FRANCE.--The educational budget of Paris has increased from $260,000 in 1852 to $1,040,000 in 1866. Drawing is to be taught in 122 of the parish schools and in 32 of the adult classes. The normal school at Cluny, for teachers of middle-class schools, has opened with 95 pupils, and the model-school attached has 122 names on the roll. The normal schools will probably be removed to provincial towns.—— The teachers who are trained in the cities, it is alleged, become discontented with country life, and render their pupils similarly dissatisfied.

ITALY.-Circulating libraries are increasing in the kingdom. A company at Juilon, under the management of some public-spirited literary men, is establishing these libraries in the smaller towns of Lombardy, and the Provincial Council has appropriated 500,000 francs for the purpose, on condition that the Society raise an equal sum by subscription.

RUSSIA. Moscow, with a population of 365,000 has but sixty-six primary schools, attended by 4,786 pupils. One hundred private establishments give elementary as well as higher instruction. There are. five gymnasia, attended by 1,719 boys, three military schools, six schools for young ladies, an agricultural school and a university.Teachers of middle-class schools are trained in the universities, there being a pedagogic chair in each of the six universities. The course. extends over two years, and the studi s are the same as those pursued by students of the university. Actual practice in teaching is a portion of the training. A bursary of from $300 to $350 per annum is paid to such as pledge themselves to devote their lives to teaching, but adequate supply of university professors and middle-class teachers cannot be obtained. Seventy academic vacancies exist, which cannot be filled. Elementary education is not obligatory, and the parishes are not required to sustain primary schools. There are, therefore, few such schools, and the number is not likely to be greatly multiplied.

SANDWICH ISLANDS.-There are here 225 primary schools, with 7,367 pupils, twenty-nine of the schools being exclusively for female pupils. The total cost in 1865 was $49,400. The higher schools are of a very miscellaneous character, and are generally under the care of missionaries.

CHINA. Some time ago we learned that an American College was

soon to be established in Pekin. A late cable dispatch states that arrangements have been made for the establishment of a European College. Possibly the two accounts refer to the same institution. At all events, the erection of a European or American College will be one of the many signs that inspire hope for the regeneration of the vast Asiatic Empire. -Ed. Monthly.

General Remarks.

DURING the past year, taxes for the support of public schools have been increased; greater liberality in building school-houses, and better taste in furnishing them have been manifested; there has been a greater demand for well qualified teachers; educational meetings have been well attended; a large number of teachers' institutes have been held, and confidence in the utility of our common school system has not been diminished. Methods of instruction and modes of discipline have been improved, and the conviction, that universal education is the only sure support of a free government, has forced itself upon the minds and into the hearts of the people.

The people of this state now pay a direct tax of more than one million of dollars annually, for sustaining their common schools, and there is no other tax voted so readily or paid so cheerfully as this. The neat appearance of many of our school buildings, with their convenient arrangements and tasteful surroundings show an appreciation of comfort and beauty as creditable as it is encouraging, and tell in the plainest language the tone and temper of the communities in which they are found. Even in those districts not yet supplied with suitable school houses, where we find no certain evidences of culture and refinement, the people feel that an apology must be made for their poor schooi accommodations. They fear that a want of facilities for edu cating their children will be regarded as a sign of ignorance and selfishness.

The educating power of material things is better understood, and as wealth increases, more attention is given to furnishing and beautifying the school room. Although, in respect to frescoed walls, curtained windows, carpeted floors and costly pictures, very few of our school rooms can be compared to our places of amusement, yet there are some,

conveniently furnished, and tastefully provided with charts, busts and engravings. We begin to inquire why we should beautify our hotels, without regard to expense, and adorn billiard halls by the aid of art, and not gratify that keen appreciation of the beatiful that we find in children, by providing those things that will afford them so pure a pleasure. The opinion begins to prevail that the whole community is richer, and therefore abler to furnish all that is necessary for the edu cation of its children, than any portion of it is to provide what is necessary for the education of theirs; and hence that the public school house may be, and should be, a better school house than any private

one..

We do not forget that there are many, too many school houses ut-terly unfit to shelter children; entirely destitute of all that refinement and even decency demands, but we know that these evidences of a stupid selfishness are annu lly diminishing, and that a few years more will sweep them away.-Sup rinsead nt's Report.

Education for Everybody and Accessible to All..

