of earnestness, ability, and withal of ty, eminently worthy of imitation. e select the following from the able s of resolutions adopted by the Assoon, because they embody general prins in accordance with the spirit of the h in which we live: esolved, That the true theory of educainvolves the progressive growth and elopment of all the powers and faculof man, and that its true end is, in the ds of Milton, "to restore the ruins of first parents by regaining to know God ht, and out of that knowledge to love , to imitate Him, to be like Him, as may the nearest by possessing our souls true virtue, which being added to the avenly grace of faith, makes up the hest perfection." Resolved, That the judicious cultivation the imagination is an object of primary portance in early education; that without the labor and care bestowed upon the ulties of perception, memory, and ream, are, to a great extent, wasted, and as a -nsequence, there can be no success with e higher walks of knowledge or in the rmation of a symmetrical and perfect aracter. Resolved, That we cordially approve of he more liberal introduction of the eleents of Natural History in its different epartments, as a branch of instruction, ot only on account of its relations to the material interests of society, but especially or its admirable adaptation to the development of the faculties in general, and, when -ightly directed, to the cultivation of a reverence for that Divine Being who, while he guides the stars in their courses, suffers not a sparrow to fall unnoticed to the ground. Resolved, That this Association is deeply impressed with the conviction of the superior adaptation of female teachers to the great work of instruction, and that we respectfully urge their claims upon the confidence of the school officers and friends of education throughout the State. Resolved, That the purity and permanence of free institutions founded on the 55 ble only on the condition of intelligence and virtue equally free and universal; that the Common Schools afford the only means whereby nineteen-twentieths of our population can enjoy the blessings of a sound and harmonious culture, and that it is the highest and most obvious duty not only of our State authorities but of our National Government to establish, foster, and perfect by all their combined influence and power these nurseries alike of the national life and modern civilization. THE Superintendent of Common Schools for the State of Pennsylvania, in his annual report to the Legislature, shows that the number of Common Schools in the State, not including Philadelphia city, is 12,161, an increase on the last year of 171. The whole attendance of pupils is 634,499, an increase of 19,412. Average attendance of pupils, 397,922, increase 9,659. Percentum of average, .005; last year, .635. Average length of school term, 5 months, 14 days. Average cost of each pupil per month, 50 cents; an increase of one cent. Number of teachers, 14,442; increase, 62. Total cost of tuition, $1,498,040; increase, $130,859. Total cost of the system, including $46,000 appropriation to Philadelphia schools, $2,284,099; increase, $56,934. The total number of pupils, including Philadelphia, is 703,453, and the whole cost of the system, including the amount paid by Philadelphia, is $2,888,199; an increase of $104,604. These facts are encouraging to the friends of a school system. Notwithstanding the war, the average attendance has been larger, the average per cent. upon the whole number in attendance one-half per cent. greater, than last year. There were 717 less male teachers, and 779 more female teachers, in 1863 than the year previous, owing to the war. The percentage of attendance in the State schools is only 63.5, while in Philadelphia it is 84.4. WE have received from Prof. Drowne, Director of the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute at Troy, the Annual Register of that Institution for 1863-64. The reputation of the Institute is a continental one. The students in the different divisions, from every part of the United States, the West Indies, and South America. It also presents a catalogue of the thirty-seven graduating classes that have gone out from the Institution since its foundation in 1824. We have counted the names of thirty-six of the graduates since 1846, who are, or have been in the government service, as officers in the army and navy of the United States. The buildings of the Institute which were destroyed by the great fire of 1862, will soon be replaced by a neat and tasteful edifice, one hundred and fifteen feet long by fifty feet wide, together with a Chemical Laboratory and an Astronomical Observatory. This school stands at the head of its class in this country. We rejoice in its continued prosperity. ILLINOIS.-A State Convention of School Commissioners was held in Bloomington, commencing October 1, Hon. J. P. Brooks, State Sup❜t, presiding. The meeting is reported as of extreme interest, and the most liberal and enlightened spirit prevailed in the deliberations. Among other propositions that obtained favor, was one to abolish third-grade licenses; and a recommendation to amend the school law so that a teachers' institute shall be held annually in each county, a fund to be set apart by the State to defray the expenses. A very interesting and profitable "Normal Institute" was held during the autumn for six weeks at Bloomington, the exercises conducted by the Professors of the Normal University. It was not largely attended. THE Board of Controllers of the Public Schools of Philadelphia, have appointed a committee to report upon the expediency of establishing the office of Superintendent of Schools for the city. This Board have also under consideration a plan for the reorganization of the primary schools under their charge, with special reference to the introduction of improved struction therein. A delega of thirty-six gentlemen, fro lers, the