Chapter IV: Part 4

"There is not one of them--not one--but sows a harvest mankind _must_ reap. From every seed of evil in this boy a field of ruin is grown that shall be gathered in, and garnered up, and sown again in many places in the world, until regions are over-spread with wickedness enough to raise the waters of another deluge. Open and unpunished murder in a city's streets would be less guilty in its daily toleration than one such spectacle as this. There is not a father, by whose side, in his daily or nightly walk, these creatures pass; there is not a mother among all the ranks of loving mothers in this land; there is no one risen from the state of childhood, but shall be responsible, in his or her degree, for this enormity. There is not a country throughout the earth on which it would not bring a curse. There is no religion upon earth that it would not deny; there is no people on earth that it would not put to shame."

This institution, then, in the true relation of things, is not the glory of the state, but its shame. It speaks of families, of schools, of the church, of the state, not yet educated to the discharge of their respective duties in the right way. But it is the glory of the state as a visible effort to correct evils, atone for neglects, and compensate for wrongs. It comes to do, in part at least, what the family, the school, the press, the library, the Sabbath, have nest yet perfectly accomplished. As these agencies partially failed, so will this; but, as the law of progress exists for all, because perfection with us is unattainable, we may reasonably have faith in human improvement, and trust that the life of each succeeding generation shall unite, in ever-increasing proportions, the innocence of childhood with the wisdom of age.

ELEMENTARY TRAINING IN THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS.

[Extract from the Twenty-Second Annual Report of the Secretary of the Massachusetts Board of Education.]

We are still sadly defective in methods of education. Until recently teaching was almost an unknown art; and we are at present struggling against ignorance without any well-defined plan, and attempting to develop and build up the immortal character of children, without a philosophical and generally accepted theory of the nature of the human mind. There are complaints that the duties and exactions of the schools injure the health and impair the constitutions of pupils; that the progress in intellectual attainments is not always what it should be; that the training given is sometimes determined by the wishes of committees against the better judgment of competent teachers; that the text-books are defective; that the studies in the common schools are too numerous; that the elements are consequently neglected; and that, in fine, too much thought is bestowed upon exhibitions and contests for public prizes, to the injury of good learning, and of individual and general character. For these complaints there is some foundation; but care should be exercised lest incidental and necessary evils become, in the public estimation, great wrongs, and exceptional cases the evidence of general facts.

It is to some extent true that the duties and exactions of the schools seriously test the health of pupils; but it is, as I believe, more generally true that many pupils are physically unable to meet the ordinary and proper duties of the school-room. School life, as usually conducted, is physically injurious, and our best efforts thus far have been limited to the dissemination of elementary knowledge of physiology as a science, and to an acquaintance with a limited number of important physiological facts. Yet even here little has been accomplished in comparison with what may be done. In this department there is much instruction given that has no practical value, and children are often permitted to live in daily and uniform neglect of the most essential truths of science and the facts of human experience. Neither physiology nor hygiene can be of much value in the schools, as a study, unless there is an application of what is taught. Great proficiency cannot be made in these branches in the brief period of school life; but a competent teacher may induce the pupils to put in practice the lessons that are applicable to childhood and youth. If, however, as is sometimes the case, pupils are undermining the physical constitution in their efforts to know how they are made, the loss is, unquestionably, more than the gain. Physical health and growth depend, first, upon opportunity; and hence it happens that, where physical life is most defective, there the greatest difficulties in the way of its improvement are found. Boys born in the country, living upon farms, accustomed continually to outdoor labors and sports, walking a mile or more every day to school, have but little use, in their own persons, for the science or facts of physiology; and it is a very rare thing, where such conditions have existed, that any teacher is able to exact an amount of intellectual service that proves in any perceptible degree injurious.

But these opportunities are not so generally enjoyed by girls, and the mass of children in cities are wholly deprived of them. In the country, and even in villages and towns of considerable size, there is no excuse, better than ignorance or indifference, for the lack of judicious and efficient physical training of children and youth of both sexes. But ignorance and indifference are facts; and, while and where they exist, they are prejudicial to the growth of mind and body. The age at which children should be admitted to school has not been ascertained, nor can a satisfactory rule upon this point ever be laid down. If children are not in schools, they are yet subject to influences that are formative of character. When proper government and methods of education exist at home, the presence of the child in school at an early age is not desirable. Even when education at home is not methodical, it may be continued until the child is seven or even eight years of age, if it is at once moral, intelligent, and controlling. It is not, however, wise to expect a child who is infirm physically to perform the labors imposed by the necessary and proper regulations of school. When children enjoy good health, and are not blessed with suitable training at home, they may be introduced to the school, at the age of five years, with positive advantage to themselves and to society.

