terials is 1 in.. Suppose the largest possible circle to be made upon the outside of the top or bottom of the box, how much would the whole surface of the top or bottom exceed that within the circle?

8. A field containing 2450 square yds. is twice as long as it is wide. Within is a circular pond, whose perimeter is 2 yds. from one side of the field, and whose centre is coincident with that of the field. What is the area of the pond, and what is the distance of one corner of the field from the edge of the pond?

9. There is a square field that has an area of 4225 square ft., and one of whose sides runs due north. The field is surrounded by a path of uniform width, whose area is 3121 sq. ft., less than that of the field. Required the distance from the north-east corner of the field to the northwest corner of the path.

10. If the centers of the several sides of a square be the extremities of the diagonals of an inscribed square whose area is 625 inches, what is the area of that part of the former square cut off by one side of the latter?

11. What is the area of each of the four largest equal circles that can be drawn within a square containing 2116 sq. ft?

QUESTION IN FRACTIONS.-We reckon it a great pity, that the amiable and very intelligent simplicity of the little girl in the following slip, could not be very greatly extended, and even applied to the learning of a great many things besides "fractions." These very great arithmetical puzzles are excellent things in their way, and so are a vast number of other qualifications and "accomplishments" for married life. But we are not fit, Schoolmaster as we are, to enlarge on this topic :

Upon the marriage of one of her companions, a little girl, about eleven years of age, of the same school, said to her parents, "Why, don't you think Amelia is married, and she has'nt gone through fractions yet?"

We have examined most of the advance sheets of Warren's Common School Geography, to be published in a few days by H. Cowperthwait, & Co., and unhesitatingly say that in plain arrangement and mechanical and literary execution, "it comes nearer our ideal of a perfect book than any other school geography we have seen. It is worth waiting for.

OUR BOOK TABLE.

OUTLINES OF ENGLISH HISTORY, from the Roman Conquest to the Present Time, &c. By Amelia B. Edwards. American edition, revised. Boston: Hickling, Swan & Brewer, 131 Washington Street. This is a very small and especially valuable compend of the facts of English history. It is compact, and so far as we have been able to examine very accurate, and we do heartily commend it to the attention of teachers, for their own private use, and for use in their schools. It is the best thing out,-much better than many of the larger and more ambitious works on history.

THE CYCLOPEDIA OF WIT AND HUMOR, edited by William E. Burton. Published by D. Appleton & Co., New York, and for sale by D. Kimball & Co., 17 Market Square, Providence, R. I. This work, embellished by elegant portraits, goes on as well, and as interestingly as ever. No. 4 contains a beautiful portrait of Washington Irving

WE have received from Russell & Richardson, 291 Washington Street, Boston, the MUSICAL GUIDE; or a Descriptive Catalogue of Sheet Music and Musical Works. It is very full, and any person wishing to buy music will find it worth twenty-five cents of his money, and more.

THE CHILD'S BOOK OF NATURE. By Worthington Hooker, M. D. New York: Harper & Brothers. This is an excellent book for children of a larger or a smaller growth. It is about the habits, uses, &c. of flowers, and plants and fruits. Dr. Hooker is a good physician and a good writer. His book ought to be widely circulated and carefully read.

ILLUSTRATED COMMON SCHOOL ASTRONOMY.

By. J. Brocklesby A. M., Professor in Trinity
College. Hartford, Ct.: Farmer, Brace & Co.

This is a nice book, and explains in a familiar way the great facts of astronomical science. It is not a large book, and all the better for that; but tells a great many things that ought to be known in a way that will be likely to cause them to be remembered.

MR. BARNARD'S AMEEICAN JOURNAL OF EDUCATION for June is in hand, and one of the most valuable and interesting numbers that has yet been issued. It contains no less than four good portraits of distinguished men, and such a variety of really able articles, that one is almost frightened by their learning and research. No teacher COUNTRIES are not cultivated in proportion to who means to be fully posted up can afford to be to their fertility, but to their liberty.

without this journal.

THANKS for the flowers that sweetly grace my which are frequently practical inquiries to

Then thanks, fair one, for these that meet my ance, not the result of mere accident, but of

