been determined; then the distance of the sun from the earth, explaining in this connection the nature and use of parallax; then the linear diameter of the sun from its apparent diameter; then the sidereal year of the earth, and the sidereal periods of the planets from their observed synodic periods; and next the distances of the planets from an application of Kepler's third law, etc. In this way, the whole subject will be so woven together in the pupil's mind, that it will be impossible for him to forget its fundamental principles, however few of its facts of detail he may retain. After such a course, it will be a very simple matter to present for his study the other important topics comprehended in the general subject.

The use of diagrams and apparatus should be constantly resorted to in giving the instruction here marked out; but great care should be observed to prevent the use of apparatus from superseding or obscuring the ideas obtained from the observation of nature itself. The student must come down to the apparatus from a clear conception of the actual phenomena, using the machine to apprehend the manner in which the phenomena occur. Very simple apparatus is much to be preferred to cumbrous and compli-, cated machinery-admirable, perhaps, as pieces of ingenious workmanship but of little value for the purpose of illustration. The student should, however, be thoroughly practiced in the use of the globes, as a very essential part of the training comprehended in this branch of instruction. The use of a telescope, of at least moderate power, is also a valuable means of augmenting both the interest and information of the student, especially in connection with the study of uranography, which is certainly one of the most useful as well as entertaining departments of astronomical science. In this part of the study, a good planisphere will prove a valuable adjunct.

The religious aspects of the study should not be lost sight of in giving this instruction. The student should be constantly reminded that, in studying the phenomena and laws of the material universe, he is contemplating the works of an infinitely wise and beneficent Creator, who has wonderfully endowed us with faculties to behold the splendor of his works, and, in some degree, to conceive of their vastness. Says a distinguished German educator: Astronomy is, more than any other science, valuable as a study for youth. None will seize so strongly and fully upon the youthful mind. It hardens the body, sharpens the senses, practices the memory, nourishes the fancy with the noblest images, develops the power of thinking, destroys all narrow-mindedness, and lays an immovable foundation for faith in God."

ATHENEUM, or Athenæum (Gr. Anvatov, a building dedicated to Athena, or Minerva, the tutelary goddess of Athens), was the name applied to a temple at Athens, in which poets and scholars used to meet and read their productions. At Rome, a celebrated institution of the same name was founded by the Emperor Hadrian, on

ATHENS

his return from the east, about 133 A. D. It existed until the 5th century, and also served as a school in which teachers, specially appointed for the purpose, gave instruction in poetry and rhetoric. In modern times, this name is frequently used to denote a scientific association or the building in which such an association meets. In Belgium and Holland, it is used to designate a school of a higher grade, ranking next to the university. (See BELGIUM, and NETHERLANDS.)

ATHENS, the capital of ancient Attica, one of the political divisions into which Hellas proper was divided, is famous as the city in which Greek science and education attained the highest degree of perfection. The educational laws of Athens constitute a part of the legislation of Solon. (See SOLON.) They are, in some respects, in direct opposition to the principles which regulated public education at Sparta. (See SPARTA.) While the Spartans almost exclusively aimed at developing the highest perfection of the body, at Athens a cultivated mind was regarded as the highest product of education. All the Athenian children, rich and poor, had to attend school and to learn how to read; and tardiness in attending school as well as truancy was punished by a fine. Pupils were not admitted to school before their seventh, nor after their tenth year of age. After attending school for several years, poor children were required to be employed in agriculture, commerce, or some trade; while the children of wealthy parents devoted themselves to music, hunting, philosophy, or similar occupations. If a father neglected to have his son instructed, the son was not bound to support him in his old age. The elementary schools had at first one, subsequently two teachers, the grammatist, who taught reading and writing (ra ypáupara), and the critic, who read the classics with the children, explained to them the poets, and heard them recite poems.

