of monitors of one of the largest Lancasterian schools that has ever been erected; and it can scarcely be doubted that a system of instruction which constantly limits the attention of one instructer or monitor to a class of eight or ten scholars, and thus facilitates a rapid continuation of individual exercise, is the most favorable for implanting habits of attention, clearness of comprehension, and accuracy of execution, which has ever been devised.

Geography, which, in the lower department, can only be considered as an amusement, will be pursued in this, upon that system which can alone be effectual-a constant reference to the maps. Considering it improper in the early study of geography, to mingle it, as is often done, with scraps of history, politics, manners, and peculiarities of nations, we shall confine our boys of the junior department, to an acquaintance with geographical features alone, and shall use scarcely any other books than those which serve as guides to the maps. A plentiful supply of maps will of course be considered as of the first importance.

English grammar will be commenced in this department, and continued as far as the syntax of our language. It matters not how early, after they have learned to read fluently, children begin the study of grammar, provided they are taught strictly upon the principles of analysis, and advanced no faster than their understandings will carry them. To distinguish the alphabet into vowels and consonants, and to select from a few plain sentences, all the nouns, verbs, and adjectives, are exercises which very young children can soon be taught to take pleasure in, and to give good reasons for the judgements which they form. As a mental exercise therefore, as well as the means of laying the foundation of an important branch of knowledge, the study of grammar should, we think, be thus early introduced.

Reading and elocution will receive due attention in the junior class, and it is within the scope of our intention, to extend to the pupils of this department, the advantage to be derived from an illustration of natural and sensible objects by pictures and other illustrations.

In the senior department, the preceding studies will be perfected. Arithmetic will be extended to its highest rules and applications; geography to the theory and construction of maps, to its dependencies upon, and connection with, astronomy, history, and antiquities; with geology and mineralogy, with climate, seasons, the productions of the earth, and the varieties and habits of the human

race.

Grammar will be advanced so as to include all the minutiae of syntax, prosody, punctuation, style, &c. and the important subject of our own language will be pursued by the study of rhetoric and

belles-lettres, and by the art and practice of composition, and elocution. In this department, the different branches of mathematics, pure and applied, will receive that attention which their importance demands, and we hope that in the applications of geometry and trigonometry to the measurement of land and other things, we shall be able to aid our pupils by actual experiments. It is our intention to provide for the wishes of every class of students in the mathematical branches, and to assist them with the use of instruments to the very extent which our means will justify us in proceeding.

An institution destined, like the present, to receive boys from the nursery, and to prepare them for the various spheres of busy and useful life, would be incomplete in the present state of the physical sciences, without the means of initiating them into the interesting principles of natural philosophy, chemistry, and natural history. The greater part of these very comprehensive portions of knowledge, can be effectually taught only by the aid of experiments and specimens; and while we profess to furnish the means of carrying our students with advantage through most of those subjects, we do it with the understanding, that it must be chiefly by the devotion of extra hours of instruction and study, and with the confidence, that for the additional expense and labor which those enlarged means will require, there will be an adequate gratification in the affluence of our numbers, and the good will of those who are the best able to judge of the nature and utility of our institution.

The study of the languages of Greece and Rome, will receive that uniform and persevering attention, which a just appreciation of the importance of classic literature, and the comprehensiveness of our establishment necessarily call for. Fully persuaded that the important aid which the monitorial system has the power to render to instruction in the classics, has been proved to demonstration in the High-School of Edinburgh, in the Charter-Houses in London, and in various establishments in France and England, that system will be applied to Latin and Greek in the arrangements to be adopted, to the full extent of which experience shall prove the advantage, and no further. The same may be said of the French and Spanish languages. As two of the most popular and extensive living vehicles of thought and mind, these two languages are worthy of particular attention; and we see no reason why every pupil in our superior class, not engaged in the ancient languages, may not occupy a portion of his time with French or Spanish. It will be accompanied with no additional cost, except that of books; unless attention should be required during the hours of recess from school. The study of either of these languages may be pursued without any detriment to the more essential branches, and with unequivocal benefit to the minds and habits of the students.

I shall refrain from dwelling longer on the literary pursuits of this seminary; but I cannot dismiss my subject, without adverting to one branch of instruction, which it is equally the wish, I believe, of the trustees and principals, to establish, as a constituent part of our general plan, from a conviction of its advantages to the bodily vi gor, and of course to the intellectual strength and activity of our pupils. I allude to gymnastics. For myself, I have long been convinced, that too little attention is paid to the physical education of our children. Independently of that just and full developement which symmetry and beauty require, the enjoyment of a sound mind is so evidently connected with a sound body as to demand the vigilance of parents and preceptors. I cannot so well express my own opinions on this subject as I find them in the letter of a medical friend in London, to whom I communicated the first prospectus of this institution. "Your new High-School appears to me to bid fair to be of present and lasting benefit to the state, and from the respectability of the share-holders, I presume that it is already popular. A subject of great importance, connected with the physical part of education, has recently claimed some part of my attention; I mean gymnastics; at least that part of the art which is absolutely necessary for the full developement, use, and vigor of the muscles of the body. From more attention than has hitherto been paid to this subject in our schools, I am fully persuaded that many diseases of the chest might be prevented in youth, the organs concerned in digestion kept in more regular and heathful action, diseases of their structure obviated, and remote affections of the brain, &c. guarded against, such as are supposed to originate by sympathy with them. Exercises of this kind produce a correct attitude and progression, which add materially to our comfort, not only in the facility of undergoing, but also of relieving the muscular fatigue arising from our necessary exertions. Diseases of the bones, particularly of the spine, and of the machinery connected with them, which become more numerous with the increase and the spread of wealth, would, in a great measure, be obviated. Add to which that they will assuredly promote intellectual vigor, control of passion, and the developement of correct feelings."

