WARMING & VENTILATING WAREHOUS Nos. 51 and 53 Blackstone Street, Boston. WE give our personal attention to Warming and Ventilating public or private b ngs. School-houses, academies, seminaries, colleges, &c., receive our first attent Our improvements are constructed on strictly scientific principles, and are meeting reat success and favor with school committees, teachers, and other scientific gen en, far surpassing any other mode of warming and ventilating educational buildin ither in this or any other country. The great object sought, and by these improvements fully attained, is, first, pure arm air, free from red-hot iron heat and coal gas, so common with the common ironot-air furnaces, to which may be attributed more causes of sickness and disease amon oth teachers and pupils, than all other causes together. Secondly, a free circulation of fresh air through the school departments, by ode of ventilation. Third, the great durability of the furnace, and the ease and facility of its manageme Fourth, the new economical plan of burning anthracite and bituminous coal, wood,& thout any change in the apparatus. Fifth, impossibility of setting the buildings on fire in which the furnace is located. At either of our Boston or New York houses may be found an extensive and sele sortment of Warming and Ventilating apparatus, among which are CHILSON'S PATE R-WARMING AND VENTILATING FURNACES, Dr. Clark's school stove for coal-a ne ttern of wood ventilating stoves for school-houses, &c., Portable Furnaces, Emerson ntilators for roofs of buildings, Smoky Chimneys, &c., Hot Air Grates, Ceiling an all Ventilators, Arnott's and the Self-acting Room Ventilator, &c., &c. ators eTo Ventillitre W THE MASSACHUSETTS TEACHER. EDITED BY A COMMITTEE OF The Massachusetts Teachers' Association. PUBLISHED MONTHLY. VOL. VI.-OCTOBER, 1853.-NO. 10. RESIDENT EDITORS' TABLE:- Officers of the American Institute of Instruc- BOSTON: PUBLISHED BY SAMUEL COOLIDGE, TERMS: $1.00 per year, in advance, or $1.50 at the end of the year. STAGE any distance in the United States, SIX CENTS PER YEAR, payable in advance. Are particularly requested to examine the following CROSBY, NICHOLS & CO. PAYSON & DUNTON'S PENMANSHIP. Comprised in SIX PARTS, being a complete system of instruction in penmanship, with specimens of mercantile forms in daily use in the office and counting-rooom. Also, * PENMANSHIP FOR LADIES. * The great advantage of this system is in the style of writing, and in the copies being at the head of the pages, and engraved in such a manner as to offer the pupil a copy bearing a much greater resemblance to the finished handwriting of the master, than does the common copperplate engraving. The teacher is thus saved much labor, and the scholar encouraged to imitate the copies more nearly than those printed from plate. This system is also printed on thick slips, thus offering another great advantage. No. 4 contains all the most approved mercantile forms daily used in the counting-house. The Ladies' is a complete system for ladies. GLEANINGS FROM THE POETS, for Home and School. Selected by Mrs. Anna C. Lowell, author of "Theory of Teaching." "Thoughts on the Education of Girls," &c., &c. A new edition, enlarged. 1 vol. 12mo. "In this volume are contained some of the brightest jewels in the English language. We should reckon it of more worth as a gift to a young friend than fifty thousand books of moral stories surcharged and crammed to the brim with instruction. Here are some immortal poems which seize the very soul and inspire it with beauty and grace that can never afterwards be forgotten.-Harbinger. THE SCHOOL HYMN BOOK, for Normal, High, and Grammar Schools. We are permitted to publish the following, furnished by gentlemen who have seen the work. "We have examined with some care this collection of hymns, and consider it well adapted to be used in our district and other schools, from the variety of the hymns, from their religious character, and their freedom from sectarianism. N. TILLINGHAST, Principal of State Normal School, Bridgewater. Principal of State Normal School, Westfield. EBEN S. STEARNS. Principal of State Normal School, West Newton." Teachers wishing to examine the above, are requested to call on, or send to, CROSBY, NICHOLS & CO., 111 WASHINGTON STREET, BOSTON. COMPOSITION WRITING. PROBABLY no branch of school study receives less systematic, thorough attention than that of Composition Writing. In nearly all our country schools, it is scarcely deemed an essential part of a child's education. If practised at all, it is merely an occasional exercise, without definite aim on the part of the teacher, or a sense of obligation as a part of his duty. In giving instruction on English Grammar, does he not teach the pupil how "to speak and write the English Language correctly?" What more can be required? If it were true that grammar is so taught as to be of much practical utility, the question would be a pertinent one. But with a very slight knowledge of the theory, and in the almost total absence of any practical use of the principles of English Grammar, it is not a matter of wonder that the art and practice of "composition" should be almost unknown in our schools. Nor does the blame rest altogether on teachers. In qualifying themselves for their vocation, they devote their time and attention chiefly to those branches which they suppose will be most urgently required. When arrayed before the examining tribunal to exhibit their attainments and capacity for instructing youth, how seldom do we hear the School Committee inquire about methods of instruction in this branch of study, or find them giving exercises to test their capability for teaching the same. Again, when the teacher enters his school, he immediately finds himself so overwhelmed with the multitude of other branches to be taught and duties to be performed, that it becomes an impossibility to bestow any reasonable portion of his time or labor upon this branch, however much he may desire it. While Arithmetic is deemed of the highest importance, to teach the child how to compute dollars and cents in connection with all the various transactions of business; and Reading, that he may learn to comprehend what others have written, the practice of thinking and expressing thought in appropriate and correct language of his own, is rarely presented as an essential element of education in our schools. All other studies have their time, place and the particular attention of the teacher, in the arrangement of school duties. But how is it with the exercise of Composition? In our annual schools, where instruction is most thoroughly imparted in this branch, it is rarely required oftener than semi-monthly. Other branches have their hours of study and recitation assigned daily, and with all regularity possible, and a number sufficient to occupy the mind of the pupil through all the school hours of each day, and perchance, lest some leisure hours should slip away unimproved, a little "home study" may be required in addition. But where now is the opportunity to prepare a composition, even once in two or three weeks? No provision whatever is made for it; no time allowed. Still the exercise must be performed, the composition must be written. Too much like the miser's advice to his son, is the teacher's to the pupil, "Get money; get it honestly, if you can, but get money.' The scholar is required to do what it would be deemed preposterous to demand of him in any other branch of study. He must perform that on which he receives little or no direct instruction, in hours which are ordinarily devoted to recreation, exercise, or necessary business. The task is in every way exaggerated; the duty itself, one of the most difficult, from the very nature of the case, which is ever required; the time most inconvenient, because irregular and taken from what belongs to something else; an exercise in which the least aid is rendered by the teacher. In addition to all other obstacles, when the task is accomplished, if well done the meed of praise for it is scarcely sufficient to excite a love for the practice; but if defective, as few are not, the paucity and crudeness of thought, ignorance and unskilfulness in the use of language, all tend to produce mortification of feeling and distaste for the exercise, which create a dread of repetition, not unlike that we read of respecting the "burnt child." Is it surprising, then, under these circumstances, that the pupil should procrastinate till the last moment, and then in a quarter or half hour hastily and imperfectly scribble down something to pass as an apology for a composition,—or present an old one, or borrow from a schoolmate, or copy from a book? Again, what measure of improvement ought to be expected form an exercise thus managed? Submit Arithmetic, Grammar, Reading, or Spelling, to the same method of treatment,— |