the character of their pupils, and extending the blessings of good education. The profession of the teacher is respected, and, consequently well trained, practical teachers are promoted to all our prominent educational offices. Our general system of instruction is undergoing changes in accordance with the spirit of the times. The boundaries of our school societies are now the same, as those of the towns where they are established. Our legislators see where their honor lies, and our politicians can afford to speak for the cause of popular intelligence. Connecticut has been specially fortunate in respect to her school superintendents. The name of Henry Barnard, who first held this office, needs no encomium in a Rhode Island journal. His services in his own State are now fully appreciated. His devotion to the cause of good learning is undiminished by a change of time and circumstances. He is now laboring, through his Journal, to advance the cause of education throughout our whole country, whereas his efforts were before directed to the wants of a single State. His successor, John D. Philbrick, filled the office from January, 1855, until recently called to the superintendency of the Boston schools. He possesses tact and ability, and met with the success which his industry and perseverance merited. David P. Camp, our present Superintendent, is a tried and successful teacher, a worthy man, and will, I doubt not, prove himself a competent and efficient officer. From what I have said, you may judge that the tendencies in Connecticut are decidedly upward. Our system of public instruction never stood so well with the people, and the indications of progress were never so marked as at the present time. What Books Can Do. A. P. would have known what books could do. He would have been aware that the results of reading, if judiciously applied, assist towards making a man rich, more than anything else. He would have remembered that Franklin, but for a love of study, would have died poor and obscure, instead of achieving a worldwide reputation as a philosopher, a diplomatist, and a patriot. He would have been conscious that the surest way to keep his son from making vile acquaintances, and to inculcate in him refined and even decent tastes, would be to foster his fondness for reading. Who knows but that the snatching the book from that boy was the turning-point in his destiny? From that hour, perhaps, may date a downward career, which is not unlikely to end in disgrace, a prison, or even worse. Though books do not in themselves make men infallible or virtuous, they tend vastly towards producing these results. The man who has books about him is generally a better man than he who has not. If a question in politics, social science, history, or philosophy arises, he is able to get at the opinions of the wisest, by merely consulting his books; while his illiterate neighbor, at best, can imbibe new ideas only orally, and practically has to take these from very inferior men. Books do not always make their readers sound in judgment, because books are often one-sided, and because readers buy partisan books. But even the worst selected library is better than no library at all. A man with books, is like a workman with tools; and though the tools are bad, they are tools nevertheless. They enable us to furrow up many a field of inquiry, to cut many a harvest of opinion, to thresh out many a granary full of truth, which, if we had no plough nor reaping-machine, nor other labor-saving apparatus, we might work at, hopelessly, for years. Books, in a word, bear us, by an express train, to knowledge. "WHAT'S the use of book-learning?" said Books introduce us also into the noblest a man to his son, whom he found poring over society. While the illiterate are drinking at a new work up stairs. "It's a waste of time taverns, or seeking company by lounging in to read; I never heard that it made anybody the streets, he, who is fond of books, amuses richer." And he snatched the volume from his leisure by conversing with Shakspeare, the lad, who, as a consequence, was playing Bacon, Milton, Thucydides, or other great in the street before half an hour, and acquir-sages of the past. He lives among the best ing the worst habits of his new associates. society of all times, and on the most intimate If that father had been less ignorant, he terms; lives with poets, kings, philosophers, statesmen, saints and martyrs. He is at home with Dante, with Cicero, with Pericles, with David, with Abraham, with the good and wise of every generation. Is not this better than boozing even at rich men's tables? We repeat it, there is no society so select as that into which books introduce us. Cultivate in your children a love of books. The Pen and the Press. BY JOHN CRICHLEY PRINCE. YOUNG Genius walked out by the mountains and streams, Conscience-A Maxim of Washington. "LABOR to keep alive in your breast that little spark of celestial fire, conscience," was one of