RESIDENT EDITORS' DEPARTMENT.

"TIT FOR TAT."

THE SCHOOLMASTER, in its January number, wished all its patrons and friends "A Happy New Year," and it is not unusual to expect and to receive in return the same compliment multiplied by ten, one hundred, or one thousand. THE SCHOOLMASTER proposes to do all that it can to make the current year a profitable and happy one to all who peruse its pages - teachers, school officers and friends of education throughout the State. THE SCHOOLMASTER also proposes to favor and forward all plans which will advantage teachers and the cause of education, and to oppose right lustily all measures which retard the progress of common schools. So much, and more, we promise on our part.

Now Teachers, School Officers, and Friends of Education, there are certain duties for you to perform which will give us pleasure, supposing that you have already wished us "A Happy New Year."

We wish you to do all in your power to aid in circulating our SCHOOLMASTER, for, unlike some teachers, it likes boarding round, and goes to the nearest and farthest homes with equal facility and pleasure.

We wish you, still further, to read our SCHOOLMASTER- read it through. Ye who think that THE SCHOOLMASTER has no able contributors read the fine articles on Grammar from the pen of our Associate Editor Ross, or ALGERNON's wise words on the same subject; or Dr. CRANE's valuable papers on the English Language; or why need we enumerate. Take your SCHOOLMASTER and read every article, and with your lead pencil, mark all points worthy of thoughtful attention, and then see how marks and remarks cover the blanks on every page. By reading thus, you will enjoy and improve the teachings of your SCHOOLMAster.

Are we too bold, also, in asking all to become paying readers of THE SCHOOLMASTER. We want money. We cannot steal, and to beg we are ashamed. We only ask all our conscientious teachers to satisfy their own minds and our treasury, by sending to Mr. DEMUNN the amount due for our past visits to your schools and firesides. Begin the new year by squaring up your printer's bill and the printer's devil will not haunt you for a twelve-month to come, we can promise you.

Teachers, can you afford to be without THE SCHOOLMASTER, and can you afford to receive it without supporting its purse as well as its pages? Come all at our first

call.

WILBERFORCE COLLEGIATE INSTITUTE.-This institution, located at Carolina Mills, for the education of teachers for the freedmen, has opened finely, and promises to be a most timely and successful experiment. Over sixty pupils are in attendance during the present winter term, from all parts of the Union and from Canada. Among the pupils are two or three recently emancipated slaves. A large number of applicants have been turned away, for want of accommodations. The quarterly examination takes place in February, and we trust that the Trustees and friends of the school will be in attendance to witness the results of so noble an effort to educate

.the colored race of America. We hope that the financial operations of the school will be placed upon a safe basis, and that all philanthropists will second the effort by heart and hand. It may be necessary to make its advantages exclusive, but we wish, in time, to see perfect equality as the basis of all our literary institutions.

TWENTY-FIRST ANNUAL SCHOOL REPORT OF OUR STATE.

WE have before us the "Twenty-first Annual Report on Public Schools in Rhode Island," made to the General Assembly by Dr. J. B. Chapin, Commissioner of Public Schools. The Report of the Commissioner is short, clear and practical. Our only criticism is that it is too short; for we know that Dr. Chapin has more that he might profitably say and suggest to benefit us, and further, he never speaks or writes without giving pleasure and profit to those who read or hear. "Clearness, force and earnestness are the qualities which produce conviction," and these qualities characterize the reports of our able Commissioner, whether they be long or short. Progress attends the educational movements of our State. We have 512 public schools. Number of teachers during winter terms, 648; 149 of whom were males, and 449 were femeles. Number of pupils during winter months, 27,899. The average attendance exceeds that of the previous year by 504. Money available for schools, $174,194 71. Money expended on school houses, $17,578 29. The following table exhibits the average cost of educating each scholar in the city of Providence, and in each of the five counties:

The Report discusses the need and importance of Town Superintendents, and with his arguments we most fully agree. In some coming number of THE SCHOOLMASTER We shall print the author's views on this subject, as well as his much-needed suggestions on Reading, Speaking and Spelling.

The proposed modification of the school law, and the remarks thereon, we copy entire, without note or comment here, as the demand for this change is so seriously felt that it seems to us no further argument is needed. The amendment proposed charges a direct and personal duty and responsibility upon the Committee, or upon the Superintendent acting through them, which cannot be performed by two or three separate parties. We most gladly welcome the proposed change, and presume the legislature will readily sanction it.

Many of the Town Reports are ably written, and from these at some future time we shall present quotations and suggestions.

MODIFICATION OF THE SCHOOL LAWS.

“Permit me to call your attention, as legislators, to a single modification of our school law, the need of which has been long and very seriously felt. It would have received the approval of all your school superintendents, and by several of them, has

been asked for. By the present law, trustees are authorized and required to employ teachers. (Title XIII; Chap. 65, Sec. 1, Revised Statutes.) It is asked that this power be taken from the trustees and given to the School Committee, and for the following reasons; first, the School Committee are the men best qualified to make the selection. They are almost invariably the best educated men in the town. The choice is made from the whole town. The choice of trustee is limited to the school district, and the best qualified man may not be there. It is not affirmed that this is always so. There are some very excellent trustees,-every way equal to school committee men,—but as a rule it is not so. School committees are generally chosen as men of education, or experienced teachers, or as possessing some peculiar fitness for the office. Being so, they will naturally attach more importance to the duty of selecting teachers, and will exercise more circumspection in the discharge of the duty. 'Again trustees often select the teachers because they are favorites, or in some way related to them, and not because of any peculiar fitness they may possess as teachers. This being so, it often becomes a very delicate matter for the school Committee to reject them. In a town having thirty or more trustees, but only one or five committee men, this evil, even on the supposition that the committee was governed, in some of their selections, by the same motives, would be greatly reduced.

