EDITORIAL MISCELLANY.

PERSONAL.-E. E. WHITE, Commissioner of Common Schools, has been elected Superintendent of the schools of Portsmouth, Ohio, at a salary of $2,500 a year-several leading citizens uniting with the Board in guaranteeing this salary. Mr. WHITE had charge of the Portsmouth schools for four years, removing from that city to this in 1861, and his recall at the largest salary paid any Superintendent in the State, is a very handsome compliment. He will, however, probably decline the position, and reenter upon the publishing of the Ohio Educational Monthly and the Institute work. His term of office as School Commissioner expires on the 11th of February.-Morning Journal.

It is not often that we permit any complimentary reference to us to appear in these pages; but the transaction recorded in the above paragraph, is an endorsement so gratifying that we beg to be excused for its insertion. It comes from a generous, whole-souled people, whose good-will and confidence we both respect and appreciate. We have reluctantly declined the position, regretting, most of all, that our lot is not to be cast among the many true and tried friends who are ready to bid us welcome. While our pen is personally inclined, we wish to thank our friends in the east who have invited us to positions worthy of our acceptance and ambition. We may be making a mistake, but duty seems to point in the direction we have chosen.

NATIONAL BUREAU OF EDUCATION.-The first step in Congress looking toward the establishment of a National Bureau of Education, has been taken. Mr. DONNELLY, of Minnesota, has introduced into the House the following resolution which was agreed

to:

"WHEREAS, Republican institutions can find permanent safety only upon the basis of the universal intelligence of the people, and whereas the great disasters which have afflicted the nation, and desolated one-half of its territory, are traceable, in a great degree, to the absence of common schools and general education among the people of the lately rebellious States: Therefore,

"Resolved, That the joint committee on Reconstruction be instructed to inquire into the expediency of establishing in this capital a National Bureau of Education, whose duty it shall be to enforce education without regard to race or color, upon the population of all such States, as shall fall below a standard to be established by Congress, and to inquire whether such a Bureau should not be made an essential and permanent part of any system of reconstruction."

The Illinois State Association has spoken and has been heard at Washington. Why does not Ohio speak? At the Cincinnati meeting a committee was appointed to memorialize Congress upon this subject. Bro. HARTSHORN, where is said memorial ? A committee was also appointed by the National Association. A united, vigorous effort will secure the much-needed legislation. Now is the golden opportunity.

WARREN COUNTY TEACHERS' ASSOCIATION.-The meeting at Waynesville on the 8th and 9th days of December, was one of the largest and most spirited local educational gatherings it has ever been our privilege to attend. The teachers of the county turned out in force, if not en masse, and the citizens of the village and vicinity manifested a most commendable interest in the exercises. The church was crowded day and evening.

Mr. HANCOCK, of Cincinnati, gave two excellent lectures. Mr. BUTTS, of Cincinnati, gave an exposition of the methods of teaching Arithmetic in the Cincinnati schools. Mr. RICHARDSON, of Cincinnati, Mr. MCCLINTOCK, of Waynesville, Mr. FINCH, of Franklin, Mr. TUFT, of Maineville, and others, also gave instructive and

valuable lectures, and topics of practical interest were discussed. The published proceedings fill five columns in the Western Star.

Warren county has a school record second to no other county in the State. In wages paid teachers and in length of time schools are continued, the county leads all others -Hamilton county excepted. We were pleased to learn that in several townships, a school visitor is appointed to visit the schools, counsel with teachers, examine classes, deliver public lectures, etc. The Association meets again at Morrow on the second Saturday in January.

HOLIDAY INSTITUTES.-We have as yet received returns from but few of the Institutes held during the Holidays. The one at Findlay was largely attended, and was a decided success. Instruction was given by Mr. NESTLERODE, of Fostoria, and by Messrs. MILLER and VANHORN, of Findlay. Evening lectures were given by Messrs. NESTLERODE and MILLER. A resolution was adopted recommending county superintendents. The MONTHLY was not forgotten as is shown by a good list of subscribers. The Institute at Cambridge was favored with the instructions of Col. DE WOLF, Supt. of the Toledo Schools, and Prof. KIDD. The following evidence that their labors were acceptable has been sent us by the Secretary:

"Resolved, That we as an Institute present to Prof. KIDD and Col. DE WOLF our thanks for the plain, practical, and highly interesting exercises with which they favored us."

The Institute at Bellaire was fortunate in securing the services of Pres. ANDREWS, of Marietta, and Mr. CowDERY, of Sandusky. Mr. BURTT, of Pittsburg, and Mr. RICHARDSON, of Cincinnati, also gave acceptable instruction.

The Institute at West Union was a good one. Profs. TAPPAN and YOUNG, of Ohio University, were the instructors.

The Institute at Celina was well attended, and spirited. Home instructors and lecturers were relied upon. Mr. DE FORD is an earnest worker in the good cause.

