most eloquent orator of the country could im- have their rights, teachers also have theirs, and part. 'My John," and "our Susan" have there need be no collision. more charus than Beecher, Chapin or Cheever. Exhibitions are cheats, then? Not by any Fourth. Exhibitions are time-savers instead means. The scholars show the talent they have of time-wasters. What is the matter, Mr. Ob- acquired for elocution. and nothing but these jector? Is that too bad even for a secessionist? "fitted up places" will show that talent. The Instead of spending three or four weeks presteam guage does not show the power of the paring for exhibition, and losing that amount of engine when but half the steam is on, neither time, I make it a point to get all the time devo- does that scholar display his powers of elocuted to declamation and exhibitions extra. It tion who opens a reader and for the first time must all be done at home. I have known of reads Webster's Liberty and Union." The exhibitions where not a single piece or a single exhibition does not represent the regular school page was learned in school. We have already exercise, and all know that it does not. If they seen its application to reading. If, then, the have not interest enough in the school to visit declamations and dialogues are learned at home, it, I was about to say they ought to be cheated the most important part of the reading lesson is in relation to it, but I am so duli I cannot see learned out of school, and so much time gained. how the exhibition does this. At the end of the term the several pieces learned during its progress may be rehearsed in public, with perhaps a few additions suited to the occasion. In conclusion, I must say I can but admire the consistency of those who denounce the system of exhibitions. If their practice of having two exhibitions to my one is not a striking illustration of their theory, I should like much to know what would be. UNUS. Centreville, June 3d, 1861. In relation to the theatrical objection I have but few words to say. The same objection would apply to a man chopping wood, or a woman pounding clothes in actual life; for those PHYSICAL CONSTITUTION OF THE SUN. - The real scenes are but mocked in the theatre. The opinion has long prevailed, that the sun is a school does not imitate the vices but the virtues dark globe, invested with two immense enveof the theatre. If my scholars were speaking lopes, the inner one being an atmosphere of an extract of "Damon and Pythias," I should sombre clouds, and the outer one a gaseous, esteem it the highest praise to have them com- self-luminous source of light and heat. Externpared to the great men of the stage. Sin is sin al to these is supposed to be a third envelope, wherever found, out of the church or in it, and formed of an accumulation of roseate clouds. good is good though it be buried beneath the The spots so frequently seen on the solar disc, ugliest mass of rubbish that ever was thrown have been attributed to openings through the together. Let me refer the theatrical objector exterior coverings, exposing the dark atmosto Sprague's lines upon "The Stage," commencing phere within them. M. Leverrier, in his report on the recent solar eclipse, expresses the opin"Lo! where the stage, the poor, degraded stage," ion that the greater part of these envelopes are only fictions. The sun he regards as a luminous that he may see what is objectionable in the body, liquid or solid, covered by an atmosphere theatre, and I think he will cease to condemn of roseate matter and possessing a very high exhibitions from their resemblance to it. If the temperature, thus falling within the law comteacher is desirous that the girls should not mon to the constitution of celestial bodies. M. dress for the occasion, request them to act in Fage and Baron Feilitsch, in their reports to accordance with that desire, and the dress ob- the French Academy, state, however, that the jection will vanish. I witnessed an exhibition eclipse of 1860 furnishes the most decisive evirecently, where not a single white dress appear- dence that the corona and luminous clouds are ed to shock the objector to muslin. optical illusions, and are not due to the essential Parents objecting to the exhibition would be constitution of the sun, or of his atmosphere. a valid objection if there were enough of them. The former of these eminent physicists even But I will warrant, for a very small sum, any goes so far as to affirm that a comparison of the teacher in New England less than three in a results of various observers seems to confirm country district. If any object, let them have the opinion, that the central luminary of our the privilege of staying at home with their pro- system has no atmosphere whatever, and that geny upon the evening in question, Parents the appearances recorded are purely optical, Natural Science. COMMUNICATIONS for this Department should be addressed to I. F. CADY, Warren. For the Schoolmaster. to particle, producing a regular series of undulations, which, on reaching the nerves of the retina of the eye, produce the sensation of light in a manner analagous to that in which vibrations of air produce that of sound; and that, as the frequency of the vibrations of the air determine the pitch of sound, so the frequency of the undulations of this elastic medium determines the color of the light. Ir is a remarkable fact, that while the various phenomena of light constitute some of the most Contradictory