VOL. III.
OXFORD, N. G., WEDNESDAY, APRIL 11, 187?”
NO. 15.
BEAUTIFUL TISliVOS.
faces arc those that ‘w'ear—
It matters little if dark or fair—
Wliole-souled honesty printed there.
Beantifiil eyes are those that show,
Like crystal pane-s wliere earth tires
glow,
Beautiful thoughts that burn below.
Beautiful lips are those whose words
Leap from tlie heart like songs of birds,
Yet whoso utterance prudence girds.
Beautiful h.ands are those that do
Work that is earnest, brave and true,
. Moment by moment, the long day
through.
Beautifid feet are those that go
On kindly ministries to and fro—
Down lowliest ways, if God wills so.
Beautiful®^*oni,\g,.g ^re those that bear
Ceaseless .’"yieus of homely care.
With patieiTff grace and daily prayer.
Beautiful lives are those that bless,
Silent rivers of happiness.
Whose hidden fountains but few may
guess.
Beautiful twilight at set of sun ;
Beautitul goal, with race well run.
Beautiful rest, witli work well done.
Beautiful graves, where grasses creep.
Where brown leaves fall, where drifts
lie dee]).
Over worn-out hands—Oh, beautiful
sleep.
HOW TO .UA3S.B »;ORRKCT
WKIT'EItS SC8IOOI,. -
ri'ildren shoiihl [uuntice co]>yh.ig on
slates tVoiri their very begimiiug in
scliools. It is as easy to teach writing
and reading ut oiu;e, if eoinnuuieed
1.ogether, as eitiiei' one se-iuirately ; for
tiu^y mutinil'y ;iss'st. e:icU otiier. 1
w oit'd nof have eiiildren write is )iated
vo Is. which te.'id to I'l-inip the iiiiiid.
but wliole sentences and _ versos. An
ingenious teacher can readily hud
means to ;>rai tiee this. A class may
be divided, and one jtortiou be writing.
drawing or stiulying ; or oceni)ied in
some tvay to develoj) wluit 1 may cull
the fourth K of education—
When children are advanced to the
Thu'd I’eader, and onward, I tvonld
take regular dictation e.vorcise thus;—
Slates all ready—blackboard(on easel_
tliat may l>e turned round) facing auvay
from the class. One of tlie class ready
to write oti it this is turned.
Bring in a strict rule here that du
ring die.tation no (luestioii is to be
a.sked. If a child cannot write every
word, let liim do the best he can. On
the words and sentences being clearly
jtronounced by the teacher, and re-
jieated snfliciently to give every eliild
an opi)ortunity to know it they soon
acquire confidence, and will not want
to ask about it. The child at tlie
board repeats tlie last word dictated,
■when written. TJic matter for dicta
tion will be cliosen to suit the class.
But have it new to them.
In the beginning, I would oxiilaiii
punctuation marks, capitals, the diind-
ing a ivord on two lines, quotation
marks, etc.', and spell, or have spelled
the difficult words.
AVheii the portion is dictated, using
about oiie-third of the, time for siicli
study, the child at board reads what
is written, and tlie,others may correct
their if they can. On a signal all
^-^’I’ite their names, and turn over slates;
■writing not to be looked at again till
*^^iamiiied by teacher. The writing on
board is then presented to the class.
^*^,11 look for first mistake of any kind,
llands up by those who see it. Teacher
calls on one to name it, when all hands
come down. If the answer should
show the^rsf mistake, teacher says
“ Correct it.” Child answers, “ It
' should be so and so.” The child at
board alters it and marks 1 over it.
If the pupil called on did not correctly,
name the error, many y/ill be again
ready to do so on a call for hands.
This will be continued to the end; the
child at the board niunbering each
mistake.
Teacher directs all to study well
from the board, wliile the pupil stand
ing out passes up each .slate, returning
the previous one. Teacher marks the
mistakes, and gives a credit mark _as
the mark znay deserve. It is well to
commence at the weakest end of the
class, so a child can study from the
corrected slate as well as from the
board.
All slates being handed back, they
and board are cleanezl off, and the
same thing repeated, but a little
quicker.
The second examination will not
take much time, as corrections will be
hut few. This time I would give no
credit marks, correctness being ex
pected as a matter of course: but give
demerits for any clear case of careless
ness.
With a class so begun, and exercis
ed three-quarters of an hour twice a
week I can now take a newspaper of
the znomiiig, dictate from any part of
it, inchuliug auction advertisements of
houseliohl furniture, etc., and find but
few mistakes.
I occasionally vary the exercise by
readiizg a pai'agnzizh or relating or
reading an anecdote, and see which of
the class ciin reizroduce it tlie best in
a limited time from ten to twenty min
utes, giving a full sketch in all eases,
but more or less particularly according
to time and length of article.—JI. Long,
in School Journal.
of the planets and their satellites,
and he will use for this purpose
all the latest improvements in
photography and tlze spectro
scope. It is anticipated that, in
the hands of such a skillful ob
server, the instrument will prove
of great value to the advance
ment of astronomical science.'
