from the cube to decompose it into its isolated parts by rising to general intuitions and to descend thus from the cube to the square tablets and the surfaces, from the edges to the lines and the little sticks. "You may," he said, "pursue the study of numbers, setting out from the knowledge of isolated numbers and their differences, up to the teaching of relations and proportions, from the stage of intuition up to that of intellectual conception." The same material is thus taken up again as a sub-work and treated in a different point of view.*

Material for the Intermediate Class.

Fröbel, however, does not restrict his materials to the gifts for the earliest childhood; he reserves for the second period of childhood a whole collection of new playthings contained in a box with 14 solids which he sent to his pupil as the support of his exposition. The object of this collection is to give the child the intuition of the derivatives of the cube with their intermediate forms, an intuition which the school in its turn will still later fathom and generalize. It plays the same part, in the intermediate class, as the second gift does in the kindergarten. It is also very closely allied to the kindergarten. The ball, the cylinder and the cube under its double aspect (first as a pure, mathematical cube, then as a cube perforated, and adapted, therefore, to different transformations), form the first four of fourteen solids which are arranged in two parallel series; one comprises the forms which go from the cube to the ball, the other those between the ball and the cube; two lateral compartments contain the complementary parts that serve to reconstruct the cube-type; they may be used for new combinations, and thus furnish material for an infinity of plays; Fröbel himself points out as an excellent recreation the recognition of the different bodies by touch, with the eyes closed.

To these four bodies of the kindergarten, succeed first the octohedron, the rhombododecahedron and the tetrahedron, with their intermediates, then the prisms and oblique pyramids. "These fourteen solids," says Fröbel, in closing his letter, "introduce you into the whole kingdom aud domain of nature and bodies in their three principal series of development, according to the modifications suffered by the surfaces, edges or angles. The formation of the bodies here closes; but the development is pursued by means of the forms of plants and animals, as well as by the forms of thought."

The determination of the solids by the direction, number, size, union or separation of surfaces, edges and angles, is a constant provocative to the abstract and comparative study of all the relations of extension, and consequently an initiation into the knowledge of space, form, number and dimension.

The intermediate class thus prepares for the study of crystallography and its laws, in the same way that the kindergarten gave the intuition

The geometrical paper-folding of Köhler offers one of the happiest appropriations of the exercises of the kindergarten to the school.

of bodies. The school will have but one step to take to teach its pupils that salt crystallizes into cubes, alum into octohedrons, etc., in order to lead them to mineralogy on one side, and to chemistry on the other.

season.

Observations of Nature in Excursions.

The intuition and conception of form, dimension and number lead anew to the intuition, the conception and the knowledge of the external world. Here, again, Fröbel refers to the Education of Man, in which he recommended to the school-masters to take their pupils at least once a week into the country, "not like a flock of sheep nor a company of soldiers, but as children with their father, younger brothers with the elder, making them observe what nature offers them at every Do not let the village teacher say in reply to this: my pupils are in the country all day; they run about all the time in the open air.' They run about in the open air, it is true, but they do not live in the country; they do not live in nature and with it. They are like the inhabitants of a beautiful situation, where they were born and have grown up, but who have no suspicion of its beauty." Fröbel meets another objection. Father, instructor, educator," he says, “do not say I, myself, know nothing of that;' the question here, is not to communicate acquired knowledge, but to arouse new knowledge. You will make observations, and you will provoke your pupils and yourself to the consciousness of what you shall have observed. To know the energetic legality of nature and its unity, there is no need of conventional denominations of objects of nature or of their properties, but only a pure conception and definite designation of those objects, according to their essence and the essence of language. The knowledge of the name already given to the object and in general use, is of very little importance; nothing is essential but the clear intuition and designation of the properties not only in particular but in general. Give the object of nature its common local name, or if you absolutely know no name for it, give it the one suggested at the moment, or what is infinitely better, make use of some substitute or circumlocution until you discover, no matter where, the name generally adopted, and thus put your knowledge in harmony with the general knowledge.

"This is why, when you lead your pupils into the country, you should not say I have no knowledge of the objects of nature, I do not know their names.' Should you have only the most elementary instruction, the faithful observation of nature will bring you infinitely more elevating and profound knowledge, external or internal, more living knowledge of individuality and diversity, than the ordinary books you would be able to acquire and to comprehend will teach you. Besides, this supposed superior knowledge commonly rests upon remarks which the simplest man is able to make, often upon phenomena which the simplest man, with little or no expense, sees better than the most costly experiments will show him, provided he always takes his eyes with him to see with."

Fröbel attaches the natural sciences to this contemplation of the external world in a circumference more and more extended, and particularly as a germ and point of departure, the science of botany. With botany is connected, in an entirely organic and living way, the knowledge of the surface of the earth, "for certain plants are companions of the water, and grow on the border of the stream or river; others prefer the carpet of the meadows and valleys, or the fresh and balmy air of mountains; others still were brought from distant countries. Therefore plants are excellent guides for the study of geography. Also botany always seconds the education of the sense of color and form, by the reproduction of leaves and flowers in drawing or painting."

Such are the suggestions left by Fröbel, in view of establishing a bond between the two degrees of primary instruction, between the concrete and the abstract. They are amply sufficient if not to the elaboration of the complete programme of the school proper, at least for the immediate organization of the intermediate class or the lower section of the primary school. By carrying back to unity the intuitions and knowledge which have come to the child by fragments; by restoring the principle of action that animated antiquity, so as to combine knowing and doing in their industry, Fröbel gave a real basis to education. It cannot be denied that there still exists in the realization of his gigantic work more than one gap and more than one want of equilibrium. But he has traced out the plan, surveyed the ground, and collected the materials; it is for the men of initiative and of good will to do the rest.

