QUESTION BOX. We have given this name to a pigeon-hole in our editorial desk, which we have appropriated to the reception of questions, and of such answers to them as our correspondents will have the kindness to send us. We do not require that these questions should be confined to any particular branch of study, as the mathematics, nor that they should be merely difficult problems, to test the ingenuity of more advanced students. Our " Box" has ample capacity, and an opening wide enough to receive whatever is related to any department of study or school administration. We have, as yet, received only the following queries, to which we invite the attention of our correspondents :MESSRS. EDITORS:-I find the following questions in the Arithmetic used in the school which I am teaching this winter : 1. "I have a board whose surface contains 498 square feet; the board is 14 inches thick, and I wish to make a cubical box of it. Required the length of one of its equal sides." 2. "A carpenter has a plank 1 foot wide, 22 feet long, and 24 inches thick; and he wishes to make a box whose width shall be twice its height, and whose length shall be twice its width. Required the contents of the box." Will you be so kind as to inform me, what is the most natural and simple method of solving these questions, and explaining them to my pupils, and thus oblige A YOUNG TEACHER. TO THE MASSACHUSETTS TEACHER. If your name means that you are the teacher of all Massachusetts, will you please to favor me with a little instruction? We are studying a new book on Geography, which I like very much. But there is one question in it, which nobody seems to know how to answer. It is this: "A carpenter planed off the surface of a white pine board. What remained after the operation?" This question has been answered in three different ways in our schools, and each way has been pronounced wrong by one teacher or another. Will you not tell us what the right answer is, for we have already tried hard ourselves, and I don't think that it would now do us any harm to be told? Grammar School. L. H. T. INTELLIGENCE AND MISCELLANY. EDUCATION IN MASSACHUSETTS.-During the past year the gentleman who has for seven years ably and devotedly filled the post of Secretary of the Board of Education, having been transferred to another field of labor, has resigned, and the Board have chosen a distinguished citizen of our State as his successor. The school returns for the past year present some interesting and gratifying results. They show, though the year was one of no inconsiderable financial embarrassment, an increase in the amount raised by voluntary taxation in the State, for the support of public schools, unparalleled in any one year before; that this sum is double the amount raised for the same purpose only ten years ago; that in no community in the world, probably, is so large a sum per head expended for educational purposes, and in none do the children so universally avail themselves of this invalua ble privilege. These returns show that the amount raised by voluntary taxa tion for support of public schools for the year was The sum raised the previous year was Increase $1,137,408 1,013,472 $123,936 The largest previous annual increase was but $92,072 $576,556 The number of persons in the State between 5 and 15 years is 213,034 The whole attendance upon public schools in the winter of 1854-5 was 202,709 The whole attendance upon public schools in the summer of 1854 was 189,997 The whole attendance upon private schools and academies in 1854-5 was 22,287 The value of all the school edifices in the State is returned as $4,576,457 The aggregate ordinary annual expenditure for the education of our youth, EXCLUSIVE of collegiate instruction and of inter est on the cost of school-houses, by the actual returns, was $2,162,292 Or TEN DOLLARS AND ELEVEN CENTS for each child in the State between 5 and 15 years of age. These facts are presented, not merely because they form the bright and truthful record of the past, but as an incentive to future effort in the cause of popular education. In no way can a republic be ennobled, or its individual members approach that high standard of intelligence and cultivation, which fits them properly to perform their varied obligations, but by the systematic, thorough, and universal education of each successive genera tion. In this connection I cannot forbear expressing my surprise that the liberal provision of the State for educating, in any college within its borders, a number of young men, on condition that they shall devote themselves to teaching for a limited period after graduating, is not more highly appreciated and eagerly embraced. Notwithstanding a very general notice in the public papers, several districts, entitled to a free scholarship, did not present a single candidate the past year, and the Board of Education, when assembled to consider applications for this privilege, was actually compelled to adjourn, leaving a portion of the scholarships unfilled, for want of applicants.-The Governor's Annual Address, January 3, 1856. The sweetness of the lips increaseth learning.-Prov. xvi. 21. We have no apologies to make for the lateness of the present number. The arrangements for the publication of the work by the Association were not consummated till the evening of December 27th. A contract was then to be made with a printer; new type to be procured; and the multitude of questions to be satisfied, which start up from every nook and corner of the printing-office, and come thronging clamorous around, at the commencement of a periodical, and which, when answered for a single number, are answered for the whole year. "What shall be the length of the page?" "What shall be its width?" "What shall be the style of the head line ?" "What shall be the color of the cover?" "How shall the title be arranged?" "In what type shall this be printed ?"" And this?” “ And this ?” &c., &c. The maxim of Hesiod, that" the beginning is half of the work," applies so emphatically to printing, that we might almost fancy that the old poet had anticipated the invention of Faust and his fellows, and designed his adage expressly for their art. And, as there must be something to print as well as a style of printing, as there must be matter as well as manner, there must be an editorial meeting called, and for this the earliest day upon which we could be summoned, when we should all have exemption from school labors, was Saturday, the 5th inst. So that our readers have reason to wonder, not that our first number is so late, but that it is no later, that it has not been carried quite over into the next month, just as, in the heavens, the constellation for January, by the precession of the equinoxes, has gone irretrievably