his fellow-beings in the important station he is called to occupy. That his ambitions should have less than most men's of aught that is selfish, or low, or grovelling in them. The glory of God in the moral and intellectual cultivation of the rising generation should be "his being's end and aim."

We rejoice to know that there are many, nay very many teachers who do to some good extent thus honor their profession, themselves, and their Maker. Such teachers will not only be honored by God, whose honor they seek, but also by men, whose honor is not the supreme object of their desire.

STYLE.

FEW things are more important in the education of youth, of this age and country, than the acquisition of a good style of composition. The world now is more influenced by the written, than the spoken word. The pen makes the speeches, transacts the business, moulds the governments, and it is to be hoped, will soon fight the battles of the world. In our own country, the want of a fixed, pure, appropriate style of composition, is a very great want. So many elements are entering continually into the formation of our national character, mind, and literature, that there is a danger that something corrupt, and anomalous, will spring up among us, in the place of the pure, simple English of our ancestors. Already there is a tendency towards too great intensity of expression, false sublimity, and a want of simplicity of every kind.

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Much may be done even before the youth enters College, to lead him to adopt a pure, simple, effective, and manly style. criticism on the part of the Instructor, is beyond all things important. The instant checking of any tendency to extravagant expression, after a due allowance made for the more ardent feeling of youth; the stern repression of all vulgarisms, cant phrases, and unnecessary Americanisms; the continual enforcing of the idea of the importance of precision of language; and a cautious bestowal of commendation, which too largely dispensed, might destroy forever the power of modest and simple writing; these are rules of criticism which commend themselves to all. Another means of inducing a good style of composition to youthful scholars, is an attention paid to their manner of conversation. Without employing a pedagoguical or annoying method of doing this, no ungrammatical or inelegant expression should be suffered to pass uncorrected, and oftentimes a little

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salt of ridicule rubbed into the reproof, without doing harm, will make it remembered.

The study of grammar rightly conducted, in a fresh, natural, and philosophical manner, is another great help to the formation of a good style. He who is not thoroughly founded on a good knowledge of English grammar, will always be a careless, and never become a free, and self-dependent writer. The niceties and proprieties of a language whose syntax is so difficult as that of the English, can never be mastered excepting by a faithful study of English grammar, aided by the knowledge or illustra tions of the original languages. Neither should the dictionary be neglected in this connection; a simple study of the best English dictionary, has been confessedly the foundation of many a distinguished author's vigor and richness of style.

A pointing of the youthful mind to the best literature, to the reading of pure and classic English authors, is still another most important method of forming a good style. Dissuading from Carlyle, and from most of the modern romance literature, let an instructor place such authors as Walter Scott, Washington Irving, and Goldsmith, into the hands of the young; nor need the instructor be afraid of recommending Shakspeare to a bright boy. The mighty bard will soon enclose him in his mesh, as he does the old and the profound. Above all, let our English Bible be set before the young mind as the great model of composition, as well as the great guide to truth.

A good style has been called "proper words in proper places." It may be said to be chiefly characterized by the two qualities of Purity and Force. A pure style consists in the using of true English words, and no others. The words which the usage of good writers and of educated men justifies, there form the only allowable treasury of a pure writer. He is not permitted to introduce his Latin, German, and French learning, his business idioms, his camp, scientific, or political technicalities, or his religious conventionalisms, into his written language. This rises above the momentary necessity, and enters into more of permanence, observation, and dignity. He who would coin a new word must create the occasion for it; and he who alters words now in use, must hold himself ready to answer for such assaults on the wisdom and good taste of our ancestors. A pure writer may introduce common and strong phrases, but he never descends to low and vulgar ones. He does not "admire to do a thing" when he would much better "be pleased to do it;" neither does he make a thing "lengthy" when he could make it "long;" nor does he "fellowship with a man" when he can just as well" be his companion;" nor does he "calculate" that a thing will happen, when in fact he only "expects" that it wil.

Americanisms are sometimes necessary, when productions and ideas strictly of American origin, are to be spoken of. The greatest purist would find no fault with our city "lots," where, as with us, cities are drawn on paper, before they are builded on the ground.