Sunday Magazine.
CUtlMBS OF K.TOWLEDGE.
The English language consists
of about 38,000 woi-ds. Of
these about 23,000 are of Anglo-
Saxon origin. Anciently, old
books, in their original binding,
were placed on the shelves witl
the leave-s, not the back, in front.
Although the celebrated Al
exandrian Libraiy was said to
have numbered 700,000 volumes,
the rolls—referred to
contained infinitely less than an
ordinary modern printed hook.
Notwithstanding the asser
THE GKEAT FARIS TEEE-
SCOFE.
Already in 1855, M. Le Verrier
pui'cliased two enornious pieces
of glass in England, one of crown
and the other of flint, which were
destined to form the elements of
an objective for a new telescope
in Paris, and to Leon Eourcault
was intrusted tlie proper cuttizig
and gi-inding of the lenses.
No objectives so large as the
one proposed liad ever been
ground, and it was necessary to
invent new machinery for the
manipulation. The work was
resumed in 1868, after the dolay
cansed h)'the Exhibition of 1867*;
but unfortunately for its success,
Eourcault was taken ill and died,
just at a time wlien liis services
were of the utmost importance to
the world.
■ The completion of the work
was confided to M. Eichens, and
has been accoznplislied in the
most satisfactory manner. The
cost of the instrument was '200,-
000 trances (S40,000). The plat
form and stairs for the observers
are constructed in such a wav
that they can be moved around
the solid foundation on all sides.
The tube of the telescope is 24
feet long, and its weight is 5,280
pounds, and yet it is so delicately
adjusted that it can be moved
with the greatest ease.
It is built on what is known as
the Newtonian system, employ
ing a reflecting mirror, the weight
of which is 1,760 pounds. The
occniar piece and its accessories
has the same weight. Idze whole
apparatus with its two axes,
marvels of mechanical skill,
weighs 22,000 pounds, and is
propelled by an enormous chro
nometer clock-work, in perfect
harmony with the movements of
the earth
M. Wolfe, to whose care the
instrument has been confided,
proposes to employ it in the study
tion of Plin}?, that papyrus was
not used for paper before the time
of Alexander the Gi'eat, there is
a papyrus now in Europe of the
date of Cheops. Papyrus was
used until about the seventh cen
tury of our era. Dr. Kitto tells
us in his “Cyclopaedia of Biblical
Literature” that a stfidier’s leave
of absence has been discovered
written upon a piece of hz'oken
eartlienwaz’e. “De Pi'oprieta-
tihus Eernm” was the first Eng
lish printed hook in folio. It was
got out b)’ Caxton in 1480.
The most ancient sort of charta
or paper was of the inner bark of
a tree, called liber m Latin, Hence
the term library, and leaf of a
tree. The earliest tyne used
in printing was intended to imi
tate ■ writing. No marks were
die Ages; and to meet the neces
sities of the poor student, at
period when a Bible was so
valuable, it was regarded
kingly gift.-
Ashmolean
—The keeper of the
Museum, Oxford
England, speaking of the little
aninzals called bookworms, savs:
“The mite eats the paste that
fastens the paper over the edges
of the binding; the cateipillar
and another liltle moth takes its
station between the leaves of
damp old hooks, and commits
great ravages ; the little horin
wood-beedle has been known to
bore through twenty-seven folio
volumes in a straight line, so that
by passing a cord through the
perfect round hole made by it,
the whole could he raised at once.
The wood-beetle also destroys
prints and drawings, whether
framed or kept in a portfolio.
Sonze of the various depredators
on hooks are said to he not more
than the fifteen-liundi'edth of an
inch long, and rather narrow in
proportion. But these latter des
tructive agencies are no longer
the terror of the human book
worm. The printing-press and
modern inventions have neuti'al-
ized their power almost complete
ly.—Selected.
AN ICEEANO CAVE.
n.sed for punctuation at first, oth
er than the period and colon ;
afterward an oblique stroke was
introduced as a comma. Pages
had neither running title nor
number; the division of words
and sentences was mo.st imperfect,
and the text was not divided into
pai-agraphs. Capital letters were
not used to commence a sentence
nor in proper names. Otho-
graph}' was without method : and
abreviations were so numerous
as to necessitate the printing of a
book by which they could be
read. But one kind of letter was
used throughout. A space was
left at the beginning of chapters
for the illuminator, who wrote the
initial in various colored ink, and
sometimes adorned it with gold
and silver devices, intermingled
with flowers. Two or three hun
dred copies of a work were then
considered a large edition. In
the Middle Ages there were in
most monasteries two kinds of
scriptoria or writing-offices ; for,
in addition to the large and gen
eral apartment used for the tran
scription of church-books and
manuscripts for the library, there
were several smaller ones occu
pied by the superiors and the
more learned for private devotion
and study, etc. It was a common
practice for the scribe, at the end
of his copy, to adjure all who
transcribed from it to refrain from
the least alterations of word or
sense. A law was framed in
Paris in 1342 compelling all pub
lic booksellers to keep books to
lend out on hire. Only fanoj'—
circulating libraries in the Mid-
The interior of Iceland, as is
generally known, is a great un
inhabited, grassless desert, for tlie
population (only about 70,000 for
an area one-fourth larger than
Ireland) is mostly confined to the
sea-shores and neighboring val
leys. In going from coast to
coast tills desert must be crossed ;
it edges the inhabited land as the
sea does on the other side, and
gives a wild charm—for us, at
least, wlio suffer from over-popu-
Jation. We were now on the
borders of this region, crossing a
great valley or plain of old lava,
with a background of snow moun
tains. The lava was rather like
a very rent and crevassed glacier,
but all black ; the sotnhre color
ing being only relieved by the
patches of gray and yellow lichen.
