scholars themselves.

One word as to the title of these schools, which admirably conveys the idea intended. But it engenders in the minds of the scholars feelings of degradation. It keeps continually before their eyes their destitute and forlorn condition. It subdues those sentiments of self respect and

self-reliance which it is so essential to cultivate amongst the poor. It tends to make them discontented with their station, and induces them to believe that the finger of scorn is pointed at them as mere outcasts of society. It encourages those ideas that are familiar to all those who remember the old charity schools, which, in con

very lowest grades of society, the ragged, tattered sequence, were dignified with the high sounding appellation of "parochial." The same ideas and filthy urchins, boys and girls, who pour torth that now cause the widowed mother to hesitate

before she accepts a presentation for her boy or girl to a school where they will be marked by the dress of an old-fashioned cap and fustian

in swarms from our crowded courts, lanes and alleys, covered with vermin, emaciated with disease and starvation, blaspheming, swearing and pilfering all that comes before them-the companions of the most vicious and depraved? This gown, will prevent children, so distinguished, from entering familiarly into the play and amusegreat movement commends itself to our sympaments of their fellows. The true mode of dothy and support at all times, and he whose heart gives no response to such a work must be callousing charity is to avoid hurting the feelings, or,

indeed to the best instincts of our nature, and insensible to the strongest appeals of Christianity and philanthropy.

The advantages which society has reaped from the establishment of these schools are so great

it may be, the prejudices, of the recipient. And can we say that the feelings or prejudices of the poor honest boy or girl, whose clothing is no index to the workings of their little hearts, are not wounded, when meeting their playfellows on the way to the dignified "national” or “parochial” school, they recollect that they are the scholars of a “Ragged School." Lord Brougham, in his inaugural address at the last meeting of the Sorefuges, with morning, afternoon and evening ciety for Promoting Social Science, suggested an

that new ones are being opened daily all over the

country. Let us see what has been done in London alone. Here are 155 ragged schools and 15

ers.

Sabbath schools, and an average attendance of appropriate name for them. The idea is of a about 26,400 scholars. There are 146 week-day practical nature. His lordship says that "educaschools, with an average attendance of 15,457. tion, to be beneficial, should be combined with There are 200 week-night schools, averaging over practical industry." If this element is imported 9100, and there are 99 industrial classes, averag into the ragged schools-if the scholars are ing close upon 8750 scholars. There are over taught practically the elements or first principles 4300 voluntary teachers, 132 who were formerly of the trades or occupations they are to follow, scholars in ragged schools, and 416 paid teachthe ragged schools may very appropriately be The income is £29,280, and the expenses designated "industrial schools." Indeed, we are £29,252. We add, with regret, that there is a debt of £2122. 834 boys and 652 girls have been sent to situations from these schools. 76 penny banks are connected with them, in which 25,637 depositors have deposited £8888; and there are fifty clothing clubs, to which the scholTHERE has been considerable argument among ars and their friends have subscribed £592. grammarians in regard to the expressions first These figures speak for themselves. They are two" and "two first." Pat, in the following. facts that require no comment. Equally credita- seems to have settled the matter by a very hap"Och! an' what's yer honor ble to the noble and good man at the head of this Py compromise. great social movement, and to those united with goin' to give, seein' as it's myself that has saved yer house?" "How so, Pat?" "An' sure, him in raising the large sums required to carry when it cotched afire, was n't I the second that out the gigantic work of teaching so vast a num- hollered first? "'

find, on looking over the summary of the London ragged schools, that this element has been imported into some of them, and that the classes are very well attended, particularly by girls.

From the Connecticut Common School Journal.

The Teacher's True Mission.

Bad habits, in move

of the essential work. ment, in word, in expression, must be eradicaIr is well known, by all familiar with our ted, and good habits formed and confirmed. schools, that a large number of those who enDaily the teacher should watch to detect and gage in teaching fail of success, and, either labor to correct any deviations, no matter how continue in the work, adding failure to failure, trifling, whose further development would tend to mar one's character and impair his usefulness. How often are the pleasant and favorable impressions made upon us on our first meeting with persons, entirely removed and their influence over us lost by the subsequent discovery of some uncongenial or uncourteous modes of action or expression. A person may, in com

or, better for all concerned, devote their attention to some other calling. The business of teaching is too sacred to be trifled with, and too important in its intended results to be engaged in by incompetent persons. It should

therefore be the aim of all true friends of education to search out and remove all causes of failure, and open the way to higher and more pany, appear graceful, kind, amiable and intelcertain success. We believe that in the majority ligent, a model in speech and deportment, and of cases the primary cause of failure is a want yet, if in more private life, he allows himself to of appreciation of the true duties of the office. be overcome by some sudden ebullition of feelWith too many the whole mission of the in- ing, so that his acts and words shall be tinged structor seems to consist in the performance of thereby, how entirely will a knowledge of the latter case diminish the respect and esteem awakened by the former. And is it not true that many persons suffer during their life-time from the influence of unpleasant habits which might have been corrected by the watchful care and effort of parents or teachers.

