schools of seven hundred, of a hundred and I have repeatedly obtained a bright voluntary eighty, and of a hundred scholars, testifies attention from each of these classes for five, that in his experience "two hours in the ten, or fifteen minutes more, but I observed morning and one in the afternoon is about it was always at the expense of the succeeding lesson; or, on fine days, when the foreas long as a bright voluntary attention can noon's work was enthusiastically performed, be secured." Particular children could sus- it was at the expense of the afternoon's tain attention longer, but they would be work. I find the girls generally attend betscarcely five per cent of the whole number ter and longer than the boys, to lessons on taught. With efficient teaching of an inter-grammar and composition; the boys better esting subject he has found that no one and longer than the girls, to geography, history, arithmetic, and lessons on science." lesson could with advantage be pressed beyond half an hour. "The benefits," he Mr. Bolton, head-master of a Half-Time "of enforced attention are small. Factory School at Bradford, where nearly says, With young children, of the average age five hundred children are now being taught, attending British schools, if you get a quar- and who has had seven years' experience of ter of an hour's attention, and having pro- the half-time system, after seven years' exlonged the lesson to half an hour, then perience of full-time teaching, says that he recapitulate, you will find that the last finds the half-time scholars "more advanced. quarter of an hour's teaching had nearly They come fresh from work to school, and driven out what the first quarter of an hour they go fresh from school to work. I beput in." Mr. Imeson, who has been for lieve that the alteration is in both ways eight-and-twenty years a teacher, and has beneficial." To which Mr. Walkers, one of taught children of all classes, is of the same the firm in whose factory the same children opinion. Study, or the attempt at it, for are employed, adds his testimony that, seven hours a day, destroys, he says, the "where I had to complain one hundred willing mind. Mr. Isaac Pugh, who has times thirty years ago, I now have scarcely taught during thirty years of work about to complain once." He is asked, "Do you three thousand boys, says that with boys of find your commercial interest in the imthe higher classes, attention has been kept provement?" and answers, "Most decidedly, on the stretch for two hours in the morning, notwithstanding that we spend a very large and afterwards from the same class he might get an hour's positive attention in the afternoon, but even that could not be done day after day. Mr. Cawthorne, after twelve years' experience, agrees with Mr. Pugh; Mr. Long, who is teaching in one large but considering his low estimate to refer to school both sorts of pupils, says that in his the silent working system, thinks that with experience of six years, "the half-time or a different system half an hour's additional factory boys, give us a more fixed attention attention might be got in the morning, and than the others; they seem to be more as much more in the afternoon. But it is anxious to get on, and I believe that in not all equally good. Even with varied general attainments they are quite equal to relief lessons, he says: "In the morning we the full-time scholars." Mr. Curtis, after find the last half-hour very wearying; in nineteen years of teaching in a large school the afternoon, we find the first half-hour at Rochdale where some hundreds are bright, the next half-hour less bright, and taught, rather more than half the number the last half-hour worse than useless." Mr. being half-timers, says: "the progress of Donaldson, of Glasgow, who has for eight the half-timers is greater in proportion years taught in large schools, gives a table. He says: "My experience as to the length of time children closely and voluntarily attend to a lesson, is : sum on the school every year." As the half-day's work brightens attention to the schooling, so the half-day's schooling, in its turn, brightens attention to the work. than that of the full-timers," and that they are, from having begun early to work, preferred by gentlemen who give employment. Mr. Davenport, a machine-maker, employing five or six hundred workpeople, Children of from 5 to 7 years of age, about 15 min. gives indeed, as an employer, very emphatic 66 7 to 10 20 66 testimony on this head. He says: "In my experience as an employer, the short-time scholars are decidedly preferable to the full- | select the prize students, and the general time scholars, or those who have been ex- character of the drawing was better, and in clusively occupied in book instruction. I every case the drawing was executed with find the boys who have had the half-time industrial training, who have been engaged by us as clerks or otherwise, better and more apt to business than those who have had only the usual school-teaching of persons of the middle class, and who came to us with premiums. In fact, we have declined to take any more of that class, though they offer premiums. They give too much trouble, and require too much attention.” Another teacher, after ten years' large experience, says, not only that the half-time scholars get on as fast as the others, but adds his belief that it is the impression of parents that their children get on as well in their book instruction in half as in full time;" and when he has had to select pupil teachers he has found that nearly all, or full threefourths, have been taken from half-timers. Mr. Turner, at Forden, teaching a hundred and sixty children, of whom seventy come only for half the day, says that he finds the half-time scholars "fully equal in attainments to the full-time scholars. I am not," he adds, "prepared to account for it, but the fact is decidedly so." greater promptitude. When