charge of the "first primary school," enjoys a stipend of 280 dollars a year. At the existing value of money in the States, these salaries may be estimated at half their nominal amount. Certainly 300l. per annum cannot go so far over here, except in the mere necessaries of life, as half that sum in England. The net cost, paid by a tax of 35 cents on a dollar, of the school for one year, is about 3,500 dollars, or 7001. The total number of scholars in this school very nearly reaches 400. The school-days extend over 40 weeks, and the school hours are from 9 o'clock A. M. to 12 M., and 1.30 P.M. to 4.30 P.M. "Absence," three times repeated, subjects the delinquent to suspension from school, unless the "reasonable excuse" is forthcoming. An unexcused absence of five days is punished by dismissal, unless condoned by the direction of the school managers, the "prudential committee." The day's exercises commence with reading from the Scriptures and the repetition of the Lord's Prayer, or such other form of religious service as each teacher may choose. The Principal virtually chooses the religious service. Each scholar is provided with a desk and chair, for the careful use of which the occupant is responsible; and the committee point out, with justifiable pride, that, though the school-rooms have been in use nearly four years, scarce a "scratch, ink-spot, or pencil-mark defaces any part of the building!" The aspect of the rooms

is certainly surprisingly bright and clean; in this respect, and in the maintenance of strict order, there is assured evidence of a true, firm, and decided discipline. The change from the arrangements at home-a "licensing system" I have called it-must at first be very disquieting to the children. And another regulation, which is well acted up to, is also an admirable and uncommon reform: "No scholar shall be allowed to stay in school who shall enter it without having given proper attention to cleanliness of person and dress, but shall be sent home to remain till properly prepared for school." The recapitulation of the studies pursued in each grade of the school are copied,

verbally and literally, from the printed list furnished by the school committee. The "first primary" are prepared in "the" alphabet, spelling, reading, primary arithmetic, and general exercises. The "second primary" pass through Progressive First and Second Readers, Town's Speller, Greenleaf's Primary Arithmetic, Guyot's Primary Geography, and general exercises. The "first intermediate" take up with Progressive Third Reader, Greenleaf's Intellectual Arithmetic, Guyot's Intermediate Geography, Tower's Element's of Grammar, Writing, Map drawing, Hall's History and Geography of Vermont. The "second intermediate" are limited to the Progressive Fourth Reader, Greenleaf's Practical Arithmetic, Guyot's Intermediate Geography Finished, Norton's Grammar, History of the United States, Writing, Map-drawing.

In the "grammar school" the scholars are practised in the Progressive Fifth Reader, Analysis and Parsing, General History, Monteith's Physical Geography, Cutter's Anatomy and Physiology, Quackenbos' Rhetoric, Greenleaf's Elementary Algebra, Writing, and Composition. The studies for the "high school" include Davies' University Arithmetic, Greenleaf's Geometry, Quackenbos' Natural Philosophy, Youman's Chemistry, Astronomy, French, Harkness' Latin Reader, Andrews' Cæsar, Cicero's Orations, Virgil's Eneid, Crosby's Greek Grammar, Crosby's Greek Lessons, Xenophon's Anabasis, Homer's Iliad, Elocution. On all sides assurance is proferred to me that the Principal does teach Latin, as well as Greek; but whether he teaches either one or the other thoroughly it is not my business. to ascertain. I have sat in his high school, and have heard the class parse and construe with a fair degree of accuracy. Many and frequent have been the complaints by parents about the careless spelling observable in the children's practice at home, and my own experience of the various scholars' reading aloud, in public, has been decidedly unsatisfactory. Monotonous, shrill, slurred, indistinct tones are most common, as is always the case with

children imperfectly taught. The enunciation is seldom exact, and the syllables are, I repeat, slurred, as in the slipslop of conversation. The utterance is usually rapid, and the contrast in the volume of the voice is rarely attended to. Appropriate action there was not a vestige of. The right arm was shot straight out horizontally, or both arms were raised, as by a spring, above the head, with a very ludicrous effect. Childhood's toys have perhaps been the models. Some of the female pupils attempted to emphasise the delivery of their exercise by brisk nods. But the performance of the rhetorical exercises still had a great charm for me. It occurred on a fair, bright day in Midsummer. The Town Hall, an apartment eighty feet in length, by fifty feet in width, and about thirty feet in height, was decorated with wreaths of evergreens, interspersed with flowers, surmounting the platform along the width. of the apartment, at the further end facing the entrance; and the president's table had for its background the United States' standard draped for some twenty feet.

