to convey the idea that the nerves of sensation do not act acutely. When a blind man's fingers are so benumbed as to interfere with his ability to read raised letters, he might properly say, "I feel badly." Badly is also improperly used for greatly or much. Instead of "I want greatly to see it," or "I want to see it very much," we sometimes hear "I want to see it very badly.”

JOHN BRIGHT ON EDUCATION.

[John Bright lately delivered an address before a Sunday-school conference in Rochdale, in which he urged the importance of universal education, citing the example of New England in support of his views: ]

"Mr. Ellice, the very eminent member of the House of Commons for Coventry, traveled in America, as he had done two or three times before, very near the close of his life, some six or seven years ago. He visited Canada and the United States; and in a conversation which I had with him after his return, he said that in those New England States there was the most perfect government in the world, there was the most equal condition, and most universal comfort amongst the people; and he said that the whole population, he believed, were more instructed, more moral, and more truly happy than other equal population had been in any country or in any age of the world. [Cheers.] The whole of this is to be traced, not to the soil, not to the climate; but it is to be traced, I believe, to the extraordinary care which the population, from the days of the Pilgrim Fathers until now, have taken with every child, boy and girl, that they should be thoroughly instructed, at least in the common branches of learning. [Hear, hear.] The census shows that, speaking generally, there is scarcely to be found one person, one native American certainly, and you could not find one out of many hundreds in the New England States, who can not read and write. [Hear, hear.] Now the influence of those States is enormous. Though only small States, containing not more than one-tenth of the whole population of the American Union, yet the influence of their opinions is felt to the remotest corners of that vast territory. [Hear, hear.] In New England they consider their plan as the only plan. They have tried it for two hundred years. Its success is beyond all contest it is absolutely complete. [Hear, hear.] There is nothing like it that has been equally successful in the world. And what our Puritan ancestors have done (I know they were our ancestors as well as theirs) in the States, if the people of England had the sense to comprehend their true interests, they might compel to be done in the country in which we live. [Loud cheers.]'

EXPERIENCES.

MY DEAR FRIEND: You ask my opinion as to what should be learned by children under eight years of age, and wish to have my personal experience in the matter, although you know that that has been very limited. Indeed it is only during the last year and a half that I have taught children so young, my teaching before that time having been, as I believe you know, of girls from eight and nine to fifteen years old. I do not see that I can answer your question better than by telling you just what I have been doing with my little class, as I am well satisfied with the results so far, and am inclined to think that though there may be other theories as good as mine, or better, yet this is one way, and a good one. At least it has proved interesting both to teacher and children.

My class, when I began with it, in October, 1864, consisted of about half a dozen children, mostly girls, between six and seven years old. All knew their letters, and could read a little, only two, however, with any readiness, even the smallest words; and they were the only ones, I believe, who could print at all. Of course they knew nothing else of school studies, and none of them had been to school or had had any systematic teaching. I began with one session of three hours, and have not increased it. Probably next year I shall add another hour, and give more recess.

My first object was, and is, to make them love school; and that not by making a mere amusement of it,-for they love play already, and little would be gained by giving them only another form of play,-but by making the acquisition of knowledge delightful to them. For this, of course, the first requisite was an atmosphere of happiness in the school-room and I believe this is very much more within the teacher's control thin teachers generally understand. A bright expression of face, a cheery voice, a look of sympathy with the children, as if you were on their side, and enjoying their presence and pursuits-these things put the teacher in such a relation with them as will go very far towards making them feel exactly as she would have them, and like to do just what she wants them to do. I should quite like to enlarge on this point to you, as I believe its importance can not be over-estimated; but you asked what a child can and should be taught, and will not thank me for straying off on side questions, however interesting.

