Mr. Leach then addressed the Convention on "The motives that should influence parents to secure the benefits of education, and the means to be used." The lecture was lucid and convincing, and elicited general approval. The Committee then took up the resolutions introduced by Mr. French.

Dr. J. N. Stone, of Wellfleet, in an invincible address, insisted on the necessity of parental visits to the schools. He was listened to with great attention. Mr. Godfrey Ryder sustained the third resolution (with reference to dismissal.) Mr. Stone, of Provincetown, urged the necessity of the teachers visiting the parents; for his own part, he had never experienced any difficulty in appealing to parents. One of the chief difficulties, he thought, was the want of obedience at home.

EVENING SESSION.

Prayer by Rev. Mr. Myrick.

An address was given by Dr. J. N. Stone, of Wellfleet, on the Relations of Parents to Children. The physical and mental relations were ably explained, and the scientific portions of the lecture were most happily relieved by those flashes of the humorous peculiar to Dr. Stone. After some music from the scholars, a rather sharp discussion ensued with respect to the dismissal rule. Mr. James Gifford, one of the School Committee, in an extremely clear and lucid speech, explained and vindicated it. Dr. Dudley considered the resolution a very harsh one, that it acted unjustly on both parent and child, and on the child, too, when the parent was in fault. The Rev. Mr. McGonegal spoke briefly in vindication of the rule, and dwelt on the great inconvenience which resulted to the majority of the scholars from the nonattendance of a few. His remarks were clear and convincing. Capt. Small was opposed to the rule. Mr. Rufus Thacher, one of the School Committee, very ably defended the rule, and successfully refuted misrepresentations concerning it. The exercises were closed by a beautiful and elegantly written Poem, by Dr. John Ross Dix. The Rev. Mr. McGonegal made a few remarks with respect to the Young Men's Institute, recently established in Provincetown, under the superintendence of E. S. Whittemore, Esq., a legal gentleman, who recently graduated at Dane Law School, Harvard University, Cambridge.

SECOND DAY-FRIDAY.

Prayer by the Rev. Mr. Sanborn.

The discussion on the School Committee's Rule was resumed, in which Dr. Stone, of Provincetown, Mr. James

Gifford, Mr. G. Ryder, the Rev. Mr. Sanborn, Capt. Manuel, Mr. Leach, Mr. N. Freeman, the Rev. Mr. Myrick, and others, took part, the latter stating that he was no longer opposed to the rule. Dr. Dudley again expressed himself strongly against the rule.

The Convention, after some slight discussion, again adjourned.

AFTERNOON SESSION.

After singing by the scholars, Mr. Leach very ably addressed the Convention, on the Methods and Modes of Teaching. We regret our space precludes an insertion of this very admirable address.

The Rev. Mr. McGonegal followed with an extremely eloquent and logical lecture on the Practical Educator, which we trust ere long to see in a less ephemeral form. It was replete with force, fervor and truth.

In the High School room, at half-past one o'clock, addresses to the scholars were given by Mr. Whitmore and Mr. French, Teachers.

Votes of thanks were tendered to Messrs. Leach and Tallman for their addresses, and to Dr. J. R. Dix for his poem; which poem, it was further voted, should be printed for distribution in the March number of the Massachusetts Teacher.

EVENING SESSION.

Mr. Nathan Freeman, President of the Provincetown Bank, in the chair.

After

The services were, as on the former evening, held in the Central Methodist Church. The Rev. Mr. Sanborn delivered a lecture on Individuality. For a previously mentioned reason, we can only say of the address that it was replete with original thinking and sound logical deductions. some music, a lecture was delivered, at the request of the colleagues and the Convention, by a member of the Association and a teacher in the town, on Educational Influences. He said, in opening his discourse, he felt that it was unfortunate for him to follow the able public speaker who had preceded him, inasmuch as it would furnish a practical illustration of one branch of his subject, that some persons got out of their proper spheres of action, as the audience would discover before he had concluded. At the conclusion of this address, Mr. Paine, of Grammar School No. 1, briefly and eloquently addressed the audience on the expediency of parents and teachers holding friendly meetings, for the purpose of deliberating under the subjects connected with their mutual

interests. A vote of thanks to Messrs. McGonegal, Sanborn, and the lecturers of the evening, was then unanimously passed. Exquisite singing by the members of the High School, who attended in a body during the whole of the sittings, concluded the exercises. The appearance of these pupils spoke well in the extreme for these young gentlemen and ladies. We must not omit to record our sense of the hospitality and warm-heartedness of the people of Provincetown who attended this, the first convention held in the place, in large numbers, and evinced the warmest interest in the proceedings. Altogether, a more successful meeting we have seldom had to chronicle. The Convention, on the motion of Mr. Comey, adjourned sine die.

