which rubs down nature's asperities, the burnisher which polishes the rough surface of society, the brush which applies the last varnish.

Therefore, long live the poetic and delightful custom of New Year's calls. There is not a spot on earth where it could be of greater service, not a region where the climate would so accord with the custom. Business eats up intercourse like a cancer, and isolation is to the character like salt water to the old iron of the wrecked ship, corroding and rusting it. A custom which causes pleasant associations and sympathies is like oil on the surface of steel, keeping it bright. 'Tis the stamp on the guinea of society, giving new beauty to its gold. Let New Year's Day, then, be our mint to coin anew pleasant feelings, and turn into double-eagles the rough bullion of life.

THE surest guarantee of the continuance of any liberal government is the early and proper education of its youth. Mankind are prone to lose sight of the mutability of the human race, and to forget that adult life is but one of the seven stages in their brief career, for all of which the world exists alike; and that, after a short cycle, each, like the pieces on the chess-board, will have reached his highest post, whether he be pawn, bishop, knight or queen. Popular governments, unless sustained by an educated community, will change: hereditary monarchies require no firmer basis than the ignorant dependence on traditionary right, and the determination to endure and transmit that which had been endured and transmitted. The wisdom of our own successful system has recognized the necessity of a general diffusion of education, and our youth enter manhood not to be the blind followers of parvenu demagogues, but boldly and justly

to determine questions of right and polity within their senatehouses, and to practise those principles of politics and ethics that have been inculcated at their public schools. It is an essential element in the happiness of every man, of whatever station, to secure the welfare of his offspring, and to furnish them with better implements for the task they have before them, than he himself had; and this duty the Anglo-Saxon observes beyond any other. Living less for the present, than the indolent dreamer of the tropics, or the ignorant northern barbarian ; with passions subservient to mind, and inclinations subordinate to will, he is energetic, every where looking to the social elevation of his race, and its continuance throughout the future. Even amid the wild, brigandic confusion reigning on the Pacific coast, where dazzling scenes and gorgeous changes embodied Aladdin's imagined splendors; where excitement fevered every pulse, and made of men the genii doing the biddings of the mighty master; where passion, avarice and cupidity were dominant, one of the earliest measures proposed, was the establishment of appropriate educational facilities. These attempts were at first imperfect, and possessed more of a private than a public character. Legislative action is always slow. However anxious and ardent men may be for reform, here as elsewhere, they seize the golden opportunity of power, and sacrifice mutual interests to individual aggrandizement. There were few children in the new State, but few wives or women, yet the community was composed of men, with more of greatness of mind and goodness of heart beneath the rugged coats of the miner or the shaggy-haired trader in ounces, than those whom the monkey-god of fashion had beautified in other lands. Hence, the progress of the school system towards perfection, in this city, has been unexampled, and its present successful practical workings are subjects of the highest pride and gratulation to its inhabitants. San Francisco has skipped through or over its colonial stage, and grown from hamlet to village, from village to town, and from town to city-from the little school-house in the forest to the brick village building with a bell, to the orderly, well arranged grammar-school, and the dignified and stately university. It has burst upon the world-a new star in the firmament of glories-the Adam of a new creation. Its history

has no centuries of toil: its stages were ephemeral. There was a fierce struggle of intellect with passion-three days of battle and pillage—and a glorious victory of man's high estate. Here, improvements, begun elsewhere, are perfected, and that done rapidly, which has been gained slowly. The schools here are not inferior to the world-renowned and years-old systems of Pennsylvania and the Eastern States. The minor details yet want much of completion; but the unanimous wish of the people has already been so decidedly spoken, and men of such acknowledged talents have devoted their energies to the task, that we need not fear that existing defects will continue to interfere with its success.

The first American school in San Francisco, and we believe in California, was a merely private enterprise. It was opened by a Mr. Marston from one of the Atlantic States, in April, 1847, in a small shanty which stood on the block between Broadway and Pacific street, west of Dupont street. There he collected some twenty or thirty pupils, whom he continued to teach for almost a whole year, his patrons paying for tuition. He was not remarkable for his education, and, indeed, possessed none of the qualifications requisite in one of his calling.

The people of the town at length saw the necessity of some. public movement to secure to their children a fit education, and late in 1847, they built a school-house, a representation of which heads this article, on the south-west corner of Portsmouth Square, fronting on Clay street where it is now joined by Brenham Place. Insignificant as the building appears, it was destined to subserve more useful purposes than any other that has been erected in the city, and should have been preserved as one of its most valued relics. Its history was almost an epitome of that of the curious people who built it. Every new enterprise found here a heating oven to warm the egg into successful hatching. Here churches held their first meetings; and here the first public amusements were given. It was the assembly room of the early gatherings of Odd-Fellows and other benevolent associations; and a universal public hall for political, military, and almost every other description of meeting. It was dignified as a court-house under Judge Almond, designated as an institute at another period, and at length degraded to a police-office and a station-house.

Not a vestige, however, of the old relic now remains, and its site is only recognized by the thousand cherished associations that hover like spirits around its unmarked grave.

On the 21st February, 1848, a town meeting was called for the election of a board of school trustees, and Dr. F. Fourgeaud, Dr. J. Townsend, C. L. Ross, J. Serrine and Wm. H. Davis, Esqs. were chosen. On the 3d of April following, these trustees opened a school in the building just erected, under the charge of Mr. Thomas Douglas, A. M., a graduate of Yale College, and an experienced teacher, of high reputation. The board pledged him a salary of one thousand dollars per annum, and fixed a tariff of tuition to aid towards its payment; and the town council, afterwards, to make up any deficiency, "appropriated to the payment of the teacher of the public school in this place, two hundred dollars at the expiration of twelve months from the commencement of the school." Soon after this, Mr. Marston discontinued his private school, and Mr. Douglas collected some forty pupils. Prior to opening the school, the trustees had taken a census of the town, and ascertained that the population was something over eight hundred (including Indians), of which four hundred and seventy-three were males, one hundred and seventy-seven females, and sixty children of suitable ages for school; the remainder being youths over sixteen and infants under five years. Eight months previously the population numbered three hundred and seventy-five.

The public school prospered and increased for eight or ten weeks, when it received a sudden and unforeseen check. The accounts from the interior had lately been of the most favorable character. Rumors of immense and rapidly acquired fortunes, but above all, the exhibition of specimens of the precious oro, drove the whole population to such an intensity of excitement, that it resulted in a general stampede of men, women, and children for the "mines," leaving the teacher minus pupils, minus trustees and town council, and minus tuition and salary. He, therefore, locked the school-house, and shouldering his pick and pan, himself started for the "diggins." In the general scramble for gold, the school enterprise was for a time forgotten, and the education of the children, who were increasing in number by