willing even to sacrifice something for the sake of becoming wiser; but all that he gets in the way of intellectual education is a closer familiarity with a jargon, the existence of which in the world seems to him to controvert the Argument from Design, and the chance scraps of historical and literary knowledge which fall from the lips of his routine-bound master. If only it could be regarded as an established truth that the office of a teacher is, more than anything else, to educate his pupils; to cause their minds to grow and work, rather than simply to induce them to receive; to look to labor rather than to weigh specific results; to make sure that at the end of a school-half that each one of those entrusted to him has had something to interest him, quicken him, cause him to believe in knowledge, rather than simply to repeat certain pages of a book without a mistake, — then we might begin to fancy the golden time was near at hand, when boys will come up to their lessons, as they surely ought, with as little hesitation and repugnance as that with which a man sits down to his work.

E. E. BOWEN.

AN education in submission is as essential a preparation for going out into the world, as an education in a sound bodily regimen.

ALEXANDER BAIN.

THE KINDERGARTEN.

THE movement plays and exercises of the child-garden supply this demand for the education of free activity of the body, because they gratify the instinct of move

ment by a rythmical direction of it. In antiquity, long prior to Greek civilization, men practised games that developed and improved the body, probably without comprehending their full import. We find them at the present day among most savages. The sportive contests of antiquity, certainly those of the Greeks; the tournaments of the Middle Ages; above all, the modern gymnasium, has given to this primitive instinct of motion a particular scope; and it has become, among practical people, a reflective act, having aim and object beyond mere bodily development. Doubtless the first condition of all activity, all labor, and production is the education of the limbs and the organs, which are the instruments of the mind. The shortcoming and failure of this education is proved by the feeble, unformed, and crippled bodies which are found so frequently among us, insufficient instruments for work. Masses of men have received no physical education, or been perverted by that which they have received. An immense amount of force is lost to society by this failure of bodies at once strong and healthy, handsome and dexterous.

Who will say then, that the movement plays of the child-garden are not a serious part of the education of the human being?

BARONESS MARENHOLTZ BULOW.

CHILDREN AND NATURE.

You should attend to nature in your children far more than to art. The elegant manners and usages of the world are for the most part unnatural. These come of themselves in later years. Treat children like children,

that they may remain the longer uncorrupted. A boy whose acutest faculties are his senses, and who has no perception of anything abstract, must first of all be made acquainted with the world as it presents itself to the senses. Let this be shown him in nature itself, or where this is impossible, in faithful drawings or models. Thereby can he, even in play, learn how the various objects are to be named. Comenius alone has pointed the right road in this matter. By all means reduce the wretched exercises of the memory.

J. B. BASEDOW.

THE true victories, the only ones which we need never lament, are those won over the dominion of igno

rance.

The employment most honorable, and most profitable to the people, is to labor for the diffusion and extension of the ideas of men.

NAPOLEON BONAPARTE.

THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE.

If the extent and necessity of actual use be taken as a measure of the importance of any study, we must agree that the study of the English language and literature easily ranks first in all educational work. Expression, both oral and written, forms a large part of the daily experience of every human being. If it be urged that it will take care of itself from imitation of others, it may be answered that such imitation is one of the very things that most hinder the use of good language in the community, and that the same reasoning would

apply to most of the work done in our schools. I claim that from the primary school to the close of the college course, the study of the English language and its literature demands at least as much time and attention as that of any other subject or any other language what

ever.

EUGENE BOUTON.

THE DIGNITY OF HISTORY.

IT is because God is visible in History that its office is the noblest except that of the poet. The poet is at once the interpreter and the favorite of Heaven. He catches the first beam of light that flows from its uncreated source. He repeats the message of the Infinite, without always being able to analyze it, and often without knowing how he received it, or why he was selected for its utterance. To him, and to him alone, history yields in dignity; for she not only watches the great encounters of life, but recalls what has vanished, and partaking of a bliss like that of creating, restores it to animated being. The mineralogist takes special delight in contemplating the process of crystallization, as though he had caught nature at her work as a geometrician; giving herself up to be gazed at without concealment, such as she appears in the very moment of exertion. But history, as she reclines in the lap of eternity, sees the mind of humanity itself engaged in formative efforts, constructing sciences, promulgating laws, organizing commonwealths, and displaying its energies in the visible movement of its intelligence. Of all pursuits that require analysis, history, therefore, stands first. is equal to philosophy; for as certainly as the actual

It

bodies forth the ideal, so certainly does history contain philosophy. It is grander than the natural sciences; for its study is man, the last work of creation, and the most perfect in its relations with the Infinite.

GEORGE BANCROFT.

SINGLE-STRINGED METHODS.

As the man who attempts to run upon one leg has poor speed and quick exhaustion, so do all the singlestringed methods of education produce exhaustion, fatigue, and failure. But when the soul is uplifted and inspired by the love of the living teacher and the ravishing power of song, and when these exalted sentiments are consolidated in our bone and muscle by industrial action at the time, we develop a noble and enduring manhood for time and eternity. It is the only manhood on which a republican government can stand, and this morally industrial education is the only possible measure which can relieve us from the dangerous classes of criminals, from the threatening army of tramps, and from the convulsions, mobs, and anarchy which are coming upon us, when millions of unskilled and poorly educated workmen living near the precipice of famine are liable to be tumbled over its edge by any sudden tilting of the balance of trade, or the fluctuations of markets, even if the curse of monopoly and speculation were removed.

J. R. BUCHANAN.

OF LEARNING.

IT were too long to go over the particular remedies which learning doth minister to all the diseases of the mind, sometimes purging the ill-humors, sometimes