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"don't know anything about it, for whoever is found | ture, is well taken if you apply to college out will have to go to prison."

stood in front of them.

There was no time for more, for the policeman "Now, tell the truth. Which of you boys put those stones on the line?" he asked, and his voice was dreadfully stern.

"I did not," said one.

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Neither did I," said another.

"I am sure it was none of my doings," said a third. "What do you say about it, youngster ?" inquired the policeman, looking full at James. His friends gave him a warning glance, and one boy held up his finger. Another formed his mouth so that James read the word "Prison," and another held up his fist to show what he would do if James told. But the boy could not tell a lie. He felt at that moment that he would be less afraid to go to prison than he was to tell an untruth.

"Now, then," said the policeman, "did you put

stones on the line?"

"I am afraid I did," said James.

professors and teachers of the higher scholars. Nothing is more essential to influence than such practical knowledge. Everybody will admit that. But when you go down to little ones where education is largely a matter of imitation on their part, and the best qualifiCations of a teacher are cheerfulness and good humor, when you find a youth of good habits, will not these babes, or very young children, be more ambitious to imitate, if this teacher is not too far ahead of them? I think I have observed, in my own family and those of my children, that the first child did not learn to talk as early nor as correctly as those who came later, when there were others near their age for them to copy. So I have thought perhaps it is possible for one to know

"O, are you? Then I am very glad to have too much, and to be too philosophically caught you."

"I did not mean to leave them on the line," said

James, "and indeed I am not quite sure that I put them there; but I think it is very likely, for I was playing on the spot."

"Then you must come with me." 'Very well."

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"But first tell me if you did all the mischief your self, or if any of these boys helped you?"

But if James told the truth about himself, he was not going to tell tales of his playmates, and so he declined to answer the policeman's question.

"Never mind," said the man; "one of you will be enough to serve as an example," and he walked away, taking James with him.

"What a fool Jim is!" said one of the boys. "He will be taken before the magistrates and sent to prison, and very likely whipped."

But James had not lost his own self-respect, and though he wondered what would be done to him,

and though it must be confessed that he was a little afraid, still he felt he had done right, and he was not as miserable as one might have expected.

And he had a brave boy's reward, for the gentleman to whom the policeman took him complimented him upon his love of truth, and, after cautioning him never to play near the line again, let him go home.

I

THE NORMAL QUESTION.

ROBT. N. ALLYN.

ENVY your pleasure of that first reading (of Roger Ascham), for he is a jewel. But why do people so neglect their children's book-knowledge, and so liberally pay for accomplishments? A guinea for a lesson in dancing, and a shilling for one in grammar or arithmetic, and then they grumble at the cost of the latter and boast of the former! A gentleman for the first, and any clodhopper for the second!"

Your "I can't explain, so don't ask me. third, demanding a knowledge of human na

learned to be a good teacher."'

"I reckon you should say, to have forgotten too much to be a good teacher, and to neglect the elements while speculating about the unimportant generalizations. This is one grand reason for educating teachers to know their business as a life-work and not as a makeshift. But did you never remark that children brought up in families where there are good-natured grandmothers and grandfathers, not only learn to talk soonest and most correctly, but learn manners so much better; are in fact both more mature and more child-like and truthful at the same time ?"

"I have not remarked it.

"I wish you would observe, and you will, I think, agree with me, that grandfather and grandmother are the best labor-saving machines a family can have, in the way of bringing up children intelligently and genteelly. This is possibly one of the reasons for the early ages holding families together in patriarchies. The experiences of the aged and refined, of the mature reason and gentle love of those who have lived wisely and learned to be kindly affectioned, are brought to bear on the little one in the cradle, and the knowledge most needful for it to acquire is sooner and better learned. Now we hurry our chil dren into schools, away from the loving refinements of home, and put them under the inexperienced, and then expect them rapidly and perfectly to become experts in learning and patterns of good habits."

"I mark your drift and am satisfied. A teacher cannot teach what he does not know, or at least burn to know. I am willing to grant it, but the people are not."

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Very possibly. But the reason must be that they have not thought on this important

matter. I have generally found the people right on nearly every question which they study. By discussing this, I am sure they will find that they need nothing more certainly than educated teachers."

“Very likely,” said he, smiling again. "And I guess they are quite likely to be taught all this if a multitude of words can accomplish it."

"That is what we ought to mean. But what say you to my fourth? A teacher needs knowledge of systems and grades of schools, and of the appropriate age to begin each study, and when to pass to the next?"

"Just as I have said about the third; it is good for higher teachers and superintendents."

