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recovery. This healthy mental and physical reaction, natural to youth, is an important consideration to those who have the care of their education, for upon it the principle may be founded, that there is no harın in strict and close attention, during the period allotted to study, if there is likewise a sufficient time given for rest and relaxation.

Boys, when first sent to school-especially if they have not been previously subjected to control, or been called upon to exercise their mental powers-generally suffer from some form of gastric derangement. This may be, and in some instances is, partly home sickness;" bnt it may likewise be often traced to want of tone in the stomach itself, or to its becoming overloaded. The appetite for food does not at once accommodate itself to their altered circumstances, and the stomach is called upon to do its former amount of labor with a diminished supply of power wherewith to perform it: hence there is frequently nausea and vomiting, which is a healthy effort of nature to get rid of the offending matter; or else there is pain in the abdomen and diarrhoea, showing that some portion of the food has passed downwards in a crude and undigested state. These disordered states of the digestive organs are likewise often due to the cakes, sweetmeats, and other hurtful compounds with which a kind sister or fond mother furnishes the "school-box." Catarrhal and other. affections of the organs of respiration are very common ailments during a boy's first school year. The tone of his system generally is usually somewhat lowered by the change in his habits: he has less active exercise, is exposed to the effects of the different temperatures of the schoolroom and the play-ground, perspires freely when joining in the sports of his playmates, and does not get quite as much pure air as he has been ccustomed to inhale-all these influences, together with the physical changes resulting from the determination of a portion of his nervous energy to the studies necessary for his education, exercise their effects, and render him more liable to suffer from atmospheric changes. But although these affections are sometimes attended with a considerable degree of fever, and appear sufliciently alarming, they generally yield to very simple treatment if noticed in their commencement. The eruptions and skin diseases from which schoolboys suffer may generally be traced to impurities of the blood, arising from the mal-assimilation of food, and the want of sufficient pure air to oxygenate the blood when passing through the lungs, and to inactivity and want of tone in the skin itself, by which its pores become clogged and its functions imperfectly performed. Much may be done to prevent the occurrences of these unsightly affections by the observance of precautions to be noticed by-andby. There is such a thing among schoolboys as "shamming" to be ill; and although this morbid and depraved state of mind may generally be detected, still it is sometimes a great source of annoyance to the teacher. If the teacher will not believe in the existence of the boy's illness, his parents and friends often will; and if a bad state of health should accidentally supervene, the teacher is blamed for unkindness and want of sympathy, without deserving any censure whatever. Besides a disordered

state of the system may be induced by fretfulness, discontent, pining, and ill-temper, and perhaps its first symptoms are manifested just before the boy is seen by his parents. The most prudent plan in these cases is to obtain the opinion of some experienced and conscientious practitioner, and to act upon it. It is true, we cannot see a pain;" but from an examination of the pulse, the tongue, the state of the secretions, the appetite, and other evident indications, some idea may be gathered as to the general health of the body; and if, along with these observations, the boy's natural disposition, his liking or repugnance to study, and his general conduct, are taken into consideration, an opinion may usually be formed not very far from the truth. A boy who will practise deceit of this kind is a pest to any scholastic establishment; for not only is he a constant source of anxiety to those to whose charge he is committed, but likewise he sets an example to his companions which they are apt to imitate, especially if they perceive that he receives any special consideration and indulgence. It must be a relief when the parents are sufficiently convinced of his ill health to remove him from school, for a boy who will for days, and perhaps weeks, practise a systematic falsehood, which requires a certain amount of ingenuity and self-denial to make it appear plausible, has a mind so depraved, and an intellect so perverted that it is not likely that he will ever reflect any credit upon those who have the care of his education. He never can be treated with confidenee, and he is another instance in which the "suaviter in modo" must give place to the "fortiter in re."

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Thus, then, the causes and circumstances which influence the health, both of teacher and pupil, have been briefly considered. It has been shown that to possess the " mens sana in corpore sano" is (as Horace Mann observes) the instrument" by which all good work and sound education is to be accomplished, and the various functions of the body most likely to be disordered by confinement and mental application have been noticed.

It is now proposed to suggest means by which health may be preserved under these circumstances, so that the body may be maintained in its integrity whilst at the same time the mind is cultivated and stored with knowledge. English Journal of Education.

