"The Massachusetts Teacher." Each number shall contain

sixteen pages.

2. This publication shall be furnished to subscribers for $1,00 per year, payable in advance; and if the receipts shall exceed the expenditures, said excess shall go into the Treasury of the Massachusetts Teachers' Association.

3. The several members of the committee shall, in rotation, take charge of a number, and be its nominal and responsible editor.

4. The general oversight of its publication shall be intrusted to an Executive Committee, consisting of four of the Board.

Such is the original outline of the plan upon which the Teacher was established. As experience has demonstrated the need of modifications, they have from time to time been introduced; but the main features have not been changed. At the close of the first year, it was deemed advisable to make the issue monthly instead of semi-monthly, and at the same time a contract was made with a responsible publisher, who agreed to take the management of the business affairs of the concern, and incur the trouble and risk of publishing, for the profits that might

accrue.

Subsequently, the plan of conducting the editorial department received some modification. A few pages of each number were appropriated to local and general educational intelligence, notices of new works on the subject of education, abstracts from reports, and miscellaneous items. The management of this department was placed in the hands of the Executive Committee, and we are gratified to learn that this feature of the publication has contributed in some degree, to render it acceptable to its patrons. It is believed that in future, no reasonable effort will be spared to make this department more full and satisfactory.

Some steps have been taken towards another improvement which we are inclined to believe will be a valuable one. At the late annual meeting of the State Association, a sum of money was appropriated to defray the expense of procuring some of the best trans-Atlantic educational journals, in order to nrich the pages of the Teacher with what is most valuable in their contents. In Germany, where the art of teaching has been carried to a higher degree of perfection than in any other country whatever, there are more than thirty periodicals devoted exclusively to the cause of education. From this field we hope to reap a rich harvest for our readers.

These are some of the steps which have been taken to elevate the character and increase the usefulness of this journal. Of the success which has attended these efforts we shall not pre

sume to speak. We leave that to the judgment of others. The subscription list of the publisher is perhaps the most reliable index of the estimation in which the Teacher is held by our fellow-teachers.

From this source we gather encouragement. Ever since the commencement of the enterprise the number of subscribers has steadily increased. And it is a circumstance worthy of remark, that very few who are exclusively devoted to teaching as a profession, have discontinued their subscriptions. The call for complete sets is a flattering and gratifying indication that it is considered worth preserving in libraries.

The profits of the concern are as yet only nominal, and it was found necessary to draw from the funds of the Association to carry it through the first year of its life.

The practical question which we would now put to the teachers of this State is this, Will you give the "Massachusetts Teacher" a more liberal support, and thus make it more worthy of your patronage, and more worthy of the great interests to which it is devoted? Its future character and history must of course depend in a great measure upon the support you give to it. It is your paper, and we wish you so to consider it. If you do not sustain it by subscriptions, it must languish. If you do not send your contributions to its columns, who will? That it has imperfections we do not doubt. What periodical has not? But let every teacher in Massachusetts lend a hand to improve it, and it will become, if it is not now, the pride of the profession.

We hold that it is the duty of every teacher in Massachusetts to take and read an educational paper, and when we find a person in a permanent situation as a teacher, without such a publication, if we do not conclude there is something "rotten in Denmark," we do feel pained. If any have arrived at such an enviable degree of perfection in the science and art of teaching that they can glean no new ideas from such a source, we congratulate them on their good fortune, and since they do not need a paper for themselves, we can only ask them to help sus tain one for the sake of their less fortunate brethren.

It is the design of the Teacher "to advance the true interests of our profession, and to promote the great cause of education," and its conductors have labored to accomplish this object. They have also steadily kept in view the importance of making it a practical paper, in the best sense of the term; and although they would not discontinue the discussion of elevated topics, and the development of fundamental principles in education, they intend to publish a due proportion of articles upon subjects immediately connected with the duties of the school-room. It is expected that every number will contain at least one article adapted

to the wants of such teachers as have had little or no expe rience.

We hope to be able to publish in the present volume, one, and perhaps the three annual reports of the present Secretary of the Board of Education.

Brother Teachers, with these remarks, we present you with the first number of a new volume of "The Massachusetts Teacher," and from our "heart of hearts" wish you all a happy new year.

DRAWING

ON THE PRINCIPLES OF PESTALOZZI, FOR THE CULTIVATION OF
TASTE AND INVENTION.

BY PROF. WM. J. WHITAKER,

Principal of the New England School of Design, Boston, Mass.

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1851, by
WILLIAM J. WHITAKER,

In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts.

FIRST COURSE.

