lad seeks admission to college, carrying a certificate that he has completed the preparatory course, it shall be deemed good evidence that he can pass successfully the most searching examination? The requisitions of the colleges of the State should be carefully studied by the Superintendent, and he should seek to comply with them as rigidly as he requires the various teachers in his own corps, to adhere to their prescribed course. This implies not only a thorough training in what is required, but also the leaving untouched those which are to be prosecuted in college. At first view, it may appear an advantage to have gained some acquaintance with the branches of the collegiate course before entering college; but all experience is against it. It it found by actual trial, that the chances for attaining high scholarship, are the greatest, where the student is thoroughly master of the preparatory studies, but has not anticipated those of the college course. And then in nine cases out of ten, if these studies are anticipated, it is at the expense of those required for entrance. The greatest hindrance to high scholarship in our western colleges, is to be found in the desultory manner in which the preparatory studies have been prosecuted. While nearly every student has anticipated some things, he has either not studied at all, or very imperfectly, some that he should know thoroughly. The temptation on the part of the preparatory student, to study some of the advanced English branches, is very great; and perhaps the teacher may wish also to have such a one in these classes, for the sake of his influence upon others. But in the vast majority of cases, it is a positive injury to the student himself.

And this leads me to notice an objection, which should perhaps have been alluded to before; a particular phase of the objection to attending to such studies in the Public Schools. There is an impression on the minds of some, that those who study Latin and Greek, do it as additional to the other branches; that they receive from the school all the benefit in other respects which others do, and this besides. Thus they form a privileged class. Such objectors regard the classical department as an additional story to the edifice. That in some schools the practice has been such as to lead to this impression, can not be denied; but, as has been already said, the practice is wrong, and therefore the objection. based upon it, is unsupported. The lad who is studying the Latin and Greek, with the purpose of entering college, ought not to be attending to the advanced English branches also. He ought to spend no more time in the High School than the mere English scholar, and, in

deed, not so much. A High School course embraces at least four years of study. The classical scholar, devoting himself wholly to the Latin and Greek, with a review of the Arithmetic, Grammar and Geography, should be well prepared for college in three years. So far as time is concerned, he really gets less, rather than more, of his due proportion of the advantages of the school. The classical department, considered as preparatory to college, is not divided from the English by a horizontal line, the English below, and the other above, the latter to be reached only through the former; but by a vertical line. It is not an additional story to the main edifice, but rather a wing.

There is another suggestion which seems pertinent to the case. It is not enough that ample provision should be made for a full preparatory classical course, and that those who enter upon it should be thoroughly instructed. The influence of the school should be favorable to such study. The teacher has it in his power to determine the question of a liberal education in very many cases. A word from him may secure it, or prevent it. In many communities, the tendencies are not at all collegeward. The avenues of business are widely open, and they present many attractions. Prejudices against the classics may have taken root, and the lad who would enter upon the study, may have many obstacles to encounter. He needs encouragement, and the teacher can furnish it more effectually than any other. And, in inuumerable `instances, he can excite the desire, where it had not before existed; he can remove imagined difficulties; he can disarm prejudices. Nor is it necessary that a full decision should be made to seek a liberal education, before making a beginning. If the study should be entered upon, and after a while relinquished, the impression is prevalent that the time would be lost. By no means. In no way can the mind of the pupil receive more benefit than in the effort to gain a knowledge of the ancient languages. I would have every lad commence the study, in respect to where there was the remotest probability of securing a full course. If he studies but six months, the time so far from being wasted, would be well-spent. If the other course is adopted, of leaving the classics until he shall have fully decided to secure a liberal education, the result will often be, either all study is soon abandoned, or years after he enters upon the work, finding that these years have been virtually wasted, many a young man takes up the Latin Grammar at the age of twenty or upwards, who might just as well had done it at twelve or fourteen. And the memorizing of the forms, which is the first great work in the study, can be done far more easily in early youth

than in manhood. To an adult, these grammatical paradigms seem childish as well as difficult. He prefers to use his reason rather than his memory, while the young scholar learns his nouns and verbs as he does his multiplication table.

I have considered classical study more especially as connected with a collegiate course. But it should find place in our High Schools, that our daughters may pursue it as well as our sons. It was no part of my purpose to discuss the general question of the utility of classical study. And I cannot stay to point out the advantages of such study to young ladies. It is enough to say, that in all our best Female Seminaries, the Latin has a prominent place. In some, it is required of all the pupils, and in others, all are encouraged to study it. In the Eastern academies, it is common to find young ladies composing a majority of a large Latin class. In the judgment of our best teachers, it is indispensable to a finished education. With a good classical department, our High Schools could be made equal to the best Female Seminaries.

