hereby are authorized to advertise that the study of the classics will be introduced into the Boys' High School, and that applicants for admission to the Boys' High School will be examined at the ERWIN DAVIS,

JNO. F. POPE,
A. CAMPBELL.

The following is the Course of Study referred to in the Report, and forms an essential part thereof.-ED. CAL. TEACHER.

FIRST YEAR.

First Term: French, or Spanish, or Latin; Algebra; General History. Second Term: French, or Spanish, or Latin; Algebra; General History; Book-Keeping. Third Term: French, or Spanish, or Latin; Arithmetic; Physical Geography; Book-Keeping.

SECOND YEAR.

First Term: French, or Spanish, or Latin; Algebra; Physical Geography. Second Term: French, or Spanish, or Latin; Geometry; Physical Geography; Rhetoric. Third Term: French, or Spanish, or Latin; Geometry; Natural Philosophy; Rhetoric.

THIRD YEAR.

First Term: French, or Spanish, or Latin and Greek; Geometry; Natural Philosophy; Constitution of the United States and Science of Government. Second Term: French, or Spanish, or Latin and Greek; Trigonometry; Natural Philosophy. Third Term: French, or Spanish, or Latin and Greek; Trigonometry; Chemistry; Political Economy.

FOURTH YEAR.

First Term: Latin and Greek; Mensuration and Surveying; Chemistry and Metallurgical Assaying. Second Term: Latin and Greek; Analytical Geometry; Mineralogy and Geology, and Assaying. Third Term: Latin and Greek; Analytical Geometry; Mineralogy, and Geology, and Assaying.

It is designed that while these should be the prominent studies that attention should be given through the entire course to Reading, Elocution, and Composition, the last half of the course by lectures upon Astronomy and Chemistry, accompanied with practical application of its principles as exercised in assaying of our minerals, etc.

Department of Public Instruction.

AN ACT CONCERNING TEACHERS OF COMMON SCHOOLS IN THIS STATE.—Approved April 27th, 1863; Amended March 18th, 1864

SEC. 1. No certificate of qualification shall be granted by the State Board of Examination, or by any County Board of Examination, to any teacher, or person proposing to become such, unless such teacher or person shall have first taken and subscribed the following oath or affirmation: "I do solemnly swear [or affirm, as the case may be] that I will faithfully support, protect, and defend the Constitution and Government of the United States against all enemies, domestic or foreign; that I will bear true faith, allegiance, and loyalty to the said Constitution and Government, and that I will, to the extent of my ability, teach those under my charge to love, reverence, and uphold the same, any law or ordinance of any State, Convention, or Legislature, or any rule or obligation of any society or association, or any decree or order from any source whatsoever to the contrary notwithstanding; and further, that I do this with a full determination, pledge, and purpose, without any mental reservation or evasion whatsoever; and I do further swear [or affirm, as the case may be] that I will support the Constitution of the State of California."

SEC. 2. [As amended by Act of March 18th, 1864, taking effect June 18th, 1864.] The oath, or affirmation, prescribed in the first section of this act may be administered by the Superintendent of Public Instruction, or by the County Superintendent of Public Schools, or by any officer authorized to administer oaths, and the certificate thereof shall be filed in the office of the County Superintendent of Public Schools in the county where the teacher taking the oath proposes to teach school; and no warrant for the compensation of any teacher shall be drawn on or paid from the School Fund unless the certificate of the oath or affirmation of such teacher has been filed with the County Superintendent of Public Schools.

SEC. 3. [As amended by same act.] Any County Superintendent who shall draw any warrant on the County Treasurer for the payment of any teacher before the oath required in this act shall have been taken and filed as hereinbefore provided, shall be guilty of a misdemeanor, and on conviction shall be fined in a sum not less than one hundred dollars, nor more than five hundred dollars, or by imprisonment in the county jail for a period of not less than sixty days.

CIRCULAR TO COUNTY SUPERINTENDENTS.

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State of California, Department of Public Instruction,
San Francisco, May 1st, 1864.

To County Superintendents of Public Instruction:

Section four of "An Act supplementary and amendatory of the Act of April 6th, 1863, entitled An Act to provide for the Maintenance and Supervision of Common Schools," approved March 22d, 1864, authorizes and requires each County Superintendent of Public Schools to "annually subscribe for a sufficient number of copies of a journal of education, published in California and devoted exclusively to educational purposes, to be designated by the State Superintendent of Public Instruction, to furnish each Board of Trustees in his county with at least one monthly copy of the same.”

In accordance with the authority vested in me by this provision of the law, I hereby designate "THE CALIFORNIA TEACHER, a Journal of School and Home Education, and Organ of the Department of Public Instruction," published by the teachers of California, and edited by a Board of Editors resident in the City of San Francisco, as the journal for which such subscriptions shall be made. The editors of THE CALIFORNIA TEACHER will receive subscriptions, commencing on the first day of July, 1864, with the first number of the second volume. Accordingly, you will make out and transmit to me a full list of the Clerks of the Boards of School Trustees in your county, giving the post-office address of each. This list will be placed in the hands of the editors of the TEACHER, and the journal will be mailed directly to the subscribers.

The subscription price of the CALIFORNIA TEACHER is one dollar a year, payable in advance. You will estimate the amount of the subscriptions for your county and draw your warrant on the County Treasurer for that amount, payable out of the County School Fund, which warrant, before presentation and payment, must be indorsed by the County Auditor. If there is a sufficient amount of the County School Fund of the present school year in the treasury, not apportioned among the school districts, the money should be drawn and forwarded prior to the first of July. If the School Fund is exhausted, you can draw your warrant, after the first of September, on the county school money for the next school year before any apportionment is made, the Resident Editors of the TEACHER having consented to waive the rule, inexorable in all other cases, of payment in advance.

