MINNESOTA. We learn from the Message of Governor Barstow, that every village in the Territory has a school for the education of male children, all of which are well attended. The colleges and seminaries of learning in St. Paul are in a flourishing condition. The Territorial University, located at St. Anthony, has not progressed since the last year, for want of funds. "It is a beautiful belief, That ever round our head To hold commune at night's lone hour, To bid the mourner cease to mourn, To bear away from ills of clay, The infant to its heaven." EFFECTS OF MECHANICAL SKILL.-To show how mechanical skill and labor add to the value of raw material, the British Quarterly Review gives this instructive calculation : A bar of iron valued at $5, worked into horseshoes, is worth $10.50; needles, $355; penknife blades, $3,285; shirt buttons, $29,480; balance springs of watches, $250,000. Thirty-one pounds of iron have been made into wire upwards of one hundred and eleven miles in length, and so fine was the fabric, that a part of it was converted, in lieu of horsehair, into a barrister's wig. YANKEE INGENUITY. - The Patent Office has been very active during the last year. One thousand nine hundred and forty-six patents were issued, the largest number any one year has ever yet shown. CENTRAL SUN.-Mr. Maedler, the author of the recent investigation with reference to the central sun, reaches the conclusion that Alcyone, the principal star in the group Pleiades, now occupies the centre of gravity, and is at present the sun about which the starry universe revolves. HOW TO BE Loved. Here is a secret worth knowing. William Wirt, in a letter to his daughter, thus insists upon the importance of the “small sweet courtesies of life." Depend upon i, he is right. He says: "I want to tell you a secret. The way to make yourself pleasing to others, is to show that you care for them. The whole world is like the miller at Mansfield, who cared for nobody, — no, not he, because nobody cared for him. And the whole world will serve you so, if you give them the same cause. Let all persons, therefore, see that you do care for them, by showing them what Sterne so happily calls the small sweet courtesies in which there is no parade; whose voice is too still to tease, and which manifest themselves by tender and affectionate looks, and little acts of attention, giving others the preference in every little enjoyment at the table, in the field, walking, sitting, or standing." WORDS, AS USED AND ABUSed. A celebrated hangman in England, in showing the gallows attached to Newgate, observed to the bystanders that he had hung twenty persons on it at one time. Some one suggested that it was too small. 66 Oh, no, bless you, twenty-five persons could swing on that very comfortably!" "It has got a "What is it? tell mother this cupola," said he, asked his intermorning that it's The Lynn News tells a good story of two boys, one of whom was boasting of the beauties of his father's house. "and it's going to have something else." ested companion. "Why, I heard father going to have a mortgage on it!" At a Sunday School not a million miles from this city, one of the classes was considering that passage of scripture, "our days are swifter than a post," when the teacher explained that this had doubtless reference to the seeming swift motion which the posts by the roadside have, when you are passing in a vehicle rapidly by them, in the rail cars for instance! This will do.Portland Advertiser.. A gentleman, who was in the habit of larding his discourse with the expression "I say," having been informed by a friend that a certain individual had made ill-natured remarks upon this peculiarity, took the opportunity of addressing him in the following amusing style of rebuke: "I say, sir, I hear say you say I say "I say " at every word I say. Now, sir, although I know I say "I say " at every word I say, still I say, sir, it is not for you to say that I say at every word I say. "I say 99 SCHOOL ITEMS. The scholars of the village school in Greenfield, which the little colored boy, Charles H. Taylor, who was burned to death in the destruction of D. W. Alvord's house, attended, have contributed money to purchase a gravestone for him. Maria Robe, a school-girl aged eleven, was so frightfully burned in Albany, on Friday, that her recovery is said to be impossible. Her apron caught fire while she was standing by the school-room stove. A boy was accidentally fastened into a school-house in Bangor on Thursday afternoon, after the close of the school, and being unable to make himself heard, passed the night there, and had his arms badly frozen. - Late Papers. TEACHING-POSTS. "How beautiful is snow, The blossom of the rain; To clothe the winter world." There is a strong resemblance between a teacher who has ceased to cultivate his own mind, and a finger-post. Both point to the road they never go themselves. ARITHMETIC UNCERTAINTY. "Why," said an argumentative gentleman," it is as plain as that two and two make four." "That I deny," retorted his antagonist," for 2 and 2 make 22." AN IMPORTANT TRUTH.-The misery of human life is made up of large masses, each separated from the other by certain intervals. One year, the death of a child; years after, a failure in trade; after another longer or shorter interval, a daughter may have married unhappily; in all but the singularly fortunate, the integral parts that compose the sum total of the unhappiness of a man's life, are counted and distinctly remembered. The happiness of life, on the contrary, is made up of minute fractions- the little, soon forgotten charities of a kiss, a smile, a kind look, a heartfelt compliment in the disguise of a playful raillery, and the countless other infinitesimals of pleasurable thought and genial feeling.- Coleridge. It is the heart alone which renders a man truly eloquent. It is that alone which, in barbarous as well as cultivated ages, gives that affecting character to poetry which renders the poet immortal. AGASSIZ' GREAT WORK ON NATURAL HISTORY.-The Advertiser prints a list of the subscribers to this work. The very remarkable number, alike honorable to the author and the country, of one thousand seven hundred copies have been subscribed for. EDITORIAL POSTSCRIPT. MARCH MEETINGS.