all, to fit them to become the depositories of the precious institutions which have come down to us from the wisdom and exertions of our fathers, and which they ought to be able to transmit as unimpaired to their posterity as they receive them.

There can be no more honorable employment, in the just acceptation of the term; and I will tell the senator that I was a school. master, and I am proud of it. I glory in it. I glory in being the citizen of a country where the avenues of distinction are equally open to all, the highest and lowest, without any difference; where the poor schoolmaster may look forward, and, by proper conduct and the favor of his follow-citizens, may be advanced to the highest position in the country. Why, it is a most glorious illustration of our institutions. It is a flag waving in the heavens, and thrown out to the nations of the earth, inviting them to do as we have done, and to assert their equal rights as we are doing.

Yes, Mr. President, I was a poor schoolmaster. I began life under disadvantageous circumstances; and now my heart is filled with gratitude to my country, that from that situation I have been advanced with no merit of my own, but by the favor of my fellow. citizens, from post to post, until I find myself here in this great depository of the power of the American people-in my opinion the highest deliberative body in the world-and made the associate of the most eminent men of our country who enjoy the confidence of their fellow citizens, and who have been sent here to represent the sovereign States of the Union.

GLEANINGS.

The Ohio Journal of Education for March contains the annual report of the Executive Committee of the Ohio State Teachers' Association. One twelfth of the teachers of Ohio are subscribers to the Journal. Thirty eight institutes have been held within the past year in Ohio, and the average attendance was ninety-eight. The experiment of institutes has proved successful, the attendance. and interest having steadily increased. The Association is taking ground in favor of the establishment of Normal Schools. A plan has been devised for the collection of a State Cabinet of Specimens in Geology, Botany and Natural History, to be contributed by the teachers in the various sections of the State. It proposed also to establish at least three sets of Meteorological observations, in the Northern, Middle and Southern parts of the State. We commend these movements to the consideration of the Michigan State Teachers' Association,

The Journal contains also a report of the Executive Committes of the Association of the Friends of female education, a Society established in 1852, to promote "those interests peculiar to the ed

ucation of females." The Society is doing a good work in arousing the attention of the public to the need of a higher standard of education for girls. It is a movement of the age in the right direction that woman's right to facilities for education fully equal to those provided for the male sex, is coming to be generally recognized.

-The Penn. School Journal, contains accounts of the meetings of several county associations and institutes, all indicating a pervading interest in the progress of true education. The principal topic of interest in the educational affairs of Penn. at this time is the new school law now under discussion in the legistature of that State. It proposes the establishment of the office of State Superintendent.

-The lowa Journal contains a call for a meeting to be held at Muscatine, in that State, the 10th of May, to organize a State Teachers' Association. All success to you, brethren!

-The New York Teacher, for March, has the continuation of an article from the pen of Mrs. Emma Willard of Troy, on Female Education. The authoress ably argues the nécessity and propriety of affording to woman opportunities for education equal to those provided for males. She claims this not upon the ground of use, but upon that of right. The New York Teachers are petitioning the Legislature to separate the office of Superintendent of Public instruction from that of Secretary of State, with which it has always hitherto been connected. They are also laboring to obtain a charter for the State Teachers' Association. The idea seems to be gaining favor amongst the Teachers' of New York, that teachers' licenses should come from teachers. Lawyers license lawyers, and the physician's diploma comes from men of his own profession, they argue therefore that teachers themselves should grant certificates to the members of their profession.

The (Kentucky) Western Teachers Advocate complains of want of enterprize in the educational affairs of that State. In Frankport, the capital, there are no public schools.

LIBERTY AND SLAVERY.-Sure enough, of all paths a man could strike into, there is at any given moment a best path for every man; a thing which, here and now, it were of all things wisest for him to do; which could he but be led or driven to do, he were then doing "like a man" as we phrase it; all men and Gods agreeing with him, the whole Universe virtually exclaiming, Well-done to him! His success in such case were complete; his felicity a maximum. This path, to find this path and walk in it, is the one thing needful for him. Whatsoever forward him in that, let it come to him even in the shape of blows and spurnings. is liberty: whatsoever hinders him, were it, ward-motes, open-vestries, poll-booths, tremendous cheers, rivers of heavy-wet, is slavery-Past and Present.

Youths' Department.

A JOURNEY THROUGH THE SOLAR SYSTEM.

1. We last month described, for our young readers, a journey to the Sun, which at the rate of 100 miles an hour would occupy one hundred and eight years. On our way we passed the paths of Venus and Mercury. These with the Earth and Moon compose the first four of a large family of worlds, which, like giant children, play around the great central light. To visit these worlds, we must travel away from the Sun.

Let us suppose that at the creation of Adam, the world had star ted forth, like some vast rail car, in a direction opposite to the Sun, at the rate of 50 miles an hour, dashing along swifter than our fastest express trains. About one hundred and twelve years after starting, and many long years after poor Adam aud Eve had deen driven out of their beautiful garden of Eden, and many long years too, after their wicked boy, Cain, had killed his brother Abel, their great world car would roll across the path of Mars, a world not quite one third as large as the Earth. Adam and Eve are growing old but the journey is only just begun. On the car rushes as year after year rolls by. Eighteen years after leaving Mars, Seth is born. The passengers in the great car increase; the human family multiply. When Seth is an old man 130 years old, they sweep across the orbit of Flora the first of a numerous company of asteroids or little planets, supposed to be the fragments of an exploded world, and twenty nine of which have already been seen and named.— And now for more than 200 years, the Earth, like a giant, stalks on across the paths of these pigmy worlds, some of them so small that it would require nearly a million of them to make a world as large as ours. Four hundred and sixty six years after the outset of this long journey, the Earth shoots across the path of the last of the asteroids, and speeds on towards a star which has been growing larger and larger, till it seems like a small moon in the distant sky. It is Jupiter; but nearly four hundred and thirty six years more, of swift and steady travel, must pass before they can reach it. In the mean time Enoch, the most holy, and Methuselah the longest lived of the old Patriarchs, are born, and Adam still alive, sees the world filling up with his sinful children. Year on year and century after century roll by, and Jupiter the largest of the planets grows with the years till it seems a vast mountain of light in the sky. Broad dark belts are stretched across its face and four great moons are whirling with wonderful rapidity around it. At length

