CHAPTER X. THE MEANS OF UNIVERSAL EDUCATION. I would recommend that each state should raise a school fund sufficient for the entire support of the schools; that a suitable school-house and apparatus, with a convenient dwelling-house for the teacher, be furnished by the state for each district; and that every school-house be supplied with a well-qualified teacher, who shall receive from the state a suitable compensation.-- John Duer . Let there be an educational department of the government, and let its details be managed by proper officers, accountable to the representatives of the people.-- Dr. Hawks .

We have already considered the nature of education, which has reference to the whole man and to the whole duration of his being. We have seen its importance to individuals and families, to neighborhoods and communities, to states and nations, and that in proportion as it receives attention in any community, will that community become prosperous and happy. We may then very properly inquire after the means to be put in requisition in order to render the blessings of education universal among us. To the consideration of this subject we shall devote the remainder of this work. My first remark is, that

A correct public opinion should be formed. In the language of Bishop Potter, "Our people have absolutely the control over the whole subject of education, not only as it respects their own families, but, to a great extent, in schools and seminaries of learning. If, then, the people were fully awake to its importance and true nature, we should soon have a perfect system, and we should witness results from it for which we now look in vain."

The formation of a correct public opinion is of the utmost importance, for the primary cause of all the defects complained of in education, and the source of all the evils that afflict the community in consequence of its neglect, is popular indifference. From this we have more to fear than from all other causes combined. Opposition elicits discussion; and discussion, judiciously conducted, evolves truth; and educational truths brought clearly before the mind of any community will ultimately induce right action. Men may at first be influenced by a comparatively low class of motives, but one which they can appreciate. As they witness the beneficial effects of reform, their motives will gradually become more elevated, and their efforts at improvement more constant; but no important advance can be made without popular enlightenment.

When the majority of the individuals that compose any community come to value education as they ought; when they duly estimate its importance in the various points of view already considered, then will their public servants take more pains to co-operate with them in rendering its blessings universal. Good laws are important as a means of improving our systems of public instruction; but good laws, unsustained by a correct public opinion, will be of no avail. Before any considerable advance can be made either in improving our schools or in causing the attendance upon them to become more general, a good common education—one that shall give us sound minds in sound bodies; one that bestows much attention upon intellectual culture, but more upon the culture of the heart—must come to be ranked among the necessaries of life.

Conventions of the friends of education have already done much to correct popular errors in relation to this subject, and have contributed largely to the formation of sound and rational views in relation to its importance in the communities where they have been held. In many instances, however, they have been composed too exclusively of teachers. These should, indeed, be in attendance; but to increase the usefulness of such conventions, and heighten the effect they may be made to produce upon the popular mind, there should also be in attendance members of the several learned professions, statesmen, capitalists, and all the leading minds of the communities in which they are held. In some portions of the country this is now the case, but such instances, I regret to say, are not yet very common among us.

Fourth of July common school celebrations have, within the past few years, become quite common in several states of the Union. This seems peculiarly appropriate, being a practical recognition of the importance of primary schools and universal education in a civil and political point of view. One of the most befitting celebrations of this day which I have ever known was held in Boston eight years ago, when an oration was delivered before the authorities of that city by the Secretary of the Massachusetts Board of Education. The theme of the orator was the importance of national or universal education in a free government as the interest which underlies all others, and as constituting the only means of perfecting and perpetuating to the latest generations the institutions we have received from our fathers, and "a demonstration that our existing means for the promotion of intelligence and virtue are wholly inadequate to the support of a republican government." Such celebrations should be held in every state of this Union, at every recurring anniversary of our national independence, until there can not be found a single individual in all our borders who does not know both his duties and his privileges as a freeman, and who has not virtue enough faithfully to perform the one and temperately to enjoy the other. This, indeed, seems to be in keeping with that most impressive passage of the celebrated Ordinance of the American Congress, adopted July 13th, 1787, which says, "Religion, morality, and knowledge being necessary to good government and the happiness of mankind, schools and the means of education shall forever be encouraged."

The twenty-second of February has also been observed, to some extent, in several of the states, by holding such celebrations. Nothing can be more appropriate than these efforts to arouse the popular mind to renewed efforts to improve the common schools of the land, when we consider the import of that portion of the Farewell Address of him, the anniversary of whose birth we celebrate, which relates to popular education. "Promote, as an object of primary importance, institutions for the general diffusion of knowledge." There can be no doubt that Washington here refers to the maintenance and improvement of common schools as the means of universal education.

The necessity of improving our common schools and of opening wide their doors to all our youth should not only be the theme at school celebrations, at educational conventions, and on the occasion of our national anniversaries, but it should be frequently presented by the civilian and the divine, as well as by the legislator and the journalist, until men generally well understand the importance of education, and are willing to make any sacrifices that may be necessary to secure its advantages to their own children not only, but to all our youth.

Provisions for the Support of Schools.—The provisions which have been made for the support of schools may be reduced to three kinds: first, by means of funds; second, by taxation; third, by a combination of both of these methods.

Connecticut, which has a school fund of more than two millions of dollars, long ago adopted the first plan named. But the inefficiency of her system of public instruction, until within a few years, is proverbial, and affords conclusive evidence that a large school fund is of little or no avail in the absence of a correct public opinion and a due appreciation of the importance of education. The improvements in the schools of that state during the last few years are not in consequence of any increase in her school fund, but because the importance of the subject has been so frequently and impressively presented before the public mind, by means of lectures, public discussions, educational tracts, school journals, and in various other ways, as to overcome that popular indifference which had well-nigh precluded all advance. The late improvements in that state have taken place in spite of the school fund rather than because of any aid derived from it. Dr. Wayland has expressed the opinion that school "funds are valuable as a condiment, not as an aliment; and that they should never be so large as to render any considerable degree of personal effort on the part of the parent unnecessary." This is true only when a fund is so far relied upon as to slacken personal effort for the improvement of the schools, and to induce parental and popular indifference in relation to them.

The second plan is by taxation, and Massachusetts furnishes an example of it. In most of the counties of this state there are small local funds, the avails of which are added to the amount raised by tax for the support of schools. There are also still less amounts appropriated from the income of the surplus revenue for the purpose of increasing the educational advantages of the children; not to be subtracted from, but to be added to, what the towns would otherwise grant. We may, then, consider the school fund of this state as embracing the entire taxable property of the state, from which such a sum is annually raised by tax as is necessary for the support of the schools. In Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine, the schools are supported essentially as in Massachusetts, the difference being chiefly in the mode of taxation.

Dr. Wayland, in a letter written some years ago, makes the following remark in relation to the support of schools: "The best legislative provision with which I am acquainted is that of Maine. They have no fund whatever, but oblige every district to raise for education a sum proportioned to the number of its inhabitants or its property. If a town or a district neglects to do this, it is liable to a fine."

In those states whose systems of public instruction are best administered—which have the best schools, and the greatest proportion of the population in attendance upon them—the schools are generally supported almost entirely by a direct tax, the great principle that the property of the state should educate the children of the state being practically recognized. It not only appears, then, that large funds are not required for the successful administration of systems of public instruction, but that actually the best schools, and those which are doing most for the correct education of the rising generation, may be found in those states that are destitute of funds, and whose public schools are supported by a direct tax upon the property of the state.

The third plan of supporting schools is a combination of both of the others. New York until within the last year,[67] Rhode Island, and Michigan may be cited as examples of this plan. Where this plan has been adopted, the districts or townships have generally been required to raise by tax an amount equal to or greater than what has been received from the school fund. Where the expense of supporting the schools has exceeded the whole fund derived from both sources, the balance of the expense has generally been made up by a rate-bill, parents who are able being required to pay in proportion to the number of days their children have attended school. This feature is objectionable even where provision is made for the children of poor parents to attend without charge, for it offers a pecuniary inducement, although the schools be nearly free, to withdraw scholars from attendance upon them for the slightest causes. This plan has obtained very generally in the states northwest of the Ohio River, which have received from the General Confederacy a grant of one section, or six hundred and forty acres of land in each township for the support of schools. In some of these states the additional tax is already sufficient, when joined with the avails of the school fund, to render the schools entirely free. If one plan is superior to both of the others, this is, perhaps, entitled to the pre-eminence. The school fund lessens the amount which it is necessary to raise by a direct tax; and still the sum which is levied in this way has a tendency to beget and maintain a lively interest on the part of capitalists in the administration of the educational department, and in the maintenance and improvement of the public schools.

Without a correct public opinion and a due appreciation of the importance of education, either of the three systems named, or any other which may be adopted for the support of schools, will, and, from the very nature of the case, must, be inadequate to meet the necessities of a free people. But let the public be alive to the advantages of education, and rank it first among the necessaries of life, and almost any system will be attended with eminent success. If, then, one system is superior to all others, it is that which is best calculated to beget in the popular mind a realizing sense of the necessity of educating all our youth in good schools. If this can be done in a state which has a large school fund, without diminishing the interest of the people in education, or relaxing their efforts to maintain improved schools, then may such a fund prove serviceable, as it will lessen the general tax. But if the citizens of any state can not be brought to realize the importance of maintaining an elevated standard of common school education, and of rendering its blessings universal, without defraying the whole expense by a direct tax, then will a school fund prove to them a curse, and not a blessing.

