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BOOK TABLE.

gree to control the motives and conduct, is entirely practicable in a regular course of Common School instruction."

FIRST CLASS READER, by G. S. Hillard pub lished by Hickling, Swan & Brown, Boston.We have in this work the result of research, We have somewhat carefully examined this observation, reflection and practice. There is work and our opinion is that it is just what it no fine spun theory. Every teacher who obpurports to be. It is not a work on Elocution tains a copy of it may feel sure of having a or Oratory; but a collection of beautiful pieces safe guide in this important department of his in prose and poetry, selected from various au-duty. We would recommend it for use in Sunthors of this and other lands. Each selection day Schools and families, and indeed we know is complete. Nothing has been mutilated. of no profession, or calling, or position in which The biographical notes are the result of careful this volume would not be found of great val. study; they are scholar-like. We know of no Reader that exhibits better judgment and taste than this.

ue.

We do not simply wish to recommend this work to teachers-we wish to urge upon them the necessity of obtaining it, as a duty they owe to their pupils, their profession and themselves.

THE AMERICAN COMPREHENSIVE READER, by William D. Swan, published by Hickling, Swan & Brown, Boston. This is an excellent work PELTON'S OUTLINE MAPS & KEY.-It seems and is admirably adapted to our Grammar and strange, but it is true, that very few of our District Schools. There are fine exercises in Schools are yet furnished with this splendid articulation and for enunciation. The selee- and indispensable pre-requisite to success in tions were made by an old Schoolmaster, who teaching Geography. Years are wasted in efhad every opportunity to make a good book.forts to learn what, with a set of these maps, a

This work should receive attention from those who may wish to select a good reading book for their schools.

GLEANINGS FROM THE POETS FOR HOME AND SCHOOL, published by Crosby, Nichols & Co., Boston. This is a fine collection of such pieces of poetry as will cultivate the imagination and refine the taste. It is adapted to the home circle as well as the school. Did teachers feel as deeply as they ought, the necessity of developing the faculties and powers that this volume would aid them in cultivating, we are confident that it would find an extensive sale.

term would enable a pupil to acquire.

The simplest exercise of economy would lead every School Board in the state to order a set of these maps forthwith. Until they, or something similar, are provided, we would advise the people to exclude really, as they are now doing practically, the study of Geography from their Schools. We believe they are acknowledged by all, to be the best published and on the terms upon which they are offered, we know they are the cheapest.-Address J. H. Rolfe, Cincinnati.

CORRESPONDENCE between the Chief Superintendent of Schools for Upper Canada and other MORAL LESSONS, by M. F. Cowdery, pub-persons on the subject of separate Schools.-We lished by H. Cowperthwait & Co., Philadelphia. infer from the large volume before us, that our -This work deserves special attention. Most Canadian friends have some difficulty in carryteachers have felt the want of such a treatise ing out the details of their school system. This as this. The author has assumed that a child volume contains the correspondence in regard has a moral nature-that systematic instruction to the establishment of separate schools in is essential to its cultivation-that a proposi- those localities where the Roman Catholics and tion in morals, as well as in mathematics, must Protestants cannot agree. The letters of the be properly illustrated in order to be understood Superintendent, Rev. E. Ryerson, are replete -that ability to teach morals is the first qual- with common sense, sound argument and ification of a teacher, and that "moral culture courtesy. to such an extent, as to enlist the sympathies,

WORCESTER'S NEW DICTIONARY.-There is form the early sentiments, and, in a great de- a pleasure in calling attention to this work

lately published. It is cheap, convenient, comMARRIED. On the 22d ult., Mr. J. G. Meplete and correct. We do not see what imKindley, Principal of Kenosha High School, to provement is possible in these respects. We Miss Harriet Hale of Kenosha,

know of no work superior as a school Diction

ary, and we hope it may be carefully examined!