-Will all our readers in Massachusetts who have votes to cast, permit us to exhort them not to fail, on any consideration, of making the best possible use of those votes for the advancement of education, at the approaching town and district meetings,-laying aside every meaner motive, and acting simply and nobly for the highest welfare of the young and of the whole community? And will you not take special pains to induce others to join you in this action? All our readers, whether voters or not, can exert an influence for this great cause. Shall it not all be exerted? Think how soon our opportunity of doing anything by vote or influence will have wholly passed away. Think how soon the boys and girls now learning lessons in the school, or in the street, will have become Massachusetts. What shall that Massachusetts be? CO-WORKERS.-We are happy to welcome one of our late teachers in Massachusetts to the corps of Educational Editors, Mr. George B. Stone, who won so high a reputation as Principal of the High School in Fall River, and who is now Superintendent of Schools in Indianapolis. The "Indiana School Journal," of which we have received the first number, bearing his name as Resident Editor, with those of Messrs. Henkle, Barnes, Chase, Cole, Patch, and Hoyt, and Misses Wells and Chamberlain, as Associate Editors, and published by the Indiana State Teachers' Association, gives excellent promise of being a valuable coadjutor in the good work. We are grieved to read the valedictory of Dr. A. D. Lord, who has accomplished so much for the cause of education, both in other ways, and especially by his ten years' service as Editor of the Ohio Journal of Education and other school periodicals. He is succeeded, as Editor of the Journal and Agent of the Ohio State Teachers' Association, by the Rev. A. Smyth, late Superintendent of Schools in Toledo, and Editor of the Toledo Teacher, to whom we are prepared, from his past reputation and labors, to extend a cordial greeting. We have also received a Prospectus from our friend, Mr. Charles E. Hovey, late Principal of the Framingham High School, -now teaching in Peoria, Ill., and holding the honored position of President of the Illinois State Teachers' Institute, who is henceforth to be the Editor of the Illinois Teacher." We bid our types shake hands with him most heartily for us, and wish him the fullest success, crowning his characteristic zeal and energy, in his new duties. DANCING OF TYPES.- On the 73d page of the recent Report of the Board of Education, in the 6th line, the letters of the word "over" took the liberty of interweaving in "the mazy dance," and assuming the queer form of "vore." QUESTION Box. - We regret that the report of questions and answers from our " Box," after having been made up and put in type, must be deferred till the next month, from disappointment in not receiving in season the illustrative wood cuts, which were promised last week. NORMAL SCHOOLS. The examinations for admission to the State Normal Schools will take place on the following days, beginning on each day at or about 9 o'clock, A. M.; at Framingham, on Tuesday, March 4th; at Salem, on Tuesday, March 11th; at Bridgewater, on Wednesday, March 19th; and at Westfield, on Wednesday, March 26th. If our young teachers and candidates for teaching have become aware of the great benefits to be derived from these Schools, the examinations will be thronged. We are happy to learn that the Principals have already received many letters of application or inquiry. We find in the Worcester Transcript, the following from a correspondent who attended the late examination at Framingham. We hope that the suggestion will be reduced to practice, and that the application will be extended to the other Schools. "The condition of the School is eminently satisfactory. Mr. Bigelow was a very hard student in Europe, as we happen personally to know; and he has brought its full results to his work. Do you not know of some one who would be profited by the discipline of the School, and would gladly be fitted for the teacher's work? If you do, why not try to send her to Framingham ?" We rejoice to learn that so many of the graduates of the Salem School propose to return after the vacation, and form an advanced class for the pursuit of higher studies. Similar classes will perhaps be formed in some or all of the other Schools. This will furnish an excellent opportunity for those who have completed the usual normal course or an equivalent in past years, to extend their studies, with the aid and pleasure to be derived from zealous associates and able teachers, and thus to prepare themselves for yet higher usefulness. We have been informed since the preceding was put in type, that several of the former graduates of the Framingham Normal School have made arrangements to return at the beginning of the approaching term, for the purpose of pursuing an advanced course of studies. Will not others join them? TEACHERS' INSTITUTES. Of these "Flying Normal Schools," as they have been called, which have accomplished so much for the advancement of education, and which teachers who have the true spirit for their work make such a point of attending whenever they have opportunity, the following have been appointed for this month:- one at South Dennis, to commence on Monday, March 24th; and one at Kingston, to commence on Monday, March 31st. A prompt attendance will be important, as two lectures are usually delivered in the Institutes Monday forenoon. THE MASSACHUSETTS TEACHER, AND JOURNAL OF HOME AND SCHOOL EDUCATION. APRIL, 1856. THE TRUE MISSION OF THE TEACHER. A PRIZE ESSAY, BY MRS. RACHEL C. MATHER, OF THE BIGELOW SCHOOL, BOSTON. [Continued.] LESSONS OF SELF-CULTURE. The initiation of the pupil into the great work of self-culture, by forming habits of earnest, persevering, and self-reliant exertion, is an important part of the teacher's mission. Labor is the law of life, without which man, with all his high endowments, is but a dull mass of inanity. Intellect is evolved by earnest toil; sentiment and affection are elaborated through suffering, sighs, and tears; moral principle struggles into life through conflicts, temptations, and trials. Is Nature inimical to man, when her winters freeze and her summers scorch him, when her furious storms and fierce lightnings terrify, and her savage beasts destroy? Not in hostility does she thus array herself against man, but only to stimulate him to put forth his latent energies and overcome these antagonisms. Weak and cowering, he quails before her mighty forces; but God bids him arise and subdue the earth and elements; and while he obeys, lo! God helps him, not by rebuking the raging blast, or draining the pestilential marsh, or exterminating the wild beast, but by working in him and through him, ever imparting to him genius and ability, according to his own exertions. Thus only, man achieves the conquest of Nature, and reduces her to servitude. Thus only, |