acter, he was endowed by nature with consider- bly better prepared than those of native mutes, able strength of mind, and wrote good gram- excluding John Carlin. A school over-crowdmar. Mr. Hawks would have been one of the ed by hearing children is not a bad affair; they greatest portrait painters in the country, but for go home after school, and have the advantage the narrowness of his circumstances. There is of the company of those they love. But, on on exhibition at the Philadelphia Institution, a the contrary, deaf-mutes from different parts of picture of an Indian chief, drawn by him, which the country, must be brought together like a is pronounced by all who see it, to be no ordi- family, in an institution established expressly nary achievement for a person laboring under for them. In a crowded school, their living tosuch difficulties. I "grieve to say" (to quote gether will only lead to quarrels and recriminathe favorite expression of Thackeray,) that he tions. To improve the mind under such cirworks at shoe-making. But, notwithstanding cumstances is out of the question. During an his occupation, he posseses a most prolific ima- experience of twelve years, I have remarked the gination, and has little or no difficulty in ren- utter impossibility of disciplining, in a crowddering his discourses ed school, the mind which had lain dormant for ten or twelve years. A school for mutes, comprising say one hundred children, would lead to highly beneficial results. I advise, therefore, the legislature of Massachusetts to establish a "From grave to gay, from lively to severe." Miss Ellen J. Martin, who died young, was considered one of the most elegant mute lady writers in the country. Nay, more: she would mute school within the limits of that State, in achave risen to the highest perfection in literature, cordance with the request of the Boston mutes. if it had not been for her early death. Her Should the good work be accomplished, let it be beautiful letter was published in Godey's Lady's borne in mind that Massachusetts owes it to the Book for October, 1858. Mr. Joseph Seager deaf-dumb community to abolish the practice of was elected recorder of deeds by the people of employing mute teachers at a low rate of comLehigh County, Pa.; being the first mute callpensation, which obtains in most of the Ameried to office by the votes of an intelligent people. can schools. These remarkable mutes were the earliest pu- that a deaf gentleman was employed in a mute It may be proper here to remark pils of the Philadelphia Institution; that is to institution as an assistant teacher, but becoming say, they entered it when it was a small school. disgusted with the low wages which his infirmity, in the judgment, as they called it, of his small school. If they had been cooped up by speaking friends and associates, conferred upon the walls of a crowded school, they of course him a perfect title to, abandoned his situation could not have bestowed a single thought upon and turned his attention to the fishing trade. the merits requisite to form a useful member of This day he boasts a large fortune, and what is society. It may be said, on the authority of more, his children are well dressed and well the reports of the New York school, that, with educated. a family of over three hundred children, this So much for the influences which operate in a The proceedings of the trustees of mute instiestablishment produces, every year, quite a tutions are generally characterized by a gross large number of excellent scholars. I happen ignorance of the peculiar structure of the mute to be wiser than the many who profess to know mind, and of its severe struggles with the imall about the affairs of the New York school, pediments of nature in acquiring knowledge. in knowing that ninety per cent. of the superior It is "amazing to me" (as Swift has it) that scholars, so called, about whom that school they presume to dictate as to the system of edmakes so much ado, are semi-mutes, and had ucating the mute mind. No one who has never the advantage of a common-school education studied the science of teaching, can tell what a before they entered the New York Institution. deaf child can learn. For the deaf-dumb, such As a general thing, semi-mutes, aided by an one is not a desirable specimen of teachers. their knowledge of sound, make rapid progress A school crammed full with mute children of in the acquisition of written language; whereas all ages is, in terrible truth, a Babel of minds. it requires a world of application on the part When shall we have a small school for these of born-mutes, to enable their minds to look unfortunates? Let Massachusetts move in the through a subject and discern all its various matter at once. bearings and relations. Whoever reads the Guide, cannot fail to observe that the communications furnished by semi-mutes are invaria-lis. INTELLECT is not the moral power; conscience Elephant Hunting. AN ELEPHANT KILLed. quite audibly. He had discovered the danger, but either had not the sense to warn me, or had become too frightened to speak. It was by folHAVING gained the foot of the hill where the lowing the man's fixed and frightened gaze that brutes were last seen, I sent two natives ahead I first became conscious of our unpleasant sitand up the hill to reconnoitre. A low whistle- uation. To rise to my feet to clear, with a the signal to advance - was soon heard, which tremendous leap, the first bush that obstructed quickly brought me alongside of the scouts. The my flight, was but the work of a moment. The elephants were still almost on the spot where brutes pursued me instantly, and I was obliged they had been first seen, but I could only make to abandon precipitately a second ambush I had out two. Putting fresh priming and caps to my