When the child is a member of the school, what shall be done with him? He must first be taught to take an interest in the exercises by making the exercises interesting to him. That the transition from home to the school may be easy, he should first occupy himself with those topics and studies that are presented to the eye and to the ear, and may be mastered, so as to produce the sensation that follows achievement with only a moderate use of the reasoning and reflective faculties. Among these are reading, writing, music, and drawing. This is also the time when object lessons may be given with great advantage. The forms and names of geometrical solids may be taught. Exercises may be introduced tending to develop those powers by which we comprehend the qualities of color, size, density, form, and weight. Important moral truths may be presented with the aid of suitable illustrations. In every school the teacher and text-books may be considered a positive quality which should balance the negative power of the school itself. In primary schools text-books have but little value, and the chief reliance is, therefore, upon the teacher. Instruction must be mainly oral; hence the mind of the teacher should be well furnished, and her capacities chastened by considerable experience. As the pupils are unable to study, the teacher must lead in all their exercises, and find profitable employment for the children, or they will give themselves up to play or to stupid listlessness. Of these alternatives, the latter is more objectionable than the former.

It is, of course, not often possible for a teacher to occupy herself six hours a day with a single class in a primary school, especially if she confines her attention to the studies enumerated. In many schools, of various grades, gymnastic exercises have been introduced with marked advantage. There are many such exercises which do not need apparatus, and in which the teacher can properly lead.

These furnish a healthful variety to the studies usually pursued, and they prepare the pupils to receive appropriate instruction in sitting, standing, and in the modulation and use of the voice. Indeed, gymnastic exercises are indispensable aids to proper training in reading, which, as an art of a high order, is immediately dependent upon position, habits of breathing, the consequent power of voice, and expressiveness of tone. I am fully satisfied that much more may be done in the early period of school life than is usually accomplished. In the district mixed schools the primary pupils receive but little attention, and they are not infrequently occupied from one to three years in obtaining an imperfect knowledge of the alphabet. Usually much better results are attained by the combined agency of the home and the school, but there is an average loss of one-fourth of the time employed in teaching and learning the elements of our language.

Mr. Philbrick, Superintendent of Public Schools in Boston, has taught and trained a class of fifty primary-school pupils with a degree of success which fully sustains the statement of the average waste in schools generally. Twenty-two lessons of a half-hour each were given; and in this brief period of time the class, with a few exceptions, were so well advanced that they could write the alphabet in capital and script hand, give the elementary sounds of the letters, produce and name the Arabic characters and the common geometrical figures found upon Holbrook's slates. I saw a girl, five and a half years of age, write the alphabet without delay in script hand, in a manner that would have been creditable to a pupil in a grammar school.

I present Mr. Philbrick's own account of his mode of proceeding, in an extract from his third quarterly report to the school committee of the city of Boston.

"The regulations relating to the primary schools require every scholar to be provided with a slate, and to employ the time not otherwise occupied in drawing or writing words from their spelling lessons, on their slates, in a plain script hand. It is further stated, in the same connection, that the teachers are expected to take special pains to teach the first class to write--not print--all the letters of the alphabet on slates.

"The language of this requirement seems to imply that the classes below the first are to draw and write words, in a plain script hand, without any special pains to teach them, and that by such occupation they were to be kept from idleness. As I saw neither of these objects accomplished in any primary school, I thought it worth while to satisfy myself, by actual experiment, what can and ought to be done, in the use of the slate and blackboard, in teaching writing and drawing in primary schools. To accomplish this object, I have given a course of lessons in a graded or classified school of the third class. The number of pupils instructed in the class was about fifty. The materials of the school are rather below the average; about twenty of the pupils being of that description usually found in schools for special instruction. The school-room is furnished, as every primary school-room should be, with stationary chairs and desks, and Holbrook's primary slates. Twenty-two lessons, of from thirty to forty minutes each, were given, about one-third of the time being devoted to drawing, and two-thirds to writing. As to the method pursued, the main points were, to present but a single element at a time; to illustrate on the blackboard defects and excellences in execution; frequent review of the ground passed over, especially in the _first_ steps of the course; a vigorous exercise of all the mental faculties requisite for the performance of the task; and a desire for improvement, encouraged and stimulated by the best and strongest available motives; the greater part of the time being bestowed upon the dull and backward pupils.

"The result has exceeded my expectations. About three-fourths of the number taught can draw most of the simple mathematical lines and figures, given as copies on the slates used, with tolerable accuracy, and write all the letters of the alphabet in a fair script hand. This experiment satisfies me that, with the proper facilities, the three upper classes in graded primary schools can be taught to write the letters of the alphabet in a plain script hand, and even to join them into words, without any material hindrance to the other required studies; and, moreover, that the great remedy for the complaint of want of time, in these schools, is the increase of skill in the art of teaching."