DIED. At Bridgewater, Mass., on the 10th

by teachers. For sale by S. C. Griggs & Co., ult., Nicholas Tillinghast, the first Principal of Chicago. the State Normal School, in that place. He had spent a life in the cause of Education, and although not old in years, yet if

HOLBROOK SCHOOL APPARATUS.-This apparatus is just what is needed for our Common

"He lives most,

Schools. It is cheap and durable, and was designed to meet their wants. Twenty dollars Who thinks most, feels the noblest, acts the best" expended for this apparatus would be a desir- then did Mr. Tillinghast live to a good old age. able investment. It is approved by our best teachers and educators, and ought to be ordered, paid for and used by every school that is unsupplied in the state.

At Hazel Green on the 2d inst., Dr. James G. Percival, of New Haven, Conn.. State Geologist for Wisconsin. He was a profound scholar and a true poet. He died lamented by all who knew him.

Joseph McKeen, Esq., Assistant Superin

THE "Massachusetts Teacher," for May, brimful of "round about common sense" has reached us. Alphens Crosby, who has recently become editor, is making friends wherever tendent of Schools in the City of New York, rethe Teacher circulates. cently deceased. He was generally known THE "Ohio Journal of Education," was, durablest educationists. The death of such a man throughout the United States as one of the ing the time of its publication under the charge is a national loss.

of Dr. A. D. Lord, our ideal of an Educational

Journal. We parted company with the Dr. John A. Foote, Charles Rumelin and James with regret. Rev. A. Smith recently appoint- D. Ladd, have been appointed commissioners ed editor, is securing for himself the favorable to provide for the establishment of the Ohio opinion of the old readers of the Journal, as Reform School; legislative provision for well as the new. Under his charge it is exert- which was made during the late session of the ing the same healthful influence on the educa- Ohio Legislature. tional affairs of Ohio, that has heretofore made it "mighty for good."

PERSONAL.

Rev. Chas. V. Pigeon has been appointed Professor of Languages in Carroll College, Waukesha. We hear him spoken of as an accomplished scholar.

Mr. A. Pickett, has been appointed Princi- We would return our thanks to the edipal of the Oshkosh Union School, in place of tors of the state, for favorable notices and enJ. E. Munger resigned. couraging words. Our success thus far has

Geo. Bosworth, formerly Principal of Salem exceeded our most sanguine expectations. We Academy, has been appointed Professor of hope soon to enlarge the Journal and materialMathematics in the University of Milwaukee. ly to improve it in appearance. It may not be generally known that it has been very difficult The Trustees of the State Asylum for the to obtain a first rate article of book paper durBlind have engaged Mr. Wm. H. Churchman ing the last few months. Let our friends conas Superintendent. tinue to send in their subscriptions and we will

Mr. A. H. Wenzel, late of Wauwautosa Ac-assure them, no pains shall be spared to make ademy, has been appointed Principal of the the Journal creditable to the State. preparatory department of Carroll College, Mr. Geo. B. Stone, late of Fall River Mass., Waukesha, in place of Dr. J. H. Magoffin re- has been appointed Superintendent of Schools signed. lin Indianapolis, Ia.

WISCONSIN

JOURNAL OF EDUCATION.

VOLUME L-JUNE, 1856.-NUMBER IV.

BEM'S METHOD OF TEACHING HISTORY

AN

Still more; in history we can compare the activity of men with the action of APPEAL TO TEACHERS AND BOARDS Divine Providence. Men are "free to play fantastic tricks before high heaven"

OF EDUCATION.

BY MISS E. P. PEABODY, PERTH AMBOY, N. J. that will give character and direction to the destinies of nations for long periods, OR general discipline of mind, and and this is precisely in the same propor