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"Again: and this is a very important consideration; when a trustee makes selection of a teacher, it is for a particular district, and for no other. Now it not unfrequently happens that when a teacher is presented by the trustee for examination, he is found quite unqualified for the school for which he is selected, when, if the committee had the power of distribution, he might succeed very well in some other school in the town. This is a very serious disadvantage, and my attention has been called to it again and again by various school committees throughout the State. School committees being familiar with all the schools of the town, and understanding their various conditions and wants, could make an adjustment which it is not possible for trustees to make.

"It will be objected that this change will impose too onerous duties upon school committees, and that it will be found difficult to find men willing to assume the labors of the office. To this it is replied: that these men are the very persons who most desire the change, and simply because they are satisfied that the best good of our schools require the change. Trustees will not object, for the most of them now regard the office as an irksome task, and would be very glad of any diminution of its duties.

Many more arguments might be urged why this change should be made, but with these two or three suggestions, I will fulfill the promise that my report should be brief, and submit the matter to your wise discretion. For a more full discussion of the subject, I would refer you to the very able report of President Sears, made to the Legislature of Massachusetts, while he was chairman of the Board of Education of that State."

We have received number one, volume one, of The Michigan Teacher, and welcome the new comer to the fraternity of" Teachers and Schoolmasters." Its opening number promises well for its success, and we hope that the earnest teachers of Michigan will not allow it to live under a burden of embarrassments. Friend Payne, we like your remarks on the first pages, and hope you will stick to your text."

EVERY SATURDAY.-We have received the first issue of this new journal from the enterprising house of Ticknor & Fields, and like its objects much, in thus bringing before American readers the best articles found in the English and Continental magazines, at a price so cheap that they who sit, walk, run or ride may have these papers within their reach. The first number contains an article on "Precious Stones," "The Spectral Rout," " Lupperides," "Who was F. A. Robertson?""Man of 'Our Dogs,' "Our Brown Passenger," "An Apology for the Nerves," "Sand Martins." The articles in this number are entertaining and instructive, and we greet very cordially the advent of this journal, hoping it will meet the great popular want of a fresh and spirited weekly magazine.

MASSACHUSETTS TEACHER.-We congratulate the eight thousand teachers of Massachusetts on the prosperity and success of their school journal, and that at the end of its eighteenth year it is able to stand alone and assert its manhood and freedom. The Teacher has become able to support a resident editor, and the choice of one to fill this important post has fallen upon Prof. W. P. Atkinson, of Cambridge, formerly an associate editor of the Teacher. John D. Philbrick, D. B. Hagar and John Kneeland constitute an editorial committee to advise with and assist the resident editor. The Teacher has done nobly for the cause of education in Massachusetts, and is worthy of a liberal support. We predict for it a better future under the new and central organization.

OHIO.-The Educational Monthly is to receive a new impulse during the year 1866, under the editorship of E. E. White. In retiring from the office of State Commissioner, he expects to devote a larger share of attention to the journal, and thus add to its efficiency and success. This able journal has completed its fifteenth year, and from its present appearances will soon be able to follow the example of the Massachusetts Teacher, and "set up for itself."

Rhode Island Teachers! Shall we allow Massachusetts and Ohio to distance us? Come up to the work and support your SCHOOLMASTER.

SUM TOTAL OF GREAT LIBRARIES.-We have had much to do with dictionaries, first and last; have turned over a thousand pounds of them, perhaps; have watched new editions rising in stately fashion, and found the best were set on Webster's sure foundations. What we have written of Webster's work, while it has been in all truthfulness, has also been in all love. We have a warm filial feeling for it and for him grateful to Webster for earliest lessons and for latest teachings; grateful to God, that, while He gave us English for our mother-tongue, he gave us a man so worthy to record and expound it; men so worthy to continue the work he so nobly begun. And we put that mother-tongue to a sacred use when we utter the truthful words that these three books are the sum total of great libraries : the Bible, Shakspeare, and Webster's Royal Quarto.—Chicago Evening Journal.

RHODE ISLAND COAL.-A vein has been discoverd in Portsmouth, Rhode Island, coal mine, which a leading geologist say, promises coal equal to the best Pennsylvania. The coal hitherto mined there has established a reputation for superiority in the manufacture of iron.

IN complying with a request to write an article on connectives, I must be allowed to presume that the author of the request had in mind the connectives in the language, and not connectives in general. To discuss all the different connectives would require a more extended article than was probably contemplated. Canals, railroads and telegraphs are connectives; and in another sphere, clergymen, justices of the peace, and other magistrates, are often employed as connectives, and being more jealous of their work they forbid any one to put asunder their connections.

But acting on the presumption that I am to deal with language, I will proceed to the work, though I do not think it will be possible to crowd a fair discussion of the subject into one article. I will, however, condense as much as possible, even at the expense of "style;" for my object is not to write rhetorically, but to give information. The principal connectives of the language are known as Prepositions, Conjunctions, Adverbs and Relative Pronouns.

Let us begin with Prepositions. It is evident that everything concrete is composed of separate, individual parts. An army is but a collection of men. A train of cars is composed of separate cars united together. A steam engine is made up of individual parts, properly adjusted and connected, so as to form a working machine.