COLONIAL EDUCATION.

What has been named as the last of the characteristic facts in the educational history of the 17th century is one which has a special interest for Americans: it is that with the beginnings of permanent colonization in this country, we have also the beginnings of efforts for education, efforts too which in at least one case look towards free, general, and even compulsory education. Of these beginnings we must here content ourselves with a mere brief sketch that it may take its proper chronological place in the series of important educational facts.

The early colonists of North America seem in all cases to have realized the need of education for their children, and to have made creditable efforts to provide for it, the form which these efforts assumed differing in different colonies. In the colonies south of New York, provision for education was with few exceptions made by private schools or by parental teaching of the elements of learning. Not a few of the wealthier families sent their sons to England for their training. Yet early efforts were made in Virginia with the aid of friends in the mother country for the establishment of both schools and a college in that colony; but the project failed by reason of Indian wars, and the money that had been raised was lost.

To Virginia however belongs the credit of founding the second college on this continent, the college of William and Mary. This institution was chartered in 1693, and received large endowments in money and lands, besides the proceeds of a tax on tobacco, and the fees for the survey of the public lands which was placed under its charge. Many of the leading patriots of Virginia received their education within its walls; but it has in recent years fallen into a neglect and decay that is greatly to be deplored in an institution so venerable.

The documents of the Colonial History of New York contain numerous evidences of the care of the early Dutch settlers for the maintenance of clergy and schoolmasters. The duty of patroons and citizens in this regard is emphasized; taxes are decreed; complaints are made of the misdirection of funds intended for schools; the salaries and fees of schoolmasters are defined; the Secretary of the Dutch West India Company stirs to emulation by pointing to the efforts of the New England colonies; and the names of several of the early Dutch teachers, beginning in 1633 with Adam Roelenstan, are preserved in these documents or in those industriously collected by Dr. Platt, late Assistant Secretary of the New York board of Regents of the University.

After New York fell into the hands of the English, the chief care that seems to have been given to schools during the 17th century was to assure that whatever instruction was given should be in the English tongue. All teachers were required to be licensed by the Archbishop of Canterbury-later by the Bishop of London -or by the royal governor; and some futile efforts were made to suppress the Dutch schools, which seem to have sprung up in nearly every Dutch hamlet.

Much the most significant of the early educational efforts, however, were those made in New England, first in Massachusetts, but followed very soon by Connecticut. The Boston Latin school was founded in 1635, the next year after the settlement of the town was begun, and claims to be the oldest existing school in the United States,-a claim however which is disputed in favor of the school of the Reformed Dutch Church in New York which was opened in 1633. In 1636, what has now become famous as Harvard University was founded, receiving its name from John Harvard, its chief early benefactor, and having for its foremost object the training of a learned clergy.

The early years of this now wealthy institution, like those of most American colleges, were years of a struggle with poverty. Its studies were marked by some of the same characters which we have seen in European schools,-a mastery of the Latin being required for entrance, then Greek, Hebrew and two other Oriental tongues, logic and ethics including politics, arithmetic and geometry, the Bible and divinity, a little history and less science.

But even more interesting than this early provision for the higher learning, was the wise interest that was shown to provide instruction for all the children in the elements of learning. Thus in 1642 we find the General Court of Massachusetts "taking into serious consideration the great neglect of many parents and masters in training up their children in learning and labor," ordering that this evil shall be remedied by the officers of the town, and empowering them to punish neglect by fines or even "to put forth as apprentices the children of such as they shall find not able and fit to employ and bring them up."

Five years later the General Court passed the law which is usually counted as the beginning of the American common school system. Such were the remarkable efforts for education made by the American colonies, during the poverty, and the struggles with an untamed nature and wild men.-Samuel G. Williams, Ph. D., in The History of Modern Education.

CHOPIN.

