* *

the common mold, which, like the old giant's bed, stood there, appointed by superior authority to be filled alike by the great and the little.* The pupils were kept apart from the conversation or sight of any person but their teachers. None ever got beyond the precincts of despotism to snatch even a fearful joy. Their very amusements proceeded by word of command." What is so forcibly said here of the Stuttgart school must appertain more or less to every large school, because in every large establishment of whatsoever kind, strict method and rigid system are necessary to order. If you subject two plastic natures to exactly the same process, one at least must suffer, because no two natures are exactly alike. If you do this upon two hundred, so much wider the mischief. This treatment must especially injure the feminine organization, because it is the most delicate and sensitive. God, with his infinite resources, always creates with variety. He has made no two grains of sand alike, far less too human beings. He has varied the elements of humanity in almost infinite combinations. It is the sacred office of education to develop a symmetrical healthful fullness of being after the particular type God has indicated for each individual. A true training should no more destroy variety among women, than a true cultivation destroys variety among flowers. There is as much diversity among the flowers as among the weeds; and so there ought to be as much diversity among the good as among the bad. It is true that there are certain qualities which are indispensable to every good character, as petals are to flowers. But it is not the mere presence or the mere number of the petals that gives the charm to the flower. It is the native coloring and the native fragrance. As these differ not only in degree but in kind, so character differs in all its finer essences and issues. Education must heed this. It must work with nature. If it will deal gently by her, and not thrust her aside, or crush her down, she will lend all her best influences to its work, and manifest herself most distinctly and graciously in the result. If it be truly wise, and benign, and patient, she will indeed let it turn and train even the evil roots she has fixed in the very core of the being, so that they shall grow up, not into briers, but into roses. Collective, or to use a more expressive epithet, wholesale education, the only kind boarding-schools can furnish, excludes almost entirely this individual training; and to that one cause is greatly owing the painful lack of spontaneity and the artificial uniformity that mark all the higher circles of American society. This effect must continue until the large boardingschool system gives way to small private schools, or to the employment of thoroughly qualified family governesses, or, far better yet, the teaching and training of daughters, Cornelia fashion by Cornelia mothers. There was a world of practical wisdom in that injunction of Napoleon to Madame Campan : "Be it your care to train up mothers who shall know how to educate their children." Had it been generally followed, France would have been saved.

THE

PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY.

HE several series of school geographies now in use, although differing widely in degree of adaptedness to class-recitation, are based throughout upon the same general plan of presenting facts without princiles, results without causes. While pages of exercises and questions are en upon unimportant political divisions and insignificant rivers, capes, Jays, and islands, very little, or more frequently nothing at all, is given upon subjects like prevailing winds and ocean currents and their influences, or the forces which determine and control these influences. If the time which is now spent in memorizing details of no great value at best, were devoted to the consideration of general principles, relations, and influences presented in plain and familiar language, and with frequent reference to well-known facts and objects, the study of geography would not only be more interesting, but far more profitable.

It is true that children of the age at which this study in usually begun, can not be expected to understand the laws which govern the operations of Nature-laws which the wisest are only beginning to comprehend; but one fact is as easily remembered as another, and a child can learn that Western Europe owes its genial climate, and consequently its civilization and prosperity, to the influence of the Gulf Stream as readily as that the Torneo River empties into the Gulf of Bothnia. The superior value of the first fact will not be questioned, yet makers of school geographies persist in filling their books almost entirely with facts like the second.

A certain amount of local and descriptive geography is valuable and necessary; but a knowledge of the principles upon which, and the purposes for which the various divisions of land and water, and the phenomena of Nature were called into existence, is absolutely essential, and we overlook the most important part of the subject when we teach merely the names and situations of the continents, mountains, oceans, rivers, etc. Each of these was created in accordance with a wise and definite plan, each has its special duty to perform, and all work together in harmony for the happiness and well-being of the earth's inhabitants. And if such facts and relations were not simply recognized, but made the basis of our system of teaching the subject, geography would serve the purposes of instruction as well, besides cultivating the pupil's powers of observation and reason, and elevating his thoughts by the contemplation of the wisdom, power and goodness of the divine Architect.

THE Duke of Wellington, in one of his few public speeches, said that "education without religion makes men cunning devils."

AMERICAN EDUCATIONAL MONTHLY.

MAY, 1866.

WI

HONESTY OF EDUCATIONAL JOURNALS.

ITHOUT exception, we believe the conductors of educational journals in the United States are honorable men. In fact, their business offers no temptations to rascals. The publishers and editors of educational periodicals are a philanthropic brotherhood, all zealous in one common cause. Hence, it is not strange that their communications with each other are of the most honorable and courteous character.