CINCINNATI. We have received a copy of the Annual Report for the year ending June 30, 1865. We have not time this month to make an analysis or even to give a summary of the statistics it contains. It shows that the course of the schools is onward and upward. The Saturday Normal Institute which was held during the first three months of the current year, was an experiment, resulting in much good to the schools. It strikes us that a good Normal or Training School would be a valuable addition to the schools of the city. The School Board has appointed a committee to memorialize the Legislature to obtain authority to assess two and a half mills school tax instead of two mills as now prescribed by law.

MASSACHUSETTS.-The State Teachers' Association held their twenty-first annual meeting at Boston, commencing October 12. The experiment of changing the time from "Thanksgiving week" to an earlier date, proved a perfect success. Twenty-five hundred teachers of the Old Bay State were present, school committees throughout the State generally consenting to the closing of the schools to permit their attendance. The exercises were pleasant, profitable, and spirited throughout. The subjects brought prominently before the Association were: A National System of Education, Methods of Teaching, Spelling, Short Time System, Teaching the Syntax of the Latin and Greek Languages, A proper Course of Study, etc. Such an immense gathering of the teachers of the State, with the consequent enthusiasm and esprit du corps which it must have awakened, can not fail to give a strong impulse to the work of education in that State. JAMES S. EATON, Principal of the English Department of Phillips' Academy, Andover, died Oct. 10. He was a very successful educator, and the author of the popular series of Arithmetics which bears his name.

INDIANA. A normal school law, substantially the same as the one proposed a year ago, has been enacted by the Legislature at its present session. How long before Ohio will take this important step for the advancement of her school interests?

THE MICHIGAN TEACHER. We welcome the appearance of this creditable organ of the profession in our sister State. It is edited with good taste and ability by WILLIAM H. PAYNE, of Niles, and C. L. WHITNEY, of Dowagiac, who alone assume the responsibility of its publication. We hope that their moderate anticipations will be more than realized, and that the Teacher may long shine as a candle set in a sure place. It gave us pain to chronicle the suspension of the Journal of Education in 1861. It will be a shame if the teachers of Michigan permit that history to be repeated in the case of their present beautifully-printed organ.

MICHIGAN.-Prof. A. S. WELCH has resigned the position of Principal of the State Normal School which he has so long and ably filled, and has removed to Florida with a view of improving his impaired health. Hon. J. M. GREGORY, late State Superintendent of Public Instruction, now President of Kalamazoo College, has been invited to the position thus made vacant. We do not know another educator in Michigan so well fitted to be Prof. WELCH's successor.

WHAT'S THE MATTER?-We have not received a number of the Vermont School Journal since March. It commenced the year with a new editor and a new publisher. Have their hearts failed them?

We have also missed the Conn. Common School Jonrnal since July. Can it be that ill has at last befallen this old and honored journal? Friend NORTHEND, here is our hand. Have the teachers of Connecticut permitted your purse to become empty?

The Kansas Educational Journal for September and October, a double number, has just reached us. This looks like a desperate struggle to reach shore, but the greatly improved appearance of the magazine shows that it is determined to merit long life, whatever may be its fate. Kansas is full of pluck, and we trust its teachers have the same spirit.

RHODE ISLAND.-The pluckiest of all the State school journals is the R. I. Schoolmaster. It comes through the war improved in appearance, and apparently as full of years as it is of honors. Truly, the spirit of ROGER WILLIAMS still lives in "Little Rhody."

WILBERFORCE UNIVERSITY.-The trustees of this institution are making an effort to raise the necessary funds with which to rebuild the college edifice. The buildings, worth $50,000, and insured for only $8,000, were burned to the ground in April last by an incendiary. We hope that the efforts of the colored people to provide themselves with the facilities for obtaining a higher education, will be crowned with complete success.

A POST-SCRIPT.-Our "Up-North" contributor sends the following happy postscript to his excellent letter in this number:

"P. S.-Our Board of Education have, since the foregoing was written, increased the salaries of our Superintendent to $2,100; the Principals of our High Schools to $1,800; the Principals of our Grammar or District Schools to $1,500; also, Mr. Norton's of the Central High School, to $1,500.

Y. T."

Our advice to other Boards of Education in the State is, to go and do likewise.

BENJ. B. STEWART, first assistant in the First Intermediate School of Cincinnati, has resigned to connect himself with Nelson's Commercial College.

GEN'L S. F. CARY has assumed the entire supervision and direction of the Ohio Female College, the corps of teachers remaining unchanged. We learn that President ANDERSON has proved himself a most efficient man for the place, and that the institution is in complete working order.

W. R. WOOLMAN, for more than twelve years connected with the Public Schools of Cincinnati, has resigned to go into business.

BOOK NOTICES.

CHANDLER'S NEW GRAMMAR AND ANALYSIS. By Z. M. CHANDLER. Published by Beer & Hurd, Zanesville, O. Pp. 228.

