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SPECIAL SCHEDULE OF INQUIRIES IN REGARD TO RURAL CEMETERIES. Rural Cemeteries are so generally used for public drives and promenades, and their grading, planting, memorials, and monuments are so far indicative of the public taste, as well as influential in forming it, that the following details respecting them are solicited, in the belief that when properly edited the results will prove interesting and instructive. Where the information sought has been given in printed documents, a simple reference, with a copy of the same, will be sufficient.

I. Corporation.

(a) Name, date, and circumstances of incorporation; officers for 1868.

(b) Basis of operations: 1, self-sustaining; 2, sustained in part by the corporation, or trustees; 3, sustained by lot-holders, income of funds, bequests, etc.

II. Grounds.

(a) Area in acres-original purchase, addititions, total

(b) Distance from central portion of city or town.

(c) Formation: 1, surface—plain, undulating, hilly, and proportion of each; 2, soil and subsoil-clay, sand, gravel, hard-pan, rock; 3, soil, as to drainagedry, wet, springy; 4, water-springs, rills, brooks, streams, lakes or ponds. (d) Natural growth of trees and shrubs.

(e) Views-near and distant, hills, valley, water.

III. Plan of Development.

A. General plan: 1, lawn plan; 2, lot system; 3, single interments. See explanatory note at end.

B. Details.

(a) Entrances-number, buildings connected with each, and style of same. (b) Roads-1, Proportion of all roads in length, to the acre, in the whole area; 2, width and length of principal roads; 3, width and length of section roads; 4, do. do. of service roads; 5, bridges-number, length, width and style.

For classification of roads, as to construction, see Note A. (j) in Circular respecting Public Grounds.

(c) Walks: 1, length and breadth of walks communicating with sections or divisions; 2, length and breadth of walks through ornamental grounds; 3, proportion of entire length of walks to the acre of the improved grounds. (d) Section or division grounds for burial purposes: 1, total area laid out and improved in proportion to the whole area; 2, number of sections; 3, area of lots, largest, smallest, average; 4, area, on the average, in each section preserved for ornamental purposes.

(e) Grading of sections: 1, how far done by corporation on a general plan; 2, how far done by each individual lot owner, under the general direction of the superintendent.

(ƒ) Drainage: 1, regular system; 2, local; 3, material of each; 4, length of deep drains (8 feet;) 5, length of tile drains (3 to 4 feet;) 6, length of open drains; 7, total length of drains; 8, number of sink or silt basins, and mode of construction.

(9) Artificial water-works-lakes, ponds, cascades, fountains, wells.

(h) Planting: 1, how far according to a general plan by the corporation; 2, how far according to the caprice of lot owners; 3, names of trees and shrubs which

have been found satisfactory; 4, proportion of trees and shrubs on an acre of section ground; 5, supplied from corporation-nursery, or general market. (1) Size of lots: 1, largest; 2, smallest; 3, general average price per square foot. (j) Names of architect, gardener, and superintendent employed in design and

construction.

IV. Memorials, Monuments, and Embellishments.

(a) Memorials and monuments-whole number: 1, statues; 2, obelisk and column; 3, sarcophagus; 4, tombs; 5, statuettes and symbolic devices; 6, elaborate works of art, (with name of artist and cost;) 7, head and footstones; 8, public monuments, and how erected; 9, number or proportion of the above in granite, American marble, Italian marble, Scotch granite, Nova Scotia stone, brown stone, iron, bronze, &c.; 10, name and residence of the principal artists and artizans employed in the design and construction. (e) Flower-beds, groups of roses, &c.

(d) Inclosed lots-number with: 1, iron fences, stone posts and rails, chains, wooden fence, evergreen hedges, curb-stones; 2, number without visible division, except corner posts, as landmarks.

V. Expenditure.

(a) Ground: 1, original and subsequent purchase for Cemetery purposes; 2, total expense for improvements; 3, annual expense for care and supervision. (b) Buildings: 1, cost of chapel; 2, gate lodge; 3, receiving tomb; 4, superintendent's office or dwelling; 5, store or tool-house.

