Educational Reports. FIFTH ANNUAL REPORT OF THE SUPERINTENDENT OF PUBLIC INSTRUCTION OF THE STATE OF INDIANA FOR THE YEAR 1856.-This is by the Hon. Caleb Mills, late Superintendent of Public Schools, and is a very able document. It contains full and carefully prepared tables and shows how well the Great West is prepared to embrace the public school system of New England and to improve upon them. The following are the Statistics : Amount of Common School Fund distribu- In 1856. Average number of children between the ages of 4 and 16 years, in each district, 62. Number of districts containing less than 1 scholars each, 50. Capital of the school fund, $2,046,397.32. Revenue of school fund for the year ending March 31, 1857, $149,484.76. Dividend per scholar for the year ending March 31, 1867, $1.40. Capital of the town deposit fund, $763,661.83. Revenue of the town deposit fund appropriated to schools, about $35,000.00. Amount raised by 1 per cent tax for support of $340,185.75 schools, $71,440.66 ted to Counties 4,876 950. Amount assessed by rate bills, about $35,000.00. Number of new school-houses erected within 5,043 the year, about 40. Number of school-houses in very good condi$23.76 tion, about 450. $16.84 Cost of said houses, $270,883 Townships Mr. A. M. Ide, Jr. has sent us a Report of the Schools of Taunton, Mass., which we have read with much pleasure. It gives a good account of our old friend Mr. G. C. Wilson, who is as well appreciated in Massachusetts as he deserves to be in Rhode Island. REPORT OF THE SUPERINTENDENT OF COMMON SCHOOLS, made to the General Assembly of Connecticut, at its May Session, 1857, is the first report of Hon. D. N. Camp, the new Superintendent of the Schools of that State. It gives a good account of those schools and of their operations. There have been 186 public libraries established during the year. The following is a summary of the statistics: Number of school-houses in very bad condition, about 400. Average wages per month of male teachers, including board, about $29.00. Average wages per month of female teachers, including board, $17.25. Number of teachers who have attended Normal school, about 400. Number of schools of two or more grades, 135. Number of schools furnished with Holbrook's School Apparatus, about 420. Number of schools furnished with outline maps, 500. Number of schools furnished with library, 190. FIRST ANNUAL REPORT OF THE BOARD OF EDUCATION of Dubuque, Iowa, has been sent to us, and shows that in the zeal for educating their children, the good people of that city-almost on the other side of sundown-are true New Englanders, no matter where they came from. Success to them. NINTH ANNUAL REPORT OF THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS OF THe Girard College for OrPHANS, 1857, is the yearly record of a noble, though somewhat ostentatious charity. Indeed, all charities that are carried on by legacies must be more or less ostentatious. But this is grand, Number of towns in the State, 157. Number of School Districts, 1626, Number of Children between the ages of 4 and and is now working well, according to the reports, 16 years, 100,545. It expended last year, for the support and educaDecrease in number of children for the year, tion of orphans, $83,063.33, and had charge of 302 of this bereaved class. It has bound out, or 275. indentured, 153 apprentices. The faculty consists of William Allen, LL. D., aided by some 28 professors, instructors, matrons, governesses, physicians, &c. SECOND ANNUAL REPORT OF THE BOARD OF EDUCATION and the Superintendent of the Public Schools of Madison, Wisconsin, for the year 1856. This is a good document and shows that the people of this new city are determined to have good schools. WE always read the REPORT OF THE SCHOOLS OF WARWICK, prepared by the Superintendent, Rev. Mr. Willard, with great interest. He understands what schools should be and how to make important suggestions. We hope it may be long before he is out of office, or less interested and efficient than now. THE SCHOOL COMMITTEE OF EAST GREENWICH have done themselves credit by writing and printing a plain-spoken paper, and one that shows that they not only know what ought to be done, but that they have courage to demand it. Dr. Eldredge deserves the special thanks of all good citizens in District No. 1, as in all other districts. REPORT OF THE SCHOOL COMMITTEE OF BURRILLVILLE gives a good account of the schools. This is one of the most enterprising towns in Rhode Island, and its able and efficient School Committee are doing a good work. They are reelected as we are glad to know, as in many other towns, this Committee have been. THE REPORT OF THE PORTSMOUTH SCHOOLS is in hand, and demonstrates that the schools in that town are gaining on their already good reputation. We hear that the town has voted a larger appropriation for its schools. THE REPORT OF THE SCHOOLS OF KINGSTOWN is made by the very honest and diligent Superintendent, Rev. J. N. Church. It shows that there is a good interest in their schools, and that the town is willing to do still more to advance their interests. REV. S. S. MALLORY, OF THE SMITHFIELD SCHOOL COMMITTEE, has sent us his annual account of the public schools of that town. It contains many excellent suggestions and ought to be widely circulated. It is one of the best documents we have read. REPORT OF THE SCHOOL COMMITTEE OF RICHMOND, give a good account of the separate schools in that town. We hope this document will be O circulated to all the families of the town. THE TOWN OF HOPKINTON has been favored with a first rate straight-forward document in relation to its schools; we hope it will be read and its suggestions followed by the people of that town. THE COMMITTEE OF JOHNSTON have given in their annual account of town schools, and a very good account it is. We wish it to be circulated. REPORT OF THE TOWN OF CRANSTON.