national progress, and, as a State, never yet furnished a single soldier or a single dollar for the national defence." What a blow to the historic pride of Massachusetts, and how humiliating must this sweeping charge of ignorance be to the galaxy that revolves about the Hub!

It appears, likewise, that our "Abolition press and preachers, poor, deluded, besotted creatures," are as bad as the schoolmasters ;they have the amazing impudence to talk of the superior intelligence of the North!" Surely, they can never have seen the D. B., or they would be less extravagant in their estimate of Northern intelligence.

But the closing outburst of the righteous indignation of the D. B. surpasses every thing. "Indeed," it exclaims, "few of the teachers, preachers, professors, etc., [especially the etc.] that have charge of the institutions of learning have the remotest idea of true liberty; and if they could all be driven from the land and their school-houses burned, it would be a stupendous gain to Republican liberty."

Every good citizen will perceive the truth and justice of all this, and will rejoice to aid the execution of so patriotic a proposition. We would respectfully suggest, however, that the driving and burning be postponed to a cooler season. It is too much even for comfortable contemplation this hot weather.

A

JOURNALISTIC HONESTY.

SHORT time since, having occasion to speak of the honesty of educational journals, we expressed the belief that, without exception, the conductors of such journals in the United States were honorable men. We would be sorry to have to abandon that belief or to retract our expression of it. Nevertheless, we must acknowledge that our faith in its generality has been seriously shaken; and that, too, by our nearest neighbor-The Connecticut Common School Journal. In the July number of this fair-looking monthly we find, copied in full from our May number, an interesting article entitled "A Few of My Troubles;" but we have looked in vain for any acknowledgment of the source from which it was obtained. The same article has been extensively reproduced throughout the country, but we are aware of no other instance in which it has not been duly accredited to the MONTHLY. Now, we have not the slightest objection to such use of our articles; we have repeatedly said that our editorial brethren are welcome to any thing in the MONTHLY, provided due credit is given.

In the present case, if the offending journal did not itself prove the contrary, we would have charitably supposed the theft to be not so much intentional as the result of an ignorance of professional courtesy. But, since the entire number, with a trifling exception, was made up of pickings from other educational papers-all properly acknowledged-and stealings from the MONTHLY, we can see in such conduct nothing but intentional discourtesy and dishonesty. This is the first instance of the kind that we have met this side of Canada. For the good name and fame of American educators, we hope it will be the last.

We are happy to learn that Mr. Camp, the resident editor of the Journal, being in England at the time, was not directly responsible for this occurrence. No doubt, he supposed he was leaving an honest man in charge.

I

EDITORIAL CORRESPONDENCE.

"A FEW OF MY TROUBLES."

WAS much interested in the account which a contributor in your last number gives so graphically and playfully of her troubles in schoolkeeping, and shall be glad if I can lend her some little aid in ridding herself of them.

The grand source of her troubles evidently lies in the fact that she teaches after a stereotyped plan, which has been handed down from time immemorial, and is so fixed by long-continued custom, that few teachers have the boldness to break loose from it, in the face of the expectations of parents and the requirements of school-committees. It is the plan that makes education consist mostly in mere drilling-in the teaching of letters, and words, and forms of expression, and processes, while the interesting realities, the things, to which these relate are left to be learned by chance. Such a mode of teaching must necessarily be, as your contributor says it is, "dull, commonplace, absurd, wearisome." Its influence, therefore, both on pupil and teacher must be in some respects bad. Of its influence on the teacher, Dr. Holland says truthfully, "I suppose it must be admitted that there is something in the business of teaching [he should have said, as commonly pursued] which tends to make the character dry;" and he attributes this to an everlasting handling of materials that have lost their interest," which, he says very truly, "is a very depressing process." In elucidating the subject, he remarks that "there is a class of teachers who seem to be really interested in the drudgery of repetition, and these are all dry characters, and they grow dryer and dryer till they die."