Where there is a will there is a way, says the adage. Mr. Duer, as quoted at the head of this chapter, says, "I would recommend that each state should raise a fund sufficient for the entire support of the schools; that a suitable school-house and apparatus, with a convenient dwelling-house for the teacher, be furnished by the state for each district; and that every school-house be supplied with a well-qualified teacher, who shall receive from the state a suitable compensation." In this recommendation I fully concur. But with me it is immaterial whether the state raises a separate fund, set apart exclusively for the purposes of education, or regards the entire taxable property of the commonwealth, personal and real, as a general fund from which there shall be drawn annually a sufficient per centage to provide for universal education in free schools. This only do I insist upon, that the people be brought so fully to realize the advantages of a good common education as to place it high on the list of indispensables; then will they provide for rendering its blessings universal. The mode of doing this in any one state may, in view of the peculiar circumstances of a people, be different from that which it would be most advantageous ordinarily to adopt. If there is no other sure way of meeting the expense of common schools, and of begetting and maintaining a deep and abiding interest in popular education, then let the property of the state be regarded as a common fund from which there shall be annually drawn a sum sufficient for the maintenance of improved free schools, in which every child may receive a generous education, as this is the interest first in importance to individuals and families, to neighborhoods and communities, to states and nations.

The state should maintain an Educational Department. The magnitude of the interests involved renders this of the utmost importance. At the head of this department in every state there should be a minister of public instruction—whether he is called school superintendent, school commissioner, secretary of the board of education, or superintendent of public instruction—and he should be allowed time to make himself familiar with all the leading writers on the subject of education, in whatever age or language their works may have been written. Such an officer can not in any other way become qualified for the proper discharge of the duties which pertain to his profession. He should also be allowed time to acquaint himself with the current literature belonging to his department as it emanates from the press; to examine new school-books, and new kinds of school apparatus which claim to possess advantages, that he may be prepared to give to school teachers, school committee-men, and others whose opportunities for examination and investigation are less extended, and many of whom must be inexperienced, such advice as shall enable them judiciously to expend their means for their personal improvement or the improvement of their schools. He should likewise have time and opportunity to become so conversant with the practical operations of different school systems as to be qualified to give such suggestions in official reports as may be of service to the Legislature in perfecting their own, and to subordinate officers in its successful administration. All this would be necessary were we only to consult the pecuniary interests of the state in the judicious expenditure of the means which are annually devoted to the support of common schools. Of how much greater importance is it that there should be such an officer in every state, and that he should enjoy every possible means for increasing his usefulness, when we consider that the successful bestowment of his labors will contribute greatly to increase individual and social happiness, and the general prosperity of the state in all coming generations.

In the further consideration of the means of rendering the blessings of education universal, we shall introduce leading topics in the order in which they naturally suggest themselves.

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In considering the means of improving our schools, the place where our country's youth receive their first instruction, and where nineteen twentieths of them complete their scholastic training, claims early attention. It is, then, proper to consider the condition of this class of edifices, as they have almost universally been in every part of the United States until within a few years past, and as they now generally are out of those states in which public attention has of late been more especially directed to improvements in education; for, before any people will attempt a reform in this particular, they must see and feel the need of it. Even in the more favored states, comparatively few in number, the improvements in school architecture have been confined mostly to a few localities, and are far from being adequate to the necessities of the case. Did space allow, I would present statements made by school officers in their reports from various states of the Union: for, however wide the differences may be in common usage, in other respects there has heretofore been a striking sameness in the appearance of school-houses in every part of the country.

Condition of School-houses.—In remarking upon the condition of this class of edifices, as they have heretofore been constructed, and as they are now almost universally found wherever public sentiment has not been earnestly, perseveringly, and judiciously called to their improvement, I will present a few extracts from the official reports of Massachusetts and New York, where greater pains have been taken to ascertain existing defects in schools, with a view to providing the necessary remedies, than in any other two states of this Union.

School-houses in Massachusetts.—The Secretary of the Board of Education of this state, in his report for 1846, remarks in reference to the condition of school-houses in the commonwealth as follows: "For years the condition of this class of edifices throughout the state, taken as a whole, had been growing worse and worse. Time and decay were always doing their work, while only here and there, with wide spaces between, was any notice taken of their silent ravages; and, in still fewer instances, were these ravages repaired. Hence, notwithstanding the improved condition of all other classes of buildings, general dilapidation was the fate of these. Industry, and the increasing pecuniary ability which it creates, had given comfort, neatness, and even elegance to private dwellings. Public spirit had erected commodious and costly churches. Counties, though largely taxed, had yet uncomplainingly paid for handsome and spacious court-houses and public offices. Humanity had been at work, and had made generous and noble provision for the pauper, the blind, the deaf and dumb, the insane. Even jails and houses of correction—the receptacles of felons and other offenders against the laws of God and man—had in many instances been transformed, by the more enlightened spirit of the age, into comfortable and healthful residences. The Genius of Architecture, as if she had made provision for all mankind, extended her sheltering care over the brute creation. Better stables were provided for cattle; better folds for sheep; and even the unclean beasts felt the improving hand of reform. But, in the mean while, the school-houses, to which the children should have been wooed by every attraction, were suffered to go where age and the elements would carry them.

"In 1837, not one third of the public school-houses in Massachusetts would have been considered tenantable by any decent family out of the poor-house or in it. As an inducement to neatness and decency, children were sent to a house whose walls and floors were indeed painted, but they were painted all too thickly by smoke and filth; whose benches and doors were covered with carved work, but they were the gross and obscene carvings of impure hands; whose vestibule, after the Oriental fashion, was converted into a veranda, but the metamorphosis which changed its architectural style consisted in laying it bare of its outer covering. The modesty and chastity of the sexes, at their tenderest age, were to be cultivated and cherished in places which oftentimes were as destitute of all suitable accommodation as a camp or a caravan. The brain was to be worked amid gases that stupefied it. The virtues of generosity and forbearance were to be acquired where sharp discomfort and pain tempt each one to seize more than his own share of relief, and thus to strengthen every selfish propensity.

"At the time referred to, the school-houses in Massachusetts were an opprobrium to the state; and if there be any one who thinks this expression too strong, he may satisfy himself of its correctness by inspecting some of the few specimens of them which still remain.

"The earliest effort at reform was directed to this class of buildings. By presenting the idea of taxation, this measure encountered the opposition of one of the strongest passions of the age. Not only the sordid and avaricious, but even those whose virtue of frugality, by the force of habit, had been imperceptibly sliding into the vice of parsimony, felt the alarm. Men of fortune without children, and men who had reared a family of children and borne the expenses of their education, fancied they saw something of injustice in being called to pay for the education of others, and too often their fancies started into specters of all imaginable oppression and wrong.

"During the five years immediately succeeding the report made by the Board of Education to the Legislature on the subject of school-houses, the sums expended for the erection and repair of this class of buildings fell but little short of seven hundred thousand dollars. Since that time, from the best information obtained, I suppose the sum expended on this one item to be about one hundred and fifty thousand dollars annually. Every year adds some new improvement to the construction and arrangement of these edifices.

"In regard to this great change in school-houses—it would hardly be too much to call it a revolution—the school committees have done an excellent work, or, rather, they have begun it; it is not yet done. Their annual reports, read in open town meeting, or printed and circulated among the inhabitants, afterward embodied in the Abstracts and distributed to the members of the government, to all town and school committees, have enlightened and convinced the state."

School-houses in New York.—About ten years ago, special visitors were appointed by the superintendent of common schools in each of the counties of this state, who were requested to visit and inspect the schools, and to report minutely in regard to their state and prospects. The most respectable citizens, without distinction of party, were selected to discharge this duty; and the result of their labors is contained in two reports, made, the one in April, 1840, the other in February, 1841. "It may be remarked, generally," say the visitors of one of the oldest and most affluent towns of the southeastern section of the state, "that the school-houses are built in the old style, are too small to be convenient, and, with one exception, too near the public roads, having generally no other play-ground."—Report, 1840, p. 47.

Say the visitors of another large and wealthy town in the central part of the state, "Out of twenty schools visited, ten of the school-houses were in bad repair, and many of them not worth repairing. In none were any means provided for the ventilation of the room. In many of the districts, the school-rooms are too small for the number of scholars. The location of the school-houses is generally pleasant. There are, however, but few instances where play-grounds are attached, and their condition as to privies is very bad. The arrangement of seats and desks is generally very bad, and inconvenient to both scholars and teachers; most of them are without backs."—Report, 1840, p. 28.

In another large and populous town in the northwestern part of the state, it appears from the report of the visitors that only five out of twenty-two school-houses are respectable or comfortable; none have any proper means of ventilation; eight of them are built of logs, and but one of them has a privy.

