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THE UNITED STATES LITERARY GAZETTE.

Published on the first and fifteenth day of every month, by Cummings, Hilliard, & Co. No. 1 Cornhill, Boston.--Terms, $5 pe
VOL. I.

PROSPECTUS.

We have determined to publish a new periodical work, and as many are now published in this country, and many more have been attempted and abandoned, we shall endeavour to state at some length, our purposes in commencing another.

We are perfectly aware how difficult it must be to overcome the indifference, works like that we propose, encounter at their outset. We do, however, expect success, because we are confident of our ability to make a Literary Gazette, which shall be highly useful to the reading public of this country, and to all who are interested in matters relative to literature, either in the way of business or amusement. We have long seen and felt the want of such a work; we hope to supply an existing demand; to offer to a large portion of this community, a gratification suited to their tastes and not now provided for them.

We shall endeavour to give to the United States Literary Gazette, a strictly national character. If we do not fail in executing our intentions, it will communicate a distinct and accurate impression of the literary and intellectual condition and progress of this country. A large proportion of our pages will be filled with reviews of works published here, either of domestic or foreign origin; every book which issues from the press of this country, and comes within our reach, shall receive from us such notice as its character and pretensions deserve. We shall also publish whatever interesting information we can gather, concerning our national literature, education, and public opinions.

BOSTON, APRIL 1, 1824.

n, payable in July. No. 1.

occasionally inserted. In freely admitting of every month. Each ar will con-
prose or poetry of a miscellaneous charac- tain 16 quarto pages-one or two of which
ter, we shall not depart from our leading may be used for advertiseme* * ----and will
principle of making the Gazette a national be printed on paper of supor quality.
work, because, we may thus assist the de- It will be sent to distant subse's on the
velopment and cultivation of domestic tal- day of publication, by the mail
ent, and the articles we publish will give or in any other way they shal
some indication of the strength and charac-
ter of the intellectual power already exist-
ing and exerted amongst us..

A

Terms-$5 per annum, paya
months from its commencement.
tions received at our Bookstore, No.
hill.
CUMMINGS, HILLIARD,

Boston, Feb. 1824.

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THE editor of this paper is perfectly s sible of his inability to sustain alone t burthen of such a work as, it is hoped, thi will become. But his extensive and very satisfactory arrangements with gentlemen who stand high among the scholars and writers of our country, encourage him to believe, that the Literary Gazette, he is about to conduct, will be a valuable addition to our periodical literature.

We shall not aim at giving a value to our Gazette by profound researches into science and philosophy, or by lengthened and intricate speculations. Our numbers shall not be filled with literary gossip; neither shall they be composed of articles which are not to be understood and appreciated but with a degree of labor almost equal to that required for their composition, and cannot be enjoyed without a singularity of taste and mental habits. We shall endeavour to avoid with equal care both these extremes, and we now offer our first number to the public, that by it they may judge of our plan, and No existing journal, at least none in this of the means we have provided for its exe- country, actually performs the uses of a cution. We however ask, what in common General Review; and it will be a leading equity must be granted, that the difficulties principle in the conduct of the Gazette, to of making a beginning should be duly con- maintain this character. It is obviously sidered. Many gentlemen have engaged impossible that any individual should critto contribute to our pages, and in justice to icise justly books of every sort; the editor them it is proper for us to say, that among certainly would not think of undertaking a them are minds as highly gifted by nature, task so far beyond his ability; but he has to and as well nurtured and disciplined by thank many who honour him with their habits of study and composition, as those friendship, for the kindness, which has promemployed in the support of any periodicalised to this work the assistance of such a work in this land.

variety and extent of talent and knowledge, as may almost ensure to all the classes of the reading community a just account of every work, which is offered to them and is important enough to deserve any T. P.

Some pages of each number will be filled
with Literary and Scientific Intelligence.
Great care and assiduity will be used to
ensure to this department of the Gazette,
interest and value. It may be well to re-notice.
mark, that our extensive connexion with
booksellers, at home and abroad, will enable
us to supply our editors and contributors
promptly, with almost every new publica-
tion of every kind.

REVIEWS.

