that in the race of a busy life, by means of a homely, hearty start at the begin ning, I have, as to these subjects, casily and naturally supplied, in some humblo degree, the defects of my irregular education, and that too, not by a process of repulsive toil, but with a relish superior to all the seductions of romance. I am therefore a believer in the benefits accruing from simple country life and simple country habits, as here illustrated, and am, therefore, on all occasions anxious to recommend them to my friends and countrymen. To city people, I would say, educate your children, at least partially, in the country, so as to im bue them with the love of nature, and that knowledge and training which spring from simple rustic sports, exercises, and employments. To country people, I would remark, be not envious of the city, for in the general balance of good and evil, you have your full portion of the first, with a diminished share of the last.

THE HOMESPUN ERA OF COMMON SCHOOLS.

The Rev. Horace Bushnell, D. D., of Hartford, a native of the Parish of New Preston, "composed of the corners of three towns, (Washington, Woodbury, and New Milford,) and the ragged ends and corners of twice as many mountains and stony-sided hills," in a Discourse pronounced at the Centennial Celebration of Litchfield County in 1851, thus describes the schools of his boyhood.

But the schools-we must not pass by these, if we are to form a truthful and sufficient picture of the homespun days. The schoolmaster did not exactly go round the district to fit out the children's minds with learning, as the shoemaker often did to fit their feet with shoes, or the tailors to measure and cut for their bodies; but, to come as near it as possible, he boarded round, (a custom not yet gone by,) and the wood for the common fire was supplied in a way equally primitive, viz., by a contribution of loads from the several families, according to their several quantities of childhood. The children were all clothed alike in homespun; and the only signs of aristocracy were, that some were clean and some a degree less so, some in fine white and striped linen, some in brown tow crash; and, in particular, as I remember, with a certain feeling of quality I do not like to express, the good fathers of some testified the opinion they had of their children, by bringing fine round loads of hickory wood to warm them, while some others, I regret to say, brought only scanty, scraggy, ill-looking heaps of green oak, white birch, and heaps of green oak, white birch, and hemlock. Indeed, about all the bickerings of quality among the children, centered in the quality of the wood pile. There was no complaint, in those days, of the want of ventilation; for the large open fireplace held a considerable fraction of a cord of wood, and the windows took in just enough air to supply the combustion. Besides, the bigger lads were occasionally ventilated, by being sent out to cut wood enough to keep the fire in action. The seats were made of the outer slabs from the saw-mill, supported by slant legs driven into and a proper distance through auger holes, and planed smooth on the top by the rather tardy process of friction. But the spelling went on bravely, and we ciphered away again and again, always till we got through Loss and Gain. The more advanced of us, too, made light work of Lindley Murray, and went on to the parsing,

finally, of extracts from Shakspeare and Milton, till some of us began to think we had mastered their tough sentences in a more consequential sense of the term than was exactly true. Oh, I remember (about the remotest thing I can remember) that low seat, too high, nevertheless, to allow the feet to touch the floor, and that friendly teacher who had the address to start a first feeling of enthusiasm and awaken the first sense of power. He is living still, and whenever I think of him, he rises up to me in the far background of memory, as bright as if he had worn the seven stars in his hair. (I said he is living; yes, he is here to-day, God bless him!) How many others of you that are here assembled, recall these little primitive universities of homespun, where your mind was born, with a similar feeling of reverence, and homely satisfaction. Perhaps you remember, too, with a pleasure not less genuine, that you received the classic discipline of the university proper, under a dress of homespun, to be graduated, at the close, in the joint honors of broadcloth and the parchment.

In an Address delivered by the editor when Superintendent of Common Schools in Connecticut, before the State Teachers' Association held at Washington, (in which town the Parish of New Preston is mainly situated) in 1850, the following reference was made to the past school habits of the people.