Committees on E both branches of the Selec the Principals of the Gra visited the Farnum Prepara Beverly, N. J., on the 11th ness a series of exercises or or Object System. The ex a most animated and satisf ter. They were arranged a Mrs. P. C. Case, the accomp tress of that institution, wh of the State Normal School. PREPARATIONS are being opening of one of the State N established in Maine, at Fa will go into operation in spring. Mr. A. P. Kelsey ha principal. By reference to the list commissioners for the State we see that about one-four officers have been re-elected, jority of the others were ta ranks of the profession. T for the good judgment of ou promises a vigorous prosecut against ignorance in that Sta three years. We still have country. ALBERT H. GALLATIN, M. of Albert Gallatin, has been the professorship of natural s which University, at Norw Dr. Gallatin was nominated tion by the Actuary of th School Institute," J. W. S The appointment will do hor ties interested. THE Maine Commissioners mal School have reported to and Council in favor of est school for Eastern Maine at ( Miscellany. MISCELLANY. ENGLAND, whenever a letter is found post-office with the address illegible omplete, it is passed to a so-called I officer." The "blind officers" are ed with all the principal London and cial directories, guides, and gazetby the help of which they generally ed in making out the destination of the s referred to them. They are indeed at once, by their own intelligence, to se of many letters which a stranger 1 consider it impossible to find owners When it has been fully ascertained nothing further can be done to effect Helivery of a letter, such letter, if it in an address, is, of course, returned he writer; and, when possible, this is without breaking the seal or examinthe contents, some hundreds of letters g returned daily by means of the innation obtained from the outside of the ers. 57 with importing atheism to corrupt the moral sentiments of the youth of America. The society which he instituted did not flourish; but three branches were established at Yale, Harvard, and Dartmouth, which preserved the organization. Others have since been established. The branch at each college elects an orator to deliver an oration at the annual Commencement of the ensuing year, all the members present voting, whether in class or not. As all the branches constitute one society, the members from different colleges have a right to attend sessions anywhere. DR. KEMP, an English chemist, in a recent work on his favorite science, remarks: "So it is, that, as we all sprang from putrefaction, or from dead matter that had never before been vitalized, so, in like manner, must all our frames return through the ordeal of putrefaction to the dead world. The muscle of the strong man, the bloom of beauty, the brain of the philosopher, must once more rot, as, doubtless, they have often rotted before, and are destined, in the continual phasis and circulation of matter, to rot again. The hand that writes this sentence, nay, the very brain that conceives the thought that the hand is mark ing down, was once earth, such as we all trample on, and soon will be earth again, and, perhaps, ere even the writer's name has ceased to be mentioned by those with whom he holds familiar intercourse, will be transformed into the cypress of the cemetery, or the daisies of the country church-yard. Nay, also the matter of that eye which reads this saying. and of the brain which receives that saying, and is, perhaps, startled at it, a little while ago was allied to the elements of inorganic matter; and the time can not be very distant ere some have to mourn over those terrible words read over it, of 'dust to The very tear dust, and ashes to ashes.' of affection was once water and a little rock-salt; and after a little time it will be water and rock-salt once more." GEORGE PEABODY the London banker. vers, Mass., upwards of two thousand volumes of choice selected books. They will be placed in the Peabody Institute. Ir is proposed by the Swedish government to measure an arc of the meridian in a high northern latitude, to be accompanied by experiments with the pendulum first tested by the English standard instruments at Kew. A MATHEMATICAL QUESTION.-Will some mathematical correspondent of yours oblige several anxious inquirers with a correct reply to the following question: Suppose a ship is sailing ahead at the rate of thirty miles an hour, and suppose a cannon-ball to be fired from a gun in her stern, straight astern, and that this, too, is propelled at the rate of thirty miles an hour, how far apart would the two objects -the ship and the cannon-ball-be at the end of an hour, supposing both to continue their course, on a right line, for an hour. -Post. A ROYAL Academy Medal has been given to Mr. Gassiot, the famous electrician, to whom we owe many important discoveries in his favorite science. To him we are indebted for the settlement of the dispute whether the voltaic battery owed its energy to the contact of its metals or to chemical action. He showed by actual experiment that its action could be main tained, though the metals are separated by strata of air. He also demonstrated that voltaic and frictional electricity are the same, and also that a perfect vacuum is not a conductor of the fluid. THE minor planets now number seventynine in the catalogues of the astronomers. ARTIFICIAL marble has been obtained both by Sir James Hall of England and Professor Rose of Prussia, by subjecting chalk to a high heat in a close vessel. THERE is some apprehension entertained by leading British geologists that in three centuries their country will be destitute of coal. Professor Arnsted and Sir William Armstrong agree in this opinion, and give the following reasons. There are in fact left of good coal but thirty-five thousand millions of tons. The present annual con sumption is one hundred millions. So that the time may come when coals will have to be carried to Newcastle after all. THE metal called Vanadium, discovered in English pig-iron, has been detected in varieties of iron ochre. Its most practical use is in the preparation of writing ink. To a solution of nutgalls is added a minute portion of vanadic acid, and the ink thus obtained is intensely black, and indelible by the ordinary agents which destroy the color of the iron-ink in common use. It also resists a high temperature. The inference is, that its use will prevent alteration or forgeries in writings of special importance. MOISTURE IN THE AIR.