According to the report from another county, where the evils already enumerated exist, "There is, in general, too little attention to having good and dry wood provided, or a good supply of any; or to have a wood-house or shelter to keep it from the storm." This neglect is very common. Another neglect, noticed by many of the visitors, is "the cold and comfortless state in which the children find the school-room, owing to the late hour at which the fire is first made in the morning."

Three years later—and after the appointment of county superintendents in each of the counties of that state, who collected statistics with great care—the Hon. Samuel Young, then state superintendent, after making a minute statement of the number of school-houses constructed of stone, brick, wood, and logs; of their condition as to repair; of the destitution of privies, suitable play-grounds, etc., remarked as follows:

"But 544 out of 9368 houses visited contained more than one room; 7313 were destitute of any suitable play-ground; nearly 6000 were unfurnished with convenient seats and desks; nearly 8000 destitute of the proper facilities for ventilation; and upward of 6000 without a privy of any sort; while, of the remainder, but about 1000 were provided with privies containing different apartments for male and female pupils! And it is in these miserable abodes of accumulated dirt and filth, deprived of wholesome air, or exposed, without adequate protection, to the assaults of the elements; with no facilities for necessary exercise or relaxation; no convenience for prosecuting their studies; crowded together on benches not admitting of a moment's rest in any position, and debarred the possibility of yielding to the ordinary calls of nature without violent inroads upon modesty and shame, that upward of two hundred thousand children, scattered over various parts of the state, are compelled to spend an average period of eight months during each year of their pupilage! Here the first lessons of human life, the incipient principles of morality, and the rules of social intercourse are to be impressed upon the plastic mind. The boy is here to receive the model of his permanent character, and to imbibe the elements of his future career; and here the instinctive delicacy of the young female, one of the characteristic ornaments of the sex, is to be expanded into maturity by precept and example! Is it strange, under such circumstances, that an early and invincible repugnance to the acquisition of knowledge is imbibed by the youthful mind? that the school-house is regarded with unconcealed aversion and disgust, and that parents who have any desire to preserve the health and the morals of their children exclude them from the district school, and provide instruction for them elsewhere?"

A volume might be filled with similar testimony; but one more quotation from another state must suffice. After noticing the common evils already referred to, the superintendent remarks as follows:[68] "But this notice of ordinary deficiencies does not cover the whole ground of error in regard to the situation of school-houses. In some cases they are brought into close connection with positive nuisances. In a case which has fallen under the superintendent's own personal observation, one side of the school-house forms part of the fence of a hog-yard, into which, during the summer, the calves of an extensive dairy establishment have been thrown from time to time (disgusting and revolting spectacle!), to be rent and devoured before the eyes of teacher and pupils, except such portions of the mutilated and mangled carcasses as were left by the animals to go to decay, as they lay exposed to the sun and storm. It is true, the windows on the side of the building adjoining the yard were generally observed to be closed, in order to shut out the almost insupportable stench which arose from the decomposing remains. But this closure of the windows could, in no great degree, 'abate the nuisance;' for not a breath of air could enter the house from any direction but it must come saturated with the disgusting and sickening odor that loaded the atmosphere around. It needs no professional learning to tell the deleterious influence upon health which must be exerted by such an agency, operating for continuous hours."

If such evils as have been considered have existed so generally, and still prevail to an alarming extent, even in the states where education has received the most attention, what need must there be for the dissemination of information on this vitally important subject, especially in those states where education has heretofore received less attention! In remarking further upon this subject, I shall consider several leading particulars in the order they naturally suggest themselves. I will, then, commence with the

Location of School-houses.—In comparatively few instances school-houses are favorably located, being situated on dry, hard ground, in a retired though central part of the district, in the midst of a natural or artificial grove. But they are almost universally badly located; exposed to the noise, dust, and danger of the highway; unattractive, if not absolutely repulsive in their external appearance, and built at the least possible expense of material and labor. They are generally on one corner of public roads, and sometimes adjacent to a cooper's shop, or between a blacksmith's shop and a saw-mill. They are not unfrequently placed on an acute angle, where a road forks, and sometimes in turning that angle, the travel is chiefly behind the school-house, leaving it on a small triangle bounded on all sides by public roads.

Occasionally the school-house is situated on a low and worthless piece of ground, with a sluggish stream of water in its vicinity, which sometimes even passes under the house. The comfort, and health even, of children are thus sacrificed to the parsimony of their parents. Scholars very generally step from the school-house directly into the highway. Indeed, school-houses are frequently situated one half in the highway and the other half in the adjacent field, as though they were unfit for either. This is the case even in some of the principal villages of all the states I have ever visited, or from which I have read full reports on the subject.

Strange as it may seem, school-houses are sometimes situated in the middle of the highway, a portion of the travel being on each side of them. When the scholars are engaged in their recreations, they are exposed to bleak winds and the inclemency of the weather one portion of the year, and to the scorching rays of the meridian sun another portion. Moreover, their recreations must be conducted in the street, or they trespass upon their neighbors' premises. We pursue a very different policy in locating a church, a court-house, or a dwelling; and should we not pursue an equally wise and liberal policy in locating the district school-house?

In the states generally northwest of the River Ohio, six hundred and forty acres of land in every township are appropriated to the support of common schools. Suppose there are ten school districts in a township, this would allow sixty-four acres to every district. It would seem that when the general government has appropriated sixty-four acres to create a fund for the encouragement of the schools of a township, that each district might set apart one acre as a site for a school-house. Once more: school districts usually contain not less than twenty-five hundred acres of land. Is it, then, asking too much to set apart one acre as a site for a school-house, in which the minds of the children of the district shall be cultivated, when twenty-four hundred and ninety-nine acres are appropriated to feeding and clothing their bodies?

I would respectfully suggest, and even urge the propriety of locating the school-house on a piece of firm ground of liberal dimensions, and of inclosing the same with a suitable fence. The location should be dry, quiet, and pleasant, and in every respect healthy. The vicinity of places of idle and dissipated resort should by all means be avoided; and, if possible, the site of the school-house should overlook a delightful country, and be surrounded by picturesque scenery. The school yard, at least, should be inclosed not only, but set out with shade trees, unless provided with those of Nature's own planting. It should also be ornamented with beautiful shrubbery, and be made the park of the neighborhood—the pleasantest place for resort within the boundaries of the district. This would contribute largely to the formation of a correct taste on the part of both children and parents. It would also tend to the formation of virtuous habits and the cultivation of self-respect; for the scholars would then enjoy their pastime in a pleasant and healthful yard, where they have a right to be, and need no longer be hunted as trespassers upon their neighbors' premises, as they now too frequently are.

Size and Construction.—In treating upon the philosophy of respiration at the 92d page of this work, it was stated that, exclusive of entry and closets, where they are furnished with these appendages, school-houses are not usually larger than twenty by twenty-four feet on the ground, and seven feet in height. The average attendance in houses of these dimensions was estimated at forty-five scholars in the winter. It was also stated that the medium quantity of air that enters the lungs at each inspiration is thirty-six cubic inches, and that respiration is repeated once in three seconds, or twenty times a minute. Now, to say nothing of the inconvenience which so many persons must experience in occupying a house of so narrow dimensions, and making no allowance for the space taken up by desks, furniture, and the scholars themselves, a simple arithmetical computation will show any one that such a room will not contain a sufficient amount of air for the support of life three hours. But I will here simply refer the reader to the fourth chapter of this work, and will not repeat what was there said.

In determining the size of school-houses, due regard should be had to several particulars. There should be a separate entry or lobby for each sex, which Mr. Barnard, in his School Architecture,[69] very justly says should be furnished with a scraper, mat, hooks or shelves—both are needed—sink, basin, and towels. A separate entry thus furnished will prevent much confusion, rudeness, and impropriety, and promote the health, refinement, and orderly habits of the children.

The principal room of the school-house, and each such room where there are several departments, should be large enough to allow each occupant a suitable quantity of pure air, which should be at least twice the common amount, or not less than one hundred and fifty cubic feet. There should also be one or more rooms for recitation, apparatus, library, etc., according to the size of the school and the number of scholars to be accommodated.

Every school-room should be so constructed that each scholar may pass to and from his seat without disturbing or in the least incommoding any other one. A house thus arranged will enable the teacher to pass at all times to any part of the room, and to approach each scholar in his seat whenever it may be desirable to do so for purposes of instruction or otherwise. Such an arrangement is of the utmost importance; and without the fulfillment of this condition, no teacher can most advantageously superintend the affairs of a whole school, and especially of a large one.

In determining the details of construction and arrangement for a school-house, due regard must be had to the varying circumstances of country and city, as well as to the number of scholars that may be expected in attendance, the number of teachers to be employed, and the different grades of schools that may be established in a community.

