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The dancing stream, with its flashing gleam,

Rings out with noisy glee,

For the Schoolmaster. Fragments Picked up at Sea.

BY JOHN DUDD.

BAYARD TAYLOR, writing to the New York Tribune, from under the Aurora Borealis, gives a description of what he saw to relieve the monotony of one of those almost endless nights of travel; and we may hope it also relieved, for the time at least, the intolerable pain which a refractory tooth caused him:

So passed three hours; the night had long set in, with a clear sky, 130 below zero, and a sharp wind blowing, All at once an exclamation from Braisted aroused me. I opened my eyes as I lay in his lap, looked upward, and saw a narrow belt or scarf of silver fire stretching directly across the zenith, with its loose, frayed ends slowly swaying to and fro down the slopes of the sky. Presently it began to waver, bending back and forth, sometimes slowly, sometimes with a quick, springing motion, as if testing its elasticity. Now it took the shape of a bow, now undulated into Ho

And the distant roar of the wave-washed shore, garth's line of beauty, brightening and fading

Sounds ocean's anthems free.

The floweret breathes from its fragrant leaves A music-laden sigh;

And the forests wake, and their strong arms shake When the voice of the gale sweeps by.

The desert wild, where the untam'd child
Of nature makes his home,

And the distant glades, and the mighty shades,

Where the forest hunters roam,

Have felt my powers, through the weary hours
Of many a dreary day;

And the sons of the sea, my voices free,
Have joined in a merry lay.

Like a sunny beam of a star-lit dream,
I come to the weary heart;
And in tones of love I point above,
To the joys that ne'er depart.

With the heavenly throng I swell the song
Whose echo ne'er expires,

And shout the strains of the golden plains,
To the seraph's shining lyres.

THE circumference of the cable for the ocean telegraph is exactly equal to that of a half-dime.

in its sinuous motion, and finally formed a shepherd's crook, the end of which suddenly began to separate and fall off, as if driven by a strong wind, until the whole belt shot away in long, drifting lines of fiery snow. It then gathered again into a dozen dancing fragments which alternately advanced and retreated, shot hither and thither, against and across each other, blazed out in yellow and rosy gleams, or paled again, playing a thousand fantastic pranks, as if guided by some wild whim.

We lay silent with upturned faces, watching this wonderful spectacle. Suddenly, the scattered lights ran together, as by a common impulse, joined their bright ends, twisted them through each other, and fell in a broad, luminous curtain straight downward through the air until its fringed hem swung apparently but a few yards over our heads. This phenomenon was so unexpected and startling, that for a moment I thought our faces would be touched by the skirts of the glorious auroral drapery. It did not follow the spheric curve of the firmament, but hung plumb from the zenith, falling, apparently, millions of leagues through the air, its folds gathered together among the stars and its embroidery of flame

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sweeping the earth and shedding a pale, un-perature was 100 below zero, and I could have earthly radiance over the wastes of snow. wished it ten degrees colder. My deer, almoment afterwards it was again drawn up, though his first savage strength was spent, parted, waived its flambeaux and shot its was still full of spirit, and I began to enjoy lances hither and thither, advancing and re- this mode of travel. We soon entered the treating as before. Anything so strange, so hills, which were covered with thickets of frocapricious, so wonderful, so gloriously beau- zen birch, with here and there a tall Scotch tiful, I scarcely hope to see again. fir, completely robed in snow. The sun, which had showed about half his disc at noon, was now dipping under the horizon, and a pure or

Another extract from the same letter will convince our readers, if, indeed, they are not already convinced, that about Dame Nature in the distri-ange glow lighted up the dazzling masses of bution of her beauties, there is nothing section

al:

the crystal woods. All was silver clear, far and near, shining, as if by its own light, with an indescribable radiance. We had struck upon a well beaten track on entering the hills, and flew swiftly along through this silent splendor, this jeweled solitude, under the crimson and violet dome of the sky. Here was true Northern romance; here was poetry beyond all the Sagas and Eddas that ever were written.

less winters standing before him?

