NOW READY, ECLECTIC GERMAN READERS By W. H. WEICK and C GREBNER, For German and English Classes. Embracing a thorough course in Language Lessons and Composition, Translation Exercises, German Lessons with interlinear Translations, German Script Lessons, etc. Richly illustrated. The only German Series published equal in merit and attractiveness to McGuffey's Revised Readers. Other New Publications. WHITE'S PEDAGOGY-By E. E. White, Superintendent Cincinnati Public Schools. Author of White's Arithmetics. Mailing price, $1.17. MCGUFFEY'S WORD LIST.--Ten thousand words from McGuffey's Primer and Readers, arranged in lessons as found in the successive lessons in the books. 16 mo., 80 pp. Introduction and Sample Copy price, 10 cents. ECLECTIC LANGUAGE LESSONS.-By M. E. Thalheimer, author of Histories. Profusely Illustrated. Full cloth. Introduction and Sample Copy price, 35 cts. RAY'S ARITHMETIC TABLETS.-Eight Tablets (Nos. 1 to 8) with test problems in Arithmetic for every grade. Single Tablet by mail, post paid, Io cents; per dozen, $1. ABORN'S ELEMENTARY MECHANICAL DRAWING.-By Frank Aborn, Sup't of Drawing, Cleveland Public Schools. Geometrical and Constructive Drawing, with problems. 16mo., 421 pp. Sample Copy and Introduction price, 35cts. ECLECTIC MANUAL OF METHODS.-How to teach Language Lessons, Composition, Reading, Spelling, Arithmetic, Grammar, Geography, History, and Physiology. Adapted especially to assist the many thousands of teachers using the text-books of the Eclectic Educational Series. 262 pages. Full Cloth. Mailing price, 70 cents. Send for our Proposition of Exchange and Introduction Rates. VAN ANTWERP, BRAGG & CO., Publishers. 137 Walnut St., Cincinnati, O. 28 Bond Street, N. Y. THE FOLLOWING BOOKS, PUBLISHED BY A. S. BARNES & CO., are in satisfactory use in a large number of the counties and cities of the State-viz: DAVIES & PECK'S BRIEF ARITHMETIC, DAVIES & PECK'S COMPLETE ARITHMETIC, WATSON'S INDEPENDENT PRIMARY READER, MONTEITH'S COMPREHENSIVE GEOGRAPHY (Va, Sp.), These books are the product of fifty years' experience in the publishing business of making School books. They Are Excelled by None and Equalled by Few. They are giving eminent satisfaction where used. According to the recent action of the State Board of Education these Books are permitted to be used during the next four years. Although not under any agreement to do so, the publishers have determined to offer these books at Special Prices In the State of Virginia. Teachers and scholars who are unable to obtain them at these prices are requested to address their orders direct to the publishing house, enclosing price of book wanted, as per above list, and the book will be forwarded postpaid. For Catalogues and Price Lists of over three hundred educational books, address A. S. Barnes & Co., Nos. 111 & 113 WILLIAM STREET, NEW YORK. 1 To County and City Superintendents and Trustees of Schools. Webster's Dictionaries. THE NATIONAL STANDARDS. 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 [except Copy-Books] 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. [P. S. HUNTER, in the Southern Bivouac for April.] In the still gray desolation of a wintry scene the mind reverts with wonder to the complete transformation which has occurred since the same hills and valleys were clothed with the life and color of a renewed creation. The trees are stark and lifeless, the earth brown, and covered only by the matted corpses of moldering plants, and the very clouds themselves assume harder and more chilly tints of gray, while the sweeping winds seem determined not to allow us to indulge for a moment in thoughts of nature's warmer aspects of light and beauty. But we know that however imperious may be the frown of the winter king, his scepter is even now falling from his grasp, and if we will pass through yonder wood and emerge upon the steep hill-top, which overlooks the valley with its creek below, we will see the first dawn of the coming revolution. From a cozy nook, formed by a huge moss-clad bowlder, and the enormous trunk of a giant red oak, we will be sheltered from the wind, and can make our observations undetected by its penetrativeness. Down by the water's banks do we always note the first signs of spring, and in recognition of this the feathered creation usually select such haunts for their earliest demonstrations of domestic intentions. Already the alder is hanging out its long tresses of brown flowers, and the buds of the water-lilies and tender shoots of the swamp grasses are creeping up through the waters from their soft beds below. The willows are just beginning to assume the greenish cast at their tops, which is soon to deepen into the most delicately blended hues of feathery foliage, and out over the lakes of motionless water, formed by obstructions in the creek, we see the deserted habitations of the blackbird occupying many branches of stunted or water-killed shrubs. But if deserted on account of the blighting frosts and chilling winds, foretelling the drifting snows which were soon to change them into miniature ice-houses, the local attachments of the proprietors are far |