Holmes says:

"If the Houyhnhnms should ever catch me, and finding me particularly vicious and unmanageable, send a man-tamer to Rarey-fy me, I'll tell you what drugs he would have to take, and how he would have to use them."

Pope's lines indicate that he pronounced the word as a dyssillable with the accent on the first syllable. It would be better to pronounce it in prose hoo-ihnmz', the i being short as in it, and the h before n indicating that the n should be trilled, quavered, or whinnied.

43. Possess. Webster's Dictionary gives the preference to the aspirate sound of the first two esses in possess, possession, possessionary, possessioner, possessive, possessively, possessor, and possessory. I think general usage is decidedly in favor of giving the first two esses the sound of z. Such is the pronunciation given by Perry, Walker, Knowles, Smart, Worcester, Cooley, Cull, Sheridan, Jones, Fulton and Knight, Jameson, Kenrick, Reid, Craig, and Wright.

44.

Asia. Perhaps there is no word more frequently mispronounced than Asia. It should be pronounced A'-shi-a, and not A'-zhi-a, for which there is no lexicographic authority.

45. Omaha. Mitchell in 1860 and 1864 pronounced this word ō-ma'-hah, but in 1865, o'-mă-hah; Warren in 1857, ó-ma-hah; Camp in 1859, o-mä'-ha; in 1862, the same with accent omitted; Longley in 1857, o-mä'-hä; Shaw and Allen in 1864, ó-ma-haw ; Worcester, om-a-haw'; and Webster, ō'-ma-haw', with the primary accent on o and secondary on haw. This pronunciation which is given by Dr. Thomas, editor of Lippincott's Gazetteer, is, no doubt, the correct one.

46. Urbana. Mitchell in 1849 spelled this word Urbana, but Urbanna in 1853 and 1865; Cornell in 1856, Urbanna; Smiley in 1839, Urbana; McNally in 1855, Urbanna; Warren in 1857, Urbana; Baldwin in 1848, and Lippincott's Gazetteer in 1864, Urbanna. It is hardly necessary to say to Ohioans that Urbana is the correct spelling.

47. Bronchitis. I scarcely ever hear this word pronounced according to Webster and Worcester, namely, bron-ki'-tis. Cleaveland in his Pronouncing Medical Lexicon, pronounces it bron-kē'tis. Webster and Worcester agree in pronouncing arthitis, with i long in the second syllable, but Cleaveland gives it the sound of e long. The suffix itis denoting inflammation, is found in many medical terms. Webster, Worcester, and Cleaveland agree in giving the first i in itis the long sound in the following words:

Carditis, colitis, colonitis, enteritis, gastritis, hepatitis, iritis, laryngitis, mastitis, meningitis, myelitis, nephritis, otitis, (Cleaveland gives the plural form otites,) paraphrenitis, (Cleveland gives the plural form paraphrenites,) parotitis, pericarditis, periostitis, pharyngitis, phlebitis, phrenitis, pleuritis, pneumonitis, rachitis, retinitis, splenitis, trachitis, tympanitis, and ureteritis; in like manner Webster and Cleaveland agree in the pronunciation of arteritis, encephalitis, and stomatitis, which are not given by Worcester, and Worcester and Cleaveland agree in the pronunciation of peritonitis, prostatitis, and diaphragmitis, which are not given by Webster. The following are given by Cleaveland, but not by Webster or Worcester: Adenitis, albuginitis, amnitis, amyngdalitis, balanitis, cerebritis, conjunctivitis, corneitis, duodenitis, elytrites, endocarditis, epiploitis, hysteritis, isthmitis, kythitis, metritis, myositis, odontitis, œsophagitis, omentitis, orcheitis, orchitis, oschitis, ostitis, psoitis, pulmonitis, and pyelitis. Cleaveland pronounces aortitis, a-or-té-tis, and arachnitis, a-rach-ne-tis. It appears, then, that out of this list, but four words-arachnitis, aortitis, arthritis, and bronchitis-have been pronounced with the sound of e in the penultimate syllable. Webster and Worcester have in every case that I have observed, pronounced itis, i-tis and not e-tis, while Cleaveland has made four exceptions. Analogy demands that these four exceptions should not be admitted.

IN THE LIBRARY.

BY W. H. VENABLE.

The wearing toils of day are o'er,-
Put down the curtain, bolt the door;-
And let the windy tempest beat
The frighted snow from street to street,
And let it in the darkness howl,
And smite my chimney's smoking cowl,
And madly 'gainst my dwelling dash
And vainly shake my window sash;-
Reposing in my easy chair
For winter winds I little care,
My Youghiogheny coal aglow
Is fearless of the god of snow,
And yields me tropic heat and light
At depth of the December night.

Ye vexing thoughts of active day,
Heart-aches, and worldly schemes, away!
I fain would yield the passing hour
To books and their enchanting power.

My books are not alone to read;
A subtle faculty they feed
And more than reading satisfy
Sometimes when all untouched they lie
And give out potent influence,
Fine, unconveyable through sense.
Sometimes, on such a night as this,
A sort of intellectual bliss,
Mysterious, bibliothecal,

My passive spirit holds in thrall,
For hours 'till with inner ear
In charm'd reverie I hear
The echoing, immortal words,
Of old Philosophers and Bards;
Or cherished fragments said or writ,
By modern Learning, Wisdom, Wit,
Come strangely indistinct and blent
To fill my soul with ravishment
As many kinds of rich perfume
Make redolent a breezy room.

