Journal of education, 1 décembre 1871, Décembre

WSW/k JOURNAL oF EDUCATION Devoted to Education, Literature, Science, and the Arts.Volume XV.Quebec, Province of Quebec, December, 1871.No.12.TABLE or CONTENTS.Of Greek and Latin Verse-Composition a3 a General Branch of Education .Precepts for Youth.The Higher Education of Women - - Parents and Teachers.Lord Derby on Education.German Schools.Longevity of Scholars.• • Poetry: Christ’s Nativity—Waiting the Change.Statistics of American Journalism.The Medical Profession and Intemperance.The Restraint of Habitual Drunkards.Character of a True Woman.The Novel-Reading Disease.Labors of the Queen.What has been Achieved by Young Men.Something About Punctuation.Official Notices : Appointments — Professor in Jacques CartierNor- mal School—School Commissioners—Inspector of Schools-— An-181 nexation of School Municipali- 183 ties.—Text-Books Sanctioned by 184 the Council of Public Instruction 185 for the Province of Quebec.— 185 Teachers’ Diplomas Granted by 185 Boards of Examiners.193 187 Editorial Department : Honor to the Profession.•••• 194 188 Companionship of the Bath, Confer- ll9| red upon P.J.Keenan.Esq.194 lReport of The United States Corn-190; missioner of Education for 1870.194 Canada, the Healthiest Country in 1901 the World.195 190 First Census of Canada (1871).196 191 Miscellany: Education.197 191 Literature .*98 | Art.199 192 Advertisements : Journal of Edu- 192j cation.—Wants.200 (Meteorology.200 Of Greek and Gatin Verse-Composition As a General JBrancli of Education.BT THE EEVD.F.W.FARKAR, M.A., F.R.S.(Concluded from our last.) “ .\e triste rôle d'imitateurs, et celui non moins triste de créateurs de choses parfaitement inutiles."—Nisard, Poètes de la Décadence, i.334.IV.“ But boys must be made to produce something original.” Argal, they must write Latin verses ! Will not a moment's consideration show to any one that such reasoning involves an immense non sequitur ?By “ producing something ” is meant, I suppose, that boys must give evidence of having thought for themselves.Now, without stopping to prove that few things have less claim to he called original than the crambe rcpetita of ordinary Latin verse, or that few exercises involve less thought as distinguished from mere memory and skill, I will ask whether it is seriously asserted that we can get no better evidence of a boy’s having thought for himself than the limping and pitiable feebleness of an average copy of Latin verses?Such an assertion wouid only provoke from most thinkers an exclamation of “ Spectatum admissi.?” and would go far to prove that all that has been discovered and all that has been written on education since the days of Ascham and Milton, has been discovered and written quite in vain.V.“ But verse making has a disciplinary value: it gives boys some occupation, and it enables a roaster to look over very quickly what boys have done very slowly ; and it can be taught successfully” (for, strange to say, this, too, is an argument which I have heard deliberately and repeatedly advanced), “ taught even by stupid men.who can teach nothing else.” Since these arguments seem to me to be abandonments of the question at issue, and mere confessions of defeat and weakness, I may be allowed to deal with them very summarily.Their truth is the worst condemnation of the whole system.They show how mechanical our teaching has become, and how completely it subordinates the interests of the pupil to the convenience of the tutor.And this low conception of what early education should be, involves its own Nemesis; for though little boys may be cheaply and easily kept out of mischief while they are thus being amused with a miserable semblance of production, they demand heavy arrears of labour from every conscientious tutor, when they have reached the higher forms.And, as for the disciplinary value of verses, is it necessary that discipline should be so purely infructuous?Can we teach nothing in heaven and earth which shall be valuable as an end, no less than as a means ?Is it not a sheer blasphemy against the majesty of knowledge to assert that there is nothing worth teaching which shall be also worth knowing?To walk on a treadmill, to dance on a tight-rope, to spin round and round like an Oriental dervish, may be practices which require skill and involve healthy exercise ; but are they preferable to good honest walking ?We are told of a certain philanthropist who, when work was slack, employed his labourers one day in dragging | stones from one place to another, and the next day in dragging them back again.Well, he certainly kept them at work, and even such work is, I oppose, preferable to idleness.But would labourers, so occupied, be likely to conceive a high opinion either of the good sense of their employer, or of the high dignity of labour, and its infinite importance in the evolution of human progress?And was not such work a mere waste of organized frivolity ?Now we have been exactly imitating this philanthropist I by degrading education into a mere discipline, and thus teaching I our boys to disbelieve that anything was worth knowing, since 182 THE JOURNAL OF EDUCATION [December, 1871.the immediate end set before them was, to the majority, alike unattainable and valueless.What wonder is it that so many of them have grown up to despise culture, and to disbelieve in the necessity for any kind of intellectual effort ?On the very day on which I am writing these words, it has been my fortune to meet in succession three old Public School boys, two of whom had been pupils of my own.Nothing could be more widely diverse than the general character of their lives ; yet each of them possessed different ability, and each of them had worked with special diligence.One of them, formerly a lieutenant in the army, had emigrated to South America, and had just returned from his home on one of the central Pampas of the Argentine Confederation.The second was a young Oxonian of private fortune, and distinguished talents, who, after winning the highest honours of his University, was devoting himself to the careful cultivation of his intellectual gifts.The third was a writer of rank and reputation, a poet, a critic, and a man of many accomplishments, familiar with every phase of English and continental thought.One and all they lamented the hours fruitlessly squandered over Latin verse.The young sheep-farmer of the Pampas groaned with good-humoured despair over the continuous misery they had caused him.The Oxford First Classman, though he had cultivated composition with taste and success, declared, after deliberate thought, that he could not attribute to the time spent over it, a single intellectual advantage The man of letters expressed himself in language so forcible and decided, that I thought it worth while to quote his testimony verbatim :—“ I was, ” he says, “ at three private schools before going to-, where I had the advantage of the private tuition of an able, accomplished, and most assiduous teacher, besides all the other appliances and means, to boot, of the school, at a time when it was generally regarded as a model Public School.And yet, through all those years, 1 learnt nothing whatever but a general disinclination to learn anything, and a special loathing for Latin verse.Nothing of the simplest elements of a single science,— nothing of my own language—nothing even which tended to facilitate the subsequent learning of what was nof learnt then,—nothing which has been of the slightest use to me in after life—no accomplishment which added to the enjoyment, and no knowledge which has enlarged the utility or diminished the difficulties of life by so much as one inch.But the new-comers will be better off than their predecessors.I hear that something of music, something of botany, and of other sciences, is now taught at- .I am sincerely thankful for this for my boy’s sake, but it is all too late for me.” Familiar with such testimonies from constant experience, is it surprising that I have used my best efforts, (and mean to use them still), to shake to the ground the whole system of universal and compulsory verse manufacture; or that I regard the results which it produces with a sorrow which is not.unmingled with di.-gust ?One school at least, (1) has had the courage to be the first in rejecting for ever this pernicious absurdity ; and I believe that thereby it has earned the gratitude of the present generation, and will deserve the yet warmer admiration of the future.But let me entreat the powerful aid of the Universities to help us in thus infusing fresh truth and vigour and reality into the education of England.Much they have already done ; but they are liable to be misled by seeing the ships which reach the port, and forgetting the numberless and melancholy wrecks which strew the shore.They cannot however any longer plead ignorance of the effect produced by their extravagant patronage of verse-composition upon thousands of youths who are never destined to enter their walls.Let them by all means retain prizes to reward the ingenuity of a few advanced scholars ; but, until they have ceased to render verses an essential requisite, either for entrance-scholarships or for their classical examinations, __until they at least counterbalance, by alternative papers, the immense preponderance which they have hitherto given to what has often been mere correct nullity, or imitative knack,—they are doing much to injure, in the opinion of many,(and those not the least entitled to be heard), that proud and legitimate position to which they should ever aspire of leading and moulding with a farsighted wisdom the higher education of that country to which they owe their splendid revenues and their elevated rank.Let the Colleges, then, boldly loosen these gilded and fantastic chains which were forged in an age of logomachy, and tightened in an age of artificiality and retrogression.Let them determine more decidedly, and avow more distinctly, that verses are not essential for scholarships or for honours.When they have done so, we shall no longer hear of classical teaching degraded into recommendations to treasure up particular words and phrases “ with a view to using them in your composition.Youths of robust minds will no longer be alienated from classical study, or diverted from good reading to bad writing ; nor will they be forced to waste over Tibullus and Ovid the time which might have been devoted to Plato and Thucydides.T have even heard of Cambridge scholars who toiled through Au-sonius, Silius Italicus, et tous ces garçons-là, in the hope of picking up here and there some gaudy epithet, some sonorous combination some rhetorical figure which might “ pay ” in a set of verses for the Tripos or for a Prize.I have known even boys who thought it necessary to bathe themselves, by daily repetition, with the soft atmosphere of the “Amores ” in order to improve their Latin verse, even it if were at the expense of all simplicity and ingenuousness of mind.Some of them reaped their reward in University applause, and afterwards in the wanderings of an enervated imagination and in the over-refinement of an intellect at once fastidious and weak.Could it be otherwise ?I have been censured for saying that, in this elegant trifling, success was often more deplorable than failure ; but what was derided as an epigram I most deliberately and determinedly repeat as a truth of experience.I have known cases in which a fair intellect was visibly weakened and demoralised,—rendering visibly smaller and shallower,—by an excessive admiration for classical composition.But, as one may not quote individual cases, let us take instantiœ ostensivee of the fact as illustrated by the tendency of three distinct periods of human history.For there have been periods ere now, in which verse-writing and style-polishing bave formed the main part of youthful education, and by glancing at these periods we can sec in large the natural effects which such an education is calculated to produce.Take for instance the age of Nero, during which, in the countless schools of rhetoricians, Grammar and Philology were everything, Philosophy nothing.What was the result ?Never since the world began was there less invention or more men who taught the art of inventing.Never was the style of even those writers who had the gift of genius more pedantic or more obscure.Never was the degradation of the literary character more pitiable or more complete.Occupied from childhood in the art of writing verses, in which they were found to express emotions which they did not feel, and sentiments which they could not understand, what wonder that the poets ended by going off into emulous raptures at the beauty of lapdogs, and invocations of all the gods and goddesses to take charge of a minion’s hair ?What wonder that they hid the sterility of their ideas under the exuberance of their words, and mistook literary contortions for original achievements ?When merely secondary and external facts of form and metre were thought to constitute the essence ot verse, no wonder that “ receipts for making poetry were given like receipts for making Eau de Cologne." (1) The thoughts of the rising generation resolved themselves into a flux of words ; and who shall tell us what single benefit the world has gained from whole ages of such empty talk,—from the “ calamistri" of Maecenas and the “ tinnitus" of Gallio, down to the florid and tasteless declamations of' a Libanius and a Julian?