While travelling with a friend through the wastes of Poland they found themselves suddenly snowbound; a huge drift had swept across their path, and, but for the timely aid of some peasants, our young composer would have been lost to fame. But, with the help of some sturdy peasants, they managed, not without trouble, to reach the little town of Güllichan, where they were detained for horses. Finding the time hang heavy on his hands, Frederic was agreeably surprised to find a piano in a room adjoining the combined kitchen and diningroom. Going up to it he struck a few chords then cried out in delight

"Santa Cecilia, the piano is in tune!"

Seating himself, he was scon oblivious of his surroundings in the dream of improvisation. Soon the music attracted the peasants, who came and stood behind the player, who called out to his friend, "Now we shall see whether my listeners are lovers of music or not," and began his fantasia on Polish songs.

The love of song characterizes the Slav above all races. The rudest peasant might be lured to the end of the world by one of his national songs. Poetical perception and sensibility to the beauties of nature are eminently innate in the Polish character. The peasants stood petrified, captivated by the music so new and bewitching, their eyes mechanically following every movement of the pianist's delicate hand even the pipes, the most important of objects, had ceased to be of interest to their owners and languished smokeless between the half dis tended lips; the crowd increased until well nigh half the population were gathered around the small unpretentious house, unheeded by the performer, who played in deep abstraction, drinking the creations of his own fancy.

At last the postmaster appeared. "The horses are ready!" were the words which recalled Frederic from dreamland to reality. He sprang up. Finish that beautiful piece!" is the chorus of a dozen voices. He looked at his watch; too much time had been lost already; his thoughts were expressed in his face. "I'll give you courier, horses, everything that you want; only remain a little while!" urged the postmaster. Long afterwards, when the composer held spell-bound the critics of Paris, most fastidious of all publics, he recoilected with pleasure the touching tribute to his skill by the population of this unpretentious hamlet.

Soon the gay life of Vienna absorbed his whole attention. Like all composers he was most anxious to secure the suffrages of the music-loving Kaiserstadt. His letters are full

of descriptive incident connected with his appearance at the Imperial Opera House, and the anxiety which naturally filled his mind at so perilous an undertaking. But the result was all that could be desired, and he was much lauded for his performance of one of Beethoven's overtures, followed by his own variation and a cracovienne which is said to have occasioned an improvised dance on the benches by a portion of the audience. The latter part of his stay at Vienna was dimmed by the ill-starred revolt of his native country against Russian oppression, and the terrible punishment meted out by the victorious oppressors. He had ever preserved a deep-felt love for the land of his birth, and even on his deathbed his wishes wafted east ward towards the wide plains and their inmates sighing under an alien yoke.

That

Irresistibly he was drawn to Paris. most elegant of cities was best suited to the development of his graceful, zephyr-like genius. Paris swarmed with his exiled countrymen, and to one of them he owed his sudden and un

paralleled success. Friendless and poor, he despaired of his future, when a meeting with Prince Radziwill and an introduction to Baron James de Rothschild transformed him into the lion of the hour, petted and spoiled by the most brilliant society.

It was at this period of his career that Chopin first met the gifted woman who was destined to exert a powerful and fascinating influence over his art. One evening while improvising one of his favourite themes before a delighted audience in one of the most brilliant and exclusive salons of the Faubourg St. Germain, a lady, remarkable at once for the plainness of her face and wonderful beauty of her eyes, was presented by the Abbé Liszt, on whose arm she was leaning. The lady was George Sand. On both sides it was love at first sight, a love partaking more of the senses than of the soul, for, as the composer afterwards wrote, the soft rustle of her silken gown, the faint odour of violets hovering round her, the deep tones of her rich voice, filled him with an overpowering thrill of sensuous pleasure, that was almost repellant to one whose spirit had been chastened by a most unhappy love affair.-From The World of Music.

Notes.

Godey's Magazine for October, transformed from Godey's Lady's Book to Godey's America's First Magazine, is well worth purchasing. Its publishers and editors promise great things, and have begun to redeem that promise in the first number.

We understand that J. B. Lippincott Company have arranged for the early publication of a new story by Amélie Rives, whose celebrated work, The Quick or the Dead? created such a sensation a short time ago. The new novel is in the nature of a sequel to this famous story, and is entitled Barbara Dering.

