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and then find fault with this or that text-book, because those who study it do not, in consequence, become good writers.

The fault lies deeper, and a radical change must be made in our teaching before we can justly expect satisfactory results. Our grammars teach a good deal about the English language-though, unfortunately, much that they teach is not worth knowing-but they do not teach pupils to " 'give thought graceful and proper expression in words," simply because language is not a thing to be learned by rule or precept. We might as well expect to teach a child to dance by making him repeat the names and uses of his bones and muscles, as to expect him to become a master of his mother tongue by such exercises as John is a noun, proper, third person, singular number, masculine gender, and in the nominative case. Very respectfully,

Here, November 10, 1866.

R. S. J.

SCIENCE AND THE ARTS.

-M. Favre thus describes the process by which he supposes silver to be transmuted into gold. A certain quantity of pulverized chlorid of ammonium is dissolved in aqua ammonia. If the solution be turbid, it must be filtered; chlorid of silver, perfectly white and humid, is then added and the bottle well shaken. The chlorid of silver is dissolved, the solution becomes yellow and deposits a precipitate of the same color, which must be collected carefully. The characteristics of this powder are: 1. When introduced into aqua regia it is completely dissolved, and a new addition of ammonia precipitates it; 2. it is not fulminating; 3. it furnishes gold when placed between the poles of a Bunsen or Grove batttery. -According to a German author, the number of useful plants has risen to about 12,000; but it must be remembered that these researches have been completed only in certain portions of the earth. There are no less than 2,500 known economic plants, among which are reckoned 1,100 edible fruits, berries and seeds; 50 cereals, 40 uncultivated graminaceous seeds, 23 of other families; 250 comestible rhiromes, roots and tubers, 37 onions, 420 vegetables and salads, 40 palms, 32 varieties of arrow root, and 31 sugars. Vinous drinks are obtained from 200 plants, aromatics from 266. There are 50 substitutes for coffee, 129 for tea. Tannin is present. in 140 plants, caoutchouc in 96, gutta percha in 7, resin and balsamic gums in 389, wax in 10, grease and essential oils in 330; 88 plants contain potash, soda, and iodine, 650 certain dyes, 47 soap, 250 fibres which serve for weaving, 44 for paper making, 48 give materials for roofing; 100 are employed in building; 740 are used, and there are 615 known poisonous plants. According to Endicher, out of the 278 known natural families, only 18 seem to be perfectly useless.

-It appears that Canada is no longer entitled to be considered as the sole depository of the earliest fossil hitherto discovered. Recent laborious researches made by Professor Hochstetter, of Vienna, have resulted in the discovery, in the calcareous limestone of the Krumman, of undoubted specimens of Eozoon, in all respects similar to those found in Canada.

NEW PROCESS Of Making Steel.-M. Galy-Cazalat has discovered a new process for the rapid conversion of cast iron into homogeneous and pure cast steel. It is known that pieces of steel cast in moulds are full of cavities, considerably weakening their tenacity. The rolling or hammering required to cause an adherence of the particles of the metal is very costly, and sometimes impracticable. It occurred to M. Galy-Cazalat to cause these cavities to disappear by submitting heavy guns to great pressures produced by gases while the metal is still in a fluid state, in the moulds of sand, firmly bound by strong frames of iron of suitable resistance. For this purpose, immediately after the casting of the complete cannon, the whole is covered hermetically by a metallic cap, screwed firmly to the framework of the mould. The cap carries a vertical tube, furnished with a cock at the lower extremity, and closed at the top by a less resisting membrane, or safety diaphragm. It contains six to ten grammes of powder, without sulphur, composed of eighty parts of saltpetre and twenty parts of charcoal. The imprisoned gases under the cap exert on the surface of the liquid steel a pressure, which is transmitted simultaneously and regularly through the entire mass of the cannon, effectually effacing the bubbles, and increasing the tenacity of the metal, which is the same throughout. By this process he succeeds in avoiding many of the difficulties incident to his own and to Bessemer's method of making cast-steel, one of which was, that the steel produced by them had to be re-cast so as to become homogeneous and of superior quality, which second operation, carried on in crucibles containing 44 pounds, doubled the cost of homogeneous cast-steel.

-Dr. Reichenbach, of Vienna, thinks that there exists throughout space a cosmical powder, or dust, which sometimes becomes agglomerated, so as to form meteorites, and at others reaches the earth as an impalpable powder. Meteorites are composed mainly of nickel, cobalt, iron and phosphorus. Some dust, collected by Reichenbach on a mountain top, previously unvisited, gave, upon analysis, nickel, cobalt, phosphorus and magnesia. Dr. R., therefore, thinks that we have an invisible rain of meteoric dust, from which is derived the minute quantity of phosphorus, so gene rally distributed over the earth, and so necessary to vegetation. This hypothesis is very pretty, but not yet established.