a certain round of exercises, treadmill fashion. To spend a certain number of hours, daily, in the school-room, to listen to certain stereotyped lessons, and to preserve a tolerable state of order seems to constitute the entire work. But one may do all these and yet come far short of fulfilling the true mission of the teacher. As Let not the teacher feel that "hearing lessons" well might a man claim to be a sculptor who and "keeping school" are synonymous. It is should devote, daily, the usual hours of work the teacher's work so to train and direct the in hewing and cutting the senseless marble, minds of his pupils, as to guide their physical though each blow of the hammer should render development and so to expand and culture their the block on which he works more and more moral faculties as will tend to promote true unsuitable for the object for which it was in- growth of all that tends to the formation of tended. With no model in mind he works true men. Not only must he be able to teach without aim or method. If the artist would be his pupils how to learn, and encourage them in truly successful he must not only have in mind their efforts, but he must impart unto them, a correct ideal of what is to be done, but he daily, by example as well as precept, yea, more must also clearly understand each successive by example than by precept, those many kindly step to be taken in the development of the influences and graces which will do so much to model in mind. A slight misconception or a give true adornment to the character and make trifling deviation may render the work of months their possessors agreeable, as well as influential, utterly worthless. How much more important members of society. That the teacher may be that the teacher should both comprehend the successful in his efforts, he must carefully study nature and design of this work and possess the the peculiarities in the character and disposition ability to accomplish it in the best possible of each pupil, so that he may give unto each manner. And what is the teacher's work and "fitly spoken" words, uttered in "good season." what has the community a right to expect of And, moreover, as the teacher is

him?

co-worker

with parents, he should seek their acquaintance We answer, briefly, that the true mission of and coöperation, and learn what he may of the the teacher is to train and develop the mind, to home influences and surroundings of his pupils, mould the character, to cultivate the heart; in that knowing the true state and bearing of things a word, it is to make good citizens, useful and he may wisely direct his efforts.

loyal men and women. As helps in this direc- The community expects much of the teacher, tion, he must teach the various branches studied and rightly, too. If a man assumes any office in our schools, but these alone, though most under government, that government has a just thoroughly taught, will prove but a small part claim upon his time, his talents and his ener

From Temple Bar for May.
A Chapter on Quacks.

gies. He, for the time being, belongs to the gov-
ernment, and not, as some seem to imagine, the|
government to him. So the teacher belongs to the
community which employs his services, and that VARIOUS KINDS OF
community has a right to expect that his time,
his talents, and his energies, will be all applied
to efforts which will tend to the true improve-
ment and elevation of the youth intrusted to his
care. He is, in a measure, responsible for them,
and if he is truly faithful, when his term of ser-
vice expires he will surrender his charge im-
proved and rendered more valuable by his judi-
cious efforts and salutary influences.

Fellow teachers, will you not carefully examine into the nature of your work, comprehend clearly what your true mission is, and then enlist with that earnest and well directed enthusiasm which will be sure, under the bless

ing of God, to crown your labors with abund

ant success?

The Way the English Bring Up Children.

ble.

QUACKS AND THEIR PRETENSIONS.

THE CHARITABLE QUACK. Perhaps, of the two, the universal charity and brotherhood quack is more to be deprecated than the Puritan: he is more dangerous to the young, and infinitely more dishonest. When a man with glistening eyes, thick lids, moist lips and a smooth, soft smile, talks to me of charity and the supreme need of love-when he forgives every sin against purity, but is inexorable towards the follies of asceticism-when he accounts a lie less noxious than severity, and holds chastity as the lowest in the scale of human virtues-when such

a man sets universal tolerance over all other mor

al qualities, and speaks with oily charity of the fleshly frail, I count him a quack-one of the very hierarchs of quacks—and bid him go squatter among the gulls in the reedy marsh; he has no business here, out on the wide, pure ocean. When another, keen-eyed, thin-lipped, spare of flesh and bloodless, vaunts purity as the sole esser.tial and justice as the sole judgment—has no helping hand for the fallen, no word of pity for the penitent, no shout of encouragement for the failing-when such a man, who never felt his

uring out the iniquities of the frail, I bid him ton begone, like a ghost, from out the happy sunshine; let him cower back to the shadowy, spectre-world which brought him forth, and not judge here of sins of which he never compassed the temptation, or mete out penalties for those imperious desires of which he never felt the most transitory need.

