studies and supervision may be left in the hands of the Principal of the upper department, acting in connection with the officers appointed by law to perform the duties of Visitors. In either case it is of great importance that the arrangements of all the schools should harmonize. Some standard of qualifications is required for each department. When this is ascertained and the different schools organized, the studies should be allotted with reference to the capacities and wants of those in the different departments, so as to give all a full and thorough course so far as circumstances would permit each grade to be taken.

The object of school education should be kept continually in view, and every exercise conducted with reference to those which are to follow, and to the great end of all.

Whenever a system of schools is to be commenced, certain difficulties present themselves, some real, and some imaginary. One of the most serious, to a teacher of limited experience, is the right division of the children into different grades and classes. But this will always yield to the judgment and tact of an ingenious and skillful teacher.

The standard of qualifications for each school, whether established by the teacher, or Board of Visitors, will be decided upon before the day of opening. On that day there will usually be great anxiety manifested by both children and their parents to know the assignments to the several departments. Though the required qualifications have been ever so wisely established, the teachers, especially if strangers, sometimes find it difficult to ascertain the attainments of all. By conducting the examination in writing, as is the case in most schools of the higher grades, the difficulty is in a great measure obviated.

The questions may be printed, and a copy handed to each scholar, or they may be written upon a black-board, or given orally. Each scholar should be provided with writing materials, and allowed a certain length of time to answer the questions in each branch.

Those who would suffer from timidity in an oral examination will soon gain confidence by writing, and the papers containing the answers will exhibit not only the proficiency in the several studies for examination, but also the defects or correctness of orthography, pronunciation, the use of language and penmanship, and will be a fairer test of scholarship than could be obtained otherwise.

The examinations for the secondary department would of course be principally oral.

Care should be taken, that in the organization of the schools too many pupils be not advanced to the Higher Department. It is easier to promote after a few days, than to send to a lower division C*

COMPENDIUM OF U. S. CENSUS.

I know my fellow teachers will pardon me for indulging a few fancies over the matter-of-fact work which is named as the theme of this article. I will not attempt an examination of the deep mine of statistics which it contains, or more accurately which it is. I hope you will be as fortunate as myself in securing for personal use just the work which every teacher needs. Congress has done something worth the teacher's thanks in securing such a compilation, and scattering fifty thousand copies of it over this great land.

But let me not attempt a rhapsody over our patriotic Patres; nor yet a dry concoction or hash of the sober and dry, mathematically longitudinized columns of their slow-born books. Get, by all means, if you can, the book itself, and then you can gather from it a great many things which I shall not allow myself even to introduce into this article. But let us, just a moment, glance over those formidable columns of names, alphabetically arranged with military exactness on pages 338-393.

Fifty-five pages of names, double columned, close packed! Mere names, thirty thousand of them, and figures attached. What a perfect wilderness! and that of names alone! And what names! Long and short, old and new, classical and savage, euphonic and dissonant, facile and unprounceable. Witness. Eel and Bealbarandeadmanbar. Eden & Newry, Scio & Oshkosh, Euphemia & Mauchchunk, Lodi & Schaghticoke; and between these extremes, some thirty thousand others, as unlike and variant as multitudinous-and they all, left, each standing there by itself, to teach its own lesson. And what lessons! Let us look at them and read.

First, of NATIONAL GRATITUDE AND PRIDE. See, that noble name among the W's, repeated so often in those formidable lines. WASHINGTON stands there as representative of city or town, 138 times-oftener than any other name which points to any character conspicuous in our national annals. What a story does that name, so many times repeated, tell us? Every state and territory claims its Washington, would eternize that great name. Nay, many counties of each State must honor and preserve it. The great Ohio, could be satisfied only when she had reared, in as many counties, forty-four noble monuments to its perpetual and growing fame. And Indiana, emulous of the same grateful spirit, has inscribed that dear name on no less than thirty-five of her thriving villages and towns. Now, tell me, as you read over these dry columns, do you not see even them overflowing with the generous spirit of a great nation which never forgets a noble benefoctor and friend?

Next on the list, among the J's, see the prim, up and down JACKSON, standing there 123 times, to tell of one of the most remarkable characters immortalizing our history. A name found oftener, considering its age, than even that of the acknowledged father of his country. Now study its message-its story of manly and impetuous patriotism, of fearless and headstrong heroism, of self-reliant, untamed and untameable force. And if you ask why the Jackson of a later age, seems to crowd so close upon the elder and greater Washington, those gathering names shall remind you how much more noticeable is the sharp lightning which rends the oak than the gentle yet powerful summer heat which built it up, or how the thunder arrests the ear, which heeds never the murmur of the forest breeze.

umns.

And then, what lessons of BIOGRAPHY one may read from those colThe leading incidents in our national statesmanship and our military achievements are there eloquently sketched. Seventy-five times the name of JEFFERSON, thirty-two times that of CLAY, twenty-six times that of ADAMS, and I will not detail the rest, agree in pointing out to you the names greatest among the statesmen, and so in sketching for you the salient points of our civil growth.

And what successors of heroism cluster around such names as WARREN and WAYNE, as PUTNAM and PERRY, as HARRISON and GATES, as MARION, TAYLOR and SCOTT. More than three hundred times will you find those names, and thrice as often a long list of kindred ones, against each of which you may safely record some deed of daring, some triumph of valor, needed in achieving or in maintaining our nationality.

