FREE UNIVERSITY.-Charles M'Micken has bequeathed nearly one million of dollars to the city of Cincinnati, to establish a university in which instruction shall be free. Orphans from five to fourteen years of age are to be supported out of the funds, and afterward, according to capacity, to be thoroughly educated at the university, or taught trades. The Bible is to be a text-book in the institution. The City Council are to appoint the directors.

PHONETICS-Phonetic school books and instruction have been adopted in all the primary schools of Syracuse, N. Y., and an experimental class is instituted in Girard College.

NATIONAL ASSOCIATION.-The National Teachers' Association, organized at Philadelphia last August, is to hold its second session at Cincinnati, August 11th. Prof. Reed, of the State University, is engaged as one of the speakers. We trust our Teachers' Association will appoint delegates to the National Association.

THE BIBLE IN SCHOOL.-The Board of Education in the Fourth Ward of New York City has excluded the Bible from the schools in that ward. The difficulty in regard to the use of the Bible in the schools of Watertown, in this State, is settled by giving the teachers permission to read it before school hours, in the presence of those pupils whose parents or guardians make no objections, which is all that was claimed. We commence in this Number the publication of a circular from the office of the State Superintendent, called out by the state of things existing at Watertown. It takes high ground, and is worthy the careful perusal of every teacher and parent.

GEOLOGY.-Prof. James Hall, of Albany, N. Y., has been awarded the Walloston Medal, by the Royal Geological Society, the first instance of the award of that honor to an American.

INDIANA.-The semi-annual meeting of the State Teachers' Association will be held at Terre Haute, on the 20th instant.

Barnard's American Journal of Education for June is received, and is full of valuable and interesting matter, comprising biographies of distinguished educa. tors, sketches of school systems, articles on school architecture, etc. There are three hundred and twenty pages in this number, and it is embellished with a portrait of John Kingsbury, who has been principal of the Young Ladies High School in Providence, R. I., for thirty years, and one of John S. Hart, Principal of the Philadelphia High School.

The Atlantic Monthly for July has come to hand, and well sustains its reputation. Remember that we furnish it to our subscribers for $2,00 a year. Now is a good time to subscribe.

Obituary.

DIED, in this city, at 4 o'clock on Friday morning, the 18th instant, of consumption, Mrs. ELLA W. M'MYNN, wife of JOHN G. M'MYNN, Esq., aged 33 years.

"Mrs. M'MYNN, whose maiden name was Eleanor WILEY, was a native of Vermont, in which State she spent her early years, and acquired her education. Her youth was spent in quietness and filial obedience, giving promise of the future. At an early age she yielded her mind and heart to the influences of Divine truth, and was numbered among the lambs of Christ's fold. Having taught at several places in her native State, thereby giving evidence of her happy ability to instruct and govern youthful minds, she came to Waukesha, in this State, in 1849, to continue her chosen vocation of teaching. After about two years she removed to our neighboring city of Kenosha, where she gained an enviable reputation in her calling. Here she was united in marriage with Mr. M'MYNN, also a successful teacher, and both continued in their profession, to which they were ardently devoted. In the fall of 1852 their services were securred in behalf of the Racine Public Schools, to which they have contributed largely to place in the first rank of schools in our State, and to them Mrs. M'MYNN has given her last earthly labor.

"It was, indeed, a disappointment to her, just as she was expecting and planning for greater responsibilities, in the contemplated absence of her husband from the school-room, to be so suddenly laid aside; but from the first attack of the disease which took her life, she was most calmly and sweetly resigned to the providence of God. And when it was told her she could not live long, she received the intelligence without a murmur, feeling that the best time to die is when God calls. She seemed as one reposing in Divine arms, and there at last she seemed to close her eyes in sleep, and is sleeping there still.

"Her loss will be most severely felt and realized by her sorrowing companion; but our en tire community, and especially our youth, have sustained a loss that can not be well and easily repaired. All that knew her loved her, and all will mourn her death.

"Asleep in Jesus! blessed sleep.'

-Racine Democrat, June 21.

During our stay in Racine, last fall, it was our privilege to enjoy, to some extent, the society of the deceased, at her own fireside, and we learned to esteem her as a pure minded, large hearted, noble woman. Her refined manners, cultivated intellect, and consistent life, won the respect and confidence of all who knew her, and many will mourn the event by which Christianity loses a bright exemplar, society a purifying influence, our schools a faithful teacher, and her partner a devoted wire.

Yet it is a consolation to feel that what is our loss is her gain. When such an one departs from our midst, we no longer believe in immortality, we know that there must be a sphere in which the capacities and powers of the enfranchised spirit shall have full chance for development; we realize that decay and death are but links in the great chain of endless growth and life, and through the darkness and gloom of the present, we catch glimpses of that glorious land where "God shall wipe away all tears from all eyes," and where there shall be no more sickness, or pain, or death. At such times words are powerless, and language fails to portray the heart's emotions, but we can not repress the expression of our deep-felt sympathy with the husband in his bereavment, and trust that though it may not lessen the sense of his own great loss, the consciousness that his sorrow is shared by others, will tend to sweeten his bitter cup of affiiction,

MAPLE GROVE, July 1st, 1858. MESSRS:-According to previous understanding Mr. Broadhead took the floor and remarked:

