A new periodical! Another added to the already innumerable list, the very names of which, like the characters of the Chinese language, it would require a remarkable memory to master. When will this wondrous fertility of printing presses, publishers and editors come to an end? When will printed leaves have, too, their fall, and leave us to the patient winter of reflection? Friends, never! Never till a deluge of barbarism sweeps over our fair land and carries away all the substratum of thought and feeling in the hearts of men, all our historical monuments, and all our present fair creations, shall periodicals become fewer or feebler than at this present day. No, editors and writers shall be multiplied even as are school houses and churches, and every other indication of improvement. As the leaves of our primitive forests disappear, printed leaves shall take their place-those must decrease, these must increase-and whoever would not have it so nust join with the retreating rel men and the noisy wolves, as, alarmed by the strange shriek of the locomotive, they howl a last farewell to ancient haunts, and dive into the thick darkness beyond.

But what is the object of this new periodical? Not to get your money without rendering you more than an equivalent; not to be. guile your time with tawdry love-sick tales; not to present page after page of high-flown, flimsy epithets, sound without sense, fashionable clothes without a body, and of course without a soul, vulgarly called "fine writing;" not to defend a certain particular party or sect, right or wrong; not even to procure a livelihood for editors and publishers, for we get our living by other means, and this is a labor of love: but our object is to promote the correct and thorough and universal education of the sons and daughters of the State of Michigan.

Lay not aside this little pamphlet just yet, even though you may not have paid your dollar or dime, but give us at least one patient hearing, and then, if you must and if you can, bow us out and shut the door! It will not be the first time that the appeals of truth and benevolence have fallen on impatient ears.

There are in Michigan at least two hundred thousand human beings below the age of twenty one: The oldest of them will soon be jostling you in your stations, perhaps like friends grasping your hands, perhaps rudely thrusting you aside; and in twenty-one years more, they will be the working generation, you the superannuated; and another regiment of raw recruits, or young soldiers in training; will stand behind them. The destiny of our nation is in their hands. Yes, in spite of emigrants, the multitudes born on our own soil ever have given character to the nation and ever will. It is through their children, after they have acquired our language and a thorough affinity with us, that adopted citizens make their first deep impress on our institutions and our manners. In spite of the thousands of unappropriated acres in our State, and of the multitudes that shall soon people them, the future destiny of Michigan lies, in embryo, in the present, rising generation.

Now, granting that education makes the man-and this is just as evident as that tillage makes the corn, and both are true in about the same degree-sl.all the moulding of the character of the rising generation be neglected, or left to chance? The State has already answered No. The Common School fund of nearly one million of dollars already provided by the wise forecast of our fathers, and

rapidly accumulating, her thousands of school houses and teachers, her beautiful Normal School, but two years old, and rivalling in numbers and efficiency the oldest in the Union, her University, inferior to no College in the land, and enthusiastically and successfully aspiring to become a model American University, her public officers elected by the people solely to superintend her educational system, all utter an emphatic denial of the guilt of neglect. But, we ask, shall every other public enterprise, great and little, have its periodical to enlighten, encourage and unite, and shall this, absolutely greatest of all enterprises, be left to the chance protection of publications primarily committed to other ends? Shall almost every other State, in any degree respectable for its schools, have its Educational Journal, well sustained and active, and shall Michigan, with its system in all respects equal to the best, and with its population-we say it without the slightest intention to flatter-not inferior to any in intelligence and enterprise, and in reading, too, as the post office statistics clearly show-fail to sustain such a Journal? We do not believe it, and therefore we are before you. If it can be in your hearts, shut to us the door. We will still say, peace be in your house, but it must be the peace of ignorance and stagnation, not the bliss of intelligence and life.

We propose in this Journal to give you-if you will read it—an accurate and full exhibition of the educational movements, particularly of our own State, and as far as practicable of others. We propose to criticise these movements candidly, pointing out both excellences and defects. We propose to present from time to time theoretically and systematically, what we conceive to be the best methods of instruction; not binding ourselves blindly to take any institutions, foreign or native, as an exclusive model, but to examine all, selecting as far as may be the excellences of all, and rejecting their evils, and not fearing to propose any original method that may seem worthy of a trial. We do not bind ourselves to walk in any beaten track, or defend any set course, or even not to change our own opinions; we aim to be progressive, and will endeavor to keep our minds open to all light. Correspondents who give us their names, will be allowed, and are cordially invited, to present their views, and to select this as their organ of speaking to the

We have taken

up this

people on the grea: subject of Education. enterprise because our hearts are in it; because, as practical teach ers, we feel the need of light, and can conduct this periodical with. out interfering with our success in our daily work, but rather promoting it; and we expect no other reward than the pleasure of awakening, and deepening, and rightly directing a stronger interest in this great cause. This we crave, and this we expect; and whether the Journal be sickly or strong, if we live it shall number at least twelve months, and then, if it must fall, honorably die. But we flatter ourselves that it has vigor enough, if you properly feed it, to reach a venerable old age, and never become infirm.

And now, farmers of Michigan, to you we first appeal as the greater part of the body and soul of the State; you furnish the large majority of our schools and teachers, you have leisure to examine the whole subject of education, and are strongly interested in it; will you not encourage our well meant efforts to discuss and im. prove the educational institutions of the State? Will you not risk in the enterprise one bushel of wheat? If it change into chess, it will be no great loss, and you can soon burn it; but perhaps it will be to your families the most valuable seed you ever sowed.

Mechanics of Michigan, you all do know, for it has been demonstrated again and again, that intellectual discipline and cultivation nowhere exhibit their pactical profit more than in the crafts by which you at once beautify the earth and make your living-contribute to your own necessities and mark the track of civilization. Shall we ask your aid in vain? We, too, are fellow workers with you, aud by the sweat of our brows, aye, and hands, too, eat our bread.

Merchants, we offer you a quid pro quo-yard for yard, ounce for ounce, small risks and safe returns.

Professional men, we hope not to increase your business, but your joys.

And, teachers, if you have "passed your examination" before the most lenient committee that ever sat to puzzle a nascent pedagogue, and inflict on him a premonitory punishment, you need no appeal. If you do not encourage every effort to raise your profes