duced into many of our schools, where nothing of the kind is now found, we are persuaded that the pupils would apply themselves with diligence and zest to their studies; teachers would enjoy their work far more, and do themselves and their pupils greater credit; and those parents who from time to time visit the schools, would go away with stronger impressions of the importance and value of a good education, and with more willingness to make sacrifices in supporting the schools and sustaining teachers in their plans and government. MAKE KNOWN WHAT YOU KNOW, OR TEACHING PROMOTIVE OF SELF-CULTURE. He who aims at the highest culture, will as far as possible make known what he knows. Oftentimes it is harder to communicate than to acquire, and this endeavor, like others, is the mother of vigor. He who hoards knowledge is not only, like most country parlors, a room full of nice things, with closed blinds, unused and unseen, but is his own worst enemy. When is one so tremblingly alive to his weaknesses as after he essays to diffuse the knowledge he has gained? In that attempt who is not feelingly persuaded of deficiencies in respect to information, thought, arrangement, readiness and expression? Body forth your mind by tongue or pen, and you will find a new pleasure and profit in reading, lest you be forced to draw on imagination for facts. Body forth your mind, and you will feel a new necessity for reflection which only can chain those Proteus thoughts that, in your utmost need eluding your grasp, run as artful dodgers through the whole circle of the elements. Give utterance to your mind, and learn that arrangement, which makes diamonds to differ from charcoal, is not more important in chemistry than in rhetoric; for arrangement can make old thoughts new, and another's thoughts your own, by using them for a new purpose, or fashioning their elements into new forms,yea, it can turn jagged atoms into smooth mosaic; while without it, all your effusions, however elaborate, will resemble that architectural monstrosity, the Spanish Escurial, which, though the most costly palace in Europe, is shaped like a gridiron. Impart knowledge, and you will bewail your lack of readiness, knowledge like sleep refusing to come at your call; and lest you pine in vain lamentings, you will cultivate that philosophical association which will by any link draw you a whole chain; you will remember the seamen's maxim, "Stow so as to unlade." You will use the Index Rerum, or other common-place book, you long ago bought. Perhaps you will become a snapper-up of unconsidered trifles, like the greatest New England orator, who keeps a lamp and pen by his bedside that he may shoot flying the thoughts which flit before him whenever sleep goes from him at midnight, or like Hogarth, who was wont to cover his finger-nails with pencilings of what met his eye on his walks. Dispense knowledge, and you will forthwith begin to feel your lack of proper words in proper places to express, and acceptable images to simplify, dignify, or adorn your ideas. Can you then neglect to labor for a style of clearness, force, and beauty? Clearness, which not only leads the beholder through itself to what lies beyond it like a watch-crystal, but like that crystal is produced by the furnace; force, not teaching with thorns of the wilderness and briers, but blended with beauty like light, which is sometimes concentrated into a dazzling flash, and anon softened within an astral shade; a style neither brief to obscurity, nor prolix to tediousness, but one whose type is the rose, no longer a bud and still not yet full blown. Mortified that words are prone to be your masters, instead of your servitors, so that you not only think in words but by words, and in Shakspeare's phrase "for a tricksy word defy the matter," you will study language till you have at command sound speech which cannot be condemned. Be deaf to the sneer that you are a wordmonger, or answer the fool according to his folly, and say, "So is the student of Algebra a letter-monger." Mindful that manner is a great matter, Gratior et pulchro veniens in corpore virtus, and that even Milton's thoughts did not voluntarily move harmonious numbers, discard the maxim, "Last thoughts in first expressions," and hold that to dress wisdom in the garb of folly is to array her in a robe of mockery. Endeavors to put forth one's knowledge from him, not only thus stimulate a man to make up his deficiencies in information, thought, arrangement, readiness, and expression, by causing these broken links in the golden, chain of his culture to haunt him like ghosts, but they confer a blessing directly even while they are being made, for in Bentham's phrase," writing is to a thought what a carpenter's vice is to a block of wood;" it holds it fast while we form it into any shape we please. Moreover in writing we detect inconsistencies and sophisms which have escaped our silent thoughts, as the summer brings to light the tares which, lurking among the good seed, were unsuspected during the season of frost. SPEECH, which aims to dispense the sweet food of sweetly uttered knowledge, is likewise fruitful of good to the speaker, for, since speech is to reflect his mind, it brings his mind to its best posture as, for a like reason, a mirror, or painter, brings his body. To the collections of memory speech is the best mnemonics, a bond lighter than air but stronger than iron. In regard to clearness who does not know that "Thoughts disentangle passing o'er the lip. In point of feeling who has not found those emotions, which were dead in his soul, becoming alive again while he has spoken, as the brine which ocean yields the earth, returns in perfect freshness from rivers, or as our first impressions of a mountain, which have become dull, are given back in their original keenness when we see the face of the stranger to whom we point it out, lit up with new-born delight? While you speak, your best thoughts will dart into your mind as if by inspiration, so that you will say better things than you think. As Virgil rehearsed his poem before Augustus, he could not keep from completing, and that divinely, a line on which he had labored to no purpose in his study. Aere ciere viros, he had written. In his public recitation these winged words, Martem que accendere cantu, which Dryden pronounced one of the happiest phrases ever uttered, sprang forth, unbidden from his tongue. Vires acquirit eundo. Inasmuch as the effort to