the series of maxims which Washington framed or copied for his own use when a boy. His rigid adherence to principle, his steadfast discharge of duty, his utter abandonment of self, his unreserved devotion to whatever interests were committed to his care, attest the vigilance with which he obeyed that maxim. He kept alive that spark. He made it shine before. He kindled it into a flame that illumined his life. No occasion was so momentous, no circumstance so minute, as to Entranced by the power of his own pleasant absolve him from following its guiding ray. ness. The explanation in his account-book, in regard to his wife's annual visit to the camp during the Revolutionary war, with his passing allusion to the "self-denial" which the exigencies of his country had cost him, furnishes a charming illustration of his habitual exactThe fact that every barrel of flour which bore the brand of "George Washingington, Mount Vernon," was exempted from India ports-that name being regarded as an the otherwise uniform inspection in the West ample guarantee of the quality and quantity of any article to which it was affixed-supplies a not less striking proof that his exactness was everywhere understood. Be Courteous at Home. A man's home is the casket wherein his choicest jewels are enshrined, and it should be his peculiar province to endeavor to make that casket a true haven of rest, from which the virtues and gentle affections of all its inmates should shine out like beacon lights upon the frowning world without. An exchange paper, in speaking of home politeness, thus decants: "Why not be polite? How much does it cost you to say I thank you?' Why not practice it at home-to your husband, to your children, to your domestics? If a stranger does you some little act of courtesy, how sweet the smiling acknowledgment? If your husband—ah, it is a matter of course-no need of thanks. Should an acquaintance tread upon your dress, your best, your very best, and by accident tear it, how profuse you are with your never mind-don't think of it-I don't care at all;" if a husband does it he gets a frown-if a child he gets chastised. Ah, these are little things,' say you, but they tell mightily upon the heart, let me assure you, little as they are. A gentleman stops at a friend's house and finds it in confusion. He sees nothing for which to apologize; never thinks of such matters. Everything is right -cold supper, cold room, crying childrenperfectly comfortable. Goes home where his wife has been taking care of the sick ones, and working her life most out. • Don't see why things can't be kept in order-there never was such cross children before.' No apologies accepted at home. Why not be polite at home? Why not use freely that golden coin of courtesy? How sweet they sound, those little words, I thank you,' or 'you are very kind!' doubly, yes thrice sweet from the lips we love, when her smile makes the eye sparkle with the light of affection. Be polite to your children. Do you expect them to be mindful of your welfare, to grow glad at your approach, to bound away at your pleasures before the request is half spoken? Then with all your dignity and authority mingle politeness; give it a niche in your household temple." ceeded by a smile of bewitching sweetness and benignity. Then be strong and manly, oppose equal forces to open difficulties, keep a stiff upper lip, and trust in Providence. Greatness can only be achieved by those who are tried. The condition of that achievement is confidence in one's self. was. In a metropolitan criminal court, eight years ago, a poor woman, whose boy had been sentenced to a long term in the penitentiary, for some not well-proven offence, said "Won't your Honor give him a shorter term? He is a good boy to me, your Honor-he always I've just made him some nice clothes, your Honor, which fit him beautiful, (and she looked as she said this, as only a mother can look at her boy,) and if you give him a long time to stay in the prison, the clothes won't fit h?m when he comes out, for he's a growin' boy." Poor mother! she had saved much (for her) from her scant earnings to clothe her boy "like the neighbor's children." This was too much for her son. He melted-he wept-he repented-he was forgiven. And now he is one of the most promising, enterprising and honorable young merchants in our city. Every word of this is true, and known to be so by very many persons.—Knickerbocker. THE Boston Transcript tells an affecting anCONFIDENCE IN ONE'S SELF.