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parents, you will permit me to offer a few suggestions to
them. In our visitations we have been very much gratified
with the evidences of faithfulness on the part of our teachers
generally, and the manifest improvement made by the child-
ren. We would however, impress upon the minds of all
our teachers the importance of giving attention to what might
be regarded as minor matters. First, in regard to reading,
we have found pupils in a few instances who seemed totally
ignorant of the use of stops, and who would sometimes make
a full pause at a comma, and treat a period as if it were s
comma or a semicolon. It is highly important that thr
teachers should give strict attention to the spelling and read-
ing of his pupils. They should be taught to enunciate every
word distinctly, and carefully to observe the stops and under-
stand their import. We were exceedingly gratified to find
many of our teachers careful in what might be regarded as
small things, but which nevertheless lie at the foundatioa
of good scholarship. We venture the opinion that the child-
ren who enjoy the instructions of such teachers as Messrs.
Nichols, Jones, Bidwell, Jacobs, Dodson, Cornelius, Mrs.
Ditty, Miss Chew, Miss Lang and many others in our Coun-
ty, are as well taught and will acquire as high an intellec-
tual culture as they could receive at any boarding school.
The more advanced pupils have made great proficiency in
Grammar, History, Chemistry, the Science of Common
Things and Natural Philosophy.

Having then these advantages, it behooves parents to see
to it that their children are punctual in their attendance,
that opportunities are afforded them to study their lessons at
home, and thus secure to their offspring all the advantages
within their reach. It is a matter of profound regret, that
along the Bay Shore, children in some instances do not at-
tend half the time. Their parents, being engaged in oyster-
ing and fishing, often keep their boys at home when they
ought to be at school.

And now, having hastily passed under review the opera-
tions of the new system in our County, we maybe permitted
to ask, ia view of its manifest superiority over all that have
preceded it, whether it is not the duty of every good citizen
and well-wisher of the rising generation, to use his influence
in favor of the cause of popular education. Even in a tem-
poral point of view it is our man if eat duty to do all that we
can tor the developiaent of these youthful minds. But when
we consider the nature of the human mind, and the gran-
deur of its destiny, its noble faculties already thrilling with
the strivings of Divinity; and which may be fitted by culture
to pass over all nature in triumph, observing all the crea-
tures by which it is encompassed, and congratulate itself on
its own superiority, And point out as proofs of its strength
and greatness the changes which have been wrought by its
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