It is well known that in this country and in Europe methods of teaching the alphabet have been introduced which materially diminish the labor of teachers, and lessen the drudgery to which children are usually subjected. The alphabet is taught as an object lesson. The object is usually an animal, plant, or flower. More frequently the first. The mind of the child is awakened either by the presence of the animal, or by a brief but vivid description of its characteristics. The children are first required to pronounce properly the name of the animal. Here is an opportunity for training in the use of the voice, and in the art of breathing, with which the general health, as well as the vocal power, is intimately connected. The word which is the name of the animal is analyzed into its elementary sounds. It may then be reconstructed without the aid of visible signs, either written or printed. Next the teacher produces the signs which stand for the several sounds, and gives their names. The letters are presented in any way that suits the teacher. There may be no better method than to produce them upon the blackboard, as this course encourages the pupils to draw them upon their slates, and thus they are at once, and without formal preliminaries, engaged in writing.

An outline of the animal may be drawn upon the blackboard, which the pupils will eagerly copy; and though this exercise may not be valuable in a high degree, as preparation for the systematic study of drawing, yet it trains the perceptive and reflective faculties in a manner that is pleasant to the great majority of children. It is also in the power of the teacher, at any point in the exercises, and with reference both to variety and usefulness, to give the most apparent facts, which to children are the most interesting facts, in the natural history of the animal. This plan contemplates instruction in pronunciation in connection with exercises in breathing, in the elementary sounds of words both consonant and vowel, in the names of letters, in writing and drawing, to all of which may be added something of natural history. It is of course to be understood that such exercises would be extended over many lessons, be subject to frequent reviews, and valuable in proportion to the teacher's ability to interest children. The outline given is suggestive, merely, and it is not presented as a plan of a model course; but enough has been done and is doing in this department to warrant increased attention, and to justify the belief that a degree of progress will soon be made in teaching the elements that will mark the epoch as a revolution in educational affairs. It is to be observed that the system indicated requires a high order of teaching talent. Only thorough professional culture, or long and careful experience, will meet the claims of such a course. It is quite plain, however, that no advantage would arise from keeping pupils in school six hours each day; and that, regarding only the intellectual advancement of the child during the elementary course, his presence might be reduced to two hours, or possibly in some cases to one: provided, always, that he could enjoy, with his class associates, the undivided attention of the teacher. In this view of the subject, it would be possible, where the primary schools are graded, as in portions of the city of Boston, for one teacher to take charge of two classes or schools, each for an hour in the forenoon and an hour in the afternoon. This arrangement would apply only to the younger pupils; yet I am aware that parents and the public would be solicitous concerning the manner of employing the time that would remain. In the cities this question is one of magnitude, and there are strong reasons for declining any proposition to reduce the school day full one-half, which does hot provide occupation for the children during the remainder of the time. It is only in connection with such a proposition that projects for gymnastic training are practicable. When children are employed six hours in school, it is not easy to find time for a course of systematic physical education; and physical education, to be productive of appreciable advantages, must be systematic. When left to children and youth, or to the care of parents, very little will be accomplished. Children will participate in the customary sports, and perform the allotted labors; but in cities these sports and labors are inadequate even for boys, and in country, as well as city, girls are often the victims of neglect in this respect. Availing ourselves, then, of the light shed by recent experience upon the subject of primary instruction, it seems possible to diminish the length of the school day with a gain rather than a loss of educational power. This change may be followed by the establishment, in cities and large towns, of public gymnasiums, where teachers answering in moral qualifications to the requisitions of the laws shall be employed, and where each child, for one, two, or three years, shall receive discreet and careful, but vigorous physical training. After a few years thus passed in corresponding and healthful development of the mind and body, the pupil is prepared for admission to the advanced schools, where he can submit, with perfect safety, to greater mental requirements even than are now made. The school, as at present constituted, cannot do much for physical education; and it must, as a necessity and a duty, graduate its demands to the physical as well as the intellectual abilities of its pupils. But I am satisfied that it is occasionally made to bear a weight of reproach that ought to be laid upon the customs and habits of domestic, social and general life.

Assuming that the principal work of the primary schools, after moral and physical culture, should be to give instruction in reading, spelling, writing, music and drawing, it is just to say that special attention should be bestowed upon the two branches first named. So imperfectly is reading sometimes taught, that pupils are found in advanced classes, and in advanced schools, whose progress in other branches is retarded by their inability to read the language fluently and intelligently. When children are well educated in reading, they find profitable employment; and they are, of course, by the knowledge of language acquired, able to comprehend, with greater facility, every study to which they are called.

