Associate Editorial.

HIGH SCHOOL.

From Annual Report of E. E. WHITE, Sup't of Portsmouth Schools. The High School is the crowning department of our schools-the capstone of the pyramid. It, however, not only surmounts and adorns the system, but it imparts strength, energy and vitality to it. It has been remarked that a High School is worth more in its influence upon the lower schools than all it costs, independent of the advantages received by its actual pupils. All experience attests the truth of this statement. The influence of a properly conducted High School permeates all the other schools, causing greater thoroughness, more regular attendance, and more exemplary conduct. It stimulates the teachers to greater exertions and vigilance, by exhibiting the results of their methods and labors in close proximity. It also secures greater uniformity of instruction in the lower grades of school. To the scholars in the lower classes it presents a strong and constant stimulus, exciting a desire for promotion and awakening a laudable emulation. Its influence upon the scholars of the Grammar Schools, in promoting diligence in study and correctness of deportment, is immediate and powerful. It offers a strong inducement to parents to continue their children in school, even at a little sacrifice, until they are qualified for an honorable promotion to the highest educational advantages of the children of their neighbors.

The organization of a successful High School is always followed by a large increase in the number of scholars in attendance upon the lower schools. It becomes a center of influence, imparting dignity and repu tation to the entire school system.

The value of this department, however, does not consist wholly, or primarily, in its reflex influence upon the lower schools. It possesses within itself great merits and advantages. The demand for facilities to acquire a higher education is now imperative. The advantages and benefits flowing from such culture are numerous and evident. Colleges, Seminaries and High Schools exist wherever intelligence and refinement are valued. The great merit of the Public High School is, that it presents these high advantages, gratuitously and as a RIGHT, to all classes of the community. Its chief honor is, that many of those who are in it prepared for an enlarged usefulness would, but for its exist.

ence, have entered upon the duties of life with nothing further than the mere rudiments of knowledge. "It takes the children of the people and sends them out into life, endowed with such eminent advantages of education that they will be a blessing to society, adorning their various pursuits with intelligence, enriching them with discoveries, elevating and equalizing the rank and respectability of their widely different occupations, making industry honorable, and securing to labor its proper dignity.'

The utility of the High School is further evinced in its permanency. It has oftentimes cost great effort to effect its organization, but when once a part of the public school system, it becomes as fixed as the very system itself. Its success silences all opposition and converts its enemies into advocates.

In order that the High School Department may possess these advantages and exert this influence in a high degree, it must be properly organized and wisely conducted.

1. In the first place, it must be adapted to the system of which it forms a part. In small cities and towns it must either contain a limited number of scholars, or its standard of admission must be low. The number and qualifications of the scholars annually admitted must depend upon the number and efficiency of the lower schools.

2. The course of study should secure a continuance and thorough completion of the work commenced in the departments below. If the standard of admission is low, the course of study should adapt itself accordingly. The attempt to put little boys and girls, that have not yet entered their teens, over a severe College curriculum, is a fatal error. Thoroughness in the common branches of study is the basis upon which alone a higher education can be successfully built. To plaster over an indifferent or superficial elementary scholar with a thin coating of Geology, Geometry, Chemistry and Astronomy-after the manner of those who convert wooden houses into stone-and then call the result a higher education, is a serious sham.

3. The examinations for admission should always be conducted in the most thorough and impartial manner. Scholars should feel that, to pass this ordeal successfully, is the reward of diligence and assiduous exertions in their studies. Let the impression creep into the lower schools that the examination is a "mere form," that a certain number of seats must be filled, or that scholars can slip in upon the general merits of their class, and the reflex influence of the High School is practically

* President Board of Education, New York City.

destroyed. Then, too, the success of the school, and the highest interests of the very scholars promoted, require a rigid adherence to the standard of admission, whatever it may be. Better let half of the seats in the High School be empty, than oblige scholars to enter classes and pursue studies for which they are not prepared.

INTUITIONAL INSTRUCTION.

These questions and answers should be carefully studied, and the full force of the language understood, and the instruction put in practice. Dr. Wimmer has translated, for Barnard's Journal of Education, an interesting Catechism on Methods of Teaching, from Diesterweg's Year Book for 1855-6.

That portion which treats of Intuitional Instruction we quote: 1. What is the object of Intuitional Instruction?

To prepare the child, who has just entered the Primary School, for formal school instruction.

2. What is therefore its external position in the course of instruction? It forms, as it were, the bridge from the liberty of home life to the regular discipline of the school; it is, in regard to instruction, an intermediate between home and school.

3. What is to be effected by it?

The children are to learn to see and to hear accurately, to be attentive, to govern their imaginations, to observe, to keep quiet, and to speak distinctly and with the right emphasis.

4. With what objects must this preparatory education deal; having in view a "formal aim," but no acquisition of knowledge?

