He extended his readings and criticism to Quintilian aud Cicero, and encouraged free questions and discussions among his hearers. Not content with assailing the substance and method of Aristotelian philosophy, orally, he resorted to the press, and published in Latin, his Divisions, or Didactic Institutions, and Remarks on Aristotle. The debate, with his adversaries, was soon adjourned from the forum of scholars and professors to the domain of the courts, and finally to the highest tribunal of the realm, where Francis I., King of France, the Founder of the Royal College, whose mission it was to welcome new studies, promulgated the following decree :

FRANCIS, by the grace of God, King of France, to all who will see this present, Greeting. Whereas, there is slight warning of the trouble occurring to our dear and well beloved daughter, the University of Paris, because of two books made by Master Pierre Ramus, intitled, Dialecticae Institutiones, and the other Aristotelia animadversiones, and of the suit and differences arising, etc.-we have contemned, suppressed and abolished, we do contemn, suppress and abolish the said books, and have made and do make prohibitions and warnings to all printers and booksellers of our Kingdom, fiefs, domains, and seigniories, and to all other subjects of whatever condition and estate they be, that they neither sell, retail, etc., under pain of confiscation or corporal punishment; and likewise to the said Ramus to read (no more to teach) his said books, nor to have them written, or copied, or published, or spread abroad in any manner, nor to read in dialectics or philosopy, in any way whatever, without our express permission, and also to use no longer such slanders and invectives against ARISTOTLE and other ancient authors received and approved, against our said daughter, the University, and suffered by the same, under penalties above mentioned. So we give commandment to our provost of Paris, preserver of the privileges of said University, that he may cause the present ordinance and judgment to be executed, etc. In testimony of this, we have affixed our seal to this present. Given at Paris, March 2, year of Grace 1543. By the King, you, the Chancellor of Chesnage, being present.

Ramus was silenced-but found a friend and patron in Cardinal of Lorraine, who had been a fellow student of his at Navarre, and who on the death of Francis I. obtained in 1547 from his successor, a revocation of the literary interdict. In the meantime he taught mathematics, and in 1544 published a Latin version of Euclid, and made this branch one of the most popular in Paris. In this year he was invited by the principal of the College of Presles to lecture on Eloquence, where his fervid utterances restored the attendance of pupils, which had been greatly reduced by the plague. In the following year he was made principal of the institution, which post he held to the end of his life, and for the most of his time, after 1551, he was professor of eloquence and philosophy in the college of France. In all the educational discussions of his time, touching grammar, rhetoric, dialectics, philosophy, mathematics, the French, Latin, and Greek languages, he not only spoke in his lecture-room, but published-his different treatises amounting to upwards of fifty-many of which passed through several editions. His criti

cisms on the studies and administration of the university, subjected him to bitter attacks from the regents, and his adoption of the reformatory doctrines, involved him in the religious persecutions of the day, and he died one of the victims of the massacre of St. Bartholomew, on the 26th of August, 1572.

Simple in his personal habits, he slept on straw, rose with the dawn, and worked all day in his study and lecture room. After setting apart enough to meet his own frugal expenses, he shared with the members of his family, and with poor scholars, the moiety of his earnings, and the other portion he consecrated to the endowment of the chair of mathematics in the College of France, the occupant of which was to be named in convocation, and to hold the position for only three years, without formal re-election.

EDUCATIONAL WORK.

The influence of Ramus on educational progess was felt (1,) in his persistent opposition to Aristotelian scholasticism which then ruled the University; (2,) in his efforts to renovate the organization and administration of higher studies; and (3,) his sagacious simplification of text-books and methods of instruction.

1. He was eminently successful in recognizing the value of other studies and authors than those of the Aristotelian philosophy, and by the fire of his own eloquence he illustrated the fervid genius of Demosthenes, and the finished rhetoric of Cicero, to whose works he introduced his students.

2. His Avertissement sur la reforme de l'universite de Paris, at once exposes the abuses which had overgrown the university organization, and points out the remedy. Having felt the sting of poverty, and the hardship which the fees exacted of all candidates for degrees imposed on the indigent [that of a licentiate being fifty-six livres; of a doctorate of medicine, eight hundred and eighty-one livres; and of theology, one thousand], he says to the king: "Put a stop to such impositions, which bars the course of philosophy, theology and medicine, to honest, worthy, and talented poverty; redeem the number of able masters; pay the most deserving from the coffers of the State, and make their lectures free-or else let the remuneration of all the lectures be drawn from the monastic endowments which are now practically wasted. In the faculty of Arts establish chairs of mathematics and physics; in the juridical faculty, a chair of civil law; in the medical faculty, chairs of Botany, Anatomy, Pharmacy, and practical Chimie, under the eyes of their professors, in the style of Hippocrates and Galen; in the the

WILLIAM C. WHITFORD.

WILLIAM CLARK WHITFORD, the eleventh president of the Wisconsin State Teachers' Association, was born in West Edmeston, Otsego County, N. Y., May 5th, 1828. His parents belong to the New England stock, his father's family having emigrated from Massachusetts, and his mother's from Rhode Island. Although reared in a newly settled country, and enjoying very limited advantages for obtaining even a common school education, they took a deep interest in the intellectual and religious training of their children.

Mr. Whitford worked on the farm in summer, and attended a district school in winter, until he was seventeen years of age, when he entered Brookfield Academy, N. Y., in which he remained a large share of the time for three years. At twenty, he taught a term of school in a most successful manner in the district where he had always resided in his boyhood. He then became a student in DeRuyter Institute, N. Y., and there completed his preparation to enter the senior class at Union College, in 1850.