(1) Harrow.(1) This whole subject has been admirably treated by M.Nisard, in his Poètes de la Décadence, from whom I have here borrowed a phrase. December, 1871.] FOR THE PROVINCE OF QUEBEC.183 But there was again another age which deliberately, and without any sense of absurdity, regarded the acquisition of a Batin style as the main end of life.And, again I ask, what was the result ?“ It was, ” as Bacon says, “ that men began to hunt more after words than after matter, ” falling into a vanity of which Pygmalion’s frenzy is a good emblem.“ But the excess of this,” continues Bacon, in words to which I ask the earnest attention of our University authorities, “ is so justly contemptible, that as Hercules, when he saw the image of Adonis, Venus’s minion, in a temple, said in disdain, ‘ Nil sacri es ; ’ so there is none of Hercules’s followers in learning, that is the more severe and laborious sort of inquirers into truth, but will despise those delicacies and affectations as indeed capable of no divineness.” Once more, and lastly—to what country does the reader suppose that we must look for the greatest outburst of fecundity and facility in the production of Latin Verse?Few, I suspect, would be likely to guess that the palm must undoubtedly be given to Portugal.Yet so it is.Not even the “ Musse Eto-nenses,” supplemented by all the other nugœ canorce of the British Muse, can pretend to equal in bulk and magnificence the seven quarto volumes, published in Lisbon in 1745, which contain the mouldering remains of no less than fifty-nine illustrious Lusitanian poets ! Alas that so many of these “ illustrious ” should be consigned to oblivion in the obscure limbo of a “ corpus ; ” alas that the world of “ taste ” and “ styie ” should be unconscious of what it owes to Mendez Vasconeellos, or to Diego Fayra de Andrada ; alas that in its Philistine ingratitude it should have forgotten Figueira Duram, who was an epic poet at sixteen, .and who improvised before his examiners “ The Temple of Eternity ; ” or F.de Macedo, who tells us in his “ Mvrothecium Morale” that he had written 2,600 epic poems, 110 odes, 4,000 epigrams, 4 Latin comedies, and 150,000 impromptu Latin verses ! How much was the world better for these Goliaths among modern Latin poets ?And what benefit accrued to Portugal from its not very noble army of imitative versifiers ?Why, a gain the very reverse of that which the arguments of our classical composers would have led t>s to expect, viz.a literature the poorest and the most jejune of any country in Europe ! Their Latin Verse-writing was, it appears, as useless and deceptive as the iridescence on the surface of a very shallow and a very stagnant pool.It was (if I may borrow an expression from Guibert, the good and eminent Abbot of Nogent sous Coucy, who in his autobiography has bewailed the manner in which he was led astray in his youth by the temptations incident to the study of Latin Verse) a “ ridiculous vanity.” I do not for a moment mean to say that our age has run to the same ridiculous excess.Thank God, our modern education has involved many better and richer elements than this.But I do say that our extensive Latin Verse system is a useless and unfortunate relic of training of this sort.And training of this sort, is let us hope, irrevocably doomed.Those who now cling to it will sooner or later be forced to give it up.And if those of us who have given it up make some mistakes in our early attempts to substitute a better training in its place, we may at least console ourselves with the thought that, unless we are guilty of deliberate treachery, it is impossible for us to reproduce a system equally pernicious and equally iufructuous.The social forces are all arrayed on our side.In this age, more perhaps than in any other, we have a right to demand as an essential element in the education of our youth something broader, deeper, more human, more useful, less selfish, less exclusive.We require the knowledge of things and not of words ; of truths which great men have to tell us, and not of the tricks or individualities of their style ; of that which shall add to the treasures of human knowledge, not of that which shall flatter its fastidiousness by frivolous attempts at reproducing its past elegancies of speech ; of that which is best for human souls, and which shall make them greater, wiser, better ; not of that which is idly supposed to make them more tasteful, and refined.— Very soon we shall have seen and heard the last of this card- castle-building upon sand ; let us strive in all earnest and thoughtful faith to rebuild, not on such weak foundations, but with broad bases and on the living rock, some great and solid structure of enduring masonry, which shall be hereafter among those things which cannot be shaken and shall remain.Precepts for Youth.As, in the succession of the seasons, each, by the invariable laws of Nature, affects the productions of what is next in course; so, in human life, every period of our age, according as it is well or ill spent, influences the happiness of that which is to follow.Virtuous youth gradually brings forward accomplished and flourishing manhood ; and such manhood passes of itself, without uneasiness, into respectable and tranquil old age.But when nature is turned out of its regular course, disorder takes place in the moral just as in the vegetable world.If the spring put forth no blossoms, in summer there will be no beauty, and in autumn no fruit.So, if youth be trifled away without improvement, manhood will be contemptible, and old age miserable.If the beginnings of life have been “vanity,” its latter end can be no other than “ vexation of spirit.” The self-conceit of the young is the great source of those dangers to which they are exposed ; and it is peculiarly unfortunate, that the age which stands most in need of the counsel of the wise should be the most prone to contemn it.Confident in the opinions which they adopt, and in the measures which they pursue, they seem as if they understood Solomon to say, not, “ Who knoweth, ” but, Who is ignorant of, “ what is good for man all they days of his life ?” The bliss to be aimed at is, in their opinion, fully apparent.It is not the danger of mistake, but the failure of success, which they dread.Activity to seize, not sagacity to discern, is the only requisite which they value.— How long shall it be, ere the fate of your predecessors in the same course teach you wisdom ?How long shall the experience of all ages continue to lift its voice to you in vain ?Beholding the ocean on which you are embarked covered with wrecks, are not those fatal signals sufficient to admonish you of the hidden rock ?If, in paradise itself, there was a tree which bare fruit fair to the eye, but mortal in its effects, how much more, in this fallen state, may such deceiving appearances be expected to abound ! The whole state of nature is now become a scene of delusion to the sensual mind.Hardly any thing is what it appears to be.And what flatters most is always farthest from reality.There are voices which sing around you, but whose stiains allure to ruin.There is a banquet spread, where poison is in every dish.There is a couch invites you to repose ; but to slumber upon it is death.In such a situation, “be nothigh-minded, but fear.” Let sobriety temper your unwary ardour.Let wisdom be the offspring of reflection now, rather than the fruit of bitter experience hereafter.Of all the follies incident to youth, there are none which either deform its present appearance, or blast the prospect of its future prosperity, more than self-conceit, presumption, and obstinacy.By checking its natural progress in improvement, they fix it in long immaturity ; and frequently produce mischiefs, which can never be repaired.Yet these are vices too commonly found among the young.Big with enterprise, and elated by hope, they resolve to trust for success to none but themselves.Full of their own abilities, they deride the admonitions which are given them by their friends, as the timorous suggestions of age.Too wise to learn, too impatient to deliberate, too forward to be restrained, they plunge, with precipitant indiscretion, into the midst of all the dangers with which life abounds.“ Seest thou a young man wise in his own conceit?There is more hope of a fool than of him.” it:*************** In order to render yourselves amiable in society, correct every 184 THE JOURNAL OF EDUCATION.[December, 1871.appearance of harshness in behaviour.Let that courtesy distinguish your demeanour, which springs not so much from studied politeness, as from a mild and gentle heart.Follow the customs of the world in matters indifferent, but stop when they become sinful.Let your manners be simple and natural ; and of course they will be engaging.Affectation is certain deformity.By forming themselves on fantastic models, and vying with one another in every reigning folly, the young begin with being ridiculous, and end in being vicious and immoral.IK**:);************ It is necessary to recommend to you sincerity and truth.This is the basis of every virtue.That darkness of character, where we can see no heart, those foldings of art, through which no native affection is allowed to penetrate, present an object, unamiable in every season of life, but particularly odious in youth.If, at an age when the heart is warm, when the emotions are strong, and when nature is expected to show itself free and open, you can already, smile and deceive, what are we to look for when you shall be longer hackneyed in the ways of men ; when interest shall have completed the obduration of your heart, and experience shall have improved you in all the arts of guile ?Dissimulation in youth is the forerunner of perfidy in old age.Its first appearance is the fatal omen of growing depravity and future shame.It degrades parts and learning, obscures the lustre of every accomplishment, with God and man.and sinks you into contempt Blair.Tlie iltglier Education of Women.A report has just been published on the examination for women conducted' by the University of Cambridge last July.This is the third annual examination of -the kind held by the University, and it is satisfactory to find that the number of candidates’increases steadily.Begining with thirty-six candidates in the first year, the University had eighty-four candidates in the second year, and a hundred and twenty-nine last July.It would appear, notwithstanding the absolute smallness of these numbers that the examination meets a want which is generally felt.The report of the Syndicate is on the whole decidedly favourable.A table of general results speaks eloquently through its bare” figures of the evils of women’s education as it has been hitherto conducted.While less than 10 per cent, of the candidates are rejected in the language group, 43 per cent, are rejected in the preliminary group, consisting of arithmetic, history and geography, and English literature.Again, the figures speak of the very unsatisfactory manner in which a smattering of natural science is ordinarily taught.Of all educational impositions, the worst is that which professes to teach botany, zoology, and geology, without a scientific knowledge of the subject.Another significant fact drawn from the same figures is this_that only 9 per cent, of the whole number of candidates present themselves for examination in music and drawing., , , .The one point which seems to be always weak in the examination work of girls and women, as tested by the Universities, is arithmetic.At Southampton, the other day, every one of the senior candidates in one examination was plucked for arithmetic.The report of the Syndicate points to a change in this respect.By constant plucking, the examiners seem to have effected a reform, for they report that “ there is a marked improvement in this subject.” On tne other hand, in English composition great inaccuracy of punctuation, “ amounting in many instances to utter disregard of all rule and principle, was a prevailing defect in the essays sent up by the candidates.” “ The Latin scholarship exhibited was quite on a par with the average of the scholarship of a public school sixth form, or of candidates for the classical tripos in their first year.” In French translation want of “fidelity and closeness” is complained of, and in grammar the answers were not so good as the answers of the best boys of a public school in the grammar of the Greek language.In mathematics there was a marked improvement over last year, and some parts of the papers were decidedly well done.In Euclid, “ one candidate answered every question except one rider.” In statics, astronomy, and dynamics, one candidate showed knowledge “ thoroughly sound as far as it went.” But the report points to a weakness in abstract reasoning which is not incompatible with very considerable success in geometry and applied mathematics.It says of the algebra paper : —“ ’While candidates are fairly skilled in the management ot symbols, they seem to have little idea of a logical proof.” In geology and physical geography, “ no one has done well.The answers are, in most cases, shallow and full of bad blunders.’ In political economy, the majority of the papers “ gave evidence of conscientious and intelligent study of the subjects, and showed an apprehension of principles lively and clear as far as it went, though not profound.” In geology and physical geography there was an insufficient knowledge of the simple laws of physics, and no one showed even a “ tolerable acquaintance with the outlines of systematic geology, or any knowledge at all of palaeontology.’ In the answers on art history “the dominant fault is vagueness.They reflect general impressions, rather than any considerable amount of precise knowledge.” These alternate failures and successes are easily reduced to a general law.The candidates do best in those subjects which they may be supposed to have taken up for the first time ; they do worst in those subjects upon which they have been employed all their school life.In Latin, which is rarely learned by girls, the examiner finds evidence of “ hard and genuine study.” In French, which all girls learn, the standard attained is very much lower.In German, which is learned by many, though not by all, the results are much the same as in French—except that the few who “ had taken the trouble to read the philological subjects recommended ”—who were dealing, that is, with wholly new matter—“ answered the questions exceedingly well.In English, which probably every girl supposes herself to know by instinct, the failure was most marked.In geology, which has for some time past been rather a favourite subject in ladies schools, the answers were unsatisfactory to the last degree ; whereas in the harder subject of mathematics, and in the less attractive subject of political economy, the average of success was decidedly good.Nothing could more clearly bring out the two great defects from which the education of women now suffers—want of good teachers and want of good text-books.In Latin there are no text-books specially intended for women, and few or no women who profess to teach it.Consequently, in Latin the candidates are found on a level with young men ot the same age, the reason being that they have learnt it from the same sources and on the same method.In French, on the contrary, every governess is reputed able to teach it.and nearly every master has written the grammar which his pupils use.It would be well if the Syndicate would give the candidates some guidance in this respect by specifying a grammar in which the language may be studied with thoroughness and exactness.I he habit of learning French simply for the purpose ot conversation has been of great injury to girls, and many of the books to which in the absence of any authoritative hint, they are likely to turn, are really nothing more than attempts at making a short cut to this goal.The chief need of women at the present time is not so much that they should learn more, as that they should learn what they do learn better.There is hardly a girls school in the country which would not give a really liberal education if only half the subjects which figure in its programme were taught in practice as well as in profession.—Pall Mall Gazette, Nov.8.The great deficiencies in female education lie in thoroughness, care, logical strictness* and precision.The apprehension.of w mien is far more lively, their natural powers of expression mare copious, than those of men ; but they lack steadiness and depth.Their range of view may be wider, but it is less accurate. December, 1871.] FOR THE PROVINCE OF QUEBEC.185 To some extent this defect is physical.It requires a greater degree of bodily exertion than is sometimes realised to sustain accurate attention for a long time.But there has hitherto been a most lamentable want of any adequate attempt to remedy this besetting evil of the female mind.The education of women has, on the contrary, been arranged so as rather to foster than to check it.They have been encouraged to cultivate brilliant accomplishments, and intelligence, “ lively and clear as far as it goes,” in a degree out of all proportion to the simple and solid elements of learning.We must add that many who are now most active in promoting female education are not the least to blame in this respect.It is much easier for young women in London to attend attractive lectures by brilliant philosophers and historians, than to obtain patient and quiet instruction in the elements of their own language and literature.It is for parents, for husbands, and public opinion to insist on a better apportionment of time between the elements of English learning and the accomplishments of a liberal education.But the lack of thoroughness may, in great degree, be attributed to the absence of any such test as is now afforded by the Cambridge examinations.Women as yet have been scarcely subjected in any degree to the discipline of literary examination, and we may hope for better results from the extension of the system now set on foot.We need the establishment of a stricter rather than of a higher standard, and the whole tone of the female intellect may in time be beneficially affected by a training which has been brought to bear for centuries on the faculties of men.— Times, Nov.8.Parents and Teachers.Very few know how difficult a thing it is to teach with success, Indeed, with the exception of those (and they are exceedingly rare) who have an intuitive appreciation of the obstacles which lie in the teachers’ way, there are scarcely any who give the matter a thought.Yet there is really no employment by which a livelihood may be gained which is so wearing on mind and body, which requires so much tact and patience, so much endurance and perseverance, as that of the instructor of youth.To our conscientious, hard working teachers too much aid and sympathy and encouragement cannot be accorded.And most especially ought parents to cooperate with them, and lend them their assistance.They ought to know what wearisome drudgery ic often is, to train the minds of those who are bound to them by the nearest and dearest of ties even for a little while ; and, knowing this, they ought to consider how the difficulties which they experience are enhanced in the case of the teacher.He has to deal not -with a few minds, but with many.He has to study a great variety of dispositions and characters.He has to distinguish between appearances and reality, and to get to the core of those natures which it is his aim and duty to cultivate and develope.For on the right knowledge of the characters with which he has to deal depends, in a great measure, his success.Now, we wish to impress upon such of our readers as are parents that this duty of assisting the teacher by means obviously at their disposal is neglected at the expense of their children’s welfare.If they choose to leave the teacher in the dark as to any glaring faults of which they arc aware in their children who are uuder his charge, they make the whole intercourse between him and them one long misunderstanding.The teacher is working with moral material, so to speak, of whose quality ho is ignorant, and which strive as he may, he can but slightly improve—which, in some respects, ho may unconsciously injure.How often does an ill feeling arise iu the breast ot a scholar towards his teacher, whose place might have been very differently occupied had the parents only vouchsafed a word of timely warning ! IIow often is this growing antagonism fostered by the injudicious partisanship which, in all cases, takes it for granted that the complaining pupil is in the right I The mischief done in all our schools, both in city and country, through this really unkind indulgence is almost incalculable.Grudges kindled in this way by the stupid fondness or malignant prejudice of parents often smoulder and bliud and fester for long years.A pupil takes offence at some word of admonition or act of discipline.He informs his parents of his grievance.Without inquiry they fix the whole blame on the teacher.The pupil triumphs in his success, but henceforth his days, under a master or mistress, whom he has been taught to despise, are worse than wasted.Or a boy or girl is deceitful, or has some other serious failing which the teacher endeavours to remove from his pupil's character.The parents are indignant at the very notion of their child being faulty.He is encouraged to continue in the practice of what is destroying his moral life.The teacher is made little of, and his influence set at nought.We might multiply instances, and give abundant examples of the evil of which we are speaking.Several cases of the kind have of late occurred iu our leading schools, to the annoyance of the teachers, to the infinite detriment of the taught, probably to the future sorrow of the parents or guardians concerned.It is time that the real interest of the children, not the mere pettish vanity of either them or their parents, were made the guiding principle in our schools.When those who now obstruct the great work of education in this silly way are dead and forgotten, the children of to-day will have grown up to be a blessing or a curse to the community.Whether of the two it is now for all interested to decide.We repeat that parents ought to cooperate with teachers, knowing, or if they do not know, informing themselves of, the difficulties which they have to overcome in the discharge of their —it is not too much to say—sacred duties.There is need of the utmost candour and mutual confidence and help and sympathy, so that those most concerned, the children themselves, may really derive benefit and have their minds and characters developed and made strong for the business.—Montreal Gazette, Lord Derby on Education.Lord Derby’s speech at the opening of the new Manchester Grammar School gives fresh proof of the practical turn of his mind.Few men would have taken, or if they had taken would have cared on such an occasion to express, the views contained in that address.Yet it is certain that no forecast could be more sensible or opportune than that represented in the remarks before us.We are educating the people of this country at a rate which will quickly become prodigious.Partly, as Lord Derby observed, by the utilization of old endowments, but to a far greater extent by the liberality of the present generation, good schools of various grades are springing up all over the kingdom ; each institution is brought into connexion with other institutions above it, and all are now in communication with the two ancient Universities.The result is that “ no boy of real talent need be kept back by mere poverty from “ whatever “ chances of distinction may be open to him, ” and we may add that a vast number of boys of moderate abilities will receive an education of such a character as has hitherto been reserved for the fortunate or wealthy alone.All this, of course, has been seen and said before, but what has not been seen, or, at any rate, not been said till Lord Derby said it, is that the end of all this must be the cheapening of the commodity produced.Intellectual ability in its various grades is now highly valued, because it is comparatively scarce ; when it is rendered plentiful its value must fall.If, ” said Lord Derby to his Manchester audience, “ you succeed in what you intend to do, you are going to make the educated man a very cheap article in the market.” Exactly so ; and what will the “ educated man ” think then of his position?What, in a few words, will be the advantages of education when it no longer confers any l! advantage ” at all being shared by so many, and in such lavish proportions as to represent no available superiority whatever ?It is much to Lord Derby’s credit, and eminently character istic of the speaker, that he kept this rather uncomfortable 186 THE JOURNAL OF EDUCATION [December, 1871.prospect before bis hearers throughout the greater part of his speech.The danger, he plainly told them, existed, and must be provided for, and by way of providing for it he recommended a larger recognition of the claims of physical science than yet prevails in our educational establishments.We may, perhaps, get more than enough ; of science we cannot possibly get too much.The field for the remunerative application of literature or scholarship is necessarily limited; that for the employment of science is practically boundless.If in the rising generation every lad is to consider that his education entitles him to some dignified, otiose, or elevated position in society, if he is led to think trade and business beneath him and book-keeping incompatible with book learning, we shall have a discontented and troublesome class of people âs the reward of our exertions.The state of things in England may