taken up. The troop at last stopped, and folrifle, and ramming the bullet well home, I drop-lowing their example, I dropped flat behind a ped noiselessly down the rock accompanied by bush. The whole herd was now facing me, disone of my own Damaras, who carried a spare tant only a hundred yards. What with their gun. The rest of the party were instructed to small, peering, mischievous-looking eyes, flapremain quietly in their safe hiding-place. A ping ears, elevated trunks, etc., their appearance couple of minutes' walk brought me within was altogether most fierce and threatening. I range of one of the elephants, and, the cover was more than once in the act of pulling the being admirable, I advanced to within about trigger at the foremost cow, but was afraid, feeltwenty-five paces of the spot where he stood. ing certain that if she received the shot, even He was then somewhat aslant from me, but should it prove fatal, the entire body of them soon turned to me his broadside. Some min- would once more be at my heels. While in this utes, however, elapsed before I could make out dilemma, they suddenly wheeled right about. the exact position of his shoulder. I once at- This was my time, and I instantly fired at the tempted to get a little ahead of him, but soon original leader. The act proved a rash one. found my situation less favorable than before, With a shill and heart-piercing trumpeting, and, therefore, stuck to my first post. With my the beasts charged down upon me furiously. heavy rifle (carrying steel-pointed conical bul- Those who know what it is to run for one's life, lets, three to the pound,) ready poised in my can easily imagine that I did my best to outstrip hand, and a double-barrelled smooth-bore, rea- my pursuers. The rifle, a heavy one, considerdy cocked, on the ground beside me, I anxious-ably impeded my progress; but the shorter the ly waited for a chance to fire. I wanted him to distance became between me and my foes, the move a step or two forward, when I knew his tighter I grasped my weapon. For some seconds shoulder must be fully exposed. Suddenly he my escape seemed more than doubtful; but, prodid so, and as quickly I covered his heart, the videntially, just as I was almost out of breath, jungle reechoing the next instant with an ex- the elephants stopped short in their chase. Had plosion of twelve drachms of Hall's best rifle they but followed for another fifty yards, depowder. The effect was deadly. With a fright-struction would have been inevitable, for I had ful rush forward (it was the most tremendous to cross a considerable open space.-- Andersson's plunge I have ever witnessed by any wild ani- African Travels. mal,) he fell prostrate within about one hundred and fifty yards of my place of ambush. SHE ELEPHANTS. UNSPOKEN LANGUAGE. - How much expression can be given and exchanged by a grasp of the hand or a glance of the eye! The soft presI had crept up to within less than thirty paces sure of the hand is far more sympathetic than of a noble cow, and was only waiting for the words. An intercourse with those we regard brute to present some eligible point to fire at, bearing silent yet powerful evidence of that unwhen, while thus watching her movements, two speakable love which exists in the depths of others had, unperceived, approached me from our nature, most eloquent when the tongue is behind, and, before I became aware of their silent. A warm pressure of the hand can be nearness to me, were actually only about fifteen understood by all, young and old; the univeryards from where I sat. Indeed, they would sal voice of nature needs no interpreter. The probably have been upon me in a second or two power of love is too deep and too sacred to be had I not chanced to cast my eyes on my native adequately expressed in words; being, in fact, attendant, who was crouched alongside of me in a foreshadowing of that more spiritual commu. fear and trembling, with his teeth chattering nion which will exist hereafter, FELLOW TEACHERS: Allow me to read you a brief report on "INTUITIVE INSTRUCTION." ly trained; they were governed, not by the rod, but by the intellectual superiority they felt. At a latter period you would have found me, a book in one hand, in the other the rod; a little tyrant among dull, lazy and inattentive urchins ! I am severe, friends - let the heart atone for what the lips perpetrate! But may we glance again upon our view in If we compare our schools with those of oth-Germany, just as gloomy. When five or six years old, the child entered the school. "For months, perhaps for years, he was kept poring over the A, B, C's; the poor child was made a dunce, and left the school with little more intelligence than is shown by the dumb animal,"t er countries- painful as it may be to us-we are compelled to assert: great is the work on our part for their deliverance from mechanism and forms not according to knowledge. While they contain much that is peculiar to American institutions, hence as favorable to the true de-a victim of wrong education! But here, then, emerged that "ever remarkable man!"