which are adapted for the widest usefulness, are, by the insufficient preparation of the younger scholars, confined to a few of the more advanced high schools and academies. Changes in the system of public education are usually made with difficulty, and it is, doubtless, well that it is so; since otherwise our schools would suffer even more than at present, from the eccentricities and errors of those who have control over them. At present the legal guardians of the school, the teachers, the scholars, and the parents, constitute four classes, who resist any change, whether for better or for worse. In the changes which we are, in these papers, advocating, the difficulty will be still greater, from the fact that the proposed alterations imply an alteration from the very beginning of the educational course; and our views concerning the high school are perfectly impracticable, unless the children in the high school have been from infancy accustomed to exact observation, rapid and accurate conception, and familiarity with the results of cautious and sound inductive reasoning. So far from this being the case in the ordinary schools, that we may more truly say the child is taught to neglect observation, to abstract his mind from things to books, to repeat words without clear conceptions, to adopt the results of hasty and unsound speculations. If the reader think this language too strong, let him reflect that into not one school in a thousand are crystals, minerals, plants, insects, etc., brought for examination;-let him remember that among the teachers not one in twenty even knows the difference between a moss and a lichen, a bug and a beetle, a moth and a butterfly, and not one in fifty but would reprove a child for bringing such things into the school-room;-let him recall the fact that, in spelling, the child is systematically taught to deny the truth of his own sense of hearing; so that, by the age of fifteen, nine-tenths of our children have begun to hear, in the spelling and in the pronunciation of words, sounds that do not exist, and not to hear sounds that are distinct;- let him remember that, in the majority of schools, drawing is not taught, and, when taught, it is usually drawing from a copy, so that it feebly exercises the observing powers, or it is inventive drawing, which does not develop the observing powers at all;-let him remember how much time is given to arithmetic, not to counting beans, arranging them in groups, etc., but to abstract arithmetic, which, even in its so-called practical examples, usually excites the conception only of the names of number, or of the appearance of the Arabic notation; to arithmetic, which was introduced into the primary schools only after a long struggle against the tyranny of grammar, and has now become King Stork more intolerable than than the King Log;let him remember that geography is the only science of observation in our schools, and that geography is often a mere getting of words by rote, and even at best, in the primary schools, only occupied with the observation of maps, instead of the observation of things;-let him remember all this, and he will, at least, see how poorly the primary and sub-primary schools prepare the child for any scientific studies in the grammar and high school.

For this reason, in all these papers, we occupy ourselves more especially in indicating what we conceive to be the true mode and time of beginning each study, and pass by the studies of the high school and college; not that we take less interest in the studies of the more advanced student, but because we are convinced of the absolute necessity of beginning well, if we would produce the highest educational effect. Each day's mental state depends, in part, upon the previous education; and we cannot say how early this process of education begins to influence the mental development. For our part, however, we have long held, what we find to have been the opinion of Comenius (Amer. Journ. of Ed., vol. v., p. 281), that education begins before birth, and is received through the mental and physical condition of the mother.

MORAL AND RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION.

"He that opposes meal and religious instruction in our school- is a virtual enemy to himself, to he world, and to God. When the word is fully eulightened it will thrust such a one from society, even us Vulcan was thrust from Heaven for defending wickedness. A. Pickett's Opening Address before the Teachers Association at Madison

What a mass of bigoted inhumanity is condensed in these few words? Why go so far back as to borrow a lame likeness from the Greek Mythology? Why not burn "such a one " at the stake of the Christian Do minicans ? Could not any one oppose "the moral and religious instruction in our schools," because he thought it was not in the right place there? And now I declare myself such a heretic, or outlaw, regarding religious instruction, of course expecting a less severe judgment of the enlightened world.

According to Webster, the words "moral," and religious," are of a quite different meaning, and ought not to be used as synonymous. Morality is the complex of all virtues, and should be taught everywhere; while religion always refers to a certain creed which a certain portion of makind has about a Supreme Being, or God; although every religion has its code of morals, which is embodied in and adapted to that creed. Morality belongs to all men alike—is the same with all men, while religion embraces only those who participate in the same creed, or idea of God. If, now, in a commonwealth like ours, men of different religions have the same rights, as citizens, how is it possible that any religious instruction could be given in the common schools? It is utterly impossible; and, therefore, the Constitution of the United States, and of our own State, guaranteeing the freedom of conscience, forbids all sectarian instruc

tion; yea, the Statutes bind the Superintendent of Public Instruction, under oath, to oppose the same, and to see that no sectarian text-books are used in our schools.

But every religion, compared with other religions, is sectarian, and this word by no means comprehends only the different confessions and de nominations of a certain, i.e., of the Christian religion. The freedom of conscience, however, cannot be encroached upon by the vote of the majority, because it is the inalienable birth-right of man. Nobody will dispute the above-stated averments, either regarding the logic or the etymology. We find, however, down East, the legal enforcement of using the Bible as a text-book of morals, of teaching religious piety, and of opening the schools with prayer. And even here, out in the far West, we meet everywhere with the intention to follow suit. The Superintendent of Public Instruction, as well as many of the teachers of Wisconsin, The Journal of Education witnessing this fact, urge the conversion of our free common schools to sectarian institutes of the Protestant confession of the Christian religion, by making similar propositions. Are not, then, the Catholics right, who oppose openly the free common school system in order to have their portion of the public funds for school purposes assigned to themselves for Catholic schools? Have not the Jews, a considerable and honorable portion of our citizens, the same right? Are not the Pagans, or even Atheists, entitled to the same demand? justice would answer-they are.