come to resemble that in certain foreign countries, where every body struggles for a decoration and a place.Lord Derby hardly knows whether or not to anticipate such results in the case before him, though he inclines, apparently, to the side of misgiving.We think, however, that for the last ten or twenty years, a feeling has been growing and spreading in this country which will go far to neutralize the mischief not unnaturally apprehended.Any keen observer of social fashious must have noticed how rapidly mere fashion has been disappearing.There is hardly such a thing now-adays as a fashionable or an unfashionable pursuit.When Mr.Disraeli in Lothair talks of Lord Albert Victor turning civil engineer, and his brother Lord taking a sheep-walk in Australia, he hits off exactly, in his own way, the tendency of the age.Men enter any profession which will pay, without asking whether it is “liberal” or otherwise.The idea that only certain callings could be prop rly followed by a gentleman is all but extinct.Peers’ sons go into trade unhesitatingly, and if a place of £200 a year is anywhere vacant some of the best names in England may be found on the list of candidates.The real gentleman, the “educated man,” considers in these days that he carries his gentility and attainments along with him go where he will, and that there is nothing unbecoming in industry whatever may be its turn.We should look to these wholesome ideas as furnishing the antidote to the poisou of intellectual pretension.It is not beneath any man to take a farm, join a trading firm, or learn a business.The only end, we hope, of universal education will be that all classes of society, whether farmers, tradesmen, or what not, wiil be more intelligent than before.It happens that at the moment Lord Derby was speaking at Manchester, a ceremony of a similar kind to that over which he presided had just occurred at Newcastle.Indeed, the two occasions illustrate most forcibly the tendency of the age to which Lord Derby had alluded, and the extraordinary liberality on the part of ‘‘living men and women” by which the movement is characterized.At Manchester, the old Grammar School had been extended by subscriptions counting singly their thousands and tens of thousands of pounds.At Newcastle six months had sufficed, after the first proposal of the scheme, to open a College with ample funds, established Professsors, and a considerable number of students.This College is designed especially for the teaching of that very science which Lord Derby hopes to see included in the education given at Manchester, and yet it deserves notice that a protest was there put in against the exclusion of literature.We shall probably see literature taught at Newcastle^ and science at Manchester, nor have we much fear that either one teaching or the other will produce fastidious or useless scholars.It seems to us that of late we have heard complaints of rather an opposite character.Young men, it is said, devote themselves to study, not for its own sake, but for the sake of what it will bring—a Fellowship in the first case, and a career in life afterwards.We are certainly disposed to doubt whether in the numerous class of educated men now yearly turned out into the world there is any considerable element of unpractical, useless, or unmarketable learning.We fancy rather that the necessity of living sharpens the intellect and adapts it to the exigencies of the case before it.The dream- ing scholar, so full of high thoughts as to be out of plaoe in the working world, is becoming, we take it, a character in the past.You may find first-class men in any office or counting-house, not always the better, perhaps, for being first-class men, but, at any rate, not damaged by any pretensions of their own.Nevertheless, it is not to be disguised that the incredible diffusion of education now impending may bring to the front in large numbers a class not hitherto included in tbe race for life’s prizes.The struggle, if not for mere living, at all events, for something better than mere living, may possibly bccore more severe than before, and disappointed competition may generate very angry sentiments.The true precaution against such dangers was, we believe, indicated by Lord Derby when he said that high culture and intellectual tastes should be recognized as compatible with undistinguished station and moderate means.On that condition, a good education will ensure to every lad, if not what is called “ success in the world, ” at any rate opportunities of happiness in life.A farmer need certainly be no worse an agriculturist for his book learning , while he would enjoy the advantages of self-resource arising from a trained intellect and enlarged ideas.It is one of the advantages of our own time that intellectual pleasures are marvellously cheap and easily obtainable.Every man qualified by education for rational enjoyment will surely find opportunities for enjoying himself, though he may fail in finding opportunities of “getting on.” We are entering, it must be owned, on a new path strangely differing from the old ways, but it is the safest we can now take, and it ought to lead us, under good guidance, to a fortunate end.—London Times.German Schools.The distinction between a Gymnasium and a Real Schule is not unknown in England, but is broader, deeper, and more recognised in Germany.It may be described as the education intended for the University and that for a practical life.Perhaps this explanation may cease to be true, for the German Universities offer education not only on the old lines, and there are educational reformers who wish the Real Schuler also to go to the University.The Gymnasium is the old classical education with its rigour modified to suit modern views : the Real Schule gives what we should call a modern education.The experiment has been tried, in England, here and there with marked success.But it is often tried with only half heart.The modern department is too often'a limited and a stunted growth, used only to prepare boys for special examinations, when it has a tendency to become cram.In such cases, it seems as if the department were not believed in as a substantially good education—it is merely a concession to the weakness of the age; and it will be most hard to prevent its becoming a refuge for the destitute.There may be a difference of opinion as to the relative value of the two systems ; but the modern education is accepted in Germany.It must have a fuller scope in England.Boys’ minds being infinitely different, it cannot be wise to attempt to cast all in one mould.In the Friedrich Strasse, Berlin, and in the Koch Strasse, which crosses it (both streets known to the reader of Carlyle and to the tourist), there stands a cluster of schools, which will admirably serve as specimens of German schools, for they are mostly formed upon one pattern.And this cluster will do well because of its variety.It has no common name, but it has at present one director and a common management.The Friedrich Wilhelm’s Gymnasium has, combined with it, a Real Schule, a preparatory school, and the Elizabeth Schule, a school for girls, founded by and called after the Queen Dowager of Prussia.The total number of pupils in this group of schools just before the war was over 2,400.Every gymnasium has an elaborate Lehrplan, or system of instruction, in which everything is arranged, and very little left to the freedom of the master.Nothing would give a better idea of this gymnasium than a short analysis of its Lehrplan.The school is divided into six classes, ranging fiom prima to sexta, and three divisions (bildungstufen). December, 1871.] FOR THE PROVINCE OF QUEBEC 187 The boys arc intended to be one yeir in each class.Many of the classes are so full that it is necessary to resort to the expedient not unknown in English schools of parallel forms: but most of them are also divided not only with the grain in parallel forms, but across the grain, as Ober Tertia, Under-Tertia.In the lowest division, sexta and quinta, the boys begin French and Latin ; they are taught German, especial stress being laid on declamation.They learn also the rudiments of Zoology.The middle division contains quarta and tertia.In quarta (age about 12) the boys begin Greek, learning the accents from the first ; they also continue all their earlier studies : in natural science they work at Geology and Mineralogy.English is confined to the upper division ; it is optional, and may be commenced in Secunda.Hebrew also is there commenced by those who intend to be theological students.In German they must read the Nibelungen Lied and old German, together with lectures on German Literature.They write long essays.In prima they study also Logic and Philosophy.To this must be added, throughout the whole school, Mathematics, History, and Religion.The division at first sight looks elaborate, but it serves for all purposes.There are no redivisions, such as we often find in England for mathematics or languages : these are taught in the ordinary forms.—Fraser's Magazine.Longevity of Scholars.It may be truly said, withoutany hyperbole, that every pursuit which ennobles the mind has a tendency to invigorate the body, and by its tranquillizing influence, to add to the duration of life.Let us inquire what testimony history bears to the longevity of men whose lives have been essentially intellectual.Some objections may be made to this course of investigation ; thus we can only quote the most remarkable instances ;—we cannot in many cases say how much of the life was purely studious,— we cannot enumerate those who died young, nor still less can we estimate how many, who would otherwise have been great as these, have failed in physical strength.With all these limitations, we may still hope, by a cursory glance at names which have marked epochs in philosophy and literature, to arrive at some idea of life devoted to thought rather than to action ; and also to prove, by positive instances, that there is nothing in the most intense application which must necessarily tend to shorten life, seeing that many of the most laborious men have been octo and nono-genarians and even centenarians.M.Tissot states that Gorgias, the rhetorician, lived to the age of one hundred and eight years, “without discontinuing his studies, and without any infirmity.’’ Isocrates wrote his “ Pan-Athenæai ’’ when he was ninety-four, and lived to ninety-eight, the above writer also mentions the case of “ one of the greatest physicians in Europe, who, although he had studied very hard all his lifetime, and is now almost seventy, wrote me word not long since that he still studied generally fourteen hours every day, yet enjoyed the most perfect health.’’ Epimenides, the seventh of the “ wise men,” lived, it is supposed, to the age of one hundred and fifty-four.Herodicus, a very distinguished physician and philosopher, the master of Hippocrates, lived to the age of one hundred.Hippocrates himself, whose genuine writings alone would be sufficient to testify to a life of arduous study, lived to the age of ninety-nine.Galen wrote, it is said, three hundred volumes ; what now remains of his works occupy, in the edition of 1538, five folio volumes.He lived to nearly one hundred years.Lewis Cornaro wrote seven or eight hours daily for a considerable period of his life, and lived to the age of one hundred, in spite of a feeble constitution originally.Theophrastus wrote two hundred distinct treatises and lived to the age of one hundred and seven.Zeno, the founder of the stoic school, lived to the age of ninety-eight years ; and, in the full possession of his faculties, then committed suicide, having received, as he supposed, a warning by a wound of the thumb that it was time for him to depart.Democritus was so devoted to study and meditation that he put out his eyes, it is said, that external objects might not distract his attention.He died aged one hundred and nine years.Sophocles died aged ninety-one.Xenophon, Diogenes, and Carneades each lived to the age of ninety.Varro wrote five hundred volumes, and lived to eighty-eight years.Euripedes died aged eighty-five ; Polybius, eighty-one; Juvenal, above eighty ; Pythagoras, eighty; Quintillian, eighty.Chrysippus, died of laughter at eighty.The poet Pindar died aged eighty ; Plato aged eighty-one.Socrates, in the full possession of his faculties, was judicially murdered at seventy-one.Anaxagoras, died st seventy-two.Aristotle died at sixty-three.Thucydides was eighty.It would be difficult to select twenty-five names which exert a much greater influence upon literature, philosophy and history than these in old times.Many of them are known to have been most voluminous writers, many of them most profound thinkers.These were not the days of handbooks and vade-mecums ; those who wanted information or mental cultivation had to work for it.Yet the average age of these twenty-five men is exactly ninety years.It is much to be questioned whether the united ages of twenty-five of the most distinguished farmers that the world has ever produced would amount to two thousand two