Books intended to subserve the purposes of education, have, within a few years, been greatly improved and multiplied. Much of the best talent and skill of this age has been employed upon mere school books; and histories, travels, tales, &c. calculated Course of Instruction in the Public Schools for the tastes and requirements of youth, No injury to the established Journals, can in Boston. Boston, 1823. 8vo. have been written with great power, print- be involved in the success of our proposed THIS pamphlet is filled with valuable ined in the cheapest forms, and circulated work; many of them are useful and hon-formation. The public instruction providthroughout the community with strenuous orable to the literature of this country, and ed by the city of Boston for all her citiindustry. Such works must exert a power- we should deeply regret to impede their ful influence, either of good or evil; we usefulness or lessen its rewards. We bethink they have not received due attention long to the same class of literary works, from the journals professedly devoted to but our paths lie in different directions; reviewing the current literature of the age; and it cannot be doubted, that literary puband shall endeavour to supply this deficien-lications profit each other, by increasing or to establish permanent relief for the cy by making our readers acquainted with and confirming the appetite which demands wretched;-but it is a magnanimous deterthe true character of all books, written to and enjoys them. A successful work, al- mination and endeavour of a body politic, aid them in a work of such importance as most of necessity, enlarges the circle of to prevent the severest evils which embitter the education of their children. those, who are prepared to read with pleas-life and render it useless; to remove the ure another work of a similar character. efficient and fertile sources of misery and The United States Literary Gazette will sin, by substituting the unspeakable good of be published on the first and fifteenth day education, for a childhood and youth of un

Notices of foreign works, which lead to topics or considerations applicable to the affairs or interests of this country, will be

zens, who are disposed to avail themselves of it, is an almost unexampled instance of that true wisdom which is one with just liberality. It is not the effort of individuals to build an asylum for resourceless poverty,

taught, unreclaimed, and unsubdued igno

rance and wilfulness.

child. In these schools the children are taught to read and spell correctly, and thus The attention paid to education in most to fit themselves effectually for the higher parts of the civilized world, is a striking schools. Pupils are first received at four characteristic of this age, and a proof that years of age, which is quite as soon as the man is beginning to be blessed with a bet- discipline and instruction of a school can ter discernment of the true end and uses of be applied to advantage. These schools life, and a greater willingness to regard are numerous, because experiment has provmoral and intellectual good, as more valua-ed that fifty or sixty children are as many ble than any thing beside. In England the as one mistress can successfully instruct, and efforts of many prominent men, to institute because it is important that the schools a system of general education, are well should be as near as possible to the homes known. The discoveries of Lancaster and of the infant pupils. Their object and effect Bell have applied to the work of instruc- is to bring the first rudiments of education tion, principles of great efficacy. In the near to the doors of all who are wise enough best parts of Europe schools of various and kind enough to their children to avail kinds have been established, which in most themselves of them. All the Primary Schools instances are supported by the strength of are under the immediate care of a board, public opinion, and, in many, also receive consisting of fifty members, who are dividprincely or royal patronage. Of some of ed and subdivided into various committees, these institutions, the object is to give to armed with proper powers and charged with the highest ranks suitable education; of corresponding responsibilities. The greatothers, to reclaim the lower classes from est care is taken to secure, by mutual, reckless and irregular habits, by the power ceaseless, and exact report and supervision, of discipline, and to give them useful knowl- a faithful and efficient execution of this well edge for utter ignorance. These indica-organized system. The monthly, quarterly, tions may be fallacious,-they may promise less than we think they do,—this progress and tendency, if it exist, may be checked or made to retrograde;-but assuredly it is right for us to rejoice in an unquestionable growth and improvement of important human institutions, and to expect therefrom extensive and valuable influence upon human character.

and semi-annual written reports are made
every year with unvarying regularity and
equal in quantity more than a thousand pages.
Each child is faithfully examined at least
twelve times a year, and many, much of-
tener.

ne

tinct school, of the system of mutual inuction with very satisfactory success. hundred and sixty children, who were soo old for the primary schools and unqualified to enter the grammar schools, were received and instructed in the same branches as are taught in the other schools by one master at a much less expense.