ORIGIN OF REFLECTING LIGHT-HOUSES. In the last century, at ́a meeting of a society of mathematicians in Liverpool, one of the members proposed to lay a wager that he would read a paragraph of a newspaper at ten yards distance with the light of a farthing candle. The wager was laid, and the proposer having covered the inside of a wooden dish with a piece of looking-glass, fastened it with glaziers' putty, placed his reflector behind the candle, and won his wager. One of the company marked the experiment with a philosophic eye. This was Captain Hutchinson, the dock-master, with whom, as hence suggested, originated the reflecting light-houses erected in Liverpool in 1763.

The Circle of Human Knowledge.

As a traveler on entering a strange land will find his progress facilitated, and his satisfaction increased by having before him a good map of the country, which shall exhibit to him constantly his true position at every point in his journey, so the student will be benefitted by having spread out before him a good outline of the fields of science, that he may know at what point he has entered those fields, and the true relations of the branches he is pursuing to the remaining branches of human knowledge. Every teacher should prepare himself to present before his pupils such an outline of the various departments and branches of science, and a chart containing a full classification of the sciences and arts, with brief definitions of each, would form a valuable addition to the apparatus of our school rooms. The student could not but be pleased and benefitted by such a view of the broad domains of truth, and often he would be roused to a generous and noble ambition to explore for himself those magnificent realms of investigation and thought. He would learn that his arithmetic and grammar, and geography, instead of being isolated and independent studies, were but parts in a great system of studies, and that before him in the pathway of learning there were other, and higher, and grander fields for him to enter and conquer.

We copy as an example of such an outline, the following comprehensive view of human knowledge which we find in the "Ohio Journal of Education."

This might be written on the black-board and explained in a series of familiar lectures. The pupils might then be required to make a copy of it and commit it to memory, part at a time, till they were familiar with it all.

If the teacher has access to some encyclopedia, he could easily prepare himself for an explanation of this classification, and even a Webster's Quarto Dictionary, will enable him to present intelligibly the more general outlines of the subjects.

A competent teacher might easily carry the subdivision yet farther, and this should be done in the case of all the branches taught in the school.

SCIENCE.

Definition-That which is or may be known.

GRAND DIVISIONS.

LITERATURE-Investigation of mind by mind, and the communication of mind

to mind.

KNOWLEDGE. SCIENCES-Applications of mind to matter and quantity.

ARTS-Application of mind and hand to matter.

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Commercial Colleges.

As we are often asked for information in regard to the organization and courses of study pursued in these institutions, a short article on the subject may not be uninteresting. These schools as at present organized and conducted are essentially of modern and western origin, the commercial schools at the east being less exclusively commercial, and therefore far less practical and thorough. They are now found in every prominent city at the west, and thousands of young men are seeking in them that preparation for business life which they have been proved so well able to give.

As we are personally acquainted only with the Detroit Commercial College, established several years ago by a brother of the writer, who had previously been a prominent teacher in the Cincinnati Colleges, we will describe that as a type of the higher class of these schools.

In this college no text book is used, and no classes are formed. Each student enters upon, pursues, and completes his course unhurried and unimpeded by classmates, and of course within a time measured by his individual aptitude or application. The most able and diligent occupy about ten weeks in the course, while others are engaged about it through a period of four months. The average time taken is between twelve and fourteen weeks.

The college is modeled as far as possible after a counting-room, and the pupil on entering has placed in his hands a short Day Book, in manuscript, containing the opening, current and closing entries of a simple business. This he is directed to journalize, i. e., to transfer its debits and credits to a separate book. In like manner he proceeds through several similar Day Books, each increasing in the difficulty of its entries, till he has become familiar with the Journal Laws. Returning then to the first book, he learns in like practical manner the process of posting, taking a Trial Balance of each set of books. Returning once more to the first book he is taught the mode of closing a set of books, taking the second Trial Balance, and exhibiting finally on a Balance Sheet the whole financial condition of the supposed house.

In a similar way the pupil proceeds through another series of Day Books involving more and more complicated transactions, and then on through still other series devoted to particular branches of business, as Commission Business, Retailing, Banking and Steamboating, opening and

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