hundred and fifty-two years.The list might easily be enlarged greatly by such men as Seneca and Pliny, who came to untimely deaths by accident or tyranny, and who promised to live as long as the oldest, in the course of nature.And the old writers, commentators, and others of modern time, were apparently a hardy race,— they were generally long-lived.Beza, the severity of whose enormous labors might be supposed to be aggravated as to the results, by the acrimonious controversies in which he was engaged, lived in the perfect enjoyment of his faculties up to the age of eighty-six.The learned Richard Bentley died at eighty-one.Neander was seventy-eight; Scaliger, sixty-nine; Heyne, eighty-lour ; Parr, eighty; Pighius, eighty-four ; Yossius, seventy-three ; Hobbes, ninety-one,— at death.Fontenelle, considered the most universal genius that Europe has produced, for forty-two years Secretary to the Academy of Science in Paris, lived with unimpaired faculties to the age of one hundred years.Father Sirmond, called by Naude “an inexhaustible treasury of ecclesiastical lore,” lived to the age of ninety-three.Hutton, the learned geologist and cosmogonist, died at ninety-two.We will now give a table of distinguished men with their ages, independent of classification or chronology, such names as are sufficiently known to the world to preclude the necessity of giving any account of their labors : Age.Age.Baeon (Roger) 78 Laplace 77 Buffon 8L Linnaeus 72 Copernicus 70 Milton .66 Galileo 78 Bacon (Lord) 65 Lowenhoeck 91 Hobbes 91 Newton 84 Locke 72 Whiston 95 Stewart (D.) 75 Young 84 Voltaire 84 Ferguson (Adam).92 Cumberland 80 Kant 80 Southern (Thomas) 86 Reid (T.) 86 Coke (Lord) 85 Goethe 82 W il mot 88 Bentham Rabelais 70 Mansfield 88 Harvey 81 Le Sage 80 Heberden .92 Wesley (John) 88 Michael Angelo 96 Hoffman 83 Handel 75 Claude 82 Haydn 77 Titian Ruysch 93 Franklin 85 Winslow 91 Halley 86 Cardan 76 Rollin 80 Fleury (Cardinal) 90 Waller 82 Anquetil 84 Chalmers 83 Swift 78 South (Dr.) 83 Watts (Dr.) 74 Johnson (Dr.) Watts (James) 83 Hersckel 84 Erasmus 69 188 THE JOURNAL OF EDUCATION [December, 1871.1 This list is taken entirely at random, and might be almost indefinitely enlarged, but these illustrations suffice.There are certain practical deductions obviously to be drawn from the details and arguments that have been or might be brought forward.1.Devotion to intellectual pursuits and to studies, even of the most severe and unremitting character, is not incompatible with extreme longevity, terminated by a serene and unclouded sunset.Dr.Johnson composed his “ Dictionary” in seven years ! And during that time he wrote also the Prologue to the opening of Drury Lane Theatre, the “Vanity of Human Wishes,” the tragedy of “ Irene,” and the “ Rambler ”—an almost incomprehensible effort of mind.He lived to the age of seventy-five.When Fontenelle’s brilliant career terminated, and he was asked if he felt pain, he replied, “ I feel only a difficulty of existing.” 2.Mental application is a powerful remedy in diseases both of body and mind ; and its power as a remedy is proportionate to its intensity as a pursuit.3.The emotions, especially those of a depressing kind, as anxiety, fear, etc., bave a remarkable influence in giving a tone to, and intensifying the morbific effects of excessive mental labor.Yet in some cases, as in that of Cowper.the best and only resource against despair is found in composition.4.The turmoils of active life do not appear to render intellectual labor more injurious to the system ; possbily here also the influence may be counteracting.Milton, the Secretary to the Commonwealth, in times when men lived years in months,— blind and in domestic discomfort, writing his immortal poems ; John Wesley, persecuted and almost an outcast from his former friends, in “labors abundant,” denying himself natural rest and refreshment, yet acting in mind and body with unparalleled energy ; Voltaire, the apostle of infidelity, at war with more than the whole world , — these .and a cloud of others warred with the existing order of things, and remained masters of themselves and their mental powers to a ripe old age.5.The injurious effects of mental labor are in great measure due— To excessive forcing in early youth ; To sudden or misdirected study ; To the co-operation of depressing emotions or passions ; To the neglect of the ordinary rules of hygiene ; To the neglect of the hints of the body ; or To the presence of the seeds of disease, degeneration, and decay in the system.6.' The man of healthy phlegmatic or choleric temperament is less likely to be injured by application than one of the sanguine or melancholic type ; yet these latter, with allowance for the original constitution, may be capable of vast efforts.7.The extended and deep culture of the mind exerts a directly conservative influence upon the body.Fellow-laborer! one word to you before we conclude.Fear not to do manfully the work for which your gifts qualify you ; but do it as one who must give an account of both soul and body.Work, and work hard, whilst it is day; the night cometh soon enough,—do not hasten it.Use your faculties, use them to the utmost but do not abuse them,—make not the mortal do the work of the immortal.The body has its claims; it is a good servant ; treat it well, and it will do your work ; it knows its own business; do not attempt to teach or to force it ; attend to its wants and requirements, listen kindly and patiently to its hints, occasionally forestall its necessities by a little indulgence, and your consideration will be repaid with interest.But task it, and pine it, and suffocate it; make it a slave instead of a servant ; it may not complain much, but, like the weary camel in the desert, it will lie down and die.—Physicians' Problems, by Charles Elam.POETRY.Christ's IVativity.Awake, glad heart! get up, and sing ! It is the birth-day of thy King ; Awake ! Awake ! The sun doth shake Light from his brown locks, and all the way, Breathing perfumes, doth spice the day.Awake ! awake ! hark thou th’ wood rings ; Winds whisper, and the busy springs A concert make ! Awake ! Awake I Man is their high-priest, and should rise To offer up the sacrifice.I would I were some bird or star, Fluttring in woods, or lifted far Above this inn And road of sin ! Then either star or bird should be Shining or singing still to thee.I would I had in my best part Fit rooms for thee ! or that my heart Were so clean as Thy manger was ! But I am filth and obscene ; Yet, if thou wilt, thou canst make clean.Sweet Jesu ! will then ; let no more This leper haunt and soil thy door ; Cure him, ease him, 0 release him ! And let once more by mystic birth, The Lord of life be born in earth.Henry Vaughan.“ The SilurisU” Waiting tlie Change.BY PHOEBE CARY.1 have no moan to make, No bitter tears to shed ; No heart that, for rebellious grief, Will not be comforted.There i3 no frieud of mine Laid in the earth to sleep,— No grave, nor green or heaped afresh, By which I stand and weep.Not they, but what they were Went to the house of fear,— They were the incorruptible, They left corruption here.The veil of flesh that hid, Is softly drawn aside : More clearly I behold them now Than those who never died.Who died ! what means that word Of men so much abhorred ?Caught up in clouds of Heaven to be Forever with the Lord ! To give this body, racked With mortal ills and cares, For one as glorious and as fair As our Redeemer wears.To leave our shame and sin, Our hunger and disgrace ; To come unto ourselves, to turn And find our Father’s face. December, 1871.] FOR THE PROVINCE OF QUEBEC.189 To run, to leap, to walk ;— To quit our beds of pain ; And live where the inhabitants Are never sick again.To sit no longer dumb, Nor halt, nor blind ; to rise To praise the Healer with our tongue, And see Him with our eyes.To leave cold winter snows, And burning summer heats ; And walk in soft, white, tender light, About the golden streets.Thank God for all my loved That, out of pain and care, Have safely reached the heavenly heights, And stay to meet me there 1 Not these I mourn, I know Their joy by faith sublime— But for myself, that still below Must wait my appointed time.Statistics of American Journalism.The American Newspaper Directory, issued by Messrs.Geo.P Rowell & Co., proprietors of the American Advertising Agency of New York City, «outains certain tables of statistics which have been compiled with care, and can be relied upon as substantially correct.They cover a field of research which no statistician has before touched upon, and furnish food for reflection and wonderment.The following are a few of the many facts which a study of these tables reveal : The whole number of periodicals issued in the United States is 5,9b3, with 73 to be added for the Territories, and 353 are printed iu the Dominion of Canada, and 29 in the British Colonies, making a grand total of 6,438, of which 637 are daily, 118 tri-weekly, 129 semi-weekly, 4,642 weekly, 21 bi-weekly, 100 semi-monthly, 715 monthly, 14 bi-monthly, and 62 are issued quarterly.New York has the largest number of publications, 894, of which 371 are printed in New York City, and Nevada has the smallest number issued in any State—only 15.Nevada has more daily than weekly papers, and is unique iu this respect, every other State having from three to twelve times as many weeklies as dailies.Tri-weekly papers are more common in the South than semi-weeklies, while in the Northern States the facts are reversed.The largest number of daily papers published in any State is 89, in New York.Pennsylvania is second, with 61.Next comes Illinois, with 38, and California has 34, being the fourth on the list.Delaware and Florida have each 1 daily paper.Kansas has as many as Vermont, West Virginia, Mississippi and Arkansas combined.Nebraska and Nevada have each more dailies than either Oregon, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Vermont, West Virginia.Arkansas, Delaware, Florida, Maine, or Mississippi.Of the 73 publications issued regularly in the Territories 13 are daily and 50 weekly, 3 tri-weekly, 4 semi-weekly, 1 appears monthly, 1 semi-monthly, aud 1 bi-weekly.The papers of New York State have the largest circulation, averaging 7,411 each issue.Massachusetts is second, with 5,709 average; then comes the District of Columbia with 4,323.Nevada has the smallest average circulation, only 516, while Florida averages 616, Arkansas 650, Texas 701, aud Mississippi 753.The average circulation of all daily papers published is 2,717, of the weeklies 1,598, and of the monthlies 4,081.The average edition of all the papers printed is 1,842, which, multiplied by 6,438, the entire number of publications, gives 11,858,796 as the number of copies in which an advertisement would appear if inserted once in all.The same advertisement, if continued one year, would be printed the enormous number of 1,499,022,219 times.The total number of publications printed in an entire year in North Carolina will supply only four copies to each inhabitant, equivalent to one paper to every soul once in three months.Mississippi, Florida and Arkansas do but little better, furnishing 5 copies per year.Alabama, Minnesota, South Carolina, Texas and West Virginia all print less than enough to give each inhabitant a paper once in five weeks, while California gives 82 copies per year, exceeding every other State except New York, which prints 113 copies per yeai for every soul within its borders.As New York papers circulate everywhere, while those of California do not go very much out of the State, it is evident that the papers issued there have a better local support than in any other State of the American Union.In the District of Columbia we find that One newspaper is published for every three square miles of territory.Massachusetts has one to 30 square miles, and Rhode Island one to 50 : then comes New York with one to 57 ; Connecticut has one to 60, New Jersey one to 63, Texas one to 2,345, Florida one to 2,693 ; while in the Territories one newspaper spreads its circulation over no less than 14,465 square miles.There are 548 papers in the United States which print more than 5,000 copies each issue, and 11 which print more than 100,000.The New York Weekly has the largest circulation given; among the political mediums the New York Weekly Tribune takes the lead, and among the agricultural weeklies Moore's Rural New-Yorker stands first.The New York Independent is the largest paper and has the largest circulation of any religious paper.Nearly 1,000 papers are printed on the auxiliary plan—that is, on sheets purchased from New York, Chicago and other centres, with one side already printed.This number has more than doubled within one year.More than 1,000 new newspapers have been established since the first of March, 1870, and the number of new ones announced since January 1st, 1871, has averaged nearly four per day.The number of suspensions is about one-fourth as large as that of the new issues announced.Messrs.Geo.P.Rowell & Co.assert that the number of newspapers issued has fully doubled within six