.. 668 567 Bean, et du Bien-George Sand's La Filleule-Avellane- Miss Bremer's Homes of the New World,... 664 457 les Puissances Maritimes et la France, pendant la dernière moitié du XVIIe siècle-Parond's Etudes sur Shakes- 657 283 616 469 Dictionary-Wolf's “Cancioneroa," &c.—“ Constantino- Ode to Southern Italy, ple, the Bosphorus and the Dardanelles"-Baumgartner's 191 Abelard and Heloise--Femmes Mustres-Tales of the His- Orchestra, The; Jullien,....... 423 699 d'une Philosophis-World's Fair in Paris-New Work on the United States-Promise and Fulfilment-Early Chris- Our New President, 801, 445 270, 500 seript Dealers of the Middle Ages-Leonard Hamm-Bet. tina Von Amim-Travels in Mexico-Kudrun-Sketches 452 Powers, Hiram, Letter from,... Veron's Bourgeois-Itier's Journal en Chine-De Sauley's 81 Maitres Sonnenra-Neander's Works-Weber's Kirchen und Secten-Horse Dealing in Russis - Frieslander's Rejected MSS.. Theorie der Werthes-Rechenberg's Mysteries of the Day Retort Courteous, 377 684 Reminiscences of an Ex-Jesuit, 214, 311, 418, 50S, 664 Rouen,.. 499 Russian Despotism and Its Victims, .. 571 928 Salt Lake and the New Saratoga, 112, 571, 689 Sketches in a Parisian Café, VI. The Fine Arts, . 94 Educational Institutions of New York, Sonnet, 150 Statistics and Speculations Concerning the Gold Under Gilt.. 101 102 191 The Pacific Railroad and How It is to be Built,.. 500 470 The Great Exhibition and its Visitors (IUus- Institutions of Learning and Science (Continued), 334 The Tree of Life, 202, 264 Inscription for the Back of a Bank-Note,..... Jack Lantern's Railroad Speculations, 31 / The Troll's Daughter.-A Finnish Legend,...... 649 Keats, The Gravo of.... The Lovers, 318 The Doom of Would-Be Poets, 638 72, 138 202, 264 414 180 342 London Knockings,... Virginia: Past and Present, 195 216 Mr. Collier's Folio Shakspere of 1632--Its Most What Impression Do We and Should We Make 315 Minerva Tattle, Summer Diary of, Miss Peck's Friend: A Novel in Ten Chapters 102 45 PUBLISHERS' 'NOTICE. The present number of "Putnam's Monthly” completes the second volume, and the first year of its existence. In referring to the progress of the work so far, it is not worth while for the publishers to indulge in much self-glorification, or at least to do more than reiterate what was said at the close of the first volume; yet they have cause for honest congratulation in the successful establishment of “Putnam's Monthly" as a fixed fact. The character and extent of this success has been far beyond their most sanguine expectations. They have had the good fortune of enlisting in the enterprise some of the ablest pens in the country; and they deem it a special cause for satisfaction, not only that among their regular contributors and earnest co-operators are included many of the most eminent and respected of our literary men of various positions and shades of religious and political opinion—but also that the general management of the Magazine, and the character of its contents, have been such as to meet the cordial approval of a large majority of the most judicious and intelligent readers. It is also pleasant to know, that while eminent and well-known writers have occupied a goodly portion of our pages, these pages have also been the means of introducing some younger writers of excellent promise, whose newly opened mines may doubtless yet produce as much pure metal as those which have been longer under contribution. Of the nine hundred and eighty articles which we have received, our two volumes could contain only about one in ten; and the most ungenial part of our task has been that of declining papers of interest and ability, which would fill half a dozen magazines as large as ours. Our space, and not our will, has been the arbiter in many of these instan We would here return our cordial thanks to all those who have so zealously taken an interest in the plan and prospects of the Magazine; and to those who wish to make it a great deal better than it has been, we would say, Do so, by all means. Send us articles that are a great deal better, wiser, wittier, and every way more brilliant, and it shall go hard but they shall find a place and suitable reward. ces. The literary resources of our “Monthly,” now so ample, will, in the coming year, be increased and elevated by all inducements in our power. With all its present general features, it is intended that the Magazine shall have new and varied attractions for all classes of its wide circle of readers. Each number will contain one or more entertaining and instructive papers, ILLUSTRATED from original designs, when such illustrations can add any thing to the value or interest of the text. Popular information 'on matters connected with practical science, and the useful arts and manufactures, will form à special feature. A new and popular account of the public and private life of WashINGTON, by one of our best writers, illustrated by the graphic pencil of DARLEY, will be commenced in the January number. It is superfluous to repeat, that “Putnam's Monthly” is not a partisan or sectarian organ, and never has been so. Topics of national and general interest, or relating to the public welfare, will be discussed when there is occasion, with freedom, but not, it is believed, with reckless intentions, or from self-interested motives. It has never been intended to restrict this Magazine to a character purely literary, but rather to extend as widely as possible its field of view, passing over no genuine human interest, and especially no genuine national interest. With the particular measures of Party, and above all, with the private aims and motives of parties, we