-In our last number we stated that the number of chil dren was not reported. We meant to say that the columns were not footed. REPORT OF THE SCHOOL COMMITTEE OF GLOCESTER, for 1856, has been received. It gives a good account of the fifteen schools of that town, and is worthy of being read by the good people of that town. We received a very kind invitation from J. Sweet, Esq., Principal of the Rincon School, San Francisco, Cal., to attend the annual festival of his school, May 1st, but previous engagements, and the non-arrival of our long expected telegraphic balloon compelled us to decline the honor. American Institute of Instruction. stitute of Instruction will be held this year at Manchester, commencing on TUESDAY, the 18th of August, and closing on THURSDAY, the 20th. The following gentlemen have consented to Lecture : THE ANNUAL MEETING of the American In Rev. John P. Gulliver, of Norwich, Conn. Prof. O. M. Mitchell, LL. D. Cincinnati ObserOhio. vatory, J. W. Bulkley, Superintendent Pub. Schools, Brooklyn, N. Y. Daniel Mansfield, Esq., Cambridge, Mass. Prof. Robinson P. Dunn, Brown University, R. I. Prof. George P. Fisher, Yale College, New Haven, Conn. Subjects for discussion: "The importance of good primary schools and the best methods of conducting them." "Which are the most favorable to the cause of education, Public High Schools or endowed Academies." TO THE TEACHERS OF THE UNITED STATES.— The eminent success which has attended the establishment and operations of the several State Teachers' Associations in this country, is the source of mutual congratulations among all the friends of popular education. That the State Associations have already accomplished great good, and that they are destined to exert a still broader and more beneficent influence, no wise observer will deny. The Lawyer's Three Degrees. WE clipped the item headed Three Degrees of Character, from an exchange, and are able to tell a true story to illustrate the positive of it: An excellent turn was made a few days since, at din ner table, by Judge Hoar, of Massachusetts-altogether Believing that what has been done for States by State Associations may be done for the whole country by a National Association, we, the un-ing to get honest." dersigned, invite our fellow-teachers throughout the United States to assemble in Philadelphia on the 26th day of August next, for the purpose of organizing a National Teachers' Association. As the permanent success of any association depends very much upon the auspices attending its establishment, and the character of the organic laws it adopts, it is hoped that all parts of the Union will be largely represented at the inauguration of the proposed enterprise. T. W. Valentine, N. Y.; D. B. Hagar, Mass.; W. T. Lucky, Mo.; J. Tenney, N. H.; J. G. May, Ind.; W. Roberts, Penn.; C. Pease, Vt.; D. Franklin Wells, Iowa; A. C. Spicer, Wiscon sin. ANNUAL MEETING OF THE NEW YORK STATE TEACHERS' ASSOCIATION.-The Twelfth Annual Meeting of the New York State Teachers' Association will be held at Binghampton, on the 28th, 29th and 30th days of July, 1857. The exercises will commence at Bridgham Hall, on Tuesday, at 10 o'clock, A. M., with the Introductory Address by the President, T. W. Valentine, of Brooklyn. bar. The above is good and it shows just where a We have a young lawyer begins to prosper. friend-we call him A., who has or had a friend B., late a law student, but now a lawyer at the B. was often short of the needful, while prosecuting his studies, and A., as a friend indeed-or in need-should do, sometimes loaned him a few dollars in cash. The sum at last got up to several score of doilars. A. asked B. for the cash, but as B. had it not in hand, B. proposed to introduce A. to several dry-goods and clothing stores, where A. could get goods on B.'s credit. A. got the goods, and in process of time the bills were sent to him for payment. In great alarm he called to ask why those bills had not been charged to B., as he thought it was agreed. The gentlemanly merchants told him that they did not understand the thing so; that he bought the goods; they had been charged to him; and they should hold him responsible. That matter then was soon settled, as A. clearly had the means to pay, and the books stood correct. At this time B. had commenced the practice of law. So A. went to him with his troubles, for consultation, once, twice, thrice. At the third On Wednesday and Thursday, addresses