Pupils often appear dull in grammar, geography and arithmetic, merely because they are poor readers. A child is not qualified to use a text-book of any science until he is able to read with facility, as we are accustomed to speak, in groups of words. This ability he cannot acquire without a great deal of practice. If phonetic spelling is commenced with the alphabet, he will be accurately trained in that art also. It is certain that reading, writing and spelling, have been neglected in our schools generally.

If there is to be a reform, it must be commenced, and in a considerable degree accomplished, in the primary schools. These studies will be taught afterwards; but the grammar and high schools can never compensate for any defect permitted, or any wrong done, in the primary schools. Reading is first mechanical, and then intellectual and emotional. In the primary schools attention is first given to mechanical training, while the intellectual and emotional culture is necessarily in a degree postponed. When the first part of the work is thoroughly done, there is no ground for complaint, and we may look to the teachers of advanced classes and schools for the proper performance of the remaining duty. The ability to spell arbitrarily, either in writing or orally, and the ability to read mechanically,--that is, the ability to seize the words readily, and utter them fluently and accurately,--must be acquired by much spelling and much reading.

This work belongs to the early years of school-life; and, if it can be faithfully performed, the introduction of text-books in grammar, geography and arithmetic, may be wisely postponed. But it is a sad condition of things, which we are often compelled to contemplate, when a pupil, who might have become a respectable reader had the elementary training been careful, accurate and long-continued, is introduced to an advanced class, and there struggles against obstacles which he cannot comprehend, and which the teacher cannot remove, and finally leaves the school without the ability to read in a manner intelligible to himself, or satisfactory to others. It is the appropriate work of primary schools, and of the teachers of primary classes in district schools, to develop and chasten the moral powers of children, to train them in those habits and practices that are favorable to health and life, whether anything is known of physiology as a science or not, and to give the best culture possible to the eye, the ear, the hand and the voice. This plan is comprehensive enough for any teacher, and it will be found sufficient for any pupil less than ten years of age. Nor am I speaking of that culture which is merely preparatory for the life of the artist, but of that practical training which will enable the subject of it so to use his powers as to render his life valuable to himself, and valuable to the world. There will be, in the exercises comprehended by this outline, sufficient mental discipline. It will, of course, be chiefly incidental, and it may well be doubted whether studies that are merely disciplinary should ever be introduced into our schools. There are useful occupations for pupils that, at the same time, tax and test the mind sufficiently. The plan indicated does not exclude grammar, geography and mental arithmetic, but text-books will not at first be needed. Grammar should be taught by conversation, and in connection with the exercises in reading. Grammar is the appreciation of the power of the words of the language in any given relations to each other, and a knowledge of grammar is essential to the ability to speak, read and write properly. Therefore, grammatical rules and definitions are, or should be, deduced from the language. Hence children should be first trained to speak with accuracy, so that habit shall be on the side of taste and science; next the offices which words perform in simple sentences should be illustrated and made clear; And thus far without text-books; when, finally, with their help, the pupils in the higher schools may acquire a knowledge of the science, and, at once, as the result of previous training, discern the reason for each rule and definition. The study of grammar requires some use of mental power; but when it is presented to pupils by the aid of an object which, in itself and in what it does, illustrates the subject and the predicate of a sentence, the work of comprehending the offices which words perform is rendered comparatively easy. Having the skeleton thus furnished, and with the eyes and minds of the pupils fixed upon an object that possesses known and appreciable powers and qualities, it is not difficult for the teacher to construct a sentence that shall contain words of several parts of speech, all understood, because the grammatical office of each was seen even before the word itself was used. This work may be commenced when the child is young, and very satisfactory results ought to be secured as soon as the pupil is in other respects qualified to enter a grammar school. The pupil should be trained in reading as an art; that is, with the purpose of expressing whatever is intellectual and emotional in the text. Satisfactory results cannot at first be secured by much reading; it seems wiser for the teacher to select an extract, paragraph, or single sentence only, and drill a pupil or a class until the meaning of the author is comprehended, and accurately or even artistically expressed. This can be done only when the teacher reads the passage again and again in the best manner possible. The contrary practice of reading volumes of extracts from the writings of the most gifted men of ancient and modern times, without preparation by the pupil, without example, explanation, correction, or questionings, by the teacher, cannot be too strongly condemned. The time will come when these selections may be read with profit; but it is better to read something well than to read a great deal; or there should be at least thorough drill in connection with every exercise, until the pupils have attained some degree of perfection. It may not be best to confine advanced pupils to the exercises in the text-books. If such pupils are invited occasionally to make selections from their entire range of reading, the teacher will have an opportunity to correct whatever is vicious in taste; and the pupil making the selection will be compelled to read in such a manner that those who listen can understand, which is not always the case when the language is addressed to the eye as well as to the ear.

