2. "The advantages derived from rivers as the sources of national wealth are incalculable. They feed canals, turn mills, and mingle and assist in nearly all the operations of human industry. The one hundred and ten canals which England now boasts are supplied from the exhaustless munificence of the rivers.

Rivers are the outlets by which the wealth of a nation is conveyed to foreign realms, and the inlets by which it receives their riches in return. Places situate on a river and near the sea, are therefore advantageously situated for commerce; hence most capitals, and many large cities, are built on the banks of rivers. It is to her position on the Thames that London is chiefly indebted for her rank as the first commercial city in the world."-British and Foreign, IV. Book, p. 21.

3. "During the summer of the northern hemisphere the countries of Arabia, Persia, India, and China are much heated, and reflect great quantities of the sun's rays into the atmosphere, by which it becomes extremely rarified, and the equilibrium consequently destroyed. In order to restore it, the air from the equatorial southern regions, where it is colder (as well as from the colder northern parts), must necessarily have a motion towards those parts. The current of air from the equatorial regions produces the trade winds for the first six months in all the seas between the heated continent of Asia and the equator. The other six months, when it is summer in the southern hemisphere, the ocean and countries towards the southern tropic are most heated, and the air over those parts most rarified; then the air about the equator alters its course, and flows exactly in an opposite direction."-M'Culloch's Course of Reading, pp. 241-242.

ENGLISH GRAMMAR.

Every candidate is required to write out the paraphrase, and do the parsing. Besides this he is to choose one question in each of the other sections. SECT. I.-Paraphrase the following passage: "For the principal aim of society is to protect individuals in the enjoyment of those absolute rights which were vested in them by the immutable laws of nature, but which could not be preserved in peace without that mutual assistance and intercourse which is gained by the institution of social and friendly communities. Hence it follows, that the first and primary end of human laws is to maintain and regulate these absolute rights of individuals. Such rights as are social and relative result from, and are posterior to, the formation of states and societies; so that to maintain and regulate these is clearly a subsequent consideration. And therefore the principal view of human law is, or ought always to be, to explain, protect, and enforce such rights as are absolute, which in themselves are few and simple; and then such rights as are relative, which, arising from a variety of connections, will be far more numerous and complicated.—Warren's Blackstone, p. 60.

SECT. II.-Parse the following sentence, and be careful to give in full the syntax of the prepositions, conjunctions, and pronouns.

"For all of us have it in our choice to do every thing that a good man would desire to do, and are restrained from nothing but what would be pernicious either to ourselves or our fellow-citizens."

SECT. III. So that to maintain and regulate these is clearly a subsequent consideration."

1. In what sense is the word " these a pronoun, and in what an adjective? What is the etymology of the word "pronoun," and what is its

meaning, according to that etymology? Does this imply any change in the meaning commonly attached to the word "noun?

2. Parse the word "so." Give other instances of adverbs similarly used. Distinguish between the meaning of " so" and " as.

3. Parse the word "to." Are there any cases in which this word before an infinitive may more properly be called a preposition than a sign of the mood? In what cases is the sign of the infinitive omitted?

SECT. IV." And therefore the principal view of human law is, or ought always to be, to explain, protect, and enforce such rights as are absolute, which, in themselves, are few and simple; and then such rights as are relative, which, arising from a variety of connections, will be far more numerous and complicated."

1. Give the etymology and etymological meaning of "explain, protect, enforce, absolute, rights, simple, relative, connections, complicated.'

2. What is the general meaning of the terminations, ive, tion, an, wise, al, ty, ous? Give instances of each.

3. Analyse the above passage into subject, copula and predicate, marking the subordinate clauses which are comprised under each of these divisions. SECT. V. Describe accurately every step in the process of teaching the full parsing of nouns and verbs.

SECT. VI.-1. In what order ought children to learn to distinguish parts of speech?

2. Explain exactly the different use that you would make of the passage at the head of Section IV., in teaching grammar to pupil-teachers in the third year, to the children in your first class and to the children in your second class.

3. How can the teaching of grammar be made of use in teaching children to write correct English? What grammatical mistakes do children and uneducated people most frequently make?

ARITHMETIC.

Every question is to be worked as a model for the imitation of your first class in working all similar questions. A correct result not obtained by a clear method will be considered of no value.

SECT. I.-1. Divide 21 by 3, and add the quotient to

2. Divide 00044408 by 0112.

3. Add together the cube-roots of 007301384 and 32768, and divide the result by the square root of 721.

SECT. II.-1. Make out a bill for the following articles: 3 lbs. of tea at 3s. 4d., 4. lbs. of sugar at 54d., 6 lbs. of butter at 1s. 2d., 3 lbs. of cheese at 94d., 2 lbs. of currants at 94d., 6 lbs. of raisins at 84d., and 10 lbs. of soap at 1s.