THE English bring up their children very differently from the manner in which we bring up ours. They have an abundance of out-door air every day, whenever it is possible. The nursery maids are expected to take all the children out airing every day, even infants. This custom is becoming more prevalent in this country, and should be pursued wherever it is practica- pulses throb with quicker beat, or knew the headInfants should be early accustomed to the long force of passion, sits, cold and dry, measuropen air. We confine them too much, and heat them too much for a vigorous growth. One of the finest features of the London parks is said to be the crowds of nursery maids with their groups of healthy children. It is so with the promenades of our large cities to a great extent. but is less common in our country towns than what it should be. In consequence of their And the man whose thoughts are crystaltraining, English girls acquire a habit of walk-clear, without shadow or reflection, whose will is ing that accompanies them through life, and like a single bar of iron-single and of iron-who gives them a much healthier middle life than has no balancing of equal parts, who looks never our women enjoy. They are not fatigued with behind and never to either side when he would a walk of five miles, and are not ashamed to ride down the timid and hesitating-those with wear, when walking, thick-soled shoes fitted for loving hearts wistful to harbor all-those with the dampness they must encounter. Half of eager hands willing to bear many burdens, and the consumptive feebleness of our girls results grieving to be obliged to drop one-when he defrom the thin shoes they wear, and the cold nies the many sideness of life, and insists on the feet they must necessarily have. English child- straight course always and without turning-I ren, especially girls, are kept in the nursery, send him too away to his home of stalactite cave and excluded from fashionable society and all and granite rock; he is a quack like the rest, the frivolities of dress, at the age when our girls and no teacher of living truth. Because the are in the very heat of flirtation, and thinking black pine throws a single shadow, straight and only of fashionable life.-Connecticut Common sharp upon the snow, must the aspen be forbidden to flicker golden light upon the grass and flowers?

School Journal.

199

THE LITERARY QUACK.

thunderbolt in his hand, he is the Jupiter Tonans What matters it to him that the

THE EDUCATIONAL QUACK.

A

Then there is the quack literary, whose vessel of his order. is empty, for its own part, but who borrows the writer has for years toiled with good, hard, honwine of another man's vintage, which he filters est, unsparing work to perfect that book of his ? through it, drop by drop, till it gains a kind of What matters it if every part has been well verisecond-hand flavor of the grape which imposes fied, every assertion dug up from its roots ? on the uninitiated; who knows absolutely nothing dash of the pen, a flourish of the inky thunderby original education, and must read up for bolt, and the author lies at the foot of the throne, every paltry article as it is ordered; who talks smirched and scorched. The world which reads of his hard work, and bemoans himself as a does not know that the writer of that hostile reslave of the press, if he gives a couple of days view calculated his work by its money-worth to clothing with his own words another man's only, that he knew nothing whatever of the subject researches, and the facts which have taken years but what he found in the book itself, and that his to collect and collate; who steals thoughts as sole object was to write a telling article which audaciously as a jackdaw steals spoons, and should insure his re-employment. never knew what it was to do a day's independent digging in the literary mine; who is perpetually trying to make bricks without straw and to weave cloth without thread; who writes for just so much the line, without having anything to say, and carries his brains to market as a farmer's wife carries her eggs; he, too, swaggers noisily through his class-room, and chalks up the apotheosis of quackery on the black-board above his head; he, too, lives on shams and lies, and deals in paste and gamboge in lieu of the healing condiments of nature. Not infrequently the quack literary is seen in high places; for he has the climbing faculty of the ape, and can gather himself into a smaller space than a full-grown As a rule, he is amusing, and can buzz pleasantly on a summer's evening to a great man's ear; for he has cultivated the art of storytelling, has a trifle of accomplishments, and, if he worked half as hard for his salvation as he does for a dinner-table reputation, the world would see a saint in human flesh, and heaven be the richer for one more sinless soul.

man.

His friend and cousin is the quack educational, of whom there are many varieties. There is, first, the man who undertakes to teach you a foreign language in six lessons; who has always a royal road to learning on his estate, where Parnassus is a mole hill which a child may jump over, or a bowling-green set round with lamps ready lighted to show you the way to the arbor at the upper end. Then there is the phrenological and moral suasion quack, who would do all by appealing to what he calls the coronal region; who reads Solomon's rough-handed advice as a nineteenth-century exhortation for such tender dealing as mothers' hearts delight in, and speaks loftily of the degraded honor of a whipped boy of seven; who constructs a system of education out of the depths of his inner consciousness, and never pauses to inquire if it suits with the nature and requirements of youth or no. And there is the quack on the muscular Christianity basis, who travesties a noble truth and makes ridiculous what was originally sublime; who The quack literary is a good listener, and great gives to schoolboy games a religious significance, in the power of adaptation. He can take a sub- and makes the play-ground of more importance ject out of your own mouth, adopt the informa- than the class-room or the study; whose end and tion you yourself have given him not a moment aim of masculine education is a manly bearing before, put it into new shape, dress it in new at football, and who ranks a good batter or a clothes, and dandle it before your eyes so deftly swift stroke before a Smith's prizeman or a transformed that you do not know your own double first; who places animal force higher again, and break out into pæans on his exceeding than brain power, and makes muscle of more acOften count than mind. And there is the home-eduability, and the soundness of his views. have I marvelled at the ease with which men are cation quack, who talks sweetly of maternal incaught by the novelty and beauty of their own fluence and feelingly of school-temptations, and reflections, with the tags and ribbons changed, would not have the young spirit sullied by the and how little intellectual capital beyond quick-world, and holds to the maiden purity of the ness and assurance it needs to set a man up in heart before every other quality or circumstance full swing as a literary quack. of boyhood, flattering the mother's vanity and

But it is as a critic that he shines in the bright- feeding her weakness, by assuming that no othest splendor of his phosphorescent light. Seated er mother's son is pure or noble enough to assoon the throne of judgement, and with his inky ciate with hers, and that a special setting was

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