"And why not more especially for the lowest? When a youth has learned to read and ask questions, to calculate and reason, can he not learn all else for himself? Elihu Burritt did it in languages; Franklin in phy sics and electricity; Ferguson in astronomy; and others in other branches. But when a child has all to learn, shall he be told exactly where to begin aright, or shall he wander or be guided into error? Shall he lose never an hour, or waste years in contracting bad habits? Ought not a teacher to know when to put a boy into arithmetic, and when to advance him out of it, even if he cannot tell, like a flash, how many geese the old woman had who said if she had five and one-half more than three times her present number, she would have twice, or ten times, as many as now'? I think I know a teacher who has taught some girls four years, and she does not know either how to teach them to advance, or to drop them from the class. If an intelligent and educated teacher is needed anywhere, he is needed among the very young and imperfect."

"Well, go on. I grant the fifth about a knowledge of child and human nature in general for everybody, and most of all for a teacher. But what has that to do with normal schools, or indeed, friend Robert, what really have any of your points to do with such seminaries in particular? Are these schools to supply deficiencies in nature? Your arguments are general. What I want is something specific, and which goes to say normal schools are not such luxuries as are convenient but such necessities as every State must have, or fail in its duty to its children." "Very good, You deserve thanks for bringing the conversation to a definite point Let us follow the Socratic method. Answer me- ?"

"Nay, nay," he interrupted, "let me play Socrates, and help you to be delivered of the ideas which so seem to ripen in you. What do people most desire for their children?"

"I should say first wealth and then public office, if you expect an honest answer,” I said quickly, and laughing.

"You are too eager to be a good Socratic pupil. You ought to have asked what I mean by desire-a wish to an end, or a want as to the means to secure that end. Do people want their children to fall into a good and comfortable place and remain there, or to be capable of filling every place and going out to conquer other places?"

"I should say the latter, if they are honestly seeking the good of their children; and I assume that."

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Very good. Then how are these children to be made thus fit? By being kept at home and trained in the family, in a narrow, clannish way, along with a few equals, or by going among many superiors and inferiors, and learning self restraint and emulation, tience and ambition ?''

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"I should confidently send them to associate with the many, as the most likely to produce the harmonious and profitable character."

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Very well. Now, my apt one, tell me whether, when children are thus brought together, they should all-the older and the younger-be in one place?"

"I believe that shepherds think it better after the lambs are weaned, to keep them together and apart from the flock; and those of nearly the same age and strength together. So I argue for children."

"The children being thus assorted into classes of nearly the same age and attainments, some strong to lead and others weaker to follow, shall the fathers and mothers in turn educate them, or shall they join and employ a person to give his whole skill and time to teaching and training them ?"

"If they hire shepherds and hostlers and gardeners, I should think they would not fail. to employ teachers, and very skillful ones."

"If they are wise. But we dare not assume this. Now, shall these teachers give themselves altogether to the one work?"

"Of course they will, if they are to do the best work without errors and delays."

"And should one go about this work of teaching for a whole life, or for a few years only ?"

"I should most confidently say for his whole life; unless people want him to throw away his practical experience as soon as he

has acquired it. This would seem to me another away to accomplish Herod's cruelty, and murder the inocent."

"Exactly so. Now tell me, my ready answerer, whether there is anything about this business of teaching which can be learned, or does all the knowledge, or tact, or power to teach, come to a man by a sort of instinct?

"It appears to me that a mind apt to teach able to see how a bit of knowledge must be shaped, so to speak, in order to enter another mind and stick there, is partly the gift of nature, just as a physician's tact is native; but that it will require much study and a great deal of practice to know how to shape these knowledges for different minds, and make them enter and abide. And when it comes to governing and controlling men or children, and stimulating them to act for a common purpose, and inspiring all to strive to know and do the best possible, under the circumstances, I cannot imagine how this can be done without what may be called the largest instruction and study. We recognize this in educating officers for our army and navy, and in special training and instruction for lawyers and doctors, and in fact for all the acknowledged professions. Even the common demand for apprenticeship to a trade goes on this supposition, that no work can be done well and profitably for the community without special preparation. Why, even a druggist's clerk is not allowed to put up a prescription for the body until he has had practice under a competent instructor. And shall we not demand for those who are to administer stimulants to minds to promote their growth, or to heal them when diseased, that they shall not do this unless they are properly

skilled and educated ?"

"This matter of unhealthy minds and morals, or of imperfect virtue, has more importance than is often allowed. Every child is more or less imperfect, and needs a special care as to morality, habit, thought. If skill, particular and scientific, is not needed here, where is it needed ?"