giving tion

For

impulse to general intelligence, and stim- their moral sense. But the eternal Laws ulus to effective action, History is the of God round all these things in at last, most important of studies. None is more and mark national falsehood and folly with generally interesting; for to know of the ac- catastrophes which are no accidents, but tion, motives and character of those around the sentences of Divine judgment. us is an instinct, giving birth to the weak- though no man's lifetime is long enough ness of gossip everywhere, except where to read the judgment of God upon the the thoughts are employed upon the doings of his cotemporaries, especially character, action, and principle of human when they act in a national capacity, yet well being, under different circumstances to the heroic eye the everlasting books of of place and time, to the end of acting judgment are laid open, and whoever has among them effectively, and upon a large eyes to read, can read the verdict in the scale. Nor is any study so moral in its catastrophes which these doings bring effect. A suggestive writer has said, about in successive generations. that on the page of history we "may study We study nature to see the laws of our own weaknesses and errors without personal pique." We certainly can there God in matter, that, co-operating with study the general issues of character, them intelligently, we may multiply with vastly less of the personal prejudice works of beauty and utility for man's and passion that blind us in the study of pleasure and material profit; and more, those immediately about us. it is becoming evident that a wise political economy demands that these studies Miss Peabody has had large experience as should be open to all, in order that all a teacher, having been associated for some the genius for invention and use, whereyears with her sister, Mrs. Horace Mann. in with God has endowed men of all concharge of a school of high reputation in Bos-ditions, should be cultivated and used to ton; and is well known in New York, Phila- swell the wealth of nations. delphia, and other cities, by her successful and persevering endeavors to introduce the best mode of teaching and studying history. No one is more competent to write, or more worthy to be read, on the subject of this article. EDITOR.

But what avails increase of wealth, if LIBERTY, which is the element of the What avails the inspiritual, be lost? crease of material power, if from want of

knowledge of the passions of men, want original genius, as their yet existing of judgment as to their relative weight in monuments show?

action, and want of appreciation of the There may be other forms of the same intellectual, moral and religious powers principles that produced all these rnins. inspired by God to balance these fatal History does not repeat forms, but it tendencies, society becomes diseased, manifests, in every age, the action of the which is the first step to the loss of same human nature. Buddhisms and Liberty? Brahminisms under Christian names; History shows us that by the action of Despotic Monarchies, Inquisitions, Counindividuals and classes, and of institutions cils of Ten, ur der republican names, may which were often well meant in the be-grow up among ourselves. The old serginning, the living, suffering units who pent is in the garden of our new world make up nations, and as children and im- also, charming with its subtlety the selfages of God, are called to be the equal seeking ambition that would be "as the lords of nature, are sacrificed to arbitra-gods" upon the earth. Have we eaten of ry will, either quick as Napoleons and that Tree of life which purges the eye Nicholases, or dead, as in Brahminisms, to see that serpent gods are scourges and Councils of Ten, Inquisitions, and other curses of nature and men; instead of forms of despotism. Shall this be done making of men themselves a brotherhood in this country too, where things are yet of sovereigns of nature, in communion at the formative epoch? This is a most with the Infinite Love which takes capimportant question to the Superintend- tivity captive, and is perfect liberty for ents and Directors of American Educa- each and for all? That Tree of Life is knowledge of God's pure activity in dis tion. crimination from man's; and to be wise,

For the first time in the ages, has the to gather the fruit, requires, first, a pure political, which involves the social power love of truth, as to principle and fact; really come into the hands of the mass of and secondly, knowledge of history in the people. The political constitutions, long reaches, so as to see ends from bethe social legislation, the daily acts of the ginnings.

government, general and municipal, are From these considerations it follows now accomplished by men just free from that, to the religious mind, to the human public schools; and who, stimulated to mind, if it understands its highest vocaenergetic activity by circumstances of option, to study man in society, to the end portunity that are wholly unbounded, of working his redemption from the orare every day doing what is to affect the ganized evils that the elder world has be destiny of ages over one third of the area queathed, is the paramount matter. We of the globe. It is a career not offered have seen that we are in no less peril to men until after some six or eight thou- here in our day, in this new world, than sand years of human experience, which was the Adam of the old world inheriting certainly cannot but afford some great as we do the crimes of humanity from his lights. But have we any general pres- day to our own, embodied in institutions. ence of mind to this experience? and if It is true that Christ whose divinity not, how are we sure that we may not re- was before Abraham, has taken flesh sume the same kind of institutions that, in Jesus of Nazareth and his faithful folwith their death-in-life, cumber Asia, and lowers; and we believe him to be redeemAfrica, and even Europe; and put into ing men from the depth of evil to which act to-day principles which have rendered they had sunk when the Roman Empire desert and strewed with ruins, regions replaced the corrupted Republic, which the most favored on the globe, where arts should be the terror of the American peoand sciences have flourished, where world ple. But, unless we understand the wide commerce has inundated men with whole history of that agony of humanity wealth (intoxicating them, too, till which culminated on the cross of the they defied the future;) where false innocent and devoted one, who suffered, religion and mistaken politics have en- although he did not personally deserve slaved instead of developed into pro- the penalties of human transgression, gressive improvement-nations rich with and thereby symbolized the social char

