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EDUCATIONAL INTELLIGENCE.

NEW YORK.-Under the presidency of Dr. S. W. Fisher, Hamilton College has attained to a high rank in numbers, scholarship, and good order. Sixty new students were admitted at the opening of the present year; making the whole number about two hundred. Thirteen of these are returned soldiers, who have served their country faithfully in her hour of peril, and who are now preparing to serve the Church and the State in professional life.

Vassar College, for females, at Ponghkeepsie, N. Y., is now in full operation. The building has a length of 500 feet front, with a depth in the center of 171 feet, and on the wings a depth of 165 feet. It has single rooms for about 400 pupils, besides rooms for the faculty, a chapel, seating 500, art-gallery, library, etc. The institution is nearly full. Mr. Vassar is now engaged in erecting a gymnasium at a cost of $40,000. Besides the president, there are nine professors, each having assistants.

The finance committee of the Board of Education report the expense to be incurred for the support of the public schools of the city of New York for 1866, at $2,454,827.54.

NEW ENGLAND.-It is proposed to erect a Memorial Hall at Bowdoin College, in honor of the Alumni who died in the war. The Harvard College Memorial Committee has voted that an Alumni Hall be built, and that a monument in honor of the Alumni who died in the war be erected in some suitable portion of the building.

Ten scholarships of $1,000 each, with an annual income of $60 to $70, have recently been founded at Dartmouth College; only one of them, however, by a resident of New Hampshire, George W. Burleigh, of

Great Falls.

The prospects of Dartmouth College are constantly improving. The Fall term commences with a Freshman class of about sixty-the largest since 1860, and more than thirty have entered the other classes and the Scientific Department.

PENNSYLVANIA.-The trustees of Lehigh University have elected Professor Henry Coppee, of the University of Pennsylvania, the president of the faculty, and approved plans presented by Mr. Edward T. Potter, a son of the late Bishop Potter, for the collegiate buildings, which will be immediately erected at South Bethlehem, under the supervision of that gentleman as architect.

The princely endowment of Judge Packer will place this university at once in a position to command the best talent of the country for professors and teachers, and to take rank as a first-class institution. The course of study to be pursued is of the kind to fits its graduates for the active

business of life; and, while the dead languages will be carefully taught, they do not hold that pre-eminent position, in the curriculum, that tradition has fastened upon most of the colleges of England and America.

ILLINOIS.-The public schools of Chicago are overcrowded, and there are thousands of schoolless children in the city.

SOUTHERN STATES.-There are now in operation in Washington 25 colored schools, with 59 teachers and 3,169 pupils in Georgetown there are four schools, with 381 pupils; in Alexandria 10 schools, with 1,032 pupils; and in the freedmen's village on Arlington Hights two schools, with 302 pupils. All of these schools are in a flourishing condition, and are supported by the voluntary contributions of Northern benevolent societies.

While the rebel General Lee has been instituted as president of a college, his aidde-camp, Colonel Venable, has been elected professor of chemistry in the Louisiana State Military Academy.

-A national association of school superintendents, composed of State superintendents, and superintendents of public schools in larger cities, is to convene at Washington, D. C., February 6, 1866.

-In the United States there are about 60,000 common schools, which are supported in part by the State treasury, and partly by school funds and school taxes.

ENGLAND.-King's College, Cambridge, is thrown open, for the first time since its foundation, to students other than those educated at Eton. Fellow-commoners, indeed, it has had; but now, through the liberality of one of its fellows, two exhibitioners, who have earned their reward by their own merits, will be added to the number of its undergraduates, and will be allowed to compete for its fellowships. This is one of the results of the late commission.

Dr.

SCOTLAND.-Professor Masson, editor of Macmillan's Magazine, has been appointed to the chair of rhetoric in Edinburgh, vacant by the death of Mr. Artoun. His most formidable competitor was Hanna. Mr. Masson, though little more of a rhetorician than his predecessor, is said to be a man of varied accomplishments, wide knowledge, and genuinely liberal feeling.

IRELAND.-Magee College, at Londonderry, an institution which has been established for educating young men for the ministry in connection with the Presbyterian church in Ireland, has been formally opened. There was a great gathering of ministers and laymen on the occasion, and

Dr. Russel, the moderator of the General Assembly, delivered a long and able address.

-In England and Wales there are 36,042 public and private schools, attended by 2,146,478 scholars. In addition there are 1,445 evening schools, which provide for 39,783 children. The number of Sunday schools is 23,514, with 2,407,652 scholars. It is estimated that in England there is a scholar for every 836 persons; in Scotland about one-seventh of the people are at school; while in the United States there is one scholar for every five persons. In Russia only one child for about 200 persons receives instruction in school; so that while at nine o'clock on every Monday morning, there are 4,000,000 American boys and girls at school, there are in Russia only 100,000 enjoying the benefit of instruction.