several days, inquired, as was his usual cus- do, on discovering the nicely swept floor distom, into the occupations of his sons during figured with chalk lines? Of course she his absence. He received a good account of scolds, and calls him a mischievous little all of them except Eli, who, the housekeeper fellow? No, this is not the course the sensireluctantly confessed, had been engaged in ble mother pursues. In an autobiographical making a fiddle. "Alas!" says the father, letter addressed to a relative, Etty, speaking with a sigh and ominous shake of the head, of this circumstance in his youthful life, says, "I fear that Eli will have some day to take his "My pleasure amounted to ecstacy, when my portion out in fiddles." To have anything to mother promised me next morning, if I were do about a fiddle, betokened, the father a good boy, I should use some colors mixed thought, a tendency to engage in mere trifles. with gum-water. I was so pleased I could How little aware was the father that this sim- scarcely sleep." ple occupation, far from being a mere fiddlefaddle, was the dawning forth of an inventive genius to be ranked among the most effective and useful in respect to arts and manufactures. It is related of Chantry, the celebrated sculptor, that, when a boy, he was observed, by a gentleman at Sheffield, very attentively engaged in cutting a stick with a penknife. He asked the lad what he was doing, and with great simplicity but courtesy he replied, "I am cutting old Fox's head." (Fox was the schoolmaster of the village.) On this the gentleman asked to see what he had done, and pronounced the likeness excellent, presenting the youth with a sixpence. How many would have at once characterized the occupation of the boy as a mischievous or idle one; losing sight, for the time, of that lesson which every parent should know how to put into use, "Never despise small beginnings."

The family tradition says of Edward Bird, that he would, at three or four years of age, stand on a stool, chalk outlines on the furniture, and say, with childish glee, "Well done, little Neddy Bird." Even at the dawn he would be up to draw figures upon the walls, which he called French and English soldiers. No doubt the question often engaged the attention of the parents, as to how little Neddy should be broken of the habit of sketching so much on almost everything about the house. The father finding, however, that his love of drawing and sketching was incurable, at length wisely ceased to counteract his artistic tendency, and, beginning to grow anxious to turn it to some account, finally apprenticed him to a maker of tea-trays, from whose employ, as every one knows, he advanced into the ranks of acknowledged genius.

When young West first began to display Of Edward Malbone, the painter, it is said, skill in drawing, and learned from the roaming the intervals of his school-hours were filled Indians the method of preparing colors, he was by indefatigable industry in making experi- at a loss to conceive how to lay these colors ments, and endeavoring to make discoveries." | skillfully on. A neighbor informed him that One of his greatest delights was found in blowing bubbles, for the pleasure of admiring the fine colors they displayed. Thus it appears that even the soap-bubble amusement, idle as some think it to be, may have not a little to do towards leading the young artistic mind to discriminate nicely between delicate shades of color.

this was done with brushes formed of camel's hair; there were no camels in America, and he had recourse to the cat, from whose back and tail he supplied his wants. The cat was a favorite, and the altered condition of her fur was imputed to disease, till the boy's confession explained the cause, much to the amusement of his father, who rebuked him, not The first panels on which William Etty, an rashly, but as becometh a wise parent, more in English painter, drew, were the boards of his affection than in anger. To rebuke such an father's shop floor; and his first crayon a far-act wisely, required on the part of the parent thing's worth of white chalk-a substance con- a discrimination sufficiently clear to discern sidered now-a-days almost invariably ominous of mischief-doing in the hands of a boy, especially on the opening day of the month of April. Now what does the mother of "little Willie"

that mischief-doing had nothing to do in the affair. It was of no small importance that the correction employed should be adapted to the circumstances of the case. So also the mother

of West, when she was sent to seek her son by the anxious inquiries of the schoolmaster in regard to his absence for several days from school, did not, on finding him with his box and paints laboring secretly in the garret, vent forth her anger in a passionate way, as though the child were engaged in a "mere foolish piece of business."

Remarks on Reading.

THESE remarks form the preface to a series of memoranda begun by GIBBON, in 1761, under the title of ABSTRACT OF MY READINGS.

Let us read with method, and propose to ourselves an end to which all our studies may point. Through neglect of this rule, gross ignorance often disgraces great readers; who, by skipping hastily from one subject to another, render themselves incapable of combining their ideas. So many detached parcels of knowledge cannot form a whole. This inconsistency weakens the energies of the mind, creates in it à dislike to application, and even robs it of the advantages of natural good sense.

"READING is to the mind," said the Duke of Vivonne to Louis XIV., "what your parThus we see the necessity of great discrimi- tridges are to my chops." It is, in fact, the nation on the part of the parent in the cor- nourishment of the mind; for by reading we rection of a child. Children do not always know our Creator, his works, ourselves chiefly, necessarily engage in doing things in a sort of and our fellow creatures. But this nourishment perfunctory manner, merely performing them is easily converted into poison. Salmasius had for the sole purpose of getting through, care-read as much as Grotius, perhaps more; but less whether they are done well or not. their different modes of reading made the one Children need not always necessarily act out an enlightened philosopher, and the other, to their manœuvres in a roguish manner, merely speak plainly, a pedant, puffed up with a usebusying their brain for the purpose of work- less erudition. ing out some means to practice a trick. Chalk does not appear to be used invariably for such purposes as raising laughter and performing mischievous acts. Even at the sight of charcoal, so difficult to tolerate, it is not allowable for the parent to disuse discretion, though mischievousness may seem to make use of this exceedingly smutty substance as one peculiarly suited to answer its purposes. It is said that our Copley, at some seven or eight years old, on being observed to absent himself from the family for several hours at a time, was at length traced to a lonely room, on whose bare walls he had drawn in charcoal a group of martial figures engaged in some nameless adventure. The artistic tendency in such a case, needs a treatment far different from that which would attribute it to a love of mere sportive trick-practising. The manoeuvres of a boy should be thoroughly studied as to their real nature before recourse is had to rod correction. Rashness on the part of the parent or teacher is never excusable. It should be remembered that in the plays and pursuits of the boy the future man is sometimes seen, and therefore it becomes of no little importance to know how the amusements and games of children may be improved for directing their inclinations to employments in which they may hereafter excel.

