Editors' Table.

A WORD TO OUR FRIENDS.

We have forborne, from motives of delicacy, to urge, with any thing like importunity, the claims of our Journal upon its subscri bers and friends, to increase its circulation. Established to promote the cause of popular education and to advance the interests of the teacher's calling, we have felt that its silent appeal to the friends of that great cause and to the thousands of teachers in the State, was more eloquent than any words of ours. Six months have rolled by and its list of subscribers still falls short of the thousand first thought necessary to its successful establishment. To make the Journal an efficient agency for promoting the educational progress of Michigan, this list ought to be, at once, largely increas ed. The time has come when the question may properly be put to every friend and subscriber-Does the Journal answer, in any degree, the purpose for which it was established? Are its general tone and matter such as to increase the zeal, activity and usefulness of our teachers, to promote the enlarged efficiency of our schools, to elevate the standard of popular education, and to diffuse amongst the people, at large, correct and practical views of the subject? In short, is the Journal such an agency as the interest of the cause of popular education in Michigan demands; and does its continuance promise any such good to the teachers and schools in this State as will pay the cost of sustaining it? We propose these questions to the friends of education, to the parents and teachers of Michigan, in all sincerity, and cheerfully abide their decision. If it is to be sustained it should, at once, be placed in a position to make its influence felt over the State. Every permanent teacher might well pay $5, and every temporary teacher $1, to place their organ and advocate on such a footing as would make its voice potential in urging their rights and elevating their profession in character and

standing. Are there not a hundred, at least, of our prominent teachers, who can and will give five dollars each, and send the six hundred copies which this money will pay for at our rates, into the hands of those who will not subscribe for themselves? They will be amply remunerated in the enhanced interest an intelligent pub. lic feel in their labors and the increased rates of compensation. We put down our own pledge for fifty free copies when the list shall be completed. Brethren, send in your names. Whose names shall we publish in our next number as examples in well doing?

It will not be denied that the educational interest is the fundamental interest of society. It needs only to be urged persistently apon the public attention, to command that high position among the great interests of the State which of right belongs to it. Let the public mind but become fully informed on this point, and there will arise all over the land school houses which will be fit homes for science, and fit nurseries for the young mind of the age, and men of the noblest talent and most splendid attainment will find in the school room ample verge, aye, and ample pay too, for their best efforts.

A high character for the Journal can only be secured by a liberal support. While the subscription list scarcely pays the cost of paper and printing, our readers must be content with the overwork of men who must spend their best efforts in the business by which they are sustained. A large circulation only will enable the Journal to command the undivided efforts of the present editor, or of such competent person as the teachers of the State may appoint to the work, and secure in its issues such uniform excellence as is demanded by its aims.

THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN.

We are happy to learn that this Institution is in a very prosper. ous condition. The number of its students has nearly doubled within the present year, and its corps of professors is quite full. The celebrated Dr. Brunnow, of Berlin, who has long been associ. ated with Dr. Encke in astronomical investigations and discoveries, has lately been elected Professor of Astronomy in our University,

and will enter upon his duties in a few weeks. Dr. Brunnow ia well known in Germany and the scientific world, as a practical astronomer and author. The "Detroit Observatory," located in Ann Arbor, will be, when finished, one of the best in the world. The building of this Observatory, the voluntary gift as it is of libe ral citizens of Detroit, we regard as a very creditable testimonial to the value of science in the estimation of our fellow citizens, and we trust that it will yet reflect greater honor upon the State.

OUR PREMIUMS.-We would call the attention of our readers to the offer of several valuable premiums, made on the last page of the cover. The books offered are all valuable and beautiful works, and worthy a place in every teacher's library. We feel no small satisfaction, in affording to our younger fellow teachers' an oppor tunity of obtaining, so easily, books of such sterling value. The labor of an occasional leisure hour may easily entitle an active teacher to one of these premiums, besides the satisfaction of giving increased circulation to a valuable paper. Let these who wish these premiums begin early. Names may be forwarded as fast as taken and a list kept.

OPINIONS OF OLD TEACHERS.

MR. EDITOR: Allow me to say that I am well pleased with the "Journal," and could I have seen the first No. I should have handed over the dollar, and became a Subscriber before the second No. could have been issued. I am greatly disappointed in the Journal, its articles are of the highest order, and of the greatest in terest to every teacher and parent. How much encouragement and instruction is thus brought to the school room of every teacher who takes the "Journal." A perusal of the first No., must convince any teacher of its great value, and induce him or her to do all that can be done to sustain the "Teachers' Magazine."