LIFE itself is essentially an academy. There is something to be learned from everybody, in every place, about everything. A nan that has eyes and Cars, and uses them, can go nowhere without finding himself a pupil, and everybody a teacher. Conceit it is, a contemptible satisfaction with your present state, a complacent pride, that stagnates all your faculties, and leads you up and down the street, among all sorts of men, collecting nothing. Every ride in a car, every walk in the street, every sail in a boat, every visit to the store, the shop or the dwelling, should make you a richer man in knowledge. You should. never return without some conscious increase of information.

Remember, too, in respect to this matter of education, that you are a citizen, and that you are bound to have that information which shall qualify you for an honest participation in public affairs. You are also bound to have a knowledge of current events, which no man can have :who does not read the newspapers. Newspapers are the schoolmasters of the common people. The newspaper is one of the things that we may felicitate ourselves upon. That endless book, the newspaper, our national glory. For example, how many of our young men and

is

young women, now that Europe stands all ajar, when apparently new combinations are to take place upon a scale that is gigantic, such as may take place but once in the course of their lifetime-how many young men and women are preparing themselves to follow these events? How many have drawn the boundaries of Tuscany, acquainted themselves with the position of Turin, and traced the course of the Ticino? How many have taken down the atlas, and marked out the lines of France, of the Italian provinces, of the Austrian empire, and of the Prussian empire? How many know where Piedmont is located?

When I was a lad some ten years old, I had the privilege of going to school to a farmer's son, who was himself a farmer, and also a captain of militia. I recollect to have heard my father say of him, that he had studied military affairs, in his quiet career, so thoroughly that probably there was not another man in the State of Connecticut that could detail so fully the history and philosophy of all the campaigns of Napoleon as he. This was a mere incidental remark made at the table, but it has had a great deal to do with my life. It opened to me the idea-though I did not know it then-that a working man, in humble circumstances, might by ordinary diligence, put himself in possession of information that should be world-wide.

I can say, also, that at an early day, my own mind was very muc interested in the Peninsular War, between the French and the Spanish, and the English armies, in Spain. I was so much interested in the events connected with that war, that I carefully read Napier's matchless history of it—one of the noblest monuments of military history ever given to the world. I studied minutely, with map in hand, that whole campaign. I never read a book in college, or during the whole course of my life, that did me half so much good as that history, though it was a matter but incident to my profession.

Now, do not suppose that to obtain this information of current events in your own land, or upon the broad theatre of the world, will require a great deal of time which you must withdraw from other things.Almost every man wastes as many five minutes, and ten minutes, as he would require to give himself a good education. You throw away time enough to make you a wise man both in book literature and current events. A volume read a little every morning wastes away most rapidly. A man that is much occupied, in the course of a year, would

have leisure in the crevices of his time, if he took the parings, the rinds of it; if he took a little in the morning before others were up--and he might take a great deal then, if he got up when he ought to; if he took a little before each meal, and a little after each meal; if he took a little on his way to his business, and a little on his way back from his business; if he took a little riding in the cars, and a little while crossing the ferries-I say that even a much occupied man would have leisure, in these crevices of time, to make himself master of the history of his own country. It does not take a man a great while to read a book through, if he only keeps at it.-H. W. Beecher.

Absurdities in Teaching.

I. IN THE COURSE OF STUDY.

In the public schools of this metropolitan city, we might naturally expect to find exemplified the American idea of practical education. Let us examine the authorized course of study pursued in our grammar schools, which furnirh the highest grade of instruction accessible to a majority of city children, to see how far it is arranged with reference to the future needs of the pupils. The course adopted by the Board of Education, Dec. 20th, 1865, is as follows:

Grade VI.-Writing, Reading, Spelling and Definition, Arithmetic, Geography. 66 V. The same as Grade VI.

66 IV. The same as Grade V., with Grammar, additional.;

66

I. The same as Grade II., with Const. of U.S., and Book-keeping [for boys]. SUPPLEMENTARY COURSE FOR GIRLS.-Grade II.-Arithmetic, Grammar, Physi ology, Astronomy, Algebra, National Philosophy, Ancient History, Geometry, Composition, and Elocution.

Grade I.-The same, except that Rhetoric takes the place of Physiology. SUPPLEMENTARY COURSE FOR BOYS-Grade I.-Arithmetic, Grammar, Geometry, Natural Philosophy, Chemistry, Astronomy, science of Government, Book-keeping; Drawing, Declamation, and Composition.

Here we see pupils studying Geography through the entire course, yet the text book used is already out of date, and before the boys become men, the world will have so changed that much of their knowledge of geography acquired at school will be worthless. The best and only permanently useful part of the study-physical geography-is taken up at the last grade. Grammar is studied an entire year, or more, before anything is done with False Syntax and Compo