embodies a great amount of valuable information that cannot be found elsewhere, respecting the condition of school-houses in Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and other States; common errors to be avoided; general principles to be observed in respect to location, size, light, ventilation, temperature, seats and desks, apparatus, etc. It is richly illustrated with plans of a large number of the best school-houses recently erected in different parts of the country.

No Teacher's library can be regarded as complete without this work. To School Committees and others engaged in the construction of school-houses, it is indispensable.

TELESCOPES.

It is only about ten years since the refracting telescope at Yale College, with an aperture of only five inches, was the largest in the United States. At the present time, there are not less than ten refractors in the country superior to the instrument at Yale.

The object glass of the Telescope at Cincinnati is about six times as large as that of the Yale refractor; and the object glass of the great Cambridge refractor is nine times as large. The Cambridge instrument is not excelled by any telescope in the world. Its only rival is the great refractor at the imperial observatory in Russia.

The far-famed telescope of Lord Rosse is a reflector, with a speculum six feet in diameter. It has the advantage of concentrating more light than the Cambridge instrument, but requires a rare combination of circumstances to be used to advantage.

The chief obstacles to the use of very large reflectors, are the inequalities in the density of the large column of air through which the light is required to pass before reaching the mirror.

There were scarcely one hundred hours in a year, when even Herschel's great reflector could be used to any advantage; and the speculum of Lord Rosse's instrument is more than twice as large as that of Herschel's.

The greatest attainment of Lord Rosse's telescope is the resolution of the nebula in Orion, and this has also been accomplished by the instrument at Cambridge. The Director of the Cambridge Observatory, Wm. Cranch Bond, Esq., is one of the most indefatigable and accurate of living observers. It is

the Cambridge refractor, and not Lord Rosse's reflector, that has revealed the eighth satelite of Saturn. Mr. Bond has also given us the most complete and accurate map ever drawn, of the great nebula in Orion; and his son, Mr. George P. Bond, has given us the best map of the great nebula in Andromeda.

Even Lassell, of Liverpool, with a reflector only two feet in diameter, is doing quite as much to advance the science of astronomy as Lord Rosse. And yet Lord Rosse's telescope is capable of penetrating farther into space than any other instrument in existence. It is to be hoped that its future achievements will correspond in some degree with the skill and expense that were requisite for its construction. W. H. W.

KIND WORDS.-Kind words do not cost much; they never blister the tongue or lips, and we never heard of any mental trouble arising from this quarter. Though they do not cost much, they help one's own good nature. Soft words soften our own souls. Angry words are fuel to the flame of wrath, and make it burn fiercely. Kind words make other people good-natured. Cold words freeze people, and hot words scorch them, and bitter words make them bitter, and wrathful words make them wrathful. There is such a rush of all other words in our days, that it seems desirable to give kind words a chance among them. There are vain words, and idle words, and hasty words, and spiteful words, and empty words, and profane words, and warlike words. Kind words also produce their own image on men's souls; and a beautiful image it is. They quiet and comfort the hearer. They shame him out of his sour, morose, unkind feelings. We have not yet begun to use kind words in such abundance as they ought to be used.—Pascal.

REMOVAL.

The MASSACHUSETTS TEACHER will hereafter be issued and published at 16 Devonshire Street, adjoining Exchange Coffee House. All letters and communications should be addressed to Damrell & Moore, Boston, and post paid.

TERMS-One Dollar per annum in advance, or One Dollar and Fifty Cents at the end of the year. Twenty-five per cent. allowed to agents who procure five subscribers, and all payments by them to be made in advance.

It is important to consider what aims the teacher should propose to himself, in order that he may exert upon his pupils a salutary influence with respect to their morals and manners, which constitute what we mean by character. Now the manners and morals of an individual are but the outward expressions of two inward principles, the spirit of a gentleman, and the spirit of religion, and they are good or bad just in proportion to the development of these sentiments. It follows then, that their cultivation is an object paramount to that education which terminates in mere intellectual training, and should claim the teacher's first, not his last attention. Of their importance, a great statesman on the other side of the Atlantic said, "Nothing is more certain than that our manners and civilization, and all the good things connected with manners and with civilization, have, in this European world of ours, depended for ages upon two principles, and were indeed the result of both combined; I mean the spirit of a gentleman and the spirit of religion."