-One of the most curious and interesting of the recent discoveries of science is, that it is to the presence of a very small proportion of a watery vapor in our atmosphere-less than one-half of one per cent.-that much of the beneficent effect of heat is due. The rays of heat sent forth from the earth after it be lost in space, but for the wonderful abhas been warmed by the sun, would soon sorbent properties of these molecules of aqueous vapor, which act with many thousand times the power of the atoms of oxygen and nitrogen of which the air is composed. By this means the heat, instead of being transmitted into infinitude as fast as produced, is stopped or dammed up, and held back on its rapid course, to furnish the necessary conditions of life and growth. Let this moisture be taken from the air but for a single summer night, and the sun would rise next morning upon a "world held fast in the iron grip of frost." But the power of absorption and of radiation in the same body are always equal, so that else our atmosphere would become a vast at length it is poured forth into space; reservoir of fire, and all organic life be burned up. DUST TO DUST.-Something to think about: 66 Imperial Cæsar, dead, and turned to clay, THE Commerce of the world requires 3,600,000 able-bodied men to be constantly traversing the sea. The amount of property moved on the water is from $1,560,000,000 or $2,000,000,000, and the average annual loss is $25,000,000. GREAT CURIOSITY.-A singular meteorite, of immense size, has just been received at the Smithsonian Institution, in Washington, and is attracting much attention. It is in the shape of a ring, the greatest diameter being over four feet. Its weight is fourteen hundred pounds. It was presented to the institution by the Ainsa family, of California, and will be known as the "Ainsa Meteorite." A full analysis and history of the meteorite will be published by the institution. COUNT KHELEFF-BEDBUSCORODKO, the brother-in-law of the medium Hume, has made by will a handsome present to the Petersburg Academy of Arts, viz., his whole picture gallery, one of the richest in the whole Russian empire, with the condition that it shall be open daily and gratuitously to everybody, without distinction of rank or dress. 59 gen, diffused through five and a half pailfuls of water. In plants we find water thus mingling no less wonderfully. A sunflower evaporates one and a quarter pints of water a day, and a cabbage about the same quantity. A wheat plant exhales, in a hundred and seventy-two days, about one hundred thousand grains of water. An acre of growing wheat, on this calculation, draws and passes out about ten tons of water per day. The sap of plants is the medium through which this mass of fluid is conveyed. It forms a delicate pump, up which the watery particles run with the rapidity of a swift stream. By the action of the sap, various properties may be communicated to the growing plant. Timber in France is, for instance, dyed by various colors being mixed with water and poured over by the root of the tree. Dahlias are also colored by a similar process. CURIOUS FACTS ABOUT WATER.-The extent to which water mingles with bodies apparently the most solid is very wonderful. The glittering opal, which beauty wears as an ornament, is only flint and water. Of every twelve hundred tons of earth which a landholder has in his estate four hundred are water. The snow-capped summits of Snowden and Ben Nevis have many million tons of water in a solidified form. In every plaster of Paris statue which an Italian carries through our streets for sale, there is one pound of water to every four pounds of chalk. The air we breathe contains five grains of water to each cubic foot of its bulk. The potatoes and the turnips which are boiled for our dinner have, in their raw state, the one seventyfive per cent., the other ninety per cent., of water. If a man weighing ten stone were squeezed flat in a hydraulic press, seven and a half stone of water would run out, and only two and a half of dry residue remain. A man is, chemically speaking, forty-five pounds of carbon and nitro THE AGE of a young lady is now expressed according to the present style of skirts, by saying that eighteen springs have passed over her head. THE three most difficult things are--to keep a secret, to forget an injury, and to make good use of leisure. LABORERS LEAVING CANADA.-The Montreal papers are complaining of the exodus of laborers from Canada to the United States. They say that so many working men have left the province to earn the high wages that are paid in the States, that soldiers have to be employed to load the ships at the wharves in Montreal. AUTOGRAPHS OF THE SUN. - Professor Selwyn's "autographs of the sun" have attracted much attention in the scientific world. They were taken by his heliautograph, an instrument which consists of a camera and instantaneous slide attached to a refractor of two and three-fourth inches aperture. These autographs are of July 25, 26, 28, 29, 31; August 1, 2, 4;—a series of bright days coincident with a large group of spots; August 19, 20, 23, and 25, where the same group reappears much diminished; September 19, 23, 26, and 30, in which is seen a group of 118,000 in length. On the 23d, three autographs were taken, two of them with the edge of |