This is now our greatest want. Here is the only blemish in our great State system, and the time has come for wiping it off. other facilities that have been so well provided, the systematic and thorough training of the lower schools, our children are ready at an early age to enter upon classical study. Establish such a department, make it an integral part of the schools, let the whole influence of the teachers be favorable to it, and we may challenge the world for circumstances more favorable to liberal study; whether we regard the number of those who would seek it, or the completeness of the preparation with which they would enter upon it.

The Female College.

We design in this article to discuss names rather than things. Among the educational enterprises of the Western States, Female Colleges already hold a conspicuous place. But there is novelty in the name; and the stranger, having never heard it mentioned in other lands, would naturally ask, What is the rank which they occupy among other institutions? New England has her common or primary schools, her academies and her colleges. Her so-called universities are distinguishable from the colleges only in name, and we may therefore

assume three grades only in the institutions for general or disciplinary education at the East. The student advances from the primary school to the academy, and thence graduates to the college. A corresponding series is found in the system of graded schools now established in our cities, although bearing different names.

Returning, we find a system of schools in Ohio and other Western States apparently different. We have the public school and the college, but not the academy. Our youth pass from the former to the college direct, a significant fact which must not be overlooked in our efforts for the advancement of education. This state of things imposes a heavy burden upon our so-called colleges, depressing in its influence, tending either to render them mixed institutions-colleges but in partor to limit their prerogative to that of the academy alone. The former alternative is generally chosen, and hence the "preparatory department,' that is, the academic, forms a distinguishing feature in the colleges of the West, both male and female. This is an evil, operating to weaken the hands of the faculty by extending their course of instruction over too wide a field. The obvious result and remedy will be, that a portion of these colleges will at length assume the position of the academy alone, while others shall sternly reject every candidate for admission who has not already attained the academic course. That time will

come.

But the colleges of the Eastern States are for males alone, while females are there educated only in academies and seminaries. Do we hence infer that our young women possess superior advantages, and congratulate ourselves as having more liberal views of female education? We should beware of such a conclusion, lest we find that we have been deceived by mere names.

The establishment of Female Colleges among us, has created an exigency in regard to names and titles, to which we would respectfully ask the attention of philologists. Admitting that a collegiate course should occupy four years for its completion, and that she who successfully accomplishes it should be honored with a degree under some appropriate title, we find ourselves hitherto in an awkward dilemma. As the timehonored titles of Freshman, Sophomore and Bachelor are objectionable, and admit of no grammatical change which will suit them to our use, they have been necessarily discarded in these institutions, and no substitutes as yet adopted. Is it fit that those fair classes shall be nameless, or mentioned only by circumlocution, and these graduates untitled?

For ourselves meanwhile, in this institution, (Ohio Female College: see circular, 1854-5,) we have, for present convenience, devised a nomenclature which we conceive to be as simple and unobjectionable as any new terms may be. We beg leave to suggest these names to the. consideration of our coadjutors in the cause of female education, asking either for their approval and adoption, or their own suggestion of another and better system, worthy of a general adoption.

Members of the first college year are denominated Janitors, having just entered the temple of science, but as yet remaining, as it were, near the vestibule.

Members of the second year, Templars, having at length been fairly introduced. Of the third and fourth years, Juniors and Seniors.

The first degree is entitled the Baccalaureate, or Laureate of Arts (L. A.) The second, conferred after a superadded course of two years, is the Crown Laureate, or Laureate of Literature (L. L.) COLLEGE HILL, Jan. 1856.

A. W.

Do Schools Pay.

The real question, after all, with a large class of the tax-payers of the State, is not whether a liberal system of free schools will make society wiser or better, but will it make us richer; in other words, "will it pay?" This must be the fulcrum point of every enterprise; upon this "rock" every cause must rest; the inquiry, cui lucro, not cui bono, the " Sesame," which alone can open the door of knowledge alike to the son of the "wood-cutter" and the child of wealth.

Nor is the class of persons alluded to, as limited as many imagine. However it may be disguised, the secret of the opposition, which threatens, at the present time, some of the vital features of our school system, is traceable to this cause alone. Schools do not pay, is the murmur which becomes audible and potent in the deliberations of the General Assembly. It is not because Township Boards of Education, the office of School Commissioner, or nucleus District Libraries mar or are useless appendages to the system, that they are menaced, but because they give vitality and efficiency to it. Were the conviction universal that money paid for the maintenance of schools returns as