2. It is required to cut a piece equal to a solid foot from a plank 2 inches thick and 8 inches wide.

3. A beseiged place, garrisoned by 10,000 men, was victualled for 27 days; but, after 9 days, 2,500 men cut their way out. How long would the provisions last the survivors supposing the daily rations undiminished? SECT. III.-1. What is the interest of £528. 9s. for 4 months, at 4 per cent. per annum ?

2. A can reap 1 acres in 24 hours, B can reap 14 acres in 24 hours, in what time will they together reap 10 acres; and if the rate of payment be 1s. per acre, what ought each to receive when it is done?

3. A lb. of tea and 3 lbs. of sugar together cost 6s. ; but if sugar were to rise 50 per cent. and the tea 10 per cent. the same quantities would together cost 7s. What is the price of each?

SECT. IV.-1. Find the area of a circular ring, whose internal and external diameters are 5 and 15 feet respectively.

2. How many cubic feet of water are contained in a ditch, shaped like a wedge, 120 yards long, 6 feet deep, and 4 feet broad at the top?

3. If a cubic foot of metal weighs 4 cwt. 1 qr. what will be the cost of a mile of piping made of it with a 9-inch bore, and -inch thick, at £10. per ton?

SECT. V.-Explain fully but concisely every step in your method of teaching: 1. Notation of integers; or, 2. Notation of vulgar fractions; or, 3. Notation of decimals.

SECT. VI.-Explain fully but concisely every step in your method of teaching proportion, both simple and compound.

MORAL DETERIORATION TO BE CHECKED BY REAL EDUCATION.-No nation has ever yet long survived the moral elements of greatness, however vast its wealth, or extensive its dominion. In the Eastern and the Western World lie the ruined remnants of nations of mightier prowess and more advanced civilisation than ours. The plains of Nineveh and the tangled forests of Yucatan teem with the mouldering and mysterious monuments of national grandeur of which history is silent, or but dimly shadows the existence, whilst it proclaims the rapid downfall of later empires, whose overthrow resulted from their moral decadence. We have no prescriptive safeguard of a less perishable vitality. We have now reached a crisis in the career of England, in which education will in all likelihood determine our future fate. The Prussians well that whatever say in a would have you appear nation's life you must put into its schools. Our teachers are the apostles of our commonweal. On them depend the upward or downward tendency of our times. No system of mere school discipline can perfect that education, which concerning itself for the entire body, and all the powers, feelings, and faculties of human life,—can alone satisfy social interests, and the vital requirements of these times. If teachers be mere scholastic instructors, and wanting in that whole-souled energy essential to the educator -if they draw a narrow circle round routine duties,-and strive not with might and main to throw the sympathetic force of mind and heart into their work-they will never ascend that throne of homage and love, whence they can alone wield the highest influences which touch the soul and expand the intellect of childhood. That teacher little knows the power he loses who slights the affections of his scholars. It has been well said that if they love him he stands forth their idea of an heroic nature. Long after his lessons are forgotten he remains in memory a teaching power. It is his own forfeit, if by a sluggish spirit, a callous heart, a brainless mind, or a coarse manner, he alienates that confidence and disappoints that generous hope. But the good trainer must also be what he would have his pupils become. Candour, generosity, diligence, charity, truth, kindness, are virtues which no teacher can impart in whose own life their glory never gleams. The graces he would instil, and the power he would exert, must spring from that religious reality and fervour which can alone affix the seal to his high vocation, authenticate his mission, and make him the minister of that Lord of Lords and King of Kings, whose unerring laws can alone insure the welfare of peoples and the permanence of empires.

R

GEOGRAPHY.

ON our former paper on this subject we drew the student's attention to the knowledge possessed by the Ancients, and their means of acquiring further information. It will greatly assist us in these inquiries, if we attentively consider their mode of mapping down and delineating those countries with which they were, or supposed themselves to be acquainted. Thus Homer's account of the shield of Achilles, which bore a representation of the earth, exemplifies the amount of knowledge possessed by the Greeks at the period when Homer wrote! this shield the earth was figured surrounded by the sea, or rather by a large river The disk included the Mediterranean much contracted on the west, the Ægean, and part of the Euxine seas, so that Greece was the centre of the poet's world.