G, P. Putnam's Sons, of New York and London, who have for twenty years been the authorized American publishers for the Italian author, Edmondo de Amicis, have now in preparation a translation, being made by Alice H. Cady, of his latest volume, School and Home. They will also publish the romance on which De Amicis is now working, entitled The First of May.

From the unpublished current expense-books of Thomas Jefferson, kept May 1771 to 1790, Paul Leicester Ford has unearthed a number of most interesting facts which reconstruct, in a manner, the every-day life of the great statesman. The article embodying them, entitled Thomas Jefferson in Undress, appears in the October Scribner.

Mr. Fortner's Marital Claims, a new story by Richard Malcolm Johnston, which is acoompanied by a few short stories, is the last book in D. Appleton & Co.'s dainty Summer Series for the current year. In this book Colonel Johnston returns to the quaint scenes of Georgia life, which he describes with so much humor and pathos. Like the other books of the charming Summer Series, this volume appears in an original and most attractive dress.

The only complete and authentic life of Grover Cleveland that has yet been written will be published immediately in Cassell's Sunshine Series. The author is George F. Parker, editor of The Writings and Speeches of Grover Cleveland, published by the Cassell Publishing Company, and he has had the authorization of Mr. Cleveland in his work. Besides Mr. Parker's "life" of the great Democratic Leader there will be added to the book a literary estimate of the ex-President by Richard Watson Gilder, and a review of his legal career by his late partner, W. S. Bissell, of Buffalo.

A valuable and pleasing number is The Popular Science Monthly for October. Dr. Henry Ling Taylor contributes the opening article, on American Childhood from a Medical Standpoint, in which he points out the unwholesome mental and physical influences that surround American children, especially in cities. There is a timely article on Specifics for the Cure of Inebriety, by Dr. D. T. Crothers, who tells what the signs are by which a great quackery may be distinguished. A notably interesting article is that on The Evolution of Dancing, by Lee J. Vance, which is accompanied by ten spirited illustrations. In his Lessons from the Census Carroll D. Wright treats of the Native and Foreign-born Population-a subject on which every citizen should be informed. William Simpson takes Mud as a Building Material for his subject, and with the aid of half a dozen pictures establishes a pretty strong claim for his client. In Language and Brain Disease, Dr. H. T. Pershing shows how loss of speech from brain disease throws light upon the process of obtaining the mastery of a language. John Coleman Adams describes the grand work of Redfield, Espy, Hare, Loomis, and other American meteorologists, under the title A Chapter in Meteorological Discovery. Dr. R. W. Shufeldt has an attractive illustrated article entitled A Comparative Study of some Indian Homes. An able review of Recent Science by Prince Kropotkin, an illustrated account of a successful French experiment in the Warming and Ventilating of Dwellings, and a Sketch of Alexander Winchell, with portrait, complete the body of the magazine. In the Editor's Table, The Claims of Science, as recently stated by Prof. Pearson, are vigorously emphasized, and some account is given of the Rochester Meeting of the American Association.

Lew Rosen, who has been for years one of the best known figures in New York journalism, will issue the first number of his paper, Broadway, on October 15. As its title indicates, this weekly will deal with the life of the metropolis in all its phases. In fact, the field opened up by the name is so large, so comprehensive, that a short survey of it may not be superfluous.

Beginning at the Battery and the historic Bowling Green, the latter one of the most interesting spots in the growth, not only of the city,but of the entire country, carrying back the mind to colonial times, to stolid Vans and enterprising Englishmen, Lew Rosen will take his weekly stroll uptown, through the heart of the business district, stopping long enough at Wall street to observe the beat of its pulse each week, along Newspaper Row, the City Hall and

Court House, past the great houses where the fashions of a continent are made, to the hotels and their daily visitors of note in politics, commerce and sport. The theatres, too, form a prominent feature of the great thoroughfare, and the drama will consequently receive its full meed of attention in the columns of Broadway. Excursions into the regions of the clubs and of society will be regularly made.

