THE AMERICAN TEACHER. All communications should be addressed to the Editors. Subscribers whose orders are not promptly attended to are requested to repeat the order. Postals and letters should always state the P. O. address, town, county, and state of the subscriber to which THE AMERICAN TEACHER is addressed. Subscribers should remit by P. O. orders or by registered letters. All business letters and telegraphic despatches should be addressed to A. E. WINSHIP, Publisher, 3 Somerset Street, Boston, Mass. THE AMERICAN TEACHER is sent to subscribers until it is ordered stopped, and all arrearages are paid. Page 283 283 NEWPORT is to be the most attractive place for teacher in New England next July, and it will see the largest number of teachers that has ever assembled in any east ern city. Lay all your plans to be there the second week in July. THE Youth's Companion, Wide Awake, St. Nicholas, Harper's Young People, Our Little Ones, Little Men and Women, Babyland, Pansy, are all excellent school room periodicals. A CATALOGUE of the Salem State Normal School from the opening of the school in 1854 has been prepared. Every graduate will want a copy. Send fifty cents to Miss Mary A. Plumer, Salem. THE Hon. J. W. Dickinson, secretary of the Massachu285 setts Board of Education, has issued a "Course of Study for Ungraded Schools." Every country teacher should secure a copy, which can probably be had for the asking. 286 287-293 Friday Afternoon Chips from an Educational Workshop in MUSIC DEPARTMENT: Singing in German Schools - Hymn to Saint John. EDITORIAL: 294-295 Notes Summer Schools - Reasons in Favor of the Publick you cannot go July. to San Francisco, go to Newport, next We thank our subscribers who, by the thousand, write us in ardent praise of the AMERICAN TEACHER. We rejoice in its success, not only because of the gain to us, but because of the gain to the profession. Help us to extend its circulation, and we will continue to make it better and better every month. THERE were never so many and so valuable illustrated articles in any one number of any educational periodical as in this number of the AMERICAN TEACHER. There is more and better work to follow. Every illustration is made on purpose for this paper, and they are elegantly made. Call the attention of your friends to the merit of these pages. THERE is no power in the world that can make a good A CHRONIC grumbler is the greatest educational nui- school without a good teacher. You are the unit of force. sance in existence. MAKE sacrifices if need be, in order to go to San Francisco next July. But you cannot make the system in your city or town a success. There must be some unifying force. You will gain more from good supervision than any other person in your town. Do all in your power to hasten the day WE have the best spring exercise we have ever seen when you shall be relieved of much annoying detail by from any one pen, that by Kate L. Brown. SEND to us for particulars, if there is any hope of your going to San Francisco. We will send circulars free. THE poems are both by Miss Libby, who now helps us in making the AMERICAN TEACHER good in every part. BE of good courage, there is sure to be better pay for the best teaching. Right must win, and every element of justice demands this. "KIP" is the most affecting story we have read in many a day, an admirable companion-piece to Esther Converse's "My Pupil" of last month. HUNDREDS of teachers have been made very happy by getting up clubs for the AMERICAN TEACHER. Our premiums are unparalleled. Send for a "Premium List." having a superintendent to unify the best work of the best teachers in the best way. MASSACHUSETTS has neglected her country schools un til there are many towns that are left far behind the cities, far behind the country towns of the West. The board of education is trying to secure better supervision We hope the legislature will be wise in for these towns. following their lead in this matter. The plan is for three or four towns to unite and employ a superintendent, paying $1,500 for a good man, the state to pay one half the amount. No more important measure has been proposed in a long time. THE practice of detaining children in the schoolroom during recess time, for the sake of punishment, cannot be too severely condemned. Apart from the lamentable exhibition on the teacher's part that he is forced to resort to such a weak subterfuge in administering punishment, it is sitions, both delightful and profitable." Under each head injudicious to the well-being of the pupil, making him a above given there is much that is entertaining and instrucvictim to the draughts in the room, if it be ventilated by tive worked out by the ingenious author of the book, and opening windows and doors, or compelling him to continue it is interesting to observe the different methods employed to inhale the noxious air already foul from the confine- for the development of the various subjects under considment in the room. Every child has a right, an inalien-eration. Not much is given by way of illustrating the points or rules that the author gives, but in the division devoted to "Rhetorick" there is inserted a curious oration uttered in 1671 by a young student in "Praise of Publick Schools above Private." It is given by the author as a model of rhetorical skill and as worthy of emulation. It is as follows: able right, to fresh air and exercise, and he should not be deprived of this by the caprice of a teacher. If the boy deserves punishment, administer it in the prescribed form, but give him the fresh air and exercise which the recess time is supposed to provide for him. SUMMER SCHOOLS. "There is a great Controversy this Day to be decided concerning Schools, whether Parents had best to