For the Schoolmaster. Gleanings from Vacation. the most memorable incident in his career, as it appears to us, has been more bitterly criticised than any other. No one except a man of suRECREATION, or a creating anew, is not less preme audacity and perennial recklessness would have ventured to place upon the grave of our the teacher's special need than his special privigreat captain the faded immortelles of a French lege. So great a fund of vitality, not of livehistorian, who in his turn, of course cribbed them liness, but of life, is requisite to his happy from some earlier speaker or writer. In an age working, and this fund is so rapidly exhausted, which to his impartial and historic mind must that fresh growths of it become necessary to appear characteristically the age of plagiarism, he him to a degree rarely felt by men of other callhas won for himself, by a single daring stroke, an ings. His life is not vigor of brain or muscle, unrivalled pre-eminence-the title of the boldest, though it includes these, but that which the most consummate, and inventive of plagiarists. teacher. spiritually, is. It is understanding, inIt was a great move-a splendid success. He sight, sympathy, will, and far more than these. might have pilfered, as he knew very well, whole It is that perfect, unexhausted spiritual menchapters from our standard classics, without any struum, which is ever ready to dissolve the hope of detection. To ensure success he kidnapped a living author.-Frazer's Magazine. Familiar Quotations. children's natures. Thus only is exerted influence, the mutual flowing-in of souls. But the virtue of the solvent wastes, the teacher runs down, stands apart from his pupils, and is dead. THERE are many expressions in our language Welcome, then, to every spent sense is the whose design is not known, which fall upon quarterly leisure, this vacancy of the mind, our ears every day, and have become as familiar which permits its instincts to bear brief sway. as the letters of our alphabet. We give a few We will lie fallow for a season, and see what which we take from a long column found in one soft showers and what bright sunshine will be of our exchanges: "A still small voice."-1 Kings, 19: 12. 19: 20. “That mine adversary has written a book." sent us. I am writing in the old age of vacation, on Escaped with the skin of my teeth."-Job its very dying-day. The light snow of last night has already made its shroud. His lifetime of ten days having come so near its end, all those and they are many - who have liv"Riches certainly make (not take) themselves ed it, may well look back, and consider whether wings."-Proverbs 23: 5. -Job 21: 35. "Of making many books there is no end."Ecclesiastes 12: 12. its maturity fulfilled the promises of its youth. Was it not a delicious feeling, when, after the examination, you came home and surrendered “Make a virtue of necessity."-Shakspeare's yourself to this new life? Then you laid some Two Gentlemen of Venice. plans. Your work of recreation was to be stur"All that glitters is not gold;" usually writ- dy and methodical, and bring forth fruit. Perten, "All is not gold that glitters."-Merchant haps you have taught your fourteen years, and of Venice. were too cunning, ten days ago, to do anything "It is an ill wind turns none to good."- of this sort. But to those who, with me, are Thomas Tassu, 1580. young teachers, hopeful in the beginning, and regretful at the end of vacations, I offer condolence. To these I suggest a search for hidden results, which may have been " slipped magically in";-just as California miners profit "Ask me no questions and I'll tell you no more by digging, washing and sifting for a few "All cry and no wool."-Hudibras. "Count their chickens ere they're hatched." Hudibras. "As clear as a whistle."-Byron. lies."-Goldsmith. Not much the worse for wear."-Cowper. The almighty dollar."-Washington Irving. "There is a good time coming."-Walter Scott in Rob Roy. grains of gold mixed with quartz, than those of Pennsylvania do by filling cars and ships from veins of coal. Thoreau, one of the wisest of New England men, was wont to bask sometimes in the sun on "First in war, first in peace, and first in the the shores of Malden Pond, even from morning hearts of his fellow citizens," (not countrymen.) till night, and esteemed such days of revery -Resolutions presented to the House of Representatives, December, 1799, prepared by Gen. Henry Lee. blessed. The thoughtful and genial Country Parson, too, whose Recreations have just been published, justifies to the world those hours we loitered among evergreens of a different sort, that fled over him while he lay on a beautiful| our books. He who possesses no more than lawn. Here let us step aside a moment, to two or three of these provided they be after come to an understanding about Thoreau and his own heart — has a portable forest, wherein this Parson, whom we have thus mentioned to- he may shelter himself from sun and storm, exgether. Whoever you are, whom this finds in plore dark mysteries, and climb high to look far mid-term, plodding or skipping, through deserts and wide. Even if it hardly produces a result or through clover-field, strive diligently to lay that you gladly put into your diary, the vacahands on the "Malden," and on the "Recrea- tion cannot be vain, in which you have deepentions of a Country Parson," for they will bring ed your intimacy with one of the friends in your you kindly cheer and refreshing, and add glad-book-case. How unconsciously we elevate a ness to the lengthening days.