over into the sign for February. Nor can it require any apology, that we are not able to present, in a single number, a sample of all the different topics of which we design to treat. For this, we should require, not merely that the former contents of the monthly number should be nearly doubled, as is now the case, but that the whole volume should be issued at once. Indeed, we are favored in having the character of our present number largely determined for us by the interesting and valuable materials furnished by the recent meeting of our State Association, and which we should wrong our readers, as well as the Association whose servants we are, by either omitting or delaying. Our department for general educational intelligence and miscellany, as placed last in the work for the sake of greater freshness of news, has especially suffered, this month, in being " curtailed of its fair proportions;" but eleven months remain in the year for doing justice to this and other departments which have not now received their proper share of attention. It is perhaps fortunate for our readers that we have no room left us for making minute promises; and can only say that we shall spare no effort to make the contents of our periodical correspond to its enlarged title, to make it worthy of the Association to which it belongs, and of the patronage of its subscribers, and to render it truly valuable to teachers, school committees, parents, and the friends of education generally. As all our readers may not be familiar with the German, we translate our friend's more than sesquipedalian compound on the 18th page, and the other German words on that and the next pages:- - Ober-hoch-wohl-geboren-schul-und-kirchen-angelegenheits-Rath, Upper-high-well-born-school-andchurch-affairs-Counsellor, i. e., Very right honorable Counsellor for the Department of Education and Religion; Herzog, Duke; Erzherzog, Archduke; Burschen, Young fellows, specially applied to university students. We are happy to insert the following notice respecting the admirable portrait of that model instructor, Dr. Arnold, "Inscribed to the Teachers of America," and offered to them by a fellow-teacher, (who had the good fortune and public spirit to procure it during a recent visit to Europe,) at a price which, we fear, cannot reimburse the expense: LITHOGRAPH OF DR. ARNOLD.-Teachers and others wishing to secure the portrait of Dr. Arnold, prepared in Berlin during the last summer, will please to send their address and twelve postage stamps to Samuel Coolidge, 16 Devonshire street, Boston, and they will receive a copy by mail, rolled so as not to injure the picture. CORRECTION. On the first page of the "Teacher" for November last, 13 lines from the bottom, for "Keystone State," read "Empire State." THE MASSACHUSETTS TEACHER, AND JOURNAL OF HOME AND SCHOOL EDUCATION. FEBRUARY, 1856. THE TRUE MISSION OF THE TEACHER. A PRIZE ESSAY, BY MRS. RACHEL C. MATHER, OF THE BIGELOW SCHOOL, BOSTON. FROM the humming-bee up to the morning stars that sing together, from the deep base of the roaring wave to the rich alto of the feathered choir, harmonic Nature unites her thousand voices in a perpetual anthem of exultant labor, while toiling man responds in cheerful chorus from many a busy home, field, and studio, from many an eloquent hall, desk, and bar, from bustling mart, noisy shop, and clacking loom, through ringing bell and bellowing engine and rushing car, saying, "My Father worketh hitherto, and I work." Yet not for themselves alone do these agents toil. Earth and its teeming myriads, beast, bird, and insect, have each a work to do,—a mission to perform. Every vegetable and mineral, every element and atom, have an end to accomplish in Nature's great laboratory; and unwearied Nature herself, while she charms our eye, and symbolizes the spirit-life, assures us that she labors not for herself, but to convert rude chaos into a glorious dwelling-place for man, and from the inanimate mineral kingdom, up through the organic vegetable, to elaborate beautiful forms of animal life. Her mission is to vivify and educate matter, and in its joyous fulfilment she "rests not day and night." And man, creation's lord, for whom all Nature toils, and for whose development the universe was organized,—man, the image and transcript of the Deity, with graceful form and lofty mien, comprehensive intellect and high moral endowments, assures us he too has a work to do, a great work, and one that corresponds in sublimity with his high rank in creation's scale; that his lofty powers were not given him merely to transform matter by delving perpetually in earth, wood, stone, and stubble, but to render him a fellow-worker with God in the education of mind; that his high aspirations were not implanted, simply to stimulate him in the pursuit of wealth and self-aggrandizement, but to lead him out from the thraldom and materialism of Nature to ascend those intellectual and moral heights, where he may survey the immortal spirit's wide domain, and receive and radiate the life divine. Every human being has an appropriate place and an appointed sphere of labor. Each individual is sent into the world on a special errand, and must deliver his own message; and to subserve this end, God endows him with suitable talents, and corresponding tendencies; and, more eminently to qualify him, Providence wisely orders the circumstances of his life, and directs his education. To know, then, what is the sphere for which Nature has endowed us, and how to fill it; to know what is the work for which God has prepared us, and how to do it, should be the earnest desire of every heart, and the ruling aim of every life; for this is our peculiar mission, “the work the Father hath given us to do." MAN'S TRUE MISSION. But first we will What is the true mission of the teacher? inquire, What is the true mission of the human race? Before the artisan converts rude masses of wood and stone into edifices of symmetry and magnificence, before he rears the walls or lays the foundation, he inquires the design and use of those structures, and then shapes the rough cedar and marble into appropriate forms of strength and beauty. And before the teacher moulds the plastic minds of her pupils, she too should know something of the ultimate purpose of their lives, that she may train them to answer that purpose; and something of their high destiny, that she may the more successfully lead them on to its full achievement. Ever since man went forth from Eden to till the ground from whence he was taken, his incessant effort has been to subordinate earth and Nature to the subserving of his temporal interests. Since the days of Tubal-cain. he has been a successful artificer in brass and iron. Nor has he forgotten |