will time of calling B. proposed to settle by offsetting be delivered. a small account he had against A. and giving his note for the balance. It was agreed. So B. presented the following bill: Communications in relation to the business of the Association, should be directed to the President at Williamsburg, L. 1. We hope that our friends in New York will by all means avail themselves of the privileges of this meeting. We have been shown two Mss. frem the Pub- A. asked "What debt?" "Why, the one I owe lic Schools of Buffalo. The one is a Writing you," replied B. "You called twice about it, beBook-the other "The Gleaner," a periodical-fore to-day, and you don't suppose I give advice and they are such specimens of Penmanship as for nothing, do you?" so coolly that A. took the delight the eye and gratify the mind. The bill after it was receipted and the note for $80, schools of that good city must be well taught to throwing off the interest, as B. requested, "for produce such specimens of writing and composi- the sake of friendship." A. has not since dared tion. Mr. Armstrong of District No. 2, we are to consult B. about the collection of that bit of told, deserves much of the credit for these. paper. Dull Children. No fact can be plainer than this. It is impossible to judge correctly of the genius or intellectual ability of the future man by the indications of childhood. Some of the most eminent men of all ages were remarkable only for dullness in their youth. Sir Isaac Newton in his boyhood was inattentive to all study, and ranked very low in school until the age of twelve. When Samuel Wythe, the Dublin schoolmaster at tempted to educate Richard Brimsley Sheridan, he pronounced the boy an "incorrigible dunce." The mother of Sheridan fully concurred in this verdict, and declared him the most stupid of her Goldsmith was dull in his youth, and Shakspeare, Gibbon, Davy and Dryden, do not appear to have exhibited in their childhood, even the common elements of future success. sons. When Berzelius, the eminent Swedish chemist, left school for the University, the words "indifferent in behavior and of doubtful tone," were scored against his name; and after he entered the University, he narrowly escaped being turned back. On one of his first visits to the laboratory, when nineteen years oid, he was taunted with the inquiry whether he "understood the difference between a laboratory and a kitchen." Walter Scott had the credit of having "the thickest skull in school," though Dr. Blair told the teacher that many bright rays of future genius shone through that same "thick skull." Milton and Swift were justly celebrated for stupidity in childhood. The great Isaac Barrow's father used to say that if it pleased God to take from him any of his children. he hoped it might be Isaac, as the least promising. Clavius, the great mathematician of his age, was so stupid in his boyhood, that his teachers could make nothing of him till they tried him in geometry. Caraci, the celebrated painter was so inapt in his youth, that his master advised him to restrict his ambition to the grinding of colors. of age, one, who afterwards became a Chief Justice in this country, was, during a whole winter, unable to commit to memory the little poem found in one of our school-books. The Schoolmaster. REALLY, now, the Schoolmaster is abroad in the best sense of the word. Like the lamplighters of old, the Schoolmaster is out and about with his ladder and torch, running up one street and down another, diverging into narrow lanes, plunging into blind alleys and obscure courts, and intramural tortuosities and labyrinths for which it would be difficult to find a specific name, and leaving first a bare glimmer, and at length streams of radiance, behind him-much of the radiance depending, of course, on the quality of the oil and cotton he has to bring his torch in contact with. The Schoolmaster is truly, now, one of the lights of the world—a light shining in dark places; and that no longer through hornsheathing or punctured in-plate, but through great achromatic lenses, which scatter the beams so widely and profusely, that ignorance cannot But there was a behold them without blinking. time, as many of us may remember, when a Schoolmaster was abroad in another sense of the word. Those were the days of birches; ferrules, canes, and fool's-caps; when it was thought that the inlet of knowledge was antipodal to the head; when the halt, the lame and the lazy, conceived that physical disqualifications were their best introductions to the office of pedagogue; and when even learned men fancied that their learning qualified them to be teachers. We have lived to learn that not many lame nor many learned are called to the sacred office of educating the young.