Perceptible or perceived object; hence its name. It has a two-fold meaning; real observation by the senses-especially by eye and earand such management by the Teacher, that the objects, their qualities and conditions, are made vivid interior perceptions.

5. By what do we know that its end is attained?

By the whole appearance of the children, and particularly by their correct and proper speech and pronunciation, which cannot be valued too highly from the first beginning.

6. What is the beginning of this instruction?

After a conversation about father and mother, to gain their confidence, and after some directions concerning the mode of answering and

behaving in the school room, the first thing is to observe the room and its contents. The pupil is to be made acquainted with all around him; he must learn to see, to name, and describe exactly, all objects in the

room.

7. What must be chiefly attended to from the first day?

A clear, emphatic statement in complete sentences; thus, what sort of thing is this? This thing is a chair, etc.

A comprehensive view of all qualities observed in an object, at the conclusion of each exercise. This is of the greatest importance in all instruction.

8. What is the second step?

Observation of the whole school, school-house, road, village or town, in their external qualities.

9. The third?

Observation of some of the animals in the place, and of man.

10. What next?

This depends upon circumstances. In general, it may be said, that the result of this instruction may be secured by from four to six hours a week during the first year. The duller children are, the longer it must be continued. It may be further extended to the trees and the plants of the neighborhood, the trades and employments of the people in the place, clouds, weather, wind, fire, water, sun, moon, stars, etc.; in short, to all objects accessible to real observation. Accurate contemplation, or description of models of mathematical bodies, may also be very advantageous. The Teacher should draw the streets and houses of the place before the eyes of the pupils on the blackboard.

Of the greatest importance, we may repeat, is the way in which the children speak and pronounce. A Teacher who is unmindful of this, prepares trouble for his whole professsional career. The Teacher will

show his skill in the suitable choice of objects, and especially in the varied and attractive treatment of them. Less depends upon the selection of what is to be discussed, than on the way in which the attention of the children is secured. If the proverb, "every way is good except the tiresome," be true any where, it is true here. As soon as the children get tired, the subject must be dropped. Success depends entirely on the activity of the children. This is true indeed of all teaching, but preeminently so where knowledge and technical ability are not aimed at, but only an awakening of the slumbering faculties,. a "formal" end. Attention, liveliness, a desire to observe, and to answer, etc., are the measures for judging of success.

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SCHOOLS-MANAGEMENT RELIGIOUS EXERCISES.

The Prairie Farmer, Chicago, copied our article "Opening of a School in the Morning," from the May number, saying it was appropos there; and prefaced its republication with the following remarks:

The school room and its duties may be made attractive-more attractive than most school rooms are, if the ingenuity and tact of the Teacher, are exercised. Novelties are always pleasant to the young mind. Excitement of a proper char acter, and with a proper aim, always brightens eyes, transforms sour, inattentive faces, to happy, eager, attentive ones, and the child's mind thus stimulated grasps, almost instinctively, what before it seemed incapable to comprehend. Music, declamation, chants, reading in concert, spelling ditto, spelling by sounds, black-board exercises of all sorts, diagrams, simple drawing lessons, etc., etc., to relieve the monotony of study, are attended with the best results. must think of these things and prepare something novel each day. dren expect it, their attendance will be regular, and they will be wide awake.

A Teacher

If the chil

prompt and

Are the scholars stupid? So is the Teacher. The fault is generally with you, Teacher, for if it were not so, you would, long ere this, have invented some plan by which to have stimulated to action the capabilities of that dirty-faced urchin. He has got it in him—no mistake about it, and if you do not "break the crust,' แ peel off the bark," "soften the shell,” and let the sunlight in, you are responsi ble for the hidden treasure, and for its disuse-are not qualified to teach-have mistaken your calling-better dismiss your school at once. But do not be discouraged if you fail in the first effort. There will be other opportunities, and other means to employ. Be vigilant.

"I can't do this sum, Miss R- —, I have tried, and tried again, and it don't come out right." “Try again.” Speak it kindly and encouragingly. Speak it firmly. Let the child understand you have confidence in his ability to overcome obstacles.

But our object was simply to call attention to the fact that religious exercises are not only important and essential, but an actual benefit to the mind-giving it direction, and rendering the scholar earnest, honest, respectful and teachable. There is no person capable of conducting a school, who will not ask God's direction first! The Teacher's relation to the pupil demands this.

It is not intellect alone that we require in the schoolmaster. He may know all the ics and ologies, and be after all unfitted for his duties. As a matter of the first importance, a Teacher should manifest in all his teaching, and in his whole personal life and conversation, a deep conviction of the power and efficacy of religious principles; to form the mind and character of an immortal being by the development of every principle of good, and the repressing of every tendency to evil; to foster habits of purity, of industry, of honesty, of contentment, and, as the root of all, to lead him to the love and fear of God, is the first great duty of the school teacher of the present day.

– Knowledge is proud that he has learned so much; Wisdom is humble that

he knows no more.