as these two theories seem to be, interesting and important subjects of study and it appears that most of the important phenomena investigation afforded by the material universe, the of light can be satisfactorily explained in accordresearches of the profoundest philosophers have ance with either. It is not our present purpose, still left us in ignorance respecting its true char- however, to consider the arguments by which atacter. Familiar as we all are with it as the means tempts have been made to support them, or with of vision, and the source of the innumerable shades which they have been respectively assailed. What of color that constitute the crowning charm of ex- we have said is intended as preparatory to a few ternal nature; bathed as we are with its exhaust- things bearing upon the novel subject at the head less floods, which come pouring around us with of this article. imperceptible flow from its great central source; According to the Newtonian theory, the constant gazing at it with wondering delight as it speeds emanation of light from the sun must be attended along its twinkling way from some far-off star, with a loss of matter which must, in the course of whence it has just reached us with tidings of past time, seriously diminish its bulk, unless the waste centuries; or starting at the blinding flash which is in some way supplied. In this relation the exglares an instant in the murky storm-cloud and istence and use of aerolites, or metoric stones, bethen is gone forever; - indispensable as we know come a subject of interesting study. The source it is, not only to our comfort and convenience, but of these bodies cannot be made a matter of demonto our very existence and to the existence of all organic life, the fact that we are still unable to tell what it is, is well calculated, at least, to teach us a salutary lesson of humility. stration. Some philosophers have argued, with much plausibility, that those which frequently fall upon various portions of the earth were originally thrown from volcanoes existing in the moon. They In treating of the nature of light, all that the contend that a projectile force capable of effecting best philosophers have been able to do is merely a velocity of less than eight thousand feet per seto theorize. The principles of the two leading cond would be sufficient to overcome the resistance theories, viz.: the corpuscular or Newtonian theo- of the moon's atmosphere and bring a body, prory and the undulatory theory, which is the theory jected from the moon, within the limit of the supemost extensively adopted at the present day, are rior attractive force of the earth. On the contrary, generally familiar. According to the former, light a theory, with which we met several years ago, reconsists of inert particles of matter, which are gards meteoric stones as consisting of condensed projected or emitted from all luminous bodies, in solar light, the particles of which have been made straight lines, in every direction, with the velocity to unite, by their inherent attractive force, in the of about two hundred thousand miles in a second; remote regions of space, and to form nuclei which that these particles are possessed of varying at-will be brought back to the sun by its superior attractive and repulsive forces; that vision is excited traction, and, falling again into its bosom, will by these particles impigning upon the retina of the supply the waste occasioned by its incessant emaeye, and that the sensations of the various colors, nation of light. These bodies will, of course, with which we are familiar, depend upon the de- sometimes fall upon the surface of the earth and gree of inertia existing in the particles; those the other planets, when, in returning towards the whose inertia is greatest producing the sensation sun, they pass sufficiently near to come within the of red, and those whose inertia is least producing sphere of an attractive power superior to that of the sensation of violet, while all intermediate colors the sun. Another, and what is regarded as a more are produced by intermediate degrees of inertia. probable theory, is, that there exists in space chaAccording to the undulatory theory all space and all otic matter "in detached particles, or perhaps conintervals between the molecules of material bodies siderable masses." These will obviously be subare pervaded by an "excessively rare, subtle and ject to the attractive influences by which they are elastic medium"; that this medium, possessing surrounded, and will obey the strongest acting upinertia but not gravity, opposes no resistance to on them at any given time. When the earth, in planetary motion; that the molecules of this its passage along its orbit comes into a certain de"ether" are susceptible of being set in motion by gree of proximity to any of them, they will be the agitation of the particles of “ponderable mat- made to fall upon its surface. If they are not arter"; that this motion is propagated from particle rested in their progress through space, they will But another method of feeding the sun, which we should, perhaps, not be likely to expect, is indicated in the following, which we quote from the Annual of Scientific Discovery for 1861: eventually find their way to the sun and become probability of the future absorption of comets by its feeders. When they fall upon the earth they the sun is important as connected with a very inwill acquire a velocity proportioned to the distance teresting speculation by Prof. William Thompson, through which they may have passed after coming who has suggested that the light and heat of the within the sphere of terrestrial gravitation. This sun may be from time to time replenished by the velocity is often so great as to cause them to take falling in and absorption of countless meteors which fire on plunging into our atmosphere, and the cha- circle round him; and here we have a cause revealotic matter of which they consist may be entirely ed which may accelerate or produce such an event." consumed before they reach the surface of the earth. 