This book, kindly sent me by the publishers, has been for months in my possession. I have occasionally used it in reference to some topics. I have shown it to some of my colleagues and to my more intelligent and reflecting pupils. All have approved of its execution: they thought it better than any other grammar of the same size and grade that they were acquainted with. With this opinion, my own entirely coincides. To be sure, if I had space enough to write a full review of it, as I did in my letter to the publishers, I could allude to several points of higher or lesser importance, on which I differ from it, and, indeed, from all other American grammars, which have not yet caught the spirit of logical analysis that has long characterized our grammars on the other side of the Atlantic. There grammarians no longer follow servilely in the footsteps of Lindley Murray, one of the honored pioneers in grammatical inquiry, and who did a noble work in his day, but whose labors ought now to be superseded by those of more philosophical inquirers into the laws and characteristics of the common language of England and America.

Mr. Chandler, like other American grammarians, clings to the old forms imported (forced I would be inclined to say) from the grammars of an entirely different class of languages-the inflected or terminational, such as Latin or Greek. Their common fault, as I have expressed it before in this journal, is, that they persist in viewing the etymological part of English grammar by light refracted through the false and distorting medium of the classical languages.

The merit of the American grammars consists in the analysis of the sentence. In that respect, our English grammars were greatly inferior to such works as Greene's Analysis. I do not know what progress in this direction may have been made since I left England. But it is in the classification of the various parts of speech, of the modes and tenses of verbs, in a clear and forcible representation of the genius or characteristics of the English tongue, that such works as Dr. Crombie's, Ch. Connon's, John Mulligan's, Latham's, etc., are far in advance of similar works in this country. But to return to Chandler's grammar. I prefer it to others of its class, because 1. It contains fewer of those false views that I have alluded to, though, here and there, the cloven foot shows itself, and the author speaks, for instance, of putting a noun in the objective case, in order to express some relation to a verb or a preposition, as if some special manipulation were needed for the purpose, some changes of form similar to what takes place in a Greek or Latin noun.

2. Each section begins with a synoptical table, exhibiting the whole subject in a clear, condensed form. I may find fault with some of the arrangements; I may think they could be made more logical, more consonant with the facts of the language, which are the true and only foundation of all grammatical knowledge; but the principle itself is excellent, and is one of the characteristic features of this grammar.

3. The syntactical analysis of sentences is represented by simple and clear diagrams. Here let due honor be ascribed to Clarke, to whom we are indebted, I believe, for the happy thought of making such analysis tangible, as it were, by diagrams. But Chandler's are superior. There is, however, a still simpler form, introduced, I think, into the school of Salem, Columbiana county, by my dear friend Reuben McMillen, once its beloved Superintendent, now of Youngstown.

4. It contains a judicious selection of model sentences and exercises.

5. With respect to specimens of false grammar for correction, I would respectfully suggest to the author, that in the next edition, which I hope the increasing popularity of his work will soon render necessary, he should substitute for made-up instances of bad grammar, quotations from popular American authors exhibiting similar aberrations or eccentricities. I have pages of such instances, taken from the most popular English writers of this and the preceding generation. From the little I have done in collecting similar specimens from popular American authors, I think it would be an easy task to accumulate a sufficient number. These, I believe, would strike the young learner more forcibly than sentences which he knows or suspects were manufactured for his own special edification, in order to kindle a virtuous indignation in his youthful bosom. It would, besides, serve to impress upon his mind the useful warningnever to allow himself to write hastily and carelessly; for if gifted minds, through momentary inadvertence, have let such mistakes slip from their pens, marring the beauty of their thoughts and language, how much more does it behoove us, common mortals, who can not plead the lofty compensation of genius in extenuation of our offense, to pay scrupulous attention to the correction of whatever we venture to write for the perusal of others, lest our meaning be obscured or distorted, and the taste of our readers be offended by clumsy or ungrammatical forms of expression!

T. E. S.

EATON'S QUESTIONS ON THE PRINCIPLES OF ARITHMETIC. Taggard & Thompson, Publishers, 29 Cornhill, Boston.

This little work is something new. It contains an admirably selected and well classified series of questions on the principles of arithmetic. It will be found of great assistance to examiners and teachers in preparing questions for the examination of classes; to students in testing their familiarity with the principles of arithmetic; and to classes in reviewing what they have gone over. One great merit of the questions is, that they are adapted to any series of text-books, being designed to develop the subject rather than to afford a basis for reviewing some particular text-book. The price of the book (12 cts. per copy or $9 per hundred) places it within reach of all

teachers.

AFFIXES IN THEIR ORIGIN AND APPLICATION, exhibiting the Etymologic Structure of English Words. By S. S. HALDEMAN, A.M. Philadelphia: E. H. Butler & Co. This work, the production of a ripe scholar,-an ethnologist as well as linguist,— supplies a want long felt and acknowledged in our higher institutions of learning. Except this, there is no treatise on affixes, worthy to be called such, accessible to the American student. There may be some difference of opinion with regard to its adaptability as a class-book,-but those having a taste for etymological studies can not afford to be without it, and no teacher of the English or any other language can make it anything else than an indispensable vade mecum, when he knows and appreciates its value. It is not a reckless" catalogue of guesses," but the matured product of widelyextended, laborious research. It is thorough, exhaustive, well-classified, and, in wide contrast with some school-books we have seen, its typography is beautiful. We trust it will meet with a large sale in the Great West.

T. W. H.