I examined the Rochdale school, these peculiarities were startlingly evident, and I could not resist making a marked public statement to this effect. The discipline of each school was excellent, the regularity of action and the quickness of perception such as I was in no wise prepared for; and at the time I could not have resisted-even if I had wished to resist the eonviction that this mainly arose from the feeling possessing the whole of the children that time was valuable and opportunity passing. Every one worked for him or her self, and thus was generated, as it appeared to me, a strong feeling of self-reliance, and, unconsciously to the learner, a respect for labor and a belief in the value of individual effort." To this, we shall all come some of these days. We shall have schools for pupils of all classes in which no more than the natural power of attention will be occupied, and where that will be strengthened instead of sickened and debilitated by excessive strain. The headwork will be balanced with the gymnastic discipline and the drill, that give We might go on accumulating evidence ease and precision to the movements of the like this, and add the experience of Mr. body, with a wholesome vigor to the mind. Hammersley, head-master of the Manchester But already the time is come when the truth School of Arts, a gentleman who has been now established should be applied to the for twenty years an Art teacher. Before vis- education of the children of the poor. One iting Rochdale, he says: "I had examined great difficulty is removed when the boy's many schools in Manchester and its neigh- help in the home is left to the parent, and it borhood, and I had, in every case, with one is only for half the day that he is claimed by exception, found that the short-time schools the schoolmaster, to be brightened even for I was home service while he is trained for an acgave me the most satisfactory results. able in these schools to eliminate a large tive, thoughtful, everywhere earnest, mannumber of successful works out of which to hood. SIR WILLIAM CUBITT, F.R.S., the eminent branches of mechanics, and when the Great Exengineer, died on the 13th Oct., aged seventy-hibition of 1851 was projected the supervision of seven, after an illness which had prevented him the construction of that novel building was enfor some years from following his professional trusted to him, and on the successful terminacareer. He was a very early member of the In- tion of that work he received the honor of knightstitution of Civil Engineers, of which he was hood. The last great works upon which he was one of the presidents. He was an eminently engaged were the two large floating landing practical man, and had entrusted to him many stages in the Mersey at Liverpool, and the new important and difficult works, which were exe-iron bridge across the Medway at Rochester, all cuted very successfully. In early life he made remarkable works, and worthy terminations of some eminently useful inventions in several a very active and useful professional career. From The Examiner. Life amongst the Indians. A Book for 1861. his bow and arrows in the other, and in this position was endeavoring to look at the sun, from its rising in the morning, until it set at night; moving himself around the circle, inch by inch, as the sun moved. His friends were gathered around him, singing, and reciting the heroic deeds of his life, and his many virtues, and beating their drums and throwing down for him many presents, to encourage him and increase his strength; whilst his enemies and the sceptical were laughing at him and doing all they could to embarrass and defeat him. If he succeeds under all these difficulties, in looking at the sun all day, without fainting and falling, 'the Great Spirit holds him up, and therefore he is great medicine, and he has nothing else to do to make him, for the rest of his life, a medicine man; and compliments and presents are bestowed upon him in the greatest profusion. But if his strength fails him, and he falls, no matter how near to his complete success, shouts and hisses are showered upon him, and his disgrace not only attaches to him for the moment, for having dared to set himself up as medicine, but the scars left on his breasts are pointed to as a standing disgrace in his tribe, as long as he lives." THIS is a book which rather describes itself than admits of detailed description, its contents being chiefly anecdotical. In that respect, and, indeed, in all others,-it admirably answers the purpose for which it was intended, and we are fully persuaded that the volume will hold a distinguished place in every "Boy's Library." Most of us, who are grown up, remember the famous collection of pictures representing the North American Indians and their mode of life, with all their real articles of manufacture, which was exhibited for several years at the Egyptian Hall in Piccadilly. It is of those Indians, of their manner of warfare and domestic habits, of their weapons and their wigwams, and of the incidents which befall in their hunting-grounds, that Mr. Catlin now speaks; adding to the information thus conveyed the experience which he has since gathered in various countries nearer the equator. His narrative runs on in a very agreeable and familiar strain, exceedingly well adapted to the capacities of those whom he especially addresses, but it is not youth only that is likely to be benefited by Mr. Catlin's "Children of a larger growth," who pages: have forgotten what they once knew, may also have their recollections very usefully and pleasantly awakened. In illustration of our remarks, we turn to the volume and select a few out of an endless series of attrac-aid of a horse to ride; they overtake the wild tive stories. The probation which one class of "medicine-men "undergo would test the endurance of many of the candidates for admission to the College of