'On the first of September last. at eighteen In this case, of course no aerolite will be found, minutes past eleven, A. M., a distinguished astroalthough a meteor of the most brilliant character nomer, Mr. Carrington, had directed his telescope may have made its appearance. to the sun, and was engaged in observing his spots, when suddenly two intensely luminous bodies burst into view upon its surface. They moved side by side through a sphere of about 35,000 miles, first increasing in brightness, then fading away; in five "Of all the phenomena of the heavens, there minutes they had vanished. They did not alter are none which excite more general interest than the shape of a group of large black spots which comets, and though the larger and brighter comets lay directly in their paths. Momentary as this renaturally excite most general public interest, and markable phenomena was, it was fortunately witare really valuable to astronomers, as exhibiting nessed and confirmed, as to one of the bright appearances which tend to throw light on the in- lights, by another observer, Mr. Hodgson, at Highternal structure of these bodies, and the nature of gate, who, by a happy coincidence, had also his the forces which must be in operation to produce telescope directed to the great luminary at the the extraordinary phenomena observed, yet some same instant. It may be, therefore, that these two of the smailer telescopic comets are, perhaps, more gentlemen have actually witnessed the process of interesting in a physical point of view. Thus the feeding the sun, by the fall of metoric matter; but, six periodical comets, the orbits of which have however this may be, it is a remarkable circumbeen determined with tolerable accuracy, and which stance that the observations at Kew show that on return at stated intervals, are extremely useful, as the very day, and at the very hour and minute of being likely to disclose the facts of which, but for this unexpected and curious phenomenon, a modthem, we should possibly have ever remained igno. erate but marked magnetic disturbance took place; rant. Thus, for example, when the comet of Encke, and a storm, or great disturbance of the magnetic which performs its revolution in a period of a lit- clements, occurred four hours after midnight, extle more than three years, was observed at each tending to the southern hemisphere. return, it disclosed the important and unexpected hibited a seeming connection between magnetic fact, that its motion was continually accelerated. phenomena and certain actions taking place on the At each successive approach to the sun it arrives sun's disk, -a connection which the observations at its perihelion sooner and soouer; and there is of Schwabe, compared with the maguetical records no way of accounting for this so satisfactory as of our colonial observatories, had already renderthat of supposing that the sphere in which the ed nearly certain." planetary and cometary motions are performed is everywhere pervaded by a very rarified atmosphere PETERSON'S MAGAZINE.-The July number of or ether, so thin as to exercise no perceptible effect this popular monthly is already on our table. In on the movements of massive solid bodies, like the addition to its usual quantity of stories, poetry, planets, but substantial enough to exert a very im- household receipts, steel engravings, fashion plates, portant influence on more attenuated substances and patterns for the work-table, it contains two moving with great velocity. The effect of the re- splendid colored patterns, one of which is a "Stars sistance of the ether is to retard the tangential and Stripes" Bed-Quilt. Every lady ought to motion, and to allow the force of gravity to draw have a number, so as to work one of these quilts. the body nearer to the sun, by which the dimen. As a new volume begins with July, this is a good sions of its orbit are continually contracted and opportunity to subscribe. The price of Peterson the velocity in it augmented. The final result will is only two dollars a year, or a dollar less than be that, after the lapse of ages, the comet will fall magazines of its class. It is just the one, thereinto the sun; this body, a mere hazy cloud, con- fore, for the times. To clubs the terms are cheaper tinually flickering, as it were, like a celestial moth still, viz.; three copies for five dollars, or eight round the great luminary, is at some distant peri- copies for ten dollars, with a superb premium to od destined to be mercilessly consumed. Now the the person getting up a club. Address Charles J. discovery of this ether is deeply interesting as Peterson, 306 Chestnut street, Philadelphia. Spe bearing upon other important physical questions, cimens sent gratis to persons desirous of getting such as the undulatory theory of light; and the up clubs. Thus is ex 1. F. C. Editors' Department. from