communicate what we have learned aids so much in acquiring knowledge, no wonder the proverb, Teach and learn, Doce et disces, is as old as true. Since these things are so, it is better to talk to a statue, or a stump, or like Demosthenes to the waves, than to be tongue-tied. Scatter your knowledge and you will increase it, as the geologist multiplies his specimens by giving away his duplicates on the right hand and on the left. Since nothing but practice makes perfect, let the scholar decline no call to write or speak, though he might be reputed wise for saying nothing. Though the natural qualifications of an orator be denied him, no grace poured into his gestures, nor his melting voice through mazes running, nor an eye from which thoughts flash lightninglike, let him by no manner of means enjail his tongue, but proclaim on house-tops what he has heard in the ear. Let him write, not only for the public, but in furtherance of his private studies, as the geometer draws diagrams, and as Luther in Erfurt, lacking paper, covered the walls of his cell with Scripture references. Though he write as reluctantly as most men pray, and smart under the faithful wounds of critics, and his greatest thoughts dwindle on paper, from monntains to mice, like the Brobdignagian Omnibus bill to a Lilliputian Utah, so that they, but now which seemed in bigness to surpass earth's giant sons, are less than smallest dwarfs, yet let him write, as if nothing but writing could quench the fire in his bosom. Let him scatter his five loaves among thousands, and he shall take up fragments by baskets full.-Prof. J. D. Butler, Norwich University. CULTURE. LEARNING advances the native strength to perfection, and right culture strengthens the inward powers.-Horace. MAN is so constituted that he requires something to be done, in his early years, to give a proper direction and bias to his pursuits. If this be neglected, the habits that will grow up with him, and the principles that will correspond with his habits, and which he will inevitably adopt, will not operate to the good of society, or his own happiness; and where can this salutary, I may add necessary influence, be so well exercised as in a rightly-governed family, or in a school in which there is an efficient and wholesome discipline? Discipline commands the will, corrects the disposition, and subdues the passions; it rescues the mind from debasing influence, and opens the way to eminence, in the possession of a decided manly, moral, character. It is the antidote to idleness; the corrector of vice. But what is discipline, this agent that is to effect so much? Is it tyranny and oppression? Has it no other rule or principle of action than moroseness, severity, and illtemper? Does it drive the pupil to a distance from his teacher? No, it is not tyranny; it does not make the pupil tremble at the presence of his teacher. Its origin and influence are in affection without kindness there is no beneficial authority. Be a father to your pupils, and they will love you. Kindness robs a youth of his worst propensities, petulance and deceit; disarm him of these weapons, and you may, indeed, lead him as a child; he will be satisfied with your authority, and receive your advice. : By kindness I do not mean indulgence, or a conformity to a child's will and inclinations; but the expression of affection in the discharge of your duty. Let children see that their welfare, their happiness and respectability are what you ardently desire and endeavor to promote, and they will respect you more, and be much happier under your government, although you may sometimes chide and correct them, than by any compromise of duty. Your pupils are not ignorant of the requirements of your office; and they honor you only as you discharge them well. By taking an interest in their character, you will not only gain their affections, but influence their conduct and elevate their minds: they perceive that something is expected of them more than merely going through a round of lessons, and they will endeavor to realize your expectations. Government without kindness is cruelty; it overlooks the principle which induces submission, and loose..s it best and firmest support. The want of kindness must be supplied by coercion, which converts cheerful obedience into obstinacy, cunning, and perverseness. Youth treated with severity, and frowned away from their parents and teachers, often become licentious; they have not been disciplined, but oppressed; not governed, but coerced. They saw no act of kindness mingled with the duties required of them, and they rendered none. The restraints under which they were put, though salutary and wise, were, from the manner of enforcing them, felt to be burdensome and galling; and, not perceiving the object, when they should have gained habits of fortitude and caution, the consequence of good discipline, and their minds having been irritated against the person, were opposed to the precepts of him who treated them. with unkindness. The mind is not subdued by its own consent, a consent not to be obtained either by severity or indulgence, but by kindness and consistency. In a well-regulated family, each member discharges the duties of his station with alacrity and cheerfulness; the master is systematic and firm in his commands, but kind in his deportment, promoting the interest and happiness of those dependent on him. His commands are the effect of principle and the love of order. The cold dictatorial or careless indulgent character has not such authority; it does not maintain its proper station; and therefore those around do not maintain theirs. The same principle is fully exemplified in the education of youth; indeed, a good character cannot be formed but by its operation. If strict but kind parental authority be thus essential in the government of families, it is equally necessary in places of education. By laying down rules for the conduct of youth, they will not only be acquainted with the means by which your favor is to be gained, but be conscious that they possess it. Did your favor depend on their progress in learning, its possession by the young pupil must be distant and uncertain; but now he is excited to the most important and best effort that the mind can be directed to self-control; when this is obtained, your business and his will be easy. Obedience in youth is of such inestimable value, that nothing can be substituted in its place: it is the main lever in raising |