thoroughly exercised on the mental plan; and then, as a preparation for business, let him go carefully and faithfully through Walsh. He will do it in half the time that used to be occupied before mental arithmetic was introduced into our schools; and he will find it rather a pleasing than an irksome task. When this practice shall prevail extensively, we shall have no more complaints from our merchants, that mental arithmetic unfits boys for the compting-house.

THERE is a practice which has ceased, in a great measure, in New England, but continues to prevail extensively in the Middle and Southern States, to the great hindrance of sound education and the incalculable waste of precious time. We allude to the practice of requiring children to commit dictionaries and abridgments of dictionaries to memory. In many schools children are required to commit the definitions contained in a small duodecimo, called the 'Expositor,' from the time when they are able to learn a column or even half a column of them, to the period when they leave school and enter upon the business of life. They finish the book in something less than a year, when having, of course, forgotten the former part of it, they begin again, and the process goes on in this manner till their 'education is finished,' as the phrase is, and they abandon the study of words to commence that of things.

But this is not the worst of the business. The definitions contained in most, if not all the 'Expositors,' are not only imperfect, but generally wrong, and frequently the most whimsical imaginable, having no perceptible connexion with the real meaning of the word. Fortunately for us in New England, there are none of these books to be found here, so that we cannot at this moment furnish examples of the truth of the above assertion; but we would recommend to any of our readers, who are in want of amusement, to send to the South, or, if he lives there, to send to any bookstore for a school Expositor, and if he does not find many of its definitions a better antidote for low spirits than any jest book, from Hierocles to Joe Millar, we will forfeit all our claims to a true perception of the ridiculous.

The inquiry naturally arises with any one who has never been accustomed to such things, why children are required to waste their time on such an unprofitable study? What is the apology offered by parents and instructers for suffering such a Gothic practice to exist? The reply is, that it is of vast importance for a child to know the meaning of words. True; but the first step towards a knowledge of the true meaning of words is to study the nature of things. To define one arbitrary term by another arbitrary term, does not furnish the means of increasing the pupil's knowledge, but it enables him to appear to know more than he does. The Expositor says nothing of the nature of the things mentioned in it—it does not even furnish any clue to the etymology of the words; but in nine cases out of ten, the term given as a definition is as unintelligible to the child as the term defined-often more so, and the memory is tasked and burdened, year after year, without increasing the stock of ideas or developing the powers of reasoning, or even teaching the meaning of words so much as might be done by half a dozen familiar lectures on natural philosophy, or the reading of a popular treatise on any of the useful sciences.

'But the child,' says the parent or teacher, must learn the meaning of words, must acquire a stock of words for the purpose of conversation and letter writing, and how is he ever to do this without studying the dictionary or the Expositor?' We answer, in a variety of ways. First, indirectly, by studying things. Let him learn scientific terms by attending to popular treatises of the sciences themselves. Let him learn the other terms used in conversation or books, by inquiry of those he converses with, or by reading, with a dictionary at hand for reference. The teacher who cares for the good of his pupils, will direct such a course and see that it is followed; while he who studies his own ease will direct the child or the class to commit a page of words for one evening's work, and set one of his large boys to hear it recited in the morning.

The meaning of words may be learned by a direct process, which should never supersede the indirect one, already recommended, but which may very properly take the place of the Expositor system. This is the learning of a foreign language. Nothing excites attention to the precise meaning of words in the vernacular language so effectually as the study of a foreign one, no matter whether it be a dead or a living language. This is the shortest and the most direct way to correct knowledge of the meaning of English words and an accurate English

style. Let no parent or teacher say that this would occupy too much time, while it is a fact, a dead certainty, that one fifth of the time usually spent on the 'Expositors,' where those books are used, would give a sufficient knowledge of French to enable a child to read without a dictionary, and a sufficient knowledge of Latin to translate with facility with a dictionary.

Happily for the present age the study of Latin is simplified so as no longer to require the toil of years before a Roman author can be read; and French is brought to every man's door in the shape of a book for self-instruction. Ignorant teachers will raise an outcry against such an innovation as the substitution of a foreign language for the Expositors; and parents will be cajoled with such arguments as the following ;

Fine times truly! Things have come to a pretty pass! Here are children learning French and Latin, who don't understand their own language. For my part I think it best to have a good English education before one troubles one's head about foreign languages. This parade of learning is all nonsense. I do not believe in learning French and Latin before one is perfect in one's English. No, no, the Expositor for my money. It is is time enough to think of foreign languages when a child knows the meaning of all the words in our own.'