The English Classical School was established for the admirable purpose of providing for lads intending to become merchants or mechanics, means of more extended and complete instruction than they could obtain at any of the other public schools. There are four instructers, and no scholars are admitted under twelve years of age. The course continues during three years, but the branches of most importance are made to fall within the first year, as many of the scholars are unable to remain in the school after they are old enough to do something for their own support. The studies in this school embrace Intellectual and Written Arithmetic, Geography and the use of the globes, Grammar, History, Book-keeping, Elements of some Arts and Sciences, Composition and Declamation, Geometry, Algebra, Trigonometry, Natural Philosophy and History, Chemistry, Moral Philosophy, Natural Theology, Rhetoric, Evidences of Christianity, Intellectual Philosophy, Political Economy, Logic, and the French Language.

From these schools, scholars who are properly prepared, go to the English Grammar The Latin School is the last which we and Writing Schools, which are in two rooms; shall have occasion to notice, as it comthe two branches being kept entirely dis-pletes the course of public instruction. Our tinct. Each room has a master and assistant, limits will not allow us to speak of this and accommodates three hundred children. school at much length. The Grammars are From the middle of April to the middle of first thoroughly learned, and the course of October girls attend these schools, spend-study makes the scholars familiar with se

In this improvement the city of Boston takes the lead; we are justified in saying so, because nowhere else has a large city made an universal and strenuous effort to awaken in her youth a love of knowledge, and to fix in them habits of order at that peri-ing half the day in the reading and half in od of life, when those impressions are received, of which the successive development in some sort constitutes the character. The work is begun as soon as it can be with any prospect of advantage, and is continued until that age when the education of schools must give way to the business of active life. The system of public and universal instruction, in operation in this city, has been gradually improved as experience and the sagacity of the directors suggested alterations. It is now in most successful operation, and a pamphlet has been printed for the purpose of presenting to the consideration of the public the various parts of this system, connected as they are into one orderly and admirable whole. We shall make a brief extract of the information this pamphlet contains, certain that, while many even in Boston are ignorant of the great good that is among them, to residents of other towns these facts must be new, and to all, everywhere, interesting.

The Primary Schools, instructed by women, receive all children of either sex between four and seven years of age. In 1823 there were forty such schools for the white and two for the coloured population, and the whole number enrolled was 2,205, giving an average of 52 to each school, and an average of expense to the public of $4.72 per annum for the instruction of each

lected parts of Cicero, Horace, Juvenal and Persius, Xenophon, Homer, Wittenbach's Greek Historians, and the Greek Testament, together with Geography, Arithmetic, Geometry, Trigonometry, and Algebra. Very considerable portions of the best Latin and Greek poets are committed to memory.

the writing room, and alternating with the
boys. It is supposed girls would not attend
during the inclement season, and in the
half year in which they are excluded, the
boys are divided between the rooms; the
first and lowest classes being separated
from the intermediate classes. The read-
ing schools are subdivided into four classes, One very useful, valuable, and, we be-
of which the upper two are peculiarly un-lieve, rather peculiar improvement, is adopt-
der the master's care, but he is strictly re-ed in this and in the English Classical
sponsible for the whole. Geography is School. Every one who has had any con-
taught only to the highest class, but less is cern with a school, either as a scholar or
effected in this study than might be with master, is perfectly aware of the great
more apparatus and greater facilities. A hindrance arising from the classification of
selection is annually made from the best boys according to the studies they pursue,
boys of the first class, who are transferred to and not according to their disposition and
the English Classical or to the Latin Gram-capacity for making progress in them. The
mar School, to perfect the studies which they intelligent and quick are thus made lazy by
have begun or to pursue those of a higher the necessity of imposing only such tasks as
character. In the writing schools the ex- the dull can learn, and the few who aremost
ercises are few and simple, and a very ju- industrious are retarded by the indolent
dicious use is made of the system of mutual many. In these schools this difficulty is als
instruction. In July, 1823, the average most wholly obviated. As the boys reach
number of boys in each school exceeded two the top of the class they are taken off by
hundred, and of the girls, one hundred and ten or twelve and formed into a distinct
seventy. The salary of the master is $1200 class by themselves. As scholars are ad-
and that of the assistant $600; the expense mitted but once a year, they soon get sorted
of tuition is about nine dollars for each in this way with great accuracy; those
scholar; there are in this city seven schools boys finding themselves together who are
of this description, besides one in South able to learn about the same lesson.
Boston and one for the coloured population. All the schools-excepting the primary
In 1821 an experiment was made, in a dis-schools-are under the superintendance of

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