‡ velopment of correct education as to the development of the noble and free institutions of State; yet, there is much that is the result of limited experience, and will require the labor of years to engraft such principles as will ultimately triumph in the cause of education. But let us put our trust in God, as He manifests Himself through the instrumentality of man. His heart longs for the abolishing of the poor child's torment, and his intellect pencils that famous and exciting course of instruction, while his spirit ventures the struggle against darkness and public prejudice. Willingly as he invests heart and intellect, he sacrifices his worldly treasure to the poor children to whom he is a teacher and a father, in both a bodily and spiritual Look back to Germany a century ago, the sense, when the French war, which was a decradle of Pestalozzi? Look, and you will be-vastation to the land, rendered them orphans. hold a striking similitude between things found Misjudged by a prejudiced world, he dies; once there at that period, and as they exist in our favored with worldly treasures, now dies this country at the present. "Erroneous views," man even so poor as to be left to a few friends, as to education were the same there then, as who were compelled to pay his funeral expenses! are so "widely prevalent at this late day in our Who is this singular man? Go, where you country," as illustrated by the article of "Am- find a mother instructing a bright child from icus" in the Iowa Instructor.* And in speak-How Gertrude teaches her children,"§ anding further, in the language of that able con- Pestalozzi!" lisps the Louth of that little tributor to our journal of the "State Teachers' one; 'Pestalozzi!" in golden letters bears Association," "You might have asked the thou- the sign of every school where your eyes meet sands of children in the primary schools as to a troop with bright eyes and smiling faces, dewhat is education, and they would have prompt- sirous of learning; "Pestalozzi!" shouts every ly answered, Education is to read, write and live teacher. "Pestalozzi!" proudly exclaim cipher,'" Education, you would have found, his countrymen; "Pestalozzi!" thankfully even up to the colleges, to be the "getting the shouts old age, to whom he had been both a contents of certain books," the " filling in;" father and a teacher ! not the leading out," or "development," which is the proper meaning of that word. I cease. Who dare venture to picture such a man; who among us may assume the name of a teacher, when Pestalozzi called himself one! My own experience confirms that sad condition of our schools, and will also show that in Pestalozzi's disciples, friends! are numerous; which the teacher is placed: once, my dear they are distributed wherever civilization penefriends, you might have seen me amidst a group trates; our own country is able to show forth of happy children. Their smiling faces, their one in the person of Miss Jones, of England, silence and attentiveness, manifested the deep who, at the solicitation of friends at Oswego, N. interest they took in learning; the discipline Y., has formed a class in the Pestalozzian mewas not artificial the instruction a successful thod. one. The children were taught—not artificial "What is Education?" in number 5, vol. II., Iowa Instructor. Teachers! the rising intelligence is looking upon us. It has prepared the way, and if, after into the charge of judicious and sufficient teachall, we should have to meet with prejudice, let ers. The efficiency of those teachers was not us remember Ogden, when he says: "No one apparent for some years, i. e., until the primary is worthy of confidence, who will persist in classes under their improvement had become the sacrificing the good of his scholars to public upper classes. † prejudice," &c. But above all, let us trust in But another question arises. Shall it be our God. May He endow us with the intellect, taught exclusively? Though it is most generalthe heart, and the spirit of a Pestalozzi in the ly considered as being preparatory to the rest of most sublime, the most responsible of human the studies, as a tree from which other studies pursuits the Education of Human Beings. sprout forth! yet the present state of the schools, What is this Instruction? Make it exactly public prejudice-nay the present advanced fit to the stand-point of the child; make the views, will approve of its adaptation together instruction elementary and intuitive, and you with the other studies of primary schools: the will have this product of modern schools. instruction however must be intuitive, else we will have parrots after all. No text-book system, no abstract instruction, no demonstrating, but "causing the child to produce within itself an intuitive knowledge."‡ Mental philosophy presents the child, when entering school, as having only "eye and ear for the chief avenues to the mind and soul"; hence we find that course agreeable to natureAnd lastly, the question, where to find teachObject-lessons, by which name we will introduce it. Since its introduction by Pestalozzi, ers to give such instruction? Employ training teachers in large cities, in Normal schools, in it has undergone several changes in tendency teachers' institutes, &c., and you, fellow-teachas well as name, the latter of which for the ers, employ every available opportunity of makmost part characterizes the former. I shall not speak of that great educator on this subject, ing yourselves acquainted with the desideratum but mention the fact, that Pestalozzi chose the of the present age, the Intuitive Instruction! Why the cry after reform, after another mehuman body for the object of his exercises, and thod, you may say. Is not our mode of teachwas not very successful in either choice or method. For the human body little interests the ing the best we possibly could have? - Only child, and there is no need, for the present, that look at us! Can we not invest our money in it should do so; and the principle of complete- dresses, or whatever our hearts desire, since the scholar has his books? Capital things they ness, as falsely conceived by Pestalozzi, led him into a method which was to have supplanted the mechanism, but in fact introduced another kind, paralyzing the intellect, as was the result of the former erroneous system. Subsequently we find the Object Lessons by the names of: Intuitive Instruction; Thinking Exercises, direct, pure, &c.,- Speaking and Thinking Exercises, Intellectual exercises sometimes