The School Society in which we are assembled is a beautiful and striking illustration of what an agricultural people can do, under many disadvantages, to cultivate the minds and souls of the children and youth, and to send out a race of men to achieve for themselves wealth and distinction, and reflect a true glory on the rugged homesteads where their childhood and youth were nurtured. New Preston enjoys a wide, and will enjoy a still wider celebrity for the number of eminently useful, and in some departments of effort, eminently distinguished men, whose birthplace was on these rugged hillsides, and whose bodily energy, and whose freshness and force of mind were secured by the pure air, the rough exposure, the healthy sports, and laborious toil of their country life. Bred as boys were, and still are in these agricultural homes, they can endure longest the wear and tear of hard study; and in the calmness and seclusion of their outward life, they can acquire that habit of reflection which appropriates knowledge into the very substance of the mind. There is also a freshness of imagination, nurtured by wandering over mountain and valley, and looking at all things whether fixed like the everlasting hills, or growing and waving like the forests which diversify their sides, or giving out music and life like the streams which leap down and between,-which, untired in its wing, takes long and delightful flights. There is ardor and eagerness after eminence, which gathers strength like a long pent fire, and breaks out with greater energy where it has room to show itself. Above all there is often, and may be always, a more perfect domestic education, as parents have their children more entirely within their control, and the home is more completely, for the time being, the whole world to the family. Wherever these favorable circumstances are combined with the advantages of good teachers, good books, and the personal influence of educated men, as clergymen and physicians, there will boyhood and youth receive its best training for a long life of useful and honorable effort. How

much the labors of such men as Jeremiah Day, Ebenezer Porter, in the pulpit, and in their pastoral and school visitations-how much that old social library which once brought so many of the great and the good of other towns and other counties to join your firesides-how much your teachers from time to time, combined with the habits of labor, of thrift, and strict domestic culture and training, has had to do in giving to our State and country such men as the Days, the Wheatons, the Bushnells, the Whittleseys-it will be impossible to determine. It is enough that this little parish, as described by Dr. Bushnell, "made up of the corners of three towns and the ragged ends and corners of twice as many mountains and stony-sided hills," has exhibited the highest results of industrial, intellectual and religious training. The power of this little parish (with less than a thousand inhabitants,) it is not too much to say, is felt in every part of our great nation. Recognized, of course, it is not; but still it is felt.

NOTE.

The following is an imperfect list of the truly eminent and useful men which the schools and domestic training of this little agricultural community in less than fifty years has given to the public service of the country.

Nathaniel Smith, a lawyer, a member of Congress, and Judge of the Superior Court. Nathan Smith, Lawyer and Senator in Congress,

Perry Smith, Lawyer and Senator in Congress.

Daniel N. Brinsmade, Lawyer, member of General Assembly forty-three sessions, Justice of the quorum ten years.

Ephraim Kirby, United States District Judge, Commissioner of the Revenue, and first reporter of Judicial decisions in Connecticut.

~ Daniel Sheldon, Secretary of Legation to France.

Nathaniel Pitcher, Lieut.-Governor of New York, acting Governor after Dewitt Clinton's

death.

Zina Pitcher, M. D., (brother of the above.) a distinguished scholar and physician of Detroit.

Rufus Easton, Lawyer, Delegate in Congress from Missouri.

Elisha Mitchell, Professor in North Carolina College, Chapel Hill.

Charles Davies, L.L. D., Professor of Mathematics, West Point.

Thomas J. Davies, father of the above, Judge and High Sheriff in St. Lawrence County, New York.

David C. Judson, Sheriff of St. Lawrence County.

Charles A. Judson, Sheriff of Litchfield County.

Thomas Hastings, Professor of Sacred Music, New York,

...Orlando Hastings, Lawyer, Rochester, N. Y.

Seth Hastings, M. D., Clinton, New York.

Thomas Goodsell, M. D., Professor in several Medical Colleges, Utica.

Enos G. Mitchell, graduated at West Point, Capt. U. S. Army, died in Florida.

Isaac Goodsell, M. D., distinguished Physician, Woodbridge.

Amasa Parker, Judge in Delaware County, N. Y.

George A. Calhoun, D. D., Clergyman, Coventry.

