Atlantic Monthly.-Contents of Oct. No.: Near Oxford, Cyril Wilde, Crawford's Statues at Richmond, Journal of a Privateersman, Concerning People of whom More might have been Made, My Friend's Library, The Name in the Bark, Agnes of Sorrento, Night in a Wherry, Story of To-day, Time's Household, What we , are Coming to, Panic Terror, Our Country, The Wormwood Cordial of History, with a Fable of the Front Teeth and the Grinders, by O. W. Holmes. This number is very attractive.

HARPER'S MONTHLY for October. Boquet's Expedition, by J. T. Headly; Coast Rangers of Cal., by J. Ross Brown; Sporting in Spitzbergen; Olney Farm, by Anthony Trollope; all finely illustrated. Then comes the usual variety of short pieces. The adventures of Philip, by Thackery, Monthly Record of Current Events, Easy Chair, Foreign Bureau, Drawer, and Fashions. A very interesting and readable number.

HOME MONTHI.Y, devoted to Home Education, Literature, and Religion, and edited by Rev. Wm. M. Thayer. This is a most valuable periodical for the family, just such an one as every christian parent would desire to place before his children. It is varied so as to meet the wants of children, youth, young men and women, and the fathers and mothers. $2,00 per annum. E. W. Childs & Co., Boston.

PETERSON'S LADIES' NATIONAL MAGAZINE.-This popular periodical is very prompt in its monthly appearance, and rich in its usual variety of Fashion Plates, Patterns, Receipts, Engravings, and General Reading.

The Water Cure World.-This valuable little monthly has been suspended, together with the Water Cure kept by its worthy Editor, Dr. Blackall. The pressure of the times is the cause. Those who have at heart an earnest desire to benefit their race, are not generally the best financiers, nor do they often have at their command the means necessary to carry out their benevolent plans. But the chief reward of the true Reformer is the consciousness of the fact that he has at heart the best interest of his race, and that the principles he has espoused will at the last triumph, though not till his body is mouldering back to dust. May the Doctor find a field of labor in his Western Home, where a success shall attend him that shall be worthy of the cause of which he is so faithful and honest an expo

nent.

UPON COMMUNITY. NO. 3.

By reference to discussions in the British Parliament, as late as 1856, we perceive that some English Statesmen do not entertain our views on the importance of educating the laboring classes.

In speaking to resolutions in favor of a national system of instruction, Mr. Ball reasoned as follows from his own farming experience. Four families had been employed on his farm. Wm. Chapman, ten years a servant; his own wages thirteen shillings besides a house; he had seven children who earned nine shillings a week. Robert Arbor, fifteen years on the farm; his own wages thirteen shillings, six children earned six shillings. John Stevens, thirty-three years a servant on the farm, earned fourteen shillings a week; ten children earned twelve shillings, making twenty-six shillings. Robert Carbon, twenty-two years a servant on the farm; wages thirteen shillings a week; ten children, ten shillings a week, making twentythree shillings a week. Here the children earned more than two-thirds the amount earned by the fathers. Now he would ask the House, if the fathers were to be depriv ed of the earnings of their children, how could they provide bread for them? It would be simply impossible! And further, he said, any person at all conversant with agriculture, must know that if the farmer was deprived of the labor of these children, agriculture could not be carried on! There is no machinery by which they could get the weeds out of the land.

And Mr. Drummond, in the House of Commons, argues

against a national system of education, in this wise. "And, pray, what do you propose to rear your youth for? Are you going to train them for Statesmen? No. The honorable gentleman laughs at the notion, and so do I. But you are going to fit them to be what? Why, cotton spinmers, and pin makers, or if you please, blacksmiths, mere day-laborers. These are the men whom you are to teach foreign languages, mathematics, and the notation of Music. Was there ever any thing more absurd? It really seems as if God had withdrawn common sense from this House."