years.In looking ower the publications devoted to specialties, (or class publications,) we find the religious largely predominate over any other class, which shows the interest the public press takes in the moral and religious welfare of the country.There are in the United Sates 283 publications advocating evangelical or sectarian ideas, with 22 iu the Dominion of Canada, with none either in the territories or colonies.Of this number New York City has 44, Philadelphia 23, Boston 21, while Florida, Kansas, Nevada and New Jersey are entirely unrepresented.The farmers, horticulturists and stock raisers have their interests represented by an agricultural press numbering no less than 106 publications, many of which are got up at great expense, and are very extensively circulated.The medical profession enlightens its members through the columns of 72 publications of which 5 are weeklies, 50 monthlies, 3 semi-monthlies, 3 bi-monthlies, and 11 quarterlies.Nearly, if not all, the schools of medicine have their representative organ, which circulates among its admirers and is criticised severely by its cotemporaries, whose views differ from it about the “ healing of the nations,” while there are a number that furnish intelligence of interest to all medical men, as well as the general reader, without taking sides for or against any particular school of medicine.Most of the colleges and many of the State Boards of Education have their representative organ, besides several publications that treat educational matters in a general way.Of this class we have 84 in the United States and 6 in the Dominion of Canada.They are mostly monthlies, with an occasional weekly, bi-weekly and quarterly.The large cities have their commercial papers, which are nearly all issued weekly.Insurance is discussed through the medium of 19 special publications, 12 of which are issued monthly, and a number of them being noted for their superior typographical appearance.Freemasonry, temperance, odd-fellowship, music, mechanics, law, sporting, real estate, and woman’s suffrage, have each their representative organs, many of which are edited with ability and have extensive circulations, and net large incomes to their enterprising publishers.The list of class publications is increasing rapidly of late, its ratio of increase being greater than that of the entire press of the country taken together, owing, probably, to the fact that the increase of wealth and population of the country make it possible and profitable to publish class papers where, but a very few years back, they could not have been made self-supporting.The number of papers published in other than the English language is growing rapidly, owing to the immense immigration from foreign countries, especially Germany, France, Scandinavia and Italy.The publications printed in the German language in the United States number 34i, and in the Dominion of Canada 5, and are over three times as many as the sum of all the other publications in foreign languages conbined.The publications in the French language are confined principally to Louisiana and the Province of Quebec, whore the language is in common use.The Scandinavian publications number 18, and are confined entirely 190 THE JOURNAL OB EDUCATION [December, 1871.to the West and North-west, (with a single exception, that of a daily, semi-weekly and weekly in New York City), the immigrants from Denmark, Norway and Sweden having principally settled there.Many of the thriving Western towns have been almost entirely built up by these industrious and frugal people, who use their native tongue universally, and frequently never learn the English language.In the Spanish language there are but 7, Hollaudish 6, Italian 4, Welsh 3, Bohemian 2, Portuguese 1, Cherokee 1, none of which have a very wide circulation or influence, owing to the reason that the population speaking these languages is comparatively limited and widely scattered.—American Newspaper Repoi ter.Tlie Medical Professiou and Intemperance.Sometimes, we see the genesis of the habit of drinking.Very often we know of its furtive indulgence when no one else suspects it.And in the end of cases we only can know the destruction and degeneration of tissue and of organ which result, spoiling every functiou of the body, and blighting every faculty of intellect and imagination.• If any medical man is still unconvinced of the great influence of this factor in the production of the disease and death of our population, or disposed to treat it with indifference, we commend to his notice the report of Dr.Parkes and Dr.Sanderson, only confirming those of Dr.Trench, on the sanitary condition of Liverpool, in which they emphasise the intemperance of that town as one of the three great causes of the deplorable conditiou of the poor in it.After illustrating their statement with details of actual cases, they say :—“ Instances of this kind seem to occur so frequently in all the poor districts of Liverpool that we question whether 20 per cent, of the labouring class are leading lives of ordinary restraint and decency.” All their informants were agreed that there is much more drinking among the poor than formerly.Of course, the old question may be put.Do those people drink because of the bad hygienic condition iu which they live?To which the most sensible answer is that they cannot have better hygienic couditions while a half, or a third, or a fourth of the father’s wages, and sometimes the whole of them, are spent in the public house.Avoiding all fanaticism, we wish to impress every medical man with personal responsibility in regard to this question.We are sure we shall not appeal in vain to a profession which can view the subject both from the scientific and the humanitarian point of view.It is more difficult to define exactly the kind of service the profession can render ; but we shall attempt to do this.There is no doubt as to the enormous influence which as a profession we have had in preating the public opinion that exists as to the uses of beer, wine, and spirits.Unfortunately, sometimes we have allowed ourselves to write testimonials instead of prescriptions, which have been published and placarded every-where in praise of things that might be very well iu particular cases, aud yet very unfit for indiscriminate use.We should in future limit the expression of our opinion to patients and particular circumstances.And in regard to these particular cases we should be more specific in our instructions as to the quantity to be taken, the frequency with which it is to be taken, and the time over which such a prescription is to extend ; for patients are uncommonly apt to continue the use of an alcoholic remedy long after the condition for which it was prescribed has passed away, quite contrary to their practice in regard to other remedies.The vagueness with which alcoholics are ordered seems to us the most serious charge which can be brought against the profession.We hear of leading physicians telling patients, of whose previous history and of whose idiosyncrasies they can know little, to live well, and drink freely of beer and wine.In a work on medicine of great excellence and authority which lies before us, we are told that, after the acute symptoms of tonsillitis have passed away, the diet should be very good, and plenty of port wine should betaken.We are only concerned at present with the culpable vagueness of this advice.'¦ Plenty of port wine ” is an expression which will have different significance to every patient.One man will construe it to mean a bottle a d„y, and another may understand it to mean two, and every patient would see in it a high sanction for an unusual freedom, which would be as likely to derange his digestion as to remove his asthenia.A very great amount of good would be done if medical practitioners never prescribed alcoholic stimulants without prescribing them in certain quantities, and erring on the side of moderation.Not only should there be precision of language in prescribing stimulants,” but we should seriously ask ourselves, in every case, whether it is necessary to give the sanction of our special prescrip- tion to them.Unquestionably there are many diseases in which they need form no part of our treatment.Debility is not an entity that can be driven out by a draught of alcohol.Doubtless, whatever fanatics may say to the contrary, there are states and degrees of it which urgently call for some form of alcohol.But there are many states of weakness quite curable without it, in which ordinary forms of food with or without the customary quantity of wine or beer, are all that are needed, or in which some extra food, such as beef-tea or milk, will meet the necessities of the case.In the great class of chronic cases, we should remember that some form of stimulant is generally taken without our advice ; and, unless we are specific in prescribing alcohol, our prescription is understood to moan something additional to what is ordinarily taken.Then there is need of courage in medical men to be candid and firm in positively discouraging the use of alcohol, or of the popular forms of it, in many cases.It is lamentable to see young men losing their appetites, and getting short-winded, and prematurely corpulent, under the notion that bitter beer is a real tonic, or to behold a young childless lady relieve her various pains with sips of brandy.Medical men should be explicit iu their attempts to dispel these delusions.— London Lancet.The Restraint of Habitual Drunkards.We (Lancet) are glad to be able to place on record that Dr.Dalrymple’s Bill for the Restraint of Habitual Drunkards is likely to be saved from the ordinary fate of attemps at amateur legislation.The question has been taken up by the Manchester Licensing System Amendment Association as part of their programme, and is being pushed by all the machinery of public meetings, private appeals, and widely-distributed circulars.Under the influence of persistent and organised agitation, the professional politicians who rule over the country, but who fail to govern it, would espouse any cause and would pass any measure ; and we may therefore with some confidence expect, in the course of two or three sessions of Parliament, that importunity will bring about a reform for which higher considerations have long pleaded in vain.As regards the principle of the matter there can be no difference of opinion among any who are conversant with the facts ; and neither facts nor principle could be stated more clearly than by the late Dr.Symonds iu 18G9, in his capacity as president of the health section of the Social Science Association, at its Bristol Congress.The everwhelming and quasi maniacal character of the impulse to drink, the utter loss of self-control that in such cases follows the first dose of alcohol after temporary abstinence, the wreck of health, the propagation of diseased organisms, the waste of property, the impoverishment of families who are dragged down by the drunkard iu his or her headlong career—these are the main grounds on which society has a right to protect itself against an erring member, and on which coercive legislation must be justified.Character of a True Woman.A fine example of successful teaching was set by the noble minded, historical personage, Sir Thomas More, and his words are much more beautiful than any romance.In a letter addressed to the tutors of his daughters, he wrote: “I have not only entreated my wife, whose maternal tenderness sufficiently impels her to the most earnest endeavors, but I have also entreated all my friends to take every opportunity of warning my children to avoid the precipices of pride and vanity, and walk in the smooth and level paths of modesty; to look without emotion on the glare of gold, and not to sigh for those things which they falsely admire in another.I have entreated my friends to admonish them that they should not value themselves more when possessed of beauty nor less when deprived of it; that they should not, through negligence, deface the comeliness which nature may have given them, nor endeavor to increase it by improper arts ; that they should account virtue their chief good ; learning the second ; that from learning they ought to derive its most sublime lessons— piety towards God, benevolence towards all men, modesty of heart, and Christian humility.By such conduct as this, they will secure to themselves the rewards of an innocent life in the certain expectation of which they need not be afraid of death ; and, being possessed of a solid source of pleasure, will neither be buoyed up by empty applauses nor cast down by unjust reproaches.” The issue of this teaching was the grand character of Margaret Roper.Sir Thomas More wrote a Latin poem on the choice of a wife, iu which a beautiful passage occurs : “ May you meet with a wife who is not always stupidly silent, nor always prattling nonsense.May she be learned, if possible, Decbmber, 1871.] FOR THE PROVINCE OF QUEBEC.191 or at least capable of being made so.A woman thus accomplished will be always drawing sentences and maxims of virtue out of the best authors .You will find in her an ever-cheerful, good-humored friend and an agreeable companion for life.Whatever company you are engaged in you will long to be at home, and retire with delight from the society of men into the bosom of one who is so dear, so knowing, and so amiable.If she touches her lute, or sings to it, her voice will soothe you in your solitudes, and sound more sweetly in your ear than that of the nightingale.You will spend with pleasure whole days and nights in her conversation, and be ever finding out new beauties in her discourse.She will keep your mind in perpetual security, restrain its mirth from being dissolute, and prevent its melancholy from becoming painful.”