GERMANY.-Herrman Vambery has been appointed professor of oriental languages in the University of Pesth. Professor Vambery is a Jew, a fact which is not generally known.

NORWAY.-It appears from a report presented to the Norwegian Storthing that one hundred thousand children are educated in the district schools of that country, at an annual cost of eighty thousand pounds.

SANDWICH ISLANDS.-The Honolulu papers are discussing whether the vernacular of the Sandwich Islands shall be discarded in the national schools for the English language. The official journal is in favor of the pure English system. Should the project be carried out, as is probable, the Hawaiian language will become extinct within a generation or two.

MISCELLANY.

-M. Cazal has hit upon a plan by which to utilize the force of falling water, not only upon the spot, but at great distances. This gentleman proposes to convert the mechanical force of falling water into electricity. For this purpose, he has simply to make the water act upon the wheelwork, just as in the case of a water-mill, only, instead of turning the stones which grind the corn, the magnetism will act upon a magneto-electric apparatus. The electricity thus developed will then be conveyed to any required distance by means of insulated wires. The economy of the process is said to be quite as remarkable as its physical character.

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---It is well known that ink is a precipitate of gallate of iron mixed up and kept in suspension in gum and water. As the water evaporates, the ink thickens, and, moreover, becomes moldy, owing to a small proportion of organic matter proceeding from the gall-nut. These inconveniences are obviated by making a new kind of ink with pyrogallic acid and the coloring matter derived from Brazil wood, and other sorts of wood used in dyeing. This ink flows well, and never turns yellow on paper.

-In France, reliable statistics show that in proportion to the increase of the sum which is derived by the government as a duty on tobacco, so has the extent of insanity, and some other diseases which have their origin in the derangement and weakening of the nervous system, increased. The French physicians say, that to no other cause than the excessive use of tobacco is the vast increase of lunacy in France to be traced.

-R. H. Allnatt, the Sussex meteorologist, has been making observations on the depositions of dew during foggy nights; the result of which is a conclusion that, in his neighborhood, at all events, the amount of dew deposited in four nights was equal to a ton and a half per acre.

-A youth, with a turn for figures, had five eggs to boil, and being told to give them three minutes each, boiled them a quarter of an hour altogether.

-It is stated that electricity travels so rapidly, that it may be driven through gunpowder without igniting it. It is only when the current is refracted that an explosion takes place.

-M. Robinet, a French chemist, has devised a very effective means of freeing the sewers from deleterious gases. He proposes that the furnaces of factories shall derive their supply of air from the sewers. The latter will thus be emptied of their mephitic gases, which will be destroyed by combustion, fresh air from the atmosphere supplying their place.

-We seek redress for injuries; we find it in-juries.

-An old Scotchwoman having been asked her opinion as to "the new minister," said he was a particularly powerful preacher "He had na' been in th' place a week before he kicket th' pu'pit a' to pieces, and banged the in'ards out o' sax Bibles."

-An enterprising quack has contrivel to extract from sausages a powerful tonic, which he says contains the whole strength of the original bark. He calls it the "sulphate of canine."

-Dr. Stein, of the University of Prague, has delivered a most interesting lecture on the subject of the "Main Results of the Latest Researches as to Infusoria." The doctor reviews, in a very elaborate and able manner, the theories advanced during the past century respecting the propagation and existence of "infusorial animal life," and concludes with the assertion-the result of his study-that the smallest forms of animal life are only brought forth in like forms of the same species, and that under no circumstances are they developed from inert matter.

-In the scale of virtues, Integrity holds the first place; Benevolence, the second; and Prudence, the third. Without the first, the latter two can not exist; and without the last, the former two are often rendered useless.

-Deep learning will make you acceptable to the learned; but it is only an easy and obliging behavior and entertaining conversation that will make you agreeable in all companies.

-Ugly people are as anxious as handsome ones to perpetuate their features; probably, having lived so long with their ugliness, they have become attached to it.

-A negro who had learned to read, wishing to give an idea of it to some of his acquaintances, who had never seen a book, said, "Reading is the power of hearing puted by the number of years, but by the with the eyes instead of the ears."

-The term "sun-spot" conveys the idea of a mark on a flat surface. It is really an enormous hollow, with sloping sides, penetrating entirely through the photosphere of the sun--the black part, or "umbra," being at the bottom-and is supposed to be the real body of the sun. As seen in England lately, this black part of the spot was rather more than nine thousand miles in length, while the greatest length of the opening formed by the sloping sides, or penumbra, was about twenty-nine thousand miles. These sides were very deeply furrowed from top to bottom, very similar to watercourses cut by torrents in descending the steep slopes of a mountain.

