Trees of about ten or twelve inches in diameter are considered by our author as a medium size, being easily manageable in their removal, and large enough to produce an immediate effect upon the landscape, and to oppose sufficient resistance to the storm. The roots of the tree to be removed having first been carefully laid bare to their minutest extremities, the common transplanting machine, consisting of a strong pole mounted upon high wheels, is then attached to it, and it is carefully pulled out of the soil. Both the roots and branches are tied up for fear of injury, and so balanced against each other, that a nice equilibrium is preserved. It is then removed with but little trouble to the pit prepared for its reception. In placing it in the ground, the former position of the tree in regard to the weather side is reversed, that is, the lee side, where its branches have shot out more freely, and in an opposite direction to the prevailing high winds, is now to be turned towards them, so as to correct any irregular or sidelong shape which they may have acquired, and thus restore the balance and symmetry of the top. The practice of mutilating or pruning the removed tree is condemned in the strongest terms, as almost sure to prove fatal to its vigor; and the most delicate nicety is recommended, in the work of rearranging the roots in their original position in the ground. This is only a slight sketch, indeed, of the process, but sufficient, perhaps, to give a general idea of the points in which it differs from those which have ordinarily been pursued. The reasons assigned for each step in this process are such, it seems to us, as must hold good in all climates, and everywhere. But it is complained by Mr. Downing, in the Appendix to his first volume, that the Allantonian system has not been attended, in this country, with even tolerable success. One of the supposed reasons which he assigns for this result is, that the climate of Scotland, where Sir Henry Steuart's experiments were made, is, in some respects, and particularly that of dampness, exactly opposite to that of the United States. But we are inclined to believe, that there is nothing in any part of Sir Henry's process, upon which Mr. Downing could place his finger and say that it is detrimental, in any particular climate, to the vigor of the transplanted tree. We think the reason must rather be sought in the other difficulties which he names; a want of skill in performing the operation, arising chiefly from ignorance of the nature of the vital action of plants, and from a bad or improper selection of subjects on which the operation is performed. But it should be recollected, that Sir Henry Steuart's treatise is especially precise upon these two very points, so that we cannot see the propriety of making the admissions which Mr. Downing allows to be necessary, and yet rejecting the method in question as unsatisfactory. Unless the nicest attention is bestowed upon an unimpaired preservation of the vital action of the tree, as well as upon the choice and preparatory induration of every individual subject of removal, it cannot be said, that Sir Henry's method has been followed in its most important particulars. Any degree of carelessness in regard to either of these steps is quite enough to insure a failure; and if it happen, there is no reason why it should be charged to the fault of the theory. Such a proceeding is like treating a patient to a thorough system of depletion, and then complaining that his course of tonics has done him no manner of good. It is assuming the inefficacy of a course of treatment the very reverse of that which has actually been followed. We cannot allow our faith in the success of the method of which we have spoken to be so easily disturbed. This will require a greater degree of proof, and of a higher kind, than any which we have as yet seen adduced. When it shall be fully established, that a sound and healthy tree, standing exposed, in its original position, to the action of the light and air on all sides, has been delicately laid bare around its roots and their fibres, has been remoyed with ordinary care, and placed in a soil prepared beforehand, after the directions of Sir Henry Steuart, with its top left entirely unmutilated, and its roots carefully incorporated with the surrounding earth, and all these operations have been carried on with that scrupulous nicety which is so strictly enjoined in "The Planter's Guide," and the subject of them has yet failed to live and flourish, we will at once yield to the force of the evidence, and admit that a difference of climate, or some other unknown cause, prevents the system in question from being successfully adopted in North AmeriBut until these facts are shown, we see no just reason to doubt the unanimous opinion of the Highland Society, ca. ter." that "the art of transplantation, as practised by Sir Henry Steuart, is calculated to accelerate, in an extraordinary degree, the power of raising wood, whether for beauty or shelWe must resort to the Hibernicism of saying, that we believe the reason why the system has failed is, that it has never been tried among us; and we heartily commend this point to the notice of every person possessing an interest in the question, or in whom we may have been so fortunate as to excite one. In conclusion, we cannot but rejoice at the appearance of any publications which indicate that a real interest for the charms of external nature exists in the hearts of our countrymen. A lively sensibility to natural beauties will be found to lie at the bottom of the