Purity of style also comprehends the idea of simplicity of every kind, the avoiding of unusual and abstruse terms, freedom from labored ornament, and a perfect appropriateness of expression to the subject of the composition. For one who is writing on the abating of a city nuisance, to assume the style of an author discussing the philosophy of the Phædo, would be absurd; yet we see and hear this absurdity in written and spoken style every day. Our Western, and sometimes our Eastern eloquence marches on with a thundering Johnsonian stride, that seems to shake the ground, when a light and easy step that hardly brushes the dew from the grass, is often all that is necessary. Such eloquence soon exhausts itself, and when a theme really grand and stirring comes to be discussed, no power and no terms are left. Nearly all great writers and orators have had a simple style. Demosthenes spoke like a "business man to business men." Luther's words were as direct, natural, and unaffected, as a child's. Pitt made great and involved political questions clear as noonday, by the noble simplicity of his expressed opinions. This was Peel's peculiar power, and the secret of his vast influence as a parliamentary orator. This is especially the characteristic of our own Webster's style of speaking and writing. The commonest man would have no difficulty in understanding all that Webster has uttered or composed. Under purity of style may be reckoned all the quality of Precision. By precision, I mean that quality by which the thought is expressed exactly, with no lack or surplus. This is a healthy beauty in a writer, denoting clearness of head and definiteness of thought. Perhaps no writer could be named as a better exponent of this quality than Junius, whose sentences never suffer their vigorous blow to be deadened, by any obliqueness or circuitousness in its descent. Want of precision in style, usually betokens want of precision in thought, and a vast deal of nonsense and false sublimity have been hid under the veil of an obscure style. Accurate knowledge of words, of the use of relative terms, and of the niceties of syntax, are indispensable to precision of style, which however, as we use it, is not a precise style, allowing no freedom and easy play of thought and expression. One may be a highly imaginative and discursive writer, and yet have sufficient precision of language always to make his thoughts clear to the eye of the reader. The subject and the thought may even be profound and abstruse, but that is the very reason why they should be carefully and clearly expressed. It is not

necessary to be vague if one philosophizes, nor to mingle heaven and earth in language, in order that it may be called poetry. Shakspeare, though sometimes, in his imperial license, he bursts through this rule of precision, is more frequently remarkable for his singular and forcible precision in the use of words, as for instance in that compact sentence from Macbeth

"To say with doubt,or shake with fear."

No one but he who had a profound appreciation of the exact force of every Saxon English word, could have written such a sentence as that, so brief and yet so powerful. Men's minds must have balances in them to weigh words, as one weighs gold coin, before they can avoid violating entirely this rule of precision of style. And above all, thus to write, so that nobody can misunderstand, one must first think so that he cannot misunderstand himself.

The second quality of a good style which I have mentioned is force. Without this characteristic, a style may have all other qualities in vain. Without the gun carries to the mark, all its beauty and ornament of workmanship are of little value. A forceful, effective style is the result chiefly of strong, clear, and vivid thought. This, formed with sincerity, and earnest feeling, and also with skill in the use of language, makes a style of speech and writing that tells. A man who is not in sober earnest in what he writes, is apt to write circuitously, enigmatically, or triflingly. Faith and zeal are noble elements of strength in style. Skill too in the construction of sentences, making them compact, and well defined, promotes strength. No straggling, indefinite sentences, of which the reader may ask, why is this sentence just here? or, why is it in this article at all? Such sentences should be avoided. All the previous qualities of style which we have mentioned, if carefully attended to, go to promote force of style. Yet it is not, after all, by a critical, formal attention to such rules of writing, that a good and strong style is acquired. It is more by the habits of thought, the general discipline of the mind, the character of the reading, and the character of the conversation, society, and pursuits. Style is a general effect of all these causes, a resultant of these several lines. A man who has been an earnest student, who has a definite aim in view, whose heart has fire in it, whose head has thought in it, who has a natural intellectual appetency for manly reading and the society of educated and disciplined minds, will be likely to write and speak in a vigorous, clear, and forceful manner. The great faults of the mass of American writers of the present day are, we think, want of studious thought, want of condensed thought, want of simplicity of thought, and a too great striving after fine, intense,

and sublime language. When the thought is really grand, and sublime, the language becomes the mere vehicle, and unconsciously simplifies itself. This idea of grandeur of style, has yet to be generally appreciated by American writers, and it is in fact the offspring of the highest cultivation, which brings back invariably to nature, for the highest art is the truest nature. It remains for instructors of American youth to be the real reformers in this most important matter. They may plant the germs of a better style of writing and speaking among the rising generation, so that something truly noble and great in literature, and in eloquence, may be the fruits, in our own times and country.

Salem, August 15.

J. M. H.

ARITHMETIC.

WITHOUT intending to write an essay on teaching arithmetic, we propose to offer a few thoughts which some experience in teaching has suggested. We introduce what we have to say by a few extracts from that excellent book, "The Teacher's Manual," by Thomas H. Palmer, A. M., first published in 1840.

"The same pernicious error which was noticed in speaking of the mode of teaching reading and writing, prevails in this science, viz. a neglect of the foundation; a hurrying of the initiatory steps. Without clear, distinct notions of numeration, no satisfactory progress can ever be made in arithmetic; and yet there are schools, where it is not taught at all; where the pupil commences with addition, and is left to acquire a knowledge of the local value of figures as best he may. And even in those

schools where it is taught, the subject is passed over too rapidly; valuable deductions that might be drawn from it being entirely omitted."

"The four fundamental processes, addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division, are by no means sufficiently practised."

"The subject of decimal fractions is treated of separately from that of whole numbers, in all our treatises on arithmetic, or in an advanced section of the book. This arrangement is highly exceptionable, and is, probably, the reason why so many complain of the difficulty of understanding decimals, when in fact the subject is so exceedingly simple. Their extreme simplicity confuses them, as from their position in the work they are led to imagine there must be something behind which they do not see; something beneath the surface, which their efforts fail to bring to light; a notion that confuses and mystifies the whole subject. Let us see whether any difficulty could possi