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WISCONSIN JOURNAL OF EDUCATION.

HOLIDAYS.-The question was asked us-too late for a practical answer for this season-if schools were entitled to a holiday on the Mondays following Christmas and New Years, inasmuch as those days came on Sunday this winter. The State Superintendent is the most suitable person to answer such a question, but we have no hesitation in saying that every school in such cases should have the holiday. For a school-board churlishly to deny it must fill every child's heart with a sense of injustice. At the State Association in Milton some one-Col. McMynn we think-spoke of Washington's Birth Day (Feb. 22,) as a time which though not a legal holiday, might very usefully be made a sort of patriotic festival for the schools-with patriotic songs, declamations, recitations, and such special instruction or observances as the day suggests. We commend the thought to teachers, though little time is now left to prepare.

MR. MANN'S ADDRESS.-This production, concluded in this number, we are sure will rouse every earnest teacher and every good man, with its trumpet tones, to higher efforts. Mr. Mann's views and aspirations may at times seem chimerical, but it is by such men, whom the world counts impracticables, that the world is moved on.

BARABOO COLLEGE.-We learn that 100 students are in attendance, and that the endeavor to supply teachers is more than equalled by the demand. The session of the County Association at Baraboo in the Holidays was pleasant and profitable. Sauk county is rapidly filling her quota on the Journal.

MARKING.-Will some one have the kindness to inform me which is the easiest and most rapid method of recording the daily recitations of each pupil ? C. F. S.

We are again obliged to ask those indebted for the Journal to remit.

It takes all we receive to pay the printer, and we cannot do that longer, unless those in arrears pay up.

Address, plainly, at our risk, Journal of Education, Madison, Wis.

If any subscribers, through any accident, have failed to receive all the numbers due, we will remail them, if requested to do so.

If any entitled to Mr. McMynn's Portrait failed to receive it in the January number, and do not find it in this, we will forward it in the next number, on being notified.

BOOK AGENTS WANTED!

To sell by subscription, with sample, excellent POPULAR ILLUSTRATED FAMILY WORKS, suited to "the times." Among these is a LOW PRICE HISTORY OF THE REBELLION, of which OVER FORTY THOUSAND of Vol. 1 have already been sold. It is a good business for ex-Soldiers, Teachers, and others out of employment. For Circulars, with Particulars and terms, address

HENRY HOWE,

No. 111 Main street, Cincinnati, O.

III. Special methods.-In considering this part of the question we shall confine our attention to the first, or perceptive phase, since, the right stand-point being taken and the right direction given to study, if the final end to be attained be kept in view, there can hardly be, in the subsequent investigation of the subject, any serious departure from the correct course.

It must be borne in mind that we have here to confine ourselves mainly to what the child can, with proper representations, discover for himself. So long as this idea is adhered to, we are in no danger of giving him what is beyond his comprehension. The only caution needed will be, not to go so much into detail as to diminish the prominence of the great characteristic features of the object studied. These must always be kept perfectly distinct.

Whatever appeals are made to the understanding must be exceedingly simple, the reasoning always being based on phenomena which the child has actually observed, and there must not be too many steps, or successive conclusions, between the premises and the final one.

We must be careful, also, to see that, whether in the study of the whole globe or the general view of the individual continents, due prominence is given to such of the points considered, as are characteristic, and become, therefore, the cause of important conditions or phenomena to be afterward studied.

Keeping in mind the nature of the superstructure to be erected, we must so lay the foundation that each successive portion as it rises shall find its support already prepared; and when, at length, the great vault shall be spread, every pier, every pedestal, every column, and every arch, shall be found in its proper position, bearing its appointed share of weight, having its own appropriate decorations and receiving its just meed of honor.

We must fix the child's attention on the form of the earth, and the distribution of the land-masses and oceans. In this, the globe is the subject of examination, the child being told, that, so far as our knowledge extends, it is an accurate representation of the earth. Henceforth it is to him as though he

were examining the earth itself, and he proceeds to the pleasing task of interrogating it, until he has acquired whatever it is able to teach him of itself.

After having noticed and described its form, his attention is to be directed to the position of the lands, they being the fixed body around which the mobile portions arrange themselves. He is to notice the arrangement of the lands in two worlds, of unequal size, on opposite sides of the globe, the compact body of the Old World, and the elongated form of the New,-the massing of all the lands toward the North, and their divergence toward the South in three different bands, and the consequent converse position and arrangement of the oceans. This is not to be merely a casual notice. The most careful attention is to be given to all these points, because on these forms and arrangements of the land-masses depend those great climatic phenomena which determine the conditions of life on the several continents, and which will, in subsequent study, demand his investigation. We thus furnish him the corner-stone for the temple he is beginning to rear. As these several facts are discovered by the pupil he must invariably be required to state them clearly, in his own language, the teacher only correcting such grammatical errors as he may commit, or supplying such new terms as will enable him to express his idea in a more clear and concise manner.

He next proceeds to notice the breaking, by the sea, of the three bands in which the lands are disposed toward the South, and the consequent formation of six great masses, which he is told are called continents;-the smaller bodies, here and there, called islands,-the parts of the continents nearly cut off from the main body, called peninsulas,—the three great divisions of the sea lying in basins among the continents, called oceans, &c.