Of course the first thing was the reading, and its invariable accompaniments, spelling and writing, which I believe should begin and continue with it. A child can form a letter on the slate and blackboard as soon as he can recognize its form at sight, and can arrange the letters of a word from memory as soon as he can read the word. With regard to the much vexed question of how children should be taught to read, I have little experience, and I am inclined to think that a great deal of breath is wasted on the subject by the advocates of the various systems. All children learn to read, and I suppose no way is so stupid and unphilosophical that it will prevent a child's learning. Even the old fashioned method of naming each separate letter first, though so much berated by modern system-makers of all kinds, has the undeniable vantage ground of long experience in its favor-we all learned in that way, and what children

have done, children may do. Still there are, no doubt, quicker and pleasanter, if not more efficacious methods, and without going into the details of the different methods, I may say, for my own part, that I think no rational teacher will be bigoted in the use of any one to the exclusion of all others. The eclectic system, however to be reprobated in medicine, is essential in teaching. But you want my practice, not my theory. When I began with this class all knew a little of reading, as I said; but one I had taught from the beginning, and I will tell you how. I had for years believed in teaching by the sounds of the letters, not their names, my attention being first called to the subject in 1848, by a little primer printed by Dr. Kraitsir, in which the lessons were arranged on that principle. Remembering this, when two years ago, or rather less, I wanted to teach a little fellow just six years old, I bought for the purpose Miss Peabody's First Lessons, prepared in the same manner. But I found it altogether unsatisfactory, and I am quite sure that it is based on a wrong principle, in assuming the Italian sounds of the vowels as a foundation,-a principle which necessitates such violations of pronunciation as to render whole series of examples worthless. So I threw the book aside. While deliberating as to the best thing to do next, and after elaborating quite in detail a plan of reading lessons, based on our simple short and long vowel sounds, I saw an advertisement of Mr. Zachos' Phonic Reader. I got a copy, and finding to my great satisfaction that his theory of sounds was the same as my own, I set to work with great zeal to indoctrinate my young pupil. I taught him the whole alphabet, by sound merely, and then proceeded regularly with the reading lessons. Everything worked to a charm--he was very much interested, and made rapid progress. But Mr. Zachos' senseless sentences were too much at last for even our enthusiasm; and though he told us distinctly to read with great expression, and bring out the meaning of each sentence, we found this so difficult and sometimes so impossi ble a task that we were quite discouraged, and after reading continually fewer sentences in each lessson, we at last merely read the columns of words at the head, and so slipped easily through the book. When I began with the class this boy read as well as the best among them, and could always, and can still find out new words more easily than any. In spelling, he is generally behind those who learned in the arbitrary way; he finds it more difficult to commit to memory the words that are not spelled as they are pronounced, and in writing from dictation a lesson that has not been studied, he makes, perhaps, more mistakes than the others, though he never, as they do, writes a word so that it does not pronounce rightly; but his spellings are phonic, if often ludicrously wrong.

I put the class at once upon the sounds of the letters, and I should never teach reading without making that the principal basis, however I might vary the teaching in other respects. I may as well tell you here of the only child I have taught from the beginning, a little girl of scarcely five, who began with me this winter. I took the first of Willson & Calkins' Charts, having single words and a picture by each word. Those containing the short vowel sounds only are as follows:

You see there is no short i-that list is by itself and I could not use it be cause it contained double consonants and other combinations that should not be given so early. This list as it stands does not present a very good selection of words as you will readily see, but it has the merit of being free from any soft c's and g's, or other consonant perplexities, and it contains every letter in the alphabet except q, v, w, y and z. It might as well have had these. Well, I taught these words to my little girl, by the aid of the accompanying pictures, at the same time making her divide each into its component sounds, c (hard, of course,) a t, etc., till she knew each word pretty well, even when I covered the picture, though I was by no means sure that she would recognize them in any other place. This was the work of only three or four lessons. Then, just to try her, I took the alphabet, in order, and pointing to each letter, asked her its sound. She looked at a, and I heard her say to herself "c a," and then “a” aloud. b, "that's the first letter in bat," she said, and gave the sound. And so through them all. Some of them she hesitated longer over, especially those that occurred but once, or only in the latter words that we had not studied quite so thoroughly. But I believe she thought them out in every instance, aided undoubtedly by a faculty of picturing things before her mind's eye, which has always been marked in her. She saw the columns, and each word in its place, almost as distinctly as if the chart were still before her, and hunted over them for the desired letter till she came to it. She puzzled for a long time over m. At last she exclaimed, "Oh, there it is, the very last letter of all, in dwum,” for she couldn't quite roll her r's then, and is not very skillful yet. She read after that a good many columns in Zachos, and I wrote sentences on the blackboard for her, giving her constantly new sounds, and then put her into Sheldon's First Reading Lessons, which she has read about half through. If you have occasion to use such a book, I advise you by all means to get it; it is far prettier than Hillard's or Sargent's, and is only rivaled in my recollection by "Little Crumbs," a charming little English reading book, which it very much resembles.

