PUBLISHERS OF THE NATIONAL SERIES OF TEXT-BOOKS. ADMIRABLE EQUIPMENT FOR ANY SCHOOL. metic, ology, Steele and Wood's Botany. - 1.00 These standard books, besides being truly scientific, create a love for the study .40 of Science. .75 SCIENTIFIC TEMPERANCE. .30 .50 On the plan of a Minimum of Theory 1. Child's Health Primer, with a Maximum of Practice. 2. Hygiene for Young People, 3. Steele's Hygienic Physiology, 1.00 GEOGRAPHY, Monteith's Element. Geography, Monteith's Comprehensive Geog raphy. .55 1.10 1.00 Monteith's New Physical Geog- On the Natural Method. Each lang .60 uage can be pursued without a master. INDUSTRIAL DRAWING. Barnes Popular Drawing Books. A Complete Series by a practical teacher, and full of valuable features. Graded Primary United States, Specimen pages and testimonials furnished free. Specimen copies sent on receipt of price by the publishers. A. S. Barnes & Co., Nos. 111 & 113 WILLIAM STREET, NEW YORK. To County and City Superintendents and Trustees of Schools. Spencerian Copy-Books and Webster's Dictionaries. THE NATIONAL STANDARDS. THE SPENCERIAN COPY-BOOKS are used in SEVENTY-SEVEN COUNTIES OF VIRGIINA, and are far more generally in use throughout the United States than any other series in existence. It is universally conceded that the Spencerian System has created the American Standard of Penmanship. No other copy-books furnish such excellent INSTRUCTION TO TEACHERS. No other copy-books furnish such practice in SUPPLEMENTARY WRITING. WEBSTER'S DICTIONARIES ARE UNIVERSALLY USED IN VIRGINIA, and throughout the country the annual sale of Webster is more than twenty times that of any other dictionary. The State Board of Education Does not Demand a Change. "The policy adopted by the Board of Education does not necessitate changes of text-books in any county or city of the State, but leaves the question to be determined by the county and city school boards. Counties and cities having other books than those on the prescribed list CAN CONTINUE IN USE ONE OR EVERY ONE OF THE BOOKS THEY NOW HAVE."-From Instructions of State Superintendent, dated June 1st, 1886. Prices to Pupils as Low as any other Corresponding Books. Ivison, Blakeman, Taylor & Co., 753-755 BROADWAY, NEW YORK. The fundamental aim of Civics is "good government through good citizenship." To secure good government, therefore, the effort must be made to secure good citizens. Good citizenship is closely related to the moral character of the citizen; a good man, other things being equal, will be a better citizen than a bad man. For the perfection of the State, it is thus seen, the endeavor must be to improve the moral character of the men who comprise it. The method of securing this fundamental condition of good government is a question of vital importance. It is an accepted truism that good men are largely the outgrowth of virtuous children. The germs of moral character properly implanted in the mind and heart of the child usually develop into those ideas and feelings which we call a "sense of duty." On the other hand, a wicked or degraded childhood seldom emerges into a pure and upright manhood or womanhood. The foundation of those moral attributes that fit a man (or woman) for good citizenship are thus laid in childhood. In the interests of the State a system of public instruction has been established to prepare its people for citizenship. General intelligence is believed to be an advantage to good government, and thus the State makes provision for the education of her people. But since moral character is an essential condition of good citizenship, the State should see that these schools afford moral education as well as intellectual education. Moral education consists largely in the culture of a moral instinct which controls the life. The person who from childhood has been accustomed to follow his convictions of duty, and to walk in the path which by common consent is called the path of rectitude, will find the habit of virtuous thought and action becoming ingrained in his character. Virtue has become an almost inseparable quality of his nature. His thought, his affections, his desires and ambitions, all flow naturally in the channels of morality. He has acquired a moral instinct which controls his actions independently of the apprehension of any principle of moral action. Such a man-and there have been many such in the world from Socrates to Washington-possesses one of the most important qualifications for citizenship; and the question is, How shall we secure and multiply such men in a nation? How shall we educate the youth of the nation up towards so high a standard of moral manhood? Moral education is entirely indifferent to the nature of moral action. There is a body of sentiments and actions that all intelligent people are agreed to call right, noble, pure, virtuous, etc., whatever the reason of their being so; and moral education is the training of young persons to feel these sentiments and perform these actions. In other words, moral education aims to beget the habit of moral feelings and actions. The methods in moral education are similar to those employed in the education of the aesthetic nature. In cultivating a taste for the beautiful we need not frame a definition or state a law of beauty. When a person stands in the presence of a beautiful object he does not decline to decide on its beauty until he can test it by some law, which is his answer to the question why is it beautiful. The perception and appreciation are immediate, and we cultivate the power of perceiving and appreciating by presenting examples of beautiful objects. We place him amid beautiful scenery, surround him with pictures and other works of art, and fill his memory with gems of literature. For higher æsthetic culture he visits galleries of paintings and halls of statuary, and becomes familiar with the masterpieces of ancient and modern art. The light of beauty shining from these works of genius gives growth to the aesthetic sense as the sunshine gives growth and fragrance to the rose or lily. There is, as it were, an organic growth of the æsthetic nature as it feeds upon the divine element of beauty which the hand of genius has embodied in color and form. The student lingers before a Madonna of Raphael or a landscape of Claude with a rapture of soul that moulds it to the appreciation of divine ideals. The moral nature is developed in the same way. Moral culture is a growth like æsthetic culture. The food for moral culture is not the law of morality, but the perception and appreciation of moral duties and the performance of moral actions. For the growth of the moral nature the soul should be fed on moral sentiments and examples of |