ST. NICHOLAS AS A SCHOOLMASTER,

WE have already touched upon the educational influence of the competitions, puzzles, and timely articles in ST. NICHOLAS. But there has been also instruction direct and designed. Astronomy, ornithology, history, art, and kindred branches of knowledge have been taught delightfully in such serial papers as Mr. Proctor's "The Stars of the Month," Professor W. K. Brooks's "Birds," Mrs. Oliphant's "Windsor Castle," Mr. Baldwin's "Stories from the Northern Myths," and Clara Erskine Clement's "Stories of Art and Artists," beside numberless briefer papers. Look especially at the "How" series - the articles on "How Dol! are Made," "How Plants come from Seeds," "How to Entertain a Guest," "How to Save Time," "How to Keep an Aquarium," and many others. And the admirable series of "Talks with Boys," by such writers as Thomas Hughes and George MacDonald, with the companion series of "Talks with Girls," by women like H. H., Miss Alcott, Mrs. Whitney, and Mrs. Dodge, have formed a notable feature of inestimable value both to young readers and to parents.

Put a boy to studying geography, and he gets a vague idea that Greenland is a green spot on the upper part of his map. But let him read Dr. Hayes's "Adventures on an Iceberg," and the arctic land, as by a touch of magic, becomes a real country. All the dry stuff in the school-books about the "chief products" and "principal seaports" of Japan will never make that land of dainty decoration half so real as will the article in Volume VI.,

HORSES. [FROM "ST. NICHOLAS," VOL. VIII.]

entitled "The Blossom-Boy of Tokio," with its thirty-seven illustrations. But there is not one of the numbers of the magazine that does not stir the curiosity, inform the memory, stimulate thought, and enlarge the range of the imagination. Jack-in-the-Pulpit keeps up a steady fire of suggestion, question, answer, and what not, about all kinds of things, stirring up the mind of a child to knock at Nature's doors, and pry into the secrets of science and art. One of the ingenious methods used by the magazine to excite interest in scientific study is the Agassiz Association. The quaint reports of the young people about what they have discovered with their own fresh eyes, are among the most interesting things in ST. NICHOLAS. The association promotes correspondence and exchange of specimens among boys and girls, and diferent parts of the country.

ST. NICHOLAS has been justly compared to Froebel's "Kindergarten"-reaching and moving the whole intellec: 1 and moral nature of a child.

ITS MORAL AND RELIGIOUS INFLUENCE.

ST. NICHOLAS would be a great benefactor if it did nothing but preoccupy the ground, and so crowd out the ill-weeds of noxious books and papers, which are sure to find their way where the attention is not engaged, and the taste elevated bv better reading. The great antidote to frivolity is mental occupation

and this antidote a juvenile magazine of the highest grade affords. But ST. NICHOLAS does far more than this: to hundreds of thousands it is a teacher of religion-not in

dry, dogmatic form like a catechism, not in any sectarian sense. But it teaches what a great orator once called "applied Christianity" -the principles of religion as they are applied to ordinary life. The practice of humanity to dumb brutes, for example, is taught in the society of" Bird-defenders" formed among its readers. Unselfishness, faithfulness, courage, truthfulness-these things are taught in a hundred ways by stories, poems, and precepts. And these are the very core of true religion applied to the life.

GOOD COMPANY.

WHAT a galaxy of eminent men and women has ST. NICHOLAS, by some hook or crook, beguiled into writing for its lucky children! Alfred Tennyson, Thomas Hughes, George MacDonald, William Howitt, Mrs. Oliphant, Lewis Carroll, the author of "Alice in Wonderland," Professor Proctor, Philip Bourke Marston, Archibald Forbes, and other famous men and women from the other side of the sea, and Bryant, Longfellow, Whittier, H. H., Colonel Higginson, Bret Harte, J. G. Holland, Bayard Taylor, James T. Fields, Edward Eggleston, Gail Hamilton, Frances Hodgson Burnett, Julian Hawthorne, Louisa M. Alcott, J. T. Trowbridge, Paul H. Hayne,

Foote, Donald G. Mitchell, W. H. Gibson, S. M. P. Piatt, Nora Perry, and half a hundred more of the best-known names in American literature, are on its list of contributors. Almost all of our great writers have been introduced to posterity by ST. NICHOLAS. The list is so long that it would be easier to tell the few American writers of note who have not contributed than to recite the list of those who have.

THE PICTURES.

As to the list of artists who have contributed to ST. NICHOLAS, it includes almost all the prominent illustrators of the day.

So much has been said of the charming illustrations of ST. NICHOLAS, they have been so often and so highly praised, they have brought such warm words of commendation from high authorities in England as well as in America-that we should run the risk of becoming tedious if we enlarged upon them and their rare educational refining influence. The leading paper of Edinburgh pronounces the illustrations "infinitely superior" to any thing produced in juvenile publications in Great Britain, and adds: "Young people will be taught by them to admire what is really good, and will have their tastes culti

vated. They will arn that they ought not to be satisfied with daubs and slovenly workmanship." The London "Spectator" calls