should alarm the fears of the private teachers, and obtain either nơ answers or false answers to their questions; and in some instances, these teachers combined and sent on forged lists of schools and scholars, in order to diminish the force of the argument for a national system, by showing that schools enough already existed. This fact was communicated to me by a gentleman engaged in the inquiry." p. 83-4.

In order to obviate this difficulty, which lies at the very threshold of reform, it is not necessary that government, whether national, state or city, should adopt forcible measures to destroy the competition resulting from the existence. of these rival institutions. Such a course of proceeding would be both impolitic and unjust. All that is necessary in order to meet the evil, is, to convince the people, first, that the public institutions are better than the private ones, better regulated, afford higher advantages of moral and intellectual culture; and, secondly, that they are preferable on the score of economy. These will be unanswerable arguments in any community. Good private institutions may be sustained for a time by the partiality of their patrons, even where the price of tuition, as is often the case, is exorbitant, but better public ones, where the expenses of obtaining a first rate education are less, will be ultimately preferred by most, if not all parents. A regard for the welfare of their children, and the superior cheapness of education, will be all-controlling considerations. The idea which prevails among some, that where the cost of education is high, the instruction given must be proportionably excellent, is the merest folly, and will soon be dissipated by facts involving very different conclusions.

School-houses in Europe are generally badly constructed, with the exception of the private establishments of England and France, some of which are built on a scale of great magnificence. The school-houses at Leipsic, in the kingdom of Saxony, are excellent; but in Prussia, and generally throughout the German States, they are inferior to those in the State of Massachusetts. Mr. Mann points out one valuable feature in all school buildings of the larger kind in Europe, their division into class-rooms,-where each class, under its own separate teacher, can pursue its studies, and recite its lessons, without interruption from the other classes composing the establishment. The practice of furnishing a separate desk and seat for each scholar, which is adopted in the school-houses of Boston and New-Orleans, does not pre

vail in Europe. In Holland, scientific modes of ventilating and warming school-rooms are resorted to, but little or no attention has been paid to the subject in Germany, and the laws of health and life, so far as they depend on a pure or an impure atmosphere, and the general principles of physiology, are much neglected. Apartments are provided in the German and Prussian schools for the residence of the teacher and his family-a feature peculiar to those institutions. The reading-books used in most of the European schools, are excellent. They are of a more didactic, scientific and practical character, than those in use in the schools of this country. Mr. Mann gives a specimen from the table of contents of a German First Reading-Book for the lowest classes, in elementary schools. It is as follows:

""1st PART. LESSON I, The parental home; 2, Building materials, stone, lime, wood; 3, Construction, iron and glass; 4, The four elements; 5, Comparison of building materials; 6, The inner parts of houses; 7, House utensils and tools; 8, Clothing; 9, Food; 10, Inhabitants of houses; 11, Household animals and their uses; 12, Continuation, the winged tribe; 13, Injurious animals in a house; 14, Conduct towards beasts; 15, Language, advantage of man over beasts.

'2d PART. QUALITIES OF THINGS. LESSON 1, Colors; 2, Forms; 3, Qualities which a house may have; 4, Qualities of some building materials; 5, Qualities which an apartment may have; 6, Qualities which tools may have; 7, Qualities which a road may have; 8, Qualities which water may have; 9, Qualities which food may have; 10, Qualities which articles of clothing may have; 11, Qualities which an animal may have, bodily qualities; 12, What one learns from the actions of beasts; 13, Qualities which a man may have,— bodily qualities of a man; 14, Continuation,-moral qualities; 15, Qualities which a man must not have.'

A selection from the residue of the lesson, follows:

'LESSON 17, Sounds and tones of beasts: 19, Sounds of inanimate things; 20, Properties and actions of plants and animals; 21, Actions in schools; 23, Household arrangements; 25, Country occupations ; 26, Conduct of children towards others; 41, Adding to the name of a thing a word of quality

'3d PART. MORAL INSTRUCTION. LESSON 2, Order in Families; 3, Duties of parents,' &c. &c.

