94

The Massachusetts Schools.

these movements in behalf of common schools and common education, especially all those where the moral and physical nature is recognized, as well as the intellect.

THE PROVIDENCE SCHOOLS.

Our remarks in the last number of this work, on the movement in behalf of schools in Providence, were, as it appears, a little premature. According to the Providence Journal, the prospect has somewhat brightened, of late. Resolutions have passed, in the City Council, by the casting vote of the Mayor, in favor of a Superintendent of Public Schools, at a salary of $1,250, and of a City High School. Several other important resolutions have passed; and we hope the work of reform is not yet finished.

STATE OF EDUCATION IN NEW YORK.

We learn from the late Message of Gov. Marcy to the New York Legislature, that the whole number of school districts in that State is 10,345. Reports have been received from 9,718. The number of children, of all ages, instructed in the common schools during the last year, is 524,188. The total amount of moneys expended for paying the wages of teachers, is $772,241-including what was derived from the common school and from other town and local funds.

The academies are also represented in a condition equally flourishing and satisfactory. The number of students attending upon these institutions, is stated to be over 6,000; a greater number than has attended them at any former period.

Gov. M. also suggests the importance of appropriations for the permanent establishment and gradual increase of school district libraries-that more ample provision should be made for the compensation of teachers, and for adequately supplying the demand for those who are competent and well qualified to discharge the duties of their station-and that an increased number of academies be suitably endowed.

MASSACHUSETTS SCHOOLS.

The abstract of the late school returns for this State makes a volume of 300 pages. All the towns in the State are heard from except Charlemont, Clarksburgh, Florida, Goshen, Harvard, Holland, Lenox, Munroe, Tolland, Wayland, and Woburn. It appears that the number of public schools in the State is 2,918; number of scholars in winter, 141,837; in summer, 122,889; number of persons between 4 and 16 years of age, 177,053; number of teachers, 2,370 males and 3,591 females; average wages paid per month, including board, to males, $25,44; to females, $11,38; amount of money raised by taxes for the support of schools,

$465,228 04. The number of academies or private schools, is 854; aggregate of months kept, 5,619; aggregate of scholars, 27,266; paid for tuition, $328,026 75; amount of local funds, $189, 536 24; income from the same, $9,571 79.-Traveller.

TEACHERS' MEETING AT IPSWICH.

THE Teachers' Association for Essex County held their annual meeting, early in December last, at Ipswich. Besides the usual business of the annual meeting, lectures were given by Mr David Choate of Essex, Mr Batchelder of Lynn, and Messrs M. P. Parish, and D. H. Sanborn of Salem. The lectures are said by the Ipswich Register to have been excellent.

POPULAR EDUCATION IN TENNESSEE.

From the report of a committee of the Legislature of Tennessee, we learn that ample means are within its control for a full and efficient system, including common schools, academies, and universities. The School Fund amounts to upwards of $1,000,000; and it is now proposed to add to it the portion of the surplus revenue received, which would swell the amount nearly to $2,500,000. Of the proceeds of this sum, the committee propose to appropriate $100,000 annually to common schools, upon the plan which has succeeded so well elsewhere, of a partnership between State munificence and individual enterprise and liberality. The adoption of the New York system is earnesly recommended.

The remainder of the income of the fund it is proposed to appropriate to the colleges and academies, with some reference to the education of teachers. There are 3 colleges, 70 academies, and about 1,000 common schools in the State.-Newark Sentinel.

NOTICES OF BOOKS.

THE INTRODUCTORY DISCOURSE AND THE LECTURES, delivered before the American Institute of Instruction, at Worcester, Massasachusetts, August, 1837. Including the Journal of Proceedings and a List of the Officers. Published under the direction of the Board of Censors. Boston. James Munroe & Co. 1838. 8vo. pp. 262.

We have given, in former numbers, a brief account of the lectures and discussions from which the volume before us is derived. The Board of Censors were unable to procure them all for publication; but those which have been received are valuable. The following is a sketch of the contents of the volume.

Journal of Proceedings. List of Officers. Annual Report. Introductory Discourse, by Elipha White. Lecture 1, by John Mulligan, on Classical Education. Lect. 2, by Joshua Bates, on Moral Education. Lect. 3, by John L. Russell, on the Study of Natural History. Lect. 4, by Theodore Edson, on Public and Private Schools. Lect. 5, by David Fosdick, Jr., on Elocution. Lect. 6, by Jasper Adams, on College Discipline. Lect. 7, by Charles Brooks, on Teachers' Seminaries. Lect. 8, by R. G. Parker, on Teaching Composition. Lect. 9, by Thomas H. Palmer, on Improvement in Common Schools. Lect. 10, by William Russell, on Reading and Declamation.

FIRST ANNUAL REPORT OF THE AMERICAN PHYSIOLOGICAL SOCIETY. Boston. Marsh, Capen & Lyon. 1837. 12mo. pp. 148.