exclusive, at other times not; at present Intuitive Instruction, of which the preceding form a part. are- these books in "question and answer!"' Could we have it more easy? The learner is set to get them by heart, and we are comfortably seated with folded hands. They may say -- " books are ill adapted for the scholar;' are they not good for the writer and bookseller because they sell, and for the teacher, because they save him trouble? And is not our mode of teaching the best to make the scholar show off at a made-up examination-i. e., exhibition? This reminds me of an anecdote. When a Russian military officer once was made the As for its being exclusively taught, or nothighest school-inspector in the provinces on the the views may vary: there is however but one Baltic, he visited a school where the scholars opinion as to its being the first, the most imporwere drilled into the questions and answers, so tant and chief instruction in the junior classes. that the answer frequently would pop out beShall we introduce it? Can there be a fear that fore the question. Does this only happen in any teacher will oppose, when properly appre- Russian, equivalent to Barbarian, Provinces ? hending it! "We must begin with the prima- The inspector, however, with condescension, ry classes, in order to improve our schools." gently approached the teacher, saying, “Upon In boldly saying this, I refer to the experience my word, sir, I am glad to see you; you have which superintendents and other teachers have method." made in regard to bad schools, afterwards given [TO BE CONTINUED.] Dr. A. Diesterweg. From the (N. H.) Journal of Agriculture. Never Despair of an Unruly Boy. FRIEND C. With what will you rhyme HoA few years ago, when Captain Meserve, now nolulu and Oahu; or how will you pronounce superintendent of the State almshouse at Tewksthem? Can you give in the Journal any genebury, had charge of the Roxbury poorhouse, a ral rule for the pronunciation of Hawaiian little boy was picked up in the streets of that names and the names of the Pacific Isles ? REPLY. W. D. L. pronun city, and temporarily committed to his care. The overseers of the poor indented the little fellow out three times, and he as often ran We can give no general rule for the away. At length the Captain took pains to inciation of Pacific names. That must be learned struct him, and afterward found an opportunity In the course of time the from the Dictionary or Pronouncing Gazetteer, for him to go to sea. where the individual name is pronounced. Ha- young man became clerk of a steamboat, school waiian is pronounced Hah-wi-yan teacher, merchant, legislator, and is now editor wi, with i long. Honolulu is pronounced as of a paper in a Southern city. spelled or the last two syllables like the last in Waterloo, repeated, Waterloo-loo - with the accent on the penult. If we must rhyme it, -accent on Try thy tongue and run it through "loo" A few words of encouragement, a little notice, or a trifling gift, will frequently change the purposes and entire character of a young man. If he is an orphan, he feels the more need of sympathy; if poor, he suffers sadness in view of his privations. Let none be indifferent to Is n't that sweet? But no matter. Baldwin the condition and feelings of those who, of all in his Gazetteer writes the pronunciation of others, have claims upon the commiseration and Oahu thus, Woh-hoo, accenting the first syllable, kindness of their elders and superiors. A cold, with "o" as in good. Worcester writes the morose, sour person, by his very appearance, pronunciation Wa-ho-"a" as in far, and ac- puts a damper upon the courage and ambition of cented. Following Worcester, our friend Locke a young man, no matter what noble aspirations can sing, though shockingly, Who can speak it? Ah! who! he may possess; while a genial, open-hearted, how-are-you man, will inspire youth with praiseworthy resolutions, corresponding exertions, and self-reliance. Many unpromising Whittier, in his beautiful tribute to the ex- and unmeritorious rich young men are ruined cellent and devoted Daniel Wheeler, incorpo- by pampering and indulgence; while many poor rates these names in his verse, though he evi- young men, with the help of but a moiety of dently misplaces the accent in Oahu and gives their wasteful expenditures, would qualify themit three syllables. But Whittier often rejects selves for an honorable and even distinguished the fetters of orthoëpy and sweeps on in the career in life.-Andover (Mass.) Advertiser. spirit of his song. These are the lines we al lude to : "In thy palm shadows, Oahu, And Honolulu's silver bay, Amidst Owhyhee's hills of blue, And taro-plains of Tooboonai, A QUADRUPEDOPOLIS.-On the southern arm of the Red River there is a village of prairie dogs, which is no less than twenty-five miles in length by as many in breadth. It consists of subterranean galleries, sometimes nine feet deep and about five inches wide, and the superstructure is formed of earth thrown up by these curiPerhaps these last lines will turn our friend ous little animals. Toward the end of October, W. D. L. to the whole of Whittier's touching when these little dogs feel the approach of cold tribute to the good man gone a poem sweet winter, they fasten up all the passages leading to as a hymn from Palestine. If so, we shall have their burrows with straw, then they fall asleep done him a better good than in our reply to his until the return of spring-(dog-days.) They queries. are happy little fellows, and, if they could speak, they might boast of a city spreading over a C. In a bookseller's catalogue lately appeared greater space than London, and containing a the following article: "Memoirs of Charles I.. greater number of special inhabitants.—Home with a head capitally executed." Journal. 1 |