acter and bearings of its nature and issues, we shall not enter into the immunities symbolized by the Resurrection, or help organize a society to do so.

The chronological relation is God's disposition of events, every one of which is a word proceeding out of his mouth. Let us read these words as they lie in Time, giving significance to each other.

"Man lives not by bread alone," and to teach man how to earn bread by ma- This hint to the true method of studychinery instead of "by the sweat of his ing history, deserves a marked attention. brow" (a noble destiny of which we have It is certainly true, and pity 'tis 'tis caught a glimpse), is not to do away the true," that history has not been generalcurse. Nature, which is the house manly written with reference to discriminalives in, and the tool by which he is to ting the divine from the human activity, work upon it, must be studied, it is true; and hardly with a consciousness of the but not to the neglect of the august in- former in the mind of the historians, if habitant, who is the worker. But how is we except the case of the Hebrew proman to be studied, except in his action, phets. But to study history, primapersonal, social, political? History, in rily on Bem's Charts of Chronologyfact is it not the study of studies for which give the outlines to the eye withman, and, therefore, for every American out human commentary, and without youth? Not every one needs to be a ge-overlaying them with the mass of details ologist, mineralogist, botanist, chemist; that make it hard for the mind to leap but every man must needs be a fellow- from cause to effect, across intervals in citizen, voter, and may be a legislator, which human individualities have time to magistrate, perhaps the chief magistrate expend the nselves and suffer the recreaof his town, state, or nation. If he tions which reveal the divine rather than knows nothing else, he ought to know the the human will-makes it possible for history of nations, especially of the na- the student to supply, from his own tions whose career is run through. He mind and conscience, that which only needs to see how the institutions which the prophet-historian gives, namely, the have cursed the world have grown up, light of God's truth wherein to view and to learn how the more blessed influ- events in their relations to spiritual welences in society are cherished by govern- fare. The difficulty has hitherto been, ment or at least kept unquenched. He to get before the mind the history which should know all this in order, and sym- is to be understood. There has not been metrically; and if he does not get the an effective way of making this great frame work of it at school, it is possible, acquisition, which is preliminary to nay, most probable, that he will never gaining the wisdom contained in it. get it. There is such a mass of facts, when we In this matter a little light leads astray. turn our minds into the Past, that the The white light of true political and so- first feeling of the student is a sort of cial wisdom is made of many colors, min- despair. The only reason why history gling in due proportion. Every nation's is not a study as universal, and consid history illustrates particular casts of hu- ered as indispensable in common schools man character, and affords special exper- as geography, is because there has not iments in political action; but taken by been any instrument to help the memory, itself, leads to one-sidedness of view, and equivalent to the common school atlas. strong prejudices. At school the general But Bem's Charts of Chronology proprogramme of universal history should fess to be just this effectivo instrube put into the mind of every pupil, and ment.

if it is not, he will not read wisely, sym- When, fifty years ago, Geography was metrically, and to edification afterward. studied only in verbal discriptions of the And how should this programme be boundaries of nations, of the course of made! Not by human will and wisdom, rivers, and situations of towns, without disposing events under their own narrow an atlas presenting these at once in all lights, as every historian must necessari- their relations to the eye, it was a study ly do; but as they are disposed in time confined to the upper classes in schools, by God himself. The time of an event is and youth generally entered into life the most significant of its circumstances. with the vaguest ideas of the topography

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