Yours Fraternally,

A. L. B.

MR. EDITOR: The Journal has been received regularly. It is among the most interesting, if not welcomed as the most so, of either of my three Journals. Truly, yours,

E. R. K.

New York has done another good deed for the educational cause, which we hope to see imitated ere long in our goodly Peninsula. It sends the New York Teacher, at public expense, to every town and city Superintendent. Were every school director in our State supplied with the Journal of Education it would infuse new life into our school system.

DEATH.-The cause of education has lost an old and tried friend in Gen. Isaac E. Crary, of Marshal, who died the 8th of May ult., Gen. Crary was born in New London Co. Conn., in the year 1804. He graduated with distinction at Washington College, and having studied the law came to Michigan in 1830. He filled, with marked ability, several important public posts both in the State and national Governments, and was for many years a member of the Board of Regents. He was ever a zealous, intelligent and influr ential friend of the education of the people.

Book Notices.

ELEMENTS OF INTELLECTUAL PHILOSOPHY, designed for a text book and for private reading. By HUBBARD WINSLOW. Published by Jenks, Hickling & Swan Boston.

This is the work of a practical teacher and sound reasoner. Its arrangement seems clear and comprehensive, and its statements of principles succinct, plain and perspicuous. Without aiming at profound or protracted discussions, it embraces all that is certainly known concerning the powers and operations of the human mind, and is well adapted to give to older pupils and to adults who want the time or taste for prolonged metaphysical study, a practical knowledge of the science of mind.

AMERICAN EDUCATION, ITS PRINCIPLES AND ELEMENTS. BY EDWARD D. MANSFIELD. Published by A. S. Barnes & Co., N. Y.

This book is appropriately dedicated to the teachers of the United States. It is a work that every American teacher should possess. Full of profound, vigorous and practical thought on the grandest of all themes; written in a terse and eloquent style, it has won the hearty applause of the American press, and already occupies no mean place amongst our educational literature. We earnestly commend it to the friends of education.

OUTLINES OF UNIVERSAL HISTORY, from the Creation of the World to the present time. Translated from the German of Dr. GEORGE WEBER. Jenks, Hickling & Swan: Boston-Royal Octavo, 559 pp.

We can conceive of few tasks more difficult in book making, than the preparation of a readable compendium of Universal His tory. Like a certain old necromancer who was puzzled to know how a gigantic demon could ever have been compressed within a very small hole in the wall, we have doubted whether the collossal spirit of human history could ever be brought within the limits of

a single volume, without pressing all life out of it, and leaving nothing but the dry bones of mere names and dates. Most of our school histories are signal failures, from this very cause. They are mere chronological tables with notes, and as school books, they most effectually quell all the curiosity which the student naturally feels in the records of his race. A good school history should aim to rouse rather than satisfy the spirit of inquiry. The author of the work before us is held to have surmounted the difficulties natural to this subject. He has produced a work at once concise and comprehensive. Instead of showing us a few bricks as specimens of the great temple of time, he has given us glimpses, fragmentary it is true, but clear and distinct, of the interior work and worship. A sound philosophy of history vitalizes its facts, and adds a thoughtful interest to the story. As far as we have had leisure to examine, the work seems well adapted to the purposes of the school room.

FIRST LESSONS IN LANGUAGE; or Elements of English Grammar: By DAVID B. TOWER, A. M. and Benjamin F. Tweed, A. M. Published by Daniel Burgess and Co., N. Y.

This little book aims to make grammar attractive to the young, and in the hands of a skillful teacher cannot but be of much use. Its lessons, which are on the inductive plan, should serve but as models, to be multiplied and illustrated by the living teacher.Taught in this way the system is a good one. We ask the attention of teachers to this work, all the more cheerfully because we wish to see grammar more generally studied by the pupils of our public schools.

We are indebted to Messrs. Fowler and Wells, N. Y. for three prize essays on the evils of the use of Tobacco, also for several tracts on Temperance from the series of the "Whole World's Temperance Tracts." Those sent us, were written respectively by Horace Greeley, R. J. Trall, M. D., O. S. Fowler and P. T. Barnum. These are well written essays, on different aspects of the Temperance question, and their circulation in Michigan just now might do much good. They are supplied in packages of 100 or 1000 at the mere cost of paper and printing.

Harpers' noble monthly, and almost every other good Magazine published this side of the Atlantic, may be found at Roy's News Depot, on Woodward Avenue.

STUDENTS FIFTH READER. Published by Pratt, Woodford and Co., New York. Our thanks are due to the publishers for a copy of this book sent us by mail. The selections in this book are to us entirely new, and are made with much judgment. They are from popular writers and are characterized by a right moral tone. The rules and directions, which are plain, evince good sense and must prove of practical advantage to the student. We recommend it to the examination of teachers.