Common

But, can this be done without destroying our whole free common school system, which works so admirably, notwithstanding it is tinged with that religious atmosphere in some parts of the country? Let us save that glorious system untouched, as the Constitution guarrantees it, in order to avoid the union of Church and State as a Church-establishment, wherewith the freedom of conscience is lost, and then, of course, every social and political liberty is gone. All these things,-praying in Congress and Legislatures, praying in schools, laws to enforce the holy keeping of the Sabbath, religious instruction in schools, the use of the Bible in the same as the word of God-are, indeed, but preparing the way for such an event. He who has felt the incubus of a Church-establishment himself is best prepared to judge about that liberty-destroying monster. But the union of Church and State, and the baneful influence of the Church, which the same wields over the masses by the religious instruction in the common schools, is the reason that despotism holds the people of Europe in shameful bondage, is the sole reason of the possibility of its existence.

And another very important argument against religious instruction in schools should be very well considered. The question might arise, which confession of the Christian religion would come victoriously out of the quarrel which would necessarily follow if religious instruction was introduced in schools? Would it be Protestantism, with its many denominations, whose very principle of free inquiry destroys any authority? or

would it not rather be Catholicism, centralized in the authority of the church, and strengthened by that so infinitely? Have we not already the show of a grand Catholic officiating at the opening of Congress? Do we not see our President and Cabinet present when Archbishop Hughes dedicated a Catholic church in Washington?

We ought to do what we can to keep the mind of the young generation free from any religious influence, at least, in schools. We owe it to the names of the immortal framers of the Constitution. We owe it to our descendants, who have a right to expect that we deliver to them the liberty which our ancestors won for us.

And, again, I ask, have they more morality down there where they have Bible reading, prayer, and religious instruction in schools, than here, where they have it not? The statistics of prisons, and poor-houses, and of crime generally, answer in the negative. Why, then, in the name of common sense, should we give an opportunity for religious quarrels by favoring an unconstitutional introduction of religious instruction in our free common schools? I shall abstain from giving the incompatibility of the Bible, as a reading book in schools, or as a text-book for morals, and simply ask if there is any teacher in the whole country who would take the responsibility of giving that book into the hands of his pupils indiscriminately without burdening his conscience with the fear that the unsuspecting mind of the young reader might receive impressions which would spoil it for a lifetime? The prayer at the opening of the school, is, at the best, a waste of time which ought to be devoted to other ends, for a pupil, attentively reading the Bible, could soon prove to his teacher that the Bible itself forbids public prayer; the philosophical mind of another could puzzle the teacher by asking how prayer could encroach upon the eternal laws of nature. A third, perhaps, a little versed in politics, would show its unconstitutionality.

At length religious instruction can be given by any teacher, but according to his special religious creed, except he be a hypocrite, or, what is the same, a knave, and is, therefore, sectarian anyway; thus constitutions and statutes forbid the same. The address of Dr. E. G. Kelly before the Essex County Teachers' Association, at Danvers, Oct. 14th, 1859, treats the same subject; and I agree generally with him, although I disagree with him somewhat concerning the Bible. You may read the address in the Newburyport Herald, or an extract from the same in the Boston Investigator of Nov. 30th, 1859. B. O. ZASTROW Kussow.

CEDARBURG, Ozaukee Co., Dec. 4th, 1859.

It often happens that those are the best people whose characters have been most injured by slanders.

TEACHERS' EXAMINATIONS.

THE commencement of every new school year brings with it a season of teachers' examinations—I do not mean the annual farce of calling the teachers together to see which can answer correctly the greatest number of set questions, and where, as at all school examinations, the most brazen faced always come off with "the highest honors "-(as though there could be any true test of a person's "ability to teach" aside from actual trial in the schoolroom)—that is not the examination I refer to, nor the one I deem most important; but rather that rigid self-examination, that close scrutiny into the heart, scanning well all its secret springs of thought and action, that every true teacher must feel who realizes as he ought the importance of the position he occupies.

To the mind of the teacher, often, and especially at the beginning of each term, such questions as these will arise: Do I fully realize the extent of the influence I daily exert over these youthful minds? that day after day impressions are made that never can be effaced? Am I careful that as the mind expands, and new thoughts and facts are being constantly received, that these shall be intermingled with such as are calculated to make the scholar better as well as more learned? Are his moral as well as intellectual and physical powers being properly educated? Above all, am I sufficiently watchful over myself that every thought, word and action as exhibited before my pupils, be such as may be safely imitated?

The teacher's mission is an important one. In the schoolroom impressions are received and characters formed that last through life-nay, more, that will endure as long as the mind itself shall exist. Each day is as it were, a blank page upon which ineffaceable characters are to be written, and he who would rightly enter upon its duties should himself first receive instruction at the feet of the Great Teacher.

F.

HOME CONVERSATIONS ABOUT SCHOOL.

Now, my dear children, come, we will sit dowu together and talk for a few moments about school. Your mother has a great deal to do this morning; hurry; get together quickly; I have no time lose. It is Mon day morning-washing, dinner, and the duties of the week say there must be no delay. You are now for the first time to leave home for direct instruction. I shall be thinking about you and praying for you all day; and oh! how anxious I am to have you obey your teacher, and set a good ex