BROOKLYN, N. Y.-We learn from an exchange that the Board of Education of Brooklyn, New York, propose a complete reorganization of the public school system of that city. The plan is to divide the schools into primary, intermediate and grammar departments, each department to occupy a separate building. The adoption of this plan, as proposed, will change the entire school system of Brooklyn, and it is bolieved will give accommodations for ten thousand additional pupils in the public schools, without any extra cost to the city.

THE LATE DR. WORCESTER, the lexicographer, gave to the American Bible Society of New York and to the American Peace Society the copyright of his Quarto Dictionary of the English Language, each to have one-half of the annual income thereof, subject to any incumbrances, charges or contracts existing at his death,said devise to take effect after the death of his wife.

THE FRIENDS of Philadelphia have given $125,000 in aid of the institute for colored youth in that city. The institute is on Shippen street, and is now ready to be opened with accommodations for 1200 pupils.

THE Boston School Committee have amended their rules so as to forbid any teacher from accepting presents from the graduating class or any other class.

BOOK NOTICES.

YOUMANS' NEW CHEMISTRY: A Class-Book of Chemistry, in which the latest facts of the science are explained and applied to the arts of life and the phenomena of nature. A new edition-entirely rewritten. By EDWARD L. YOUMANS, M.D. New York: D. Appleton & Co.

The earlier editions of this work contained many imperfections and some inaccuracies, most of which have been removed or corrected in this new, enlarged, and wellillustrated edition. Many teachers, especially those who have no chemical apparatus, prefer even the old editions to all other class-books. The author's style is so concise and perspicuous, his choice of facts and illustrations so judicious, his arrangement of topics and particulars so logical, that the student becomes acquainted with the principles underlying the science, and learns the philosophy and use of its nomenclature, without much apparent effort. We are pleased to see that, in advance of all others, Dr. Youmans has adopted the new doctrine of Force, given a clear statement of its leading features, and changed his terminology to accord with its requirements. This, alone, is a sufficient recommendation for the work. We trust other authors and compilers will follow his example. It is time many old and worse than meaningless terms were swept from our Chemistries and Natural Philosophies.

Chemical apparatus is very desirable, but it will be many years before all the schools in which the science of Chemistry should be taught are furnished with it. With such a carefully prepared treatise as this as a text-book, both teacher and pupil will scarcely consider it a necessity.

T. W. H.

THE ALPHABET MADE EASY. Introductory to any Series of Readers. By Wì. R. WHITE, State Superintendent of Public Instruction, West Virginia. Cincinnati : Sargent, Wilson & Hinkle.

This is a little primer in which the word method and the ABC method are combined. The pupil commences with the names of familiar objects, and in a few lessons is able to read simple sentences. He then reviews learning the names of the letters and spelling the words previously learned. He then advances combining both methods. He may also be taught to analyze the words by sounds-i. e., to spell by the phonic method. The system of teaching primary reading upon which the book is based is, in our judgment, the true one.

THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW. No. CCX. January, 1866. Boston: Ticknor & Fields.

Each number of this standard quarterly seems an improvement upon its predecessor in interest and in the sound practical character of its articles. The following is the table of contents of the January number:-I. "The Conditions of Art in America." 11. "Climatic Influences as bearing upon Secession and Reconstruction." III. "Ducal Mantua." IV. "Our Financial Future." V. "Courts of Conciliation." VI. "Henry Clay." VII. "Hours of Labor." VIII. "The Present State of the Prison Discipline Question." IX. "Children's Books of the Year." X. "The President's Message." XI. "Critical Notices."

THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY, Devoted to Literature, Science, Art, and Politics. February, 1866. Boston: Ticknor & Fields.

This number of the ever-welcome "Atlantic" presents this excellent table of contents: English Opinion on the American War;" "Two Pictures;" "The Freedman's Story;" "The Origin of the Gipsies;" "Passages from Hawthorne's NoteBooks-II;" "Court Cards;" "A Landscape Painter;" "Riviera di Ponente;" "Doctor Johns-XIII;" "The Chimney Corner for 1866-II;" "Griffith Gaunt; or, Jealousy-III;" "Three Months among the Reconstructionists;" "Reviews and Literary Notices."

EVERY SATURDAY. A Journal of Choice Reading selected from Foreign Current Literature. Boston: Ticknor & Fields.

A new enterprise, designed to present to American readers choice selections, embracing critical and descriptive essays, incidents of travel, serial tales, short stories, poems, biographies, etc., from European periodicals. The merit and variety of the articles which it contains, will win for this weekly visitor a general welcome by the reading public. The general plan is deserving of high commendation.

HARPERS' NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE.

February, 1866.