The audience came in slowly and fitfully, in great numbers at last; of course, as the rule is everywhere, with a total disregard of the hour at which the performance was appointed to commence. A grace of half an hour is a very common allowance. The propor

tion of those in attendance was about one male to tweu y females, these last being accompanied by children not forming part of the school procession. An emotion was awakened-'twas in the still summer's afternoon-by the sound of approaching music, and the procession of the scholars of both sexes, heralded by the national ensign, and the local brass band, composed of working men of the town, who performed remarkably well for an amateur band, under the leadership of an Englishman, formerly a member of Jullien's orchestra, entered the hall. First came the girls, two by two-a graceful, cheering picture; the majority dressed in white, and with sashes, ribands, flowers in their hair, and exhibiting taste and

care in their appearance of no common degree, especially the younger portion. The bright, lively look of three to four hundred clean, cheerful, well-dressed girls and boys is always refreshing. Each makes her or his individuality so distinct on anything like a festive occasion. And this was a festive occasion, for none of the performers seemed to be ill at ease, or in the least degree timid, and, as it virtually closed the school attendance for that term, could not but induce thoughts of the holidays. The Principal stood to organize proceedings in the centre of the platform. He struck me as being prepared for the occasion, which I suppose he thought to render a striking one, for he carried an elastic cane, which he switched every now and then, with unconscious desire, as it were, to test its admonitory effects. The exercises were commenced by an extempore prayer, uttered by a keen, nervous, susceptible, sly-looking Nonconformist minister, who invoked, with his eyes tightly closed, as if his work was a tremendous effort. It was a realistic effusion, specifying thanks for the meeting, for the teachers, the pupils, their education, and the Principal, with details of information, as if the utterer were informing his intimate friend of what had been done, and recapitulating and insisting on the share they had in the doing of it. You shall not be wearied with any minute notes about the performances of the pupils. In their chorus-singing and some of their light gymnastic exercises there was great charm. But their speech is curt and rugged, and does not seem to be corrected or improved by their teachers.

There is no doubt that the Yankees with all their shortcomings here and there, are in earnest about education, as they have ever been. But they will go their own way in their improvements. The Principal of the school, as is most natural, is not disposed to tolerate outside interference with his plans, however friendly. If he is a man with a concerted intelligent rule, he is apt to regard the non-professional experience as speculative and visionary and impertinent: if he is but a creature of

routine, and of narrow sympathies and strong conceit, the new light which is offered him dazzles, confuses, or dismays him; and, like Sancho Panza on the judgment-seat, he would rather hear only one side of the question. There is considerable ferment nearly everywhere in the States about increasing the efficiency of the existing arrangements. It is generally felt that the children, though universally, are but half-taught. Superintendent Wickersham, in Pennsylvania, a working man, honestly striving for progress, aims for "a more thorough supervision." He recommends a reorganization under five distinct departments. 1. Elementary education; 2. Higher education; 3. Professional education; 4. Orphan schools; 5. Special instruction; and suggests the following measures respecting neglected and vagrant children.

First, that the State shall pass a "judicious" truant law. Further, that a "judicious" law shall be adopted to prevent the employment of children in mines, manufactories, &c., without some provision for their education. And, in his zeal, the Superintendent seeks to authorize boards of directors, in cities and large towns, "to appoint and pay, when needed, a school missionary to visit the parents of children not in school, or attending irregularly, and endeavour to secure their attendance." His suggestions conclude with the proposal of a law "legalizing, if not requiring, the 'establishment of a home for friendless or neglected children" in every county in the commonwealth, and giving the boards of directors of the several districts power to send to these institutions such children as "the safety of society might justify being disposed of in that way." These reforms are neither new nor elaborate; and the notice of them is introduced as an evidence of the increasing desire to obtain sound education instead of the lifeless pretence of it, and, above all, the determination that the vast sums expended by each State, in the public schools, shall yield "money's worth" more adequately than they do at present.