You will forward all money for subscriptions to the address of the State Superintendent of Public Instruction, who will return a receipt for the same and will see that the journal is regularly forwarded to trustees. It is highly important that you should charge the Clerk of the Boards of Trustees to keep a perfect file of the TEACHER in his office, according to the requisition of the law. These files will be very valuable for reference to future Boards of Trustees. After the first of July, all circulars and instructions issued by the State Superintendent, will be given through the pages of the CALIFORNIA TEACHER. County Superintendents will be under the necessity of subscribing for a copy at their own expense.

It is very desirable that every public school teacher in the State, worthy of the name, should be a reader of the school journal, and it is your duty to urge upon the teachers of your county their duty to aid in maintaining such a publication. A little well directed effort on your part will secure such subscriptions. It is to be hoped, also, that you will aid the TEACHER by contributing articles embracing valuable suggestions to teachers and school officers. If teachers and school officers work together earnestly and faithfully THE CALIFORNIA TEACHER may be made an educational power in the State, and will rank second to no State school journal in the United States.

JOHN SWETT,

Superintendent of Public Instruction.

ADOPTION OF THE STATE SERIES OF TEXT-BOOKS.-The law requiring the adoption of a uniform series of school books went into effect on the first of September, 1863; but when the State Board adopted a series, it was considered advisable to recommend a gradual change from the old books, that advantage might be taken of the promotion of classes when new books were purchased. Nearly a year has now elapsed, and while many schools have made the change in conformity with the law, in others no effort has been made to comply with it. In fact, not a few individual teachers set up their own individual opinion against the vote of the assembled teachers of the State and the decision of the State Board, and insist on retaining the text-books which they prefer. Trustees, in some instances, we understand, consider the law only advisory, and refuse to comply with it. The trustees of some twenty districts have written to the Superintendent of Public Instruction, stating that they have partially adopted the State series, and asking to be temporarily excused from adopting the remainder. Such requests have been granted. It is the opinion of the State Superintendent that one year is amply sufficient to effect a change into the State series, where there is any disposition to do so. County Superintendents are particularly requested to call the attention of teachers and trustees to the necessity of conforming to the plain meaning of Sec. 50. At the close of the present school year the State Superintendent will require the trustees to make a special and separate text-book report, directly to his office; and if he finds that the trustees have failed to comply with the law, he will do his duty, and enforce the penalty-loss of the State apportionment-however severely it may fall on the districts. The law requiring uniformity of books is a just, wise, and economical measure, and no prejudices of trustees or preferences of teachers will be allowed to interfere with its action. A word to the wise ought to be sufficient. The State series ought to be adopted and used at least three months before the close of the year. County Superintendents will please do their duty, and see to it that none of their districts lose their public money, through the negligence or indifference of trustees and teachers.

BLANKS AND FORMS.-The annual supply of blank reports and forms for school officers will be forwarded to County Superintendents as soon as they can be obtained from the hands of the State Printer-probably about the first of May.

SCHOOL LAW. The last year's edition of four thousand copies of the School Law is entirely exhausted. A new edition, embracing all amendments, will soon be published by the Department and sent out with the annual supply of blanks. The amendatory and Supplementary School Law, given in full in the last number of the TEACHER, was approved by the Governor March 22d, 1864.

HISTORY AND PHYSIOLOGY.-The School Law, in one of its new provisions, requires that History of the United States and Physiology shall be pursued as studies in the public schools of the State above the grade of primary—the law applying to schools in incorporated towns and cities, as well as to others. Quackenbos' History of the United States is the text-book recommended by the State Board. The new law authorizes the State Board to adopt a text-book on Physiology and Hygiene, which book must be used in all the schools of the State. Dr. Worthington Hooker's smaller work has been adopted by the State Board for unclassified schools, and the larger book for higher schools. The wisdom of this provision of the new law is so self-evident that it does not need any defense here. County Superintendents will enforce the law at once; and teachers who know nothing of these two branches, will do well to "study up,” and fit themselves to teach them. Of course, these two studies will now hold a prominent place in all the examinations of teachers by the County Boards of Examination.

EXAMINATION OF TEACHERS.-The State Board of Examination will hold its annual session in San Francisco, at the City High School Building, commencing on Monday, May 2d, and continuing three days. Applicants will be examined for the following State Certificates: "State Educational Diploma," valid for six years; First Grade State Certificates, valid for four years; Second Grade State Certificates, valid for two years; Third Grade State Certificates, valid for two years. This State Board is composed of the following members: State Superintendent of Public Instruction, ex officio, Chairman; George Tait, Superintendent Public Schools, San Francisco; George W. Minns, San Francisco High School; Ahira Holmes, State Normal School; H. P. Carlton, State Normal School; S. I. C. Swezey, Editor CALIFORNIA TEACHER; Bernhard Marks, Principal Spring Valley Grammar School; Theodore Bradley, Principal Denman Grammar School; T. C. Leonard, Principal Mission Grammar School. The examination will be conducted in writing in the following branches: Algebra, Arithmetic, Grammar, Geography, Physiology and Hygiene, History of the United States, Orthography, Definitions, Natural Philosophy, Constitution and Government of the United States, Penmanship, ObjectTeaching, General Questions on School Management. Sessions will be held both day and evening until the examination is completed.

STATE NORMAL SCHOOL.-The annual examination of this school will be held on the 18th, 19th, and 20th of May. The exercises of the graduating class will be held on the 25th inst. The next term will open on the first Monday in July. It is expected that some twenty young ladies will graduate.