sweetest and purest poetry in our language, and of much even that is highest and holiest in the human soul. "O, friendly to the best pursuits of man, Friendly to thought, to virtue, and to peace, exclaimed the gentle and contemplative Cowper, and in all ages has this truth been distinctly recognized. Hope, sympathy, faith, piety, love, — all find solace in the charms of nature, and grow stronger by looking upon them with an humble heart. The herdsman in "The Excursion" had passed his youth among the mountains, and there had learned to feel his faith; and whether, in spirit, with the poet. of Rydal mount, we climb the precipitous steeps of Helvellyn, or stroll adown "The banks and braes o' bonnie Doon," with the peasant whose sorrows have made them immortal; whether, with the "Wizard of the North," we frighten the stag from his midnight lair "In lone Glenartney's hazle shade," or lie musing beside the sweet bard of Avon, "under the shady greenwood tree," in the forest of Arden, we see, in all, the outward circumstance that gave rise to their poetical emotion, and cease to wonder at the impulse which gave it utterance in verse. It is the voice of true nature coming from the heart, and going to the heart of all humanity. When the saintly Walton stops his discourse of angling, to "sit down under this honeysuckle hedge," and tell his scholar "what holy Mr. Herbert says of such days and such flowers as these," whose spirit does not leap up within him, and, turning back the tide of two centuries, transport him, though it should be three thousand miles away, to the thatched house at Hoddesden, or to “ noble Mr. Sadler's," on Amwell hill ? The verdant meadow, where Maudlin entertained the anglers with her choice song, becomes present and visible to his imagination, and still smells as sweet as when they were last this way a fishing." He hears the birds in the adjoining grove renew their friendly contention with the echo, whose dead voice seemed to live in a hollow tree, near to the brow of that primrose hill." He lives in the company of nature, and is content with that communion. He turns aside, without one feeling of regret, from the gilded follies, the glorious bubbles, of the world and of public life, and is glad, with Sir Henry Wotton, to exclaim, "Welcome, pure thoughts! welcome, ye silent groves! ART. III. Seventh Annual Report of the Secretary of the [Massachusetts] Board of Education. Common School Journal. Boston. Vol. VI. pp. 65 - 196. We have already noticed, with high commendation, this excellent Report; and we now return to it, not for the purpose of giving it any further examination as a whole, but in order to consider a single topic which is incidentally brought into it, and in respect to which we are compelled to dissent from the opinions expressed by Mr. Mann. We refer to the modes of instruction pursued in schools for the education of the deaf and dumb. Of the zeal and success with which Mr. Mann has devoted himself to the cause of popular education it is unnecessary here to speak. We yield to none in the hearty appreciation of what he has already accomplished, and we bid him God speed in his future efforts. Upon subjects which he has studied and understands we are disposed to receive his opinions with high respect, if not with implicit acquiescence. Even upon the subject of the instruction of deaf mutes, with which he is evidently not familiar, if he had based his conclusions upon any actual results attained, we should bow in silence to his verdict, however mortifying it might be to the self-love of our instructers, or injurious to the reputation and usefulness of our schools. But when we find, in a document of such general interest, emanating from such high authority, and destined for wide circulation through the country, a sentence pronounced upon the American institutions for the deaf and dumb, apparently without examination, evidently with very erroneous and defective views of their system of instruction, the effect of which will be to lower those institutions in the public estimation, and thus seriously to impair their usefulness, we cannot suffer it to pass in silence. With the public schools and other institutions for education in Massachusetts Mr. Mann is certainly well acquainted; but there are in this State no schools for the deaf and dumb; and though in two of the adjoining States there are institutions of this class, among the largest in the world in point of numbers, and for years reputed among the most successful, all that he seems to know definitely concerning their system or their success is, that they do not teach articulation. "In Prussia, Saxony, and Holland," he finds that "the deaf and dumb, incredible as it may seem, are taught to speak with the lips and tongue"; and upon this, he judges "the schools for this class in those countries to be decidedly superior to any in this country." We have usually thought, that the superiority of an institution for education should be measured, not by what it attempts, but by what it performs. That the German schools attempt more than our own we admit; but that, in the great majority of cases, they accomplish more, we have no evidence. Mr. Mann, at least, has furnished us no data whatever, by which we can compare the intellectual attainments and skill in language of the pupils in those schools with those of the pupils in our own. And if, as we have good reason to believe, the German teachers of articulation sacrifice, in a great measure, the development of the intellectual and moral faculties of their pupils to an object that is, in most cases, but |