But the question occurs, How can this be done? I will give a few brief hints as to some things which I suppose to be essential to the attainment of so desirable an end.

MEANS OF SUSTAINING THE SYSTEM.

1. Teachers must be skilful, and trained to their business. It will at once be perceived that the plan above sketched out proceeds on the supposition that the teacher has fully and distinctly in his mind the whole course of instruction, not as it respects the matter to be taught, but also as to the best modes of teaching, that he may be able readily and decidedly to vary his method according to the peculiar. ities of each individual mind under his care. This is the only true secret of successful teaching. The old mechanical method, in which the teacher relies entirely on his text book, and drags every mind along through the same dull routine of creeping recitation, is utterly insufficient to meet the wants of our people. It may do in Asiatic Turkey, where the whole object of the school is to learn to pronounce the words of the Koran in one dull, monotonous series of sounds; or it may do m Umna, where men must never speak or think out of the old beaten track of Chinese imbecility; but it will never do in the United States, where the object of education ought to be to make immediately available, for the highest and best purposes, every particle of real talent that exists in the nation. To effect such a purpose, the teacher must possess a strong and independent mind, well disciplin. ed, and well stored with everything pertaining to his profession, and ready to adapt his instructions to every degree of intellectual capaciity and every kind of acquired habit. But how can we expect to find such teachers, unless they are trained to their business? A very few of extraordinary powers may occur, as we sometimes find able mechanics and great mathematicians who had no early training in their favorite pursuits; but these few exceptions to a general rule will never multiply fast enough to supply our schools with able teachers. The management of the human mind, particularly youth. ful mind, is the most delicate task ever committed to the hand of man; and shall it be left to mere instinct, or shall our schoolmasters have at least as careful a training as our lawyers and physicians? 2. Teachers, then, must have the means of acquiring the neccs. sary qualifications; in other words, there must be institutions in which the business of teaching is made a systematic object of atten. tion. I am not an advocate for multiplying our institutions. We already have more in number than we support, and it would be wise to give power and efficiency to those we now possess before we project new ones. But the science and art of teaching ought to be a regular branch of study in some of our academies and high schools, that those who are looking forward to this profession may have an opportunity of studying its principles. In addition to this, in our populous towns where there is opportunity for it, there should be large model schools, under the care of the most able and experienced teachers that can be obtained; and the candidates for the profession, who have already completed the theoretic course of the academy, should be employed in this school as monitors or assistants, thus testing all their theories by practice, and acquiring skill and dexterity under their head master. Thus, while learning they would be teaching, and no time or effort would be lost. To give efficiency to the whole system, to present a general standard and a prominent point of union, there should be at least one model teachers' seminary at some central point, as at Columbus, which shall be amply provided with all the means of study and instruction, and have connected with it schools of every grade, for the practice of the students under the immediate superintendence of their teachers.

3. The teachers must be competently supported, and devoted to their business. Few men attain any great degree of excellence in a

Indeed, such is the state of things in this country, that we cannot expect to find male teachers for all our schools. The business of educating, especially young children, must fall, to a great extent, on female teachers. There is not the same variety of tempting employment for females as for men; they can be supported cheaper, and the Creator has given them peculiar qualifications for the "education of the young. Females, then, ought to be employed extensively in all our elementary schools, and they should be encouraged and aided in obtaining the qualifications necessary for this work. There is no country in the world where women hold so high a rank or exert so great an influence as here; wherefore her responsibilities are the greater, and she is under obligations to render herself the more actively useful. I think our fair countrywomen, notwithstanding the exhortations of Harriet Martineau, Fanny Wright, and some other ladies and gentlemen, will never seek distinction in our public assemblies for public discussion, or in our halls of legislation; but in their appropriate work of educating the young, of forming the opening mind to all that is good and great, the more they distinguish themselves the better.

