highly cultivated farms, with large, comfortable homesteads. The fields everywhere are filled with laborers, hoeing, ploughing and weeding, most of them as blithe as larks, and making the woods ring with "whistle and song." That plain, but substantial edifice under the shadow of the great oak tree hard by the old church, is a parish school-house, in which are gathered perhaps some fifty or sixty boys and girls from all ranks of society, plying their mental tasks under the supervision of an intelligent schoolmaster. Every morning in that school-house the word of God is reverently read, and earnest prayer is offered exerting upon all minds a healthful moral influence, and producing impressions of a religious kind which may last forever. Any boy may be fitted for college, or for commercial pursuits in such a school; and the expense to the parent will be next to nothing. What then must be the amount of good accomplished by the combined influence of all the parish schools of Scotland, equally endowed and supplied with adequate teachers.

"Popular Education has made great advances in Scotland within a few years. The greatest zeal for learning exists among the people, and they require no compulsive acts, as in Germany, to induce them to send their children to school. Not to be able to read and write is regarded in Scotland as a great disgrace; and hence the poorest people are equally ready with the rich to avail themselves of the benefit of instruction.

"Good teachers are uniformly secured, because they receive ample compensation and none but well-educated and truly moral men would be accepted. In this respect their situation is greatly superior to that of parish schoolmasters (public school teachers) in Germany or in the United States. On this subject, Kohl, the German traveller, mentions an amusing conversation which he had with the parish schoolmaster at Muthil. Having stated to the latter that the situation of Scottish teachers was far superior to that of teachers in his country, he inquired what was the average pay of schoolmasters there. "Some

"It varies a good deal," was the reply of Kohl. have a hundred, some have a hundred and fifty, but many no more than fifty dollars."

"How many pounds go to a dollar?" asked he.

"Seven dollars go to a pound."

"What!" he exclaimed, springing up from his chair, "do you mean to tell me that they pay a schoolmaster with seven pounds a year?"

"Even so," was the reply, "seven pounds. But how much do they get with you?"

"I know no one who has less than from £40 to £50 in all Scotland; but the average is £70 or £80, and many go up as high as £150."

"What!" cried Kohl, springing up in his turn, "£150! why that makes $1050! a baron would be satisfied in Germany with such revenue as that. And do you mean to say that there are schoolmasters who grumble at it?"

"Yes," said he, "but recollect how dear things are with us. Sugar costs 18d. a pound; coffee, 2s; chocolate is still dearer, and tea not much cheaper. And then how dear are good beef, and pork, and plums and puddings, and everything else!"

"I could not deny this," adds Kohl; " but I thought that our poor schoolmasters were content if they had but bread."

"In former times the parish schoolmasters did not receive so much as they now do; but they were clerks of the parish; frequently precentors in the church, and received a multitude of little perquisites. Their support has been made quite ample, having an average salary of £100, with a free house."

"A free house!" Hear that, New England teacher, and jump from your chair in astonishment. None but clergymen and corporation agents have "free houses" with us; the former, but seldom now, compared with former times. And how, on the whole, is the average of teachers' wages in our country, in New England even, compared with that of our Scotch brethren?

But here is the Scotch schoolmaster of olden times. "But the sight of that school-house brings back the days of 'lang syne. Well do I remember the old parish school, a long thatched building, at the 'Kirk of Shotts,' where I received my preparation for College under the free and easy but most efficient administration of Dominie Meuross,' famed through all the country for his great classical attainments, his facetious disposition, his kind-heartedness, and his love of the pure 6 Glenlivet.” Those were not days of temperance societies, and the Dominie had so much to do with christenings and weddings, parish difficulties, 'roups' and lawsuits, that he was greatly tempted by the bottle. But he was a worthy man, and an enthusiastic teacher, especially of the classics. Teaching A B C was rather dull business to the Dominie ;- but oh, how merrily he would construe the Odes of Horace; what jokes he would crack over our lessons; and what effulgent light he would cast upon the classic page! Yet Dominie Meuross was a dignified man, no one more so. The boys, indeed, enjoyed considerable latitude, especially at the end of the school opposite the one in which the Dominie sat; and many facetious tricks were played upon the duller boys, the sumphs,' as we used to call them. But the Dominie had only to pull down his glasses from his forehead, where they were usually perched, and direct a keen glance to the other end,' instantly to bring us all to

perfect order. Dear old man! He has long agogone to the yird;' but his memory is green as the grass which waves upon his grave."