not only will not, but cannot have any thing to do ; inclination and policy alike forbid it. But, on the other hand, no fear of misrepresentation or abuse will deter us from untrammelled investigation of any matter which may be deemed worthy of public attention. Whether this be done in a candid, honest, and impartial manner, or the contrary, our readers must judge. us very comfortable about. But having once acquired this impertinent knowledge, we cannot but regard with grateful veneration that beneficent chemist to whose researches we owe a purifying agent, so potent that a few drops will precipitate every intrusive ingredient, and turn putridity to crystalline freshness; or that other artist-let us not be suspected of a puff, since his name is Legion—who contrives filters, diaphragmed or only perco lating, by means of which our Croton is placed beyond suspicion, let who will have bathed or thrown cigar-ends into the reservoir. After what we have felt in duty bound to say of the almost fabulous neglects and abuses of our city government, it is with real relief that we take up a branch of our subject with which corruption and selfishness have as yet had little to do, or at least have as yet been able to interfere but little. Thanks to the farseeing wisdom of some who are gone and some who yet remain among us, there are purifying processes at work in New-York, which, if inadequate in amount, are most benignant in operation, and which, if not theinselves poisoned by quacks, or adulterated for dishonest gain, will, in tine, work such salutary change in the vital current of our great city, that she may yet be the glory of the earth in better things even than commerce and the arts. Our readers will agree with us that for the effectual defecation of the stream of human life in a great city, there is but one rectifying agent-one infallible filter—the SCHOOL.; and that the crowning merit of this God-given power is its applicability to the fountain-head ; the divine chemistry by which it clears each drop as it springs from mother earth, all other reformatory influences being in comparison but as the straining out of an occasional gnat from the ocean. The school! who can estimate its importance ? As we look at it in single specimens, it is often a clumsy piece of machinery enough ; ill-fitted, of poor material, and with a blockhead or worse at the crank. But, viewed as a whole, how can we say too much of it? The world has never before felt the need as we do, and so has never seen such schools as ours, still less such as we shall yet have. The man who is one day to be our chief magistrate is very probably running barefoot at this moment; he who is to command our armies may be just now giving a black eye to a comrade at the Five Points; a future chief justice is perhaps sweeping lawoffices at sixpence a day, out of which sum he contrives to buy tobacco and whiskey. Shall we leave them where they are ? Could we always be content with such education for our rulers ? Would it be desirable that our future street-commissioners should be habitués of the gutters of to-day? Shall there be no intermediary cleansing stage between the fetid purlieus of Prince-street and the glories of the Tea Room ? Our social and political state, in this dizzy hour of sudden wealth, might easily become like an Alhambra of golden domes and walls blazoned all over with holy sentences, whose foundations are sinking in a morass, even while its banners flout the skies. To go on adding glittering pinnacles, and minarets, from whose airy heights the punctual muezzin calls five times a day to prayer, will not keep the gaping rents from roof or chamber, or prevent the goodly stones from toppling about the ears of careless, inmates. But we are happily turning our attention to essentials, and aiming so to build as not hereafter to be ashamed. Hope and Love have a word to say in our councils; Science and Order begin to be heard; Benevolence and Prudence have joined hands, for one work at least. There is no one subject (always excepting moneymaking) so interesting to our New-York ears, as the subject of Education. God bless the day when this can be said ! To our mind's eye, our noble city, when we look at her as the educatress of her myriad offspring, is a more majestic figure than that glorious Pallas Athenæ, whose gleaming ivory and gold dazzled the eyes of the mariner far at sea, as he looked towards the home of his pride and love. We love to think of her, seated between her rivers, opening her generous arms to all the children of earth, and saying, “ Here is room enough, and knowledge for the asking. Be no longer the bond-slaves of ignorance, and vice, her cruel sister. Wealth more than enough has been poured into my lap by the bounty of heaven and earth, and as much of it as may be needed for your redemption shall be yours. Come up, come in crowds from whatever ignominy, contempt, and despair, into light and warmth, growth and goodness." There is no poetry in this. The invitation is literally unlimited. There is nothing-not even color, the hedge of American liberality in most other casesthat sets bounds to the grand office of education to all. Here is indeed something to be proud of; even Yankee boasting cannot go beyond the simple fact. It is by no means pretended that free schools are the new beneficence of to-day, or the peculiar privilege of New-York city. There is one free school in New-Yorkthat under the care of the Collegiate Dutch Reformed Churches, which has flourished for a hundred and fifty years; and the Vaudois had "schools every where, which |
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