-Fine coloring matters, soluble in fatty matters, paraffine, and similar hydrocarbons, and capable by mixture of producing any number of intermediate shades, have been discovered in the form of metallic soaps. They are obtained by precipitating various metallic solutions with soda soap. In this way the salts of iron afford a brown orange stearate; those of copper, a malachite green; those of nickel, an emerald green; those of chromium, a green which changes to violet; those of uranium, a bright yellow; those of cobalt, a lilac; and those of manganese, a rose red.

-A new use for the products of the distillation of petroleum and coal has been found. The resulting volatile bydrocarbons have the property of dissolving all the more common vegetable oils, as palm oil, olive oil, lin seed and rape-seed oils, and the like. The seeds or fruit containing the oil are first crushed or ground, and digested with the hydrocarbon in her metical vessels. The oil is gradually taken up by the volatile agent, which is afterward driven out by distillation. The solvent is condensed, and thus very little loss results, while the yield of vegetable oil is from 40 to 50 per cent, more than by pressure.

EDUCATIONAL INTELLIGENCE.

EASTERN STATES.

MAINE.-The Agricultural College will go into operation next spring.

MASS.-Lee Claflin has given $25,000, and his son, Lieutenant-Governor William Claflin, $10,000, to endow the Methodist Theological Institute of New England.

CONN.-Mr. Peabody has given Yale College $150,000, for the purpose of establishing a scientific museuin.

MIDDLE STATES.

NEW YORK.-In October, Loring Andrews, Esq., of this city, gave $100,000, and two other gentlemen $10,000 each towards the endowment of the University of the City of New York. The total endowment of the institution is now nearly $500,000. We are gratified to record the prosperity of this University, whose claims upon the public are excelled by no other. To one of its professors, Morse, we owe the telegraph; to another, Draper, we owe the daguerreotype, and another, Loomis, now of Yale, published, during his connection with it,one of the finest mathematical series in the English language.

-The Finance Committee of the Board of Education of New York city estimate their expenses for 1867 at 82,522,000, of which $1,580,000 are for teachers' salaries. The salaries of teachers are as follows:

Male Departments.-Principals (based on attendance of pupils) from $2,000 to $8,000; Vice-Principals, $1,800; Male Assistants (average), $1,200; Female Assistants (average), 8675.

Female Departments.-Principals, $1,200; Vice-Principals, $900; Assistants (average), $600.

Primary Schools-Principals, $1,012.50; Vice-Principals, $790; Assistants (average), $450.

Special teachers are paid for the time actually employed.

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Wesleyan University, to bear the name of their father.

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ENGLAND.-The Educational Times states that the important subject of university extension, by the establishment of colleges for poor students, continues to engage the attention of the authorities at Oxford. The sub-committee, presided over by the Rev. Dr. Shirley, recently ap pointed to consider the question, have made a report to the effect that a new college or hall must be opened to give the benefit of the university to a class of men who cannot now enter. They suggest that in the proposed establishment "the charge for tuition be £4; for furnished roonis, £8; for battels, £10 a term; Easter and Act terms to count as one, making £51 per annum. The payments for each term to be paid in advance. In the battels would be included breakfast, plain luncheon, dinner, attendance, and the general light ing of the college." Another recommendation is, that breakfast and dinner be in common, the principal and tutors being for the most part present at those meals. Economy being the essence of the scheme, it is provided that "if any member contracts debts beyond a certain amount, or be found to be forming expensive habits, he be requested to remove to some other

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FRANCE.-The Senate has again rejected the proposition that ability to read and write be made a qualification for holding office in a town council, for the reason that in many sinall communes persons possessing all the qualifications, and able to read and write, cannot be found.

-Education is liberally supported in the Isle of Bourbon. At present, $120,000more than one-eighth of the whole revenue is devoted to teachers' salaries. Primary instruction is gratuitous, and there is a great classical school, with five hundred pupils. The island depends upon France for its supply of teachers.

HOLLAND.-Secularization of the primary schools is much discussed in this country. Attendance upon school is neither compulsory nor gratuitous, but there are few children of the legal age who do not attend either government or private schools.

SPAIN. The law provides for the establishment of schools, both male and female, in all parishes with five hundred or more

inhabitants, and attendance is compulsory. The poor receive free education. The law is not well enforced. Male teachers receive a free house and from $125 to $500 per annum, and female teachers receive two-thirds as much.

SYRIA. A revival of education is in progress here. A correspondent of the New York Tribune gives the following details:

"In the reign of Justinian the law school of Beirut had a world-wide celebrity. To-day seven of the largest and most imposing edifices in Beirut are institutions of learning-four of them Protestant, two Papal, and one Greek. Of the four Protestant institutions, two are under American auspices, one English, and one Prussian. Of the American schools, one is a girls' seminary, a boarding-school of a high order, with fifty boarders, who paid during the past year more than a thousand dollars for their board and tuition. Though the teachers are all natives, no American need feel ashamed of this most flourishing school, whether it be in respect to the beautiful edifice which is its home, or its admirable internal discipline. The other is the Syrian Protestant College, with whose name many of your readers are fumiliar, and to whose endowment not a few of them have contributed."

Students are flocking to this college from all parts of the East, and even from Africa. Professor Blyden, of Liberia College, is now in attendance, studying Arabic.