-When a crisis ecdote of Miss Bronté, the author of "Jane befalls you, and the emergency requires moral courage and noble manhood to meet it, be Eyre." "When her celebrity had risen to equal to the requirements of the moment, and fame, publishers were ready to give her the rise superior to the obstacles in your path. largest sums for a novel; but she refused the The universal testimony of men whose expe- money, and could not be tempted to write. When rebuked for her silence, she averred rience exactly coincides with yours, furnishes the consoling reflection that difficulties must that she had gone as far as her experience be ended by opposition. There is no blessing could carry her, and that before she wrote equal to the possession of a stout heart. The again she must have more life to draw upon. magnitude of the danger requires nothing This was said in the spirit of truth and of more than a greater effort than ever at your hands. If you prove recreant in the hour of trial, you are the worst of recreants, and deserve no compassion. Be not dismayed or unmanned when you should be bold and daring, unflinching and resolute. The cloud whose threatening murmurs you hear with fear and dread, is pregnant with blessing, and the frown whose sternness now makes you shudder and tremble, will ere long be suc genius. The sordid mind, with its pretty readiness, its mechanic talent, could not so have thought or spoken it; it would have clutched the money and grasped the pen, put the cash in purse, and then, like the barrel organist, who had pocketed his alms, fall to work in grinding out its machine music.” THE silent eye is often a more powerfui conqueror than the noisy tongue. From the N. Y. Independent. thousand minor influences, blessing society How to Perpetuate Wealth and its Influ- and renewing its life, shall annually flow. ence. We speak every week through the columns of this journal to many men who have large wealth at their command; to merchants, bankers, lawyers, farmers, men of every profession, and in different localities, who have either retired from business with a property more than sufficient for all their wants, or who still continue in business, because they are accustomed to it, and would feel lost without it, although they have acquired enough already. It must be a question sometimes earnestly considered by such men, What they are to do with this wealth which they have gained? To leave it all to their children, will only be to surround those children with temptations to indolence, to indulgence and to vice. Any man who leaves more than a competence to his children, does what he can to insure their being ruined, for this world and for the next. It were better, in the majority of cases, that he had poured the gold molten down their throats, than that he had left it to overload, blight, and destroy their souls. And even if this result is not reached, his property is dissipated, completely and forever, before two generations have passed away. It disappears into the hande of those who are utter strangers to him, and to all the effort he has so honorably made. In the incessant distribution of estates in this country, this result is inevitable. The prevalent theories of political economy anticipate and even desire it? Endow the Free School, the Academy, with it; where young minds shall be trained for positions of influence, and for honorable service in the history of the country. Found professorships, scholarships, libraries, with it, in the College or University. Build a Gallery of Art, a Public Library, in the village or the city; and endow it with a fund sufficient to keep it continually replenished with appropriate books or works of art. Establish the Hospital, the Asylum for the Blind, for the Deaf, or else for the deserving but unfortunate poor. Do something with it that shall bless Mankind, and so secure their general interest in its permanent preservation! Found some institutions, fix the source of some influence, that shall tend to the welfare and the advancement of the community; and then that community will surround it with the defences of their honor and love; and the city will be destroyed, the village be left desolate, the university or the college have fallen into decay and been forgotten, before that act of wise beneficence shall have ceased to attract the admiring and filial reverence of man! It is time this lesson was more widely as well as more deeply impressed than it has hitherto been, on the minds of the successful and the wealthy among us. Some have felt it, and have shown the effect of it, in their life and at their death. The Lawrences at Boston nobly acted upon it. Mr. Astor, in this city, did one great act at least under its influence. Mr. Cooper has recently done another, still more munificent, by which he will prolong his influence and his name through many generations. Mr. Lowell at Boston, Mr. Graham at Brooklyn, the founders of the courses of lectures which bear their respective names; the series of those who have successively endowed and enlarged Harvard College, or Yale College, or Brown University; all these have The answer is plain as the sun in the done something in the same direction. Mrs. heavens. He must invest it for Charity. He Dudley at Albany, establishing the Observamust give it perennial unity and usefulness, tory there, which bids fair to make her name by devoting it to works, to interests, to insti-renowned all over the earth, and