—Catholic Standard- Tin^ Novel-Reading Disease.Physicians are familiar with a complaiut which, although sufficiently specific, has yet no name of its own.The patient suffers from au alarming and morbid thirst, and consumes a perfectly fabulous amount of fluid, almost always of an unwholesome nature.Tea in a highly dilute shape, eau sucrée, raspberry vinegar and water, soda water, or some other such abominable mess, is taken by the gallon, and the unnatural craving is stimulated by indulgence Wholesome food is refused; no exercise is taken ; and the patient finally sinks into a flabby and sickly condition, which nettling but severe and determined treatment will shake off.This dropsical habit of body finds its exact analogue in the species of mental dropsy which is produced by over-indulgence in three-volumed novels.This terrible complaint is one of the worst evils which modern civilisation has brought with it.Its progress is gradual, very insidious, and often almost imperceptible.At first, all that is noticed is that the sufferer is apt to be found bent over a novel at unnatural hours—as, say, in the early morning, or in the middle of a beautiful summer’s after-Soon, however, the disease becomes more pronounced, and open a novel again.She is, indeed, fruitful in such good resolutions ; but, if any attempt is made to secure total abstinence even tor a day, she will resort to subterfuges as pitiful as those to which a dipsomaniac will have recourse if deprived of his accustomed dram, and will tell any falsehoods, or use any evasion, rather than struggle with the cravings of her diseased appetite.In such hopeless cases, even the most judicious firmess is o rery little avail., It is curious and interesting to observe that as this comparative y new female disease has grown more virulent and intense, the old disease of scandal-talking has become comparatively rare.It is, ot course, physically difficult to talk scandal and to read a novel at one and the same time.Our grandmothers used to devote three or tour hours every day to discussing the virtues and vices ot absent triends over a dish of tea.Our sisters loll in American chairs, and listlessly turn over a third volume ; and the concentrated and slightly venomous interest which used to be excited by the peccadilloes of some half-dozen neighbours is now languidly diffused over the doings ot some four or live hundred washy creations of a washy imagination .It is, of course, possible, nay, even probable, that, were novelreading sternly repressed, scandal and gossip would revive.v\ eie it not for this consideration, it is an open question whether the novel traffic ought not to be dealt with as stringently as Mr.bruce proposes to deal with the liquor traffic; whether it would not be well to enable the rate-pavers of a district to limit the number ot the circulating libraries, or even to close them altogether ; and to place the “habitual” novel-reader under some such paternal restraint as that to which Dr.Dalrymple wishes to subject an “ habitual drunkard.-” It is too clear, unfortunately, why it is that so many women thus waste their time and rot their minds.They read novels, exactly as some young men smoke and drink bitter beer, for sheer want of something to do.What a woman needs is an education which shall enable her to read and follow the Parliamentary debates instead of the police and divorce reports; and, when women are thu3 educated, then feeble novels and feeble novelists w-ill vex our souls no longer to the horrible extent to which they irritate us at present.Of such an education way may say that it is ouk ostrakou peristrophe; alia noon.-, .in its worst stages novels are got through at the rate of three or four, two hundred and fatty or three hundred a year.At first some PM'^ periagog^ n» -„ & wholesome interest in of some two hundred and fifty or three hundred a year, discrimination is exercised, and one writer is, perhaps, preferred to another—Mr.Trollope, say, to Mrs.Ross Church, or “ Ouida ” to the author of Guy “Livingstone.” Very soon, however, the taste becomes deadened and blunted, and all power of distinction and appreciation is lost.In this stage, the unhappy patient can no more go without her novel than can a confirmed dipsomaniac without his dram.The smaller circulating libraries, which lend out very secondhand novels indeed at a penny a volume, are put under contribution, and any amount of garbage is swallowed wholesale.Quality is held absolutely of no importance, and quantity is everything.The very process of reading becomes more or less mechanical, and seems to afford a species of mechanical pleasure or satisfaction, a novel of the feeblest possible type being read as religiously from cover to cover, and yielding apparently as much enjoyment as if it were a second “ Romola.” It is no uncommon thing for a young lady, in whom the complaint has assumed a chronic form, to have read the whole of Annie Thomas, the whole of Mrs.Ross Church, the whole of Miss Braddon, the whole of Lawrence, and, into the bargain, some four of five hundred other novels by less famous hands.When the disease is thus confirmed, the dropsical habit of mind becomes apparent.The conversation of the patient becomes flabby and limp.Her interest in all ordinary subjects—except, perhaps, the latest fashions, or the the marriage of the Princess Beatrice—flickers feebly in the socket, and finally°dies out.The last stage—that of absolute imbecility— is now, unless very powerful remedies are exhibited, a mere matter of time.So much for the symptoms or diagnosis of the disease.Its prognosis depends greatly upon the natural constitution of the patient ; but is, as a rule, unfavourable.Even where vigourous treatment has been adopted, aud has apparently effected a radical cure, there is always danger of a serious relapse.And even if the cure be permanent, the patient is none the less permanently enfeebled, and will always remain incapable of any severe or protracted mental exertion.It is, indeed, upon the whole, unwise to encourage delusive hopes of a complete cure.The disease is as obscure, as insidious, and as little capable of control, as is softening of the brain itself; and it is doubtful whether we ever do more than for a while to arrest its course.What is most sad, is the self-deception of the patient herself, which is very analogous to that of the habitual drunkard.She is, as a rule, perfectly convinced that her evil habit is under her own control ; that she could, if she chose, begin to-morrow, and never can give sound, healthy common-sense, and wholesome interest common subjects.But men can give it by making the women ot their family their companions ; and that they should neglect to give it, shows, after all, how iuveterately deep-seated is the extraordinary notion that the intellectual difference between men and women is one of kind and not of degree.—London Examiner.tabors of tbe Queea.A very erroneous impression is prevalent respecting the duties of the sovereign of this country.Those duties are multifarious; they are weighty, and they are unceasing.I will venture to say that no head of any department in the state performs more laborious duties than fall to the sovereign of this country.There is not a despatch received from abroad, nor one sent from this country, which is not submitted to the queen.The whole internal administration of this country greatly depends upon the sign-manual, and of our present sovereign it may be said that her signature has never been placed to any public document of which she did not know the purpose and of in au orumary suujecis—except, peiuaps, me m which she did not approve.Those cabinet-councils of which you all more scandalous portions of evidence in the Tichborue case, or I hear, and which are necessarily the scene of anxious and important - - — - - ¦ — ' .' ' deliberations, are reported and communicated on their termination by the minister to the sovereign, and they often call from her critical remarks, necessarily requiring considerable attention.And I will venture to add that no person likely to administer affairs in this country would treat the suggestions of her majesty with indifference, for at this moment there is, probably, no person living in this country telio has such complete control over the political traditions of England as the sovereign herself.The last generation of statesmen have all, or almost ail, disappeared—the Sir Robert Peels, the Lord Derbys, the Lord Palmerstons, have gone, and there is no person who can advise her majesty, or is likely to advise her majesty, in the times in which we live, or who can have such a complete mastery of what has occurred in this country, and of all the great and important affairs of state, foreign and domestic, for the last thirty-four years, as the queen herself.He, therefere, would not be a wise man who would not profit by her majesty’s judgment and experience.I would venture, in conclusion, to remind those whom I address that, although her majesty may be, and often is, of great service and assistance to her servants, there never was a more constitutional 192 THE JOURNAL OP EDUCATION [December, 1871.sovereign than our present queen.All who have served her would admit that, when ministers have been selected by her in reference to what she believed to be the highest interests of the state in the opinion of the country, she gives to them a complete confidence and undeviating support, But, although there never was a sovereign who would more carefully avoid arrogating to herself any power or prerogative which the constitution does not authorize, so I would add there never was a sovereign more jealous or more wisely jealous of the prerogatives which the constitution hasalloted to her, because she believes they are for the welfare of her people.I, therefore, propose to you “ The health of her Majesty,” and may she long continue a reign which has been distinguished by public duty and private virtue.—From a Harvest-speech bii Mr.Disraeli, September 26th, 1871.What Has Been Achieved By Voting Men.William Pitt, the first Earl of Chatham, was twenty-seven years old, when, as a member cf Parliament, he waged the war of a giant against the corruptions of Sir Robert Walpole.The younger Pitt was scarcely twenty years of age, when, with masterly power, he grappled with the veterans in Parliament in favor of America.At twenty-two he was called to the high and responsible trust of the chancellor of the Exchequer.It was at that age that he came forth in his might on the affairs of the East Indies.At twenty-nine, during the first insanity of George III, he rallied around the Prince of Wales.Edmund Burke, at the age of nineteen, planned a refutation of the metaphysical theories of Berkeley and Hume.At twenty he was in the Temple, the admiration of its inmates for the brilliancy of his genius, and the variety of his acquisitions.At twenty-six he published his celebrated satire, entitled “ A Vindication of Natural Society.” The same year he published his essay on the Sublime and Beautiful—so much admired for its spirit of philosophy aud the elegance of its language.George Washington was only twenty-seven years of age when he covered the retreat of the British troops at Braddock’s defeat ; and the same year he was appointed commander-in-chief of all the Virginia forces.General Joseph Warren was only twenty-nine years of age, when, in defiance of the British soldiers stationed at the door of the church, he pronounced the celebrated oration which aroused the spirit of liberty and patriotism that terminated in the achievement of independence.At thirty-four he gloriously fell, gallantly fighting in the cause of fredom ou Bunker Hill.Alexander Hamilton was a lieutenant-colonel in the army of the American revolution, and aide-de-camp to Washington at the age of twenty.At twenty-five he was a member of Congress from New-York ; and at thirty he was one of the members of the convention that formed the constitution of the United States.At thirty-one he was a member of the New-York convention, and joint author of the work entitled the “Federalist, ” At thirty-two he was Secretary of the Treasury of the United States.Thomas Haywood, of South Carolina, was but thirty years of age when he signed the record of the nation’s birth, the Declaration of Independence.Eldridge Gerry, of Massachusetts, Benjamin Rush and James