The introduction of Colburn's Intellectual Arithmetic was an epoch in the science. It wrought a radical change in the ability of the people to apply the power of numbers to the practical business of life. Its excellence does not consist in rules and illustrations by which examples and problems are easily solved, but in leading the mind of the pupil into natural and apparent processes of reasoning, by which he is enabled to comprehend a proposition as an independent fact. Herein is a mental discipline of great value, not only in the sciences, but in the daily affairs of men of all classes and conditions. It is to be feared that equally satisfactory results have not been attained in what is called written arithmetic. This partial failure deserves consideration. The first cause may be found in an erroneous opinion concerning the difference between mental and written arithmetic. Written arithmetic is mental arithmetic merely, with a record at given stages of the process of what at that point is accomplished. But, as written arithmetic tends to lessen the power of the pupil for the performance of those operations that are purely mental, he should be subjected, each day, to a searching and rapid drill in mental arithmetic also. This neglect on the part of teachers explains the singular fact that pupils, well trained in mental arithmetic, after attending to written arithmetic for three or six months, appear to have lost rather than gained in their knowledge of the science as a whole.

The second cause of failure may be found in the fact that rules, processes and simple methods of solution, contained in the books, are substituted for the power of comprehension by the pupil. He should be trained to seize an example mentally, whether the slate is to be used or not, and hold it until he can determine by what process the solution is to be wrought. Nor is it a serious objection that he may not at first avail himself of the easiest method. The difference between methods or ways is altogether a subordinate consideration. There may be many ways of reaching a truth, but no one of them is as important as the truth itself. The text-books should contain all the facts needed for the comprehension and the solution of the examples given; the teacher should furnish explanations and other aids, as they are needed; but the practice of adopting a process and following it to an apparently satisfactory conclusion, without comprehending the problem itself, is a serious educational evil, and it exerts a permanent pernicious influence.

The remarks I have now made upon methods of teaching, which may seem to have been offered in a spirit of severe criticism, should be qualified and relieved by the statement that our teachers are as well educated as any in the country, and that they are yearly making progress in their profession. Indeed, I am encouraged to suggest that better things are possible, by the consideration that many instances of distinguished success in teaching the alphabet, reading and grammar, are known to me; and that teachers are themselves aware that the work is, upon the whole, inadequately performed. If, as is generally conceded, the highest order of teaching talent is required in the primary schools, then that talent should be sought out by committees; the persons possessing it should enjoy the best means of preparation; they should receive the highest rewards, both in money and public consideration, and they should be induced to labor, without change or interruption, in the same schools and the same people.

THE RELATIVE MERITS OF PUBLIC HIGH SCHOOLS AND ENDOWED ACADEMIES.

[Remarks before the American Institute of Instruction, at Manchester, N. H.]

Indebted to my friend on the other side, and to you, sir, and this audience, for inviting me to take a position on this floor, I am still without any special preparation to discuss the subject. I have thought upon it, because any one, however humbly connected with free schools in this country, must have done so. And especially just now, when, in the educational journal of Massachusetts, a discussion has been conducted between one of its editors and Mr. Gulliver, the able originator of a school in Norwich, Ct., and the advocate of the system of school government established there. And, therefore, every one who has had his eyes open must have seen that here is a great contest, and that underlying it is a principle which is important to society.

The distinguishing difference between the advocates of endowed schools and of free schools is this: those who advocate the system of endowed academies go back in their arguments to one foundation, which is, that in education of the higher grades the great mass of the people are not to be trusted. And those who advocate a system of free education in high schools put the matter where we have put the rights of property and liberty, where we put the institutions of law and religion--upon the public judgment. And we will stand there. If the public will not maintain institutions of learning, then, I say, let institutions of learning go down. If I belong to a state which cannot be moved from its extremities to its centre, and from its centre to its extremities, for the maintenance of a system of public instruction, then, in that respect, I disown that state; and if there be one state in this Union whose people cannot be aroused to maintain a system of public instruction, then they are false to the great leading idea of American principles, and of civil, political, and religious liberty.