to associate tutions, that shall be permanent through their it constantly with the progress of science; Mr. tendencies to advance human welfare. Build Perkins, who gave so much to establish the the Church with it; where age after age the Asylum for the Blind at South Boston; the Gospel shall be preached, and from which a Phillipses, the Abbotts, Mr. Bartlett, and the If, then, he would give a permanent and continuous unity to his wealth, at least to that part of it which is not needed to supply the actual needs of his children, and to give them the conditions of happiness and prosperity, What shall he do with it? How shall he best dispose of and invest it? others who built up the Academy and the Seminary at Andover; the gentleman who has lately offered a hundred thousand dollars to establish a Theological Seminary at Chicago; all these have shown themselves conscious of this truth, and measurably impressed by it, that there is no way to make wealth permanent, and permanently beneficial among men, except by devoting it to uses and influences which the world will value when they who gave it are forever gone! But there are still many, they are reckoned really by multitudes, who do not see or feel this, but who should do So. else of moral and educational influences; to make it perpetual as the continuance of the race, by applying it to objects which the race will more and more value and prize while its progress continues! The household ornaments will be scattered to the winds when the owner has gone. The flowery architecture that lifts its showy and splendid fronts along our streets, will fall like the flowers when another generation treads after the present. But the Hospital or the College, the Library or the Gallery, the institution that really benefits man, and ministers to his highest and spiritual powers, will stand as permanent and firm as the Continent! From the Massachusetts Teacher. A Word to Young Teachers. REPEATED observation has proved conclusively, that too much ardor is a common fault with young teachers, more particularly, per has looked forward through many years, tọ the era when she may be prepared to take charge of a school. The happy time has come, and her dearest wish is, to be a good Teacher, Wealth is now increasing in our country with a rapidity entirely unrivaled, hitherto, either here or elsewhere. It rolls upon us with every tide that brings the argosies of the South to our shores. It multiplies itself with every summer that causes the hill-side and the prairie to shine in fresh array of the wheat, the corn and the vine. The lakes and the rivers, as well as the mines, are found inexhaustible treasuries of it. The bleak fishing-haps, with lady teachers. The young lady grounds of the northeast, not less than the cotton-fields and sugar-fields of the southwest, pour it each year afresh upon us. A hundred thousand dollars now is hardly more than was twenty thousand at the beginning of the century. Fortunes of half a million are quite as common now as were properties of sixty or a hundred thousand then. And these great accumulations overflow on all sides in the purchase of all kinds of luxuries and ornaments. The mere japonicas for a private party in this city were said last year to have cost fifteen hundred dollars. House are furnished at a cost of from ten to a hundred thousand dollars now, where from two to twenty thousand were reckoned most ample a few years since. And the most costly and luxurious modes of living known in the old world are constantly sought to be reproduced among us. It is time, then, high time, that the lesson with which we commenced be felt; that it be felt among the successful and wealthy classes; the lesson that the only possible way in which to make wealth permanent in its unity, useful in its influence, or honorable in its remembrance, is to invest it for permanent interests; to build up with it institutions of charity, or to gain a high place. She engages in her duties eagerly-laying many fine plans, without even dreaming that she may not with resolution make them effectual. She must be a first-class teacher-nothing less will satisfy her ambition, and in her innocence she deems that all is pending upon her "first school;" that will decide her reputation. So she commences, ardent and hopeful, and if the improvement of her pupils were proportionate to her ardor, in one short term they would pass almost from the alphabet to fluxions, or through what has taken her many years to acquire. But very soon ardor becomes impatience because her scholars do not learn. She is anxious to see their improvement from day to day, and as she cannot, she tires of her employment, and, perhaps, abandons it after one or two terms, though she may have possessed all the elements of a good teacher, save patience and perseverance. Now, to such teachers I would say "Let your ardor be well tempered with patience, and perseverance be united with energy, remembering that it is |