We have already spoken of the existence of a Physiological Society in this city, and described, briefly, its character and objects. This is the Society to whose annual report we now refer.

The Report contains, besides a short account of the origin and history of the society, 1. A list of cases of recovery from diseases by adopting the vegetable system of living; 2. Cases of recovery, by the same means, from disease, even in old age; 3. Experiments inade by persons in health, and by laborers; 4. Cases of bringing up on the vegetable system ;-added to which are about sixty pages of remarks, most of which have an intimate bearing on the physical and moral education and management of the young. It is the latter part of the pamphlet with which, as friends of education, we have chiefly to do; and this we cannot refrain from commending to every one of our readers. It contains some thoughts which they will hardly find elsewhere; but which they would probably deem very valuable.

THE FAMILY NURSE, or Companion of the Frugal Housewife. By Mrs CHILD. Boston. Charles J. Hendee. 1837.

From the great popularity of the Frugal Housewife, we think this little volume likely to have an extensive circulation, and to do extensive injury. Not that we question, for one moment, the good intentions of the author, or doubt the value of some parts of the work; but we do believe and know, that much she says will tend to promote and extend that system of family quackery-that dabbling with medicine-which is already nearly universal, and which produces, sooner or later, three times as much disease as it cures. It is, indeed, a work on physical education; but it tends to promote, as we fear, what the late Joseph Emerson was accustomed to call bad education ;-an article already too abundant in the market, as well as too popular.

AMERICAN

ANNALS OF EDUCATION.

MARCH, 1838.

EDUCATION OF THE TONGUE.

THE tongue can no man tame,' says a writer of high authority; it is an unruly evil, full of deadly poison.' And again, 'it defileth the whole body, and setteth on fire the course of nature.' And another of the same class of writers observes, 'I said in my haste all men are liars.'

Now this testimony in regard to the tongue, as it was two or three thousand years ago, under the mode of training then in vogue, and as it still is in the nineteenth century, notwithstanding all our talk about improvements in education, must, and does mean something. The tongue is an unruly evil;' and if we ought not to say that no man cun tame' it, we have at least too much reason to believe with St. James, that it never yet'hath been tamed.'

We mean not to say in our deliberation, what David said in haste that all men are liars--at least, we do not say they are intentionally and maliciously so. We hope better things; we believe better things. But we need not a Mrs Opie to tell us― at least if we have our eyes open to what is going on around us -that lying, in some one or more of its various forms, and in a higher or lower degree, is, even in the best society, almost universal.

We have headed our article, Education of the Tongue. But with the foregoing preamble, and the illustrations which follow, every one will discover our meaning. It is no part of our object to treat, at present, of that part of the education of this little member, which pertains to the earlier and later management

98

Teaching Lying to the Young.

of the voice and speech, however important a figure it makes in accomplishing these results. We have fulfilled that part of our task in our volume of last year, at page 171. Our present business is, in short, with the vice of lying.

This vice is, indeed, acquired by the individual long before he can use the tongue; and in various ways, too, which do not necessarily involve the use of the tongue in others. There are lies told to children, by hundreds and thousands, long before they can speak; and often without our speaking to them. We may lie by our looks and our actions, as well as by our words. And some little children, long before they can speak, acquire the habit of acting out falsehoods.

He who has thought much on this subject, needs none of our illustrations; nor even those of Mrs Opie. But as some, in this busy age, and especially in our own busy community, may not have time to think, at least they believe so, it may be well to present a few plain examples of the evils to which we refer.

How often, before the infant is a year old, do parents-the best of parents-indulge it in certain things, when they thenselves are good-natured, or, when it is perfectly convenient to them, and yet deny him those indulgences under circumstances which, for aught the child can discover, are the very same, their own convenience alone excepted!

We are at table, drinking our tea for example; the child, from sympathy or imitation, or both, manifests a disposition to taste with us, and is indulged. Perhaps the indulgence is repeated, again and again. But soon we take it into our heads, or somebody gives us the hint that tea is bad for children; and it is prohibited. The child pleads, but no; he must not have it. We tell him it is injurious, and succeed in making him understand our meaning. But the good-natured, indulgent fit again returns, and, the monitor being forgotten, the child again has the tea. But the cloud returns at length, or we are too busy for indulgence, and with it the prohibition-to him perfectly arbitrary, were it not for the significant shrugs, scowls, or shakes of the head-assuring him that it is bad for him. How long does it take a child to learn that we are governed, in the whole matter, not by a regard to his good, but solely by our own feelings at the time? If he had doubts on the subject, they would be dissipated by seeing us drink so freely, what we deny him. Young as he is, he is old enough not only to discover our inconsistency-nay, our falsehoods-but also to make the natural and often rational inference, that what affords us so much gratification, cannot be very pernicious to him.

Nearly related to this, are scores of prohibitions, which as the