"Very good. Under my guidance you are laying a foundation for all your six propositions. Can you tell me now what this man or woman who is to be your teacher ought most of all to know ?"

"I should say, two matters above all: The things he is to teach, or more properly, which he is to put into the character of the children; and the art of putting them into

the mind."

"Precisely. As the orator must first find thoughts and then learn how to express them,

as the mason must first 'find bricks and mor tar and then join them systematically, so the teacher should acquire knowledge and manners, and afterward methods of teaching what he knows. What can you specify of his studies ?"

"I should prescribe the simplest elements to be first learned thoroughly, and then methods of teaching them." Educational Weekly.

ESTHETICS OF SCHOOL-ROOM.

THE

an

DALLAS LIND.

HE desire to look well, the regard for appearances, a sense of the beautiful, is inherent principle of human nature. Even animals are not altogether devoid of this principle. The rudest races of men are possessed of the desire of decorating and carving on wood, and tattooing their bodies and painting with colored earth; are but the incipient stages of the art which immortalized Raphael and Michael Angelo. In the first place this slumbering faculty was aroused by decorations made by the hand of nature. "The groves were God's first temples." The first lessons in architecture were drawn from the forests, with their ascending columns and Nature paints the overhanging canopies. rainbow and the flower, and she carves the leaf and the trunk, and the infinite variety of shades and shapes feeds the love of the beautiful in man.

This desire when perverted makes men vain and foolish, but when properly directed and ruder desires, and into a higher and leads them away from mere animal passions nobler atmosphere of refinement and taste. The love of the beautiful in nature and art is

akin to the love of truth. An ardent admirer

of the beautiful and the sublime in nature can He who loves the not be a very bad man. beautiful will be loth to destroy the beautiful. The truth is beautiful, therefore one whose tastes are cultivated will be truthful. The truer a picture is to the original, the more it is admired. In fact, all the higher faculties of man's mind are intimately blended, as are all the lower faculties. Thus, Spirituality and Veneration, Ideality, Generosity, are connected; while those faculties which pertain mainly to man's mere animal existence, as the desire of life, the executive and combative qualities, and relish of food and desire to accumulate wealth, are inter-related.

Man's surroundings have much to do in

forming his character. Pictures and works of art are great educators of the race. The exceeding cheapness of pictures in our day is proof of the immense patronage paid by the people to the art of decoration. The advance in morality and refinement has been in equal ratio.

A teacher, above all others, should possess a due regard for appearances. Clothes do not make the man, and we do not wish to be understood as advocating the claims of dress. We have seen beauty in homespun as often as in silk and lace. But a regard for neatness of person and taste in dress is neces sary to the making of a successful teacher. Dress within your means, but remember it costs but little to be clean and tasty. Decorate your school-rooms. If you cannot af ford costly pictures and mottoes, there are thousands of cheap ones that will set off a room and make it look home-like and cheerful and comfortable. Pictures on the wall are a rest for the eye when wearied with the worded page. They are a relief to the overtaxed brain, by suggesting new thoughts. Remember that rest is only change of occupation. A picture hangs on the walls of our office, where we can see it when we look up from our writing. It was purchased three or four years ago for fifty cents. It is a chromo of flowers, a basket full of them, and some straggling out upon the ground, with a back ground of ferns and grasses. That picture has been worth many dollars to us. Many times have we gazed upon it for rest to the eye and mind, going back to our studies with renewed energy and zeal. School-rooms are too often but gloomy prison houses in appearance, and sometimes in stern reality. Make them look as though somebody lived there. To children who are accustomed to decorated rooms at home such a school-room will seem more natural and comfortable, and to those who are not it will make them love it the

more.

and philosophical apparatus, all add to the beauty of a school-room, to say nothing of their being indispensable to successful teaching, and should form a part of the teacher's stock in trade. The cost need be but trifling. Most of the decorations can be arranged by the teacher himself at little or no expense. But there will always be willing hands to help, fair hands, if the teacher be a man, and strong hands, if a woman. We have tried it, and know whereof we speak.

Normal Teacher.

ESSENTIAL BRANCH OF STUDY.

TH

HERE has been remarkable progress made not only in the manner of teaching, but also in the branches taught in our public schools during the last few years.

Schools of any pretensions, where drawing and the elements of music are not taught, are becoming the exception and not the rule; and the seed thus sown will soon show itself by an improvement in taste and culture in the mass of our people. But even the enthusiast who exclaims, "Let me write the songs of a people and I care not who make their laws," admits that the government of a people constitutes a very important element in their happiness; and such being the case, what can be more plain than that the people who gov ern themselves should know something about their own organic law and the spirit of their institutions?