We now had uninterrupted forest scenery between the stations—and such scenery. It is almost impossible to paint the glory of these Winter forests. Every tree, laden with the purest snow, resembles a Gothic fountain of bronze, covered with frozen spray, through which only suggestive glimpses of its delicate tracery could be had. From every rise we looked over thousands of such mimic founHe wishes to obtain pencil sketches of charactains, shooting low or high, from their pave-teristic faces, snd gives us the following inimita66 5 type of his race," ments of ivory and alabaster. It was an en-ble pen-and-ink sketch of a chanted wilderness-white, silent, gleaming, whom he procured for a sitter. After reading it, and filled with inexhaustible forms of beauty. who cannot see the old man of seventy-three sunTo what shall I liken those glimpses under the boughs into the depths of the forest, where Ludwig was disthe snow destroyed all prospective and brought patched to procure an old fellow by the name the remotest fairy nooks and coverts, too love-of Niemi, a Finn, who promised to comply ly and fragile to seem cold, into the glittering with my wishes; but his ignorance made him foreground? "Wonderful!" "glorious!" I suspicious, and it was necessary to send again. could only exclaim, in breathless admiration... I know what travelers are," said he, "and Once, by the road side, we saw an Arctic what a habit they have of getting people's ptarmigan, as white as the snow, with ruby skulls to carry home with them. Even if they eyes that sparkled like jewels as he moved are arrested for it, they are so rich, they alslowly and silently along, not frightened in ways buy over the judges. Who knows but the least. they might try to kill me for the sake of my Another passage from a more recent letter, skull?" After much persuasion, he was finalwritten from a point farther North, will furnishly induced to come, and, seeing that Ludwig the reader with a fresh example of the truth of supposed he was still afraid, he said, with great the old saying that "there is nothing like getting energy: "I have made up my mind to go, even used to things." Think of a temperature 100 be- if a shower of knives should fall from heaven !" low zero being too warm for a comfortable sledge He was seventy-three years old, though he did not appear to be over sixty-his hair being

ride!

Before us stretched a trackless plain, bound-thick and black, his frame erect and sturdy, ed by a low mountain ridge. Eric sat off at and his color crimson rather than pale. His a fast trot, winding hither and thither, as his eye-brows were jet black and bushy, his eyes deer followed the invisible path. I kept close large and deep-set, his nose strong and prombehind him white as a Polar bear, but glow-inent, and the corners of his long mouth drawn ing like a volcano under my furs. The tem- down in a settled curve, expressing a melan

ried, saying we could hardly travel so much, if we were; yet she thought it much better to be married and stay at home- I gave her a rigsdaler, which she took with joyful surprise,

choly grimness. The high cheek-bones, square brow and muscular jaw belonged to the true Finnish type. He held perfectly still while I drew, scarcely moving a muscle of his face, and I succeeded in getting a portrait which every-saying, "What! am I to get my coffee and tobody recognized.

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I gave him a piece of money with which he was greatly delighted; and, after a cup of coffee in Herr Knoblock's kitchen, he went home quite proud and satisfied. 'They do not at all look like dangerous persons," he said to the carpenter; "perhaps they do not collect skulls. I wish they spoke our language, that I might ask them, how people live in their country. America is a very large, wild place. I know all about it, and the discovery of it. I was not there myself at the time, but Jenis Lampi, who lives in Kittila, was one of the crew of the ship, and he told me how it happened. Jenis Lampi said they were going to throw the captain overboard, but he persuaded them to give him three days, and on the third day they found it. Now I should like to know whether these people, who came from that country, have laws as we have, and whether they live as comfortably." So saying, Isaaki Anderinpoika Niema departed.

And, as a companion-piece to the above, the reader will not think we are making the string of icicles too long if we append another picture

from the same easel :

bacco. and be paid too? Thanks, O son of man, for your great goodness!" She chuckled very much over the drawing, saying that the dress was exactly right.

Mistakes of Printers.

SOME people are continually wondering at the "carelessness" of editors in allowing so many errors and blunders to appear in their columns and mar the print. Such people know very little of the difficulties-we had almost said impossibilities-of keeping them out. The most careful attention to these matters will not prevent errors creeping in, even when professional proof-readers are engaged expressly for the purpose. And when it is born in mind that in most papers such an expense is necessarily dispensed with, and the proofs on that account are often hurriedly examined, the fact will no longer appear strange. In connection with this subject, the following anecdote is not inappropriate.

A Glasgow publishing house attempted to publish a work that should be a perfect specimen of typographical accuracy. After having been carefully read by six experienced proof-readers, it was posted up in the hall of the University, and a reward of fifty pounds offered to any one who should detect an error. Each page remained two weeks in this place; and yet, when the work was issued, several errors were discovered, one of which was in the first line of the first page!

