thing. Is it practicable? The experience of twenty years has proved that
it is. The experiment has been tried by Mr. Wm. Ellis, the wise and noble
founder of the Birkbeck schools of London, England, who not only devoted
his surplus means to the endowment of true schools, but gave also his time
to instruct in the principles of the science of human well-being--alike
the poor children by whom his schools were attended and the children of
the Queen of England. He also instructed and trained a corps of teachers,
professional and volunteer, and by one of the latter a class was conducted
in the winter of 1867, '68 at the Normal School of this city of some 35 to
40 teachers engaged in the practical work of teaching in our common
schools, who, under his guidance, became, after a short course of some
twenty or more lessons, enthusiastic advocates for the introduction of
this study into the schools; for not only does it teach the conditions of
industrial success, but it is also a science of morals and of ethics far
more worthy of the attention it has never yet received in this or, indeed,
in any country, than that which is given to what goes under the name of
moral teaching and training. It is by gradual steps--by the employment of
the Socratic method of instruction--with a rare use of text-books, that
the most intricate problems of this science can be unfolded to pupils with
such effect that a child of fourteen or fifteen years of age, who shall
have passed through a course of four or five years' instruction, would put
to the blush, with few exceptions, alike the members of both houses of
the United States Congress and of the British Parliament.

A museum and a library would be necessary adjuncts to such a school as we
have described. It would need but a few seasons to get together in the
various excursions taken by pupils and teachers, quite a collection of
botanical, entomological, and geological specimens. These would serve as
objects for illustrating the teacher's lessons, and for examination by the
pupils. The drying, preservation, and arrangement of plants, animals, and
minerals, in which the pupils would assist, would serve to impart to them
a skill and dexterity, which they would know how to value, and would be
eager to acquire, and, together with their frequent visits to the museum,
would serve to cultivate a love of nature and devotion to the study of her
works.

The library, besides containing treatises on science and