4. The children must be made comfortable in their school; they must be punctual, and attend the whole course. There can be no profitable study without personal comfort; and the inconvenience and miserable arrangements of some of our school houses are enough to annihilate all that can be done by the best of teachers. No instructer can teach unless the pupils are present to be taught, and no plan of systematic instruction can be carried steadily through unless the pupils attend punctually and through the whole course. 5. The children must be given up implicitly to the discipline of the school. Nothing can be done unless the teacher has the entire control of his pupils in school hours, and out of school toe, so far as the rules of the school are concerned. If the parent in any way inter feres with or overrules the arrangement of the teacher, he may attribute it to himself if the school is not successful. No teacher ever ought to be employed to whom the entire management of the children cannot be safely intrusted; and better at any time dismiss the teacher than counteract his discipline. Let parents but take the pains and spend the money necessary to provide a comfortable school house and a competent teacher for their children, and they never need apprehend that the discipline of the school will be unreasonably severe. No inconsiderable part of the corporate punishment that has been inflicted in schools has been made necessary by the discomfort of school houses and the unskillfulness of teachers. A lively, sensitive boy is stuck upon a bench full of knot holes and sharp ridges, without a support for his feet or his back, with a scorching fire on one side of him and a freezing wind on the other; and a stiff Orbilius of a master, with wooden brains and iron hands, orders him to sit perfectly still, with nothing to employ his mind or his body, till it is his turn to read. Thus confined for hours, what can the poor little fellow do but begin to wriggle like a fish out of water or an eel in a frying pan? For this irrepressible effort at relief he receives a box on the ear; this provokes and renders him still more uneasy, and next comes the merciless ferule; and the poor child is finally burnt and frozen, cuffed and beaten into hardened roguery or incurable stupidity, just because the avarice of his parents denied him a comfortable school house and a competent teacher.

6. A beginning must be made at certain points, and the advance towards completedness must be gradual. Everything cannot be done at once, and such a system as is needed cannot be generally introduced till its benefits are first demonstrated by actual experiment. Certain great points, then, where the people are ready to co-operate, and to make the most liberal advances in proportion to their means, to maintain the schools, should be selected, and no pains or expense spared till the full benefits of the best system are realized; and as the good effects are seen, other places will very readily follow the

example. All experience has shown that governmental patronage is most profitably employed, not to do the entire work, but simply as ar incitement to the people to help themselves.

To follow up this great object, the legislature has wisely made cloice of a Superintendent whose untiring labors and disinterested za! are worthy of all praise. But no great plan can be carried trough in a single year; and if the Superintendent is to have opJortunity to do what is necessary, and to preserve that independence ad energy of official character which is requisite to the successful dis charge of his duties, he should hold his office for the same term and on the same conditions as the Judges of the Supreme Court. Every officer engaged in this, or in every other public work, should receive a suitable compensation for his services. This justice requires and it is the only way to secure fidelity and efficiency.

These suggestions I have made with unfeigned diffidence, an! with a sincere desire that the work which has been so nobly begun by the Legislature of Ohio may be carried forward to a glorious result. I should hardly have ventured to take such liberty had not my commission expressly authorized me to “make such practical observations as I might think proper," as well as to report facts. I know that I am addressing enlightened and patriotic men, who have discernment to perceive, and good feeling to appreciate every sin cere attempt, however humble it may be, for the country's good; and I have therefore spoken out plainly and directly the honest convictions of my heart, feeling assured that w at is honestly meant, will, by highminded men, be kindly received. All which is respectfully submitted, C. E. STOWE. COLUMBUS, Dec. 18, 1837.

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A single view of an object is frequently more satisfactory, as well as more instructive than a long description of it. As we wish that all teachers and friends of education should be well informed concerning every department and method of school instruction and discipline, we shall avail ourselves of all the means in our reach to diffuse correct and precise information among our readers.

Much has been said of Mutual Instruction; but we apprehend that many incorrect, or at least vague ideas exist with respect to it. In our opinion, it possesses both defects and excellencies. We are also of opinion, as we have before had occasion to remark, that some of its best features may be adopted in common Schools, under such limitations and modifications as different circumstances may require. By this we mean only to suggest, that one pupil may sometimes be employed by the teacher to instruct a class of younger children, or to hear them recite, or to oversee the school, and thus not only relieve him of a portion of his cares, but do good to others and improve himself; that simultaneous exercises may be sometimes used with advantage, in different departments; that slates, low benches, long open desks, and other kinds of fixtures and apparatus common to schools of mutual instruction, may be wisely adopted. If in each district such features of this plan as might be approved were introduced, it is probable that decided benefits would result from the change.

