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Example of the Saviour.

than persons in other circumstances. "Teaching we learn, and giving we retain ;" and it is scarcely possible to be much with the young, without falling into the habit of instructing them.And this habit of hearing and answering infantile and juvenile questions, is highly favorable to the development of our own minds. It is so when all we do for them is in the way of story telling. The single habit of telling stories to the young-especially of striving to excel in it-with a view to gain their attention, and please and interest them, is of great value.

This disposition conduces greatly, in a young wife, to her own happiness. The young instinctively love, and ultimately respect those who sympathize with and love them-those to whom they can go when they please, with all the freedom and frankness with which they approach their playmates. And as they grow up into the world, their respect for such elder friends continues and increases. But is it not a source of happiness to an individual, to find herself surrounded by a rising generation who all esteem and love her?

Must not this state of things also greatly interest and contribute to the happiness of the husband? Can he see the companion of his choice gaining in vigor and elasticity of body and mind, and securing the love and confidence of those around her, without being himself made happier? Nay, more; what husband is there in the world, who is one degree above the brute, who will not love, better than before, the wife who sympathizes with and loves children?

In short, I regard the love of childhood-simple, artless and pure as childhood in itself is-to be an important element of christian character. I have heard of-ay, I have known-persons who disliked children, some of whom were, in other respects, excellent men and women. But such a trait is certainly a great drawback upon human excellence. I will not say that they who hate infancy and childhood cannot be christians; but I may say that they cannot be, in this state of feeling, the perfect men and women they desire to be, nor the perfect children of their Father in heaven which they ought to be.

For do they not practically forget the affection-I was going to say the reverence-for the infantile nature, which was manifested by Him who said, "Of such is the kingdom of heaven?" Do they not forget, or at least overlook the fact, that our Lord and Redeemer was a great lover of infancy, childhood, and youth? And though they are sometimes tempted to turn aside, almost with a sneer, when they see adults and even old people caressing the young, would they turn away with disgust at the sight of our common Lord with little infants in his arms, and

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join with the crowd of his half followers and half disciples, to wonder at, if not to rebuke him?

Thus, whether we consider the health and longevity, the social, intellectual, moral and religious improvement, and the present and future happiness of the young wife, or the happiness of him whom she loves and esteems as she does herself, it is her unquestionable interest to strive with all her power, to love and respect infancy and childhood.

Let her, therefore, who is anxiously desirous of loving children, because she believes it would promote her own and the general happiness, commence a series of kind offices to those around her. Let her converse with them, answer their questions, tell them stories, hear theirs, and manifest an interest in their happiness. Let not this interest in their welfare be assumed-artificial-but sincere. Children will soon discover and detest the hypocrite. They love simplicity, they love sympathy, they return love for love; but they do not so readily return love for mere pretence-for hypocrisy.'

REVIEW OF BURNHAM'S ARITHMETIC.

A new system of Arithmetic on the Cancelling plan: embracing the Rules of Three, single and double, direct and inverse; Barter; Loss and Gain; Reduction, Multiplication and Division of Fractions; Exchange of Currencies; Interest and all proportional questions; in one rule applicable to the whole. The process greatly simplified and abridged. By Charles G. Burnham, A. M. Boston: Marsh, Capen & Lyon. 1837. 12mo. pp. 256.

A SLIGHT Comparison of the elementary treatises upon Arithmetic now in use, with those found in our schools twenty or thirty years since, will be sufficient to convince the most incredulous, that, in this department, no less than in others, important improvements have been introduced during this period. Some of these improvements were a natural consequence of the general introduction of Federal Money-a measure which would have been incomparably more important, could our table of weights, time, mensuration, &c., have been likewise reduced to a decimal ratio. Other improvements have resulted from the introduction of Analysis, and from the judicious connection of this with the old Synthetical method.

The system now before us rests its claim to special attention

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Mode of Applying it.

upon a more general use of the process of cancelling, than is found in other treatises of a similar kind. Neither the principle itself, nor its application is new; but no previous writer, so far as we know, has made the subject equally prominent.

This method is founded upon the principle, that a dividend and a divisor may both be divided by the same number, and their quotients used instead of the original numbers. It is of course applicable to all those classes of operations in which multiplication and division are combined; and especially to all questions which are resolvable into a proportion. In these the result is often truly surprising.

The general mode of application is briefly this: Whatever quantity is to be so used as to increase the final result, is placed upon the right of a perpendicular line, and those quantities which tend to diminish that result, are placed upon the left.When thus arranged, equal numbers appearing upon each side of the line are cancelled, and the quotients of quantities upon each side admitting of division by the same number, are substituted for the numbers divided. When no further reduction can be made, the answer will be found by making the product of the numbers on the right a dividend, and of those in the left a divisor. The following question may serve as an illustration of the mode of operation in the Rule of Three.

