Classification becomes useful when the multiplicity of objects becomes perplexing and burdensome.

Double entry is not of advantage in running a peanutstand.

Hardly would two grammarians define a sentence alike; and should two, perchance, be found to agree, a third would doubtless start up in astonishment and eager protest.

We would not wish our small graders to know what a sentence is, or that there are such troublesome things in existence.

And worst of all is this attempt to bring down the higher and more difficult studies of riper years within the grasp of the infant mind by the use of those twaddling terms which it will soon be the hardest task to unlearn. What a burlesque of education to tell a child, as yet unable to read readily, to write a telling sentence about a cat! A telling sentence, truly, but telling most of the absurdity of the method.

Things come before names, use before theories, speaking before writing, the whole before its parts, words before letters.

Think of the time spent on the interjection oh! which seems to have a sort of monopoly of primers and first readers, though rarely found elsewhere, or used save by young girls and teachers. Intelligence is not largely interjectional.

What marvels of uselessness we can make of ourselves with the aid of the book-makers! I can now recall, as but of yesterday, and doubt not my freed spirit will find encysted somewhere in its incorporeal anatomy, the old definition of "punctuation, which is the art of dividing a written composition into sentences or parts of sentences by points or stops, to mark the different pauses which the

sense requires," which, for any good resulting therefrom, might fitly have been subscribed, "Truly yours, Theophilus Thistle, the thistle-sifter." These things all have their uses, and in their due time and order pass grandly into our curriculum through the wide doors of reason and enlightenment, instead of toddling in by the back door and nursery.

And is not the wise study of the times and methods of teaching the several topics as high a pursuit as measuring off tape or weighing sugar, or packing a caucus? And is not the pursuit as much the part and the promoter of wisdom, as how to secure a seat or a vote in council or Legislature? And does not the worthy teacher need a broader and deeper reading of books and character than is found in our prescribed lists? And may not the hundredth repetition of the same lesson be better directed, more simply and plainly presented, and more judiciously and pleasingly illustrated than any of the preceding? And is not she well deserving who devotes some of the evening and, it may be, the morning hours to those studies which shall enliven and enrich the labor of the class-room?

I remember lately to have read some complaint that we teach so much that is not needed in the countingroom; surely it is devoutly to be hoped. There are, to my mind, few sadder pictures than that of a thinking, reasoning being shut in, from youth to hoary age, to the requirements of the counting-room:

from the cheerful ways of men

Cut off, and for the book of knowledge fair
Presented with a universal blank

Of Nature's works, to him expunged and 'rased.

The condition of the old men, solemnly nursing their hoehandles on the city street, seems Elysian in comparison.

Of such a one, perhaps, Wordsworth wrote:

The multiplication table was his creed
His paternoster and his decalogue;
For in a close and dusty counting-house

He had so smoke-dried and seared and shriveled up
His heart, that when the dirt shall now

Be shoveled on him, 'twill still be dust to dust.

But most of all do we need to get rid of the paltriness, the littleness, the petty tyranny, the false and easily offended dignity that still lurk and linger in the dusty corners of our system. We desire that the mention of school and teacher should suggest something other than strap and rattan and ruler; that some other question should be found to ask our returning pupils at nightfall than "How many times have you been pinched or beaten to-day?" We want our teachers-men and women-too big, too manly, too womanly to be able to be insulted by any child intrusted to his or her care-too much in sympathy with the child-nature to see a design in every error, a covert crime in every unmeaning glance; and we want our pupils so confident of the good-will and calm, just discrimination of the teacher as to honestly and frankly come and report any accidental wrong-doing without fear or dread.

I wish I had the gift of speech that would enable me to express my thought, to give clear voice to the feeling that comes over me in the still, small hours, when thought can range unhindered by the cares and annoyances of the outer world.

Think of yourselves at the call and beck of the parent who could take his little boy or girl up to the public whipping-post to be flogged by a hired baster, and him or her to be found in the free school, and there intrusted with the tenderest and most delicate interests of life!

Believe me, my fellow-teachers, our schools will be mentioned with scorn and our names spoken with contempt till we cast aside this relic of a by-gone age, and cease to be the sole representatives of a debased and degrading barbarism.

I was glad at our last school anniversary to be able to congratulate teachers and pupils that there was one school-building in this city where, for a quarter of a century, the work of instruction had gone on, like the building of Solomon's temple, with never the sound of blows within its walls.

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A recent number of the "Journal of Education" cites one of those so considered extreme cases, where the writer would like the privilege of resorting to physical suasion." "A rough, hulking fellow," it goes on to say, "down on Cape Cod, in answer to a mild reproof from his teacher, a nice, lady-like girl, said, 'I'd punch yer head for ye, if ye warn't a woman.'" And he, of course, should be whanged and pounded? We would show him, then, that our self-respect, aided by a greater maturity of thought and judgment, could not restrain us from doing the self-same act from which he had been withheld by respect for another.

If he had been sent to me, I would rather have said, in effect: “My young friend, I am glad to learn that you stand one of the truest tests of manliness. No man is to be despaired of so long as he preserves a true respect for woman. But that is not the way to speak to a lady. She isn't a fish-woman. If I were you, when I found an opportunity, I would tell her that, in my anger, I had done what I was ashamed of when I thought of it-not unless you want to; but I fancy you'd feel yourself twice the man after it. Come and see me again within a day or two.'

One of our most experienced and successful teachers asked me, not long since, if I remembered such and such a one, who used to be in school. I was forced to admit very distinct recollections of them.

"But we have had no such cases," said he, "of late years; and, do you know," he continued, with more than his wonted tenderness-"do you know that I often think I should have had no trouble with them if I had known anything?" in which opinion I was forced also to acquiesce.

The work of education is to enkindle and instruct, not merely to quench and repress; yet how confidently, in answer to my some time suggestion that such a teacher is not specially successful, comes the quick reply, "I do not know why not-I keep them still!" So, haply, would sleep or death, forsooth, for even ghosts tread softly and speak low; but, as in the young groves and bright meadows of spring-time, so in the school; we love the gentle murmur and rustle of "the green things growing."

Do not misunderstand me. I believe in the advantage-the necessity—of quiet order as thoroughly as any one; but when the whole force of the teacher is expended in the perpetual endeavor to hush and suppress the undirected activities of the school-room, I feel that she has not been "put where she can do the most good."

It may not indicate any lack of intelligence that one is not successful in school, more than the inability to sing or play the violin would do so. There is many and many "a nice girl," on and off of Cape Cod, who can not wisely keep a school of hulking boys; but there are enough who can.

It has been a much-mooted question, of late, with writers and speakers on education, "How shall we obtain good teachers for our schools ?" It does not seem