Physicians, though an Oriental Yognee might think little of the ordeal. Here is the account: The way in which the Shiennes capture wild horses is thus described : "The judgment of man in guiding his horse enables him, on an animal of less speed, seldom is able to overtake the fleetest of to get alongside of a wild horse, though he them. But here is something more surprising yet-the Shiennes, who capture more wild horses than any other tribe, catch a great proportion of their horses without the horses on their own legs; which is done in this way: plunging into a band of wild horses while on the back of his own horse, the Indian separates some affrighted animal from the group, and forcing it off to the right or to the left, he dismounts from his own horse, and hobbling its feet, or leaving it in the hands of a friend, he starts upon his own legs, his body chiefly naked a lasso "The custom which is often practised coiled on his left arm, a whip fastened to the amongst them, and which he was trying, wrist of his right hand, and a little parched they call Looking at the Sun.' Here was a corn in his pouch, which he chews as he man, naked, with the exception of his breech-runs; and at a long and tilting pace which cloth; with splints about the size of a man's he is able to keep all day, he follows the affinger run through the flesh on each breast, to which cords were attached, and their other ends tied to the top of a pole set firmly in the ground, and which was bending towards him, by nearly the whole weight of his body hanging under it as he was leaning back, with his feet slightly resting on the ground. He held his medicine bag in one hand and frighted animal, which puts off at full speed. Throwing himself between the troupe and the animal he is after, and forcing it to run in a different direction, the poor creature's alarm causes it to over-fatigue itself in its first efforts, and to fall a prey to feebler efforts, but more judiciously expended. In the beginning of the chase, the horse discov ers his pursuer coming towards him, when The recent affair of "Bull's Run,” has he puts off at the greatest possible speed, familiarized the public with something very and at the distance of a mile perhaps, he like the panic here described :— stops and looks back for his pursuer, who is coming at his regular pace, close on to him! Away goes again the affrighted steed, more alarmed than ever, and at its highest speed, and makes another halt, and another, and another; each time shorter and shorter, as he becomes more and more exhausted; while his cool and cunning pursuer is getting nearer to him. It is a curious fact, and known to all the Indians, that the wild horse, the deer, the elk, and other animals, never run in a straight line: they always make a curve in their running, and generally-but not always to the left. The Indian seeing the direction in which the horse is leaning' knows just about the point where the animal will stop, and steers in a straight line to it, where they arrive near the same instant, the horse having run a mile, and his pursuer but half or three-quarters of the distance. The alarmed animal is off again; and by a day's work of such curves, and such alarms, before sundown at night the animal's strength is all gone; he is covered with foam, and as his curves are shortened at last to a few rods, his steady pursuer, whose pace has not slackened, gets near enough to throw the lasso over the animal's neck." "The most striking singularities in the personal appearance of these people were those of complexion, and color of their hair and eyes. I have before said that black hair, black eyes, and cinnamon color were the national characteristics of all American savages; but to my great surprise I found amongst the Mandans, many families whose complexions were nearly white, their eyes a light blue, and their hair of a bright, silvery gray, from childhood to old age! This singular appearance I can account for only by the supposition that there must have been some civilized colony in some way engrafted on them, but of which neither history nor tradition seem as yet to furnish any positive proof. From having found several distinct Welsh words in use amongst them; their skin canoes round like a tub, and precisely like the Welsh coracle, and their mode of constructing their wigwams like that in use, at the present day, in the mountainous parts of Wales, I am strongly inclined to believe that this singularity has been caused by some colony of Welsh people who have landed on the American coast, and after having wandered into the interior, have been taken into this hospitable tribe." Stampado-did you ever hear of a stampado, my little readers? No; well, then, we'll have it. Stampado is a Spanish word, meaning a trampling,' or-what is much the same and perhaps more intelligible-a tremendous scrambling and scampering, when a party of some hundreds of bold and furious Indian warriors, mounted on their darting war-horses, with brandishing lances and war-clubs in hand, in the stillness and darkness of midnight, when wearied soldiers and their horses are fast asleep, dash at full speed, like the flash of lightning with the thunder following, into and through an encampment, mingling the frightful warwhoop with the unearthly sound of their parchment robes shaken in the hands to frighten the horses, not unlike, in their rattling sounds, to theatre thunder. The instant flash of a few guns begins the frightful melée, and in the confused escampette, the affrighted horses, en masse, dash against and over each other and their owners, and are off like a whirlwind upon the prairies at the highest speed, with their enemies behind them: leaving the scientific warriors with broken arms, with broken legs, and broken guns, upon their hands and knees, gazing through the dark in vain for some moving object to draw a bead' upon." Mr. Waterton's famous adventure is nearly