-The natural in- few to the rank of spiritual teachers, and come stinct to muse at twilight, and to worship the to consult the rest as rarely as we do lawyers. dawn, which no sensible person disobeys, are The former meet your listless mood and bless more general indications of the same fact of it, as well as your sturdiest application, but human nature, viz :- We grow by opening our- against the latter you must brace yourself, as to selves to influences, as well as by search and the extraction of a tooth. strife. Perhaps, of two persons, the one ex- It was in a pleasant field that we found ourtremely active and the other extremely impres-selves when we opened the leaves of Ranmer's sionable, the latter would, in the end, attain to History of Education, hardly with serious inthe best culture. The divine truths are reveal- tent, and suffered our eye to fall on whatever ed, not hunted up. All that keeps life sweet gems might glitter most brightly. In leisurely and fresh is gathered from the unguarded mo- sort, not to violate the vacation, - we pluckments, when something from heaven drops up-ed here and there a few conspicuous flowers, on our path. We need not be moved by the whose virtue lay rather in beauty and perfume almost universal use of the adjective live, when- than in botanical attractions. Of these we atever the good teacher is to be described. Those tempt elsewhere the transfer of a worthy one whose school-rooms clatter with work, who from Luther's noble collection into these pages. teach rapidly, and strain at percentages, usually Other specimens cannot now be introduced. now get the praise of liveliness and enthusiasm. But a notable observation may be made from a These surely spend liberally of such as they glance at the mere headings of Ranmer's chaphave. But the wealth that flows like magnet-ters. His work, a large one in four volumes,— ism, and is not doled out, was acquired in like he styles a History of Pedagogy. Now, who are manner. And of all recipients of bounty, child-the historical pedagogues? Dante, Petrarch ren are the most susceptible of the subtler in- and Boccaccio are the first names; which, also, fluences, which need not to be announced. I the author proves to stand of good right in these know a teacher, whose presence is a blessing. unpoetical ranks. For the name, pedagogue, in Such meditations were the fruit of a vacation its noble etymological sense, is broader than ramble, which now, as I look backward, ren- schoolmaster, and many greatest souls have led ders one of its squandered days memorable. the youth. The great names of the De Medici, The New England hemlock, happily, has no af- of Chrysoloras, Erasmus and Reuchlin we nafinity with the vile weed from which Athenian turally expect. Soon follow, occupying large executioners were wont to steep deadly draughts. space, those worthies of the Reformation, LuIt possesses just the opposite virtue. The name ther and Melancthon, a "noble pair of brothis now abundantly atoning for its ancient sins. ers," whose lives teach sublimer lessons than all I testify that a stroll in a grove of hemlocks, they wrote. Other great names are those of when the winter-deadness around them renders Bacon, Montaigne, Locke, Rousseau, Herder their golden green richer than ever, and their and Pestolozzi, and a long array of lesser lights. odor sweeter, infuses most wholesome life, even Thus is illuminated, for the modern teacher, into the soul. And I further testify that he a long vista down into the past, through which who, in the wintry second-month, kneels on he may wander, not ashamed, but exultant, and deep moss, and plucks the veritable buds of the thoughtful, rather, how he shall render his own fifth-month arbutus, may bear the same home- labor worthy of such rare company, than how ward with joy and exultation. he shall make it reputable. It was a congenial Other holiday impressions we received while vacation-thought, that these illustrious poets comet, it has shot away from our skies, to visit Memory. BY CHARLES MACKAY. I remember the time, thou roaring sea, A joy, and a dread, and a mystery. I remember the time, ye young May flowers, When its aphelion of mid-term, and then to reappear I remember the time, thou blustering wind, in the green May. This is an orbit which a host When thy voice in the woods, to my dreaming mind, of astronomers love to compute. But what Seemed the sigh of the earth for human kind. glittered so bright in the far horizon, as we saw it coming, too often envelops us in mist when it I remember the time, ye sun and stars, arrives. We grope for that which we do not ye raised my soul from its mortal bars, deserve to find, and will not learn to do with- And bore it through heaven in your golden cars. out. Therefore we please ourselves with mira-And has it vanished, that dreamful time? ges and shadows. The prize of vacations is Are the winds, and the seas, and the stars sublime, awarded by the same Judge as is the prize of Deaf to my soul in its manly prime ? term-labor. Show me what you have in return for this life which you have spent, and now must recreate. The practical rule for every day and every season has been enunciated by the wisest of modern men: "Take care of the I feel a deep and a pure delight working, and the enjoyment and suffering will take care of themselves." Ah no! ah no! amid sorrow and