(c) Average expense for improving and ornamenting private lots: 1, planting; 2, grading; 3, inclosing (per foot;) 4, annual care and supervision. (d) Expense of inclosing entire grounds, and how done.

VI. Influences, etc.

(a) Average number of daily visitors in Summer; in Winter; carriages; pedes

trians.

(b) Average number of lots sold annually; 2, total amount in $—; 3, number of burials in lots; 4, Single interments.

(c) Charges: 1, opening and closing graves; 2, receiving tomb; 3, private vault. (d) General result in respect to: 1, an increase of taste for natural scenery; 2, progress in beautifying private lots; 3, homestead embellishments, &c.

VII. Printed Reports, Plans, Circular, &c. &c.

1, List of all printed matter relating to the enterprise; 2, a copy of any printed document, act of incorporation, list of officers, annual report, plan of ground, illustration and description of monuments, will be thankfully received, and the courtesy reciprocated.

EXPLANATORY NOTE.

Lawn Plan; where a section or division is improved according to a general plan, without any inclosures, and where the grading, planting and grouping are in harmony with the respective lot and monument, as well as with the whole. Lot System; where lots are laid out, inclosed and planted, without regard to other lots, but each is complete in itself.

Principal Roads; leading ways of communication between distant parts of the ground.

Section Roads; such as connect section or division grounds with principal roads. Service Roads; such as are used by laborers and teams employed on the ground. as far as possible, they are secluded, and often temporary.

CIRCULAR

CIRCULAR RESPECTING ELEMENTARY EDUCATION.

U. S. DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION,

Washington, D. C., 1867.

In reply to your inquiry "for a single document which shall set forth the characteristic features of different systems of public elementary instruction at home and abroad," the undersigned would say, that he knows of no such volume; and interesting as such a volume in some respects would be, he is not sure that it would answer your immediate purpose, "the preparation of an efficient system of common schools for a community which has not yet accepted the cardinal idea of popular education as it is understood in the Northern and Western States." Any system, to be thoroughly understood, must be studied in its details, and in reference to its historical development, and the peculiar conditions of society where it is in operation. Social life with you is peculiar, and the distribution of population has not been governed by the same laws which have effected it in other sections of the country. Your institutions of education have grown up under these conditions.

Under these and other circumstances, will it not be best first to secure the appointment of a School Board, or a single officer; or rather of a Board representing in its members different local, political and ecclesiastical interests, (but all united in the general desire to inaugurate an efficient public system,) with a Secretary, who shall devote his whole time, under their directions,

1, To ascertain the number, locality, and character of such schools as do exist, and the places where schools are needed.

2, To interest and inform parents, and the public generally, by the voice and press, as to existing wants, and the practicable remedy, in a system of public schools, (both elementary and secondary,) which shall be cheap enough for the poorest, and good enough for the richest.

3, To frame a law adapted to sparsely populated districts, as well as villages, which shall at once go into operation, where the way is prepared for it, and induce the reluctant and inimical sections to adopt it, on the ground of pecuniary interest, and after a certain period, embrace every section in its operations. In this kind of work, the experience of the Commissioner may enable him to make suggestions of practical value, and at least to point out sources of information which will greatly help the officer charged with these duties, in the details of his labors. In the mean time, he is preparing a series of documents, which will answer your and similar questions more fully than can be done in any one general summary. Any information as to the systems referred to in the accompanying Index, (Chapters V and VI,) will be promptly and freely given.

As for European systems, there is not one of them which can not be studied with advantage, and some of the toughest problems which are now up for solution with you and in other States, have been discussed and to some extent solved under them. You will find much to interest you in that of Zurich, herewith sent, together with the views of eminent men on the relations of the State to Education.

HENRY BARNARD,

Commissioner of Education.

No. 11.

CIRCULAR RESPECTING EDUCATIONAL TRACTS.

U. S. DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION,

Washington, D. C., 1868.