The desk represented in the cut is such as have been described in our remarks on school-house fixtures. It affords a pretty correct specimen of those used in the public schools of New York city, the British schools, and the schools of mutual instruction generally. It will be observed that they are simple, neat, convenient, formed without a waste of materials, so open as to afford but little concealment or obstruction to the air. Each boy has a narrow opening in the top of his desk, to slide his slate into when not in use. It there stands perpendicularly, not in the way, nor exposed to injury in any manner.→ The signals for drawing and replacing the slates are usually obeyed with strict care to make no noise. Each inkstand is let into a hole near the slate, but so loosely that it can be taken out. A small grove near it receives a block of wood, on which is written the name of the occupant. A high moveable seat and desk are provided at one end of the desk, for the monitor. The seats are small round chairs without backs, all in each row being fastened to one thick plank, which may be moved, and

can be screwed to the floor if necessary. The legs of the desk are fastened to the floor by means of small bent plates of iron fixed to the lower ends of the legs. The want of backs is considered the principal defect. This is partially counte acted in some schools, by the practice of placing the pupils a part of their time in seats against the walls; but it ought to be entirely removed, by having backs to these venenes.

With this simple arrangement, a great variety of are weekly and even daily carried on in schools of mutual instruction; and when simultaneous instruction is extensively practiced, (as it is in many schools called mutual or monitorial,) the variety becomes greater. The following brief description of exercises in particular branches, may give a general idea of the various applications of which the system is capable.

A boy is furnished by the teacher with a list of words on a paper, and a long rod. He takes his stand in front of this desk, and perhaps the boys of several other desks behind it are required to take part in the exercise. All have their slates and pencils. He silently points at a letter in the written alphabet on the wall. They all, as silently, write it. He points at another letter, another, &c. and at the end of the word lowers the rod, as a signal. When sufficient has been done, he ceases, and the monitors, passing behind their classes, inspect, question, correct or report to the teacher, according to circumstances. Every teacher will perceive that such an exercise, when well conducted, must be highly favorable to stillness, order, despatch and improvement.

Spelling and defining are often happily combined with writing and pronunciation, by a method no less simple and efficacious, at which 50 or more pupils are sometimes engaged. An assistant or general monitor, takes a list of words in his hand, suited to the different classes, and marked accordingly. Approaching the front desk, he stops, and calls out the number of the class, and then spells and defines the word intended for it, in a clear and distinct manner. The class monitor at the end of the desk repeats it accurately, while the former passes on. The boys then all write the word and its meaning. But commonly before they have done, the general monitor has given out two, three or more words in the same manner to as many classes, which are now busily engaged in writing them, after hearing them repeated by their class monitors.

This is one of the exercises by "Dictation," as it is called;

This print represents one of the daily exercises in a primary school of mutual instruction. The upright posts in the centre of each class are supported on flat feet, and having been placed with appropriate lesson, card or lesson board hung on each, the children march out in order, and take their stard, every class with a monitor to direct it. The children are required to stand with their hands folded behind, or at least to fold them so when the signal is given. This position of the arms is found to be one of the simplest and most effectual way to prevent disorder, and to take away both the occasion and temptation to be inattentive and playful. Various exercises are performed, by different classes, while they occupy the places at draughts or in circles, as this form of arrangement is sufficiently denominated. The youngest alphabet, spelling and reading classes are daily exercised in Per nample, in learning the latter, the monitor or assistant sometimes points at each in succession, and names it, and requires the pupils to repeat it. Sometimes he points and requires them to give the names. So in spelling, the monitor first points, spells and pronounces each syllable or word, requiring the pupils to follow every step, and afterwards silently points, while they spell and pronounce. Again, he sometimes turns the card from them, gives out the word or syllables, and requires them to spell.

SCHOOL HOUSES.

In addition to the plans and suggestions which we have laid before our readers, we make the following extracts from the valuable Report of Mr. Mann, Secretary of the Massachusetts Board of Education. We should like to give the document entire, but our limits will not allow at this time; and as many of our districts are making arrangements to build new school houses or repair their old ones very soon, we are anxious to put them in possession of the most material, of Mr. Mann's suggestions.