On

Subsequent to this time, however, the Grecians made great advances in geographical delineation, as we gather from many scattered notices in their history. Thus Aristagoras, of Miletus, presented Cleomenes, King of Sparta, with a table of brass, on which he had described the known earth, with its seas and rivers.

In the time of Socrates, geographical maps were used at Athens, for that philosopher humbled the pride and boast of Alcibiades, by desiring him to point out his territories in Attica on a map; and Pliny relates, that Alexander, in his expedition into Asia, took with him two geographers, to measure and describe the roads.

The Romans were not behind the Greeks in these geographical efforts, it being their constant habit, when they had conquered any province, to have a map or painted representation of it carried in triumph, and exposed to the view of the spectators on their return home. Thus the Romans, as they were the conquerors, became the surveyors of the world. Every new war produced a new survey and itinerary, so that the materials of geography were accumulated by every additional conquest.

Julius Cæsar ordered a general survey of the whole Roman Empire. This undertaking took twenty-five years in its accomplishment; and the Roman itineraries still extant, show with what accuracy it was accomplished in every province.

A remarkable specimen of these Roman itineraries still exists in the Peutingerian Table, which professes to exhibit a map of the world. twenty-one feet in length and one foot broad. Every feature is increased immeasurably in one direction, and diminished as much in the other; the Mediterranean and Black Seas appear like rivers rolling an amazing length, while the three continents are narrow strips of land through which they flow.

In the geographical annals of this mighty empire, however, we meet with a melancholy instance of the combined effects of ignorance and tyranny, in the death of Metius Pomposianus, who fell a victim to the jealousy of Domitian, in consequence of his having depicted the earth on a parchment, this act being construed by the tyrant into a desire to obtain possession of the empire.

These facts show the imperfect state of geographical knowledge as it then existed; but about 150 years after the Christian era, Ptolemy, of

Alexandria, greatly contributed to its advancement, by a more accurate and ample observation of the globe than had yet been undertaken. That his efforts were only partially successful, and that he fell into a multitude of errors is undeniable; but we should not look with too harsh an eye upon his mistakes, seeing that they arose from the ignorance of the age in which he lived, and the difficulties that surrounded him, rather than from wilful inattention on his part.

On the decline of the Roman Empire, geography, like all other species of scientific knowledge, was committed to the care of the monks and ecclesiastics, and does not appear to have made for a time any very rapid strides; for in 787 we find a chart constructed, representing the earth as a circular planisphere, composed of three unequal portions, and beyond Africa, to the south, it was stated there was a fourth, which the extreme heat of the sun prevents us from visiting, and on the confines of which are the fabulous antipodes. In this map Africa is made to terminate north of the equator. In studying this chart, one point particularly attracts our attention, namely, the reference to a fourth continent, in which we fancy we see the glimmering perception of a truth eventually discovered by the great Columbus. This idea of the existence of a something as yet unknown to them, seems to have been very prevalent. Arabian writers record, that in 1147 eight individuals sailed to discover the limits of the "Sea of Darkness," as the Atlantic was then called. They touched at an island on the way, from the natives of which they heard rumours of a dense gloom to the southward, and were so terrified at the prospect that they abandoned the voyage. In 1291 two Genoese made a similar attempt, but were never afterwards heard of. We can, however, well imagine the melancholy termination of their adventurous enterprise. But though those endeavours failed of success, the belief in the existence of an unknown continent continued, for in the maps drawn by Prugam about 1367, while he fell into the old error of defrauding Africa of its rightful proportion, he exhibited a western continent, named Antilia; thus giving a striking evidence of the truth of our popular saying, that "coming events cast their shadows before."

Perchance, however, these dreams of our predecessors would have still retained their vague and shadowy character, had it not been for the invention of the Mariner's Compass, that important link of connection between ancient and modern geography. Its discovery is a matter of great controversy, but the first European who availed himself of it, appears to have been Nicholas Lym, a friar and astronomer of Oxford, who in 1360 steered to the Northern Isles of Europe with the aid of this new guide, hereafter to be of such incalculable service to the sailor and geographer. Enterprise now succeeded enterprise in rapid succession. One discovery ushered in its successor, until the light of actual knowledge gradually dispelled the gloom of mystery and fable in which the ignorance and mistakes of our ancestors had been enveloped; and the names of Columbus, Drake, Dampier, Cook, and may we not add of Franklin and Mc'Clure, shine as bright examples in our geographical annals, of what may be accomplished by energy, perseverance, and determination.

An excellent French writer of our own days, Dr. Lamartine, has ably pointed out the results of the more perfect knowledge of the earth's surface which these discoverers have obtained for us, and the consequently more intimate relationship of its various inhabitants, in the production of a unity