Homer's works were in almost every school; and, it is said, Alcibiades, on one occasion, boxed his teacher's ears because he did not find a copy of Homer in his school. The second book of the Iliad, which enumerates the tribes and princes who followed Agamemnon to the Trojan war, and the allies of the Trojans, supplied the outline of the instruction in geography, history, and genealogy. The grammatist. first taught the children the alphabet, the formation of letters into words, and reading; directing them to pay special attention to long and short syllables, to correct accentuation, and to euphonious pronunciation. When they had acquired a sufficient knowledge of reading, instruction in writing began, embracing within its scope both tachygraphy (short-hand writing) and calligraphy. The use of signs for abridgments was known to the Athenian short-hand writers. The letters were drawn by a stylus (a sharp-pointed iron instrument) on wax tablets, and copied by the children. The use of ink was also known. It was prepared of soot and gum, and applied to parchment, linen, or Egyptian paper (papyrus), by means of a brush or tube. All the children were required to learn music and to play on

sum by the number of sessions. Of course, this does not afford an accurate basis for comparison where the schools are kept open during different periods of the year; since a school which has been kept open all the year would, with the same number of pupils, show no larger average attendance than one kept open only one half the year. To rectify this, the aggregate number of pupils in attendance at all the sessions is often divided by a fixed number, without regard to the actual number of sessions. This method is sometimes legally enjoined for the purpose of an equitable distribution of the school moneys. Obviously, both the actual average and statute average are needed to ascertain the true effectiveness of a system of schools. The average attendance compared with the "average number belonging" is useful as showing the temporary regularity or irregularity of attendance, arising from various local or incidental causes. (See ABSENTEEISM.) It is generally conceded that in the United States particularly in the Northern and Western States there are but few native children who do not attend school some portion of the year, or who have never attended any school during their lives. It is chiefly among the foreign population, that the opportunities for school attendance are neglected.

ton (see Report of Commissioner of Education for 1874), and obviously shows, except in Massachusetts, great irregularity of attendance, as compared with the census enumeration of children of legal school age. The variations in the latter in the several States must be taken into account in the consideration of these comparative statistical facts. (See ScHOOL Age.)

In Delaware, Iowa, Kansas, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska, New York, and West Virginia, the school age is the same-5 to 21; in Florida, Illinois, Indiana, Louisiana, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, it is from 6 to 21; in Georgia, Nevada, Tennessee, and Texas, it is from 6 to 18; in California, 5 to 17; Connecticut, 4 to 16; and in Massachusetts and Rhode Island, 5 to 15. The excess of attendance over the enumeration in Massachusetts, indicates that pupils are permitted to attend school who have not as yet reached, or who have passed, the legal school age.

The percentage of population between the ages of 5 and 15 enrolled in the schools in 1872-3 was, in Alabama, 38; Delaware, 59; Florida. 42; Maine, 90; Maryland, 67; Mississippi, 70; Missouri, 88; North Carolina, 51; South Carolina, 46; Rhode Island, 91; Tennessee, 50; Texas, 56; Virginia. 51; West Virginia, 67.

In England and Wales, the average attendance at the public schools, in 1873, was about 28 per cent of the population of school age (between 3 and 13); and about 69 per cent of the total enrollment; and, consequently, the enrollment was about 41 per cent of the school population. Under the compulsory education act in force in that country, the school attendance had considerably increased. (See ENGLAND.) A careful comparison of the census returns of different countries shows that, on the average, the children between the ages of 6 and 12 constitute about 17 per cent of the entire population. Comparing this rate with the following percentages of school attendance as compared with population, we may ascertain approximatively the relative rate of attendance in each country. In Saxony the school attendance is about 20 per cent; in Prussia, 15 per cent; in Norway, 14 per cent; in the Netherlands, 13 per cent; in Denmark, 13 per cent; in Scotland and Protestant Switzerland, 11 per cent; in Belgium, 11 per cent; in Austria, 10 per cent; in England, 9 per cent; in Ireland and Catholic Switzerland, 7 per cent; in France, 5 per cent; in Portugal, 14 per cent; in Italy, 1 per cent ; in Greece, as 1 to 118; in Spain, as I to 170; and in Russia, as 1 to 700.