Country Districts.—In country districts, as they have long been situated, and still generally are, aside from separate entries and clothes-rooms for the sexes, there will only be needed one principal school-room, with a smaller room for recitations, apparatus, and other purposes. In arranging and fitting up this room, reference must be had to the requirements of the district; for this one room is to be occupied by children of all ages, for summer and winter schools, and for the secular, but more especially for the religious meetings of the neighborhood. But in its construction primary reference should be had to the convenience of the scholars in school, for it will be used by them more, ten to one, than for all other purposes. Every child, then, even the youngest in school, should be furnished with a seat and desk, at which he may sit with ease and comfort. The seats should each be furnished with a back, and their height should be such as to allow the children to rest their feet comfortably upon the floor. The necessity of this will be apparent by referring to what has been said on the laws of health in the third chapter of this work, at the 68th and following pages.

No one, then, can fail to see the advantages that would result to a densely-settled community from a union of two or more districts for the purpose of maintaining in each a school for the younger children, and of establishing in the central part of the associated districts a school of a higher grade for the older and more advanced children of all the districts thus united. If four districts should be united in this way, they might erect a central house, C, for the larger and more advanced scholars, and four smaller ones, p p p p, for the younger children. The central school might be taught by a male teacher, with female assistants, if needed; but the primary schools, with this arrangement, could be more economically and successfully instructed by females. In several of the states legal provisions are already made for such a consolidation of districts. This would invite a more perfect classification of scholars, and would allow the central school-house to be so constructed, and to have the seats and desks of such a height as to be convenient for the larger grade of scholars, and still be comfortable for other purposes for which it might occasionally be necessary to occupy it. Such an arrangement, while it would obviate the almost insuperable difficulties which stand in the way of proper classification and the thorough government and instruction of schools, would at the same time offer greater inducements to the erection of more comfortable and attractive school-houses.

Cities and Villages.—The plan suggested in the last paragraph may be perfected in cities and villages. For this purpose, where neither the distance nor the number of scholars is too great, some prefer to have all the schools of a district or corporation conducted under the same roof. However this may be, as there will be other places for public meetings of various kinds, each room should be appropriated to a particular department, and be fitted up exclusively for the accommodation of the grade of scholars that are to occupy it. In cities, and even in villages with a population of three or four thousand, it is desirable to establish at least three grades of schools, viz., first, the primary, for the smallest children; second, the intermediate, for those more advanced; and, third, a central high school, for scholars that have passed through the primary and intermediate schools. While this arrangement is favorable to the better classification of the scholars of a village or city, and holds out an inducement to those of the lowest and middle grade of schools to perfect themselves in the various branches of study that are pursued in them respectively as the condition upon which they are permitted to enter a higher grade, it also allows a more perfect adjustment of the seats and desks to the various requirements of the children in their passage through the grade of schools.

New York Free Academy.—In the public schools of the city of New York, two hundred in number, six hundred teachers are employed, and one hundred thousand children annually receive instruction. The Free Academy, which is a public school of the highest grade, and which is represented in our frontispiece, was established by the Board of Education in 1847. The expense of the building, without the furniture, was $46,000, and the annual expense for the salaries of professors and teachers is about $10,000. Out of twenty-four thousand votes cast, twenty thousand were for the establishment of this institution, in which essentially a complete collegiate education may be obtained. No students are admitted to it who have not attended the public schools of the city for at least one full year, nor these until they have undergone a thorough examination and proved themselves worthy. Its influence is not confined to the one hundred or one hundred and fifty scholars who may graduate from it annually, but leaches and stimulates the six hundred teachers, and the hundred thousand children whom they instruct, and thus elevates the common schools of the city in reality not only, but places them much more favorably before the public than they otherwise could be.

Smaller cities, and especially villages with a population of but a few thousand, can not, of course, maintain so extended a system of public schools; but they can accomplish essentially the same thing more perfectly, though on a smaller scale. For the benefit of districts in the country and in villages, I will here insert a few plans of school-houses.

Ventilation of School-houses.—We have already seen that in a school-room occupied by forty-five persons, thirty-two thousand four hundred cubic inches of air impart their entire vitality to support animal life the first minute, and, mingling with the atmosphere of the room, proportionably deteriorate the whole mass; that the air of crowded school-rooms thus soon becomes entirely unfit for respiration, and that, as the necessary result, the health of both teacher and scholars is endangered; that the scholars gradually lose both the desire and the ability to study, and become more inclined to be disorderly, while the teacher becomes continually more unfit either to teach or govern. Hence the necessity of frequent and thorough ventilation.

The ordinary facilities for ventilating school-rooms consist in opening a door and raising the lower sash of the windows. The only ventilation which has been practiced in the great majority of schools has been entirely accidental, and has consisted in opening and closing the outer door as the scholars enter and pass out of the school-house, before school, during the recesses, and at noon. Ventilation, as such, I may safely say, has not, until within a few years, been practiced in one school in fifty; nor is it at the present time in many parts of the country. It is true, the door has at times been set open a few minutes, and the windows have been occasionally raised, but the object has been either to let the smoke pass out of the room, or to cool it when it has become too warm, not to ventilate it.

Ventilation by opening a door or raising the windows is imperfect, and frequently injurious. A more effectual and safer method of ventilation consists in lowering the upper sash of the window. In very cold or stormy weather, a ventilator in the ceiling may be opened, so as to allow the vitiated air to escape into the attic, in which case there should be a free communication between the attic and the outer air by means of a lattice in the gable, or otherwise. A ventilator may also be constructed in connection with the chimney, by carrying up a partition in the middle, one half of the chimney being used for a smoke flue, and the other half for a ventilator.

But it is often asked, Why is it not just as well to raise the lower sash of the windows as to lower the upper one? In reply I would say, first, lowering the upper sash is a more effectual method of ventilation. In a room which is warmed and occupied in cold weather, the warmer and more vitiated portions of the air rise to the upper part of the room, while that which is colder and purer descends. The reason for this may not be readily conceived, especially when we consider that carbonic acid, the vitiating product of respiration, is specifically heavier than common air. Three considerations, however, will make it apparent. 1. Gases of different specific gravity mix uniformly, under favorable circumstances. 2. The carbonic acid which is exhaled from the lungs at about blood heat is hence rarefied, and specifically lighter than the air in the room, which inclines it to ascend. 3. The ingress of cold and heavier air from without is chiefly through apertures near the base of the room. Raising the lower sash of the windows allows a portion of the purer air of the room to pass off, while the more vitiated air above is retained. Lowering the upper sash allows the impure air above to escape, while the purer air below remains unchanged.

Lowering the upper sash is also the safer method of ventilation. It not only allows the impure air more readily to escape, but provides also for the more uniform diffusion of the pure air from without, which takes its place through the upper part of the room. The renovated air will gradually settle upon the heads of the scholars, giving them a purer air to breathe, while the comfort of the body and lower extremities will remain undisturbed. This is as it should be; for warm feet and cool heads contribute alike to physical comfort and clearness of mind. Raising the lower sash of the windows endangers the health of scholars, exposing those who sit near them to colds, catarrhs, etc. Indeed, when it is very cold or stormy, it is unsafe to ventilate by lowering the upper sash of the windows. At such times, provision should be made for the escape of impure air at the upper part of the room, and for the introduction of pure air at the lower part, as will be shown while treating upon the means of warming.

Means of Warming.—Next in importance to pure air in a school-room is the maintenance of an even temperature. This is an indispensable condition of health, comfort, and successful labor. It is one, however, that is very generally disregarded; or, perhaps I should say, one that is not often enjoyed. School-houses are generally warmed by means of stoves, some of which are in a good condition, and supplied with dry, seasoned wood. The instances, however, in which such facilities for warming exist, are comparatively few. It is much more common to see cracked and broken stoves, the doors without either hinges or latch, with rusty pipe of various sizes. Green wood, also, and that which is old and partially decayed, either drenched with rain or covered with snow during inclement weather, is much more frequently used for fuel than sound, seasoned wood, protected from the weather by a suitable wood-house. With this state of things, it is exceedingly difficult to kindle a fire, which burns poorly, at best, when built. Fires, moreover, are frequently built so late, that the house does not become comfortably warm at the time appointed for commencing school. These neglects are the fruitful source of much discomfort and disorder. The temperature is fluctuating; the room is filled with smoke a considerable part of the time, especially in stormy weather; and the school is liable to frequent interruptions, in fastening together and tying up stove-pipe, etc., etc.

This may seem a little like exaggeration. I know full well there are many noble exceptions. But in a large majority of instances some of these inconveniences exist; and the most of them coexist much more frequently than persons generally are aware of. I speak from the personal observation of several thousand schools in different states, and from reliable information in relation to the subject from various portions of the country. I have myself many times heard trustees and patrons, who have visited their school with me for the first time in several years, say, "We ought to have some dry wood to kindle with; I didn't know as it was so smoky: we must get some new pipe; really, our stove is getting dangerous," etc. And some of the boys have relieved the embarrassment of their parents by saying, "It don't smoke near so bad to-day as it does sometimes!"