Henry Calhoun, Clergyman, Ohio

Jeremiah Day, D. D., LL D., President of Yale College.

Nathaniel S. Wheaton, D, D., ex-President of Trinity College.

Thomas Day, LL. D., Secretary of State, Reporter of Judicial decisions, &c.
Elisha Whittlesey, LL. D., member of Congress, &c.

Frederick Whittlesey, vice Chancellor, New York, member of Congress.
Henry N. Day, LL. D., Professor in Western Reserve College, &c.

.

CL-ORGANIZATION AND INSTRUCTION OF THE NATIONAL

SCHOOLS OF IRELAND.

THE following Circular and Time Tables, selected from a Report of P. J. Keenan, Head Inspector, instructed by the Commissioners of National Education in 1855, to hold, what would be called in this country, a "Teachers' Institute," composed of practical teachers, whose business it is to visit different parts of the country for the purpose of assisting in the organization of schools, and diffusing a knowledge of the best principles and methods of instruction, throw much light on the aims and processes of the National Schools of Ireland.

CIRCULAR LETTER explanatory of the nature of SCHOOL ORGANIZATION, and the DUTIES of the ORGANIZERS and INSPECTORS in relation to it.

1. The objects which the Commissioners of National Education have had in view, in establishing the staff of organizers, are two-fold, viz. :

A-To bring National Schools into a state of efficiency.

B.To diffuse amongst the teachers of the country a knowledge of Schoolmastership in all its practical bearings, and also of the leading principles of the Science of Education. To carry out the first great object; (1 A), the organizers will devote themselves. during their stay in a school, to the following, as the main part of their duties. 4. To secure a regular and proper ventilation of the school-room.

4. To improve the lighting of the school-room, if necessary.

6. To make suitable arrangements as to the playground and out-offices. To make every available use of the walls; to provide tablet rails, &c.

used.

To arrange maps, charts, and tablets, and show how they can be most profitably

8. To provide black-boards, easels, pointers, arithmeticons, &c., and instruct the teachers as to their use.

9. To see that a sufficient number of desks is provided; that they are properly arranged and fixed on the floor; that provision is made for holding the slates; and that the business legitimate to the desks is regularly carried on.

10. To secure sufficient space for the drafts; to denote them by suitable marks on the floor; and to arrange the business proper to the drafts.

11. To classify the pupils, and divide them into convenient divisions and drafts. 12. To make out a time-table suitable to the circumstances of the school, and to test its judiciousness, by experiment, for a number of days before recommending its adop

tion to the Manager.

13. To see that the pupils, as well as the teacher, understand the arrangements indicated in the time-table.

To establish a sound system of monitorial instruction; to see that the members of the monitor class are judiciously selected; that they are sufficiently mature and intelligent for their duties; that their employment as monitors does not interfere with their business as pupils; that they be required to teach those subjects only which they are competent to teach; that they receive special instruction from the teachers, in lieu of the time spent by them in teaching; that the business arranged for their special instruction is regularly conducted; that they are instructed in the art of teaching; that they are taught to prepare notes of the lessons which they may be called upon to teach; that they know their duties prospectively; that they teach the same set of children from day to day for an assigned time; that their teaching is effective; that the pupils have sufficient respect for them, and confidence in their abilities; that such arrangements are made as to satisfy the parents of pupils and monitors with the monitorial system, and that the teacher is duly prepared to control and prepare the mon

itors for their duties.

Whilst monitorial instruction, judiciously and moderately employed, is encouraged, the organizers are to see that all the essentials of the education of a child are looked after and cared for by the teacher himself, and that the latter is to be almost constantly employed in the actual teaching of class after class, at the same time that he exercises an active superintendence over all the simultaneous operations of his

school.

16. To establish a system of home lessons; to make arrangements for their regular announcement day after day; to see that they are properly heard; that the answering of the pupils is in some form noted; and that the general order of such lessons be kept in correspondence with the ordinary teaching pursued in the school.

17. To arrange for the regular recapitulation or repetition of the home and other lessons.

18. To make arrangements that the parents may be occasionally informed as to the attention of the children to the home lessons and general business of the school.