Mention has been made of the swift, curt, and rugged manner of speech of the young. It comes to them from the home. The Vermont farmer uses, as Professor Lowell terms it, a decided lingo. And, as a specimen of phonetic vagary, there is here appended a ballad on the Cincinnati Convention, in May, of Grant's adversaries, taken almost verbatim from the mouth of one of the most ardent, outspoken politicians of the Republican party up here, the village cobbler:

"THE CINCINNATI CONVENTION. The Convents fust establish't, I've been told,

Wur refuges ware men naw marms cud scold,

Ware silens rain'd supreem, 'cep' tu

devoshun,

An talk wuz done by sine an' dig'tal moshun.

Et's wal fer us sech convents now air rare,
An' our convenshuns air toute-o-contrair,
Thar speech is free, 'n' epithetal sarse
Uz stix uz close uz cobbler to his larst.
A stretch o' talk mounts up like a balloon-
It quits the airth, 'n' sales aroun' the moon.
Talk 'emselves horse, du som, 'n' never fail
Tu talk a dog's hin' leg off, 'n' the tail
Hev' still to run, an' carry on full swing,'
Uz when one's 'sappiness' gets spry in
spring.

Nex' May a Mass Convenshun's to display
The foes of U. S. G.1 in hull array,

To fan the Presidenshal contest into fire, An' push the man on hosback' down i' the mire.

Sumner, an' his knight Schurz, an' all thet party,

'll foller noses up to Cincinnati. Ware Guv'nor Brown, with sper-rib, frutes, 'n' liquor,

'll bankwit thick an' thin, ontil thar's thicker

Dough, an' suthin' more sufficient basis Betwix the malcontented double-facesSchemers, Hungries, Loafers, Growlers, Grinders,

Traitors, Waiters, Slinks, an' Runbehinders, An' all the rabble rout thet swarms increasin', "The outs aginst the ins,' 'n' them uz sees in

Self-advansment nawt but public dooty,
Whose public exigens is privet booty;
The wun-term purist beggin fer protection,
The two-year convert, 'n' the 'free-trade'
section;

The German Grab-all, clamorous 'n' venal; The temperance oaf, uz hopes to make it penal

1 The initials of the President.

Tew run a cider-press, 'n' brew root beer,
Puts food in fetters, 'n' puts chains on
cheer.

Missouri's gong'd' 'em all fer First o' May,
An' all the talents 'll resh out that day.
At fust they thort to hev an open Hall
To Lib'rals, black an' wite, uz care to call;
But Guv'nor Brown foun' out he'd git no
frute, he

Cudd'n' rely at all on promiscuty.

Ses he, 'Wind-falls air on'y good to me Wen a frend's near, an' I kin shake the tree;

But if I shake 'n' others over-number
Me an' my fren', I ain't a gwine to cumber
An inch o' ground with eny o' my shakins;
I never keer'd fer missellaneous bakins,
Ware his is yours, an' mine by som mistake
Is his, an' so I go without my cake.

"So now the Anti-Granters issue passes,

By which they'll keep the hosses from the

asses;

An' Horace can't confound the heads 'n' shoulders

Of office-seekers 'n' of office-holders.

An' nun but Leaders with 'great expectations,'

Uz wait the comin' man with strikin' patience,

The ears of those aroun' 'll keer to tickle With hopes of crown'd desert, an' wuthy sekle

To uniet longing fer the spiles of office,
The victim's losses, 'n' the victor's trophies.

"We unnerstan' this holy zeal an' passion

Th' outsiders hev 'genst them thet's in possesshun,

But wut's the fun uv allers sarsin' Grant? 'A kebbidge-hed,' you swar, 'es no one

can't

Make ort but kebbedge-hed '-is that a griev❜ns

To find fer onst thet seein' is belliev'ns?
A kebbidge is a honorable growth,
That's priz'd in Est, an' West, an' North,
an' South:

Domestic, usefle, good uz hot uz cold,
A fine preserve befor' it's grown too old.
It ain't a tatur, turnip, beet, or inion,
But there's more stuff inside in my opinion.