PUBLIC LIBRARIES IN CONNECTICUT.

INTRODUCTION.

NOAH WEBSTER, in his "Miscellaneous Remarks on Divisions of Property, Government, Education, Religion, Agriculture, &c., in the United States," written at Hartford in 1789, after pointing out the wisdom of the founders of Connecticut and Massachusetts in establishing public schools and colleges, and in making the business of teaching respectable, by employing for this purpo-e only young men of character and education, calls attention to the favorable influences of parish libraries. "They are procured by subscription, but they are numerous, and have made the desire of reading universal. One hundred volumes of books selected from the best writers, read by the principal inhabitants of a town or village, on ethics, history, and divinity will have an amazing influence in spreading knowledge, correcting the morals, and softening the manners of a nation. I am acquainted with parishes where almost every householder has read the works of Addison, Sherlock, Atterbury, Watts, Young, and similar writings, and will converse handsomely on the subj cts of which they treat." In visiting every part of the State in 1838 to 1842, we noted the existence of over fifty of these libraries prior to 1800, and could in nearly every instance follow the results of reading created and fostered in the families of their members, by the larger number of college graduates in such parishes, and the many persons who had become influential in the professions and public life from these parishes and towns as compared with others where such libraries had not been established. Wherever libraries existed it was found that newspapers were more largely taken and read, and a much livelier and more intelligent public spirit prevailed. Men of influence in the political affairs of the Colony and the country were sure to spring up in such communities. The representative men of the time must be looked for in towns where the press makes itself felt through books and newspapers.

These library associations took different names, but their members were generally of the same parish. Durham had a Book Company in 1733; Lyme a Social Library in 1735; Guilford a Parish Library in 1737; and prior to 1800 upwards of fifty were in operation.

In 1803 the first Youths Library was established in Salisbury, by a donation of books from Caleb Bingham of Boston; in 1838, the first School Library; in 1838, the first of the cla s of institutions known as Young Men's Institute, and in 1839 the first Library of Reference (in the Connecticut Historical Society's Collections founded in 1825), by the benefaction of David Watkins n of Hartford in 1857.

United Library Association-1740.*

MISS LARNED, in her History of Windham County, devotes a chapter to the "United Library Association," and "The WolfHunt," which together give to Pomfret an enviable position in the History of Connecticut. Of the former-the first library association in Eastern Connecticut-we give a condensed account:

Public libraries were then very rare. Books were costly and money scarce. A small library had been collected at Yale College. Library associations were formed in Lyme and Guilford in 1738, but Hartford, New London, Norwich and other leading town3 had made, as yet, no provision for supplying the public with reading. In Massachusetts, associations for procuring books were becoming very common, and thence spread into the border towns settled by that Colony. A grand Union Library Association, embracing the citizens of Woodstock,+ Pomfret and Killingly, was projected, perhaps by Colonel John Chandler and the Rev. Messrs. Williams and Stiles, all distinguished as the warm friends of learning and literature. A meeting for this object was held September 25, 1739, at the house of Mr. Ebenezer Williams. Very great interest was manifested. Many prominent men from the north part of Windham County were present. Colonel Chandler was there, as fresh, vigorous and eager in promoting intellectual improvement as when fifty years before he taught the Woodstock children how "to write and cypher." The ministers of the respective towns and parishes were present-Williams of Pomfret, Stiles of Woodstock, Fisk of Killingly, Cabot of Thompson, and Avery of Mortlake. Woodstock was further represented by John May, Benjamin Child, and Penuel Bowen; Pomfret by Abiel Cheney, Ebenezer Holbrook, Joseph Dana, Joseph Bowman, Ephraim Hide, and her two physicians; Mortlake by William Willi ms; Thompson by Hezekiah Sabin, and Joseph Cady, the richest man in the parish, together with William Chandler and the much-tried Samuel Morris from the banks of the Quinebaug. The Hon. John Chandler was appointed moderator, Marston Cabot, scribe, and a most elaborate Triplicate Covenant formally adopted. Each individual covenanted, under his own hand and seal, to pay a certain specified sum, "to be used and improved to purchase, procure, or buy a library, or number, or collection of such useful and profitable English books as the said covenanters by their major vote taken and given . . shall be agreed and concluded upon, and for no other use or purpose whateverwhich said Library shall be called and known by the name of The United English Library for the Propagation of Christian and Useful Knowledge, and the covenanters or proprietors thereof shall be called and known by the name of The United Society or Company for Propagating Christian and Useful Knowledge; in the towns of Woodstock, Pomfret, Mortlake, and Killingly and west part of Thompson Parish, as aforesaid."

The original articles of regulation and agreement were then agreed to by the following original members of the "United Society or Company for Propa

*Fistory of Windham County, Connect cu*. B Ellen D. Larned. 1874. +ClJohn Chandler, one of the original propriet. rs and settlers of Woodstock, was requested, by the townsmen in their first town-meeting assembled in 1690, to teach and instruct children and youth h w to write and cypher," in advance of the establishmnt of a public school. This he did in his own hou e for several win'ers. He was town clerk and treasurer, and foremost in all public affairs, military, c vil, and ecc eFiastical. He died Aug. 12, 1783, in the 79th year of his age. The Boston Gazette, in chronicling his decease, says: "He was in the Commiss on of Connecticut forty years; one of the Council sev. n years, which offices he served with much honor and acceptance. He was a gentleman greatly delighted with conversation; of a mot generous and hos pitable dis osition. He loved to promote everything that was deceut and orderly." Two f his sons graduated at Yale College.