pain, In the luxuries of sound and sight, I have great confidence in young men who The voices of youth go with me still, Through the field and the wood, o'er the plain and the hill, the roar of the sea, in the laugh of the rill. Every flower is a lover of mine, believe in themselves, and are accustomed to rely I have such friends for my every mood exceptional cases. There are horse-tamers born Fate cannot touch me, nothing can stir so, we all know; there are women-tamers who be- To put disunion or hate of her witch the sex as the pied piper bedeviled the "Twixt nature and her worshiper. children of Hamelin; and there are world-tamers Sing to me, flowers; preach to me, skies; who can make any community, even a Yankee Ye landscapes glitter in mine eyes; one, get down and let them jump on its back as Whisper, ye deeps, your mysteries. easily as Mr. Rarey saddled Cruiser-Elsie Ven- Sigh to me, winds; ye forests, nod; Speak to me ever, thou flowery sod; Ye are mine-all mine-in the peace of God. ner. "IGNORANCE is the greatest of all infirmities, and when justified, the chief of all follies." Books and learning may give a man power and confidence; but, unfortunately, they are "CROMWELL did not wait to strike until the often very far from giving him either feeling or iron was hot, but made it hot by striking." politeness. For the Schoolmaster. "should we get preachers, jurists and physiMartin Luther's Estimate of the Teacher's cians, if it were not for grammar and other rhe Work. [To not many men would we listen with so much reverence, on any theme of education or torical arts? From this source they must all be supplied. This I say in brief: A diligent, pious, schoolmaster or teacher, or whoever faithof the Christian religion, as to the great spirit- fully educates and teaches boys, can never be ual hero of his century, the reformer, Martin sufficiently rewarded, or paid with any money; as even the pagan Aristotle says. Luther. All his utterances come direct from Still, among the inmost heart of the Truth, where he had his us it is as shamefully despised as if it were familiar dwelling-place. His language, like the nothing at all, and yet we pretend to be Christians. And 1 myself, if I were compelled, or prose of Milton, is often most happily inelegant and effective. were able, to resign my sacred office, would preWe attempt to fit an English dress to a few of his thoughts, which we find fer no position to that of schoolmaster or teachin the pages of Ranmer.] er of boys. For I know that this work, next to that of the ministry, is the most useful, the greatest and best of all, and, indeed, I hardly know which of the two is the better. For it is earth, to educate faithfully the children of other people,— which none, indeed, hardly ever does for his own." In the sermon admonishing parents to keep their children at school, he says: "He has given you children, and the means of their sup- hard to make old dogs tame and old rogues piport, not merely that you may take pleasure in ous, but this is the preacher's work, and he ofthem, or stand in honor before men. You are ten labors at it in vain; but the young trees seriously commanded to rear them to the sercan more easily be bent and trained, although vice of God."- Now he extols the learned professions, especially the ministry, and brings let it be reckoned one of the highest virtues on some, to be sure, break in the process. Rather home to the consciences of parents the guilt they incur, when they, out of avarice, debar from study a boy who has evinced special talents. "Let your son study hopefully and generously, even if he should have to beg his bread the In like manner Luther expresses himself on while thus do you give to our Lord God a schoolmasters in the Table Talk: "I would slender chip, from which he shall carve for you have it that no one should be chosen to be pasa master. And heed it not, when the vulgar tor, who had not first been a schoolmaster. miser so lightly despises learning, and says: Now the young fellows of quality all desire to Ha, if my son can read German, and write be preachers immediately, and shun the labor of and cipher, that is enough for him, I will make the school. But when one has kept school him a merchant.' For the miser shall soon be about ten years, then he may with good conscicome so tractable, that he will willingly dig up, ence, stop; for the work is too great, and peowith his fingers, a learned man ten ells deep in ple esteem it slight. But as much depends on the earth for, methinks, the merchant shall the schoolmaster of a town as upon the pastor. not long be merchant, where the sermon and the And if I were not a preacher, I know no situalaw perish. This I know full well; we theolo- tion on earth which I would rather fill. But gians and jurists must stand, or all shall go to one must not consider how the world rewards ruin with us; in this I err not. Whither the and esteems it, but how God values it, and will theologians go, thither goes God's Word, and exalt it at the Last Day." the heathen, yea, the very devil, are powerless : whither the jurists go, thither goes the law, to- NOBLE BOY.