HARPERS' WEEKLY. A Journal of Civilization. Harper & Brothers, New York. The following is the table of contents of the "Monthly" for February: "Blackwell's Island Lunatic Asylum;' ""Euthanasy;" "Heroic Deeds of Heroic Men-X;" ""Charles Ellet and his Naval Steam Ram;" "Indian Summer;" "An International Affair;" "Sweet Clover;""The Red Jacket Medal;' "The Witnesses; "Anuadale;" "To the Unreturning Braves; "Diamonds and other Gems; ""Christmas Guests;" "The Holidays-II;" "The March to the Sea;" "Charlotte Bronte's Lucy Stone;" "Winning his Spurs ; ""Names of Places;' "Editor's Easy Chair; ""Monthly Record of Current Events;" ""Editor's Drawer." Both of these publications have won a high place for themselves among American periodicals, and supply a want which would be widely felt in their absence. Their matter is interesting and generally excellent, and is illustrated with fine wood engravings. As a record of passing events simply, each is of high value.

In a log school-house, elegantly roofed with clapboards-in the last stage of decay,-having a door on one side which moved majestically on its rusty hinges, while through three small windows peered the bright face of the King of Day, as he went forth dispensing light and warmth to all the school-houses in the land,furnished, too, with magnificent (?) slab benches,-the round side down, except in coasting time in winter, when the benches were used on the hill side, and I must not forget those unpatented, economical writing-desks, resting on inclined pins driven in the wall, it was in this very school-house, the scene of my apprenticeship to school teaching, that the learned employers of the district assembled about thirty years ago, to settle the important question "How many hours per day should the schoolmaster be confined in the school-room, that his employers might receive a

* Professor of Languages in West. Military Institute.

just equivalent for the liberal wages they paid him for his ser

vices?"

Among the speakers was a very industrious yeoman, who knew no way of estimating the value of labor but by the length of time occupied therein, and whose ideas neither corresponded with the free and easy notions of Young America, nor with the more enlightened views of the successful educator. With an earnestness akin to that manifested by Patrick Henry in his celebrated Independence speech, and with as deep and vivid a sense of the importance of the interests at stake as that which inspired the soul of the great orator, he electrified the congregated savans with the following brilliant peroration of his lengthy harangue: “"When I am employed to mall rails for my neighbor, I work from sun-up till sun-down, and I work, too, Mr. Chairman; and I will never agree to pay our teacher high wages for sitting in this schoolhouse six hours only per day doing nothing, and walking about as a gentleman the rest of the time. No, never."

What a sinecure, in this learned (?) man's opinion (he had never learned to read), was the teacher's profession! What a life of ease and indolent pleasure was his! What a fine specimen of the gentleman of leisure! Malling rails was something to do-it was work to separate the materials of a worm-fence from the body of a sturdy oak; but to teach, was doing nothing—at least it was not work, it was play.

These were the darker days in the history of American schools, when to keep school was thought by the mass of men, to be the work of that dignified gentleman of leisure called "Master;" and to throw inkstands at his head, and "bar him out" on Christmas, the most heroic and praiseworthy achievement of his precocious pupils.

But brighter days have dawned upon our educational history, and a clearer conception of the nature and dignity of the teacher's work is now generally entertained. His true mission as an educator of mind is now recognized, and it is the teacher's duty to acquit himself as one worthy of such a high mission.

In the practical thoughts I propose to present, my aim shall be to aid the young teacher, first, to comprehend fully the nature and magnitude of the work he has undertaken to do; and, secondly, to make some suggestions as to the best means of accomplish

ing it. And in doing so, I know that I shall say many things that are already familiar to the experienced teacher; but even he may be profited by the opportunity thus afforded him of comparing notes and exercising his talent for criticism-a sort of tilt at short sword gymnastics, of which all teachers are passionately fond.

Let me suppose, fellow teacher, that you are already in your school-room-that you have reduced to order the heterogeneous mass of material upon which you are to operate-that you have arranged the varied duties of each day in accordance with the well-known law of order, "A place for every thing and every thing in its place." You are now ready to commence the great duty which gives to your profession its name and character. How appropriate then the question, Why have so many youth assembled at your bidding, and submitted themselves to your direction? Surely not that you may exhibit your skill in conducting them through a systematic routine of school duties, and then to dismiss them in as orderly a manner as a military officer disbands his troops by the command "Break ranks." No, it is not for this that these youths with buoyant spirits and glad hearts, assemble in the school-room. They bring with them undying minds to be developed to be awaked to a sense of their own immortality— souls to be trained for glory. This is your work. The difficulty attending its accomplishment is incalculable, its importance immeasurable, and the danger of error here is fearful.

The teacher is a sculptor. The marble which he must shape into humanity-perfect in all its features-harmonious in all its movements-and symmetrical in all its parts-is immaterial. The eye sees it not the hand feels it not-and the implements with which he gives form and intellectuality to the mass are themselves invisible. And often, when he knows it not, the silent look-the moving hand-the hasty step-the heaving breast-are doing their work upon that imperishable marble for eternity. A Powers, with his chisel, brings from the quarried rock a Grecian Slave in chains, and nations celebrate his triumph in songs. But his sculpture-how inferior to that of the teacher in the skill requisite to its execution, in its worth or durability. In the one case, the friction of years will efface the memory of both sculptor and sculpture; in the other, eternity will be the only measurement of