Then follow 'stories for exciting and cultivating moral ideas and sentiments;' and the book closes with songs and prayers for the awakening and animating of religious feeling.'

The following titles are from 'A course of Elementary Reading,' by J. M. McCullock, D. D., eleventh edition, Edinburgh, 1842.

'PHYSICAL SCIENCE. On the pleasures of science; General properties of bodies,-Impenetrability, Extension, Figure, Divisibility, Inertia Attraction of Cohesion; Attraction of Gravity; First lines

of Mechanics; Motion; Momentum; Centre of Gravity; The Mechanical Powers; Pressure of watery fluids: Capillary Attraction; The Winds; Aqueous Vapor; Clouds and Mists, Rain, Dew, Snow, Hail; Powers of Vision; The quantity of Matter in the Universe.

2. CHEMICAL SCIENCE. Properties of Free Caloric; Radiation; Conductors; Chemical Attraction; Simple Bodies; Oxygen, Hydrogen, Nitrogen, Carbon, Sulphur, Phosphorus; The Metals; Compound Bodies, Atmospheric Air, Water; Effects of Caloric, &c. &c.

3. NATURAL HISTORY. The Three Kingdoms of Nature. Minerals, Diamond, Flint, Asbetos, Clay, Slate, &c. &c. The Malleable Metals, Platina, Gold, Mercury, Silver, Copper, Iron, &c. &c. Clothing from Animals, Fur, Wool, Silk, Leather. Vegetable Physiology, Motion of the Sap Leaves, The Seed, Germination, &c.; Circulation of the Blood. Vegetable Clothing, Flax, Hemp, Cotton. The Animal Economy.' &c. &c.

The Fourth part of this work consists of pieces classed under the head of 'Geography and Topography;' then follow Religious, Moral and Miscellaneous pieces, in prose and poetry, which complete the book.

There are hundreds, and perhaps thousands, of reading books in the different languages abroad. I have selected the above as a fair specimen of what I saw; and I believe most educators will agree with me, in thinking them far better suited to the tastes and capacities of the young than most of our own." p. 95.

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The apparatus of an European, is not very dissimilar to that of an American school-room. The black-board is in universal use. In Holland, the actual weights and measures of the country are employed in arithmetical calculations ;also, large sheets or cards are hung upon the walls of the room, containing fac-similes of the inscription and relief,face and reverse, of all the current coins of the kingdom,also, practical directions respecting important duties and emergencies in life, such as the best mode of proceeding to resuscitate a drowned person, of curing a bruise, of staunching a ruptured blood-vessel, etc., are sometimes suspended from the walls. In the schools for the deaf and dumb, there are collections of natural objects for the use of the pupils, such as shells and minerals, seeds of plants arranged in boxes, models of utensils, also of machines, mills, carts, etc., made by the pupils themselves. The pupils are required to learn the uses and names of all these things:

"The great Burger and Real schools are generally supplied with fine instruments for lessons and practice in natural philosophy, chemistry, and mechanics. In Carlsruhe, besides the admirable endowment of such apparatus, which both the state and the friends of education have furnished to this class of schools,-the Grand Ducal cabinets, the physical cabinet, collections of natural objects, picture

gallery, botanic garden, even the palace garden, and also the Grand Ducal Court library, library of the Grand Ducal physical cabinet, that of the directors of the technical courts, and even the workshops and manufactories of the city and environs, are open at all times to the pupils. Pupils studying in the forest department are taken to the governmental woodlands to study botany, &c., among the trees and flowers; those of the architectural schools, the mining schools, &c., are empowered, and even enjoined by law, to visit the public works in progress, in company with their teachers.

These facts, besides being valuable as suggestions to us, afford us an idea of the greater practical turn given to education in those countries than amongst ourselves.