us our common rights and our peace. They THE SCHOOLMASTER has thus far kept on the They summoned from their ranks their proudest even tenor of its way, while the outer world seems heroes several thousands, and with unwonted hurrying on to a climax of revolution. It has not prowess, took and caused to surrender seventy even intimated whether it would stand by the Un-weak and starving men, by setting fire to their ion and Constitution, whether it would hang the sleeping apartments and allowing no chance to exold "stars and stripes" on the outer wall, and tinguish the flames. This act of bravery was hershout for liberty and the sacred principles of our alded far and wide and caused their foul ensigns country or whether it secretly creeps behind the to flap their traitorous folds in the wind, heavy heel of a would-be military despotism, and would cannon sound, and bells chimed forth the hymn of rear a rag of bunting bearing a half matured cab a noted victory. Now to complete the unwonted bage, and the portrait of a poisonous worm. Our audacity, their imaginary king seizes the halyards daily and weekly press and literary journals have and mid the shouts of his allies. he binds the black been full of all these expressions of civil and po- flag of piracy to the masts of his minion commerce, titical econemy. THE SCHOOLMASTER would how- and sets his emissaries forth to prey upon the wea ever modestly say that it is wholly devoted to the ther-beaten mariners of every sea. Should we interests of the whole country. Given to the work grow listless in the work of recovering our liberof spreading general intelligence abroad, it feels ties, let the scathing memories of a Sumter, the also that scattering the sparks of patriotism is not black flag of piracy, and! must we record it! the beyond its legitimate duties. Being the education-manner of the untimely fall of our gallant young al organ of our State, it is also an organ through hero, the immortal Ellsworth, spur us on to victory which a variety of notes can be struck. It would or death. be faithless to its mission did it not declare openly its sympathy and all its energies to swell the tide of patriotism which has been set in motion by our gallant Governor first, and hurried on by the ready flight of armed patriots to our country's call. May these pages be blank with shame when a word shall forth from the broad gulf to the pleasant valleys escape which dims the glory of our patriot sires, or debases the trust they have bequeathed to us. Rather than the traitor shall blight the fair name we have written upon our country's scroll, or snatch the precious liberties which have reared us, let every schoolmaster gird on the armor, be he ever so unused to its galling weight, and fight till the last Of the latter gentleman we have not the pleadrop of warm life shall cease to flow. Speak out sure of more than a passing acquaintance. Of your sentiments, sing them in the synagogue, the former we have many pleasant memories in chant them in the furrow, shout them in the fields, store. We regret to lose his pleasant and genial teach them in the day school, and catechise the influence so fully extended to all in the cause of little ones around the domestic hearth stone, until public learning. He has been a faithful steward Soon may the olive branch of peace move on our pleasant hill tops, and the booming of hostile cannon die away upon the shores, while one universal anthem of united brotherhood shall swell of the Aroostook. By the reports of the doings of the legislature at Newport, it will be seen that the present incumbent of the office of School Commissioner is to be succeeded by Mr. Rousmaniere, of Warwick. the lisping babe shall learn to prattle the songs of in the work has entered heart and soul into the God-given liberty. Write on your door plates, work- and we trust has won the entire confidence "Death to traitors," and on the bells of your of all true lovers of our public schools. He leaves houses, "Liberty and Union, now and forever, a host of ardent admirers. He has done a vast one inseparable." Raise the dear old flag on eve- amount of work for our schools, and it has been ry house-top, let the school-houses spread cach its well done. own banner, let the little bare-footed urchins scream a thousand cheers for its blood-bought| beauties, let the old and the asthmatic cough out a of the School Committee of Boston for 1860 and WE have received a copy of the Annual Report cheer for its glory. 1861. This has much able matter relating to the Banish all party strife, rally around the old interests of all public schools. It speaks very enstandard, and let a united people set pale fear couragingly of the present efficient system in that among the miscreant leaders of secession. What enterprising city. This report also embodies the more can we need to set our teeth on edge. For usual reports of the Superintendent, some of which thirty years we have bowed in submission to these we have already noticed at length. There is nothoverreaching demands. They have stolen num- ing too arduous or too self-denying for Boston peoberless millions from the common stores of our ple to do for their schools, hence their prosperity country; they have, with suicidal rage, shorn them- in every other direction. Pinch the buds and you selves of all protection by attempting to wrest fade the flower. Annual Report of the School Committee of by the pupiis, are the evidence, "in black and Providence. white," of their diligence, intelligence and skill, and no less of their teachers' care and fidelity in [WE are happy to present to our readers entire, their work. The general neatness of these papers the Annual Report of the School Committee of arrested our attention and deserves our special Providence to the City Council June, 1861. We commendation. 