Mr. Francis Adams, in his work on the Free School System of the United States (London, 1875), remarks, in connection with a comparison of the school attendance in this country with that of England: While in England we have a more select enrollment, and, consequently, a more regular attendance than in many of the States, some of them the principal Northern and Western States-yet, so far as concerns our hold upon the great mass of the population, we stand only on a level with some of the most backward of the old

ATTENDANCE

slave states. I do not forget that our average attendance is estimated upon a longer school year than that in most of the states, but against this fact may be set the later school age in the United States; and where allowance is made for every difference which would tell in our favor, there can be but one conclusion-that, in the work of getting the masses into school, we are still far behind a country in which absenteeism and irregularity of attendance are admitted, on all hands, to be the most crying evils under which their system labors."

There is considerable difference in the school attendance in cities and in rural districts, greatly in favor of the former, owing to the difference in circumstances. In summer, the children in the country are kept from school to assist in the rural labors of their homes; and in the winter they are often prevented from attending school by the long distance, which they have to travel, frequently over bad roads, in order to reach the school. The following exhibits the attendance in some of the large cities of the Union :

ATTENTION (from the Latin tendere, to strain, implying a strained effort of the mind) is perhaps the most important of the mind's activities, since the quality and duration of the intellectual impressions depend upon the degree of attention with which the faculties have been exerted in acquiring them. There is no point of difference between the trained and the untrained intellect so striking as the voluntary power of fixing the mind for a continuous period of time upon any given subject. Hence, to discipline this power becomes, in an especial manner, the office and duty of the educator. Commencing with the most rudimental exercise of the observing faculties, he passes on, step by step, to the process by which, through the entire and determined giving up, as it were, of the whole mind to the contemplation and study of any given class of facts or ideas, the student learns to evolve new truths, or analytically to explain the intricacies of abstruse problems. When the attention has become obedient to the will, this branch of mental training is complete; and, therefore, the aim of the educator should be to instill habits of controlling the attention, and rigidly preventing those of desultory, wayward application, or listlessness. This power of continuous attention is, without doubt, the most valuable result of intellectual training. To produce this result, it is of the first importance to interest the pupils, especially in the earlier stages of instruction. Young minds have an intense desire to know-not words merely, but things. They have a strong craving for new ideas, and take the deepest enjoyment in the exercise of the perceptive and conceptive faculties. Hence the importance of object-teaching. The perceptive faculties are exercised in the observation of the sensible qualities of all the different things with which the child is surrounded, or which may be presented to its view by the teacher, for the purpose of attracting its attention; and these objects should be diversified as much as possible, so as to appeal to the child's love of novelty.

The attention should not be exercised for

long periods of time. When the teacher perceives that it is flagging, it is best to stop the exercise; for all that is done while the child's attention is relaxed, is worse than fruitless. It is from an inattention to this truth that children are often made incurably listless in school. They are set at exercises which awaken no interest in their minds, and, consequently, acquire ineradicable habits of superficial, careless attention. In all the subsequent studies of the pupil, it is essential that his interest be awakened as much as possible; but it will be found there is a reciprocal action of interest and attention. The pupil having acquired in the first stages, in some degree, the habit of voluntary attention, will, as a matter of duty, apply his mind to the studies prescribed for him; and this very application, if earnest and diligent, will soon excite the deepest interest in the subjects of study.

The dependence of memory upon attention is well known to all who have observed, however superficially, the operations of the mind; and the

power to recall at will our mental impressions and acquisitions is perhaps directly in proportion to the attention with which the associations binding them together were formed. When these are feeble, loose, accidental, and formed with little volition, the mind will have but an imperfect control of its thoughts, and will thus be wanting in the chief quality of a sound intellectual character.

