facts associated with it. This process puts the child in possession of the real knowledge, and also enables it to remember the needful words more easily. This process interests the child, awakens a desire to learn, and develops its powers of mind.

For the Common School Journal.

DIGNITY AND LOVE IN SCHOOL GOVERNMENT.

IN governing a school, dignity and love should be combined. But where the teacher attempts to govern by the principle of love, he often loses his dignity, by a sort of fawning process, by which he expects to purchase obedience; and knows not until an unruly school declares the fact, that in doing it, he has sold his authority. Dignity is one grand essential in the government of a school. A teacher may be learned, loving, ingenious and religious, but if he has not dignity, he will have trouble. But by dignity I do not mean pride or insolence. Dignity springs from a conscious certainty of a perfect right to do right. A proof of it is an ear deaf to that which tends to excite fear or favor, that might lead to a wandering from what is deemed just. It is an expression of Godlike manhood.

You meet a man walking, who steps as if the ground was made to tread. His form is erect, yet he is not assuming and foppish, and his countenance wears an expression of frankness and firmness. You are impressed with two thoughts concerning him; first, that he is a gentleman; second, that he possesses decision and independence of character. This you feel the moment that you see him. Take him to the school-room and all the pupils get the same impression, and they will love, respect and obey him. No making of rules would make up for the lack of this dignity, nor could threatening and punishment. The value of a rule is its power to impress the mind with the necessity of obedience, while it also instructs to duty. But the teacher whose very manners and expression have a power to make the requir

ed impression, has not need of many rules, or much threatening and punishment. Another teacher, perhaps superior in power of thought to the one already supposed, might fawn upon the children, do more to please them, connive at their faults, and they would remain" ungoverned, because the lack of dignity would be detected by the child at the first glance, and lead him to throw off restraint.

That is not love which fawns upon the child, but does not seek his highest good, whether he desires it or not; but this fawning spirit is an obnoxious weed that grows well in the soil of love, and should be uprooted.

I will only add, that while the teacher is governing the school by this dignity, he is also blessing it by example. What greater kindness can a teacher do, than to stamp the character, with a principle, and the countenance with an expression, that will make the child respected through life, give him courage to act what he feels to be right, and often secure to him his rights without the aid of severe measures. This fact, in addition to the one that it so aids in government, may be an inducement to cultivate it.

Naugatuck, September, 1861.

JOHN SCOTT.

EDUCATIONAL JOURNALS.

WE Commend the following very sensible and truthful remarks to our readers, and wish we could induce every teacher to read them and ponder them. Though written in reference to the teachers of another State, they will hold strictly true in this latitude.-RES. ED.

We pass to another thought, in this connection. It may seem rather impertinent than pertinent. We venture it, however, as a thought gathered from our best observation and experience; and from a sincere desire to see our young educators fitly qualified for their duties. We allude to the very little interest which many of our teachers manifest in their study of educational works and educational Journals. Let us say a word here, because we think it ought to be said.

Teachers proffer their services to the community. They ought to be qualified-as well qualified as circumstances will permit. They ought to be well prepared to meet the demands where they labor. They ought to make use of the best means within their power, to effect their own competency. But is it thus? In looking round among our teachers, we have been surprised to find few, so very few, who even read or patronize an educational work of any kind, It is the indifferent spirit manifested in this matter that we deplore, indicating, as it does, a lack of life in the good work.

We have a "Journal of Education" in New Hampshire, which professes to aid teachers in the better understanding of their duties-which aims to give them useful hints and suggestions which shall make them more profitable servants to their employers, while giving at the same time, dignity and solidity to the teacher's character. Such a Journal, if it is what it professes to be, ought to be in the hands of every teacher. Its spirit should be incorporated into his spirit. He should gather inspiration from its pages for his noble duty. And the man or the woman who can draw no life, no encouragement, no inspiring thought from such a Journalfrom such a communion with other mature minds-is certainly not the best person to anoint the eyes of children. A good teacher is known by his effort to make himself such. Mark that.

The vilest politician drinks in his weekly or daily nourishment from the press-fires up his spirit by contact with kindred spirits, actually lives in a burning atmosphere that impels him to earnest and perpetual struggle. He is "booked," active, wide awake and ready for combat. Be this right or wrong, no matter. It proves his wisdom in adapting means to ends. The politician is not a fool, whatever rogue he may be-and in supporting his party pressin seeking his daily food (such as it is,) is he not wiser than the teacher? Wiser than that teacher who welcomes to his closet no inspiring breath from the press; and cares not for the cause in which he professedly labors? Our teachers should keep their eyes open, and ears open, and hearts open to all the light and all the educational

influences around them. If they do not they are "behind the times"-blind guides and dumb guides professing to lead the blind and the dumb.

Is this plain talk? It is, then, just what we intend it shall be. We have insisted, we still insist, that our teachers be well paid. We insist, too, with the same earnestness, that teachers give some evidence by their life, spirit and conversation, that they are worth the pay. And we insist, furthermore, that the teacher who means to be worth any thing is certainly worth the more to any school, if he or she be a hearty and constant reader of a good Educational Journal. We submit the assertion to any wise man's scrutiny. And we conclude this portion of our remarks, with the query whether one-fourth of the teachers in Weare are ever caught reading the N. H. Journal of Education?

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What we say on this subject, is intended to be a seed sown for a future day-for the "good time coming,". seed hopefully sown in reference to a prospective crop of still better teachers, even, than those we now boast of. May the seed be blessed with dew and sunshine.-Weare School Report.

FOR SCHOOL VISITORS.

(WE would earnestly commend the following to the attention of School Visitors. We find it in the Massachusetts Teacher, but have reason to believe that it was written by Rev. Mr. Oviatt of our State. It designates a plan of operation which, properly carried out, must accomplish great good to our schools. Will you try it?)

The most essential thing to be done, in order to make our Common Schools what they ought to be, is to induce parents to co-operate with the teachers and committees of these schools by some methods at once practical and simple, and well devised. We have our school funds, our school laws, and teachers' institutes, all under the direction of the State Legislature, and, we will suppose, to the acceptance

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of the parents of the children who attend our schools. it be admitted that we have as complete a system of common school education, as we can be expected to have. But no system of common school education will, or can, work out the desired results when left to itself, as though it possessed inherently the life-working power. Nor can those who are clothed with official authority to have the oversight of our schools, and to see that they are conducted according to law, do all that is needful to secure the perfect working of our system of education, so as to make each school in the Commonwealth just as good as it might be under the provisions of the State.

It is highly important that the school committee in each city and town should consist of working men, ready to labor "in season and out of season" to promote the interests of the schools, whether paid or not paid for their services. In large cities, as for example in Boston, the board of school committee, having so great a work to do, has monthly or quarterly meetings statedly, at which the condition of the respective schools is reported, and questions naturally suggested are freely discussed. But in proportion the schools in the rural towns are less cared for, and, consequently, are less efficient.

Let the following be suggested as a plan, in its outlines, of something to be done, to make our schools better, in all respects, than they now are.

For instance, in the town of A., with a scattered population, there are ten school districts. Begin with District No. One. Let an effort be made this fall, some two or three weeks before the opening of the winter term, to get a meeting of all the parents in this district, at the school-house. Secure the attendance not only of the fathers and mothers, but of all the inhabitants, so that the school-house may be crowded. At this meeting let the school committee, in the most direct and practical way possible, address the people on the importance of having a good school; presenting the duties of parents in the premises, to see that their children go to school constantly and punctually; to interest them. VOL. VIII.

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