THIS art is too frequently looked upon as one which only those who have special talent or genius can acquire, and is regarded as an elegant accomplishment, or foible, rather than as one of the parts essential to sound education, and one that will be useful to every man, woman, and child, who will spend the time requisite to learn it thoroughly; and to do this, no more talent or genius is required than serves us in many other branches of study. It may become familiar to all who have the necessary amount of patient perseverance to overcome the absurd preju dices of narrow conventional bonds, and to wade through the apparently dry routine of small matters requisite to thoroughness in any branch of education. The necessity of knowing how to draw must be apparent to every teacher who desires to do his or her work effectually, as they daily require its aid in the routine of school exercises; and to teach many branches without making liberal use of it, is almost impossible.

Suppose, for instance, we take geography as an illustration. The children may have never seen mountains or rocks. But by a few strokes with a crayon on the blackboard, they appear before their wondering eyes, and by well directed description, the size, extent, general features and character are all made clear; the more so because done by a teacher's hand. In a lesson in the old country on Wales, the mountains of course came in, were drawn and described. The teacher proposed to ascend one of the highest, and it was done in imagination. They came

to the base, clambered the sides, now and then rolling down, or slipping back many feet, found themselves a good way from the summit, which a moment before they expected soon to reach ; at last the task was done, and after enjoying the view from the top, the descent began. One little girl remarked, when safe at the bottom, "I am so glad we are safe down, I feel so tired." And yet the class had scarce moved during the whole lesson. Not alone in this subject is it useful, but in almost every branch -even in arithmetic it aids us in measurement; and in the more advanced studies, as geometry, geology, botany, physiology, and the mechanical arts, how essential to both teacher and pupil.

In children it cultivates, if properly taught, the powers of observation, and leads them to investigate many things they would never have dreamed of without it.

Let us endeavor to make it a branch of education for its own intrinsic value, and for a still higher purpose-that of cultivating among the people a universal love of beauty. We shall thus improve art, manufacture, and public taste. The hideous forms too frequently seen on ladies' apparel must disappear and give place to designs becoming the wearer, and such as will be in perfect harmony with the highest form of material development. Our dwellings will be improved, for all that belongs to their ornamental and useful furniture and decoration must be changed so that it will be in keeping with the improved taste and appreciation of all beautiful productions, whether manufactured or natural. Beauty will become cheap, and its influence on society will increase as it becomes more universal among us.

To the pupil it is important, more especially in after life, for its connection with manufacture is so extensive that it is impossible to define its limits, or tell when its usefulness ends.

The modes of teaching drawing, or that which appears something like it, are extremely varied-mezzotints, poonah, monochromatic, and other humbugs of the same school. But what do they all amount to ?-Mechanical effect!-but fail to give one real vital principle.

Then we have copying, a mode made by far too much use of, and one that fails to give us the power we require—that of producing new and original ideas. If we copy a thousand prints or drawings, it will not enable us to produce one idea of our own, or even to sketch the simplest object from nature.

We have the new method of commencing with drawing from models, which is better than the last, but this also fails in many particulars. We have to develop the laws of perspective, which we do not see their necessity, or understand their use; therefore we must seek some method that will first give us the

power of drawing with freedom, and awaken thought, and by such means produce wants from which principles and laws will come in natural order. It is this kind of drawing we shall attempt in the present and succeeding papers to illustrate and develop. We call it Inventive Drawing, and commence in the simplest possible manner.

All Drawing may be reduced to one element-the line. Lines are of two kinds, straight and curved.

A straight line describes the shortest distance between two points, and has its sides equal. All lines are straight, whatever their position may be, if they have this character.

The curved line differs from the straight one, as it always changes its direction, and has its sides dissimilar, one being concave, the other convex. We commence with the straight line, and find its position can be varied, as the

Horizontal.

Perpendicular.

Slanting.

Sometimes another term is applied to perpendicular lines, viz., vertical, but not always correctly. All lines that are vertical, (or at right angles with the plane of the earth,) are perpendicular; while all perpendicular lines are not vertical. A ship, when in dock lying perfectly still has its masts vertical; as soon as it becomes exposed to the action of the wind and waves, they lose their vertical position, but remain pependicular to the deck of the ship.

We define a perpendicular line, as one standing erect on its end.

The horizontal, as a straight flat line, illustrated by the floor, the ceiling, the surface of water, &c.

The slanting line, as one that is neither perpendicular nor horizontal, and also less arbitrary in its character, for the two first will not admit of any modification, while this may incline, more or less, to the right or the left.

Combination means simply to put together. But we necessarily divide it into two parts, relative and positive. Relative,