have no hesitation in cautioning teachers to be careful how they subject young children to such severity of effort.

For the older, well-trained pupils, the book furnishes an excellent means of mental discipline. Yet, even with these, we question whether that teacher will not be wise who shall omit many of the more complicated examples, as not yielding benefits corresponding with the effort which they require. Problems like the following can, without doubt, be solved mentally; but the time and effort. can be employed more profitably in some other direction. Page 105: "A man receives $530 to purchase sheep and cows; what sum will he expend for each, after deducting his commission, which is six per cent. of the money expended, provided he expends four times as much for cows as for sheep?"

Page 121: M.'s fortune, plus 3⁄4 of N.'s, which is equal to 1⁄2 of M.'s, is $900; and if the sum of M.'s and N.'s be divided in the proportion of 1⁄2 to 4, it will respectively give of R.'s, and 4 of T.'s fortune; required the fortune of each."

THE names of Wilhem and Hullah have long been familiar to the musical word, on account of the eminent services rendered by these teachers of music in founding and conducting singing societies. The popular Orpheon Societies in France owe their origin and success chiefly to the labors of Wilhem.

To Hullah, England is in a great measure indebted for her monster choral festivals, which are unsurpassed even in Germany. The Orpheon Free Choral Schools in this country, which are doing such good work in diffusing musical instruction among the poorer classes, were founded by Mr. Hopkins, the well-known pianist and composer. For the use of these schools, Mr. Hopkins has prepared a little text-book, which, in its peculiar field, is calculated to be eminently useful.

Compiled from the works of Wilhem and Hullah, which have been standard text-books in their respective countries for many years, it is well fitted for the use of schools of all kinds. It is small, comprehensive, and very cheap.

(2) A METHOD OF TEACHING ORPHEON SINGING CLASSES. New York and Philadelphia: Schermerhorn, Bancroft & Co. Price 50 cents.

ANOTHER valuable little works on the same subject is "Trastour's Rudiments." The first part gives a concise and progressive summary of the elements of music, in a manner peculiarly simple and attractive.

The last part contains separate chapters on the choice of a teacher, the choice of a piano, proper course of instruction, and also lists of classical works for the piano, suited to different stages of progress, from which teachers and pupils may gain many useful hints.

A MAN who, by his labor or ingenuity, enables others to do in one hour a work that heretofore has required two, adds so much to the life and happiness of his fellows. He is a benefactor as well as he who causes two blades of grass to grow in the place of

one.

Mr. Towle, instead of simply deploring the teacher's dread-monthly reports-has endeavored to deprive them of their terrors by making them less laborious.

How well he has succeeded teachers can best decide. He has devised a class register which shows a pupil's entire daily, weekly, and monthly account at a single glance.

It is arranged somewhat in the form of a ledger, and its comprehensive simplicity would delight a banker. In the majority of our schools, where Tom is classed with Dick in arithmetic, with Harry in geography, and all three recite together in grammar, it can not, on the whole, be so convenient as the common forms. But a few names can be entered upon a single page; and, unless the scholars are together in all their studies, the labor of hunting up each name for recording each recitation will more than exceed that gained in making up the monthly summary. For graded schools, however, for which it is designed, it appears to be just what is needed.

LESS than fifty years ago, the nature of insanity was unknown. Men were blinded by the belief that mind was utterly distinct from body, and, conceiving that men

(3) RUDIMENTS OF MUSIC, for the Use of Teachers and their Pupils, and Especially Intended for Class Teaching in Private and Public Schools. New York and Philadelphia: Schermerhorn, Bancroft & Co. Price 75 cents.

(4) TOWLE'S SCHOOL RECORD. New York: Scher merhorn, Bancroft & Co. Specimen pages, 10 cts

tal diseases were incurable, cast out the lunatic as cursed of God. The error of this conception is now apparent. A miracle is no longer necessary to restore the insane. Diseases of the mind are diseases of the brain, are to be treated as physical diseases, and, in most cases, can be cured if treatment is resorted to in season.