-An affectionate backwoodsman's wife, who looked on while her husband was struggling fiercely with a bear, said afterwards that it was the only fight she ever saw in which she did not care who won."

-A fluid for rendering paper waterproof may be made by dissolving one ounce and three-quarters of pure tallow-soap in water, then adding a solution of alum in quantity sufficient for the complete decomposition of the soap. This fluid ought to be mixed with the paper pulp, which may be worked

up in the usual manner, but needs no glueing.

-"How is it," said a man to his neighbor, "that our parson, the laziest man living, writes those interminable sermons ?" "Why," said the other, "probably, after he begins writing, he is too lazy to stop."

--English medical men are strongly advocating the disuse of technical words and phrases, and the movement has already progressed so far that all the " first-class" London physicians are writing their prescriptions in English.

-MM. Deville and Troost have proved that platinum and iron, when white hot, become for the time porous, and are rapidly permeated by hydrogen, which will even pass out under the pressure of the atmosphere, and leave a vacuum almost perfect within the tube.

-The time we live ought not to be com

use that has been made of it.

-If you would be known and not know, vegetate in a village; if you would know and not be known, live in a city.

-The recriminations of married couples resemble the sound of waves on the shore they are murmurs of the tied.

-A Scottish advocate, who, in his broad Scotch, pronounced the word water watter, being asked in court by the chancellor if he spelled water with two t's, replied, "No, my lord; but I spell manners with two n's."

-A coal-digging machine has been exhibited at Pittsburgh. The machine has, on one side, a double engine. The power is used to drive a series of cog-wheels which communicate with smaller cogs connected with eleven pairs of augers. At the end of each is a drill. When in the mine, the machine rests upon a small track, along which it is propelled by its own power. Above this track is a pair of trams on which the machine slides backward or forward as the augers penetrate the rock, or are withdrawn, all the motions being performed by the machine itself.

-An extraordinary genius has been discovered in Ireland in the person of a lad sixteen years of age. The lad has constructed, entirely unaided, a piece of machinery, in full motion, occupying a ground space of some six or eight feet square, and driven by a small waterwheel about four feet in diameter. On a close inspection it was found that the various wheels, cogs, cranks, and spindles were entirely wood, and were performing simultaneously the varied operations of pumping, churning, hammering on an anvil, perpendicular saw, diagonal and circular saw, etc., but so cleverly adapted to these respective uses that the whole was driven with the most perfect and easy motion by the waterwheel already alluded to. The lad is the son of a blacksmith living in Knockruth, County Wicklow, and has never been ten miles from his home.

American School Institute," Founded 1855,

IS A RELIABLE EDUCATIONAL BUREAU,

1. To aid all who seek well-qualified teachers. 2. To represent Teachers who desire positions.

8. To give parents information of good Schools. 4. To sell and rent School Properties.

64

J. W. SCHERMERHORN, A. M., Actuary, 130 Grand Street, New York,
M. J. YOUNG, Secretary,
G. M. KENDALL, Treasurer,

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"The Right Teacher for the Right Place."

Information of teachers will be furnished, which shall embrace the following particulars: Opportunities for education; special qualifications for teaching; experience, where, and in what grade of schools; references and copies of testimonials; age; religious preferences; salary expected; specimen of candidate's letter, and sometimes a photographic likeness.

Unless otherwise advised, we nominate several candidates, and thus give opportunity for good selection. Persons who apply for teachers are not expected to engage our candidates unless it may seem for their advantage to do so. We know that our facilities are UNPARALLELED, hence fear no competition,

Those who seek teachers should state explicitly what they will require of the teacher, what salary they will pay, when the teacher must be ready, &c., &c. Too full particulars cannot be given.

Principals, School Officers, and heads of Families, are requested to give early notice of what Teachers they will want.

TERMS.

TWO DOLLARS, upon giving the order for the teacher. (Which pays for the "AMERICAN EDUCATION AL MONTHLY" one year, $1.50.)

When a suitable teacher is secured, THREE DOLLARS additional. For ladies who are employed to teach only the common English branches, the charge will be but Two, instead of THREE DOLLARS.

In all cases the postages used in corresponding with Principals, and in their behalf, with candidates, will be charged,

NO CHARGE TO PUBLIC SCHOOLS, except the preliminary fee of Two DOLLARS and the postages.

