your unmannerly children, who always forget to put on the sir, or the ma'am, are in the very latest London fashion. If you have spoken to any one, and he fails to understand, wishing you to repeat, he will not say "What?" or "How?" or "I didn't understand;" but, "I beg your pardon?" uttered with rising inflection, and lightning rapidity. I must confess, I became quite partial to this form of expression. If you have done any one a favor, he does'nt say "I thank you sir," or "I thank you," but simply "thanks!" The unmeaning, or often false, expression, "you know" reaches its greatest absurdity in London. A public speaker, to whom I listened, used the word "directly" in the sense of " as soon as." E. g., "Directly I heard he was ill, I went to see him.' The word "without " in the sense of "unless is also heard. "Without you do this, I shall be very displeased." The habit of repeating an initial syllable an indefinite number of times, almost like a stammerer, and also of putting in after a word the sound ah, is fearfully fashionable and disgusting. E. g., "I wish to-t-t-t-t-t," etc., repeated a dozen times with great rapidity, not by those who stammer, but as a mere fashion or affectation. " The-ah,” "when-ah," "and-ah-ah-ah-ah," "the other-ah-ah-ah-ah noble lords," are taken from the lips of the Lord Chancellor, Lord Hathaway (George Pagewood). Examples like the above might be multiplied indefinitely; but perhaps I have already said more than enough. I have no wish to "pay off" the English for the fun they have made of us; still less, to caricature them, although the task would not be difficult. Nor do I think Uncle John would like his portrait, painted by a Yankee, any better than Brother Jonathan has fancied his, as it has often been painted by Cockneys. The externals of which I have spoken are disagreeable-some of them, at least-but they are only externals. Beneath them, the warm and true English heart beats responsive to ours. We are in fact one nation, one people; with one language, one literature, one history; having one rich inheritance of freedom-the richest on earth-transmitted to us through many agonzing struggles for civil and religious liberty. I truly love England: I love her people. Above all, I love that Christian doctrine, which I hear preached in England with the same fervor and plainness and affection as in my own country; and which, more than every thing else, binds us together in unfeigned sympathy.-Illinois Teacher. EASTER. BY MRS. A. D. T. WHITNEY. Do saints keep holy day in heavenly places? Are hymns still sung the night when Christ was born, Because our little year of earth is run, Do they make record there beyond the sun? What is their Easter? For they have no graves. How did the Lord keep Easter? With His own! Ah, the dear message that He gave her then,— -"Go, tell those friends who have believed on me, "Into the life so poor and hard and plain, That for awhile they must take up again, "Say, Mary, I will meet them. By the way, And I do not think, as He came back to her, The many mansions may be all astir Parting the veil that hideth them about, -Scribner's for April. READING IN SCHOOLS. There is a little book entitled "Reading without Tears," which we have never seen, but suppose it to be some great classic, rarely taken from the Public Library; for an examination of the most popular books in some of our libraries would consign a large number of cheap story books to the classification of "Reading badly Torn." It is impossible to note the large number of underdone books devoured by readers between the ages of eleven and twenty-two, without asking whether this is the proud result of our public-school system, which puts it in the power of all the children of the country to read, and has nothing to do with teaching them what to read. There is little in the course of instruction in our common schools which has a tendency to awaken or satisfy the higher powers of the child's nature. He is taught letters and figures and a few facts, and almost the only use to which he is likely to put them is that which grows out of his ordinary life afterward,-the reading of his newspaper, the keeping of accounts, the writing of a business or friendly letter. Toward this restricted use the whole course of education gravitates, but not by this use is the child and future citizen made most ready for his place, and it is wrong that the application of letters to the higher uses of the child's nature should be left to chance. The common schools fail of their end unless they tend by the system they adopt to call into action the highest and noblest powers of the mind. In a word, literature is not taught in our schools. In our high schools, boys and girls are sometimes taught the history of that which has no existence to them, but in common schools and high schools alike it is rare that the course of instruction ever suggests the noblest use of the alphabet. Yet there is no other time of life