If 7 chaldrons cost 85 1-3 guineas, what will 1 pint cost in pence ?

By the common rules, 85 1-3 is made the third term of a proportion, 1 the second, and 7 the first. The first and second are then reduced to the same denomination, and the third to the denomination required in the answer; after which the second and third are multiplied together, and their product divided by the first.

By dividing commensurable quantities, the process is greatly simplified. The second and third terms are placed upon the right of the line, and the first term upon the left. As the third term is a mixed number, 85 1-3, it is reduced to an improper fraction, 26; and since the numerator serves to increase the final result, and the denominator to diminish it; the former only is placed upon the right, and the latter upon the left. Instead of actually reducing the first and third terms, the proper multipliers are merely written under them. When thus arranged, they are reduced as follows: As the product of 3 and 4 upon the left, are equal to 12 upon the right, these numbers are cancelled; and so also, for the same reason are 7 and 4 upon the left, and 28 upon the right. The remaining numbers 8, 8, and 2, upon the left are successively removed by repeated divisions

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of 256 upon the right, until 2 alone remains upon the right, which is the answer in pence.

This is undoubtedly a favorable specimen of the method, as in many cases little or no advantage can be derived from it, on account of the numbers being principally or wholly prime to each other. Still it is manifest, that the principle is capable of being very extensively applied, especially in mercantile business.

Mr Burnham is evidently master of his subject, but his work bears evidence of haste, and its principles frequently demand a fuller explanation. Even the doctrine of cancelling is not fully developed, and will require additional explanations from the teacher. The examples throughout the work appear to be well selected, and we were glad to see the answers subjoined to the questions. There seems to us no valid objection to this, but if a key is to be published, it seems to us better to print it in small type, and bind it up with the arithmetic.

In perusing this volume, we noticed a few things which appeared to us susceptible of improvement; but have room to mention only one or two.

After explaining the general nature of Fractions, our author first treats of Decimals. This method is liable to the objection, that certain operations in decimals, as for instance, the rule for placing the decimal point in multiplication and division, cannot be demonstrated without a knowledge of vulgar fractions.

In treating of the Rule of Three, the author has revived the old distinction of Direct and Inverse proportion-a distinction both true and important, but tending, we believe, when introduced into elementary works to produce no little confusion in the mind of the student, with no adequate advantage.

The value of a dollar in the currency of North Carolina should have been stated at 105, and not, as in New York, at 85.

WHAT IS A USEFUL EDUCATION?

(From the Albany Cultivator.")

We have, to be sure, colleges and academies in abundance, more than can be well supported, or than can be made economical and useful. But these are in a measure consecrated to the learned professions-to the privileged few-for they are privileged, inasmuch as they are the exclusive recipients of public bounty in the higher branches of learning. Few of the youth who enter their halls, ever seek for a livelihood in the laboring

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Knowledge seldom Practical:

arts. They learn to look upon labor, as servile and demeaning, and to seek their level in what they consider the higher classes of society.

They do not go to these schools to learn to work, or to learn to live by work, in the common meaning of these terms; but to learn to live without work-above work. They are virtually withdrawn from the producing classes. These young aspirants flock to the learned professions, and the genteel employments, as the avenues to honors and to office; and notwithstanding that labor is taxed heavily, in one way or another, to supply their real or imaginary wants, yet the genteel professions have become so overstocked, and the threshold of power so thronged with supplicants, that hundreds and thousands are thrown back, as parasites, upon society, exhibiting the melancholy spectacle of men, born to be useful, but unable, or unwilling, from the bias of wrong education, to become so.

Had these men been taught to look upon labor, as it truly is, a necessary, healthful, independent and honorable employment, and been instructed in its principles and its practice, while young, they would have cherished its interests, respected its virtues, and cheerfully shared its toils and its pleasures. We seek not, by these remarks, to pull down that which is, but to build up that which is not. It is not that we love a part less, but the whole more. We would raise the standard of labor, without depressing that of literature.

We have common schools too, munificently endowed, where all may acquire the rudiments of knowledge, but the rudiments only. They teach nothing of the sciences which are necessary to the successful prosecution of the arts-and give no instructions in the best models of practice. They neither teach the boy how to provide for himself, nor fit him for extensive usefulness. They lay the foundation, but they do little to build up and beautify the temple.

Why is it, that six or seven thousand youths, which is about the number in our colleges and academies, should receive gratuities from the public treasury, till the aggregate exceeds three millions of dollars, to enable them to live without work, while half a million of other youth, with like capacities and like claims, destined to labor, and to augment the resources, the wealth and the happiness of their country, are denied a miserable pittance, in the higher branches of knowledge, to qualify them for their more important duties in society? Is not knowledge as beneficial to the arts of labor, as it is to the learned professions?

We should take care to have good farmers and good mechanics, as well as good lawyers and good doctors. We want, not