The principal reason why the stoves in our school-houses are so cracked and broken, and why the pipes are so rusty and open, lies in the circumstance that green wood, or that which is partially decayed and saturated with moisture, is used for fuel, instead of good seasoned wood, protected from the inclemency of the weather by a suitable wood-house. There are at least three reasons why this is poor policy. 1. It takes double the amount of wood. A considerable portion of the otherwise sensible heat becomes latent, in the conversion of ice, snow, and moisture into steam. 2. The steam thus generated cracks the stove and rusts the pipe, so that they will not last one half as long as though dry wood from a wood-house were used. 3. It is impossible to preserve an even temperature. Sometimes it is too cold, and at other times it is too warm; and this, with such means of warming, is unavoidable. Scores of teachers have informed me that, in order to keep their fires from going out, it was necessary to have their stoves constantly full of wood, and even to lay wood upon the stove, that a portion of it might be seasoning while the rest was burning. Aside from the inconvenience of a fluctuating temperature, this is an unseemly and filthy practice, and one that generates very offensive and injurious gases.

Again: I have frequently heard the following and similar remarks: "The use of stoves in our school-houses is a great evil;" "Stoves are unhealthy in our school-houses, or in any other houses," etc. This idea being somewhat prevalent, and stoves being generally used in our school-houses, their influence upon health becomes a proper subject for consideration.

Combustion, whether in a stove or fire-place, consists in a chemical union of the oxygen gas of the atmosphere with carbon, the combustible part of the wood or coal used for fuel. Carbonic acid, the vitiating product of combustion, does not, however, ordinarily deteriorate the atmosphere of the room, but, mingling with the smoke, escapes through the stove-pipe or chimney.

The stove, in point of economy, is far superior to the open fire-place as ordinarily constructed. When the latter is used, it has been estimated that nine tenths of the heat evolved ascends the chimney, and only one tenth, or, according to Rumford and Franklin, only one fifteenth, is radiated from the front of the fire into the room. Four-fold more fuel is required to warm a room by a fire-place than when a stove is used. Oxygen is, of course, consumed in a like proportion, and hence, when the open fire-place is used, there is necessarily a four-fold greater ingress of cold air to supply combustion than where a stove is employed.

And, what is of still greater importance, when a fire-place is used, it is impossible to preserve so uniform a temperature throughout the room as when a stove is employed. When a fire-place is used, the cold air is constantly rushing through every crevice at one end of the room to supply combustion at the other end. Hence the scholars in one part of the room suffer from cold, while those in the opposite part are oppressed with heat. The stove may be set in a central part of the room, whence the heat will radiate, not in one direction merely, but in all directions. In addition to this, as we have already seen, only one fourth as much air is required to sustain combustion, on both of which accounts a much more even and uniform temperature can be maintained throughout a room where a stove is used than where a fire-place is employed.

But whence, then, has arisen the prevailing opinion that stoves are unhealthy? There are two sources of mischief, either of which furnishes a sufficient foundation for this popular fallacy. The first has already been referred to, and consists simply in the almost total neglect of proper ventilation. The other lies in the circumstance that school-rooms are generally kept too warm. In addition to the inconvenience of too high a temperature, the aqueous vapor existing in the atmosphere in its natural and healthful state is dispersed, and the air of the room becomes too dry. The evil being seen, the remedy is apparent. Reduce the temperature of the room to its proper point, and supply the deficiency of aqueous vapor by an evaporating dish partially filled with pure water. If this is not done, the dry and over-heated air, which is highly absorbent of moisture in every thing with which it comes in contact, not only creates a disagreeable sensation of dryness on the surface of the body, but in passing over the delicate membrane of the throat, creates a tickling, induces a cough, and lays the foundation for pulmonary disease, especially when ventilation is neglected. The water in the evaporating dish should be frequently changed, and kept free from dirt and other impurities. Care also should be taken not to create more moisture than the air naturally contains, otherwise the effect will be positively injurious.

The evil complained of is attributable mainly to the maintenance of a too high temperature. Were a thermometer placed in many of our school-rooms—and a school-house should never be without one in every occupied apartment—instead of indicating a suitable temperature, say sixty-two or sixty-five degrees, or even a summer temperature, it would not unfrequently rise above blood heat. The system is thus not only enfeebled and deranged by breathing an infectious atmosphere, but the debility thence arising is considerably increased in consequence of too high a temperature. The two causes combined eminently predispose the system to disease. The change from inhaling a fluid poison at blood heat, to inhaling the purer air without at the freezing point or below, is greater than the system can bear with impunity.

A uniform temperature, which is highly important, can be more easily and more effectually maintained where a stove is employed, furnished with a damper, and supplied with dry, hard wood, than where a fire-place is used. In the former case the draft may be regulated, in the latter it can not be. A great amount of air enters into combustion even where a stove is used. A greater quantity enters into the combustion where a fire-place is used, in proportion to the increased amount of wood consumed. Much of the heated air, also, where an open fire-place is used, mingling with the smoke, passes off through the chimney, and its place is supplied by an ingress of cold air at the more distant portions of the room. There is hence not only a great waste of fuel, but a sacrifice of comfort, health, and life.

But even where a stove is used there is a constant ingress of cold air through cracks and defects in the floor, doors, windows, and walls, which causes it to be colder in the outer portions of the room than in the central portions and about the stove. The evil is the same in kind as that already referred to in speaking of fire-places, but less in degree. This evil, however, may be almost entirely obviated by a very simple arrangement, which will also do much to render ventilation at once more effectual and safe, especially in very cold and inclement weather. The arrangement is as follows:

Immediately beneath the floor—and in case the school-house is two stories high, between the ceiling and the floor above—insert a tube from four to six inches in diameter, according to the size of the rooms, the outer end communicating with the external air by means of an orifice in the under-pinning or wall of the house, and the other, by means of an angle, passing upward through the floor beneath the stove. This part of the tube should be furnished with a register, so as to admit much or little air, as may be desirable. This simple arrangement will reverse the ordinary currents of air in a school-room. The cold air, instead of entering at the crevices in the outer part of the room, where it is coldest, enters directly beneath the stove, where it is warmest. It thus moderates the heat immediately about the stove, and being warmed as it enters, and mingling with the heated air, establishes currents toward the walls, and gradually finds its way out at the numerous crevices through which the cold air previously entered. If these are not sufficient for the purpose, several ventilators should be provided in distant parts of the room, as already suggested. This simple arrangement, then, provides for the more even dissemination of heat through all parts of the room, and thus secures a more uniform temperature, and, at the same time, provides a purer air for respiration, contributes greatly to the comfort and health of the scholars, and fulfills several important conditions which are essential to the most successful prosecution of their studies, and to the maintenance and improvement of social and moral, as well as intellectual and physical health.

By inclosing the stove on three sides in a case of sheet iron, leaving a space of two or three inches between the case and the stove for an air chamber, the air will become more perfectly warmed before entering the room at the top of the case. The best mode, however, of warming and ventilating large school-houses is by pure air heated in a furnace placed in the basement. The whole house can in this way be warmed without any inconvenience to the school from maintaining the fires, on account of either noise, dust, or smoke. But as this mode of warming can not be advantageously adopted except in very large schools, it will not often be found desirable out of cities and large villages.

Library and Apparatus.—I have already said that every school-house should have a room for recitations, library, and apparatus. In country districts where but one teacher is employed in a school, it will perhaps generally be found convenient to conduct the majority of the recitations in the principal school-room. But even where this practice obtains, there is still urgent necessity for a room for a library, apparatus, and other purposes.

Several of the states have carried into successful operation the noble system of District Libraries. These, in the single state of New York, already contain nearly two millions of volumes. In some of the new states the system of Township Libraries has been adopted, which, on some accounts, is better adapted to a sparse population with limited means. These, in the State of Michigan, already contain one hundred thousand volumes. The director of each school district draws from the township library every three months the number of books his district is entitled to. These, for the time being, constitute the district library, and each citizen in the township is thus allowed the use of all the books in the township library.

Now, whichever of these systems is adopted, the school-house is the appropriate depository of the library. There are many reasons for this. It is central. It is the property of the district. During term-time it is visited daily by members from perhaps every family in the district. There may, and should be, a time fixed, at least once a week, when the library will be open, the librarian or his assistant being in attendance, at which time books may be returned and drawn anew. For this purpose, and on all accounts, no place can be so appropriate and free from objection as the school-house. The library may also be opened one or more evenings in the week, and especially during the winter, when evenings are long, as a district reading-room. Moreover, should a District Lyceum be established, the use of a well-selected library, which will always be at hand, and of appropriate apparatus for the illustration of scientific lectures, will contribute greatly to increase both the popularity and the usefulness of the institution.

With such an arrangement, the children of the district would most assuredly be much more benefited by the instructions they would receive. The school would also possess many attractions for adults of both sexes, and by the co-operation of the wise and the good, its refining, purifying, and regenerating influences may be brought effectually to bear upon every family and every individual within the boundaries of the district. Then will the idea of Cousin be realized, who says, "A school ought to be a noble asylum, to which children will come, and in which they will remain with pleasure; to which their parents will send them with good will;" and, I will add, one whose uplifting influence both children and parents will constantly feel.

Such a room as I have described will also be found important for various other purposes, as a commodious place for retirement in case of sudden indisposition, a place where a teacher may see a patron or a friend in private, should it be at any time desirable, or a parent his child. It would also be of great service in giving the teacher an opportunity to see scholars in private, for various purposes, as well as in affording a convenient room for scholars to retire to, with the permission of the teacher, for mutual instruction.

