whose labors, plagiarists and imitators are endeavoring to appropriate to themselvesthat justice which is his due, and to which he is entitled by the devotion of a life to the task of discovering the true method of teaching Language. The Author of the Serial and Oral Method was my father, John Manesca. He was born in 1774, on the Island of St. Domingo, from which he fled at the time of the massacre of the whites by the blacks. He came to the United States; the fortune of this family having been wrecked in that catastrophe, he resorted to the profession of teaching as a means of earning a living. Having discovered at an early date in the exercise of his profession, the germs of the invaluable method which he has given to the world, he devoted the remainder of his life to elaborating and perfecting it. John Manesca was a man endowed by nature with a superior and original mind; he was in fact a man of genius. Torn from his native land, thrown into a foreign country without a knowledge of the l nguage of the people, its custo s and habits, he was led to adopt a career which was in no wise adequa e to the powers of his mi d. No man formed an acquaintance with my father, that did not entertain for him the deepest regard and the highest admiration; it was not alone his intellect, but the noble stamp of his character, that w n this regard and admiration. A mind like John Manesca's could not long be engaged in any pursuit or occupation without detecting the imperfections connected with it, and seeking to improve its processes.