educate their Children in Publick Schools or Private. If I may speak my mind in this HE number of summer schools will be diminished place without offence I would give the Preheminence to Publick ; but the value of those remaining will be greater than ever Seven, and I hope my Reasons are as perfect as their Number. before. We are in a position to know the careful and costly preparations being made at the various resorts for the coming season, and we unreservedly and most heartily urge every teacher who can, to attend at least one of these schools. If you cannot complete the course at any one of them, make it in your way to spend at least a week with these noble, enthusiastic, progressive teachers. All of the leading schools are thoroughly reliable, and do more than they promise in their circulars. Your choice of a school will depend almost entirely upon your acquaintance with the managers, instructors, some students who are going, or the nearness and attractiveness of the location. Send for circulars of the leading schools and decide for yourself which one you wish to attend. We wi'l vouch for the thorough reliability of every school that advertises in these columns. We know the most of these schools personally, and intend to visit at least three of them the coming summer for our own enjoyment and the inspiration of such companionship. We appreciate, fully, what Dr. E. A. Sheldon, of the Oswego Normal School, said, after spending three weeks last year at one of these schools: "I never spent the same time more profitably in my life. Teachers cannot afford to lose such tunities." oppor REASONS IN FAVOR OF THE PUBLICK BY WINTHROP. 66 "First: The ablest Masters are in Publick Schools (at least wise we need not fear to say so,) for who that is Master but of a Private School, will be so Presumptuous to compare himself to one of them, any more than a Petty Prince to compare with the Grand Seignior. 'Secondly: Publick Schools make the best Scholars, great Linguists, brave Orators, excellent Poets and what not? When they come to the University they are not like Children that are born very Great, of which they use to say that they are half brought up so soon as they are born. "Thirdly: In Publick Schools there is the greatest Emulation, which makes some Boys tug at their Oars like Watermen that Row for a Wager, and strain their parts as Lutanists sometimes do their Souls till it be ready to cut the Scabbard of their Bodies. strings, till they even Crack again: and whet the Edge of their "Fourthly: It is a great Reputation to be of a Publick School, and to be Captain in such a School is to be a little Vice Chancellor : All the Mischief in every Boy hath not Capacity to arrive to it, (as they say E quovis ligno nonfit mercurias.) Every Stick will not make a Mercury. 66 Seventhly and Lastly: Publick Schools do furnish Boys with due boldness and confidence, and are not afraid or ashamed to look a Man in the Face, no nor spit in his Face upon a good occasion. Now the Lord Bacon tells us, Confidence can do Wonders: When Mahomet had promised to make a Mountain at a great distance to come to him at his call, and Multitudes waited to see the performance which he could not effect: He did but say with a good laudable Confidence, if that Mountain will not come to Mahomet I tell you what, Mahomet will go to that Mountain' N a book entitled "The Theory of Sciences; or, The and it passed for a Miracle among the common People. And Grounds and Principles of the Seven Liberal Arts, many professions require a great deal of Confidence, Lawyers must which are Grammar, Logick, Rhetorick, Musick, Arith-sometimes set a good face upon a bad Cause or it will be the worse metick, Geometry, and Astronomy," published in London, at the "Angel and Bible without Temple Bar, MDCCII," there are many quaint "questions, problems, and propo for their Clients. Physicians must have a convenient boldness not to be out-braved by Mountebanks, out-talked by Midwives, Nurses, Old Women and every Medling Gossip, but if any Man can answer these seven Reasons I shall content myself with a Private School." January. FOR FRIDAY AFTERNOON. MAID MARIAN AT SCHOOL. BY KATE L. BROWN. ARIAN'S a little girl, Fleet of foot and bright of eye; Maiden Marian goes to school; Birds, and flowers, and running brooks, All for her the skies are blue, He coaxes the leaf-buds on the trees, PUSSY WILLOW. Pussy Willow wakened "It is chilly weather, Mistress Pussy Willow April. May. Never had the brooklet Never guest was quainter. While the happy children Marian straying in the wood; Baby April passing by, Breaks the dreamer's solitude With a little mournful cry. "I have planted violets, But I fear they will not spring; I have called my bluebirds north, What if they should never sing?" Then the silver tears fall down From her eyes so blue and sweet, And the violets unfold From the grasses at her feet. From the budding bough o'erhead Comes a far, delicious strain; "Hark!" cries April, smiles and tears; "Now my bluebirds sing again." Hand in hand through the sunny meadows May and Marian tripping pass; The wind-flower nods from the woodland shadows, The buttercup is starring the grass. They are watching the birds weave the hay and mosses, And the small brown ant dig her winding cell; They learn of the working bee his secrets, And wonderful histories May doth tell,- A tale of "a poor little baby streamlet And tried its best to be brave and good, June. Then rosy June takes Marian by the hand; "See all my daisies in the grass!" she cries; "See how they nod their funny little frills, And, courtesying in the breezes, fall and rise." Then Marian, where the meadow grass grows long, Sits down with June to hear the daisies' song [Sing "Daisy Nurses," words and music. |