THE FFSTIVAL."-A New, Original, and Unique Quarterly Magazine hool Festivals, Exhibitions, Entertainments, Tableaux, &c. Price 50 cent 11. After a successful trial for three years of ROBINSON'S MATHEMATICS, in the Schools of San Fran this famous Series has been adopted, over great competition, for uniform use in the Public Schools of fornia. Thus from Maine to California ROBINSON takes the lead. A NEW BOOK ADDED TO THE SERIES. JUST PUBLISHED. First Lessons in Mental and Written Arithmetic This volume contains 180 pages, and is probably the handsomest Primary School-book yet issued. N pense, either in the drawing or engraving of cuts, has been spared to make its illustrations as attractiv useful as possible. The idea, outside of the superior merits of the book itself, has been to make it a bear work in an artistic sense, and this the publishers think they have done. The methods of study are all nal, and are intended to increase interest and decrease difficulties in teaching primary classes. Due p nence is given to methods of Object Teaching without detriment to the Analytical, Progressive an ductive Systems. The book is intended for use in primary classes where one book only is desired, and for purpose it can have no equal. Now ready. Price 40cts. Liberal terms for introduction, and sample c for examination. Spencerian Copy Books.--Reduction in Price. The retail price of the SPENCERIAN COPY BOOKS has been reduced to FIFTEEN CENTS EACH, usual discounts to the Trade. A Pocket Dictionary of the English Language. Abridged from Webster's Quarto, illustrated with nearly TWO HUNDRED Engravings on Wood. By This volume embraces a careful selection of more than 18,000 of the most important words of the lang Being a Graded Course of Instruction in Music for Common Schools. By GEO. B. LOOMIS. This series presents a simple course of instruction in Music, adapted to the primary classes in our Sch It presents the simple rudiments of the subject in a progressive course of easy exercises, accompanied such instruction as will make the way clear alike to the teacher and pupil. In 4 books. Nos. 1 and 2 ready. Price, 15cts. each. The American Primary School Slates. Upon the frames of these Slates are indelibly printed, directly upon the wood, exercises in Printing, ting, Drawing, and the Roman and Arabic Numerals. SLATE NO. 1 presents to the eye of the pupil Capital and Small Letters, penned in the simplest ma possible, and so arranged as to lead to a ready acquisition of the Alphabet. Upon the opposite side, the mentary principles of Drawing are developed in such manner and order as to lead to Inventive Drawing SLATE No. 2 is intended for more advanced pupils, affording studies in Script, thus instructing the yo mind in writing. Upon the opposite side are given the elementary principles of Curved line Drawing gether with more difficult exercises in the drawing of Animals, Fruit, Leaves, and many of the commo jects of daily life. Thus, while they furnish employment and amusement to pupils, they instruct in exercises of the hig importance. They are of superior workmanship, light yet strongly made, of the best Stone Slate, and are peculiarl tractive in general appearance. The best terms possible given for supplies of any of our publications for introduction or for sample co for examination. The Illustrated Catalogue, descriptive of The American Educational Series of School and College 138 and 140 Grand Street, NEW YORK Burton Hist. Coll. 5-17-44 THE MICHIGAN TEACHER. Vol. VI.-NILES, JANUARY, 1871.-No. 1. HE management of the TEACHER, for the coming year at least, devolves upon the junior member of the late corps of editors. Our general plans and purposes are set forth sufficiently in the prospectus which accompanies this number. We have been long enough in this work to know that the duty laid upon the conductor of an educational magazine is not light, nor easily discharged. From the highest point of view it seems to us this: To help the teacher at work-to present to him, at stated intervals, a manual that shall enable him to teach better, and in better spirit, month by month. From another stand-point it fronts us as a means of putting educational ideas in the air; of permeating the commonwealth with stimuli to progress; of securing a healthier tone of public sentiment, reforms in legislation, a larger benevolence to the improved methods and greater enterprises of education which mark the time. We welcome as a true word the statement of Mr. WHITE, in the first number of his National Teacher: "The great mission of an educational journal is to expose error and advocate truth, whether found in old or new systems." The aspects of duty which recall the instruction of the fireside and education in the world's wide school, are not overlooked. Truly, who is sufficient for these things? We face the responsibilities thus unworthily imposed with some quivering of the veins, but with hope at the heart. And if to our aid should come the host of fair women and brave men who