paralleled by the following deed of daring in the Rio Trombutas, one of the Northern tributaries of the river Amazon: "When we had gone ashore one day, on a broad sand beach lying between the rivershore and the timber, and part of us having got out upon the beach, we were startled by a loud hissing, and we discovered a huge alligator coming at a full pace towards us, from the edge of the timber towards the water. We were about springing into the boat, but our daring little half-breed, better acquainted with these beasts than we were, ran without any weapon towards it, meeting it face to face. When they had got within ten or twelve feet of each other, the brute pulled up and lay stock still, with its ugly mouth wide open, the upper jaw almost falling over on to its back, and commenced the most frightful hissing! The little half-breed kept his position, and called out for a block of wood, and one of the men, by running a little way up the beach, brought a log of drift-wood the size of a man's thigh, and six or eight feet long. The half-breed took this in both hands, and balancing it in a hori zontal position, advanced up and threw it, broadside, into and across the creature's mouth; when, as quick as lightning, and with a terrible crash, down came upon it the upper jaw, with all its range of long and sharp teeth deeply driven into it. The little half-breed then stepped by the side of the animal and got astride of its back, and we all gathered round, turned the stupid creature over and over, and kicked and dragged it, but nothing would make it quit its deadly grasp upon the log of wood, and nothing ever could while it lived, for the Indians all told us it would live some eight or ten hours, but not longer." A concert of monkeys in the same region must have been a notable amusement at which to assist. "We stopped our boat one day for our accustomed midday rest in the cool shade of one of these stately forests, where there was a beautifully variegated group of hills, with tufts of timber and gaudy prairies sloping down to the river on the opposite shore. Our men had fallen asleep, as usual, in the boat, and I said to my friend Smyth, who, with myself, was seated on top of the bank, "How awfully silent and doleful it seems !not the sound of a bird or a cricket can be heard! suppose we have some music.' 'Agreed,' said Smyth; and raising the old Minié, he fired it off over the water. Sam followed with three cracks, as fast as they could be. got off! The party in the boat were all, of course, upon their feet in an instant, and we sat smiling at them. Then the concert began a hundred monkeys could be heard chattering and howling, treble, tenor, and bass, with flats and sharps, with semitones and baritones and falsettos, whilst five hundred at least were scratching, leaping, and vaulting about amongst the branches, and gathering over our heads, in full view, to take a peep at us. We sat in an open place, that they might have a full view of us, and we rose up to show ourselves at full length, that their curiosity might be fully gratified. With my opera-glass, which I took from my pocket, I brought all these little inquisitive, bright-eyed faces near enough to shake hands, and had the most curious view of them. I never before knew the cleanliness, the grace, and beauty of these wonderful creatures until I saw them in that way, in their native element and unrestrained movements. Where on earth those creatures gathered from in so short a time, in such numbers, it was impossible to conceive; and they were still coming. Like pigeons, they sat in rows upon the limbs, and even were in some places piled on each other's backs, 549 To give the inquisi- With an account of the blow-guns of the Connibos-a tribe on the shores of the Yucayali,—and of the deadly Waw-ra-li poison, into which they dip their arrows, we close our selection. The "The sole weapons of these people, and in fact of most of the neighboring tribes, are bows and arrows, and lances, and blowguns, all of which are constructed with great ingenuity and used with the most deadly effect. My revolver rifle, therefore, was a great curiosity amongst these, as with the other numerous tribes I had passed. I fired a cylinder of charges at a target to show them the effect, and had the whole tribe as spectators. After finishing my illustration, a very handsome and diffident young man stepped up to me with a slender rod in his hand of some nine or ten feet in length, and smilingly said that he still believed his gun was equal to mine; it was a beautiful blow-gun,' and slung, not on his back, but under his arm, a short quiver containing about a hundred poisoned arrows. young man got the interpreter to interpret for him, as he explained the powers of his weapon, and which until this moment I had thought that I perfectly understood. He showed me that he had a hundred arrows in his quiver; and of course so many shots ready to make; and showed me by his motions with it that he could throw twenty of them in a minute, and that without the least noise, and without even being discovered by his enemy whose ranks he would be thinning, or without frightening the animals or birds who were falling by them, and the accuracy of his aim, and the certainty of death to whatever living being they touched! This tube was about the size of an ordinary man's thumb, and the orifice large enough to admit the end of the little finger. It was made of two small palms, one within the other, in order to protect it from warping. This species of palm is only procured in certain parts of that country, of the proper dimensions and straightness to form those wonderful weapons. Opening his quiver, the young man showed and explained to me his deadly arrows, some eight or nine inches in length. Some of them were made of very hard wood, according to the orignal mode of construction; but the greater and most valuable portion of them were made of knit |