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Now, your contributor is not one of these dry characters. If she were, she would not be restive and discontented in pursuing the common routine which custom has prescribed. She longs for something better-some

thing less dry--and longs so hard that she utters forth her troubles frankly and freely.

The great cause of the dryness of teaching is a lack of interest, and this comes, as already hinted, from the shutting out of things, and making education a mere concern of words. The memorizing of words and forms of expression is made the chief thing, and thinking is left to take care of itself, and so is mostly left undone, and what little is done is very indefiite and loose. Hence your contributor says very truly, "My pupils only get a smattering of their various studies. Very few of them ever thoroughly investigate any subject. It is a mournful fact that the rising generation are not troubled with hungerings and thirstings after knowledge." And her experience, thus frankly stated, is just the truth about teaching in general.

But make mere memorizing, as it should be, subsidiary to thinking, instead of letting it completely smother thinking, as is commonly done in the school-room-prompt to thinking and guide it; and a new face will be put upon things at once-a new life will be waked up in the pupils, the life which thought always gives. Real knowledge, the knowledge of things, is now communicated, and your contributor, with such teaching inaugurated, will no longer have any "misgivings" as to the truth of the maxim that "knowledge is power." It is the knowledge of mere words and technicalities that she finds to be so powerless, and not that which is gained by thinking. Of the power of this latter knowledge the pupil, even though very young, will be conscious quite as readily as the teacher, and this consciousness will awaken "hungerings and thirstings after knowledge."

Thus waking up the minds of her pupils to vigorous action, your contributor may realize in full what "the eloquent and popular Mr. B." says of her vocation. She may build temples "that shall stand when palaces have crumbled and the adamantine hills have melted away," and kindle lights "that shall shine on when the world is lost in ruin, and the stars and suns have ceased to be." Surely, "it is a glorious work" thus "to train immortal minds;" for it is the training of the thought which may go on forever, and not the mere crowding the memory with words, which will easily fade from it unless by mere chance some thinking happens to be connected with them.

Your contributor seems to think that such schools as hers will stand a poor chance of sending forth to the world, as is indicated by Edward Everett, in some speech, any Newtons, or Herschels, or Franklins. It is certainly true, we must allow, that the stereotype plan of teaching is not calculated to develop the germs of such minds, but rather represses their growth. It does not furnish the food which such minds crave, and, therefore, they are very apt in the school-room to be accounted dull, in comparison with the facile memorizers who pertly and glibly recite words and technicalities to the satisfaction of teachers and the admiration of visitors, the absence of the questioning of thought really favoring the even onflow of the recitation. But the teaching of things, in place of mere words, is calculated to develop such minds; and if this mode of teaching were generally adopted, vastly greater numbers of the scholars that go out from our schools would be found in the walks of science, following in the footsteps of Newton, and Herschel, and Franklin.

The extent to which the teaching of things is left out in ordinary edu

cation cannot be realized by any one till he has applied tests which will show it. I have applied such tests. I will give but a single example. A class of very bright boys in a public school were reciting square measure. Suspecting that, after all, they did not know what they were reciting about, I asked them if they could any of them tell me what the difference is between a foot and a square foot. They all stared at me with an expression which seemed to say that I had asked a question which I had no business to ask. At the same time, it was the blank expression of ignorance. To test the matter still further, I asked if any of them would go to the blackboard and make first a foot, and then a square foot. Several hands were held up, and the teacher told one of the boys to go to the blackboard. As he began by making a curved line, I asked him what he was making. "A heel, sir," said he. This did not provoke a laugh in the class, as it would have done if they appreciated the blunder. The fault in the teaching here was, that the teacher took it for granted that her pupils knew what the things-the square inches and feet-were, about which they were to recite.