Mr. Chairman-In seeking the welfare of our schools, it does not become us to rest satisfied merely by comparing ourselves with ourselves, or with others. We have no right to content ourselves with any thing short of the highest degree of excellence attainable. To determine accurately the position we occupy in the scale of excellence as educators, it is necessary first to estimate the result of an education which is perfect, complete in all its parts, and secondly, how nearly we arrive at such results. In reference to the first it is enough to say that the Scriptural view of the subject is without exception, that youth trained in wisdom's way will not depart from it. From this, and from all experience, we learn that as with the youth so with the man. All experience also has shown that the school may have a most unlimited control of education. Now if we understand the character of our people, we may judge very nearly the worth of their schooling and of our schools. Although the school has to some extent an immediate effect upon society, yet the good and evil of the present is the result of teaching long passed; the trees of to-day were planted long ago. It is evident that since those were educated who are now upon the stage, there has been, in some respects great advancement, Schools are more common, and are becoming free to all. Science finds a wider and deeper channel; both justice and injustice are stronger; honesty has more power; treachery is more treacherous; skill is more skillful; and craft is more cunning. But this does not necessarily argue improvement. On the con

trary, it remains a question whether such advancement will not prove our destruction. Wealth is power, and knowledge is power, and power properly employed is a positive good, but ill employed is a positive evil. Knowledge is a two-edged sword, and is as sharp in the hand of falsehood as of truth, and hence arises the danger as well as the necessity of schools. Doubtless at such a thought railroad, telegraph, and intellect worshipers will exclaim, "gew-gaw!" If such can but ride swiftly, it matters not in what direction. Upon the subject of human progression they will accept yellow sand for gold, or a scorpion for an egg. The burden of their blind zeal is educateion, intellect, science, philosophy, magnetism, perpetual motion. Give every youth a high forehead, a silver tongue, a brazen arm, and a guilded cutlass, no matter how they are to be used, no danger, and no consequence whether youth has a heart of clay, stone, steel or diamond, or whether the man is to be evil or just, mad or sane. But what is the truth? The lightning tongue of the telegraph, the press with its thousand voices, and every open eye bears record that the cultivation of language, without principle, has rendered the tongue exceedingly skillful in slander, in peddling bribes, in propagating falsehood, in hissing eat, drink, "thou shalt not surely die," and in spreading all manner of error; that the study of mathematics and philosophy has enabled man to bridle and saddle the four winds of heaven, upon which are riding, for swift gratification, every evil passion; that the cultivation of fine arts, without common sense, has made its thousands of silly women with little feet, puny fingers, who faint at the approach of a spider, and would starve if they were obliged to feed themselves, has sent health and beauty into the shade, and made the goddess fashion most popular of all the host of heaven. So we abound with rule of three tricksters, geometric swindlers, philosophic gamblers, patent lever speculators, and musical fools. Scientific skill has invented the telegraph, and it hurries a lie as much as a truth; a railroad, and it carries the villain as fast as the sheriff; a patent safe, and a key to unlock it. A public treasury, filled it with gold, and a powder plot to blow off the lid, while scientific plunderers stand ready to scramble for the spoils, and swallow them with happy greediness.

It is true that almost every government on earth is threatened by the skillful plotting of evil-minded, school-taught men. We have nothing to fear from the ignorant, except as they are made the tools of the learned. One lion can put to flight a thousand goats, so one highly educated man can have more influence for good or evil, than a thousand illiterate. It is a disgrace to good sense to introduce, as an argument in favor of our system of education, the fact that our prisons are filled with the unlettered, for it is a fact that in one year in the United States, the upper ten swindlers have equandered more property, and received more ill-gotten gain, than all the ignorant night thieves and highway robbers since the discovery of America. But the former go forth at noon day, and plunder ac

cording to Euclid and according to law, while the latter pilfer by night, are overtaken, and thrown into chains. Finally, science has entrenched and armed both truth and error-has changed the contest from fist and brick-bat to revolver and bowie-knife-from ambush with bow and arrow to the open field with brass cannon.

Now, Sir, it seems to me consistent that we inquire whence arise these evils, and whether by any system of education we may, to an important degree, avoid them. It matters but little whether we believe the soul ushered into the world a blank sheet of white paper or black paper, one thing is certain, it is very susceptible of evil impressions, is like a garden, will most surely bring forth evil fruit, if good is not studiously cultivated. Here and there we find a good and faithful gardener in a parent and in a teacher. But let us leave all else and go to the school-room. Here sits a little boy of five years; he has already learned some good things, and some of the tricks of boyhood; he has just entered upon the scenes of the longlooked-for school days. He has for many a month taken his two thousand steps a day, and prattled from morn till night, and with his kit of tools and numerous machines, has pursued his childish plays as free as a bird. But now here he is chained-his territory a square foot-his freedom pinched down to the narrow limits required by the school-room decalogue -his position as unnatural and uncomfortable to him as the wooden shoe to the China woman's foot. As but little of his time is occupied by the teacher, he soon learns that he can get some relief by overreaching the statutes, if he can avoid the rod; and thus, by the time he has the A B C of reading, he is through the abs of deception. He makes the greatest advancement in that which occupies the most of his time. Every rule of the decalogue is again and again broken, while the appearance of the sapling in the hands of a sapling, only makes him the more cautious in his tricks. A few years serve to render him skillful; he can place his eyes upon his book, move his lips, as if studying, and at the same time make and throw paper balls, construct pin darts, birds, beasts, and fishes, or even play pin with one neighbor and pinch another, until he is angry and strikes. The latter is punished, the former screens himself with a lie. Depend upon it, Sir, these are the mustard seeds that grow up and become trees so that the birds may lodge in the branches; the acorns that become great oaks. This youth at length, as do multitudes, graduates from the common school without having spent one single day in earnest, honest application for knowledge. At home he is indolent, disobedient, and disagreeable. His parents are troubled, think he will never work, that he must be educated or he will be ruined. Don't know what is the matter; think sometimes he is sick.

We next find our hopeful at college, in league with all the dark lantern societies, in good and regular standing. He is completely successful, always outwits the college police. Tutors and professors receive the unwelcome part of many a sly game, and his fellow-students do not escape. For