Testimony for the "American School Institute."

i know your "AMERICAN SCHOOL INSTITUTE" to be possessed of the most reliable and extended facilities.— REV. C. V. SPEAR, Principal Young Ladies' Institute, Pittsfield, Mass.

The benefits of a “division of labor" are happily conceived, and admirably realized in the "AMERICAN SCHOOL INSTITUTE."-EDWARD G. TYLER, Ontario Female Sem., N. Y.

I have tried and experienced its practical usefulness.-WM. F. WYERS, Principal, Westchester, Penn. Experience has taught me that I may safely rely upon it when I want teachers.-REV. J. H. Brakeley, Bordentown Female College, New Jersey.

I commend it to the entire confidence of all. -Rev. D. C. VAN NORMAN, LL. D., New York.

The business of the Institute is systematically conducted. The proprietors are liberally educated and other wise eminently qualified for their duties.-O. R. WILLIS, Principal Alexander Institute, White Plains, N. Y. I am very grateful for the prompt services which the "AMERICAN SCHOOL INSTITUTE" has rendered in supplying me with excellent teachers.-REV. C. W. HEWES, Principal Female Seminary, Indianapolis,

Indiana.

I have tried the "AMERICAN SCHOOL INSTITUTE," and regard it a most desirable medium for supplying our schools and seminaries with the best teachers, and for representing well-qualified teachers who wish employment. All who are seeking teachers will find a wide range from which to select, with an assurance that in stating character and qualifications, there is no "humbug," and there can be no mistake. Teachers will find situations open for which they may seek in vain in any other way. The highly respectable character of the gentlemen who conduct the "AMERICAN SCHOOL INSTITUTE" affords a sufficient guarantee, not only of fair dealing, but also of kind and polite treatment to all.-REV. EBEN S. STEARNS, Principal Albany Female Academy, N. Y.

"

The most remarkable exponent of what method may accomplish, is that system of educational tactics, as conducted and developed by the "AMERICAN SCHOOL INSTITUTE.' Here is a set of gentlemen who keep themselves posted on the entire educational wants of the country. Every department of education, high or low, comes within the plan. The apparatus, the literature, the wants and resources of education, are tabled as in a Bureau of Educational Statistics.

And now mark the value of such knowledge. In a time consideration, what saving! Instead of schools being closed or suffered to decline until the right man turns up, one is provided whose caliber is known-"The right man in the right place." The loss of time, misdirection of talent, imposition by unprofessional charlatanry, each in itself no small misfortune to patron or pupil, are happily avoided.-REV. SAMUEL LOCKWOOD, Keyport, New Jersey. See Teachers' Bulletin on next page.

EDUCATIONAL MONTHLY.

VOL. III.

FEBRUARY, 1866.

No. 2.

AN OLD FIELD SCHOOL.

O the readers of the MONTHLY know what is meant by an old

D° field school?" I have never heard the term except in Virginia,

and even there it is fast falling into disuse. Thirty years ago, the Old Field School was an honored institution in Virginia. Washington, Henry, Randolph, Jefferson, Monroe, and many others whose names are illustrious, had spent their early days within its rough-hewn walls, and under the eye of some Dominie Sampson, whose birchen rod was considered a more able coadjutor than any text-book of the day. Academies, seminaries, institutions, were unfamiliar words to my childish ears; but old Gocomico school-house, how vivid is my remembrance of it! It stood remote from all habitations, at the edge of a stunted pine-wood, a wide old field stretching away in front; while beyond was the pebbly beach and rushing waters of the Potomac, and, far in the distance, the faint blue shores of Maryland. The hall was a low, dark room, built of unbarked pine logs, slabs of the same material forming the roofing. The light was admitted by two long loop-holes, formed by the omission of a log on opposite sides. The desks were ranged beneath these, the children thereby receiving not only a sufficient quantum of pure air, but often snow or rain commingled with the needful oxygen. The teacher's seat, opposite the only door, was honored by having a single pane of glass inserted in the wall. There stood his small pine-table, adorned with a ruler, an inkhorn, and sundry bunches of quills. Beside this was his high-backed, rushbottom chair; and, leaning against the wall at his side, was the muchdreaded bundle of rods. Schoolmaster Sutherland was an old man, and inclined to the fashions of an olden time. His long white hair was knotted in a queue. The rubicund complexion indicated that temperance was not an essential qualification of a pedagogue. Yet he was hale and strong, as many a lad could testify. An Englishman by birth, tradition said he had once trodden the halls of Oxford, and was a graduate of Cardinal College; but, being the victim of unfaithful love, he had left England forever, and had buried himself in the wilds of Virginia, gaining his daily bread by teaching the Old Field School. He was, no doubt, a learned man; but

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