This is to be continued until the pupil has discovered and is able to describe the different divisions of land and water which appear on the globe, and, wher. ever it was possible, has found their counterpart in nature. Thus, by the intelligent use of his own eyes, that part of Geography which is usually committed to memory from his text-book, often amid sobs and tears, and which is almost immediately forgotten because, to him, unmeaning, has become an imperishable part of his mind; and the descriptions, instead of being merely a burden to the memory, have been the means of enlarging his power of expressing ideas, and therefore of receiving them from others.

He is now ready to begin his study of the general conformation of the continents. In order to do this he needs the intelligent use of certain terms to express differences in the land-surface of the continents, and in the forms of their internal waters; as mountain-range, plateau, plain, river, lake, etc.

Ideas of these are to be obtained by him by an examination of the natural object, if within reach; or, if not accessible to him, good pictures of these several forms will suffice, and from them he will form his own definitions.

In entering upon the study of the continents it will be necessary to transfer the pupil from the globe to the physical map. He has but to be made acquaint

ed with the conventional methods of representing the different varieties of land-surface, and internal waters, which he has been studying, and he is ready to conduct his own study of the continent just as he previously did that of the globe.

As many different points will now require notice, it is indispensable that we endeavor to ascertain the logical order in which to present them, that is, the order of their successive dependence. To do this let us select any single point, as that of climate, and inquire by what is it influenced, and what does it control.

The most general influence bearing upon the climate of a continent is the position of the latter on the globe, by which it is exposed to the more or less direct rays of the sun. Next is its contour,-determining the position in which the sea winds strike it, and the position of its great lines of elevation, whether so freely to admit these winds, or entirely to shut them out from the main body. The character of the surface also determines the form and distribution of the internal waters, and this in turn modifies the healthfulness of the climate in different portions. The study of these points then, properly, should precede that of the climate, in order that when it it is taken up the child may not be obliged to remember the facts concerning it as mere isolated statements, but being led by a simple association of the phenomena with its cause (the philosophic relation, in its full extent, cannot, of course, be given him), he will have it stored in its proper niche, where it will always be found when demanded.

Again, on the soil and the climate depends the general character of the vegetation in different portions of the continent. On the vegetation depends the presence or absence of certain classes of animals which subsist on vegetation. On the presence in different parts of the continent of such plants or animals as are necessary to his subsistence, depends the existence of man, if in an uncivilized condition; and the differences in the surface, soil, climate, and the distribution of vegetation, animals, and minerals, in the different portions, will necessarily give rise to different industries, different social conditions, and different degrees of advancement in the civilized state; that is, to differences in regard to the possibility of the presence of great nationalities in different portions of the continent.

If evidence is needed in relation to the influence of physical conditions on the industrial pursuits, and distribution of population, we have but to look at our own country.* In the North east, the rough surface, the somewhat sterile soil, and the cold climate, make agriculture impracticable in the larger part of the country, while the abundant water-power, and the rich stores of coal and iron, make it the great workshop of the nation, and its fine harbors capable of receiving and sheltering the ships of all nations, make it also our commercial

*See Guyot's large Map of the United States, in which the differences in surface are indicated by difference in color.

depot, nearly all the manufacturing and the foreign commerce of the country being carried on by that little corner north of the Potomac.

Again, the level surface making cultivation easy, the fertile soil, and the warm and moist climate producing a luxuriant vegetation, make the great plains of the interior and the South the nation's farm and garden, from which, were its resources fully developed, supplies might be drawn capable, one might almost say, of feeding the world, and, with the aid of the North-east, of clothing it. In these two regions are gathered almost the entire population of the country.

The great plateau of the Rocky Mountains, on the contrary, doomed, in almost every part, by its saline soil, and its want of moisture, to hopeless sterility, is incapable of supporting a population, and must have remained uninhabited but for the rich mineral treasures embosomed within it. Its population, however numerous it may become, must be mainly confined to the single occupation of mining, and will be dependent for daily bread upon the East, or the fertile valleys beyond the Sierra Nevada, which enjoy all the moisture that but for this great barrier would have been dispersed over the whole.

We find, therefore, growing out of the successive dependence, the following order of topics:

1. Position on the Globe.

2. Contour.

3. Surface.

4. Internal Waters.

5. Climate.

6. Vegetation.

7. Animals.

8. Races of People.

9. Distribution, industries, social organization, intellectual condition, and history of the civilized inhabitants.

The last, the distribution of man in the social capacity of states or nations, constitutes that department of the subject called Political Geography, the one which is usually first presented to the young, and, in fact, the only one presented to any extent.

This, it must be conceded, cannot be intelligently studied until a knowledge has been acquired of the physical conformation, the soil, the climate, the resulting vegetable, and associated animal life, which make the possibility of the presence of civilized states or nations in one part of the continent while they are absent from another. If the facts concerning their distribution be given the pupil, before he has any idea of these physical conditions which govern it, he may remember them, it is true, but they will be of little worth to him, because he does not receive them intelligently, as the result of causes with which he is familiar, and the influence of which even he can discover if his attention