No book-worm blind and dull am I,
Averse to human sympathy,-
That author best contents my mind
Who draws me closest to mankind.
Not with a miser's selfish greed
For store of barren facts, I read,

Nor with a pedant's pride to show

How much and strange the lore, I know.
Nor with a worldling's love of gain
To gather gold through toil of brain;
Not with the critic's art I scan,

To praise or blame whate'er I can.

The wise king Solomon of old
This pregnant proverb quaintly told:
"Eat thou honey, for 'tis good,"
Hence I take my mental food
Honey is my book to me,
And its author honey-bee,;
Honey-and because 'tis sweet

Love I gratefully to eat.

School Officers' Department.

The articles included in this Department have special interest to school officers. Those not otherwise credited, are prepared by the editor. Brief communications from school officers and others interested in this feature of the MONTHLY, are solicited.

SENSIBLE ADVICE.

A recent number of the Lebanon Star contains an address to the school directors of Warren county by an ex-director, from which we take this extract: To you are entrusted great and important interests. On your action to a great extent depends the progress of education. You are its guardians and protectors; and whether you realize it or not, the educational interests of our county demand at your hands an active, zealous, wide-awake spirit on your part to be up with the progress of the times. Teachers are to be employed, text-books selected, school-houses to be built, repaired and seated, school apparatus procured, all of which are intrusted by law to you. In what better way can you qualify yourselves for such an important task than by subscribing for the Ohio Educational Monthly? This is a very valuable auxiliary not only to teachers, but also to directors. Many points of law are discussed and opinions given by the State School Commissioner, which render it exceedingly valuable to directors, especially to members of boards of education, who are frequently called upon to act upon these points of law and decisions. Such a journal would awaken interest in many a parent now careless and indifferent. It is also an advertising medium for most of the rival publishing houses, and for all kinds of school apparatus.

To take an educational journal has been considered too much as belonging exclusively to the occupation of teachers and county examiners. But that day is past, and progress demands of the school director that he too shall acquaint himself with the general interests and movements in our educational system.

So much importance is attached to this subject by Hon. John Swett, Superintendent of Public Instruction of California, that he urges it as a matter of true economy that the State should furnish each school director with a copy of an educational paper.

AUTHORITY OF TOWNSHIP BOARDS RESPECTING TEXT-BOOKS.

The board of education of Turtle Creek township, Warren county, took action at their last meeting to secure a uniformity of text-books in the schools of the township. We are not informed respecting the precise nature of this action, but we infer from a communication in the Star, that the board, after a full consideration of the subject, adopted a series of readers and arithmetics to be used to the exclusion of all other books in these branches. This action is opposed by the residents of one or more of the sub-districts, who have resolved to resist the authority of the board and continue the text-book anarchy

แ

which has so long reigned in the schools. This raises the question of the power of the board to force compliance with its action. Happily, on this point the school law is plain and specific. Section seventeen says: The said board shall have power to determine the studies to be pursued, and the school-books to be used in the several schools under their control"; and section thirteen makes it the "duty of said board to prescribe rules and regulations for the government of all the common schools within their jurisdiction." The authority conferred by these two provisions is ample. If parents refuse to supply their children with the prescribed books, the board can exclude such children from the schools; if the local directors refuse to comply with their action, the board may assume exclusive control of the school, or they may order the schoolhouse closed until their regulations are obeyed; if the teacher is at fault, the board may adopt a regulation forfeiting his pay or causing his dismissal.

We wish here to state that it will be impossible for the boards of education of our townships to secure uniformity of text-books in the schools under their control without subjecting some school patrons to temporary inconvenience. But shall the schools for this reason be crippled and the school funds wasted? Where is the wisdom in employing teachers and then suffering their best efforts to fail for the want of a uniformity of books in their classes? The boards in our towns and cities cause their authority in this text-book matter to be respected, and our country schools will never be efficient until township boards know their authority and duty, and resolve to maintain the one and discharge the other. We do not counsel frequent changes in school-books, but we do urge most emphatically uniformity. This much must be secured, if we are to have efficient schools.

In

HOW TO DOUBLE SCHOOL FUNDS.

many families there is a continual struggle to make the most of every dollar. Even the rich are not exempt from the toil and calculation of how to get the most for every dollar paid out. It is proposed in this article to inform the people how to double the value of the money paid for school purposes.

1st. Hire none but the best teachers. The difference between the wages of a good and a common teacher is very little; only a few dollars added to the wages of an ordinary teacher will procure the services of the best teachers. The instructions of a good teacher are worth more than twice those given by a poor teacher.

2d. Provide comfortable, convenient, and attractive school-houses. Scholars can not learn in old rickety houses, where they are crowded and kept in impure air, or where they are pinched with the cold. One day in a warm and convenient house is worth more than a week in a house where the children's feet are encased in ice. See that the house is warm early in the morning, that not even a part of the day may be lost from cold.

3d. Send the children the first day of the term and every day of the term. More than half of the money now paid for schools is lost because the scholars