CARLYLE says "Make yourself an honest man, and then you may be sure that there is one rascal less in the world."

Yet let us avoid the contrary extreme, and respect method, without rendering ourselves its slaves. While we propose an end in our reading, let not this end be too remote; and when once we have attained it, let our attention be directed to a different subject. Inconstancy weakens the understanding; a long and exclusive application to a single object hardens and contracts it. Our ideas no longer change easily into a different channel, and the course of reading to which we have too long accustomed ourselves is the only one that we can pursue with pleasure.

We ought, besides, to be careful not to make the order of our thoughts subservient to that of our subjects; this would be to sacrifice the principal to the accessory. The use of our reading is to aid us in thinking. The perusal of a particular work gives birth, perhaps, to ideas unconnected with the subject of which it treats. I wish to pursue these ideas; they withdraw me from my proposed plan of read

ing, and throw me into a new track, and from thence, perhaps, into a second and a third. At length I begin to perceive whither my researches tend. Their result, perhaps, may be profitable; it is worth while to try; whereas, had I followed the high road, I should not have been able, at the end of my long journey, to retrace the progress of my thoughts.

works of those academicians who destroy errors, without hoping to substitute truth in their stead. In works of fancy, invention ought to bear away the palm; chiefly that invention which creates a new kind of writing; and next, that which displays the charms of novelty in its subject, characters, situation, pictures, thoughts, and sentiments. Yet this This plan of reading is not applicable to our invention will miss its effect, unless it be acearly studies, since the severest method is companied with a genius capable of adapting scarcely sufficient to make us conceive objects itself to every variety of the subject—sucaltogether new. Neither can it be adopted by cessively sublime, pathetic, flowery, majestic, those who read in order to write, and who and playful; and with a judgment which ought to dwell on their subject till they have admits nothing indecorous, and a style which sounded its depths. These reflections, how-expresses well whatever ought to be said. ever, I do not absolutely warrant. On the As to compilations which are intended merely supposition that they are just, they may be so perhaps, for myself only. The constitution of minds differs like that of bodies; the same regimen will not suit all. Each individual ought to study his own.

To read with attention, exactly to define the expressions of our author, never to admit a conclusion without comprehending its reason, often to pause, reflect, and interrogate ourselves, these are so many advices which it is easy to give, but difficult to follow. The same may be said of that almost evangelical maxim of forgetting friends, country, religion, of giving merit its due praise, and embracing truth wherever it is to be found.

But what ought we to read? Each individual must answer this question for himself, agreeably to the object of his studies. The only general precept that I would venture to give, is that of Pliny, "to read much rather than many things;" to make a careful selection of the best works, and to render them familiar to us by attentive and repeated perusals. Without expatiating on the authors so generally known and approved, I would simply observe, that in matters of reasoning, the best are those who have augmented the number of useful truths; who have discovered truths, of whatever nature they may be; in one word, those bold spirits who, quitting the beaten track, prefer being in the wrong alone, to being in the right with the multitude. Such authors increase the number of our ideas, and even their mistakes are useful to their suceessors. With all the respect due to Mr. Locke, I would not, however, neglect the

to treasure up the thoughts of others, I ask whether they are written with perspicuity, whether superfluities are lopped off, and dispersed observations skilfully collected; and agreeably to my answers to these questions, I estimate the merit of such performances.

For the Schoolmaster. "A sentence is a thought expressed in words." GREENE'S GRAMMAR.

"Now, just to set them a-thinking."

H. J. GOULD.

IN modern schools, there is a tendency towards learning the words alone and omitting to apprehend the ideas taught in the subject which is studied. So far does this tendency go, that some teachers, provided the lesson be committed verbatim, are satisfied with a mere repetition of the language of the author. Perhaps an occasional test question is proposed and answered in haste; but this, at length, becomes, both to teacher and pupil, little more than an useless interruption, and is at last entirely dropped, when the pupil is suffered to rattle on, unmolested, through chapter after chapter of literary, scientific or mathematical works. By this means, however, the book is gone through with in the briefest possible time, and the object of this class of teachers is gained.

For the benefit of those who would educate that the pupil may learn, and become wiser and more capable, I repeat the old lesson of common sense and experience:

"Go to the fountain head for the pure water."