than that embraced by the common-school course so fit for the child's introduction to the highest, finest literature of the world. We let the years go by when he might know Homer, Dante, Shakespeare, Chaucer, Spencer, with the simple knowledge of a mind innocent of foot-notes, and at length the man, who has somehow come to wish for these books, is led up to them through the medium of critics and historians. How many educated persons even, would not confess that they enjoyed criticism upon a great writer more than the great writer himself; how many would not read Taine's "English Literature," and leave the books that Taine writes about, wholly unread, or read with effort as a task? There are very few persons who would learn to read if left to themselves; they have to thank the State that they were made to read by those who knew their needs better than themselves. There are very few who would, if left to themselves, take up the great masters of literature, but that does not prove any natural incapacity. Why should not the wise guardians of public education incorporate into the common school system a compulsory reading of pure literature, graded according to the years of the pupil? We know of no other means by which children may be given a love for the best literature, and so guarded against the mean, ignoble book. Practically, the plan supposes a list of a dozen or twenty books to be read by the classes during the course of instruction,-the books to constitute the library of the school, and copies to be multiplied as the size of the school may demand. It does not call for rigid examination, or historical study. Its aim is to inculcate the love of reading, and this our common schools utterly fail to do. The public library cannot do it; it can only furnish the means for gratifying a taste already formed. The newspapers do not do it; they satisfy all the demand they create. Publishers and booksellers cannot do it; they must follow far more than they can lead. There is no power which can fight the "Reading badly Torn," but the common schools with this adjunct.-Riverside Bulletin. Blancourt says that the making of plate-glass was suggested by the fact of a workman happening to break a crucible filled with melted glass. The fluid ran under one of the large flagstones with which the floor was paved. On raising the stone to recover the glass, it was found in the form of a plate, such as could not be produced by the ordinary process of blowing.-O. Optic's Mag. QUESTIONS FOR CANDIDATES FOR ADMISSION TO STATE NORMAL SCHOOL, FEBRUARY, 1872. ARITHMETIC. 1. Subtract 365 trillionths from 787. and divide the remainder by four-fifths of .02. 2. From two-thirds of a ton subtract 17 pounds, and find what part of a ton the remainder equals. 3. A and B dig a ditch 40 feet long, 6 feet wide and 4 feet deep in 5 days, B digging two-fifteenths of the ditch each day. In what time would A alone have dig the ditch? 4. If rectangular building lots, measuring 40 feet by 100 feet, are sold for $400 each, what price per acre is obtained for the land? 5. At $10 per cord, what will be the cost of a pile of wood 18 feet long, 6 feet 4 inches high, and 4 feet 8 inches wide? 6. What is the difference between the compound and the simple interest of $100 for 2 years, 2 months and 2 days, at 6 per cent., the compound interest being due semi-annually? 7. At what discount must stocks yielding an annual dividend of 8 per cent. on the par value, be bought, that the investment may yield 9 per cent. on the money invested? 8. I bought goods for $100, paying cash for them May 1, 1870. On the first of February, 1872, I sold the goods for $105. What per cent. was gained on the money paid for the goods, money being worth 6 per cent. per annum? 9. Which is the better investment, 8 per cent. stocks at 20 per cent. discount, or 12 per cent. stocks at 15 per cent. premium? 10. A man bought a house at a discount of 30 per cent. upon its appraised value, and sold it for 15 per cent. more than its appraised value. He received $5,000 for I expected to have gone yesterday. Each one of us have as much as we can do. I saw him five years since. Washington will be remembered as him who was the Father of his country. 2. Write the plural of spoonful, courtmartial, radius, memorandum, corps, hose, turkey, motto, mosquito, criterion. 3. Parse the words in capitals in the following sentences: The estate is WORTH ten thousand DOLLARS. The well is ten FEET deep. NOW is your time. You will gain THEREBY. I found him ALONE. He returned HOME. I want a hero-an uncommon WANT. Last CAME Joy's estatic trial. 4. How are verbs divided according to their use? 5. How are verbs divided according to their form? 6. Write the principal parts of teach, arise, throw, lie, and dive. 7. Can the same verb be both transitive and intransitive? 8. How do shall and will differ in meaning? 9. What is meant by the object of a verb? 10. What is meant by the object of a preposition? |