Of these parochial and the endowed schools, there are now in Scotland, 4,836; number of children entitled to their privileges, 181,467, averaging one school to a fraction less than 38 children.

Let us learn from other lands; let us be profited by the lessons they teach; let us not forget to render them their due.

CO-WORKERS WITH GOD.

The teacher who directs, develops and instructs the mind of a child, is a co-worker with Him who came from heaven as the Great Teacher; who took little children in his arms and blessed them; who taught the people many things in the Synagogues, and in every place where he found them assembled; who kept with himself continually, a select class of pupils, teaching them daily into all knowledge, as never man taught; who has spoken of wisdom as the principal thing; who imparts, even now, to all who trustingly ask him, liberally, without money and without price and who has prepared for the constant guidance of teacher and pupil, the best Text-Book ever penned.

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BUSINESS QUALITIES OF PROFESSIONAL MEN.

Generally speaking, professional men are notoriously deficient in business qualities. As an illustration of this, the following good story is told of Sir Isaac Newton. A learned foreigner had invented a mathematical instrument; of which the great Newton entertained a high opinion, and had formed great expectations. The Royal Society received one as a present, and Sir Isaac hearing of its arrival, hurried down to the custom house to secure it and take it away. The duty was to be paid ad valorem. The President of the Royal Society being asked its value, labored hard to impress the custom house officers with the fact that its value was "immense," and its worth "absolutely incalculable." Upon this, they charged him a good round price in fact, a good deal more than the Society thought the thing was worth. However, the duty was paid; but the Royal Society took pretty good care that the great calculator should never afterwards transact their custom house business.

He is not rich, and yet indeed

Has wealth; nor poor, has stock, though small; Nor rich, he gives so much to need;

Not poor, for on him fall

Such blessings from relieved distress,

To crown his path with happiness.

Room for a lord, ye truckling crew,

Who round earth's great ones fawn and whine : Fall back! and gaze on something new:

A lord, at least in mind.

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That bravest work in nature's plan,

An upright, independent man.

WEBSTER ON EDUCATION.

Costly apparatus and splendid cabinets have no magical power to make scholars. In all circumstances, as man is under God the master of his own fortune, so he is the maker of his own mind. The Creator has so constituted the human intellect, that it can grow only by its own action; and by its own action it most certainly and necessarily grows. Every man must, therefore, in an important sense, educate himself. His books and teachers are but helps; the work is his. A man is not educated till he has the ability to summon, in case of emergency, all his mental power in vigorous exercise to effect his proposed object. It is not the man who has seen most, or who has read most, who can do this. Such a one is in danger of being borne down like a beast of burden, by an overloaded mass of other men's thoughts. Nor is it the man who can boast merely of native vigor and capacity. The greatest of all warriors that went to the siege of Troy, had the preeminence, not because nature had given him the most strength, and he carried the largest bow, but because self-discipline taught him how to bend it.D. Webster.

A LITTLE KNOWLEDGE NOT DANGEROUS.

If we were to compare the value of much with that of little learning, there is no concession in favor of the much that we would not willingly make. But in comparing small acquisitions with none at all, it appears equally absurd to consider a little learning valueless, or even dangerous, as some will have it, as to talk of a little virtue, a little wealth or health, or cheerfulness, or a little of any other blessing under heaven, being worthless or dangerous. To abjure any degree of information, because we cannot grasp the whole circle of the sciences, or sound the depths of erudition, appears to be just about as sensible as if we were to shut up our windows, because they are too narrow, or because the glass has not the magnifying power of a telescope. For the smallest quantity of knowledge that a man can acquire, he is bound to be contentedly thankful, provided his fate shuts him out from the power of acquiring a larger portion; but whilst the possibility of farther advancement remains, let him be as proudly discontented as he pleases with his little learning.-Thomas Campbell.