Ventilation and Warming.

There is no such immediate, indispensable necessary of life, as fresh air. A man may live for days, endure great hardships, and perform great labors, without food, without drink, or without sleep; but deprive him of air for only one minute, and all power of thought is extinct; he becomes as incapable of any intellectual operation as a dead man, and in a few minutes more, he is gone beyond resuscitation. Nor is this all;-but just in proportion as the stimulus of air is withheld, the whole system loses vigor. As the machinery in a water-mill slackens when the head of water is drawn down; as a locomotive loses speed if the fire be not seasonably replenished; just so do muscle, nerve, and faculty, faint and expire, if a sufficiency of vital air be not supplied to the lungs. As this Report is designed to produce actual results for the benefit of our children;and it is said to be characteristic of our people, that they cannot be roused to action, until they see the reasons for it, nor restrained from action when they do, I shall proceed to state the facts, whether popular or scientific, which bear upon this important subject,

Reading from cards is also performed by primary classes, so placed; but books are also generally given to the pupils as early as may be. Other exercises are sometimes performed while the classes retain this position. It may be well before, closing this article, to notice the plan of a circulating class. This term applies to a plan of promotion, or "going up," which has been thought to be free from the principal objection against the common mode of promoting. The spelling, or other exercise is performed in turn, going round and round, and the pupil does not stop at the head of the class, but passes over to the foot of it, while the one who occupies the latter station, takes his place at the head. The monitor or an assistant marks down the number of times which each pupil passes before the stand, and the way he moves; that is, up or down ; and the amount is afterwards reported or recorded."

This plan, as we have remarked on a previous occasion has the advantage of bringing the missing child among the most successful, and thus tends to keep up his courage, and does not give so much room for the former to exercise bad feelings towards any of the latter in particular. Whether, on the whole, motives of rivalry and a spirit of emulation, had not better be altogether avoided, it must be left to each teacher to determine.,

The common, or atmospheric air, consists mainly of two ingredients, one only of which is endued by the Creator with the power of sustaining animal life. The same part of the air supports life and sustains combustion; so that in wells or cellars, where a candle will go out, a man will die. The vital ingredient, which is called oxygen, constitutes about twenty-one parts in a hundred of the air. The other principal ingredient, called azote, will not sustain life. The proportion is adapted, by omniscient wisdom, with perfect exactness, to the necessities of the world. Were there any material diminution of the oxygen, other things remaining the same, every breathing thing would languish and waste, and perish. Were there much more of it, it would stimulate the system, accelerating every bodily and mental operation, so that the most vigorous man would wear out in a few weeks or days. This will be readily understood by all who have witnessed the effects of breathing exhilarating gas, which is nothing but this oxygen or vital portion of the air, sorted out and existing in a pure state. Besides, this oxygen is the sup. porter of combustion, and, were its quantity greatly increased, fire would hardly be extinguishable, even by water. But the vital and the non-vital parts of the air are wisely mingled in the exact proportions, best fitted for human utility and enjoyment; and all our duty is not to disturb these proportions. About four parts of the twentyone of vital air are destroyed at every breath; so that, if one were to breathe the same air four or five times over, he would substantially exhaust the life-giving principle in it, and his bodily functions would convulse for a moment and then stop. As the blood and the air meet each other in the lungs, not only is a part of the vital air destroyed, but a poisonous ingredient is generated. This poison constitutes about three parts in a hundred of the breath thrown out

from the lungs. Nor is it a weak, slow poison, but one of fatal vir. ulence and sudden action. If the poisonous parts be not regularly removed, (and they can be removed only by inhaling fresh air,) the blood absorbs them, and carries them back into the system. Just according to the quantity of poison, forced back into the blood, follow the consequences of lassitude, faintness or death. The poisonous parts are called carbonic acid. They are heavier than the common air, and as the lungs throw them out at the lips, their tendency is to fall towards the ground or the floor of a room, and if there were no currents of the air, they would do so. But the other parts of the air being warmed in the lungs and rarified, are lighter than the common air, and the moment they pass from the lips, their tendency is to rise upwards towards the sky. Were these different portions of the air as they come from the lungs of different colors; we should, if in a perfectly still atmosphere, see the stream divided, part of it falling and part ascending. A circulation of the air, however, produced out-of-doors by differences of temperature, and in our apartments by the motion of their occupants and by other causes, keeps the poisonous parts of the air, to some extent, mingled with the rest of it, and creates the necessity of occasionally changing the whole. Though the different portions of the air have the same color to the bodily eye, yet in the eye of reason their qualities are diametrically opposite.