F. N. BLAKE, Secretary.

INTELLIGENCE.

Osgood Johnson, Esq, late principal of Warren Academy, Woburn, Mass., has been appointed Master of the Public High School in Worcester, Mass., in place of George Capron, Esq., resigned.

William L. Gage, Esq., has resigned the mastership of the High School in Taunton.

Daniel Leach, Esq., of Roxbury, agent of the Mass. Board of Education, has received and accepted the appointment of Superintendent of the Public Schools in Providence, Rhode Island.

G. B. Stone, Esq., has resigned the mastership of the High School in Fall River.

The Rev. Robert Allyn, of East Greenwich, R. I., has been appointed Commissioner of Public Schools in Rhode Island, in place of Hon. Elijah R. Potter, resigned.

TEACHERS' INSTITUTES.

At Littleton, March 26―30.

At Bridgewater, April 2-6.

"It (teaching) has all the interest of a great game of chess, with living creatures for pawns and pieces, and your adversary, in plain terms, the devil; truly he plays a very tough game, and is very hard to beat, if I ever do beat him." DR. ARNOLD.

THE faults of men are on a grander scale than those of children; this is the rule. Exceptions exist, it is true; yet, to a man of strong character, but of rude tastes and uncultivated manners, peccadilloes give an air of boyishness, not to say of effeminacy. For the boy to rob, and the man to steal, would be to reverse the laws of natural development; for the boy to lie, and the man to perjure himself, is the ordinary growth of sin grafted upon character. Our schools, therefore, are the nurseries of faults, rather than of matured offences; of faults, as we call them, because their indirect effects are trifling, but, estimated by any other scale, sins of exceeding magnitude.

The form in which the childish propensity to evil makes its appearance, is mainly untruthfulness. That untruthfulness is universal, none who are brought into close contact with men or children can deny; that it is more prevalent with adults than with the young, I do not need to prove. The faults of men are manifold, those of children less numerous in kind. Untruthfulness in its Protean forms is the salient point in the sinful side of the young. As discernible on the first as on the seventh day of the week, no amiability is so pure that it does not conceal it, no filial love so strong that it does not shelter it. Falsehood falls from the lisping tongue of the child, and lurks in the more guarded words of the youth, at the threshold of man's

estate.

Is it the fault of the parent and teacher, that falsehood often, and prevarication almost always, are looked upon by the child as venial offences, far less culpable than swearing, stealing and Sabbath-breaking? To our shame we must confess it; and every teacher owes it to himself, to the world, and to his God, to look within him, and see how far the evil can be remedied by him. I do not suppose that any teacher entertains the idea distinctly defined, that untruthfulness is any less a sin than others of the youthful category, but its universality causes the thought to be practically forgotten. Children early conceive that truth can be sacrificed without great harm to the conscience, and manhood but gives strength to the conception.

The main reasons why the sin of untruthfulness is so little regarded among the pupils of our schools, are mainly the prevalence of the thought that falsehood is not strongly discountenanced by the language of Scripture, the universality of the motives which induce it, of the times which admit of it, and of its practice among those who should give the full force of their precept and their example against it. Some of these are are not capable of control by human exertion; over some, individual effort can exert a modifying influence. What the Scripture teaches, theological zeal and research may show; what of truth our lives should display, we should make manifest in them, but we cannot sway those exterior motives which tempt at all places and in all times, and which are strong enough to draw the race from the way of perfect truth, not sparing the youngest and most cherished in our schools.

Of the universality of the motives which induce to untruthfulness, and of the times which admit of it, I will say but a word. Plainly they lie out of human agency. So long as the world is constituted as it is, so long as the will and judgment of the child rebel against the will and judgment of the parent, so long as there exist counsellors of evil and objects of covetous desire, just so long will those desires of the child which in the man would appear in deep-seated malice, stealth, and robbery, be smothered in the cloak of untruthfulness. Sabbath-breaking can at best be done only one-seventh of the time; successful thieving must be accomplished in moments of darkness or in situations of seclusion; God's name is commonly taken in vain in the presence of men, and under circumstances which demand a show at least of passion; a quarrel of words or an encounter of blows cannot exist without the participation of at least two; but untruthfulness may intrude upon all days and into all hours; may be practised among throngs of men, or be sheltered by the isolated heart; may go forth in spoken or written words, by night or by day, prompted by violent rage or by silent malice.