In perfect harmony with this opinion of the happy effects of these principles, is that sentiment so often quoted, of the greatest of modern practical educators, when he said, in relation to the choice of a master for the school under his charge,-" The qualifications which I deem essential to the due performance of a master's duties here, may, in brief, be expressed as the spirit of a Christian and the spirit of a gentleman;" evidently placing those qualifications above mere scholarship, because he regarded their inculcation of more importance than scientific attainments. They are the two main pillars of character, and without them character can have neither symmetry nor strength. Their cultivation is no less one of the best means of securing

the ends of good government, than it is evidently the highest aim of education. But how shall we proceed with their development?

The philosophical method would be, to analyze each into its elements, and consider each constituent part separately. Time, however, would fail me to go into details, and I shall content myself with a brief examination of a single element in each principle.

I remark, then, that the spirit of a gentleman depends upon nothing so much as upon the sentiment of self-respect.

This sentiment needs but little illustration, as its excellence will be readily conceded.

It is the opposite and sure corrective of vain self-conceit, which is the bane of good manners, and the principal ingredient in the spirit of a coxcomb. It is a higher principle than the love of approbation, since it places a greater value upon the actual attainment of excellence, than upon the reputation it brings along with it. While it regards the former as the substance, the latter it looks upon as the shadow. It elevates the soul above all meanness both of thought and of act, and makes one scorn to do a base act in one's own presence, no less than in the face of the whole world.

It is to be observed, that there are express, determinate acts of immorality, such, for instance, as lying, stealing, and profanity; and here is the province of conscience.

So also there are numberless cases in which the vice cannot be exactly defined, but consists in a general temper and course of action.

In these matters, which are without the jurisdiction of conscience, self-respect is the grand regulator of conduct, restraining from what is degrading, and stimulating the desire for all that is elevating, and respectable, and that adorns the human character. It makes one control his appetites, his passions, and his speech. It encourages the cultivation of the understanding and the improvement of the taste.

Without it, you can neither win nor retain the respect of others; with it, you cannot fail to be respectable and respected. It dignifies the humblest individual, and is indispensable to the highest. It is indeed the great developer of manhood. Respect thyself, is a maxim scarce less comprehensive and important than that much esteemed one of the ancients, Know thyself. It is almost equally worthy of a heavenly descent, and to be consecrated in capitals of gold, over the doors of the temples of learning.

It is plain that the more this sentiment is developed in children, the better will be their preparation for self-government, and

consequently the less will be the need of stringent discipline in governing them.

The ways and means of cultivating it in children are numerous, and for the most part obvious. It will suffice for our present purpose to name one or two.

Perhaps the most available and effectual means is to treat them with respect in all our intercourse with them. It may be allowable in a teacher to give vent to his feelings of indignation. and contempt for certain acts. But towards the personal child the shafts of contempt must never be aimed. The only effect is to sink him to a lower and more hopeless deep.

Show him that he is in the slough of iniquity, if need be, but if you would extricate him effectually, contrive to give him a stone of self-respect to place his feet upon. Let correction be attended with as little disgrace as the nature of the case will permit. There is no stronger inducement to strive to deserve the good opinion of others than the consciousness of already enjoying it. Let each pupil feel that he is not overlooked or neglected by his instructor, and he will be most likely not to overlook or neglect himself. Select the school of all others, within your knowledge, the most remarkable for the gentlemanly and amiable deportment of the scholars, and, upon examination, it will generally be found to be the result, in a great measure, of the respectful bearing of their instructor towards them, and his care to cherish in them the sentiment of self-respect.

Judicious commendation promotes self-respect, and inspires courage. Care should be exercised, however, lest merited praise degenerate into flattery, which only feeds vanity, corrupts the heart and engenders self-conceit.

The principal reason why vice and crime follow too often in the train of poverty, is, that poverty prepares the way for them by breaking down self-respect and repressing all manly and noble aspirations. Clothe a man in rags and let want stare him in the face, and the world pass him by without a smile of recognition, and he will find it hard to look up and feel himself a man, and hold on in the course of virtue. If self-respect has not become a fixed principle in him, nothing but the power of religion can hold him up. Special pains, then, should be bestowed upon indigent children to teach them that respectability, in the eyes of those whose good opinion is worth having, depends not upon the condition in which Providence may have placed one, but upon what he is in himself. If any allusion is made to the circumstances of such, it should be always improved for the purpose of inculcating this lesson.

But without attempting to enumerate all the ways and means of developing this sentiment, the most important of which will