He was compelled, on account of sickness, to leave the college before the close of his first term of attendance, but he returned and graduated in 1853. In the meantime he assisted in teaching in Milton Academy, Wis., one term, and had the charge of Union Academy. at Shiloh, N. J., for two years. He spent a summer in Madison County, N. Y., in making an elaborate map of portions of the county, to be published in Philadelphia. Resolving to engage in the work of the gospel ministry, he pursued a full course of study at Union Theological Seminary, New York City. He thereupon settled in 1856, as pastor of the Seventh-day Baptist Church, of Milton, Wisconsin. This position he held for three years; and under his labors the church more than doubled both its membership and its working power. In the last year of his ministry here, he took the oversight of the Academy, which was converted into a college in 1867, principally through his efforts.

The school has performed most thorough work under his administration, and enjoys a wide popularity. The attendance of students, some years, has reached over four hundred. It has given special attention to preparing both young men and ladies to teach in the public schools of the country, and has supplied as many as a hundred, some seasons. During the rebellion, three hundred and eleven students of the institution served in the Union army. Since the school became a college, it has numbered, each year, not less than seventy members in the regular college classes.

Mr. Whitford has taken a deep interest in the educational affairs of Wisconsin. He has often been called to lecture before teachers' institutes and lyceums on prominent questions of education. He has prepared several valuable papers for the State Teachers' Association, and among them, a careful history of the early educational movements in the State, which has been published by the State Historical Society. He has acted as a prominent member of the local organizations for improving the schools in the section where he resides, and was chosen President of the State Teachers' Association, for 1865. He represented his assembly district in the legislature of the State in 1868, and was chairman of the committee on education. Here he performed excellent work in the defense of the system of county superintendency of schools, and the introduction of some changes into the educational policy of the State. In 1867, he was appointed by the Governor, one of the regents of the State Normal School.

AMERICAN SCHOOLS AND EDUCATION.

Cotemporaneous Account-1796.

EXTRACTS FROM REV. W. WINTERBOTHAM'S VIEW OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. LONDON, 1796.

VERMONT.

MUCH can not be said in favor of the present state of literature in this State; but their prospects in this regard are good. In every charter of a town, provision is made for schools, by reserving a certain quantity of land solely for their support. The assembly of this State, in their October session in 1791, passed an act for the establishment of a college in the town of Burlington, on lake Champlain, on the south side of Onion River, and appointed ten trustees. General Ira Allen, one of the trustees, on certain conditions has offered lands, &c., to the amount of four thousand pounds towards this establishment.

NEW HAMPSHIRE.

The old laws of New Hampshire required every town of one hundred families to keep a grammar school; by which was meant a school in which the learned languages should be taught, and youth might be prepared for admission to a university. The same preceptor was obliged to teach reading, writing, and arithmetic, unless the town was of sufficient ability to keep two or more schools, one of which was called a grammar school by way of distinction.

Several instances occur in the public records, as far back as the year 1722, just at the beginning of an Indian war, that the frontier towns petitioned the assembly for a special act to exempt them from the obligation to maintain a grammar school during the war. The indulgence was granted them, but only on this condition, "that they should keep a school for reading, writing and arithmetic;" to which all towns of fifty families were obliged. In latter times the conduct of the same towns has been very different. During the late war with Britain, not only those, but many other towns, large and opulent, and far removed from any danger by the enemy, were for a great part of the time destitute of any public schools, not only without applying to the legislature for permission, but contrary to the express requirements of law, and notwithstanding courts of justice were frequently holden, and grand jurors solemnly sworn and charged to present all breaches of law, and the want of schools in particular. This negligence was one among many evidences of

a most unhappy prostration of morals during that period; it af forded a melancholy prospect to the friends of science and of virtue, and excited some generous and philanthropic persons to devise other methods of education.

Among these, John Philips, Esq., of Exeter, was the first to distinguish himself, by founding and endowing a seminary of learning in that town; which, in the year 1781, was by an act of assembly incorporated by the name of "Philips's Exeter Academy." It is placed under the inspection of a board of trustees, and is governed by a preceptor and an assistant. In this academy are taught the learned languages, the principles of geography, astronomy, mathematics, and logic, besides writing, music, composition, oratory, and virtue. The fund belonging to this institution is valued at nearly ten thousand pounds. About one-fifth part of this fund, lying in lands, is at present unproductive, but the actual income amounts to four hundred and eighty pounds per annum.

Since the establishment of this academy several others have been erected; one of which is at New Ipswich; it was incorporated in 1789; its fund is about one thousand pounds; the number of students is generally between forty and fifty; the price of tuition is one shilling per week, and of boarding five shillings.

There is another academy at Atkinson, founded by Nathaniel Peabody, Esq., and incorporated by the general court in the year 1790. The preceptor has been chiefly supported by Mr. Peabody; and he has endowed the academy with a donation of one thousand acres of land.

Similar institutions have been begun at Amherst, at Charlestown, and at Concord; which though at present in a state of infancy, yet afford a pleasing prospect of the increase of literature in various parts of the State.

A law has been lately made, which enforces the maintenance of schools by a peculiar sanction; the select men of the several towns are liable to have the same sum distrained out of their estates, which would be sufficient to support a school during the whole time in which they neglect to make that provision. This law is so recent that no judgment can as yet be formed of its operation. It shows, however, that the legislature are attentive to this most important branch of their duty, the education of the rising generation.

As a farther evidence of the progress of science, social libraries are established in several towns in this State; and in the year 1791 a medical society was incorporated by an act of Assembly. The president of the State being a gentleman of the faculty, is at the head of this society.

By an article in the constitution of the State, it is declared to be "the duty of legislators and magistrates to cherish the interest of literature and the sciences, and all seminaries and public schools; to encourage private and public institutions, rewards, and immuninities for the promotion of agriculture, arts, sciences, commerce, trades, manufactures, and the natural history of the country; to countenance and inculcate the principles of humanity and general