To an enlightened New England mind, these sober thoughts of English Statesmen seem not only absurd but ridiculous. Yet, they are the opinions of learned men, in the middle of the nineteenth century; and they are based upon the assumption that the laboring classes need not, and should not, be educated. We take the opposite ground and maintain that with every material interest of society, the demand of labor upon learning is imperative. The mind of the nation is its Capital. Political, economists speak of money as capital, and sometimes include machinery, tools, flocks, herds, and lands. But what are all these without the producing, directing force which mind alone furnishes? Civilization is only another name for mental and moral progress. How blind, therefore, to the interests of society are those who would withhold from any member of community the advantages of a thorough practical education. Mr. Ball reminded the members of the British Parliament that there is no machinery by which farmers can get weeds from their land. This is not quite true, but once there was no machinery for planting and sowing and gathering crops.

And what has produced the introduction of labor-saving machines, in all the mechanic arts and in all departments of agriculture? What but the influence of our public schools?

The utility of these improvements is very manifest. The manufacture of pins was commenced in England in

1583, and for two hundred and fifty years that kingdom had the exclusive control of the trade. Yet during all that period no improvement or change was made in the process; while in America, the business was revolutionized simplified and economized one half, in five years. Mr Flint, Secretary of the Mass. Board of Agriculture, stat ed in his annual report for 1855, "That the saving to the country for improvements in ploughs alone, within the last twenty-five years, has been estimated at no less than ten million of dollars a year in the work of teams, and one million in the price of ploughs, while the aggregate of crops is supposed to have been increased by many millions of bushels." This is only one of the many improvements which have been made in the field of agriculture. With the help of these new implements of husbandry, the few laborers will accomplish more in 1861 than the many could in 1826. So now, our youth may attend school, and yet our farming interests will not suffer. There is now no branch of manufacture without its appropriate machine. But every machine is the product of mind, disciplined and enlarged by culture.

The steam-engine, the spinning-jenny, the loom, the cotton gin are notable instances of what learning has done for manufacturing industry. According to Chief Justice Marshall's estimate, Whitney's cotton-gin has saved to this country more than one thousand million of dollars. Yet all this is a contribution of science to labor, illustrating the utility and importance of public schools. And can an statesman in any nation, be so stupid as to regard the common laborer as a mere bundle of muscles and bones, with no destiny but ignorance, servitude and poverty?

Science has also contributed with lavish hand to Commerce. It has given her the mariner's compass; it has improved the model for the construction of vessels; has traced out the path of currents in the ocean and brought under the mariner's subjection, wind, tide and steam, so as to make his service available to the merchant, and

through him to every class in community. General intelligence has indeed made all the difference between the commercial world as it was in the days of the old Phoenician navigators, and the present age of steam and lightning. And has improved labor failed to receive its reward? By no means. Within sixty years, the wages of the common laborer in America have increased from seventy-five to one hundred per cent., while the articles necessary and convenient for his use have diminished in value. Indeed, there is no exclusiveness in the benefits which learning confers, and there ought to be no exclusiveness in the enjoyment of educational privileges. Mr. Drummond's opposition, in the House of Commons, to a national system of education, was based upon the false notion that the best condition of society contemplates facticious distinctions of birth and fortune. But we reject this theory with contempt. The question with us is not from what family or class shall the pin maker be taken. Our theory is, educate the whole people. Our public schools will develop every variety of talent, taste and power; and these qual ities will direct each man to his own proper position in society. If the son of a blacksmith becomes a statesman, it is because statesmanship needs him and he has qualities answering its demands. And if the son of a statesman only reaches the condition of a common laborer, it is because he has found his appropriate sphere, and the world will be the better that the position of each was assigned by Providence and not by the arrogant claims of Aristocracy. This view of our subject, with its practical application, tends to break down all unnatural distinctions among men, and to render labor of every sort and among all classes, acceptable and honorable. This is as it should be; but universal education is the only agency that could mould society into this form.

Ignorance is the degradation of labor, and where the laboring class are ignorant their vocation is shunned and often despised by those who claim more intelligence. The