Wilson, Pensylvania, were but thirty-one years of age- Matthew Thorton, of New Hampshire, Thomas Jefferson, of vSrdiuia, Arthur Middleton, of South Carolina, and Thos.Stone, of Maryland, thirty-three; and William Hooper, of North Carolina, but thirty-four.John Jay, at twenty-nine years old, was a member ot the revolutionary congress, being associated with Lee Livingston on the committee for drafting an address to the people of Great Britain, drew up that paper himself, which was considered one of the most eloquent productions of the time.At thirty-two he penned the old constitution of New-York, and in the same year was appointed Minister to Spain., , , ._ „ Milton at the age of twenty, had written his finest miscellaneous poems, including °L’Allegro, Il Penseroso, Cornus, and the most beautiful part of Monodois.Lord Byion, at the age of twenty, published his celebrated satire upon English Bards and Scotch Reviewers ; at twenty-four, the two first cantos of Childe Harold's Pilgrimage.Mozart the German musician, completed all his noble composi* lions befo're he was thirty-four years old, and died at thirty-five.Pope wrote many of his published poems by the time he was sixteen years old ; at twenty, his essay on Criticism ; at twenty-one, the Rape of the Lock ; at twenty-five, his great work, the translation of the Iliad.Sir Isaac Newton had mastered the highest elements of mathematics, aud the analytical method of Des Cartes, before he was twenty ; aud discovered the new method of infinite series, of the new telescope, the laws of gravitation, and the planetary system.Dr.Dwight’s conquest of Canaan was commenced at the age of sixteen, and was finished at the age of tweuty-two.At the latter age, he composed his celebrated dissertation on the History, Eloquence and Poetry of the Bible, which was immediately published, and republished in Europe.Charles XII of Sweden was declared of age by the states, and succeeded his father at the age of fifteen.At eighteen he headed the expedition against the Danes, whom he checked ; and with a fourth of their number, he cut to pieces the Russian army, commanded by the Czar, at Narva, crossed the Dwina, gained a victory over Saxony, and carried his arms iuto Poland.At twenty-one, he had conquered Poland, and dictated to her a new sovereign.At twenty-four he had subdued Saxony.Lafayette was a major-general in the American army at the age of eighteen ; was but twenty when he was wounded at Brandywine ; but twenty-two when he raised supplies for the army, on his own credit, at Baltimore, and but tweuty-three when raised to the office of commauder-in-chief of the National Guards of France.Something About Punctuation.George Sand writes in the Paris Temps about punctuation, as illustrated by celebrated French writers.She says : I am ignorant whether M.Michelet corrects his proofs carefully, or whether the readers take no heed of his marks, but he is strange and prodigal of punctuation.I open a work of his at random, and I find this sentence : “ An emotion of pleasure, savage, homicidal, is attached, in the case of men, to destruction.” Five commas for one short axiom seems to me very much.I should certainly strike out three without scruple.It seems to me that none at all are wanted in the following sentence : “ The only decree which seems to retain the stamp of St.Just, is this one,” &c.Nor in these: “Carrier reproached the administrative bodies with wishing to make him perish, by throwing back upon him the embarrassment of the supplies.” “ She had guessed his project, aud watched him,” &e.Michelet’s style is much broken; that is his strength and his impulse.So much the more reason for not cutting it up uselessly.Any one reading him out loud slavishly just as he has punctuated, would appear to be asthmatic.Louis Blanc’s punctuation is very correct, but too uniformly correct, and always acting in virtue of the same law of composition.M.Thiers is more free in expression, and solves, probably without knowing it, a great problem—that of punctuating richly without being perceived.Théophile Gauthier uses more commas than are required by a perfectly constructed style.He follows the practice of Victor Hugo, whose luminous clearness" does not need to be brought out by so many signs.I know not whether Alexander Dumas, pere, punctuated his manuscripts and corrected his proofs.In any case he must have punctuated after writing.His letters had neither stops nor commas.He did not bar the t, he put no dot over the i.He had a profound contempt for the apostrophe ; a the preposition was written like a the verb.What he wrote with a free pen was a hieroglyphic, in spite of one of the finest possible handwritings.The smallest letters by M.de Lamennais could, on the contrary, have passed in a printing office as corrected proofs.* * * To simplify punctuation as much as possible, would be to render it more easy to retain.I therefore think it ought to be simplified.In certain cases the rule of simplification might well be established.The comma which precedes and is for the most part useless.She dressed herself, and she went out.Why not: She dressed herself and she went out?It is not necessary to point out to me that to dress oneself and to go out are two different actions.I rather need to feel that they are two actions which are connected with each other and lead to the same end.Many commas placed before who or which aie superfluous and retard the action- “ He approached the lamp, which was burning out.” “I entrusted the message to that man, who appeared to me honest.” “ This friend who deceives and Hatters me, is also yours.” All these commas one sees lavished in well or ill-corrected editions are useless and fatiguing. December, 1871.] FOR THE PROVINCE OF QUEBEC 193 OFFICIAL NOTICES.Ministry of Public Baistruction.APPOINTMENTS.BONAVENTURE.Session of November 7th, 1871.Elementary Scitool Diploma, 1st Class, (E) : Misses Sarah Manderson and Elizabeth Nash.2nd Class : Mr.William Maxham Newton.George A.Corbin, Secretary.CHARLEVOIX AND SAGUENAY.Elementary School Diploma, and Mr.Justine Simard.2nd Class, (F) : Mlle.Aglaë Lavoie Charles Boivin, Secretary.JACQUES-CARTIER NORMAL SCHOOL.The Lieutenant-Governor, by an Order in Council, dated the 18th September last, was pleased to appoint temporarily Mr.Marcel Ethier, Professor of Music in the Jacques-Cartier Normal School, Montreal, in the room and stead of Mr.J.C.Brauneis, deceased.The Lieutenant-Governor, by an Order in Council, dated the 20th ult., was pleased to appoint the following SCHOOL COMMISSIONER.Notre-Dame de Bonsecours, Co.of Rouville : *M.Sabin Archambault, in the room and stead of the Revd.M.Joseph Prosper Dupuy.MONTREAL (CATHOLIC).Session of November 7th, 1871.Model School Diploma, 1 si Class, (F) : Mile.Emma Dorval.Elementary School Diploma, 1st Class, (F) : Miles.Euphrosine Bergeron, Mathilde Brière, Parmélie Dupont, Césarie Arselie Faisy, Louise Archange Gareault, Angèle Henriette Laforce, Ida Préfontame, Eliza McDuff, Marguerite Meunier, Alida Messier, Adeline Pesant, Philomcne Quesnei, Almaide Tétrault, and Mary Bannon (E).2nd Class, [F): Miles Vitaline Cardin, Rose Messier, Joséphine Ra-cette Adéline Robert, and M.Charles Bouthillier.F.X.Valade, Secretary.The Lieutenant-Governor, by an Order in Council, dated the 22nd ult., was pleased to appoint the following SCHOOL COMMISSIONER.St.Dominique, Co.of Bagot : M.Mizael Gauthier de Landreville, in the room and stead of M.Joseph Octave Beaudry.OTTAWA.Session of November 7th, 1871.Elementary School Diploma, 2nd Class, (E; : Miss Catherine Kelly.J.R.Woods, Secretary.STANSTEAD.The Lieutenant-Governor, by an Order in Council, dated the 28th ult., was pleased to appoint the following inspector of schools.M.Louis Moïse Laplante, to be Inspector of Schools for the Counties of Nicolet and Yamaska, in the room and stead of M.Bonaventure Mau-rault, resigned.ANNEXATION OF SCHOOL MUNICIPALITIES.The Lieutenant-Governor, by an Order in Council, dated the 12th inst., has been pleased To annex, for School purposes, the Two Islands of Chaudière River to the Parish of St.Lambert.TEXT-BOOKS SANCTIONED BY THE COUNCIL OF PUBLIC INSTRUCTION FOR THE PROVINCE OF QUEBEC.The Lieutenant-Governor, by an Order in Council, dated the 18th ult., was pleased to confirm the resolution of the Council of Public Instruction, passed at its meeting on the 18th October, last, recommending the following books to be used in the schools of the Province of Quebec : On the recommendation oi the Catholic Committee :— L'Abrégé de Géographie Moderne, par F.X, Toussaint, for Academies, Model and Elementary Schools ; Ou the recommendation of both Committees :— Les Petites Fleurs de Poésie, par le Revel.M.Nantel : The Dominion Phrase Look, by Professor Darey, McGill University, Montreal.Session of August 1st, 1871.Elementary School Diploma, 1st Class, (E): Misses Ida Bodwell and Flora E.Cushing.C.A.Richardson, Secretary.Session of November 7th, 1871.Elementary School Diploma, 1st Class, (E) : Misses Loella McCabe, Mary Ann Broderick, and Julia E.Murphy.2nd Class: Mr.James Gardner.C.A.Richardson, Secretary.THREE-RIVERS.Session of May 2nd, 1871.Model School Diploma, 1st Class, (F) : Mlles.M.Célanire Bergeron, Julienne Duval, Mary R.Desilets, Joséphine Gulbrandson, M.Apolline Gouin, Georgiana Laforce, Mathilde M.A.Hébert, and Marie Vincent.Elementary School Diploma, 1st Class, (F) ; Mlles.M.Délia Ayotte, F Elise Baril, M.Mélanie Beauchène, M.Céléuie Deshayes, M.R.Anne Doucet, M.Lucie Geoffroy, M.Léocadie L'Heureux, Marguerite Lampron, M Olive Lemire, Victorine Lamothe, M.A.Virginie LeBlanc, M.Exilise Mailhot, Julie Proulx, aud M.Amabila Provencher.2nd Class: M.Sophie Bacon, M.G.Georgiana Bélanger, M.Rose de Lima Bourque, Arméline Bergeron, M.E.Cédélie Courchêne, M.Evelina Décoteau, Marie P.Lemay, M Jessé Martel, M.J.Célina Trudel.J.M.Desilets, Secretary.TEACHERS’ DIPLOMAS GRANTED BY BOARDS OF EXAMINERS.BEDFORD (PROTESTANT).Session of November 7th, 1871.Element ary School Diploma, 1st Class (E): Mr.Henry A.Parsons.William Gibson, Secretary.Session of August 1st, 1871.Elementary School Diploma, 1st Class, (F) *.Mlles.M.A.Corine Coulombe, M.Vitaline Déruisseau, M.E.Eléonore Germain, M.L.Anne Lupien, and Mélanie Verville.2nd Class : Mlles.M.Flore Brisson, E.Emma Cnya, M.Etienne Dostaler, M.Caroline Deshayes, M.L.Azéiie Grenier, M.Victorine Levasseur, M Joséphine Morissette, M.Eléonise Marchand.J.M.Desilets, Secretary.beauce.Session of November 7th, 1871.Elementary ScnooL Diploma, 1st Class, (F) : Eléonore Carrier, and Emma Bolduc.Mlles.Célanire Bisson, J.T.P.Proulx, Secretary.Session of November 7th, 1871.Elementary School Diploma, 1st Class, (F) .• Mlle.M.Délia Désilets 2nd Class ; Mlles.M.Virginie Béliveau and M.Agnes Bergeron.J.M.Désilets, Secretary. 194 THE JOURNAL OP EDUCATION [December, 1871.THE JOURNAL OF EDUCATION.QUEBEC, (PROVINCE OF QUEBEC,) DECEMBER, 1871.Honor to the Profession.It is with unfeigned pleasure that we transfer to our columns the following extracts from the Dublin press, regarding the distinction of C.B , recently conferred on Mr.Keenan, Chief of Inspection of the National Schools of Ireland, under whose able direction the Sub-editor of this journal had the privilege and advantage of studying and practising in the Central Model School, Dublin, when a student in training in the Normal School.In all his relations with the Students in training, Mr.Keenan’s intercourse was characterised by courtesy and firmness, and his tact and ability in the management of 400 boys of all ages and grades in a large city was the theme of admiration, expressed by both practical teachers and spectators who visited the Central Model School.* We sincerely congratulate our old Professor, on his well-won honours, and trust he may live many long years not only to enjoy the present, but to merit still higher ones at the hands of Her Majesty : — It would be absurd to expect that all the actions and decisions, of Mr.Keenan, during his long and honourable public career, have given universal satisfaction ; and we ourselves have felt obliged in the interests of the teachers and of education, to criticise unfavorably some of his plans for the improvement of both.But we believe every one will readily admit his eminent claims to still higher honours than that which he has lately received.His courtesy and urbanity, combined with firmness in the discharge of his duties ; his tact, almost amounting to genius in dealing with the delicate cases submitted daily to his decision ; his general acquirements, and his varied, yet exact, knowledge of all educatiohal subjects—are matters universally known, and as universally acknowledged.We may reasonably expect that these high qualifications will, during the long career which we trust is before him, and in the higher positions which, in the natural order of events, he is destined to occupy, continue to be exerted in the furtherance of the great work of Irish Education and in the amelioration, both socially and intellectually, of the Irish National teachers.—Irish Teachers' Journal.Companionship of the Bath Conferred on P.J.Héenan, £s