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Although there is but the slightest interval between one act of breathing and another, yet, in the natural state of things, before we can draw a second breath, the air of the first is far beyond our reach, and never returns, until it has gone the circuit of nature, and been renovated. Such are the silent and sublime operations, going on day and night, without intermission, all round the globe, for all the myriads of breathing creatures that inhabit it. But, perhaps some will suppose, that, in this way, the vital portion of the air, in process of time, will be wholly consumed or used up; or that the poisonous portion, thrown off from the lungs, will settle and accumulate, upon the earth's surface, and rise around us, like a flood of water, so high as eventually to flow back into the lungs and inflict death. All this may be done; not however in the course of nature, but only by suicidal or murderous contrivances. In the Black Hole of Calcutta, in the year 1756, one hundred and forty-six persons were confined to a room only eighteen feet square for ten hours; and although there was one aperture for the admission of air and light, 123 had perish. ed at the end of that time. Only 23 survived, and several of these were immediately seized with the typhus fever. In the Dublin Hospital, during the four years preceding 1785, out of 7650 children, 2944 died, within a fortnight after their birth; that is, 38 out of every hundred. The cause of this almost unexampled mortality was suspected by Dr. Clarke, the physician, who caused fresh air to be introduced by means of pipes, and during the three following years, the deaths were only 165 out of 4243, or less than four in a hundred; that is, a diminution in the proportion of deaths of more than 31 per Hence it appears, that, though a proficiency of pure air, in one hospital, during the space of four years, there perished more than 2600 children. In Naples, Italy, there is a grotto, where carbonic acid issues from the earth aud flows along the bottom in a shallow stream. Dogs are kept by the guides who conduct travellers to see this natural curiosity, a d, for a small fee, they thrust the noses of the dogs into the gas. The consequence is that the dogs are imme. diately seized with convulsions, and, if not released, they die in five minutes. But let us not cry, Shame! too soon on those who are guilty of this sordidness and cruelty. We are repeating every day, though in rather a milder fashion, the same experiment, except we use children instead of dogs.

cent.

stance.

But why, in process of time, it may still be asked, is not the vital principle of the air wholly exhausted; and the vallics and plains of the earth, at least, filled with the fatal one? Again, Divine Wisdom has met the exigency in a manner fitted to excite our admiration and wonder. The vegetable world requires for its growth the very subthe animal world rejects as its death; and in its turn, all vegetable growth yields a portion of oxygen for the support of animal life. One flourishes upon that which is fatal to the other. Thus the equilibrium is forever restored; or rather it is never disturbed. They exchange poison for aliment; death for life; and the elements of a healthy existence flow round in a circle forever. The deadly poison thrown from the lungs of the inhabitants of our lati tudes, in the depths of winter, is borne in the great circuit of the atmosphere to the tropical region and is there converted into vege. table growth; while the oxygen exhaled in the processes of tropical vegetation, mounts the same car of the winds, and in its appointed time revisits the higher latitudes. Why should we violently invade this beautiful arrangement of Providence?

There is another fact, impossible to be overlooked in considering this subject. Who can form any just conception of the quantity of air which has been created? Science has demonstrated, that it is poured out between 40 and 50 miles deep all round the globe. It was to prevent the necessity of our using it, second-hand, that it was given to us by skyfulls. Then, again, it is more liquid than water.

