a house for our families, or scarcely a stable for our horses, without having at the commencement a well settled plan, and a definite contract. And then we should keep up a constant oversight and supervision. We should visit him frequently and watch him closely. We should make suggestions and give advice. And when the work was done according to contract, we should congratulate ourselves on the care which secured it. But how many of us send our own and our neighbor's children to secure their intellectual and moral fashioning, and seldom or never visit the place where it is done. The workman is placed there without much definiteness of contract, and then is seldom visited or encouraged. All the acts of that workman reach to an endless future, and take hold on that future; and yet we give him no sympathy, no suggestions, no advice, no any thing, but cold neglect, may be unfeeling censure.

Boards of Education have not done all their duty when they have established good schools. They owe it to the community to diffuse information among the people,-information in regard to the advantages of properly classified schools, that well taught public schools give a more thorough and systematic education at from one half to two-thirds the expense of private schools,-information in regard to a liberal expenditure of money for good school houses and good schools, that it is the most profitable investment of money that can be made,-information in regard to the relations of ignorance to pauperism and crime, that it is the chief source from which our poor houses and penitentiary are filled,―information in regard to the connection between the intelligence and the enterprise of the State; that that intelligence has built our plankroads, our canals, our railroads, has added millions to our wealth, and has made us the third State in the Union in population, and the second, if not the first, in intellect and education-information in regard to the effect of intelligence in cultivating a taste for pure and refined enjoyments, thus leading our youth away from low and groveling pursuits-information in regard to the effects of well governed schools, upon habits of order and obedience, that they tend directly and strongly to make our youth sober, industrious, law abiding citizens-information in regard to the right of the State to tax all the property of the State for the support of the schools, that the right comes from the duty of the State to protect her people—that the public schools are cheaper and better protectives than court houses and prisons, and that it costs indefinitely more to arrest, try, imprison, or hang a man, than it does to educate him, so he won't need to be imprisoned or hung-information in regard to the school system and school

law of the State, that they are among the best ever formed, needing very little modification or amendment, and that they are to be executed and made effective, not grumbled at, and neglected and resisted.

These are some of the relations and duties of our Boards of Education.

But all this requires intelligence, vigilance, decisions of character, and a hearty interest in the work; certainly it does. At the beginning I said our Boards should be composed of men of such natural and acquired abilities as to command public confidence. They need to possess such qualifications, and give such an amount of care and attention to their work as is supposed to be essential to much more conspicuous stations. Were I an office-seeker (as I am not) my highest ambition would be realized in being a member of a non-paid, intelligent, hard working Board of Education, in the OHIO COMMON SCHOOL SYSTEM.

ASSOCIATE EDITORIAL.

IRREGULARITY IN ATTENDING SCHOOL.

NUMBER I.

Perhaps no one evil is more destructive to the vitality and efficiency of school exercises, than the one named at the head of this article.

This arises chiefly from two causes: First, because in its nature and tendencies it is disastrous; and second, because of its universality. It seems to be the crying sin of the age. It lays its withering hand upon the teacher's fairest plans and prospects, and thwarts and blasts them as effectually as though it had been invented for that special purpose. To the scholar himself, the consequences are not less demoralizing. It robs him of his confidence and dignity-destroys his interest in study arrests him in a career of success- - and thus paves the way for future crime and degradation.

Its baleful influence is not only felt in the school room; but the habit once formed, here or elsewhere, is sure to carry itself into whatever department of business the pupil may engage in after life. It clings to him like a putrid carcass, and, infecting more or less whatever he

may lay his hand to, he is driven from the most honorable positions in life, and seeks refuge in the lazy herd.

The grand secret of success among men, in any business whatever, may, almost without an exception, be traced directly to attention, regularity, and punctuality; while their failures and disasters may as often be traced to an opposite cause. This may not be apparent to a casual observer; but to one who examines and weighs the remote as well as the recent causes, this problem of human life and fortune is not of difficult solution. Because the penalty does not follow the transgression immediately, we are apt to overlook the real cause of suffering, and blame dame fortune for our ill luck, (when in fact there is no luck " about it.) But because the penalty does not follow immediately, we have no right to infer that it will not, sooner or later, overtake the offender, though many long years may intervene. When justice lingers long, her reckoning is most fearful.

66

If parents, therefore, knew and felt, when they were, for trifling excuses, keeping their children out of school for a few days in a week, or permitting them to be tardy or out of season in their daily attendance, that they were gendering those habits in them that would render them unsuccessful in business, and miserable, perhaps, in their whole course of life, they would at once adopt measures to arrest this dangerous tendency; they would say at once, that the experiment is too hazardous to risk in matters so weighty.

Now why cannot parents see this? Simply, because they do not reflect upon these subjects. They would readily take cognizance of an evil inflicted upon the person of their child.