The general supposition is that every one should be sufficiently interested in a subject which so directly affects his every-day life to give the little time necessary to acquire at least a practical knowledge of the contents of our State and National Constitutions. The facts, however, give the best possible evidence that there is scarcely another subject about which such palpable ignorance is displayed. Nothing could be plainer than the words of Children love pictures. They never tire the Constitution, which say that no one holdof them. If you cannot afford framed pic-ing any office of profit or trust under the govtures, put up engravings from illustrated papers. There are many wood-cuts that look as well and even better than some costly oil paintings. Make wreaths of evergreens and everlasting flowers and put round them. Combine the useful with the ornamental by drawing in colored chalk mathematical figures and diagrams. Every school room should have a map or plat of the town or township in which it is located. The teacher should possess sufficient ingenuity to draw such a map on a large scale. Maps, charts, pictures,

ernment can be eligible to the office of an elector, and yet we all know how at our last Presidential election we had some dozen cases of just this kind. Several of them held such public offices as postmaster and collector of revenue, and yet of the thousands of men voting for them, none seemed to know that they were doing what was directly forbidden by the Constitution. This is only one case of many similar ones that could be mentioned,. and the only question left is, How is it to be remedied?

As the mass of the people will not learn boys by explaining to them occasionally how when they become voters, we have no other some of the prominent features of our insticourse left than to make them acquire the tutions come to be as they are. For instance, necessary knowledge before they leave school. | in explaining how that our national legislaThe subject is one of the most simple charac-ture consists of two houses, he can tell them ter, and a good teacher, by a few practical how, when the old colonies came together to examples and illustrations, may make it a de-form the Union, the larger and wealthier ones lightful recreation instead of a task. told the smaller and less wealthy that, owing

An instructor will find that if he tells his to their size and wealth, they should be alpupils why Mr. Brown is, and Mr. Jones 'lowed to have more to say about the way in is not, eligible to this or that office, they, which they were to be governed; and how will understand, and will want to know about the smaller quite naturally objected to any the qualifications for the rest. One of them thing of the kind; and as a consequence may inquire how some cross old fellow hap. they arranged it so as to have representation pened to be elected school director, and by population in one house, the House of whether some flaw cannot be found in his Representatives, and representation by States title to office. In such a case (and if the in the other, the Senate; and united the two in teacher has the proper confidence of his electing the President. To require the scholpupils, it is not an improbable one), he ars to find out from their own resources the can explain how all matters of this kind are whys and wherefores, will be found also wisely left by our constitution for the States productive of good results. to arrange for themselves, and how that the State, save a few restrictions and a little general supervision, has left these matters to the parties most directly interested.

The teacher could also greatly interest his

The present time is opportune for a study of this character, and special attention might be called to Section 4. of Article XIV., which says the validity of the public debt of the United States shall never be questioned.

J H. W.

EDITORIAL DEPARTMENT.

THE SCHOOL JOURNAL.

LANCASTER, NOVEMBER, 1878.

1. P. WICKERSHAM.

THE

HOME AGAIN.

J. P. M CASKEY

HE Editor of The Journal started from New York on a trip to Europe on the twenty-second of last June; he landed at New York yesterday, October the twenty-second, having been absent just four months. In his tour he traveled through Scotland, England, Ireland, Wales, Belgium, Switzerland, Italy, Austria, Germany, Holland and France; in all, some twelve thousand miles. It is a little remarkable that during the whole tour he never met with an accident of any kind, never missed a boat or a train, never failed in making a connection or in reaching a place of destination at the time appointed, and never lost a day of sight-seeing on account of the weather or ill health. For all this he is deeply thankful. And further, he will never cease to bless the kind Providence that put it in his power to make this tour and thus satisfy the longing of a life. To all who have in

any way contributed to this end he hereby returns the most cordial thanks. To the officers in the Department of Public Instruction he is deeply indebted for their faithfulness in the discharge of their own duties and his, during his absence; and he will scarcely be able to repay the generous services of the assistant editor of The Journal, in his effort to make the several numbers issued by him even better than they are when the editor himself is at his post. But without delay the old shoulder shall go to the wheel, and with renewed strength and freshened spirit both School Department and Journal shall be made to do all that can be done for the universal education of the people.

Some account of the fruits of the tour shall

appear in The Journal from month to month, and it is hoped that many thousands may be thus made to share the profits, if not the pleasures, of the journey.

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