Attention requires a vigorous exercise of the brain, and, therefore, is, more or less, dependent upon the physical condition. When this has been exhausted by labor, either bodily or mental, or weakened by disease, attention is scarcely possible; and the effort to give it is injurious, because it induces still farther nervous prostration. Neither should deep attention be exerted or attempted immediately after a hearty meal. The nervous energy is then directed to the digestive functions, which active cerebration will greatly disturb. Hence, the diet of a student should be light, but nutritious. The brain should also be supplied with thoroughly oxygenated blood. No one can think well in an impure atmosphere, especially if it is contaminated by the breathing of many persons. In this way, children often suffer a serious loss of health. They are crowded in apartments too small for the number to be accommodated, and very imperfectly ventilated; and, at the same time, are expected to give close and earnest attention to the subjects of instruction. This is a physical impossibility, and the attempt to do it must always be followed by disastrous results. In no respect has the aphorism, "A sound mind in a sound body" a more forcible application than to the exercise of attention. For what contrast can be stronger than that presented by the poor wretch whom disease has bereft of every mental state but wandering thoughts or absolute vacuity, and the man of sound health and a welltrained mind, who is ready at will to concentrate all his intellectual energies upon a given subject, and to keep them steadily fixed upon it until the object of his investigations has been attained! (See INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION.)

AUGUSTANA COLLEGE was founded at Paxton, Ill., in 1863, by the Swedish Augustana Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church. It was removed to Rock Island, Ill., in 1875, where it has buildings, grounds, and apparatus estimated at $50,000 in value. It has a library of 7000 volumes, a faculty of seven professors and two tutors, and 110 students, of whom 92 are in the collegiate department. The chief object of this college is to afford to young men a thorough education at the lowest possible rates (about $100 per annum for tuition, board, and room), and also to prepare young men for the theological seminary connected with it, and for teaching in the parochial schools of the Swedish Lutheran congregations. The Rev. T. N. Hasselquist, D.D., is the president. (1876.)

AUGUSTINE, Saint (Lat. Aurelius Augustinus), a celebrated doctor of the Latin church, and one of the greatest of Christian

AUGUSTINE

teachers and theologians, was born Nov. 13., 354, at Tagaste, in Numidia, the modern Algeria. His father, Patricius, was a pagan; his mother, Monica, a fervid christian. He was sent by his father to the famous school of Madaura, and after the death of his father continued his studies at Carthage. His life at this time was very licentious; but he never forgot the pious instructions which his mother had given him, nor the devotional exercises to which she had accustomed him. Dissatisfied with the religious systems of the ancient Greeks and Romans, as well as with the Jewish and Christian scriptures, he tried to find rest for his mind in the Manichean system. At Rome, to which he went at the age of 29, he achieved great reputation as a teacher of eloquence. Six months later, he was called to Milan as a teacher of rhetoric. His intercourse with Saint Ambrose, who was then bishop of Milan, and the incessant entreaties of his mother, shook his faith in Manicheism, and, in 387, brought about his conversion to Christianity. He became at once one of the most prominent writers of the Christian church; and after spending three years in seclusion at his birthplace Tagaste, he was obliged, in compliance with the demand of the people of the neighboring town of Hippo, to take orders, so that he might assist bishop Valerius in his failing age. After the death of Valerius, in 395, he was elected his successor, and continued bishop of Hippo till his death, in 430. His reputation as a theological writer, soon filled the entire church, and his influence upon theological doctrine and upon the theological schools of the Christian world proved to be greater than that of any one who had preceded him.

The most famous of all the numerous works of Augustine, the Confessions, has also a great educational interest, as it contains the reflections of one of the most distinguished scholars of the Christian church on his own education. He demonstrates, in the clearest light, the strong and imperishable influence of maternal education upon the whole after life of man; and from his touching account of the fierce conflict between the highest intellectual and philosophical aspirations on the one hand, and moral weakness on the other, many prominent teachers have professed to have learned more than from the study of many theories of education.-Augustine followed Tertullian in advocating a rigid exclusion of pagan authors from the education of young Christians. Especially did he oppose the reading of the "impious fables of the poets, the polished lies of the rhetoricians, and the verbose subtleties of the philosophers;" but the reading of the historians he did not absolutely object to. This question as to the use of pagan classics in Christian schools has continued to be a lively controversy in the Christian church; and, even in the nineteenth century, the views of Tertullian and Augustine have found many defenders. (See CHRISTIAN CLASSICS.)

By the establishment of a training institution for candidates for the priesthood, Augustine laid the foundation of episcopal seminaries, and gave a