But when I began with my class, I knew no Sheldon, and took Sargent's Primary, which we followed with Hillard's Second, and then Hillard's Third, which we read more than half through before the middle of July brought the summer vacation. In September we began again, and are now in Hillard's Fourth Reader. They read and spell every day, their spelling lessons as such being recited viva voce, as by far the quickest method. But they write a great deal on their slates and on the blackboard, and, of course, that is a constant exercise in spelling. They printed only until May, when they were taught the writing letters, each separately, and now they write quite respectably on slates or paper. They have never had ink, but copy with a pencil into a blank book every week some lesson, either of their own composition or written from dictation, which they have prepared on their slates. They like this very much; it is a more permanent monument of their industry and progress, and can be carried home to receive the sympathy and approbation always ready for them there. A very good and pleasant exercise I find the writing from memory of the poetry that they learn once a week, and they have learned to divide the lines and put in the capitals and punctuation excellently. It is not worth while

to enter into any more detail on these points; the variety of modes of interesting children in reading, writing and spelling is absolutely endless, and your ingenuity will suggest as many as mine. Indeed you will soon find that ingenuity, if not one of the most important qualifications of a teacher, is one of those most frequently required.

The reading lessons are always accompanied by lessons in the analysis of sounds, which I vary in form almost every day; and in spelling they are constantly called on to notice the silent letters, the vowel sounds, the different ways of producing the same sounds, or the different sounds produced in the same way, etc. All these things are simply matters of course when one's attention is once drawn to them. I must tell you that reading, spelling and poetry are the only lessons these children study; and even they were only begun as studies during the last quarter of the first year. Even now, I am not very strict about the spelling, unless I have seen a disposition to idleness (the unpardonable sin in our busy community), but generally have a misspelled word corrected by another pupil, then spelled in concert by the class, and then by the delinquent.— A. B. W., in Mass. Teacher.

A FEW THOUGHTS ON THE "EDUCATIONAL PROBLEM."

[We give below the concluding portion of an address delivered by the editor of this journal at the late commencement exercises of the Salem High School. The central thought of the address was, that the inner resources and character of man-his inner life-constitute the source of his success and influence. We copy from the Salem Republican:]

The principles which I have thus tried to elucidate, have a practical exemplification in this day's exercises. The roots of all that we have heard and been delighted with, run back under the soil of years of disciplinary culture and training. The graduating essay is but the resultant of preceding lessons and native talent. What these pupils are in thought, feeling, impulse and purpose, is the fruit of every preceding hour's wrestling with truth, of every past self-denial, of every self-conquest, of every cherished aspiration and endeavor. Here is every hour's patient instruction of these faithful teachers, every word of good counsel, every reproof, every admonition. Nothing has been lost. It is all here, if not in actual fruit, in blossom, or bud, or in life-bearing power. And the influence and success of these pupils as they shall go out from this school into the school of life, will be modified, if not actually determined, by the long succession of duties and privileges which this day terminates. The tree does not bend beneath its burden of luscious fruit as the result of a single day's sunshine, but rather as the rich product of the continued and costly nurture of years of sun, and dew, and shower. Not a ray of sun-light has played over it, not a rain-drop or dew-drop has jeweled its leaves, not a breeze has swayed its branches, without contributing to the burden of glory which now crowns it. So in life. The successful performance of the simplest of to-day's duties may place under tribute a whole life time of preparation; and to-morrow's failure