cess. I am indebted for it, as well as for all the sketches of these primary lessons, to Miss Sara J. Timanus, of the Minnesota First State Normal School.

The slate should be ruled after the accompanying model, with a pointed steel:

# the boy/

The single lines indicate the height of the loop letters, the double lines the size of the small letters, and the oblique lines the slant of the letters; as, for example, the words, "the boy", as in the above model. The children should be taught to write in a much coarser hand than they will finally assume. The blackboard should be ruled to correspond with the slates, so that the alphabet properly written may always be before the eyes of the children. The first day the pupils come to school, begin to teach them correct positions of body and of holding the pencil, and insist that these positions shall be carefully maintained. Teach them also the difference between the large spaces and the small spaces on the slates. Require them to make such simple copies as 1,0. Let these two principles gradually lead up to the formation of the letters a, d, g, t, v, n, m, x, etc.

After the children have been in school three weeks, they may be encouraged to copy the alphabet which, in the mean time, has been carefully written on the blackboard. These exercises may be written without regard to the names of the letters. The pupils may also be required to copy the written forms of the words which occur in their short reading lessons. In this way the reading and writing lessons are associated, and the labor of learning to read is greatly abbreviated. The children are thus learning to read the written as well as the printed words.

At the end of three months, pupils who have never before attended school should be able to write all the script letter, the words of their reading lessons, and their own names. For the purpose of teaching them to write their individual names, prepare slips of paper three inches long, one inch wide, and rule them to correspond with the slates, then write the names on them plainly with pen and ink, and paste them on the inside of the covers of their reading books.

By these simple means, and with a very little effort on the part of the teacher, children from six to ten years of age may become legible writers in a single term; and, what is of great importance besides, this plan provides entertaining and useful occupation for the little ones, preventing disorder and mischief, and leaving the teacher comparatively free to attend to the more advanced classes of the school. The teacher should take pains to encourage the children by examining and commending their work as it stands on the slates. Whenever visitors appear at the school, let the pupils, or those who have done well, pass their slates among them and receive such encouragement as a kind word will afford.

The next paper will present a plan for a course of lessons in number suited to the same grade of pupils.

A VISION OF SCIENCE.

BY W. H. VENABLE.

Beneath the stars, upon a summer night,
I saw a vision fairer than the stars:
A shape descended from the middle sky,
In vesture pure of light ineffable,

With wings that made a music in the air,

And crown whose glorious spangles shone so far
They lit the darkness of remotest space.
What shape art thou, I cried, and stood apart,
In fearful wonder and admiring awe.

Fear not; the shining visitant replied,—

I bear to men cause not of fear but joy,
I am the daughter of eternal God
And Science is my name. My Father's works
'Tis mine to render plain to human thought.
I war with darkness and I fight with lies;
I free the slave that Ignorance enthralls;

I ferret hoar Delusion from his cave;
I point the way to truth wherever hid

In earth, in ocean, or in ether far,

In force, in matter, in phenomena,

No thing to me is sacred but the truth.

I teach the nature of the universe,

Its mighty oneness in diversity,

Its aspects changing under changeless law

Behold the trackless heavens over us,
And all the constellated glory there;-
I name and measure yonder blazing orbs,
And all the distances that lie between
I tell in inches. Look upon the sea,
I know its depths and its inhabitants,
I know what e'er leviathan it holds,

I know the coming of the winds and tides,

I lay an iron nerve beneath all storms,

And men's thoughts with the lightning linking hands,

Run playful o'er the bottom of the deep,
And make a jest of distance and of time.
My bright eyes penetrate the solid earth,
And see the gold and silver in the rocks,
And gleaming crystals of each precious stone.
I see the ores more rich than gold or gems,
And say to man, Delve there; and he who delves
Digs wealth and power from the darkling mine.
I know the plants, -the stately forest trees,
The floral multitudes that populate

The plain, the vale, the lonely mountain side,
The cultured garden, and the trackless wild.
Each tells me secrets. Bird, beast, and fish,
Reptile and insect, tiny diatome

Unseen save 'neath the microscopic lens,
I know them all; and every living thing
I cause to yield me service. Not alone
Are living things subservient to my will,—
I rule the elements and tax them all;
The nimble air, the water, and the fire,
The stubborn earth, and e'en the lordly sun,
These do my bidding as they needs must do,
Because I understand them and control.
I know the workings in, the misty cloud,
In what alembic nature fashions rain,