It is a sufficient answer to all this to say, that by learning a foreign language, one becomes acquainted with the structure of language, with the principles of etymology and definition, and the general relation of thought to expression; and thus acquires a key to the meaning of words in the vernacular tongue, which the committing of Johnson's folio dictionary, with all the references, to memory, would not furnish.

But what shall we do for instructers in foreign languages?' the parents will inquire. Make it a requisition for your teacher to know Latin or French and you will soon have a supply. While there are such books as Bolmar's Perrin, and his edition of Telemaque, and Walker's New Latin Reader-books which furnish the means of learning either language in the evenings of a winter, by any adult of common sense-country teachers will not choose to remain ignorant of these languages. If the present generation of schoolmasters are too indolent to teach themselves these languages, let parents do their duty in making the requisition absolute; and successors will easily be found who will be ready to sacrifice their own ease to the welfare of the rising generation.

Central School of Arts and Manfactures, designed to form Civil Engineers, Directors of Mill Works, Heads of Manufactories, &c. &c. Authorised by his Ex. M. de Vatismenil, Master of Public Instruction. Founders, Messrs Lavallé, Director; Benoit, Dumas, Olivier amd Péclet, Professors. (Continued from p. 275.)

Programs of the instruction the Central School of Arts and Manufactures.

The instruction of the Central School of Arts and Manufactures is arranged conformably to the programs of which a list here follows:

Course of Geometry.

of Practical Natural Philosophy.

of Machines and Mechanic Arts.
of Chemistry and Chemical Arts.
of Analytic Chemistry.

of the Working of Mines.

of the Art of Building.

of Practical Natural History.

of Statistics and Political Economy. Designs relative to all the courses.

Manipulations relative to the courses of Chemistry, Natural Philosophy, and Mechanics.

Course of Descriptive Geometry.

By M. Olivier-Former pupil of the Polytechnic School, ExProfessor in the School of Application at Metz, &c. M. C. Adjunct Professor.

The professor, at the beginning of his course, will explain to the pupils the theory of logarithms, the use of the tables, and the elements of plane trigonometry.

The course of descriptive geometry will last one year.

In the first part of the course, the professor will endeavour to make the pupils familiar with the various modes of projections. To insure afterwards that they have a thorough knowledge of the elements of geometry of the three dimensions, and that they are able to make use with facility and intelligence, of the various graphic constructions of descriptive geometry, he will cause them to make applications to perspective and to shades. A certain number of these applications will be proposed as problems, and the solution of them performed without the aid of the professor.

In the second part of the course, the professor will develope the various applications of descriptive geometry:

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1. To Stone-cutting;-2. to Carpentry ;-3. to Mechanics;4. to Astronomy.

In the applications to mechanics, he will show how one can, in certain cases, make good use of rigorous results, but obtained by difficult and long constructions, by results inexact it is true, but sufficient for practice, and preferable for the engineer, because they are obtained by an expeditious method.

Of the right line of the plane.

First construction.-1. Question. Through a point given in space, to draw a right line parallel to a given right line, and to find the magnitude of a part of this line.-2. Through a given point, to draw a plane parallel to a given plane.-3. To construct a plane which may pass through three points given in

space.

Second construction.-4. Two planes being given, to find the projection of their intersection.-5. A right line and a plane being given, to find the projection of the point where the right line meets the plane.

Third construction.-6. Through a given point, to draw a perpendicular to a given plane, and to construct the projection of the point of meeting of the right line and the plane.-7. Through a given point to draw a right line at right angles to a given right line.-8. A plane being given, to find the angles which it forms with the planes of projection.

Fourth construction.-9. Two planes being given, to construct the angle which they form between them.-10. Two right lines which cut each other being given, to construct the included angle.-11. To construct the angle formed by a right line and a plane, given as to position in space.

Fifth construction.-12. Two right lines being given in space, to determine the position and magnitude of the line which measures their shortest distance.

Of plane tangents, and of normals to curved surfaces.

Sixth construction.-13. To draw a plane tangent to a cylindrical surface-1. Through a point taken in the surface;-2. Through a point taken without the surface;-3. Parallel to a given right line.

Seventh construction.-14. To draw a plane tangent to a conical surface;-1. Through a point taken in the surface;2. Through a point taken without the surface ;-3. Parallel to a given right line.

Eighth construction.-15. Through a point taken in a surface of revolution, of which the meridian is known, to draw a plane tangent to that surface.-16. Through a point taken in the sheet hyperboloid, to draw a plane tangent to that surface.