That able and judicious advocate of popular enlightenment, and eminently successful school officer, the Honorable Henry Barnard, does not over-estimate the importance of district libraries. In speaking of the benefits they confer upon a community, he says, "Wherever such libraries have existed, especially in connection with the advantages of superior schools and an educated ministry, they have called forth talent and virtue, which would otherwise have been buried in poverty and ignorance, to elevate, bless, and purify society. The establishment of a library in every school-house will bring the mighty instrument of good books to act more directly and more broadly on the entire population of a state than it has ever yet done; for it will open the fountains of knowledge, without money and without price, to the humble and the elevated, the poor and the rich."

Appurtenances to School-houses.—There are, perhaps, in the majority of school-houses, a pail for water, a cup, a broom, and a chair for the teacher. Some one or more of these are frequently wanting. I need hardly say, every school-house should be supplied with them all. In addition to these, every school-house should be furnished with the following articles: 1. An evaporating dish for the stove, which should be supplied with clean pure water. 2. A thermometer, by which the temperature of the room may be regulated. 3. A clock, by which the time of beginning and closing school, and conducting all its exercises, may be governed. 4. A shovel and tongs. 5. An ash-pail and an ash-house. For want of these, much filth is frequently suffered to accumulate in and about the school-house, and not unfrequently the house itself takes fire and burns down. 6. A wood-house, well supplied with seasoned wood. 7. A well, with provisions not only for drinking, but for the cleanliness of pupils. 8. And last, though not least, in this connection, two privies, in the rear of the school-house, separated by a high close fence, one for the boys and the other for the girls. For want of these indispensable appendages of civilization, the delicacy of children is frequently offended, and their morals corrupted. Nay, more, the unnatural detention of the fÆces, when nature calls for an evacuation, is frequently the foundation for chronic diseases, and the principal cause of permanent ill health, resulting not unfrequently in premature death. The accommodations in this respect provided by a district in a country village of the Northwest, whose schools have become celebrated, are none too ample. Two octagonal privies are provided—one for each sex—each of which has seven apartments. These are cleansed every two weeks, regularly, and oftener, if necessary.

Mr. Barnard, in treating upon the external arrangements of school-houses, has the following sensible remarks: "The building should not only be located on a dry, healthy, and pleasant site, but be surrounded by a yard, of never less than half an acre, protected by a neat and substantial inclosure. This yard should be large enough in front for all to occupy in common for recreation and sport, and planted with oaks, elms, maples, and other shady trees, tastefully arranged in groups and around the sides. In the rear of the building, it should be divided by a high and close fence, and one portion, appropriately fitted up, should be assigned exclusively for the use of boys, and the other for girls. Over this entire arrangement the most perfect neatness, seclusion, order, and propriety should be enforced, and every thing calculated to defile the mind, or wound the delicacy or the modesty of the most sensitive, should receive attention in private, and be made a matter of parental advice and co-operation.

"In cities and populous districts, particular attention should be paid to the play-ground, as connected with the physical education of children. In the best-conducted schools, the play-ground is now regarded as the uncovered school-room, where the real dispositions and habits of the pupils are more palpably developed, and can be more wisely trained, than under the restraint of an ordinary school-room. These grounds are provided with circular swings, and are large enough for various athletic games. To protect the children in their sports in inclement weather, in some places, the school-house is built on piers; in others, the basement story is properly fitted up, and thrown open as a play-ground."

A good and substantial room, well fitted up, and properly warmed in cold weather, in which children may conduct their sports, under the supervision of a teacher or monitor, is of the utmost importance; and especially is this true of all schools for small children. Such a room is, indeed, for these, hardly less important than the school-room. Among other things, it should be supplied with dumb-bells,[70] see-saws, weights and measures of various kinds, etc., etc. These are important for both boys and girls; but, as they are uncommon, it may be well to suggest the proper mode of using them, and the advantages they confer.

Dumb-bells may be used, in connection with the sports enumerated in the third chapter, for developing and strengthening the chest and improving the health. I would refer any who question the fitness of such exercises to what has been said on the subject at the 77th and following pages, and especially to the testimony of Dr. Caldwell there introduced.

See-saws, in addition to the benefits that result from the exercise, are attractive, and may be rendered highly instructive. For this purpose, the plank or board used should be well hung and properly balanced. The distance from the fulcrum or point of support should be accurately graduated, and marked in feet and inches. Then, knowing the weight of one scholar, the weights of all the others may be ascertained by their relative distances from the fulcrum when they exactly balance. These interesting experiments may be tried by any child as soon as he understands the ground rules of arithmetic, and the simple fact that, for two children to balance, the product of the weight of one multiplied into his distance from the fulcrum will exactly equal the product of the weight of the other into his distance from the fulcrum. Such simple experiments, when thus mingled with sports, and made interesting to young children, serve the double purpose of attaching them to the school, and of fixing in their minds the habit of observation and experiment, and of understanding the why and wherefore, which will be of incalculable service to them all the way through life.

Weights and measures serve the same general purpose, and may be rendered well-nigh as useful as slates and black-boards. Thousands of children recite every year the table, "four gills make a pint, two pints make a quart, four quarts make a gallon," etc., month in and month out, without any distinct idea of what constitutes a gill or a quart, or even knowing which of the two is the greater. But let these measures be once introduced into the experimental play-room, and let the child, under the supervision of the teacher or monitor, actually see that four gills make a pint, etc., and he will learn the table with ten-fold greater pleasure than he otherwise would, and in one tenth the time.

The same general remark will apply to the other tables of weight and measure, to experimental philosophy, and to nearly every branch of study pursued in the common schools of our country. I have but one other general remark to make on this subject, and that is in relation to the

Influence of School-houses.—Cicero observes that the face of a man will be tinged by the sun, for whatever purpose he walks abroad; so, by daily associations, the minds of all persons are influenced, and their characters permanently affected, by scenes with which they are familiar; and especially is this true during the impressive periods of childhood and youth. Many persons seem to think that schoolmasters and school-mistresses do all the teaching in our schools. But it is not so. Fellow-students, neighbors, and citizens teach by precept and by example; and especially do school-houses teach. And oh! what lessons of degradation, pollution, and ruin they sometimes impart! as he can not fail to be convinced who remembers the testimony already introduced in relation to their condition.

I have seen the fond parent accompany his lovely child of four summers to the school the first day of its attendance. The child had seen pictures of school-houses in books. Pictures, if not always pretty, usually please children. It was so in this case. The child, anxious to go to school, talked of the school-house on the way. There arrived, the parent passed his innocent little one into the care of the teacher, with a few remarks, and was about to retire, when the child, clinging to him, said, pathetically and energetically, "Pa! pa!! I don't want to stay in this ugly old house; I am afraid it will fall down on me: I want to go home to our own pretty parlor." But the parent, breaking away from his child, leaves it in tears, with a sad heart. How cruel to do such violence to the tender feelings of innocent children! And how baneful the influence! The school, instead of being a comfortable, pleasant, and delightful place, as it should be, is to the child positively offensive, and the school-house a dreary prison. "Just as the twig is bent, the tree's inclined." The child learns to hate school, to hate instruction, and all that is good. He soon becomes the practiced truant. In a few years he arrives at manhood; but, instead of being a blessing to his family and a useful member of society, he too frequently drags out a wretched life, in ignorance and penury, dividing it between the poor-house and jail, and terminating it, peradventure, upon the gallows.

It needs the pen of a ready writer duly to portray the influence of neglected school-houses. Parents seem to have forgotten that, while men sleep, the enemy comes and sows tares; that if good school-houses do not elevate, neglected ones will pollute their children. I have already alluded, in the language of others, to the representations of vulgarity and obscenity that meet the eye in every direction. But I am constrained to add, that, during the intermissions, and before school, "certain lewd fellows of the baser sort" sometimes lecture in the hearing of the school generally, boys and girls, large and small, illustrating their subject by these vulgar delineations.

But why are these things so? And how may they be remedied? Different persons will answer these questions variously. But when we bear in mind that, in architectural appearance, school-houses have very generally more resembled barns, sheds for cattle, or mechanic shops, than Temples of Science; that windows are broken; that benches are mutilated; that desks are cut up; that wood is unprovided; that out-buildings are neglected; that obscene images and vulgar delineations meet the eye within and without; that, in fine, their very appearance is so contemptible, that scholars feel themselves degraded in being obliged to occupy them; when we bear in mind all these things, and then consider that the impressive minds of children are necessarily and permanently affected by scenes with which they become familiar, we can not wonder that they yield themselves to such influences, and consent to increase their degradation by multiplying the abominations with which they are surrounded. And especially shall we cease to wonder at the existence of these things, when we consider that scholars are very often unfurnished with suitable employment; that the younger scholars are frequently urged on by the example and influence of the older ones; and that teachers are sometimes employed who are so far lost to shame as to countenance these disgusting and corrupting practices by engaging in them themselves!