So far as exercises of this nature can be introduced with advantage, we shall take particular pleasure in promoting them; and we anticipate no difficulty in finding among our boys those who will be willing and qualified to become monitors, in instructing others in the arts of leaping, climbing, pitching, and in other varieties of muscular skill and exertion.

But a still more interesting branch of manual exercise, is that which is requisite in the use of tools, in the easier parts of carpentry, joinery, casting, turning, &c. We contend for the advantage

of employing a portion of the leisure time of boys in employments of this nature; for, whatever may be their destination in life, every hour spent in the use of tools, will add something to that stock of information which may enlarge their sphere of future usefulness, contribute to save them from idleness, and blend most agreeably the useful with the sweet in the habits of the man. We shall offer to our patrons the means of enabling us to execute our original scheme. As soon as a subscription list will enable us to proceed, we shall erect a series of shops in our north yard, procure tools, and employ a workman to superintend the exercises of such of our youth as choose to enter their names for a course of instruction during their leisure hours in the mechanic arts.

BOSTON MONITORIAL SCHOOL.

[The interesting reports which follow, we consider a valuable document connected with the progress of education in our country. Its authors, we are happy to observe, do not feel bound to adhere uniformly to the peculiarities of any system, farther than experience proves them to be serviceable to good instruction. Lancaster and Pestalozzi have been followed in those things only which might benefit the pupils of this particular school. Some features of the system adopted in this school owe their origin, we observe, to the ingenuity of the teacher. Such schools we are happy to find are rapidly multiplying in our large cities. We heartily wish ample success to every seminary which throws open its doors to improvement, by discarding a rigid adherence to names and plans, and adopting whatever is useful, be it old or new, domestic or foreign.

The following reports we communicate with much pleasure, after having personally enjoyed the opportunity of hearing and seeing all its details in operation in the school-room. We know of no way in which a parent or a friend to education could spend a forenoon more pleasantly than in attending to the interesting variety of exercises, and the assemblage of busy minds and happy faces, in the monitorial school.]

REPORT OF THE TRUSTEES.

THE monitorial school was instituted not only to facilitate the acquisition of knowledge, but to render that acquisition a source of pleasure. The time we spend at school forms, on an average, no inconsiderable portion of life; and if school can be made a scene

of enjoyment as well as of improvement, another object of no mean importance is attained. That this object is too generally overlooked, appears to be not the fault of the pupils, but of the cold and irksome system usually pursued in the developement of young minds: a system in itself sufficiently odious, even in the earlier stages of our country's progress, when little was required of scholars beyond an imperfect knowledge of the elementary branches; but now become oppressive and injurious, from the increased field of knowledge, which is presented to the learner, by the discoveries and acquisitions of the last half century.-We find, accordingly, that children who are taught on the old plan, are kept constantly on the stretch to obtain that degree of information which the state of society demands. They are pressed, when in school, and when out of it, with lessons which they do not understand, and of course cannot relish. Learning accordingly becomes a toil, and the spring of life, which should be gay and active, is clouded by unnecessary hardship, and worn by worse than fruitless cares; and, after all this waste of comfort, the progress of the pupil, in a vast majority of instances, is slow and superficial. It is one of the worst faults of this system that children, particularly boys, are treated more like felons, than like beings who err from immaturity of judgement; and, one leading object of our establishment being to render our pupils happy, as well as intelligent, we abolish all rewards and punishments, which tend to excite bad passions, and we appeal only to reason and the kinder affections. Corporeal punishment we deem fit only for the savage, whose dread of present pain, is generally his strongest motive; or for the slave, whose soul is debased by bondage:-it should be banished from every family; and our experience justifies our assertion, that it is totally unnecessary in school.

The common system throws the burden of teaching the simplest subjects, as well as the most intricate, solely upon the instructer: In a large school, he must possess ubiquity; otherwise a considerable number of his classes must be idle, or worse than idle, most of their time; his attention must be frequently distracted from the class in exercise; and he must use great personal exertions to produce a small effect. The monitorial system, on the other hand, while it gives the school the same portion of time and attention from the instructer, by furnishing him with numerous assistants, enables him to exercise a more close inspection over the whole, and to explain and enforce his lessons, with perspicuity and method. On the plan pursued in other schools, every pupil must have much time unoccupied, and of course prove a hindrance to others. By the monitorial arrangement every moment is so fully and pleasantly employed, that even the mischief of a bad scholar is confined to the little class of four or five about him. All skill, manual and mental, depends on