5

For the thorough enunciation of this important truth, we are indebted to Dr. A. Brierre de Boismont, whose "Rational History of Hallucinations" first brought the subject distinctly before medical men. The matter has since been carefully investigated by others, but with especial success by Dr. Forbes Winslow. In the introduction to his work, Dr. Winslow urgently enjoins the necessity of carly treatment in cases of mental disorder. He shows that contrary to the accepted belief, brain disease is insidious and of slow development. He asserts that few cases are, ab initio, incurable. Unfortunately, the symptoms of incipient insanity are overlooked, the eccentricities are viewed merely as outcrops of the disposition, and the truth is believed, too often, only when the disease has passed beyond the reach of medicine. In the first seventeen chapters, Dr. Winslow discusses the psychology of mental diseases, and the

(5) OBSCURE DISEASES OF THE BRAIN AND MIND. By FORBES WINSLOW, M.D., D.C.L., etc., etc. Second American Edition. Philadelphia: H. C. Lea. 8vo., pp. 483. $4.25.

remainder of the work is devoted to their pathology.

This treatise may well be termed exhaustive. Every source of information seems to have been rigidly examined. Every morbid phenomenon, mental and physical, is carefully marked, and its relations and results are traced in a manner almost painful ly detailed. One can scarcely overestimate the importance of this work. No better proof of its value can be given than the fact, that in three years it passed through three large editions in England, and a second has just been issued here. The style is far beyond that usual in medical or philosophical works; disfigured by no affectation of technicality, it is well fitted for the general reader as well as for the professional man. No person can peruse it without advantage.

THE American Journal of Science and Arts, for January, contains the following papers: Obituary of Sir W. J. Hooker; On a Boulder, and Glacial Scratches at Englewood, N. J.; Crystalline Nature of Glass; Contributions from the Sheffield Laboratory; Results of Observations on Drift Phenomena; A New Process of Elementary Analysis for the Determination of Sulphur in Organic Compounds; The Automatic Registering Barometer: On Molecular Physics, etc., with the usual scientific intelligence. The price of this Journal is now six dollars per annum.

MR.

[R. EDITOR-Do you insert curious questions in Arithmetic? If so, here is one. The case actually occurred, and the question had to be solved by the court in the county in which I live:

Problem.--By the law of the State, an estate is divided, one-third to the widow, and two-thirds, in equal shares, to the children. If a child dies afterward, the widow has half of its part, and the surviving children share equally the other half. A man died, leaving a widow and ten children. Afterward, before the final division, seven children died in succession.

Required-The shares, respectively, of the widow and the three remaining children.

[NOTE.--The answer is desired in a

NEW ENGLAND.

MASSACHUSETTS.-Governor Bullock, of Massachusetts, in his recent message to the legislature of that State, made some interesting statements concerning the effect of a State fund upon local liberality. A reserved fund, amounting to $2,000,000, was completed in 1865. It was feared that the State fund would depress local beneficence; but the governor asserts the contrary. During the school year 1864-5, all the municipalities in the State, with the exception of twenty-two, raised by taxation double the sum required by law for participation in the fund; and the whole sum raised annually for school purposes equals the fund itself. During the year $1,940,000 was expended upon the schools, exclusive of money laid out on books and buildings. Governor Bullock urges upon the people the necessity of elevating the standard of compensation to teachers, as the only means of maintaining and enlarging the usefulness of public schools. Acting upon this suggestion, the town of Worcester has increased the salaries of its male teachers $200, and those of its female teachers $50 to $75 beyond that of 1865.

-Harvard College is at last freed from immediate State control. The overseers and corporation have both accepted the act passed by the legislature last winter, relating to the choice of overseers. It thus becomes a law, under which overseers are to be chosen by the Alumni on Commencement Day.

MIDDLE STATES.

NEW YORK.-The report of the Regents of the University represents the educational institutions of the State as prosperous. The Superintendent of Instruction shows that there was, during the past year, a great gain in the number and average attendance of pupils. There is an increased solicitude on the part of parents for teachers of higher qualifications. School Commissioners are more attentive than formerly. The Normal Schools were well attended, and the number of teachers instructed in institutes was 8,741. In his message, Governor Fenton suggests the propriety of establishing other ormal and training schools. Those already existing are insufficient to supply the demand of the common schools, which require more than twenty thousand teachers annually. The manner in which the school fund is apportioned works well, and induces a better average attendance. Governor Fenton maintains the importance of sustaining the schools more liberally than at present.

NEW JERSEY.-The Board of Education in Camden are about to build a new schoolhouse, at a cost of $20,000.

PENNSYLVANIA.-The late Jno. M. Porter, of Tarentown, left about $120,000 for the establishment of a college at that place.

WESTERN STATES.