Riglit in the middle rose tlie iso
lated conical hill, Erick’s Jokull,
witli dark crags below, and per
petual snow and ice above. Even
on that sunny day, the scene
conveyed the strongest impres
sion of vast, weird, remote deso
lation. We rode over the lava
till we reached a great gaping
pit, and then dismounting, we
clambered down over rough rocks
into the cave of Surtslieller,
whicli they say runs for two miles
under ground. The floor of the
cavern was of transparent, hard
ice, covered near the entrance
with some inches of water. The
last sight of dayliglit, looking
back, was, therefore, very pretty,
as the ice gave a perfect blue re
flection of the overarching rocks.
Now lighting candles, we scram
bled over icy slopes. Down in
the clear depths we could see
the strange, black shapes of the
lava, as Dante saw the traitors
like flies in amber in the ice of
his frozen “ Inferno.” All this
cavern must have been once a
huge bubble in the boiling lava,
and these fanta.=tio bowlders flung
from some furious volcano. Then
came the frost giants and made
the place their Summer palace;
for where the cavern is at its
liigliest, and the clear ice stain’s
in tall columns, and fretted arches
reaching to the roof, it is curious
and pretty enough for any fairy
taie. In the light of our toicli,
the wliole place flashed back
prismatic colors with a blaze that
made onr two little candles seem
very dim wlien it was out. At
the far end of the cave, in a hol
low rock, we found seals and
coins, and carved names, left by
former travelers, some of them
dating from early in the century.
We added our names, as we were
the first ladies who had been in
the cavern—not that there is any
special difficulty abontgoing there,
but that, speaking broadly, ladies
seldom travel in Iceland. We
were glad to return to the warm
daylight, feeling convinced that
the outlaws who once inhabited
these caves must soon have be
come the most rheumatic of men.
—Good Words.
The Monaech and the Archi
tect.-—Louis XIV., taking air in
the garden of Versailles, with liis
courtier, saw Mansard, the archi
tect, walking throngli one of the
alleys. He soon joined the old
man, and Mansard took off his
iiat, as was strict etiquette, in the
presence of his sovereign; but
the Grand Monarque lifted up liis
hand in friendly reprehension,
and said, “Pray keep it on. The
evening is damp, and you may
take cold.” The courtiers who '
were all standing bareheaded
around the king, as was the cus
tom stared at each other at this
extraordinary show of courtesy.
But Louis XIV., observing their
surprise, said, “Gentlemen, you
are amazed ; but learn this ; I can
make a duke or a marquis witii
my own breath, but God only
can make a Mansard.”
A little boy, wlio bad been sent to
dry a towel before the nursery flz'e-
place, innocently inquired, “ Mamma,
is it done when it is lirown ?”
“ That was very greedy of you.
Tommy, to eat your little sister’s share
of cake.” “You told me, ma, I was
always to take her part,” sakl Tommy.
A poor, wild Irish boy, taught in a
mission school in Ireland, was asked
what was meant by saving faith. He
replied, “ Grasping Christ -with the
heart.”
At a recent school examination a
little girl was asked, “ What is a tort ?”
“A place to put men in,” was the
ready answer. “ What is a fortres.o,
then ?” asked the teacher; whereupon
a little girl of eight summers answer
ed, “A place to jint u-omen.”
Hear little Harry B was taken
to church to see a fashionable wedding.
The bride was in full di-ess, including
a long, white veil. Hari-y gazed in
tently as she passed up the aisle, and
just as she reached the altar he ex
claimed, “ See, mamma, her has got a
skeeter net on!”
A CAECtTLATiNa Boy.—A boy, on
seeing a ])laeard in a shop-window,
“ Sugar-sticks, five sticks for four
cents,” went in and calculated, “ Five
sticks for four cents, four sticks for
three cents, three sticks for two cents,
two sticks for one cent, one stick for
nothing. I say, mister, hand us over
one stick.” The storekeeper “didn’t
see it.”
Baxter was on one occasion
brought before Judge Jeffries.
‘Richard,” said the brutal chief-
justice, “I see a rogue in thy face.”
“I bad not known before, ’ re
plied Baxter, “ that my face was
a mirror.”