they are beside it and for two months and a half, night and day, they shoot across its mighty plains and mountains, before it is past. It would take fourteen hundreds of such worlds as ours to make one like this. About twenty eight years after passing Jupiter, Adam dies.' Nine hundred and thirty years are gone but still the earth speeds on. Jupiter, grows small with the lapse of years and centuries, and Saturn, another bright star slowly increases to a world in the far off sky before them. In the mean time, there between Jupiter and Saturn, Noah is born, grows up to manhood, and passes on to an old age of 600 years. The traveling world fills with people, wickedness and violence increase, the beautiful Earth is spotted with great fields of blood, those old men of 500 or 600 years having grown hoary with vice and crime, till finally the Deluge pours its floods over them all, and Noah, riding high on the shoreless sea of waters, sees, large aud splendid in the firmament above him, and still one hundred and eighty two years distant, the planet Saturn, the next great milestone in our journey.

The waters subside, and, as years roll on, our travelers reduced by the flood to eight persons, again multiply into mighty nations, and, while yet eighty years distant from Saturn, they congregate in the great plains of Shinar, to build the tower of Babel. In anger and mercy, God divides their language and scatters them abroad, weaker and wiser, to people the Earth, and a few years afterwards Nimrod comes with his wild followers and makes the ruins of Babel the capital of his new empire of Babylon. Menes with his tribe move westward and establish the old monarchy of Egypt, and the ancient founders of China take possession of their land. While the travelers are thus dividing up into nations, Saturn becomes a vast and magnificent world before them. Around it, two broad and brilliant rings revolve, and around the outer edge of the outer ring, eight bright moons circle with various velocity, one sweeping its immense circuit in 80 days and another completing it in one. A splendid vision this, that bursts upon the old nations-our system knows no grander. At length, eighteen hundred and thirty years from the hour when Adam set forth, Saturn is reached. Passing in about six months the broad expanse of these rings and the immense world rolling within them, once more the world plunges forth into wide, desert space. Less and less frequent have its way marks been, and now two thousand and fifty two years must elapse ere another world is reached Generations are born and live and die as the Earth speeds forward through that wilderness of space.

One hundred and seventy years after leaving Saturn, Abraham is born. He grows to manhood, goes forth by the divine command and becomes the father of a numerous nation. All over the Earth mighty empires arise, and rule and fall. There between Saturn and Herschel, Babylon, Persia, Egypt and Greece, have their day of power. Cyrus and Alexander live and die, David and Solomon reign, and all the prophets, from Moses to Malachi, record their

At length

inspirations in the Scriptures, while the Earth rolls on. after a journey of three thousand eight hundred and ninety years, the Earth crosses the path of Herschel, a world next to Saturn in size and about eighty times larger than the Earth. Six moons revolve around it. A month serves to pass over its disk, and our traveling world is again in a wide, solitary space. Across this vast space a bright star is shining in the far off sky. It is Neptune, the last of the planets, posted like a sentinel on the distant confines of our Solar System. Twenty three hundred and ninety six years more will pass ere our world can reach this end of its long journey. About one hundred and fourteen years after leaving Herschel our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ makes his appearance on the Earth and, there in the midst of that vast solitude, his mighty miracles are wrought and his great atoning death brings the hope of heaven to our sinful race. The Christian era begins and goes on with its glorious and still unfinished history. Arts and sciences, grow up among men to relieve and illustrate with their grand achievements the long dreary voyage. The nineteenth century comes and here near its middle, had this journey been real, we should find ourselves four hundred and twenty six years from our stopping place. Before that time could elapse the awful trump might sound to awaken the sleeping dead, and thus, after a slumber of fifty centuries, Adam the solitary witness of the beginning of this journey, might stand up amidst the countless millions of his descendants to see its end.— And as our Earth should rest from its long pilgrimage under the vast shadow of Neptune, and their glance sweep out across the space beyond and rest upon the firmament filled with unnumbered millions of stars, each the central sun of a system as large perhaps as ours, bending in awful reverence they might well exclaim "the Heavens declare the glory of God and the firmament showeth His handiwork."

RINGS OF SATURN.-The Cambridge astronomers, Pof. Bond and Prof. Pierce, have pnblished papers expressing their belief that Saturn's ring is composed of fluid matter. Prof. Daniel Kirkwood has also asserted his belief in Saturn's rings being matter in a state of fluidity, and that it is slowly solidifying. In a communication in Sillman's Journal on the subject, he says, "future astronomers may witness a scene no less amazing than the formation of a new world within the limits of the solar system.

CONUNDRUMS.-Why is the largest city in Ireland likely to be the largest city in the world?

Why is a nail fast in the wall, like an old man?

Why is a good book like a brick?

SHALL AND WILL.-A Frenchman who did not fully understand the different uses of these auxiliaries, falling one day into the river Thames, cried out oddly enough "I will drown; nobody shall help me."