Oпo. The Secretary of the Ohio Agricultural Society wrote some time ago to Liebig, respecting the agricultural college about to be established in that State with the proceeds of the government lands. Among others, the answer contained the following observations, which are especially worthy of careful consideration: "In America you spend too much money in putting up your educational buildings, and then starve your professors. I learn that you put up a very grand building in your city of Columbus, called the Starling Medical College. I have a picture of it. I am told that it cost soine $70,000 or $75,000, and now you are starving the professors in it. You did the same in Cleveland and Cincinnati. Then, I am told, you built two universities in Ohio, and now the professors can hardly live on the salary you pay. The consequence is that these schools, colleges, or universities must run down. There is no place in the wholeworld where knowledge can make so much money as in America; therefore your best men will not become teachers or professors, simply because they can make more money out of something else; and they naturally apply their talent and ability where it pays the best. No man will engage in an educational course of life, for life, on a salary of $1,200 or $1,500 a year, when he, by applying the ability in some other pursuit, can make $4,000 or $5,000 a year. Hence, you have no first-class professors in all America; but you have instead first-class business men, first-class mechanics, and managers of large and colossal establishments."

KANSAS.-Kansas does not appear to be satisfied with mediocrity in matters of education. She has an excellent school law and an increasing school fund. A State Normal School is in operation at Emporia, and Teachers' Institutes are being organized in different parts of the State.

There are in the State, School Districts, 843; school children reported, 45,441; number attending school during the past year, 26,000; number of teachers employed, male, 247--females, 652; average price paid the former, $36.84; the latter, $24.04; amount raised by districts for school purposes, $107,293.4!; value of school-houses over $122,000.

There are in Southern Kansas seven colleges-six too many. Five are in operation. The State University, at Lawrence, is nearly completed. It will soon be organized, and opened for students. It has an endowment of 46,000 acres of land, and $15,000 as an initiatory investment.

The Agricultural College movement, under government auspices, is going on with considerable energy. During the month of November, 1865, two thousand five hundred acres were located at Humboldt, Kansas, with Agricultural College scrip.

MICHIGAN.-Michigan State University, at Ann Arbor, seems destined to take the lend of American institutions in number of students. At present the attendance is 1,179. It is well endowed by the State, and the charges for tuition are merely nominal.

SOUTHERN STATES.

SCHOOLS FOR THE FREEDMEN.-The consolidated report of the Freedmen's Bureau shows that there are at present 631 schools, with 1,240 teachers, and 65,$34 scholars, in the Southern States. There are 67 schools, with about 7,000 scholars, in North Carolina. In the District of Columbia and the surrounding stations there are 45 schools, with 100 teachers, and about 4,000 pupils. In Louisiana the schools for colored children have all been suspended, for want of funds. The agent of the Freedmen's Bu

rean in Alabama writes that he has established a school for the poor whites.

MARYLAND.--Hon. Henry Barnard, LL.D., the veteran educator, has been called to take charge of St. John's College, at Annapolis.

The legislature of Maryland has just passed a bill in aid of St. John's College, by which $85,000, in annual instalments of $15,000, are appropriated from the State Treasury to aid in reorganizing this venerable institution.

GEORGIA.-The late constitutional convention ordained that the State University should be adequately endowed. To this the Governor, in his message, referred, and anxiously pressed the matter upon the legislature:"Located in a healthy region, the University of Georgia can, and ought to be made, more than ever the cherished object of the affections of her people." There is now a prospect that the endowment will be completed as soon as possible.

WEST VIRGINIA.--Governor Boreman, in his message, presents very distinctly the defects existing in the school system of this State. The want of competent teachers throughout the State is seriously felt, and "is one of the greatest difficulties in the way of putting into successful operation the free-school system, and, indeed, of keeping up primary schools of any character whatever." Normal schools are recommended as the only means of removing the difficulty. The Governor concludes by invoking the fostering care of the legislature over the free-schools.

-The Board of Education of Wheeling have ordered the erection of several new school buildings. The schools are in good condition.

EUROPE.

ITALY.-The Minister of Education has published the following particulars regarding the seminaries in the kingdom: The total number of them is 260, 208 of which are elementary schools. There are 13,174 pupils, 7,926 of whom are boarders, and 8,429 are dressed in ecclesiastical costume. During the last five years eighty-two seminaries were closed. The governinent now purposes to take all the revenues of these establishments into its own hands, and to reduce the number of seminaries to that of the dioceses.

RUSSIA. The emancipated serfs, in a district of the government of Iver, are about to establish public schools in all the villages of the different parishes. In other parts of Russia, progress in this respect is rather slow; but there is every reason to believe that the enjoyment of liberty will

inore and more rouse the mental ambition of the peasantry.