A knowledge of the cause suggests the remedy. Let, then, the school-house be commodious and cleanly; inviting in its appearance, and elevating in its influence. Let every member of the school, at all times, be furnished with entertaining and profitable employment. Let the corrupting influence of bad example be at once and forever removed. And, finally, let the services of a well-qualified teacher, of good morals, correct example, and who is scrupulously watchful, be invariably secured.

But if the mean appearance of our school-houses is one reason why they are so defaced, it may be asked, why do not our churches, which are frequently among the most elegant specimens of architecture, escape the pollution? The reason is evident. The foul habit is contracted in the unseemly school-house, and it becomes so established that it is very difficult to suspend its exercise even in the Temple of God. Were our school-houses, in point of neatness and architecture, equal to our churches, the evil in question would soon become less prevalent, and, with judicious supervision, we might safely predict its early extinction.

I would not suggest that too much pains are taken to make our churches pleasant and comfortable, but I do protest that there is a great and unwise disproportion in the appearance of our churches and school-houses. It is frequently the case in villages and country neighborhoods, that the expense of the former is from fifty to eighty times the value of the latter. The appearance of our school-houses is an important consideration. If we would cultivate the beastly propensities of our youth, we have but to provide them places of instruction resembling the hovels which our cattle occupy, and the work is well begun. On the contrary, if we would take into the account the whole duration of our being, and the cultivation and right development of the nobler faculties of our nature, while the animal propensities are allowed to remain in a quiescent state, and adapt means to ends, our school-houses should be pleasant and tasteful. Every thing offensive should be separated from them, and no pains should be spared to give them an inviting aspect and an elevating influence.

It is easier to make children good than to reform wicked men. It is cheaper to construct commodious school-houses, with pleasant yards and suitable appurtenances, than to erect numerous jails and extensive prisons. George B. Emerson, in a lecture on moral education, speaks to the point. "In regard to the lower animal propensities," says he, "the only safe principle is, that nothing should be allowed which has a tendency, directly or indirectly, to excite them. In many places there prevails an alarming and criminal indifference upon this point. It is one toward which the attention of the teacher should be carefully directed. No sound should be suffered from the lips; no word, or figure, or mark should be allowed to reach the eyes, to deface the wall of the house or out-house, which could give offense to the most sensitive delicacy. This is the teacher's business. He must not be indifferent to it. He has no right to neglect it. He can not transfer it to another. He, and he only, is responsible.[71] It is impossible to be over-scrupulous in this matter. And the committee should see that the teacher does his duty; otherwise all his lessons in duty are of no avail, and the school, instead of being a source of purity, delicacy, and refinement, becomes a fountain of corruption, throwing out poisonous waters, and rendering the moral influence more pestiferous than that fabled fountain of old, over which no creature of heaven could fly and escape death."

In conclusion, on this subject, I would say, if there is one house in the district more pleasantly located, more comfortably constructed, better warmed, and more inviting in its general appearance, and more elevating in its influence than any other, that house should be the school-house.

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We come next to the consideration of school teachers; for, in order to have good schools, we want not merely good school-houses. These, as already seen, are of the utmost importance; but, to insure success, we must have good teachers in those houses. And here, were I addressing myself exclusively to the members of this profession, it would be appropriate to dwell in detail upon the requisite qualifications of teachers. But this would be foreign from my present design.[72]

It has not been my intention in any thing I have yet said, nor will it be in any thing I may hereafter urge, to overlook the importance of domestic education. Napoleon once said to an accomplished French lady that the old systems of education were good for nothing, and inquired what was wanting for the proper training of young persons in France. With keen discernment and great truth, she replied, in one word—Mothers. This reply forcibly impressed the emperor, and he exclaimed, "Behold an entire system of education! You must make mothers that know how to train their children." I may add, we want mothers not only, but fathers too, qualified for the great work of training their offspring aright; for parents are readily admitted to be the natural educators of their children. But the literary training of children has always been accomplished chiefly by delegation; and not only the literary, but, to a great extent, the moral and religious.

This course has been adopted on account of the situation of families; many parents being unable to teach their children themselves, and others lacking the necessary leisure to carry forward a systematic and thorough course of instruction. This course is dictated by policy; for the children of a whole neighborhood may be better taught, and at less expense, in good schools, than in their respective families. This course has also been adopted as a matter of necessity; for the greatness of the work of education requires, in order to carry it forward successfully, that it should be studied as a profession. The teacher then engages jointly with the parent in the work of education, and with him shares its toils, its responsibilities, and its delights.

From the greatness of the teacher's work, as we have already considered it—training, as he should, his youthful charge for respectability, usefulness, and happiness in this life, and for everlasting felicity in that which is to come—we may infer what should be his qualifications. And we remark, in the general, that the business of

School teaching should rank among the learned professions. The teacher should well understand the nature of the subjects of education, as physical, intellectual, and moral beings. The education of children can not safely be intrusted to persons who are not practically acquainted with human physiology, and with mental science as based thereon. The most serious physical evils frequently result from allowing incompetent persons to exercise the functions of this high and responsible vocation.

In addition to a thorough knowledge of all the branches in which a teacher is expected to give instruction, and an acquaintance with those collateral branches that have a bearing upon them, the instructor of youth should possess the rare attainment of aptness to teach. It will be of little avail if the teacher has become familiar with all wisdom, unless he can readily communicate instruction to others. Paul, in speaking of the qualifications of bishops, says, among other things, they should be "apt to teach." This attainment is no less important for schoolmasters than for bishops. It is especially important that the teacher should be well acquainted with intellectual philosophy and moral science. This is necessary, in order to enable him to judge correctly of character, and to teach, and govern, and train his charge aright. But these attainments can never be made until teaching is elevated to the rank of a profession.

The lawyer is required to devote a series of years to a regular course of classical study and professional reading before he can find employment in a case in which a few dollars only are pending. With this we find no fault. But it should not be forgotten that the teacher's calling is as much more important than the ordinary exercise of the legal profession, as the imperishable riches of mind are more valuable than the corruptible treasures of earth.

We seek out from among us men of sound discretion and good report to enact laws for the government of the state and nation. And with this, too, we find no fault. It is right and proper that we should do so. But it should be borne in mind that it is the teacher's high prerogative not only so to instruct and train the rising generation that they shall rightly understand law, but to infix in their minds the principles of justice and equity, the attainment of which is the high aim of legislation. While our legislators enact laws for the government of the people, the well-qualified and faithful schoolmaster prepares those under his charge to govern themselves. Without the teacher's conservative influence, under the best legislation, the great mass of the people will be lawless; while the tendency of his labors is to qualify the rising generation, who constitute our future freemen and our country's hope, to render an enlightened, a cheerful, and a ready obedience to the high claims of civil law. The well-qualified, faithful teacher, then, becomes the right arm of the legislator.

The physician is required to become thoroughly acquainted with the anatomy and physiology of the human body; in a word, to become acquainted with "the house I live in;" to understand the diseases to which we are subject, and their proper treatment, before he is allowed to extract a tooth, to open a vein, or administer the simplest medicine. Nor with this do we find fault, for we justly prize the body. It is the habitation of the immortal mind. When in health, it is the mind's servant, and ready to do its biddings; but darken its windows by disease, and it becomes the mind's prison-house. But while the physician, whom we honor and love, is required to make these attainments before he is permitted even to repair "the house I live in," should not he who teaches the master of the house be entitled to a respectable rank in society?

It is common, in the various branches of the Church universal, for men who feel themselves called of God to preach the Gospel to obtain a collegiate education, and then devote several years to professional study, before exercising the functions of the sacred office; and this has been required by popular opinion. And heretofore, I may add, the efforts of the minister have been directed chiefly to the reformation of adults whose early training has been imperfectly attended to, and to the building up of a religious character where no correct early foundation has been laid, when the time and energies of a people upon whom labor is bestowed are devoted chiefly to absorbing secular pursuits. The competent and faithful teacher, on the contrary, enters upon the discharge of his duties under circumstances widely different, and with infinitely better prospects of success. Jesus said, Suffer the little children to come unto me, and forbid them not; for of such is the kingdom of God. These are they upon whom the teacher is called to bestow labor. He remembers that Solomon the wise has said, Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it; and he confidently expects that, with proper parental co-operation, if he faithfully discharges his duty, and directs his efforts in accordance with the will of the Great Teacher, his youthful charge, when arrived at the years of accountability, and in all future life, will be like "the child Samuel, who grew on, and was in favor both with the Lord and also with men." No wonder, then, that Channing should say, "One of the surest signs of the regeneration of society will be the elevation of teaching to the highest rank in the community."

The clerical profession can never equal that of the teacher in moral sublimity and prospective usefulness until religious teachers come to direct their attention chiefly to the correct early education of the young in the Sabbath-schools, but more especially in the common schools of our country. Then, and not till then, will it be entitled to the pre-eminence.

