""Tis best to make the law our friend,

And patiently await:

Keep your side good, and you are sure To conquer soon or late.'

AUTHOR'S PREFACE.

To members of the legal profession who are at all interested in schools, this little work will be found convenient at least. To all others it will be found more or less instructive. It is sent out, however, on a higher mission, for which it has with great care been expressly prepared, and which is explained elsewhere. For giving to the public a handsome little volume full of useful and reliable information and at a low price, no apology is deemed necessary.

The school-girl gathers flowers in the garden or on the wayside, and makes a bouquet; the author gathers facts wherever he can find them, and makes a book. If the bouquet is beautiful and the book useful, it is enough. Had the flowers been of the girl's own manufacture, the bouquet would have been without fragrance; and had the book contained but the ideas, opinions, and theories of the author, it might have been worthless. Theories that have been proved, facts that have been established, and laws that have been authoritatively explained-these are better material for a book, if properly arranged, than would be thoughts of the author's own coining, even though he may be "wise in his own conceit." Besides, to make use of the language of others is but to back opinion by authority.

NEW-YORK, January, 1867.

HEAR THE CHILDREN PLEADING.

I.

"GIVE us light amid our darkness,
Let us know the good from ill;
Hate us not for all our blindness:
Love us, lead us, show us kindness,
You can make us what you will."

II.

"We are willing, we are ready;

We would learn, if you would teach;
We have hearts that yearn to duty;
We have minds alive to beauty;

Souls that any height can reach."

THE

LAWYER IN THE SCHOOL-ROOM.

CHAPTER I.

OF SCHOOLS, SCHOOL SYSTEMS, AND GOVERNMENTS.

SEC. 1. CHINA.-In no country of the world is education so general as in China. The course of instruction begins in the family, where the boys are taught to enumerate objects, to count to the number of ten thousand, and to reverence their parents and ancestors by a minute ceremonial. At the age of five or six years they are sent to school. On entering the hall the pupil makes obeisance first to the holy Confucius, and then to his master. A lesson learned in grammar, history, ethics, mathematics, or astronomy, according to the proficiency of the student, is followed by the morning repast; after which the day is spent in copying, learning by heart, and reciting select passages of literature. Before departure in the evening, a part of the pupils relate some events of ancient history, which are explained by the master; others unite in singing an ancient ode, which is sometimes accompanied by a symbolic dance. They

leave the hall with the same obeisances with which they enter it, and on reaching home, reverentially salute the domestic spirits, and their ancestors, parents, and relatives. A higher course of instruction is provided in universities under the surveillance of the state. One of these exists in most of the large cities, and the most advanced of them is the imperial college in Pekin. Though the government seems to foster directly only the higher branches, by supporting colleges in the large cities and provincial capitals, while the primary schools are sustained only by municipalities or individuals, the knowledge of reading, writing, and arithmetic is all but universal. The rules and regulations for the education of children and the prosecution of studies laid down in the book of rites are excellent, notwithstanding their great minuteness. Distinction in public life is attained only by scholarship. There are four literary degrees. The examinations which the aspirants to public honors have to pass are very severe. The unsuccessful candidates are numbered by hundreds of thousands. The education of girls is neglected, but the daughters of the wealthy are generally taught to read, write, sing, and sometimes to make verses. Literary attainments, however, are considered creditable to a woman, and the number of authoresses is by no means small. The daughters of learned men are instructed in music, poetry, elocution, etc. No religion is taught in the common schools. The stress that is laid upon an education in China by the government can hardly be exaggerated. As has been