officer the schools of Michigan, we shall not find "Fail" written in the bright lexicon of the TEACHER. an FEW of those who read- and how many of those who abuse? educational journal, have any conception of the toils and pains that go into it. During the August session of the State educational associations, at Grand Rapids, we sat for a time a sympathizing listener, while Dr. GREGORY (clarum et venerabile nomen) sketched his ill-requited labors upon the old Michigan Journal of Education. Late at night, when the duties pertaining to the school he then taught in Detroit were done, and his family at rest, he would write for the magazine hour after hour, until his eyes refused their office, when, bandaging them, he would throw himself upon his couch, only to return to his work at the earliest moment permitted. This, of course, is only an example of his trials. Mr. DOTY can speak of experiences self-denying and painful, though mayhap "hereafter joyfully to be remembered." One of the late conductors of the TEACHER writes us, in effect, as follows: "It has robbed my family of many comforts, and me of many a valued hour; but I part from it with regret"! Another, the chief of them, put his very heart's blood into the work through five long, struggling years. Financially, the history of educational publishing, in the line of magazines, is one of disaster. Untold thousands, in many States, have been sunk in the effort to float such enterprises. If there is a State in the Union which may be expected to sustain triumphantly a monthly of this kind, it is Massachusetts. Yet we notice that the Teachers' Association of that State has recently been compelled to vote a subsidy of several hundred dollars, to save the conductors of The Massachusetts Teacher from loss. One example will suffice. Will our readers give a thoughtful moment to these considerations? WE should not close these introductory remarks without paying a heart-felt, however unworthy, tribute to the founders of the TEACHER -Professors PAYNE, WHITNEY, and GOODISON —and to our later associate, Dr. H. L. WAYLAND. Unsupported by organization or clique, without a penny of State or individual aid, they were faithful to what they believed to be the best interests of our educators, through a period of trial which would have driven most men from the work. Each engrossed with the duties of a tasking profession, he was willing to "forswear delights, and live laborious days," that the teachers. of Michigan might have an organ. For their rare fidelity, their selfsacrifice, and their moral courage, the State owes them gratitude. WE are in receipt of the Report of the National Commissioner of Education, just published. It comprises six hundred pages, crowded with valuable matter, and is perhaps the most interesting and suggestive work that ever issued from the government press. The statistics are full we presume as nearly accurate as such statistics ever are in this country; and contributions on special topics have been made by many of our leading scholars. The several heads are: The Commissioner's Report, occupying eighty pages; Abstracts of Reports from States, Territories, and Cities; Freedmen's Schools; Kindergarten Culture; Hebrew Education; Education in the Argentine Republic, England, Bengal, India, Austria, Australia, and Ecuador; Education of the Deaf and Dumb; Medical Education in the United States; Normal Schools; Educational Conventions; American Universities; Society, Crime, and Criminals; Chinese Migration; School Supervision; German Schools, and teaching German; Education and Labor; Illiteracy in the United States; and a list of schools of the higher order in this country. Some valuable facts from it are stated in our News Department, and we shall recur to it from time to time. It is a mine of information, and every County and City Superintendent, with the officers of classical and scientific schools, should own the work. It can be had, doubtless, through the Congressmen, or on application to the Commissioner. It is gratifying to learn that General EATON is doing good work, and that public confidence is returning to his Bureau. As he says, "it is obvious that the Bureau, as at present constituted, bears no just relation to the vital interests with which, to some extent, it is charged;" but there is a promise of larger machinery. General GRANT has some warm words for it, in his Annual Message. MRS. STANTON has visited many States and countries; but she gives the palm to Michigan for the intelligence of its women. In her lecture on The True Republic," she refers (or did refer, when we heard her recently) in glowing terms, to their literary associations and libraries, and their tastes for study and inquiry. She highly commends the State in that every public school within it, of whatever grade, is freely open to women-except the Reform School at Lansing, whose advantages she supposes the girls of Michigan are too good to need! She awards to a lady - Miss STOCKWELL, we presume · the honor of |