MR.

CURRENT PUBLICATIONS.

R. MONTEITH'S "Physical Geography" has been before the public for several months, and has acquired no inconsiderable notoriety. It may not be amiss to review briefly some of its claims to public favor.

In describing its character, the author says that, avoiding the use of all technical terms that would perplex the young learner, he has endeavored to explain the leading principles of Geography by means of familiar language and comparisons, and suggestive illustrations, according to the Object system of instruction.

To exemplify his meaning, he refers to

(1) MONTEITH'S PHYSICAL AND INTERMEDIATE GEOGRAPHY. Part I. Geography Taught as a Science. By JAMES MONTEITH, New York: A. B. Barnes & Co.

two illustrations-one on page 18, the other on page 27. The first, he says, "explains the theory of Volcanic Action." This implies that there is but one theory of volcanic action. Perhaps the author has never heard of any other; or it may be that there is one, which, in his estimation, is preeminently correct; it is the theory. To learn what this theory may be, and how it is explained, we turn to page 18 and find-not a word about volcanic action. A typographical error, doubtless; for, looking further, we discover on the next page a picture of a young lady standing by a table and pointing at something described below as "A Cake which is burst open at the Top by the escape of Steam, arising from the Fluids within the Cake, the Heat of the Oven corresponding with that of

the Earth's Interior," while a boy and two small girls are looking on, apparently with great interest. All this, we are told, may illustrate a "Volcano, and Fissures caused by Earthquakes." Possibly it may, but it is not very clear; nor do we learn from it much about "the theory of Volcanic Aotion." That, however, may be owing to our inability to comprehend the correspondence of the "Heat of the Oven with that of the Earth's interior."

Perhaps the illustration on page 27 may be more fortunate. Turning to it, we see a youngster standing by a stove, with one hand resting on the cover of a tenkettle, and the other gracefully extended to a group of children, to whom he appears to be teaching "Geography as a Science." The text informs us, that the "Geysers or Hot Springs of Iceland may be illustrated by a kettle partly filled with water and placed on a hot stove." Then follows an elaborate account of a theory of Geyser action which was exploded years ago. If Mr. Monteith will take the trouble to read up a little on Modern Science, he will learn to regard less highly his "model illustration," and be persuaded, perhaps, to put his stove and kettle to some more appropriate use.

We believe in pictures. They are espeeially useful in a primary geography. But it is quite important that they give at least a tolerably correct idea of what they are said to represent. This does not seem to have ever occurred to Mr. Monteith. Of the sixty cuts that occupy so farge a portion of the forty pages of Physical Geography, some are good; very many are indifferent, and are used, evidently, to fill up; while not a few, like the tea-kettle illustration, simply teach falsehood. We have room to refer but to one other, a wonderful picture in its way. It will be Bure to delight the children. In fact, it is Bo juvenile in conception that we suspect our author must have "borrowed" the idea, if not the design, from some little boy's slate. We have seen many such pic tures drawn by artists of tender years. It is on page 23, and represents, we are told, "A Sectional View from the Atlantie Coast of the United States, Northeastward to Norway." We never heard of a seetional view from a place before; but that inay be accounted for by the fact that geography has never before been taught as a

science. We would advise our readers to examine this picture; they will see many marvelous things in it, not the least noticeable of which are whales five hundred miles long and sea-weeds twice as long as the whales, and other sea-monsters equally wonderful. But pictures are not the only notable feature of "Geography taught as a science." The familiar comparisons mentioned in the preface, are quite as remarkable and as worthy of commendation,

The first paragraph of the Geography affords a characteristic example. In it, the "process by which the world was made from chaos" (mark the word) is compared to the "Growth of a Plant!" One would think a single such comparison would be sufficient, even for the youngest learner. But not so. Paragraph II. endeavors to make the matter still clearer: thus-"The earth's formation from chaos may be illustrated by an egg, whose fluid substances, by a certain application of heat, and in a certain time, are changed into a beautiful living bird." Chaos is a fine point to start from. Its likeness to an egg is so apparent, and the analogy between creation and the process of incubation so complete, that the beauty and force of the figure will be recognized at once. Yet we fear that some inquisitive child may ask what chaos means, and how the world is like a beautiful bird— but what absurd questions will children not ask?

It would require an entire number of the MONTHLY to notice all the "familiar comparisons." A few examples must suffice.

Par. 13, p. 9, says: "All the fresh water of the land is raised (?) from the great reservoir, the ocean, by the combined agencies of the sun and air, acting like a great pump and sprinkler." For a matter of fact statement, this is a little mixel. It is not clear which is the pump, and which the sprinkler, or how a sprinkler can raise any thing. Besides, we fear that the little boys and girls who live in the country and are unacquainted with city waterworks, may fail to appreciate the force of the compari→ son. Perhaps, however, the more poetical version of the great fact, as given in par. 16, was intended for them. It reads thus: "The sun, by his Powerful Light and Heat, so acts upon the sea, that thin fresh water, called vapor, is separated from it. The vapor, like a feather loosened from a bird, is borne upward by the atmosphere

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