only hope. He sanctifies learning, and causes it to diminish crime and misery. The present system of universal education in the Prussian dominions diminished crime thirty-eight per cent. in the first fourteen years. It should do much more in connection with a purer Christian ity. Civil and religious freedom, too, is increased and protected by knowledge. Men thus learn their rights, privileges and duties, and are more likely to give up abuses. Many truths now universally admitted in civilized communities, cost, in darker ages, the blood of martyrs. The elective franchise, the arms, the offices of the state, are a fearful power without intelligence. All inventions and improvements are the results of light. Ignorance is the throne of despotism and mother of superstition.

Our colleges and universities, with all their defects, have shed unmeasured blessings. Intellectual and moral bulwarks, they have nobly breasted the tide of commercial speculation and political excitement. They have long been the great reservoirs of knowledge. Their graduates have made many of our best books, done much to foster a general literary spirit, and every where been the majority of our most reliable public men. Concentrated talent, collision of cultivated minds, profound and extended researches, with large, select libraries and ample courses of studies, have caused them every where to shower blessings upon the republic. Their literature has diffused around them refining, softening, elevating influences. Such influences must be increased. Who could measure the amount of happiness an all pervading literary spirit would create? And is this a hopeless attainment, even in a great commercial city? Are our scholars themselves so affected with the reigning unrest, that we must despair of a change? Are there not enough men of nerve, soul and vital energy, to redeem us from this terrible reign of avarice, intemperance and sensuality? Then we must kindle a counter fire, we must pre-occupy, we must fill the measure with wheat. Then we must evangelize and educate, electrify and arouse the city from its death-slumbers. The healing streams must flow from our schools. A determined, combined effort must be made. Martyr spirits may be needed. We must stem and roll back these deadly currents, and lead our ten thousand in a more excellent way. Our institutions must be still more warmly cherished. Higher ideas of an education must be kept before our pupils. Such an enthusiasm for classic lore must be infused into them, that they will linger at our schools and ask for a more extended course, a still higher grade. This city ought to have five hundred of her sons and daughters reading Homer and Zenophon, Horace and Tacitus, with the best of our Ger

There is no lack of literary enthusiasm, a Under the reflex influmade to feel that they They need the vital in

man, French, English and American classics. either time or talent. There is need of more more just appreciation of higher scholarship. ences of a higher standard, our youth must be cannot be ripe scholars at sixteen or eighteen. fluence of earnest scholars. Our standard is too low. We think too much of small attainments, and are too contented with shallow draughts. Impelled forward by the magic power of living specimens of a higher scholarship, our pupils would tremble at the sublimity of human attainments, learn humility, and, as true disciples, with quenchless zeal and untiring effort, dig for knowledge and seek for wisdom. Parents, too, would have their views expanded, and no longer regard the acquisitions of eight or ten years as any thing more than the mere ground work of an education; nor consent to have their children forced along, as hot house plants, daily crammed without culture; while they would give them time to make solid attainments.

As Educators, we have but one course. With perfect patience and full assurance we must press toward the mark of our high calling. A better day dawns. The rays that tip our educational horizon blush deeper and deeper. Men begin to think more deeply upon these great questions. They see the necessities of the people, and ask for a higher, broader culture. To create a literary spirit is ever a slow work. Line must be upon line, and precept upon precept. Trustees, teachers and pupils must coöperate with every class, profession and calling, to create and infuse this spirit. Especially must we create in all our schools a taste, a quenchless taste for literature, an undying love of true knowledge. An appetite must be created, craving as that of the miser or the inebriate; an appetite not for the endless reading of the trash disgorged by the press, but a discriminating appetite, a thirst for classic studies with all their charming beauties, a thirst for the great truths of science; an appetite that will grow stronger when school days end, and constrain our youth to give up low amusements, light reading and lost evenings, for real embellishments, solid attainments and substantial enjoyments.

Behold the reform! A moral, classical, scientific city with a perfect system of education, from the primary grade to the most complete university; a great central library, with galleries of paintings and a choice collection of statuary; a contented, religious, literary, holy, happy peo. ple, having homes, loving their homes, and living at their homes, bound indissolubly together by the most charming, sanctifying and hallowed associations; educated parents and educated children, mutually and constantly educating each other, all together fearing God and working

righteousness. Who could measure the happiness, wealth and strength of such a community? Who could measure the influence of such a city upon other cities and the world? How vast the difference between a home in such a city and a mere sojourn in some Western frontier? Inaugurate such a state of things, and you would double our wealth and population in a very short time. Hardly would mere gold allure such a people from their homes. Such a people would become celebrated throughout the world. Thus life would be valuable, God be honored, and men saved.

Now cannot education do more for society? Admit that our schools do rank high, that they are our most economical agency for the proteetion and elevation of society, can they not fill a wider sphere? Can they not reach the thousands now growing up in ignorance among us? Can they not be made to detain our pupils upon an average from three to five years longer? Cannot our youth be made to feel that education can do vastly more than give a preparation for industrial pursuits, the claims of commerce and of the state?