But, perhaps, it will be said that the young pupils which one has at the very outset of education cannot be interested about things, and that the teaching must necessarily be much about letters and words. Just the reverse. Things are what they are naturally most interested in, and the teaching about things supplies the food which their minds crave. The drilling in letters and words is necessary, it is true, but it should be made supplementary and subsidiary to the teaching of things. Your contributor complains that it is difficult to make George (a very bright boy, I dare say) remember even the letter A. Why? Because there is really no interest about the mere figure of that letter. But let her show him the pic-ture of a cat with the name underneath, asking him about his cat at home, and talking with him about the habits of cats. In this way she can interest him in the letters that make up the name cat. Or, without any such direct connection between things and letters, we can interest the child in the learning of his letters by first interesting him in things. And when he comes to get a little stock of words on hand, there is a world of things about which he can be taught; and this sort of teaching should not only be the main staple of his education, but it should be considered the chief means of giving him a knowledge of language. The teaching of language by grammars and reading-books, so common even now with all our improvements, is not only a dry way, but an ineffectual one. There is altogether too much of mere drilling in it. Reading and spelling should both be connected, as far as they can be, with the actual learning of facts.

I would say, then, to your contributor, who, I know by her interesting article, is really destined to be "a tip-top teacher"-take your pupils out into the broad field of nature in your teachings, and then you will not need to go out of the school-room to get "a whole skyfull of fresh air." You will thus bring the whole beautiful world around you into that school-room, instead of shutting it out, as is done now according to the prescribed modes of education. Break away from the bonds of custom. Banish the fear of school committees, and ten to one you will in a short time convince them that you are right.

One word more. Your contributor complains that she has trouble in governing her school. On this point I simply remark, that pupils who

are interested in their studies are more easily governed than those who are not; and that, therefore, where drilling, with all its tedium and dryness, is made the sum and substance of education, a much more active and watchful discipline is needed than where a knowledge of things is made the staple of teaching, and mere drilling is considered as subsidiary to this. A TEACHER.

I

GEOGRAPHICAL PUBLICATIONS OF GERMANY.

NUREMBERG, July, 1866.

N a former letter I alluded, with some detail, to the excellent atlases published in Gotha by the house of Justus Perthes, and known, more or less, to geographical scholars in every part of the world. In accordance with a hint from our honored American educator, Hon. Henry Barnard, to speak in some one of my letters to the EDUCATIONAL MONTHLY about the best geographical publications of Germany, with especial view to the wants of school libraries of reference, I venture to call the attention of the readers of this journal to some of the other best works issued in this country, and more especially to those which are published in Berlin.

The two heaviest houses engaged in the preparation of original atlases, are, as I said in my last letter, Justus Perthes of Gotha, and Diedrich Reimer of Berlin. During the past winter I have had the pleasure of making the acquaintance of the latter gentleman, and have found him as far removed as possible from the traditional idea of book-publishers, as an ignorant, sordid, pushing, and unscrupulous class of men. Mr. Reimer is a man of scholarly habits and tastes, a man of wide geographical reading, and connected with the very best society which the intellectual capital of Central Europe furnishes. His honor and probity are even more strongly to be commended than his intelligence and culture. His scale of operations is not so extensive as that of the Gotha house, but the works which he publishes are quite as valuable. To a certain extent these two houses are rivals, but their rivalry is entirely free from a taint of that sordid meanness which sometimes creeps into trade. Justus Perthes enjoys the advantages of having his works revised and authenticated by the eminent geographer Petermann; Reimer, on the other hand, has the assistance of the no less eminent Kiepert. These two men are probably not surpassed by any two geographers of the age, although the blending of scientific attainments is different in them, and unlike, too, that found in our own countryman, Prof. Guyot. Petermann is the greatest living chartographer, and chartography is the one province where he is truly strong. He is a man who studies the geography of the present time, the geography of past ages, and the reciprocal connection of history and geography are subjects to which he has paid little attention. Nor is he specially versed in the sister sciences, though by no means ignorant of them. I mean by this that has not that special training in geology, botany, and mineralogy which characterizes Prof. Guyot. He is a man who has steadily, from youth up, under the training of the eminent Ritter and Berghaus at the outset, pur sued the difficult task of constructing original maps from the materials