In reply to your inquiry for copies of the Documents and other publications of this Department, and especially of any Educational Tracts on the fundamental principles of Education, the Relations of the State to schools of any kind, and particularly of a Republican government to elementary schools, the Economical and Social Arguments in favor of Public Schools, and exhaustive and practical expositions of the Organization, Studies, Management, and Internal Work generally of Elementary Schools-for general distribution, and for reproduction in still more popular form in public addresses and newspaper articles, in States where these subjects have not yet been discussed, and are not understood and appreciated, the undersigned will state:

1. The only Documents of the Department which have yet been printed are the Special Circulars, asking for information, or explaining the policy of the Department, and the Monthly Official Circulars, which, owing to the small clerical force at his command, has not yet assumed the form which the Commissioner designed, and each of which is more in the nature of a preliminary Report on the subject presented in the Special Circulars issued for the purpose of collecting information as the basis of a more elaborate treatment.

2. As the Plan of Publication projected by him, and set forth in Special Circular, No. 2, has not been presented in a formal way to secure as yet the consideration of Congress, the Commissioner has assumed the entire expense of printing these Monthly Official Circulars, except Nos. III, IV, and V, but has distributed them freely to such persons as expressed a desire to receive them, and to such as have applied for information respecting the subject of the Special Circular to which the number was devoted. Copies, both of the Monthly Circular, and of the Special Circulars, will be forwarded to you, and your coöpera tion in obtaining the information sought is respectfully solicited.

3. Articles, more or less exhaustive, on the several subjects specified in your letter, have been published by the undersigned, in the prosecution of his educational labors, as you will see by the Classified Index, (Chapters I, II, III,) in Monthly Circular, Number Two, any of which, so far as they can be furnished detached from bound volumes, will be sent to you without charge.

4. The publication of a series of Educational Tracts, made up partly from articles which have appeared, or which may hereafter appear in the American Journal of Education, or in the Monthly Circular, has been begun-which, as soon as arrangements can be made, will be supplied in orders for general distribution, at the cost of press-work and paper. It so happens that the first of this series is devoted to answers, by the highest authorities, to the question, What is Education? and the second is devoted mainly to an exposition of the American idea of Public Schools. Copies of these will be mailed to your address.

5. Many of the articles in the successive numbers of the American Journal of Education, have been struck off in pamphlet form, for wider distribution. The Commissioner has no pecuniary interest in this publicatiou, except to guarantee the Publisher against loss.

HENRY BARNARD, Commissioner.

WHAT IS EDUCATION?

It has been held that education, according to its etymology, means a drawing out of the faculties of the mind, not a mere accumulation of things in the memory; and this is probably substantially true; but yet the etymology of education is not, directly at least, educere, but educare. Again, education has been distinguished from information; which may well be done, as the word information is now used; but yet the word informare, at first, implied as fundamental an operation on the mind as educare; the forming and giving a defined form and scheme to a mere rude susceptibility of thought in the human mind. Again, we use the term learn, both of the teacher and the scholar. (Thus we have, Psalm cxix. 66 and 71, Learn me true understanding and knowledge; and I will learn thy laws.) But the German distinguishes these two aspects of the same fundamental notion by different forms-lehren and lernen; and in a more exact stage of English, one of these is replaced by another word, to teach; which, though it is not the representative of a word used in this sense in German, is connected with the German verb zeigen, to show, and zeichen, a sign or mark; and thus directs us to the French and other daughters of the Latin language, in which the same notion is expressed by enseigner, insegnare, ensenar; which come from the Latin insignire, and are connected with signum. W. WHEWELL.

Education is the process of making individual men participators in the best attainments of the human mind in general: namely, in that which is most rational, true, beautiful, and good... the several steps by which man is admitted, from the sphere of his narrow individuality, into the great sphere of humanity; by which, from being merely a conscious animal, he becomes conscious of rationality; by which, from being merely a creature of sense, he becomes a creature of intellect; by which, from being merely a seeker of pleasurable sensations, he becomes an admirer of what is beautiful; by which, from being merely the slave of impulse, he becomes a reverencer of what is right and good. W. WHEWELL.

What is a man

If his chief good and market of his time

Be but to sleep and feed?—a beast, no more.
Sure, He that made us with such large discourse.

Looking before and after, gave us not

That capability and godlike reason

To rust in us unused.

SHAKSPEARE.

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