While we make no exception in the United States, we regret that we must cite an exception so near to us as Canada. The Journal of Elucation, Montreal (Lower Canada), February, 1866, Volume X., No. 2, copies in full, verbatim et literatim, a valuable article from our February number, on "Mathematical Geography," without credit. While we can not complain of the journal's appreciation of our articles, we can not appreciate the journal's style of appropriating our property. The article in question was prepared expressly for us by one of our most esteemed contributors, whose name was given in our table of contents.

We make no objection to the free use of whatever papers may please our editorial readers, provided due credit be given. We do not take the precaution to copyright the MONTHLY, because we rely upon the honor of educational editors. We have never before had occasion to cry "stop thief."

We regret that we can not find some shadow of excuse for so flagrant an act. We can not look to any individual person for an apology; the paper betrays no names of editors or publishers. Nor does it disclose the location of a publication office, more definitely than "Montreal, Lower Canada."

Upon the journal's title-page, is displayed the motto, "Labor omnia vincit." We would suggest, that "labor" can not always "conquer all things." It may remove mountains; it may stop the march of the Fenian army, but it can not preserve a character without spot, nor a reputation without blemish, unless actuated by a becoming honesty of purpose. The said journal, whose editors and publishers are nameless, further

graces its title-page with the significant words, "Religion, science, liberty, progress." Surely, it may be consistent with "liberty" to make free with the property of other men. The "progress" from indifferent to excellent may be most decided when Mr. Journal appropriates our articles, instead of relying upon his own, or his contributors' brains.

But why steal? Did Mr. Journal presume that the theft would not be detected at home? Our MONTHLY has a highly respectable list of subscribers in Canada. If Mr. Journal has any Canadian readers, it is most likely that our article on Mathematical Geography, with its excellent table, was familiar to them, before it was reproduced by him.

Should Mr. Journal offer in excuse for his conduct that the " Reciprocity Treaty" no longer exists, we shall be happy to take it into most respectful consideration.

COMPOSITION WRITING.

INSTINCT is a great matter. When it runs counter to custom, there is good reason for suspecting that something in the custom is wrong. The dislike which all school children have to writing compositions is too general in its character and too persistent in its manifestation to be the effect of any local circumstance or individual caprice. The good and the bad, the ambitious and the lazy, alike are affected by it. All hate it, and, whenever they can, avoid it. There must be some cause for this, either in the exercise itself or in the manner in which it is conducted. If teachers would examine the matter impartially, taking into account the object to be attained, and judging the merits of the system employed by its results, we believe there are few who would hesitate to acknowledge that the fault lies with the teaching and not with the taught.

What is the object of composition writing? To make original thinkers? Some would have it so; but it never yet accomplished that object, however desirable it may be, and it is difficult to see how it ever can.

Is it to make good writers? So we believe. Does any one know of a superior writer who acquired his style by this exercise? The composition style is proverbial and proverbially bad. A child can hardly be expected to become a master of the art of writing, when he is kept continually at work on his own imperfect efforts, with only such corrections as may be suggested by a teacher who too often can write no better than his pupil.

A novice in other arts is always allowed to avail himself of the labor and the experience of master artists who have gone before him. But not so with the beginner in writing. He is obliged to work his way up as though he were the first to attempt the difficult task of representing thought by visible characters, and the greater part of his time is wasted in overcoming obstacles which he ought never to encounter. It is very easy to tell him to write about something familiar, just as he would talk about it. But it is not so easy for him to do, as any one will discover who will put himself in the position of a child and then try to follow the same advice. Let the various sounds of the language be represented by strange characters, so that the form of each letter and the spelling of each word must be considered separately; then take a pen in the left hand and try to write, and some of the difficulties of composition encountered by a child will be realized. Having so many things to think of at once, what wonder that he becomes confused, and that the more critical and conscientious he is, the harder it is for him. If he has any thoughts on his subject to begin with, he forgets them while considering what words and letters he shall use, and how to make them.

It is true that all this may be overcome, and facility of composition acquired by practice. But we believe it might be much more easily and rapidly done in another and more natural manner, and the rare art of writing good English acquired at the same time.

THE

JARED SPARKS, LL.D.

HE well-known American scholar and author, Jared Sparks, died at his residence, in Cambridge, Mass., on Wednesday, the 14th of March. Mr. Sparks was born in Willington, Conn., May 10, 1789. Obliged to work for his own support from the time he was a mere boy, he laid the foundation of the education for which he afterwards became distinguished, during hours taken from labor. He worked first upon a farm, and afterward in a saw and grist-mill. The latter occupation left him much spare time, which he devoted to his books, and thus early he gave evidence of rare ability, and an insatiable desire for knowledge. When about sixteen years of age, he was apprenticed to a carpenter, with whom he worked two years, when his master canceled his indentures, and young Sparks became village schoolmaster at Tolland, Conn. Here he