19. To exemplify before the teacher the different methods of teaching, and to cause him in turn to practise the same.

20. To see that he prepares notes of lessons" in proper form, on the different subjects taught in the school, and that he teaches the various lessons in conformity with the notes so prepared.

21. To effect as much improvement as possible in the teaching of reading, writing, arithmetic, dictation, grammar, geography, drawing, &c., and particularly in the teaching of the First Book.

22. To see that the teacher gives clear evidence that he prepares himself beforehand for the work of each day, not only in the notes of the lessons which he is to teach, but also in the general business, including the simplest mechanical details of his school. 23. To drill the children, put them through the simple marching exercises, establish order and discipline, and train the teacher to continue the same course of drill and discipline so established.

24. To see that the business of the school is conducted with the least noise possible. 25. To establish a system of punishment for badly conducted children, and to introduce a system of emulation or reward, to promote good conduct.

26. To improve the manners of the children, and to see that there is a daily inspection as to cleanliness, &c.

27. To see that the children are provided with the necessary books for home study, and that a sufficient sale stock, and an ample supply of school materials and requisites are furnished.

28. To arrange as to the calling of the rolls with all possible despatch; to provide a report slate; to correct and show the teacher how to keep the school accounts, and to cause scroll rolls to be kept.

29. To adopt measures towards improving the attendance of the children, particularly with reference to punctuality in the morning.

30. Finally, the organizer is to lead the teacher into a strict observance of the rules of the Board, but especially the Practical Rules for Teachers.

31. The Commissioners of National Education have decided that no National school can be organized until the Manager express his desire to avail himself of the services of an organizer; and even after so expressing himself, and permitting the organizer to commence operations in his school, it is to be distinctly understood that he is not bound to carry out the plans or to effect the alterations suggested by the organizer. 32. The Inspectors should therefore select those schools only for organization, the Managers of which are likely to exhibit a kind and cooperative spirit to the organizers.

33. Before a school can be organized, the Manager must provide a sufficient sale stock for the use of the children attending it. As already announced to the Inspectors, the Commissioners, on the recommendation of the Head or District Inspector, or the organizer, will make a small grant of charts, black-boards, easels, pointers, &c., proportioned according to the wants and attendance of the school, not exceeding, however, except in special cases, the value of five pounds.

34. When an organizer enters a school, he is carefully to observe the methods of teaching pursued by teachers and monitors; the order, discipline, arrangements, and general organization of the school; and he is afterwards to report, on a form prepared for the purpose, the exact state in which he finds the school in all these respects. This report is called the Preliminary Report,

35. When an organizer has completed the organization of a school, he is to make a report of the order, discipline, system, &c., established by him; to detail the exact state in which he leaves the school; and to record the general results of the organization. This report is called the Final Report.

36. The organizer is then to forward the two reports just referred to, to the Inspector of the district in which the school is situated.

37. After a period of not less than three weeks, and not more than six weeks from the completion of the organization of the school, the Inspector of the district is to inspect the school, with a special view of ascertaining the effectiveness of the organization, and of examining and checking, in detail, all the points and statements contained in the organizer's final report.

38. The District Inspector is then to forward this report, along with the organizer's Preliminary and Final Reports, to the Head Inspector of the District, who will

afterwards transimit them to this office.

39. During the time that a school is under organization the Inspector is not to make a formal inspection of it, nor sooner after the organization is completed than the time mentioned in paragraph 37; and it is the express wish of the Commissioners that the employment of an organizer in a district may interfere as little as possible with the usual and regular business of inspection.

40. It is, however, exceedingly desirable that the Inspector should make as many incidental visits as possible to a school under organization, to see that the work is proceeding with regularity and vigor; to confer with the Managers, and stimulate them to a hearty co-operation with the organizers; to assist in removing local difficulties or impediments, and to extend, as much as lies in his power, the advantages accruing to the National system from the operations of the organizers.

41. No organizer should, for the present, be sent to any place where there are not, at