And, once more, for I am exceeding my limits though not my theme, what an insight into our NATIONAL SPIRIT do these columns furnish. They speak, nay, they shout to us of LIBERTY. Sixty-four times that name is echoed by ten thousand sons from Maine to farthest Arkansas; as if the children of '76 were determined that neither the name nor the spirit should ever die out. Nor is this enough. You see the determination, inscribing FREEDOM and INDEPENDENCE, on thirty-seven of our youthful and aspiring towns, to "grow with their growth and strengthen with their strength."

And, as if this spirit were universal, and bent on an integral and eternal prosperity, just notice that long bond of UNION—that pledge of UNITY—a chain now bright with its 118 golden links, binding together these great States into a loving and indissoluble sisterhood. Who can

for a moment doubt what is the most essential spirit of our national aim and purpose, when our villages and towns, and streets even, wear such

names.

But I must not dwell longer on these lessons, taught by that census of names. Turn over those pages for yourselves and you will see how we are honoring the names that have shed such a lustre on our past history. FRANKLIN, the statesman and philosopher is remembered there; nor can be forgotten while those eighty-five towns wear his honored name. MUNROE, MADISON, CLINTON, MORRIS, and hosts of others still, are all chronicled there, treasured among the precious legacies given us by the past, to be transmitted along the generations of our future history.

Nor will that long list omit the names of LAFAYETTE, KOSCIUSKO, PULASKI, STEUBEN, or even of KossUTH; for they, too, are ours in sympathy and aim, and they shall be with us to share whatever of historic greatness we are to achieve.

But there is one name, famous, or infamous, rather, among those which stand conspicuous on our revolutionary scroll, for which you look over that census list in vain.

No State in this great confederacy, no city among the multitude of cities, no town among the thousands of towns from Eastport to San Diego, down to 1855, has consented to wear that ever execrable name, ARNOLD; So that, while every page of those columned names, speaks to us of a nation's gratitude and faithful care of all that a nation should know and preserve, no page is found to perpetuate a name loaded only with the infamy which seeks the doom it merits, a nation's execration or neglect. H.

DUTY AND PLEASURE.

The old year's reign was almost ended. A few hours would bring the sound of joyous welcomings to the "New Year." At this auspicious moment two guarding spirits, that oft traverse this sphere, spread their pinions and again directed their course thitherward to seek and secure new followers from among those of Earth's sons and daughters who were, with the opening year to enter actively upon the world's broad stage.

The two were Duty and Pleasure; the former, a stern guide in whose paths it is often difficult and even painful to follow, yet true happiness will surely be to those who continue therein; the latter, a gay, fleeting deceiver, always promising but never bringing happiness to its votaries.

Twilight deepened, and beautiful Luna's bright face looked serenely down, while legions of stars peeped merrily forth to keep their night-vigils o'er the snow-robed Earth.

The two spirits hastened on their missions, each earnest for its own

cause.

66

They paused at the home of a happy circle where were two fair young girls about to decide their course of action. This world is very joyous, and many are its pleasures. You shall frequent gay, festive scenes and brilliant gatherings where, with your regal beauty, you will be the pride and reigning star, and admiration will ever surround you. Go with me and find happiness. I am the spirit of Pleasure! " Duty whispered, "Stay! You are for a higher purpose than to seek such fleeting, worldly pleasures. Find work to do. Teach your fellow beings to be noble, good and true; aid to till the vast mental field, and bring to light some hidden gem that needs but the kind, earnest teachings of a gentle heart to win it to the path of right, and your reward will be glorious!"

The gay, easy life that Pleasure pictured lured the more world-loving of these sisters, and she clung to transient, earthly scenes for happiness. But the low, earnest tones of Duty touched the other's heart, and she found work to do, and entered faithfully upon a teacher's labors.

Which of these sisters trod in the pathway that leads to true happiness? Which had the lightest heart when the next New Year's greetings were exchanged? "Ah! where is the joy that was promised to me one long year ago? I have eagerly sought for pleasure, but none that is lasting have I yet found. All is fleeting and is gone with the winds!" So sadly murmured the vain young pleasure-seeker as she stood all radiant with beauty, and decked in costly robes, ready for another gorgeous assembling in halls of revelry. But far different were the thoughts and feelings of Duty's follower as she sat musing in her quiet home that night. "I would not exchange my place for that of any in the world of gayety; no! true happiness is found only in doing good." She was a true, a faithful teacher, and had by her kind words and gentle warnings gained the love of many young hearts, and many bright eyes looked upon her as a noble example, as a model worthy of imitation. This joy. was hers because" she had done what she could," she had striven to obey the wise teachings of our Great Teacher, and Paul's injunction "to do good, and to communicate forget not."

Brother and sister teachers, it is ours to follow the dictates of duty, ours to encounter life's stern realities, ours to break down the barriers that ignorance and vice have raised, ours to lead and direct in the way of knowledge and truth, but we must not falter though we find a "shady side" upon our field, though the " storm may come," and the "reef and whirlpool" be upon our sea.

The reward of grateful hearts will be ours if our work is well done. Why should we heed the temptations of earth's gay pleasures when so