SCOTLAND.-The Edinburgh Courant has the following characteristic letter from Thomas Carlyle to Mr. Adam White, who proposes to introduce the teaching of natural history into boarding-schools and private families: "For many years it has been one of my constant regrets that no schoolmaster of mine had a knowledge of natural history, so far, at least, as to have taught me the grasses that grow by the wayside, and the little winged and wingless neighbors that are continually meeting me, with a salutation which I can not answer, as things are. Why didn't somebody teach me the constellations, too, and make me at home in the starry heavens, which are always overhead, and which I don't half know to this day? I love to prophesy that there will come a time when, not in Edinburgh only, but in all Scottish and European towns and villages, the schoolmaster will be strictly required to possess these two capabilities (neither Greek nor Latin more strict), and that no ingenuous little denizen of this universe be thenceforward barred from his right of liberty in those two departments, and doomed to look on them as if across grated fences all his life! For the rest, I cannot doubt but, one way or other, you will, by and by, make your valuable, indubitable gift available in Edinburgh, either to the young or older, on such conditions as there are; and I much recommend a zealous and judicious persistence till you do succeed. Believe me, yours very sincerely, T. CARLYLE."

THE NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF SCHOOL SUPERINTENDENTS.-The National Association of State and City School Superintendents met in Washington, D. C., on the 6th of February. Massachusetts was represented by Mr. Northrop, State Agent of the Board of Education, and Mr. Hubbard, Superintendent of the Schools of Springfield; Vermont, by Mr. Adams; New Jersey, by Mr. Harrison, State Superintendent, and Mr. Sears, of Newark; Pennsylvania, by Mr. Coburn; Ohio, by Mr. White, State Superintendent, Colonel De Wolfe, of Toledo, Mr. Mitchell, of Columbus, and Mr. Cowdery, of Sandusky; Illinois, by Mr. Bateman; Michigan, by Mr. Horsford, State Superintendent, and Mr. Dety, of Detroit; West Virginia, by Mr. White.

Mr. Richards, of Washington; Mr. Payne, of Virginia; Mr. Fiske, of North Carolina; Prof. Davies and Dr. Lambert, of New York, and many other friends of education were present.

It was thought by some that, like too many educational meetings, this would prove to be only another phase of the Muinal Admiration Society; but such practical men as the superintendents of Vermont, Pennsylvania, and Ohio are likely to misspend time; and the action of the meeting was directed so as to make it eminently successful,

not

The President, after the old-fashioned way in vogue in Boston, was somewhat prolix when calling on and referring to persons; but the members meant business, laudably exhibiting that if they were not fitted for their offices when elected or appointed, they were anxious to prepare themselves for performing their duties asceptably and well.

Several papers were read and discussed in a sensible, familiar manner, questions being asked so as to bring out practical bearings. In this way Mr. Coburn, of Pennsylvania, was lead to make many interesting and valuable statements concerning the character and working of the school system of Pennsylvania-in what respects he thought it might be improved, and how applied in other States. He thought it would not, on the whole, work well in New York; nor would the system of New York answer for Pennsylvania. The opinion of the convention was, that different States required different systems or modifications of them. Mr. Coburn's paper was pointed and practical. It should be in the hands of every superintendent.

Mr. White, of Ohio, read an elaborate paper on the establishment of a national bureau of education.

The convention seemed to be in favor of such a bureau, provided it be of limited controlling power; it should be advisory merely.

The paper of Mr. White was highly commended for its literary, logical, and especially its business character.

Mr. Van Bokkelen, with his usual enthusiasm, expressed his opinions on uniformity in State and national education. His plans were thought to be somewhat visionary, and to depend upon more stringent laws than most of the superintendents thought desirable--tyranny, even in a good cause, being, at least, a bad example. This was evidently Mr. Harrison's opinion, as expressed in a very correct review of some of the defects of educational systems.

Mr. Bateman also expressed similar opinions in his excellent paper on a model system.

Mr. Philbrick, of Boston; Mr. Bulkley, of Brooklyn, and Mr. White, Secretary of the Board of Education of Massachusetts, were unavoidably absent. The papers which they were to read were consequently deferred to the next meeting of the Association, to be held in Indianapolis.

The meeting was presided over and conducted with pre-eminent ability and courtesy; and its conclusion was regretted by all who attended.

Of the benefit to be derived from such meetings, it is scarcely necessary to speak. The leading men of the various sciences and arts have long found it of advantage to meet and discuss the various questions that arise in their respective pursuits, and why may not Education be advanced in like manner?