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Editorial Department.

A PRESSURE of official duties will prevent our attempting the preparation of practical articles on professional topics before the March number. We shall then and thereafter devote considerable attention to this department of the MONTHLY.

TO TEACHERS AND FRIENDS OF EDUCATION.

In compliance with what seems to be a plain duty, I have concluded to enter again upon the two-fold work of editing and publishing the OHIO EDUCATIONAL MONTHLY and superintending Teachers' Institutes. This enterprise, it will be remembered, I undertook in 1861, just as the late terrific civil war burst upon the country. It will also be remembered that although more than half of the educational journals of the country were wrecked and institute effort almost wholly suspended, I was enabled by the generous assistance of the teachers of the State (than whom none have a nobler record), and with some pecuniary sacrifice, to carry forward the enterprise undertaken until November, 1863, when I was called by appointment to the office of Commissioner of Common Schools. The success of the MONTHLY during those terrible years of war is believed to be without a parallel among educational journals. Its circulation steadily increased until the close of 1864, when it had reached over 3,000. This result was attained without traveling agents and without the publisher's urging the support of the magazine upon teachers either as a matter of pecuniary interest or of professional duty. Others may and, in some instances, doubtless did use these motives in canvassing for subscribers, since the suspension of the MONTHLY Would unquestionably have been felt widely and seriously. But my aim was to make its pages bear so directly and practically upon the every-day duties of teachers and the vital interests of the schools, that there should be a demand for it.

In resuming its publication, I shall strive earnestly to make the MONTHLY equal to the grand opportunity for usefulness now before it. There has never been a time in the history of our school system when a first-class educational journal could exert a wider or more potent influence than at the present time. The war has closed, and a new era in education has dawned upon the country. The cause of universal education which underlies and sustains universal freedom, is now widely recognized as one of the vital interests of the nation. Its new and wonderful progress is full of hope and promise. On every hand there is an earnest inquiry for truer methods and better means of school instruction.

Teachers are reading and thinking npon subjects connected with their high calling as they have never read and thought before. The evidence is cheering that we have entered upon a period of unusual professional inquiry and consequent advancement. "Progress" is the rallying cry of the profession.

Under these circumstances may I not reasonably expect such an increase in the circulation of the MONTHLY as will enable me to continue to devote my time and whatever of ability or influence I may possess, to the advancement and strengthening of the educational interests of the State? To this end an addition of at least one thousand subscribers to the number secured last year, is needed; and since the circulation of the past year was secured without special effort, notwithstanding the absorbing excitements of the early months of the year, I feel quite sure that I may fully rely on the well-tried professional spirit of Ohio teachers, and enter confidently upon my twice-chosen work. Dear reader, what assistance are you willing to give in securing the requisite number of subscribers?

I feel a special interest in the success of the new institute system, and hope to see it become a part of a well-arranged and efficient system of professional instruction and training for the teachers of the State. For the establishment of such a system I shall earnestly and hopefully labor. In a matter so fundamental and vital as the supplying of her schools with well-qualified teachers, Ohio should be the peer of her sister States.

The first step in this great work of professional advancement is to make the teachers' institutes, now provided for by law, efficient and practical. They are and must continue to be the chief available agency for placing professional training and instruction within reach of all our teachers. They should be made to bear directly and potently upon the instruction and management of the schools, and to this end all who feel an interest in the elevation and advance. ment of the schools, must lend a helping hand.

I have already made several engagements to assist in conducting Teachers' Institutes during the present year, and am willing to devote a considerable portion of my time to this important work. Applications should be made at as early a day as possible, so that all necessary arrangements may be made. COLUMBUS, O., Jan. 10, 1866.

E. E. WHITE.

SLANDEROUS.

One of the chief purposes for which educational journals are established and maintained is to elevate and ennoble the profession of teaching; to secure for it a higher public appreciation and regard-in short, to make it honorable in the eyes of all men. In the discharge of this function it is legitimate and proper to point out the defects and shortcomings of teachers, and to urge upon them the importance of higher aims and attainments. All this may and should be done with plainness and frankness.

But an educational journal has no right to slander teachers, or to hold them up to public contempt and ridicule. This work should be left to that class of scribblers who have a preemption claim to the occupation. Besides the business is already overdone, and promises a very poor return to those who engage in it. We have been led to this line of remark by the perusal of an editorial article in the December number of the American Educational Monthly, entitled "The Dishonesty of Teachers," in which teachers as a class are charged with dishonesty and fraud in money affairs. To show that we do not use too strong language, we quote from the article as follows:

"Here it is in type-the dishonesty of teachers! The words mean more than they may seem to imply. The 'soft impeachment' is not to be construed into a charge of mere disingenuousness. It is as a business man that the teacher evinces

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dishonesty. True, a swindling pedagogue would be somewhat of a curiosity, even in this age of problematical rectitude, when the old saw, 'Honesty is the best policy,' seems to have been reset, and the popular sentiment may be rendered, Policy is the best honesty.

"The teacher's dishonesty is of a negative kind. But if two negatives are equal to an affirmative, surely a dozen acts of negative dishonesty are tantamount to positive fraud. Now, unfortunately, in the business relations of teachers, nothing is more common than this qualified, negative knavery. The teacher's promise, in relation to money matters, is not to be relied upon. He assures you that he will pay that little bill' on a certain day, but you might as safely depend on the man in the moon for a settlement. Take his note-it is not worth a school copy-book."

It is not often that we are called upon to defend teachers against such wholesale vilification as this, and the fact that it emanates from an educational journal aspiring to a national character, but adds to its gravity. We are, therefore, in duty bound to pronounce the accusation slanderous.