And how she makes the magic snow and frost,
And how she paints the still receding bow
That decks the rainy archway of the sky,
Or crowns the spray of grand Niagara;
And how she sets the frigid north aflame
With the auroral splendor that illumes
The solemn silence of the six months' night.
I enter and with reverence explore
The royal palace of the human soul,
The many-chambered tenement of life,

Yea, more, the complex structure of the mind,
The laws of thoughts and passions, I reveal,

The mystery of memory and dream.
The course of time I traverse not alone;-
Art is my younger sister; her I lead
And show the deep foundations of the truth
Her hand essays to symbolize for man.
Gray-headed History attends my steps,
And rapt Romance, and clear-eyed Poesie,
Philosophy with stately mien and brow,
And all the dearest friends of human good.
Deaf Superstition, blind Credulity
Find me a foe implacable and dread,
But rational Religion finds me aye
A firm supporter and a bold ally.

Heed not crazed voices that disparage me;

I am the daughter of eternal God,

And well-beloved of my Father. He

Hath sent me forth not as the foe of Faith:

I but prepare the world for larger faith;
The doubt I plant stakes up the vine belief,
And Christ sits firmer on his kingdom's throne
Because of Science. Thus the visitant;
Then spreading pearly pinions on the night,
She soar'd where stars are thickest, and was lost
In self resembling light.

CLEANLINESS.

Good order, which is absolutely necessary to successful teaching, can not well be secured without neatness in person and dress. I never saw a slovenly teacher whose pupils did not, in a great measure, follow her example; and I never saw an untidy school which was not disorderly. I once taught a term in a country school where among my pupils were two little girls. They wore the same dresses of dark print every day during the term, with a little frill of lace at the throat, and white aprons of the cheapest cotton goods. Their dresses and aprons always looked as though they were just from the drawer, always clean and whole. Those little unassuming girls were a great help to me in that school. Many teachers think that the matter of cleanliness is too delicate a subject for a teacher to touch upon. It is our duty, nevertheless, to insist upon it. The material of a pupil's dress may be cheap and plain, and yet it may be kept scrupulously clean. Neatness and order are two virtues deserving attention in every school. MRS. J. C. J.

Editorial Department.

THE next ten years will largely determine the scope and character of American education for a century. The past decade has initiated important changes, and all is agitation and trial. Extreme views are clashing, and radicalism and conservatism are in conflict at every point. Old methods are fearlessly and sweepingly condemned, and new systems are zealously and unqualifiedly commended. Hobbysts are continually "flying the track", and recklessly rushing into untried ways. Meanwhile the schools are testing the new methods and experience is rendering a verdict. It is plain that such times as these call the educational journalist to a higher service than the partisan advocacy of extreme and narrow views, or the zealous defense of "things as they were." The future of American education demands that the schools not only prove all things, but that they hold fast what is good; and, to this end, what is valuable in old methods should be wisely discerned and commended, and the defects and abuses of the new as well as the old exposed. True reform in education is as much retarded by an indiscriminate praise of novelties as by a blind adhesion to old paths. The great mission of an educational journal is to expose error and advocate truth, whether found in old or new systems.

ONE of the most hopeful features of educational progress is the increased attention given to the higher education of women. It is but a few years since girls were admitted to our public high schools, and fewer since they were permitted to pursue therein as extensive a course of study as boys. We had the honor of teaching the girls who first completed the full course of mathematics in the Cleveland High School. They did their work so thoroughly that no one has since thought of putting up a bar at quadratic equations." What is true in Cleveland is true in nearly all our cities and towns. At least to the point reached by the classes in our high schools and seminaries, girls have demonstrated their intellectual ability to compete successfully with boys, and in Ohio there are now more girls than boys pursuing higher courses of study. This fact means more than the elevation of women. It will appear as a blessing in the homes of the next generation, and hence will become the promoter of civilization and human progress. "I am profoundly convinced," says Mill, "that moral and intellectual progress of the male sex runs a great risk of stopping, if not of receding, as long as that of the women remains behind, and that, not only because nothing can replace the mother for the education of children, but also because the influence upon man himself of the character and the ideas of the companion of his life can not be insignificant: woman must either push him forward or hold him back." This remark applies with great force to the condition of things in England. There is no civilized country where the provision for the higher education of women is more meager