It is easy to enumerate the advantages of a system of public education, and the evils--I say evils--of endowed academies, whether free or charging payment for tuition. Endowed academies are not, in all respects, under all circumstances, and everywhere, to be condemned. In discussing this subject, it may be well for me to state the view that I have of the proper position of endowed academies. They have a place in the educational wants of this age. This is especially true of academies of the highest rank, which furnish an elevated and extended course of instruction. To such I make no objection, but I would honor and encourage them. Yet I regard private schools, which do the work usually done in public schools, as temporary, their necessity as ephemeral, and I think that under a proper public sentiment they will soon pass away. They cannot stand,--such has been the experience in Massachusetts,--they cannot stand by the side of a good system of public education. Yet where the population is sparse, where there is not property sufficient to enable the people to establish a high school, then an endowed school may properly come in to make up the deficiency, to supply the means of education to which the public wealth, at the present moment, is unequal. Endowed institutions very properly, also, give a professional education to the people. At this moment we cannot look to the public to give that education which is purely professional. But what we do look to the public for is this: to furnish the means of education to the children of the whole people, without any reference to social, pecuniary, political, or religious distinctions, so that every person may have a preliminary education sufficient for the ordinary business of life.

It is said that the means of education are better in an endowed academy, or in an endowed free school, than they can be in a public school. What is meant by _means_ of education? I understand that, first and chiefly, as extraneous means of education, we must look to a correct public sentiment, which shall animate and influence the teacher, which shall give direction to the school, which shall furnish the necessary public funds. An endowed free academy can have none of these things permanently. Take, for example, the free school established at Norwich by the liberality of thirty or forty gentlemen, who contributed ninety thousand dollars. What security is there that fifty years hence, when the educational wants of the people shall be changed, when the population of Norwich shall be double or treble what it is now, when science shall make greater demands, when these forty contributors shall have passed away, this institution will answer the wants of that generation? According to what we know of the history of this country, it will be entirely inadequate; and, though none of us may live to see the prediction fulfilled or falsified, I do not hesitate to say that the school will ultimately prove a failure, because it is founded in a mistake.

Then look and see what would have been the state of things if there had been public spirit invoked to establish a public high school, and if the means for its support had been raised by taxation of all the people, so that the system of education would have expanded according to the growth of the city, and year by year would have accommodated itself to the public wants and public zeal in the cause. Though these means seem now to be ample, they will by and by be found too limited. The school at Norwich is encumbered with regulations; and so every endowed institution is likely to be, because the right of a man to appropriate his property to a particular object carries with it, in the principles of common law, and in the administration of the law, in all free governments, the right to declare, to a certain extent, how that property shall be applied. Rules have been established--very proper and judicious rules for to-day. But who knows that a hundred years hence they will be proper or acceptable at all? They have also established a board of trustees, ultimately to be reduced to twenty-five. These trustees have power to perpetuate themselves. Who does not see that you have severed this institution from the public sentiment of the city of Norwich, and that ultimately that city will seek for itself what it needs; and that, a hundred years hence, it will not consent to live, in the civilization of that time, under the regulations which forty men have now established, however wise the regulations may at the present moment be?

One hundred and fifty years ago, Thomas Hollis, of London, made a bequest to the university at Cambridge, with a provision that on every Thursday a professor should sit in his chair to answer questions in polemic theology. All well enough then; but the public sentiment of to-day will not carry it out.

So it may be with the school at Norwich a hundred years hence. The man or state that sacrifices the living public judgment to the opinion of a dead man, or a dead generation, makes a great mistake. We should never substitute, beyond the power of revisal, the opinion of a past generation for the opinion of a living generation. I trust to the living men of to-day as to what is necessary to meet our existing wants, rather than to the wisest men who lived in Greece or Rome. And, if I would not trust the wise men of Greece and Rome, I do not know why the people, a hundred years hence, should trust the wise men of our own time.

And then look further, and see how, under a system of public instruction, you can build up, from year to year, in the growth of the child, a system according to his wants. Private instruction cannot do this. What do we do where we have a correct system? A child goes into a primary school. He is not to go out when he attains a certain age. He might as well go out when he is of a certain height; there would be as much merit in one case as in the other. But he is advanced when he has made adequate attainments. Who does not see that the child is incited and encouraged and stimulated by every sentiment to which you should appeal? And, then, when he has gone up to the grammar school, we say to him, "You are to go into the high school when you have made certain attainments." And who is to judge of these attainments? A committee appointed by the people, over whom the people have some ultimate control. And in that control they have security for two things: first, that the committee shall not be suspected of partiality; and secondly, that they shall not be actually guilty of partiality. In the same manner, there is security for the proper connection between the high school and the schools below. But in the school at Norwich--of which I speak because it is now prominent--you have a board of twenty-five men, irresponsible to the people. They select a committee of nine; that committee determines what candidates shall be transferred from the grammar schools to the high school. May there not be suspicion of partiality? If a boy or girl is rejected, you look for some social, political, or religious influence which has caused the rejection, and the parent and child complain. Here is a great evil; for the real and apparent justice of the examination and decision by which pupils are transferred from one school to another is vital to the success of the system.