No sooner had he gone, than the old Lapp woman, Elsa, who had been sent for, drove up in her pulk, behind a fast reindeer. She was in complete Lapp costume- blue cloth gown with wide sleeves, trimmed with scarlet, and a curious pear-shaped cap of the same material upon her head. She sat upon the floor, on a deer-skin, and employed herself in When such was the case in a city long celetwisting reindeer sinews, which she rolled up-brated in Great Britain for publishing the on her cheek with the palm of her hand while I was sketching her. It was already dark, and I was obliged to work by candle-light, but I succeeded in catching the half-insane, witch-like expression of her face. When I took the candle to examine her features more closely, she cried out, "Look at me O son of man!" She said that I had great powers, and was capable of doing everything since I had come so far, and could make an image of her upon paper. She asked whether we were mar-be tarnished by a breath.

finest and most correct editions of the classics, what is to be expected in a newspaper which must necessarily be hurried through the press while it is news; and where the compensation will hardly afford one experienced proofreader," let alone six. The wonted accuracy of our papers is really astonishing.

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REPUTATION is like polished steel; it may

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Which, scalped by keen winds that defend the Gazes with dead face on the seas that roll Around the secret of the mystic zone, A mighty nation's star-bespangled flag Flutters alone.

And underneath, upon the lifeless front

Of that drear cliff, a simple name is traced;
Fit type of him, who, famishing and gaunt,
But with a rocky purpose in his soul,

Breasted the gathering snows,
Clung to the drifting floes,

By want beleaguered and by winter chased,
Seeking the brother lost amid that frozen waste.

Not many months ago we greeted him,

Crowned with the icy honors of the North. Across the land his hard-won fame went forth, And Maine's deep woods were shaken limb by limb.

His own mild Keystone State sedate and prim,
Burst from its decorous quiet as he came.
Hot Southern lips, with eloquence aflame,
Sounded his triumph. Texas, wild and grim,
Proffered its horny hand. The large-lunged West,
From out its giant breast

Yelled its frank welcome. And from main to main,
Jubilant to the sky,

Thundered the mighty cry,
HONOR TO KANE!

In vain-in vain beneath his feet we flung
The reddening roses! All in vain we poured
The golden wine, and round the shining board
Sent the toast circling, till the rafters rung
With the thrice-tripled honors of the feast!
Scarce the buds wilted and the voices ceased
Ere the pure light that sparkled in his eyes,
Bright as auroral fires in Southern skies,

Faded and faded. And the brave young heart
That the relentless Arctic winds had robbed
Of all its vital heat; in that long quest
For the lost Captain, now within his breast
More and more faintly throbbed.
His was the victory; but as his grasp
Closed on the laurel crown with eager clasp,
Death launched a whistling dart;

And ere the thunders of applause were done
His bright eyes closed forever on the sun!
Too late too late the splendid prize he won
In the Olympic race of Science and of Art!

Like to some shattered berg that, pale and lone, Drifts from a white North to a Tropic zone,

And in the burning day
Wastes peak by peak away,
Till on some rosy even

It dies with sunlight blessing it; so he
Tranquilly floated to a Southern sea,
And melted into Heaven!

He needs no tears, who lived a noble life!
We will not weep for him who died so well;
But we will gather round the hearth, and tell
The story of his strife.

Such homage suits him well;
Better than funeral pomp, or passing bell!

What tale of peril and self-sacrifice!
Prisoned amid the fastnesses of ice,

With hunger howling o'er the wastes of snow! Night lengthening into months; the ravenous floe

Crunching the massive ships, as the white bear
Crunches his prey. The insufficient share
Of loathsome food;

The lethargy of famine; the despair

Urging to labor, nervelessly pursued; Toil done with skinny arms, and faces hued Like palid masks, while dolefully behind Glimmered the fading embers of a mind! That awful hour, when through the prostrate band Delirium stalked, laying his burning hand

Upon the ghastly foreheads of the crew, The whispers of rebellion, faint and few At first but deepening ever till they grew Into black thoughts of murder; such the throng Of horrors round the Hero. High the song Should be that hymns the noble part he played! Sinking himself-yet ministering aid

To all around him. By a mighty will
Living defiant of the wants that kill,
Because his death would seal his comrades' fate;
Cheering with ceaseless and inventive skill
Those Polar winters, dark and desolate.
Equal to every trial-every fate-

He stands, until spring, tardy with relief,
Unlocks the icy gate,

And the pale prisoners thread the world once more
To the steep cliffs of Greenland's pastoral shore,
Bearing their dying chief!