-The following story is told of gether with peace, and there murder, robbing, a little boy who had procured some temperance mischief and violence, yea, even wild beasts, tracts for distribution : are powerless. But what the merchant's profit A relative of his in a grocery had poured out shall be where peace abides, that, I warrant, his a dram of liquor in a glass to drink. The boy accounts shall show him and of what avail stepped forward and put a tract over the mouth all his possessions shall be to him, where the of the tumber. The man took it up and the sermon is not heard, that shall his conscience first words he cast his eyes upon were: "No surely tell him." drunkard shall enter the kingdom of God." He dashed the glass upon the floor, exclaiming, In this sermon he also specially exalts the of-"That is the last of my drinking liquor, God fice of school-teacher. "Whence," says he, being my helper." He kept his resolution. Manner of Speaking in Recitation. BY ROBERT ALLYN, LL. D. In the practical work of the school-room, do not teachers place too high an estimate on the lessons given to be learned, and too low an estimate on the manner of reciting those lessons? In other words, do they not allow their pupils to mispronounce words, to violate the simplest canons of grammar, to slur over whole syllables in words, and clauses in sentences, and, finally, to speak in low, indistinct, confused and jumbling tones, as slovenly and unscholarly a practice and habit as a human being can fall into? 1 Consider. Is it not one of the grand distinctions between a human being and a brute, that the first can make articulate sounds, while the latter cannot? A bird can articulate, though commonly only musical notes, and these in a range of combination far from infinite. A few birds can articulate words to a very limited extent, but even without a comprehension of their meaning. But human beings can articulate; and the fact forms the basis of one of the most excellent and appropriate of all the Homerian epithets- articulately-speaking men." It is therefore a man's business to articulate, or bring forth the joints of words, (articulum latum.) And if the old Spartan common sense king is still to be our adviser, boys should learn how to do this process of articulation. But are not our recitations too often places where they learn the exact opposite, "how not to do it?" Out upon this miserable practice of slurring over the words of a lesson, and allowing pupils to recite so brutishly! Let them bring out every word clearly and decidedly, not only so a teacher while looking on his book can guess what they are saying, but so that a person sitting at the So let the organs be compelled, by a strong and decided act of the will, to make a sharply defined, ringing, articulately uttered sound in the shape of a word, and the man who makes such a sound will, by the force of his own nature, be obliged to think accurately beforehand. And what can better prepare him to "think with ac curacy and order," than thus to learn to speak with accuracy and order? I do not now mean, to place words in their proper logical and grammatical order. I only allude to the proper sound of each letter of every word, and I affirm of these letters, with the due weight and sound, that the proper and distinct utterance of each or, if you please, the preparation of the mind and will which must necessarily precede the action of the organs of speech by which this utterance is made, does contribute largely both to clearness of conception and to accuracy and duration of memory. To take an example: Let us suppose a child to be reciting in geography. The teacher asks him to "bound Ohio," with the map before him; or at another time without the map. The child looks on the map hastily and begins, in words and sounds that are not at all caricatured by the following: "B'nd' North b' Lakerie, Eas' b' P'nsylvany an' Vï'giny, Sou' by K'ntucky an' Wes' by Indiany." (To make this a perfectly true representation, the letters ought to be run into words as follows, viz: bnddonthenorblakeri, Easbpensylvanyanviginy, Souby kentuckyanwesbyindiany.) Now, is it possible to obtain any clear idea whatever from hearing such a jumble of confused and confusing letters? And is it not even worse for the one who makes the jumble habitually and stupidly? Can he ever know what he is about? And is there a worse practice - even if it does not harden into a habit than this rascally, lazy way of running all words and syllables and letters into one dull, cold mass of indistinguishable literary mud ? farther side of the room could not misunderstand them, in short, so that he would be Fellow teachers! do insist that your scholars obliged to hear and know what the whole subIn the case before ject recited is, even if he was more than half shall speak articulately. inclined to sleep. named, do compel them to give to each word This is a point which ought to be emphasized and letter its due force. Let them say-be-"Ohio in all our school works, and that for many and ginning at the beginning of the answer is bounded on the North by Lake Erie," &c., &c. excellent reasons. 1. Clear speech is a great auxiliary to clear- And when they are able to say all this, must ness in idea. Let a boy speak indistinctly, and they not understand it better than if they had you may be certain that he will soon fall into merely mumbled something with a sputter and the practice of thinking even more indistinctly a hiss, with a grunt and a hiccough. and confusedly. Let a word ring out sharply, 2. But clear and definite ideas - important forcibly on the ear, and it makes a strong, sharp as they are - do not form the whole advantage and impressive image on the mind of the hearer. to be expected from this habit of clear enuncia |