"At this here Cincinnati rendyvoo

The biggest blower's boun' to bend a few, Suffish'n' grounds, 'n' stand up hones' resn'

1 Sounded the gong. 2 Horace Greeley.

Fer het invetret, 'n' etarnal squeezin' Ulysses 'genst the wall, 'n' dropping Lyalty, respect uv place, an' stoppin' In full tilt, with cacklin', cries, 'n' mena ces An' minatory tex's from Acts to Genesis. One ses he's petulant 'n' overbearin',' An' wun don't like his military swearin.' 'An' Mrs. G.,' ses penkett, het as fire, "Turn up her nose et my ol' Aunt Keziah!' 'An' look,' rores D., who's ollus begging places,

'His deppurtism neshional disgrace is : Appraisers, ministers, collectors, clerks, The hull on em a pack uv offis sherks.' 'One of a Gold Ring,' writes Bohemian G. 'An' ef he's nut, we know who's A. R. C.'1

"Is this a country's gratitood 'n' thenks Fur him uz stood the foremost in the renks Uv them uz fort the mightiest dedly strife, 'N' in hur peril sev' a nation's life? I say it's mean, the skendle's just as haynous Uz t'wuz wi' Rome 'n' hur Koriolaynus. Peraps this Conference 'll clear the air, Bust all the bubbles, 'n' intrigues lay bare. Fer ev'ry kin' of itch there is an intmentSo let this resless currew keep its appintment,

An' ventilate their woes, their griefs, their ills,

Their hopes, their fears, their fevers, 'n' their chills.

Let the Queen City of the West receive
The crowds that thieve to live 'n' live to

"ACTUALLY, there is that little girl going to school in the rain!"

The speaker was one of a group of travellers who were sitting in the verandah of a little hotel in the outskirts of Baden-Baden. They were drinking their morning cup of coffee, and exchanging lamentations over the steady downpour which was throwing cold water on all their pleasant plans and projects, when the sight of their landlady's little daughter Lisa coming down, fully equipped for school, and running in at the open door of a small room communicating with the great "Speise Saal," to give her mother a farewell kiss, changed the current of their thoughts. In that little room the busy mistress of the establishment was usually to be found, smiling and energetic, the centre of a complicated web of household activities; and there she was at that moment, sitting at her desk in the window, and intent over her big account-book. They could see her rise up when the little schoolgirl came in, and cast a motherly eye over her attire ; and then there was a glance out of window, and perhaps a few words of doubt or hesitation as to whether to let her go at all, for some eager, childish expostulation followed; and lastly, there was a fond pat on the shoulder, and a kiss, and evidently, though the travellers heard it not, a "Very well, you may," for in another minute Lisa was in the verandah, laboriously opening a mighty umbrella, beneath whose ample shade they watched her contentedly making her way down the long alley of limetrees that led into Baden-Baden.

Do we not know them too well, those "Academies," or "Seminaries," or "Establishments," or "Finishing Schools," for "Young Ladies," where, for the most part, teachers, themselves imperfectly educated, and haphazard blunderers into the art of educating others, do their best to earn a precarious livelihood by imparting a certain amount of desultory and superficial knowledge to the daughters of tradespeople and other girls of the same class!

By and

Of course there are exceptions. Here and there may be found teachers with a real, natural gift for teaching; here and there a certificated mistress exchanges the National School for the "Academy for Young Ladies," and teaches the elements, at any rate, after the systematic method she acquired at her training college. But all this is a matter of chance. Anyone, in England, may open a school, or go out as a teacher (unless, indeed, that person aspires to teach the children of the poorest classes), without being asked to show anything in the shape of a certificate of competency; and parents, as a rule, take the competency of those who profess to teach for granted in the most confiding manner. bye, if they are themselves sufficiently well-educated to form an opinion, and if they have time to look into the matter, they discover either that their children are making progress, or that they are not getting on as they should do; and they have besides the general character that a school bears to be in some degree a guide to them, but all this is rather uncertain and unreliable; and after all, there are so few good "secondary" schools in England, and so especially few for girls, that even in the largest towns, a middle-class father, earnestly desirous of giving his daughters a thoroughly good education, will very likely find himself baffled and disappointed, by the impossibility of