There is another advantage in the system of public high schools, which I imagine the people do not always at first appreciate. It is, that the private school, with the same teachers, the same apparatus, and the same means, cannot give the education which may be, and usually is, furnished in the public schools. This statement may seem to require some considerable support. We must look at facts as they are. Some people are poor; I am sorry for them. Some people are rich, and I congratulate them upon their good fortune. But it is not so much of a benefit, after all, as many think. It is worth something in this world, no doubt, to be rich; but what is the result of that condition upon the family first, the school afterwards, and society finally? It is, that some learn the lesson of life a little earlier than others; and that lesson is the lesson of self-reliance, which is worth more than--I will not say a knowledge of the English language--but worth more than Latin or Greek. If the great lesson of self-reliance is to be learned, who is more likely to acquire it early,--the child of the poor, or the child of the rich; the child who has most done for him, or the child who is under the necessity of doing most for himself? Plainly, the latter. Now, while a system of public instruction in itself cannot be magnified in its beneficial influences to the poor and to the children of the poor, it is equally beneficial to the rich in the facility it affords for the instruction of their children. Is it not worth something to the rich man, who cannot, from the circumstances of the case, teach self-reliance around the family hearth, to send his child to school to learn this lesson with other children, that he may be stimulated, that he may be provoked to exertions which he would not otherwise have made? For, be it remembered that in our schools public sentiment is as well marked as in a college, or a town, or a nation; that it moves forward in the same way. And the great object of a teacher should be to create a public sentiment in favor of virtue. There should be some pioneers in favor of forming a correct public sentiment; and when it is formed it moves on irresistibly. It is like the river made up of drops from the mountain side, moving on with more and more power, until everything in its waters is carried to the destined end.

So in a public school. And it is worth much to the man of wealth that there may be, near his own door, an institution to which he may send his children, and under the influence of which they may be carried forward. For, depend upon it, after all we say about schools and institutions of learning, it is nevertheless true of education, as a statesman has said of the government, that the people look to the school for too much. It is not, after all, a great deal that the child gets there; but, if he only gets the ability to acquire more than he has, the schools accomplish something. If you give a child a little knowledge of geography or arithmetic, and have not developed the power to accomplish something for himself, he comes to but little in the world. But put him into the school,--the primary, grammar, and high school, where he must learn for himself,--and he will be fitted for the world of life into which he is to enter.

You will see in this statement that, with the same parties, the same means of education, the same teachers, the public schools will accomplish more than private schools.

I find everywhere, and especially in the able address of Mr. Gulliver, to which I have referred, that the public schools are treated as of questionable morality, and it is implied that something would be gained by removing certain children from the influence of these schools. If I were speaking from another point of view, very likely I should feel bound to hold up the evils and defects which actually exist in public schools; but when I consider them in contrast with endowed and private schools, I do not hesitate to say that the public schools compare favorably; and, as the work of education goes on, the comparison will be more and more to their advantage. Why? I know something of the private institutions in Massachusetts; and there are boys in them who have left the public schools because they have fallen in their classes, and the public interest would not justify their continuance in the schools. It was always true that private schools did not represent the world exactly as it was. It is worth everything to a boy or girl, man or woman, to look the world in the face as it is.

Therefore, the public school, when it represents the world as it is, represents the facts of life. The private school never has done and never will do this; and as time goes on, it will be less and less a true representative of the world. From this point of view, it seems to be a mistake on the part of parents to exclude their children from the world. Is it not better that the child should learn something of society, even of its evils, when under your influence, and when you can control him by your counsel and example, than to permit him finally to go out, as you must when his majority comes, perhaps to be seduced in a moment, as it were, from his allegiance to virtue? Virtue is not exclusion from the presence of vice; but it is resistance to vice in its presence. And it is the duty of parents to provide safeguards for the support of their children against these temptations. When Cicero was called on to defend Muræna against the slander that, as he had lived in Asia, he had been guilty of certain crimes, and when the testimony failed to substantiate the charge, the orator said, "And if Asia does carry with it a suspicion of luxury, surely it is a praiseworthy thing, not never to have seen Asia, but to have lived temperately in Asia." And we have yet higher authority. It is not the glory of Christ, or of Christianity, that its Divine Author was without temptation, but that, being tempted, he was without sin. This is the great lesson of the day.

The duty of the public is to provide means for the education of all. To do that, we need the political, social, and moral power of all, to sustain teachers and institutions of learning; and, endowed or free schools, depending upon the contributions of individuals, can never, in a free country, be raised to the character of a system. If you rob the public schools of the influence of our public-spirited men, if they take away a portion of their pupils from them, our system is impaired. It must stand as a whole, educating the entire people, and looking to all for support, or it cannot be permanently maintained.