-London Critic. HAVE you ever thought of what that man is who teaches children? You go into the workshop of a wheel-wright; he is making wheels and shafts, and you say he is a useful man. You visit the shop of the blacksmith, and you find him busy making pick-axes, hammers, and sential; you salute these skilful laborers. You enter the house of a schoolmaster,salute him more profoundly. Do you know what he is doing? He is manufacturing minds. "One of the most popular authoresses of the present day," says an English writer, "could not read when she was seven. Her mother was rather uncomfortable about it, but said as every-ploughshares, and you say that this man is esbody did learn, with opportunity, she supposed her child would do so at last. By eighteen, the apparently slow genius, paid the heavy but inevitable debts of her father, from the profits of her first work, and before thirty, had published thirty volumes." Dr. Scott, the commentator, could not compose a theme when twelve years old; and even at a later age, Dr. Adam Clarke, after incredible effort, failed to commit to memory a poem of a few stanzas only. At nine years A NEGRO, who had learned to read, wishing to give some of his countrymen, who had never seen a book, an idea of it, said; "Reading is the power of hearing with the eyes instead of the ears." SCHOOL EXERCISES. Dana P. Colburn, Editor. QUESTIONS IN ENGLISH LITERATURE. 1. WHAT poet made the remark that "He cared not how late he came into life, only that he came fit." ? 2. What English writer has been compared to Reubens the great painter ? 3. What is the most wonderful fictitious story or allegory that we have in the English Language, and who wrote it? 4. Who wrote the Vicar of Wakefield? 5. Mention some of the most distinguished of English Historians? 6. Who is recognized as the best representative of American Poetry? 7. What distinguished person has been styled the "Bard of Avon"? 8. Who is called the father of English Poetry? 9. Who wrote the poem entitled the Fairy Queen? 10. Who is called the Sage of Litchfield ? 12. What is considered the oldest and finest paring their chronometers each of which had kept the exact time of the port from which its own vessel sailed, it is found that one is 1 hour and 40 minutes faster than the other. How many de grees apart are the ports from which they sailed? Two vessels start from the same port on the same day to sail around the earth, one sailing the Sandwich Islands when about half way round east and the other west. If they should meet at the earth, how would their dates compare with each other, and how with that of the people of the Island? If they should again meet at the port from which they started, how would their dates compare with each other, and how with that of the port? Problems. THE following valuable problems were obtained some time since, from a Boston teacher, who had prepared them as examination questions for his own classes: 1. A merchant sold a quantity of grain at 62 cts., per bushel, and thereby gained 25 per cent. He afterwards sold of the same lot to the amount of $19.25 and gained 10 per cent. How many bushels were there in the last parcel, and at what did he sell it per bushel? 2. There is a cellar from which have been removed 101 23-27 c. yards of earth. It is 5 feet 14. What two distinguished English Divines deep and 20 ft. wide. Its walls are 14 feet thick lived during the reign of Charles 1st. and built of blocks of stone 20 in. long, 18 in. 15. Who has been called the "greatest, wisest, wide, and 10 in. thick. Supposing there to be no and meanest of mankind"? waste, how many blocks are required, and what 16. What person did Queen Elizabeth call the would be the cost at 124 cts. each. "jewel of her time"? 3. There is a plat of ground containing of an 17. Who wrote the celebrated romance entitled acre. To what uniform depth must sufficient Utopia? Normal School. SUGGESTIVE QUESTIONS. A. F. S. If a man at the North Pole should stand so as to face exactly south, and then, should turn just one-fourth of the way round towards the right, in what direction would he face? earth be taken from another plat 50 ft, by 40 ft. to raise the former 8 inches on a level? 4. How many cords of wood in a pile 30 ft. long, 20 ft. wide and 15 ft. high? 5. A merchant has in Bank $16,000. He purchases 45 shares of Railroad Stock, (par value $100,) at an advance of 4 per cent. and pays his broker of 1 per cent. on the real value. He also What is the latitude and longitude of our anti-purchases a house for $6000, and gets it insured podes ? at a premium of 32 cts. on $100. After making What effect would it probably have on the the above payments, how much will he have on transparency of the atmosphere, if the thermom-hand? eter should suddenly fall from the temperature of 800 to that of 50o. ?. New York and Oporto, are in about the same latitude. If a vessel should sail from the former place to the latter by the shortest possible route, in what direction would it sail in the first part of the voyage? What in the last? Two vessels meet each other on the ocean: one having sailed east and the other west. On com 6. Demonstrate upon the Blackboard the truth of the proposition, that if one square be inscribed within another, so that the diagonals of the former shall terminate in the centers of the several sides of the latter, the area of the larger square shall be just twice that of the smaller. 7, There is a box whose capacity is 1183 c. inches, whose depth is 7 in. and whose length and breadth are alike. The thickness of the ma |