There may be many dishonest persons in the ranks of teachers-many careless persons in financial affairs; but we deny the "soft impeachment" that teachers as a class are more dishonest, even negatively, than other people. On the contrary, we affirm that a teacher's promise in relation to money matters is not only as good as that of people in general, but, his lean purse considered, we think it is a little better. Indeed, it is our belief that teachers as a class will compare favorably with any other equally numerous class of our people, whether in honor or honesty.

We do not claim that the simple fact that a person is a teacher justifies an undue eagerness to palm off wares upon him for a "promise to pay," or to enter his name upon a subscription list on the same easy condition. The millennium has not yet come even among school-masters, and the publisher who acts upon such a supposition will sooner or later evince bilious symptoms.

Nor do we wish to be an apologist for remissness in money matters. The teacher should make good his promises; he should be rigidly honest. He owes this to himself and to the profession. But what we claim is, that the remissness and even dishonesty of a few teachers should not be made the basis of sweeping charges against the profession as a whole.

We fear that our contemporary has a weakness in the direction of hasty and sweeping statements. As evidence of this, we pass back a few numbers to an editorial headed "Superlatives and School Books," in which "educational journals" and "educational editors" are all condemned as "weak and time-serving" in reviewing school-books. They are charged with heaping superlatives

upon all books published, good, bad, and indifferent, and, by inference, for a price.

We thought this, at the time, decidedly cool, coming as it did from a journal published by school-book publishers, and to some extent, at least, as their advertising medium! We took the pains to count their own pages of advertising which the publishers had in the very issue in which these charges were made against other journals, and found the number to be thirteen. We do not say that a journal thus published may not be par excellence an impartial and independent reviewer of school-books, but it will strike most persons that its setting up such a claim is not over modest.

For ourselves we are quite willing to compare "superlatives" with our New York critic, and to let others judge between us respecting our relative "independence of position and freedom of expression." Our brethren can speak for themselves.

We wish every co-worker in the great educational field abundant success; and, if it will not be regarded as in bad taste for a native Buckeye to give advice to a Metropolitan, we would say to our national contemporary, use a few more adverbial qualifiers. Adverbs have a close relation to truthfulness, and are not inconsistent with courtesy.

TEACH WITH AN OBJECT.

There are yet too many of our teachers who look forward to no definite point to be reached as the result of their course of instruction. The causes of this are various. Some from defective culture have no powers of generalization, and are incapable of settling upon any general system of training whose fruit can only be reached in the remote future. They can not look beyond the present, and work for to-day alone. Others not more inefficient, but more criminal, from indolence and indifference to every thing connected with their profession, except its salary, drone along from week to week, and quarter to quarter, in a from hand to mouth sort of way, with a happy unconcern as to any good or evil that is likely to arise from their course. If they seem to satisfy the people of their district with the result of their labors, they too are abundantly satisfied. Yet another class of teachers are those young apprentices to the law, medicine, or divinity, many of whom are not without talent and learning, but who submit to the conditions of their work as a repulsive burden, only to be endured for the sake of the money which it brings, and which is to enable them to set up business in more congenial pursuits.

It is but little wonder when such as these take upon themselves a calling hedged around by such weighty responsibilities, that results most unsatisfactory only, should be obtained; that our people who have been taught that intelligence and virtue are almost synonymous, should too late discover that arithmetic, geography and grammar are no wondrous talismans to protect from spirits of

evil; that there is a long procession even of those who possess these, moving steadily and swiftly along that dark and terrible road of vice that leads through the grog-shops, the gambling-hell, and other dens of infamy, down to inevitable. and woeful destruction. And seeing this, they are led, too frequently, to undervalue the potency of education to save If education consisted in that knowledge alone which is found in text-books, they would be correct in their estimate; such knowledge possesses no great saving power. But these and other branches are not education; they are but the humble tools by which it is to be builded. The vast majority of men are content with the tools, and never use them for the purpose of building up a noble manhood.

And this nobility of manhood, a manhood in which all the powers of mind and soul shall be harmoniously developed, should be made the polar star toward which all the teacher's instruction should tend, from the a-b-c to the highest reach of science and thought. Fixing his eye steadily upon this, looking neither to the right nor the left, setting every day's recitations into the current that bears toward it, he will find himself and his pupils rising, slowly it may be, but surely, to a higher plane of thought and feeling, the certain result of a noble purpose. Then will the dry and repulsive skeleton of text-book knowledge be clothed upon with symmetry and beauty. His road will not always be found a path of flowers, but often of thorns rather; but the longer it is followed, the less flinty it will be found, until it emerges in a way, broad, smooth, and firm, for confident feet to walk in.

Many earnest and conscientious teachers will find themselves cramped in their endeavors for this highest good by their own limited attainments. But no one should give up in discouragement. As a celebrated man has said “all knowledge is possible to him who knows how to read." To know how to read is to be able to put one's self in communication with the great and good of all ages and countries. It is the key that unlocks the treasure-houses of literature, science, and art. Let no poor soul cry out, "I have no time to read!" It is a cry of weakness. The men who have figured most actively in the world's history, have often been both great readers and writers. If the teacher can find no other time, let him, like Southey, read as he walks. Besides, there are few occupations that affords more time for literary culture than the teacher's. He has certain hours and days that he can always count upon for such purposes. His reading, however, should not be without discrimination. From the vast world of books, he should select such as will make him a wiser, a truer man, and stronger for his work. Having thus done, haply he shall create such a flame in his own soul as will kindle a divine spark in the souls of his pupils.

In addition, the world that lies about us is, to the thoughtful mind, a world of schoolmasters, teaching high, holy, and beautiful lessons. It verifies the poet's declaration that there are tongues in trees, books in running brooks, sermons in stones, and good in every thing; and he anoints the blind eyes of his pupils, so that they too read with clear vision these divine lessons.

J. H.

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