THE HIGH SCHOOL SYSTEM.

[An Address delivered at the Dedication of the Powers Institute, Bernardston.]

There cannot be a more gratifying spectacle than the universal homage offered to education and to the young. Childhood is attractive in itself; and it is peculiarly an object of solicitude for its promises concerning the future. Hence the labors of philanthropists, reformers, and Christians, as well as of teachers, are devoted to the culture and improvement of the rising generation, as the chief security possible for the prevalence of better ideas in the state and in the world.

Massachusetts has been peculiarly favored in the means of education; and we ought ever to recognize the divine influence in the wisdom which led our fathers to lay the foundations of a system that contemplated the education of the whole people. The power of this great idea, universal education, has not been limited to Massachusetts; the states of the West, the states of the South, receive it as the basis of a wise public policy; and had our ancestors contributed nothing else to the glory of the republic, they would yet be entitled to the distinguished consideration of every age and people. The vigor of our culture and the hardihood of our institutions are more manifest out of Massachusetts than in it. The immigrant in his new home in the great valley of prairies, on the northern shores of the American lakes, in Oregon, California, or the islands of the Pacific, invokes the spirit of New England in the establishment of a free church and a free school. And in the spirit and discipline of New England, the thoughts of her sons are turned homeward in adversity, seeking consolation at the sources of early, vigorous, and happy life; or, in prosperity, that they may offer, in gratitude to man and to God, some tribute, always noble, however humble, to the principles and institutions that first formed their characters, and then controlled their destiny; or, in old age, the wanderer, like Jacob in Egypt, with his blessing upon the tribes and families of men, says, "I am to be gathered unto my people; bury me with my fathers." This occasion and its honors are due to the memory of him whose name this institution bears; and his last will and testament is an illustration, or rather the cause, of these prefatory remarks. As the reasonably extended and eminently prosperous life of your wise benefactor approached its close, he, in the principles of Old England and of New England, ordered and directed the payment of all his just debts; and then, secondly, expressed the wish, "if practicable, to be buried by the side of his parents in the cemetery at Bernardston." First justice, and then affection for parents, kindred, and home, animated the vital, never-dying soul, as the life of the body ebbed and flowed, and flowed and ebbed, to flow no more. For every good the ancients imagined and named a divinity; and there is in every good something divine.

We do not deify the living nor the dead; yet such foundations and institutions as the Lawrence Scientific School, the Peabody Institute, the Powers Institute, will bear to a grateful posterity a knowledge of the virtues of their respective founders, and of the exactness, rectitude, and wisdom, of the public sentiment which religiously consecrates the means provided to the ends proposed.

But just eulogy of the dead is the appropriate duty of those who were the associates and friends of the founder of this school.--It will be my purpose, in the humble part I take in the services of this honored occasion, to point out, as I may be able, the connection between learning and wisdom, and then, by the aid of some general remarks upon education, to examine the fitness of this foundation, and the rules here established, to promote human progress and virtue.

The actual available power of a state is in its adult population; but its hope is in the classes of children and youth whose plastic minds yield to good influences, and are moulded to higher forms of beauty than have been conceived by Italian or Grecian art. Excellence is always adorable and to be adored. If it appear in beauty of person, it commands our admiration; and how much more ought wisdom, which is the beauty of the mind and the excellency of the soul, to be cultivated and cherished by every human being! "For what is there, O, ye gods!" says Cicero, "more desirable than wisdom? What more excellent and lovely in itself? What more useful and becoming for a man? Or what more worthy of his reasonable nature?"

But wisdom cannot be acquired in a day, nor without devotion and toil. It is the achievement of a life. It is to be pursued carefully through schools, colleges, and the world,--to be mastered by study, intense thought, rigid mental discipline, and an extensive acquaintance with the best authors of ancient and modern times. It is not the child of ease, indolence, or luxury; and it is well that it is not, The best of human possessions are cheapened their attainment is no longer difficult. The wealth of California and Australia has made silver, as an article of luxury, the rival of gold; and the pearl loses its beauty when the mountain streams are as fertile as the depths of the sea. Wisdom comprehends learning, but learning is often found where wisdom is wanting. Wisdom is not accomplishment in study, or perfection in art, or supremacy in poetry or eloquence. Learning is essential to wisdom, for we cannot imagine a wise man who is not also a learned man; and the extent and soundness of his learning may be a measure of his wisdom. Wisdom must always have a basis of learning, but learning is not always a basis of wisdom. Learning is a knowledge of particulars, of details; wisdom is such a combination of these particulars as enables us to harmonize our lives with the laws of nature and of God.