Rising far above the selfish, grasping, utilitarian spirit of the age, we must all occupy higher ground. Our schools are warmly cherished in the hearts of the people. Heathenism here has so far retired as to admit females to equal privileges with males, and God's plan so far prevails, that we no longer separate what he hath united; but we must advance, bring in the poor, enlist the sympathies of the wealthy, and show them how to turn the material into the spiritual, gold into souls. We must steadily work for a library upon the most enlarged scale, together with a good, practical university, complete and vital in all its parts. Oh the good wealth may accomplish. Is there no other Hughes, no other Woodward? Who will next come forward for neverfailing garlands, and leave his name embalmed forever in the hearts of a grateful people?

The foundations are well laid, and we must not despise the day of small things. Drops make the ocean, atoms the mountain. Every year records progress. Deliverance will come. A mere spark may fire the city. We must watch and pray, work and wait. The soul created will draw to itself a body. If we can kindle a love of study, of knowledge and of truth, with such discipline as will secure the power of severe and rigid analysis, cautious and comprehensive generalization, careful deduction, acute discrimination and a delicate and refined taste, together with a bold, fertile and chastened imagination, some of our best pupils will remain longer at school, and become eminent, while others, having root and life in themselves, will not go out to have their

minds flicker and expire, as tapers in bad air, but to distinguish themselves with their profound reasonings, impassioned eloquence, or sublime poetry.

In conclusion, let us avoid extremes. Avoiding a course too mathematical, let us never forget that there must be severe discipline, and if less by the calculus, more by the classic. By properly teaching the humanities, we may enlist the heart as well as quicken the intellect, and opon new fountains of happiness. By close and constant communion with the best poets, orators and philosophers, our pupils will imbibe their spirit. By repeated exercises in the translation and analysis of fine writing, they will acquire skill and power, and show the results in life. This is the culture our pupils need. They recite principles and rules enough, but these are not sufficiently inwrought. They can solve hard problems better than they can think, write and speak. This fact all will admit, and with it seems to follow our conclusion.

The culture here indicated will be more difficult, and cost the teacher far more thought and labor, but it is entirely practicable. Small children love beauty and symmetry, and feel emotions of grandeur and sublimity. With proper guidance they can trace these to their sources in fine writing and in the heart. All their emotional powers are highly susceptible of cultivation.

Is it urged that such culture would not be appreciated, and secure the percentages for promotion? If the previous question be settled, that aesthetics are fit for children, and the humanities should be taught them, then our tests must be made to conform.

make us not

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As Educators, we must make deeper impressions and wield stronger influences. Alive, active, earnest, loving literature and filled with its inspiring power, we must breathe zeal into our pupils. "Our stars" underlings." Let us be true to ourselves." The great souls of earlier times have passed away. Ambition and avarice foment the passions of the reckless. Society rocks to its basis. Mass meetings and conventions every where allow free passage to the electric fluids of human passions. The times are eventful. Mind meets mind, and Greek, Greek, while the surge of life rolls on with its coming millions. This is the land of promise. and our responsibilities are fearful. what in us is low, and what is dark the rising race as to save the greatest number, and show to the witnessing nations the richest blessings of free institutions! May our personal obligations, and the coming destinies of this great people, so arouse us to effort, that the flaming sword of the cherubim may be again sheathed, and man permitted to reënter the paradise of God!

Grave questions are before us, May the Eternal Spirit "raise illumine," that we may so mold

COMMUNICATIONS.

CORPORAL PUNISHMENT IN SCHOOL.

BY D. A. PEASE.

:

(Concluded.)

But to return if a single day's absence from the school-room, on the part of a pupil, does him so great an injury, what must be to him the result of staying out a week or a month, as is the case, usually, in suspension? Will he henceforth be less irregular in attendance? Will tardy marks appear on the register against him, less frequently, in the future. It appears to me that it is unnecessary to answer these interrogatories. All would respond in the negative. How is it in case of expulsion? Usually an expelled pupil is deprived of school privileges during the remainder of the term after his banishment. Deprived of school privileges, did I say? I mistake greatly. He is, to be sure, cut off from the benefits that his fellow scholars are receiving, and those lads and misses are no longer his school-mates; but he enters another educational institution, and forms new school associations. True, he may no longer listen to the mental and moral instruction that is afforded in every well regulated District and High School; but he is taught precepts which are more in unison with his natural inclinations, and he rapidly advances in the studies that he is prosecuting. Fellow Teachers, you have already learned the name of this flourishing institution. It is Satan's Seminary, the Street School! Ah! how efficient are its instructors; what proficiency their pupils make; what countless numbers attend; and how it rises in point of influence. But alas! how depraved are its Teachers; how pernicious their instructions; how perverted and debased, the hearts and minds of its scholars; and to what sad, fearful ends they are hastening. Some are being trained to intoxication from the use of alcoholic beverages; others are studying to be gamblers and black-legs; others still are pursuing higher branches, such as pocket-picking, larceny, burglary: these are in the Preparatory Department, Some are pursuing a Collegiate course: they are seeking to become adepts in highway robbery, licentiousness, seduction and homocide. Many have already graduated from their respective departments. The rum-blotched nasal appendage of yonder seared, feeble, trembling, disgusting wreck of humanity, together with his bloodshot eyes, betokens him an almost superanuated member of the Primary School; and his whole appearance indicates that the poor wretch will