Time was when he should gain his spurs of gold
From royal hands, who woed the knightly state;
The knell of old formalities is tolled,
And the world's knights are now self consecrate.
No grander episode doth chivalry hold
In all its annals, back to Charlemagne,
Than that long vigil of unceasing pain,
Faithfully kept, through hunger and through cold.
By the good Christian Knight, ELISHA KANE!

EDITOR'S DEPARTMENT.

'Robert Allyn, Editor.

WE send out bills in this number to our subscribers. Most have already paid up, but some too many-are still behind. Will you, dear friends, fill out blanks in receipt, and send on the cash at once, and we will return bill, receipted. It will help us to make a better and a cheaper magazine; and also help our readers to appreciate it better.

Visitation of Schools.

It has been our pleasure during the last four months to visit not less than one hundred and seventy-five schools in the State of Rhode Island, and about a dozen of those in adjoining States. We wish here to record a few words in reference to these visits, both for the encouragement and instruction of teachers and visitors. We wish also to utter a few sentiments for the advice and information of those who pay for these schools, in order that they may know what they are paying for, and what the children are learning. We do this, that so far as the influence of our modest periodical goes, it may be exerted in the direction of improvement.

ful examination than in the case of our common schools and the work they are to perform. The agencies used in these schools are very numerous and liable to become conflicting, unless they are watched with vigilance and guarded with energy. The teacher is often set in imaginary conflict with both scholars and parents; the pupils almost always are oftener made to feel that the teacher oniy governs, instructs, and becomes popular at the expense of their peculiar pleasure or interests, and the parents are apt to think that teachers are a lazy class in antagonism with them, and the scholars a vicious, idle set, who live only to get into mischief and destroy property in shape of text-books and school furniture. Thus, while there is such a conflict of interests and inclinations, there should be much careful study and supervision seeking to harmonize opposition and cause all these conflicting elements to work out greater good than any of them alone could perform.

Several very important practical questions arise in reference to this matter of Visitation of Schools, as, "Who shall be the Visitors? With what powers shall they be clothed? What shall be the methods they shall adopt, whether of simple inspection and observation, or of examination, criticism and suggestion? How often should schools be thus visited? To what subjects should these visitors direct their attention? And how shall they make their observations and the knowledge they thus gain of practical utility to the community?" All these are topics and questions that cannot any of them be left out of account in the discussion of a subject so important as this. Let us examine them somewhat in detail.

1st. Who shall be the Visitors?

But before we begin, let us say, that there is no way of making improvement in our schools except by careful calculation and examination of the faults and defects, rather than by boasting of the excellencies of our schools, their teachers, and their methods of instruction and governThe answer to this question will depend somement. The man who undertakes to improve what on the purpose for which this visitation is without attempting to correct errors or defects, undertaken. If it be, as it ought to be, to secure and only seeks to do better, cannot by any means uniformity in the methods of teaching and disciadvance so rapidly as he can who first searches pline throughout a given territory, as well as enand finds out wherein he fails, and then resolute-lightened progress and permanent improvements ly sets himself to correct and supply these fail- then sound policy would dictate the appointment ures and deficiencies. To labor blindly even with of a single man of large experience and practithe best intentions, and with the utmost self-com-cal common sense, who should as far as possible placency, is not a very promising way to accom- give his whole time and attention to the work. plish anything that shall benefit ourselves or others; for, in that case, we are most likely to do as much mischief by our carelessness as we can do good by our zealous labor.

This plan is much better than the very common one of appointing a half-dozen men to visit the dozen schools of a town, and giving to each the duty of visiting two schools once, perhaps twice We must scan every work that we undertake, during the time they are to keep. By this latter before we begin it, as to the means best adapted method, the visitor can make no intelligent comto accomplish it; and while we are engaged in it, parisons of one school with others, aud often he as to the general effect of those means thus em- has had no experience sufficient to enable him to ployed, and as to our own capabilities for that be a wise and profitable counsellor to the teacher work. But no where do we more need this care-in cases of difficulty, or to stimulate his zeal, oz

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