Just out! "The" Book for Families, Schools and Gymnasiums!

WATSON'S HAND-BOOK

OF

CALISTHENICS AND GYMNASTICS.

BY J. MADISON WATSON.

8vo. Cloth, $1.60.

PART FIRST of this volume, under the head of Vocai Gymnastics, embraces thorough and practical articles on Respiration and Phonetics, a masterly treatise on Elocution, and Recitations in Verse. PART SECOND, the most extended and varied course of exercises in Calisthenics ever published. PART THIRD, an exhaustive course of exercises in Gymnastics, with wands, dumb-bells, Indian clubs, and hand-rings.

This is the only gymnastic drill-book, with words of command, and classes of movements, systematically arranged, in any language. It is the first work that seizes the theories of educators and philanthropists, "the forms of things unknown,” and “turns them into shapes." In a word, it presents, in a simple and well-defined form, the means of rendering physical culture easy and certain to the rich and the poor, to persons of all ages, either individually or in classes.

Exercises for the lungs, the voice, the organs of speech, the joints, and all the muscles, are strictly classified, involving a prescribed number of positions and elementary movements, with an almost innumerable variety of combinations. These movements are executed simultaneously by several persons, in exact time, in connection with counting, phonetics, recitations, or music, either vocal or instrumental, thus insuring geniality, and generous emulation alike in the school, the family, and the gymnasium.

NINETEEN PIECES OF APPROPRIATE PIANOFORTE MUSIC Are introduced. Those not composed expressly for this work are selected and arranged, from the choicest productions of the ablest masters, by the well known and eminent musicians and composers

G. F. BRISTOW AND H. B. DODWORTH.

The wood cuts are more numerous and better executed than those of any corresponding work, either gymnastic or military. They are from original designs, illustrating positions actually taken, and movements executed by the author. It is printed on fine and heavy tinted paper. The typography is anrivaled.

This book is already adopted by the Board of Education of New York City.

Jan., 1864.

SCHERMERHORN, BANCROFT & CO.,

130 Grand St., New York, 25 North 4th St., Philadelphia. Sent by mail on receipt of $1.60.

NEW SERIES, VOL. XII., No. 3.

TERMS.-One Dollar a year, payable in advance. All remittances, letters and communications to be addressed to CHARLES NORTHEND, NEW BRITAIN, Conn.

POSTAGE.-Six cents a year, if paid in advance at the office where taken.

ON looking over the reports of the School Visitors of the cities and larger villages of our State, 1 observe an alarming disproportion between the number of "enumerated children" and the average attendance. The last report of the Superintendent of Common Schools presents very clearly the great disparity between attendance and enumeration, amounting to about one-sixth that never attend! This is not peculiar to our State. The great State of Ohio shows nearly the same disproportion. The State of Massachusetts, on the other hand, presents a much smaller ratio. It is not my purpose to compare one State with another, with the intention of showing that the ratio of attendance in our State is smaller or larger. I simply wish to look at our State as she is, and see if we can suggest a remedy.

In our midst are about one sixth of our youthful population that never attend school summer or winter!! What can be done? Shall the State. compel the attendance of her youth upon the schools she so wisely and liberally has establishVOL. XI.

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v. 19, No 3 1864

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Compulsory Attendance.

ed? It is a serious matter for the law to knock at the door of a citizen and say "You must surrender to me your child to train up and educate in our well established schools."

All will concede that the law might tax the citizen and compel its collection. It may enter his dwelling and ruthlessly tear from his family the father and son, to replete its wasted armies. It may punish him for the violation of the principles of justice and right. It may compel him to treat his wife and children, and even his cattle, with humanity and kindness.

But how far the law may cross his threshold and demand the time of his child for the purposes of education, is a more serious question.

Let us look for a moment at the laws that underlie society. Every person the moment he becomes a citizen, surrenders some of his inalienable rights. He virtually agrees to place himself, his property and his family, at the disposal of the State, when required for its own protection, or for the protection of his own family and property. He finds it is better to contribute a share of his property to the State for the protection it affords him, than to undertake to protect it himself.

Therefore, when the State demands his money for the security of person and property, he cheerfully gives it. When she needs his time and services for the benefit of the community, he voluntarily furnishes them. If, for the security, the peace, good order, the well being of the community, his inherent rights must be abridged, he yields.

Our ancestors thought, and we think wisely, that an enlightened civilization possesses advantages in every way superior to a civilization of barbarism.

Their first act after forming themselves into a civil society, was the establishment of the church and the school, the twin antagonisms of barbarism. They seemed to fully comprehend the idea that the form of government which they adopted, needed the development and culture of the highest powers of man to give it value and permanence. They seemed to regard education as underlying the fabric of the free in