le_ as he proceeds.
When students speak of their progress in study, their first qualifying
word should be _thorough_, after which, if they please, they may add
_rapid_.

The following circumstances, that have occurred in classes of both
ladies and gentlemen who have presented themselves for examination as
candidates for teaching, illustrate the nature and extent of the evil. I
have more than once received, in answer to the question "What is
language?" the following reply: "Language is an _unlimited sense_." I
have met with some experienced teachers, holding two or three town
certificates, who did not know one half of the marks and pauses used in
writing. They could, indeed, generally recite the answers in the
spelling-book with some degree of accuracy; but when the marks have been
pointed out, and their names and use have been asked, teachers _in
service_ have sometimes mistaken the note of _interrogation_ for a
_parenthesis_, and made other as gross errors. In answer to the question
"What is arithmetic?" I have several times received the following reply:
"It is the _art of science_," etc. Sometimes this constitutes the entire
reply. In one instance _four fifths_ of the class united in this answer.
The terms sum, remainder, product, and quotient are frequently applied
indiscriminately in the four ground rules of arithmetic. There are,
hence, three chances for them to be used erroneously where there is one
chance for them to be correctly applied. The following expressions are
common: _Add_ up and set down the _remainder_; _subtract_ and set down
the _quotient_; _multiply_ and write down the _sum_; _divide_ and write
down the _product_, etc.: never so much as thinking that sum belongs to
addition; remainder, to subtraction; product, to multiplication; and
quotient, to division. In attending the examination of such teachers,
any person of discernment will soon become satisfied that with them
"language is an unlimited sense;" that "arithmetic is the art _of_
science;" and that grammar, too, is "the art of science;" for the same
answer has been given to the question, "What is grammar?" I introduce
these things, not for the purpose of ridiculing any portion of our
teachers, but to exemplify the extent of the evil under consideration.

The majority of teachers manifest a tolerable familiarity with the
branches usually taught in our common schools. They have not, however,
generally studied more than one author on the same subj