It rushes into every nook and crevice, and fills every unoccupied place upon the earth's surface. All the powers of art fail in wholly excluding it from any given space. We cannot put our organs of breathing, where some of it will not reach them. All we can do is to corrupt it, so that none but fatal or noxious air shall reach them. This we do. Now if the air were a product of human pains-taking; if laborers sweated or slaves groaned to prepare it; if it were transported by human toil from clime to clime, like articles of export and import, between foreign countries, at a risk of property and life; if there were ever any dearth, or scarcity of it; if its whole mass could be monopolized, or were subject to accident or conquest, then, economy might be commendable. But ours is a parsimony of the inexhaustable. We are prodigals of health, of which we have so little, and niggards of air of which we have so much. In the State Lunatic Hospital at Worcester, there are 800 feet cubic mea. sure to each apartment, for one patient only. In the Prison at Charlestown, 171 1.2 cubic feet are allowed to each prisoner's cell. In addition to this, free ingress and egress of the air is allowed, by means of apertures and flues in the walls. In the Penitentiary, erected at Philadelphia a few years since, 1300 cubic feet were allowed to each prisoner, solitarily confined; while in some of our school rooms, less than forty cubic feet is allowed to a scholar, without any proper means of ventilation; and in one case a school has been constantly kept, for 13 years, in a room which allows less than 30 feet of air to the average number of scholars, now attending it; and even this school room, contracted as it is, is beseiged by such offensive effluvia, that the windows are scarcely opened even in summer.

In regard to this most immediate of all the necessaries of life, that arrangement would be perfect, which should introduce the life-sustaining air, just as fast as it should be wanted for breathing; and, when breathed, should carry it off, not to be breathed again, until it should be renovated and purified in the laboratory of nature. If one washes himself in running water, he will never dip up the same water a second time. So should it be with the air we respire. An arrangement, producing this effect is perfectly practicable and easy. By examining a most valuable communication from Dr. Woodward, the superintendent of the Lunatic Hospital at Worcester, it will appear, that 50 persons will consume the entire body of air in a room 30 feet square and 9 feet high, in about forty minutes. If, however, the room be perfectly tight, thre air, once respired, wil be partially mingled with the whole mass of air in the room and will offer itself to be breathed again. What is wanted, therefore, is a current of fresh air flowing into the room, while a current of the respired air flows out of it; both to be equal to the quantity requir ed for the occupants Under such circumstances, if there be but little motion in the room, the poisonous part of the air will see towarus the floor as soon as it is cast from the lungs, while the other part of it, being raised almost to a blood heat in the lungs will rise to the ceiling. In the ceiling, therefore, should be an aperture for its escape. The carbonic acid will tend to flow out under the door or when it is opened. If the ceiling be concave or dome-shaped, only one aperture will be necessary;—if horizontal and the room be large several may be required. The number will depend upon the manner in which the room is heated. If the house be of one story only, the apertures will open into the attic. On the upper side of the aperture let a trap-door be hung, to be raised by a cord, running over a pully, and coming down into the room, or, (which is more simple) by wires, after the manner of house-bells. This door should be prevented from opening to a greater angle than 80 degrees, so that when the cord is loosened it will fall by its own weight and close the orifice. The door will be opened, more or less, according to the temperature of the weather, and the degree of wind prevailing without, so as always to carry off the impure air just as fast as it is fouled by the lungs. Any person, by stepping into the open air, and inhaling it for half a minute, can, on returning into the room, determine the state of the air within it. If the apertures through the ceiling open into the attic, the air can be let off, either through fanwindows at the ends, or through sky-lights; or an opening can be made into the chimney and a flue carried up to its top. In the last case, the floor of the attic, immediately under the flue, should be plastered, or covered with something incombustible, to make it per fectly secure against cinders, coming down through the flue. If the building be two stories high, the apertures for ventilation in the lower story, instead of being in the upper ceiling of the room, should be in the side walls, next the ceiling and so ascend, by flues, through the walls of the second story until they open into the attic. Sliding dampers can be used, in order to open or close these lower orifices, so as to regulate the escape of air from the room. Where a school. house two stories in height has been built in disregard of the laws of health and life, the lower room may be ventilated by making apertures in its upper ceiling, next to the walls of the room, and carrying up flues through the second story in tight boxes, attached to the walls and opening into the attic through similar apertures in the upper ceiling of the second story. These boxes will appear, in