As all men of note in the country are met with on Broadway, the paper will pay to them its weekly court, taking special pains to give information and anecdotes about them that are fresh and original, originality and wit being Lew Rosen's chief attributes.

Cartoons drawn by prominent artists will also be given in each number, and the printing, paper and type will be of the best.

The offices of Broadway are situated at 8 Union Square, overlooking the point where Lower Broadway ends and Upper Broadway begins. The price of single numbers will be ten cents, and the subscription price $5.00 per year. There is always room at the top, and Broadway, by which all parts of the city may be reached, is tolerably sure of success. It is edited by a journalist of long experience, an American "boulevardier," who is equally well at home in municipal politics and the politics of the nation, a confirmed first-nighter, and a man with the happy gift of seeing the bright side of all things and of reflecting that side with unfailing felicity of expression.

Dr. Elliott Coue's has been actively engaged preparing a new and important edition of Lewis and Clarke's Expedition over the Rocky Mountains in the years 1804, 1805 and 1806, which will be published shortly by Francis P. Harper, New York.

Of the late George William Curtis, Mr. Howells says in Harper's Weekly:

"I should not find it easy to speak of him as a man of letters only, for humanity was above the humanities with him, and we all know how he turned from the fairest career in literature to tread the thorny path of politics, because he believed that duty led the way, and that good citizens were needed more than good romancers. No doubt they are, and yet it must always be a keen regret with the men of my generation who witnessed with such rapture the early proofs of his talent, that he could not have devoted it wholly to the beautiful, and let others look after the true. Now that I have said this I am half ashamed of it, for I know well enough that what he did was best; but if my regret is mean, I will let it remain, for it is

faithful to the mood which many have been in concerning him.

"There can be no dispute, I am sure, as to the value of some of the results he achieved in that other path. He did indeed create anew for us the type of good-citizenship, well nigh effaced in a sordid and selfish time, and of an honest politician and a pure-minded journalist. These columns have borne such abundant witness to the sincerity and fidelity and the unsurpassed ability with which he urged his civic ideals, that it would hardly be the place here to lament that his gifts were not employed in another field, Neither would the multitudes who have listened to him on the platform or the stump consent that such an orator should have been lost to them in a writer of fiction, however great or fine. In fact, he never really forsook literature, and the world of actual interests and experiences afforded him outlooks and perspectives, without which æsthetic endeavor is self-limited and purblind. It is marvellous to remember that in these years, covering now almost a generation, that have passed since his life was so largely given to the practical activities of politics and journalism, he has been constantly contributing to the stock of harmless gayety, and refining while he instructed his readers by the sweet civility of his criticisms of life, and manners, and all the arts, in the Easy Chair.

Now that he has gone, we can see not only how great he was, but how many-sided was his greatness. The great white light of death, in which the qualities appear with such vivid force, illumines his talents and his gifts, and we can perceive in him the universality which the suc

cession of events and efforts obscured. He was a great man of letters, he was a great orator he was a great political journalist, he was a great citizen, he was a great philanthropist. But that last word with its conventional application scarcely describes the brave and gentle friend of men that he was, and I return to this aspect of his life with a despair of rendering it justice by any other word. He was one that helped other men by all that he did, and said, and was, and the circle of his use was as wide as his fame. There are other great men, plenty of them, common great men, whom we know as names and powers, and whom we willingly let the ages have when they die, for, living or dead, they are alike remote from us. They have never been with us where we live; but this great man was the neighbor, the contemporary, and the friend of all who read him or heard him, and even in the swift forgetting of this electrical age the stamp of his personality will never be effaced from their minds or hearts.”

New Books.

ACTEON. By Laura Daintrey. - A tale of what seems to be the author's fantastic and tawdry conception of New York society. The story has no plot worth speaking of, and consists of a series of pictures of ball-room scenes, afternoon teas, barroom fights, etc., each one of them vulgar with the vulgarity of, would-be aristocracy. The author has labored painfully hard to produce in these pages a set of patrician men and women, but the result is a discouraging collection of hopelessly caddish and flashy puppets of both sexes.--Hovendon Co., 50.

