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<br />translations, and declamations of the graduating class dis-
<br />played ability and good taste in composition, and a pleasing
<br />style in delivery. The original declamations especially,
<br />with some, by members of the other classes, of selected
<br />pieces, were of unusual excellence. The performances
<br />were varied by singing, performed with great spirit by a
<br />choir of the pupils.
<br />GENERAL REVIEW.
<br />Discipline. — This has received our earnest attention.
<br />We offer a few remarks on the general subject.
<br />Teachers are regarded by the State as in the place of
<br />parents during school -hours, and so long as the pupil may
<br />be regarded as in the care of the teacher. That the teach-
<br />er has the same right of control and discipline as the parent
<br />has, has been fully settled by legal authority. But this
<br />right implies corresponding duties. Whatever it is the
<br />duty of the parent to do or endeavor for the mental and
<br />moral good, for the health and happiness of his children, it
<br />is the bounden duty of the teacher to do, or to faithfully
<br />endeavor to do, in all those respects in which he has the
<br />care of his pupils. School discipline should be the expres-
<br />sion of a true interest in the pupil's welfare,—tempered by
<br />kindness, guided by reason, and directed not to immediate
<br />results only or chiefly, but to the formation of good habits,
<br />and the culture of correct principles and worthy senti-
<br />ments. Hasty, angry, petulant treatment, — stern, cold-
<br />blooded, harsh treatment, — are destructive of true school
<br />discipline. Only that deserves the name, or is entitled to
<br />approval, which springs from a kind and conscientious wish
<br />and purpose to benefit the object of it. We look forward
<br />to the time when all brutalizing punishments will be ban-
<br />ished from our schools ; not to give place to laxity, but
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<br />supplanted by a better and far more effective control, —
<br />that of a high character, of true dignity, and of firm and
<br />wise decision.
<br />To exercise well the office of teacher, it is absolutely
<br />necessary to have a serious, unselfish, earnest spirit, de-
<br />voted to the work ; to make it the all -controlling object of
<br />life for the time, and steadfastly to avoid all occupations
<br />and amusements aside from it, except in that degree which,
<br />by refreshing the energies of body and mind, tends to their
<br />highest practicable efficiency in the school. If the teacher
<br />is pre -occupied by scenes and pleasures disconnected with
<br />his school, he cannot give to it the hearty interest and
<br />vital force necessary to do the work well; cannot come to
<br />the school, wearied by late hours and exciting amusements,
<br />and have strength of body, and vigor of thought and feeling,
<br />to breathe animation into the exercises of the school. The
<br />children take their pitch of feeling from the teacher ; and,
<br />if not stimulated by him, will be languid in the schoolroom,
<br />and use their strength and vital force out of it in play.
<br />The school -time is limited to six hours per day, for five
<br />days of each seven, because the work of the school, if well
<br />done, is arduous and exhausting both to teacher and pupil.
<br />It is well known, that a pupil who is compelled to labor
<br />hard out of school, studies at a disadvantage in school ; and
<br />the same law applies to the teacher, and it is immaterial as
<br />to the results, whether the extra work is what one does for
<br />economical reasons, or the equally exhausting work of ex-
<br />citing and dissipating amusements, carried beyond the
<br />bounds of useful relaxation.
<br />The community is entitled to the hearty and undivided
<br />strength and effort of the teachers, to whom they intrust
<br />their most precious interests. Only when teachers feel
<br />this, and act accordingly, can we look for great success.
<br />The school -year gives to the teacher nearly one-fourth of
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