Many of the charity schools of Holland contained paintings of no inconsiderable excellence and value. In Germany, where everything, (excepting war and military affairs,) is conducted on an expensive scale, the walls of the schoolrooms were often adorned with cheap engravings and lithographs—of distinguished men, of birds, beasts, and fishes; and, in many of them, a cabinet of natural history had been commenced. And throughout all Prussia and Saxony, a most delightful impression was left upon my mind by the character of the persons whose portraits were thus displayed. Almost without exception, they were likenesses of good men rather than of great ones,frequently of distinguished educationists and benefactors of the young, whose countenances were radiant with the light of benevolence, and the very sight of which was a moral lesson to the susceptible hearts of children. In this respect, they contrasted most strongly with England, where the great always take precedence of the good, and there are fifty monuments and memorials for Nelson and Wellington to one for Howard or Wilberforce.

In the new building for the 'poor school' at Leipsic, there is a large hall in which the children all assemble in the morning for devotional purposes. Over the teacher's desk, or pulpit, is a painting of Christ in the act of blessing little children. The design is appropriate and beautiful. Several most forlorn-looking, half-naked children stand before him. He stretches out his arms over them, and blesses them. The mother stands by with an expression of rejoicing such as only a mother can feel. The little children look lovingly up into the face of the Savior. Others stand around, awaiting his benediction. In the back-ground are aged men, who gaze upon the spectacle with mingled love for the children and reverence for their benefactor. Hovering above is a group of angels, hallowing the scene with their presence." pp. 98-9.

Of the public schools in Europe, Mr. Mann gives preference to those of Prussia and Saxony, and to those of several of the western and south-western States of the Germanic confederation. The next highest in the scale, in his opinion, are those of Holland and Scotland. Then come those of Ireland, France and Belgium, which are of more recent establishment, but of which he speaks in very favorable terms. The greater portion of his Report is made up of a detailed

and rather minute account of the Prussian system, which, although liable to some weighty objections, he considers as, upon the whole, the most perfect and the most worthy of adoption in this country. The system of instruction adopted in the Scotch schools is eminently intellectual-the chief object of the teacher being to cause his pupils to think not only accurately but rapidly,-to accomplish the greatest amount of mental labor in the smallest given space of time possible for the operation. In order to rouse and rivet their attention, the principle of emulation is appealed to, and with the most powerful effect. Our readers will be pleased with the following eloquent sketch of the Scotch mode of teaching. Mr. Mann seems to have caught a liberal share of the enthusiasm which he witnessed on the occasion he describes :

"I entirely despair," he says, "of exciting in any other person, by a description, the vivid impression of mental activity or celerity, which the daily operations of these schools produced in my own mind. Actual observation alone can give anything approaching to the true idea. I do not exaggerate when I say that the most active and lively schools I have ever seen in the United States, must be regarded almost as dormitories, if compared with the fervid life of the Scotch schools; and, by the side of theirs, our pupils would seem to be hybernating animals just emerging from their torpid state, and as yet but half conscious of the possession of life and faculties. It is certainly within bounds to say, that there were six times as many questions put and answers given, in the same space of time, as I ever heard put and given in any school in our own country.

But a few preliminary observations are necessary to make any description of a Scotch school intelligible.

In the numerous Scotch schools which I saw, the custom of placetaking prevailed, not merely in spelling, but in geography, arithmetic, reading, defining, &c. Nor did this consist solely in the passing-up of the one giving a right answer above the one giving a wrong. But if a scholar made a very bright answer, he was promoted at once to the top of the class; if he made a very stupid one, he was sentenced no less summarily to the bottom. Periodically, prizes are given, and the fact of having been "Dux," (that is, at the head of the class,) the greatest number of times, is the principal ground on which the prizes are awarded. In some schools an auxiliary stimulus is applied. The fact of having passed up so many places, (say ten or twelve,) entitles the pupil to a ticket; and a given number of these tickets is equivalent to being "dua" once. When this sharper goad to emulation is to be applied, the spectator will see the teacher fill his hand with small bits of pasteboard, and, as the recitation goes on and competition becomes keen, and places are rapidly lost and won, the teacher is seen occasionally to give one of these tickets to a pupil as a counter, or token, that he has passed up above so many of his fellows; that is, he may have passed up above four at one