AN AMERICAN MISSIONARY IN JAPAN. By M. L. Gordon, M. D., D. D. With an Introductory Note by the Rev. Dr. E. William Griffis.— Dr. Gordon gives a clear description of missionary life, the difficulties and humors which attend mastering the language and studying the people then tells how American missionaries began work, the organization and growth of churches, the success of native preachers, and the development of self-support and self-government among the churches. He writes of the Doshisha University, Medical Missions, Christian Womanhood, Christian Literature, Varieties of Buddhism, Comparative Religion as a matter of Experience, New Japan, and the Present Outlook.--Houghton, Mifflin & Co., 1.25. CHICAGO. Views of American Cities."This is the third volume in Brentano's series of views of American cities. It contains thirty fullpage photogravures, reproducing a much larger number of private and public buildings, churches, clubs, etc., views of the principal streets and parks, the lake front. Chicago river, suburbs, etc. The text is largely descriptive, and the introduction to the volume is made up of a short history of Chicago.-Brentano's, 2 50, 2.00.

CHILDREN'S RIGHTS. A Book of Nursery Logic. By Kate Douglas Wiggin.-This book appeals very strongly to all teachers in Kindergartens, and to all mothers, too, who wish to treat their children wisely. Mrs. Wiggin here brings her brightness, good sense and experience to discussing The Rights of the Child, Children's Plays, Children's Playthings, What shall Children Read, The Relation of the Kindergarten to Social Reform, The Relation of the Kindergarten to Public Schools, and Other People's Children; and her sister, Miss Nora A. Smith, contributes three chapters on Children's Stories, How shall we govern our Children, and the Magic of "Together."-Houghton, Mifflin & Co., 1.00.

THE DANUBE FROM THE BLACK FOREST TO THE BLACK SEA. By F. D. Millet. Illustrated by the Author and Alfred Parsons.-The record of this canoe trip undertaken by the authorillustrator, Mr. Parsons, and Mr. Poultney Bigelow appeared first in monthly installments in Harper's Magazine. The trip was successful as far as the three tourists are concerned, and it will prove successful for whoever undertakes to make it with them in the pages of this book. Mr. Millet's text is bright and brimful of information, and the illustrations, scattered over the pages with artistic lavishness, are all worthy of their setting. Harper, 2.50.

DIANA: THE HISTORY OF A GREAT MISTAKE. By Mrs. Oliphant.-Diana Trelawney is handsome, thirty years old, and very rich. She has resolved to remain unmarried, and has proclaimed her resolution to the country people among whom she is so great a personage. She sends her protégée, Sophy Norton, to Italy, and follows shortly after to spend the summer. A poor Italian nobleman, noble in character as in name, falls in love with her, but never dreams of winning her hand. A common friend, however discovers his love, makes the mistake of thinking that Sophy is its subject, and sets about to make a mess of things in a good-natured, blundering way.-U. S. Book Co., 1.25.

EAST AND WEST. A Story of New-Born Ohio, By Edward E. Hale.-Sarah Parris, a sweet Salem maid of just one hundred years ago, resolves to go West with a party of settlers, after having refused an offer of marriage from her faithful lover. The latter, in despair, and wishing to be near her, goes to New York and obtains from General Washington a commission in the army which gives him the desired chance of going to Ohio. He searches for Sarah in vain in the western settlement, the Indians being responsible for this, but succeeds at last in rescuing her and winning her hand and heart.Cassell Pub. Co., 1.00.

ENTHRALLED AND RELEASED. By E. Werner. Translated by Dr. Raphael. Illustrated.— A young German nobleman, travelling in Italy, makes the acquaintance of Mrs. von Hertenstein, a charming and beautiful young widow who attracts him very much, and who seems to take considerable interest in him. The young German is recalled by his guardian and uncle, the Freiherr von Werdenfels, a recluse, who lives. alone in a mountain castle, never showing himself even to his servants. The young man does not like the idea of living thus secluded among the rocks, until he hears that the widow owns a villa in the valley below, -Worthington, 1.25.