Suppose, for instance, that a neighbor had been guilty of maltreating a little boy or girl, and that in so doing an arm or a leg had been broken would the offense be lightly looked over? No, no! Speedy recourse would be had to the law; courts of justice would be impleaded for the adjustment of grievances. The poor neighbor would pay dearly But does that parent act

he

for his imprudence, and perhaps justly, too. less culpably, less unkindly to his offspring, who thus suffers them to form habits in early life that will curse them as long as they live? Is any less inexcusable? I tell you nay! Rather give me the maltreated, the maimed, the cripple, (for what is the physical cripple to the intellectual- the body to the soul?) and I will engage to make a better, a more useful and a more successful man of him, than can be made of that unfortunate boy that has been thus abused by parental

indulgence or neglect. The evil in the first case is only a physical one; in the second, it is both intellectual and moral, and likely to result in all the physical evils of the first: and (which is of infinitely more consequence) to entail untold evils upon the sufferer, both for time and for eternity. And yet parents cannot, or will not see this! They seem to shut their eyes against the very light that would reveal to them the true policy in reference to these seemingly little, but really important and weighty matters.

HOPEDALE, O., March 1, 1856.

J. OGDEN.

COMMUNICATIONS.

THE SEVEN WONDERS OF THE WORLD.

1. The Colossus at Rhodes. It stood on the two moles which formed the entrance of the harbor, at the city of Rhodes.

It was composed of brass, and some estimate of the amount used may be made from the fact that after it had lain in ruins 894 years, there remained, after the diminution from rust and theft, 720,000 pounds. It was sold to a Jew of Edessa, and carried away on 900 camels. It was hollow, and the cavities filled with stones, to counterbalance its weight and render it firm on its pedestal. 105 feet, and all vessels could pass between its legs.

Its height was
There were few

persons who could encompass its thumb with their arms, and its fingers were larger than most statues. It was the workmanship of Chares, who was employed 21 years in building it. It was erected B. C. 300, and, after having stood 56 years, was broken off below the knees, and thrown down by an earthquake.

2. The Temple of Diana at Ephesus, which surpassed all the structures of antiquity, and the building of which occupied 220 years. It was 425 feet in length, 220 in breadth; adorned with 127 columns of the Ionic order, and Parian marble, each sixty feet high; and a statue of the goddess, supposed to have been sent down from heaven. On the very night of the birth of Alexander the Great, it was partially burnt down by Herostratus, who took that means to immortalize his name. Dinocrates was the architect who superintended its rebuilding. Alexander offered to appropriate his spoils to its restoration, if the

Ephesians would give him the sole honor, and have his name placed on the temple. They refused, really from national pride, but with the answer, “That it was not right for one divinity to erect a temple to another."

3. The Labyrinths of Egypt, situated in Lower Egypt, near Lake Moris. According to Herodotus, it consisted of 3000 chambers; 1500 above ground, and the same number subterranean. It had but one entrance and so many intricate windings, that when once in, it was impossible to get out without a guide. It is said to have been built by 12 kings. All the opinions, with reference to its object, appear to yield in acumen and ingenuity, to that of Gatterer; who supposes it to be an architectural, symbolic representation of the zodiac, and the course of the sun through the same; one half being above, and the other below the earth; whilst the 3000 chambers have a symbolical reference to the precession of the equinoxes.

4. The Pyramids of Egypt, which are near a hundred, and constitute the most stupendous works of man. The largest is at Ghizeh, near the Nile, which covers 11 acres of ground, and is about 500 feet high, is said to have employed 100,000 men thirty years in building.

5. The Temple of Jupiter Olympus. It was situated on the river Alpheus, in Elis, near the spot where the Olympic games were celebrated. Its height was sixty-eight feet; breadth ninety-five, and length two hundred and thirty. It was adorned internally and externally with a great variety of statues. The figure of the Olympian deity was composed of ivory and gold, and of such vast proportions that, though seated, it reached nearly to the ceiling, suggesting the idea, that in rising it would bear away the roof. In the right hand it grasped an image of victory, and in the left a sceptre, curiously wrought of various metals, on which was perched an eagle.

6. The wall and hanging gardens of Babylon. The walls, built by Semiramis, were 350 feet high, 87 feet thick, and about sixty miles in circuit. They were composed of bricks baked in the sun, and cemented with bitumen instead of mortar. The gardens were situated in an immense palace built at the west end of the bridge which crossed the Euphrates.

It contained a square of 400 feet on every side, and was carried up in the manner of terraces, one after another, till it reached the height of the walls of the city. The ascent was from terrace to terrace, by means of stairs ten feet wide. The whole pile was sustained by vast arches, raised on other arches. On the top of the arches flat stones