64 will not attempt to remark upon the fidelity, the| By these unmistakable results of the High conciseness, the evidence of a thorough knowledge and Grammar School studies, and preeminently of our school system, and its wants, which is here of the former, -we are warranted in expressing displayed. In our opinion it is a model document:] the opinion that the standard of mental culture is "To the Honorable the City Council of the City of rising appreciably in these schools. Excellent beProvidence: fore, they are becoming more excellent still,—to "Gentlemen: The undersigned, to whom the the credit of the teachers, to the encouragement School Committee entrusted the duty of preparing of the school committee, and to the reward of your its Annual Report to your honorable body, have honorable body, as the almoner of the municipal found their task so well and so comprehensively bounty, which creates and nourishes them. anticipated in the last quarterly report of the Superintendent of our public schools, that they have little else to do than to present that paper to you, with some introductory words. "The suggestions in the Superintendent's report, concerning the mistake of too much government in our Primary Schools, will commend themselves to your approbation, and, we hope, will in"The school year, which was brought to a close fluence directly and impressively, the inexperiencwith the examinations held last month, has been ed among teachers, and those also, whom not inmarked, we think, by as much gratifying improve- experience, but confirmed bad habit in this respect, ment, and by as litlle untoward experience, as any has involved in the serious embarrassments of exsingle year in the history of the public school sys-cessive government. tem of our city. "A glance at the statistics of the last educa"It would be easy, though perhaps it is quite tional year shows an average attendance of more unnecessary, to present the evidence of striking than seven thousand scholars in our forty-eight advances, during the past twelvemonth, in all the schools. The education of this multitude of childessential characteristics of efficient education. ren and youth for that period, (exclusive of money Some of these advances have been in the great paid out upon school buildings,) has cost about work of classification, which is that careful and sixty thousand dollars. Thus it appears that the exact grading of the schools, by means of which, admirable education afforded by our school system, they are to be brought into such harmony of stud-costs but a little over eight dollars a year for each ies and processes, that a pupil leaving one school pupil. We know not where this degree of econofor another will experience no disadvantage from my is matched, without the concomitant of a lower style of instruction. It is cause of just pride, we think, that excellence and cheapness are so strikingly and exceptionally combined in our system of public education. the transition. A labor so important as this, cannot be achieved in a year; and while much has been done, and the system of complete classification matured, the details of it are only growing into a perfected re- "A decided step forward in our school economy, sult. The past year has, among its acceptable made during the past year, was the provision for fruits, a generous share of this desirable progress. physical exercise in the High School. A building A more correct deportment, and a higher rank of was erected upon its premises, and appropriate scholarship, are the manifest benefits of careful gymnastic exercises have been freely indulged in gradation. by the pupils, and fostered by teachers and the committee. More attention than usual has been paid in all our schools, we believe, to this indispensable branch of culture, and we augur favorably for the increased mental development of the pupils from this bodily training. "Our inspection of the written questions, which, at the May examinations, were presented to the pupils of the High School, and also to the Grammar School candidates for admission to that institution, led us to apprehend a decrease in the aver age percentage of accuracy in the written answers. "Some of the old topics of our thoughtful and The questions were of a more difficult and complex judicious predecessors in this work of reporting character than heretofore, especially in arithmetic to your honorable body, might recur here, without and history; and had the answers fallen off in cor- the risk of obtruding themselves too frequently. rectness, a tenth part of last year's average, we Of these, are the obligations of parents to the should have been slow to regard them as exhibit- schools; the absenteeism of pupils; the importing inferior scholarship. As it is, and we are high-ance of increased school-room accommodation; ly gratified in remarking it, the average of excel- the evil of vagrancy among children in the city lence in these written examinations is considerably who ought to be in the schools. These incidental advanced; and the voluminous papers prepared evils are gradually ameliorating; but under the |