Should any teacher, in view of the immense responsibilities of his calling, be disposed to inquire, as all well may, Who is sufficient for these things? we would say to him, in the language of Wirt, "Let your motto be Perseverando vinces—by perseverance thou wilt overcome. Practice upon it, and you will be convinced of its value by the distinguished pre-eminence to which it will lead you." Especially will this be true in case the anxious teacher faithfully complies with the Divine direction, If any man lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him.

Parents and citizens generally should be impressed with the truth of the maxim, "As is the teacher, so will be the school." They should desire for their own children, and for all others, teachers whose intellectual, social, and moral habits are, in all respects, what they are willing their children should form. They should, at least, be well apprised of this fact: If the teacher is not, in these respects, what they would have their children become, their children will be likely to become what the teacher is.

There is a story of a German schoolmaster, which shows the low notions that may be entertained of education. Stouber, the predecessor of Oberlin, the pastor of Waldbach, on his arrival at the place, desired to be shown to the principal school-house. He was conducted into a miserable cottage, where a number of children were crowded together, without any occupation. He inquired for the master. "There he is," said one, as soon as silence could be obtained, pointing to a withered old man, who lay on a little bed in one corner. "Are you the master, my friend?" asked Stouber. "Yes, sir." "And what do you teach the children?" "Nothing, sir." "Nothing! how is that?" "Because," replied the old man, "I know nothing myself." "Why, then, were you appointed the schoolmaster?" "Why, sir, I had been taking care of the Waldbach pigs a number of years, and when I got too old and infirm for that employment, they sent me here to take care of the children."

This anecdote may evince a degree of stupidity not to be met with in this country. We are, however, very far from being as careful in the selection of teachers as we ought to be. Unworthy teachers frequently find employment. I refer not to teachers whose literary qualifications are insufficient, although, as we have already seen, there are quite too many such. I refer now more particularly to those who are disqualified for the office because of moral obliquity.

Teachers are sometimes employed who are habitual Sabbath breakers; who are accustomed to the use of vulgar and profane language; who frequent the gambling table; who habitually use tobacco, in several of its forms, and that in the school-house! nay, more, who even teach the despicable habit to their children during school hours! Several emperors have prohibited the use of this filthy weed in their respective kingdoms, under the severest penalties. The pope has made a bull to excommunicate all those who use tobacco in the churches. One of the most numerous of the Protestant sects once prohibited the use of tobacco in their society; but so strong is this filthy habit, especially when formed in early life, that this society has backslidden and given up this excellent rule.

Since writing the above, I have noticed an article headed "Tobacco-using Ministers," which has appeared in several highly-reputable and widely-circulating periodicals, from which it appears that a large annual conference of divines of the same order, among other resolutions, have adopted one recommending "that the ministers refrain from the use of tobacco in all its forms, especially in the house of worship."

In commenting upon this action, a religious paper observes, that "by 'tobacco in all its forms' we suppose is meant chewing, smoking, and snuffing. But can it be possible that a minister, whose duty it is to recommend purity, and whose example should be cleanliness, can need conference resolutions to dissuade him from a practice so filthy and disgusting? And do they even carry this inconsistency into the 'house of worship?' So it seems!" But such is the severity of the strictures in the article referred to, that, although just, I forbear inserting them.

It has been suggested that, while Robinson Crusoe was alone on his island, he may have had a right to smoke, snuff, or chew; but that, when his man Friday came, "a decent regard for the opinions of mankind"—as the Declaration of Independence has it—should have debarred him at once from further indulgence.

One who has enjoyed large opportunities of observing, and who is scrupulous to a proverb, has remarked, that "the ministerial profession is probably the most offending in this particular. The Scriptures have much to say about keeping the body pure. Had tobacco been known to the Hebrews, who can doubt that it would have been among the articles prohibited by the Levitical law? St. Paul beseeches the Romans, by the mercies of God, to present their bodies 'a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable.' To the Corinthians he says, 'Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the spirit of God dwelleth in you? If any man defile the temple of God, him will God destroy; for the temple of God is holy, which temple ye are.' He commands them to glorify God in their body as well as in their spirit; for 'know ye not,' says he, 'that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost? What sort of a 'temple of the Holy Ghost' is he, every atom and molecule of whose physical system is saturated and stenched with the vile fetor of tobacco; whose every vesicle is distended by its foul gases; whose brain and marrow are begrimed and blackened with its sooty vapors and effluxions; all whose pores jet forth its malignant stream like so many hydrants; whose prayers are breathed out, not with a sweet, but with a foul-smelling savor; who baptizes infants with a hand which itself needs literal baptism and purification as by fire; and who carries to the bed-side of the dying an odor which, if the 'immaterial essence' could be infected by any earthly virus, would subject the departed soul to quarantine before it could enter the gates of heaven?"[73]

"Touch not, taste not, handle not," is the only safe rule in relation to all vicious practices; and especially is it true of this habit, which we can not call beastly, for there is not a natural beast in creation that indulges in it. I therefore congratulate my countrymen in view of the prospect before us of ultimately being freed from this disgusting and filthy habit, for the Board of Education in some of our cities have already wisely adopted the rule of employing no teachers who use tobacco in any form. Let this rule become universal among us, and the next generation will be comparatively free from the use of that repulsive weed, which only one of all created beings takes to naturally. Wherever else the filthy practice may be allowed, it ought never to be permitted in a house consecrated to the sacred work of educating the rising generation. And just look at the immense expenditure in this country for the support of this pernicious habit. It is said, on good authority, that for smoking merely we pay annually a tax of ten millions of dollars, which is a much greater sum than is paid to the teachers of all the public schools in the United States.

But to return: teachers are sometimes employed who are addicted to inebriety; who are notorious libertines, and unblushingly boast of the number of their victims. But I will not extend this dark catalogue. Comment is unnecessary. My fellow-countrymen, who have carefully perused and properly weighed the preceding considerations, I doubt not, will concur with me in the opinion that there is no station in life—no, not excepting even the clerical office, that, in order to be well filled, so much demands purity of heart, simplicity of life, Christian courtesy, and every thing that will ennoble man, and beautify and give dignity to the human character, as that of the primary school-teacher. He influences his pupils in the formation of habits and character, by precept, it is true, but chiefly by example. His example, then, should be such, that, if strictly followed by his pupils, it will lead them aright in all things, astray in nothing. It should be his chief concern to allure to brighter worlds on high, and himself lead the way. Then, and not till then, will he be prepared to magnify and fill his office.

But, it may be said, we have not a sufficiency of well-qualified teachers, according to this standard, to take the charge of all, or of any considerable part of our schools. This is very readily admitted. Some such, however, there are. These should be employed. Their influence will be felt by others. The present generation of teachers may be much improved by means of teachers' associations and teachers' institutes. By the establishment of normal schools, or teachers' seminaries, a higher grade of teachers may be trained up and qualified to take the charge of the next generation of scholars. These institutions have been established in several of the European states, in New England and New York, and more recently in Michigan, by the several State Legislatures, and to some extent in other states. "Those seminaries for training masters," says Lord Brougham, "are an invaluable gift to mankind, and lead to the indefinite improvement of education." In remarking upon their advantages, the same high authority says, "These training seminaries would not only teach the masters the branches of learning and science they are now deficient in, but would teach them what they know far less—the didactic art—the mode of imparting the knowledge which they have or may acquire; the best mode of training and dealing with children in all that regards both temper, capacity, and habits, and the means of stirring them to exertion, and controlling their aberrations."

Normal schools are essential to the complete success of any system of popular education. The necessity for their establishment can not fail to be apparent to any one at all competent to judge, when he considers the early age at which young persons of both sexes generally enter upon the business of school-teaching—or, perhaps I may more appropriately say, of "keeping" school; for the majority of them can hardly be regarded as competent to teach.

For the purpose of being more specific, and of impressing, if possible, upon the mind of the reader, the necessity of professional instruction, the author trusts he will be pardoned for introducing a few paragraphs from a report made nine years ago as county superintendent of common schools in the State of New York and which was printed at that time in the Assembly documents of that state. The author, at the time referred to, exercised a general supervision over more than twenty thousand children, aided in the examination of the teachers of twenty large townships, and visited and inspected their schools. Nine years' additional experience—four of which have been devoted to the supervision of the schools of a large state, and a considerable portion of the remaining time to the visitation of schools in different states—has convinced him that the condition of common schools, and the qualifications of teachers in those states of the Union where increased attention has not been bestowed upon the subject within a few years past, are not in advance of what they were at that time in the county referred to. The paragraphs introduced are included within brackets.

[Literary Qualifications.—Some of the teachers possess a very limited knowledge of the branches usually taught in our common schools. This is true even of a portion of those who have bestowed considerable attention upon some of the higher branches of study. There is in our common schools, and indeed in our higher schools, an undue anxiety to advance rapidly. A score of persons may be heard speaking of the number of their recitations, of their rapid progress, and perhaps of skipping difficulties, while hardly one will speak of progressing understandingly, and comprehending every principle 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 subject.

A portion of our teachers, it gives me pleasure to add, are not only superior scholars in the common English branches, but they have made respectable attainments in philosophy, astronomy, chemistry, algebra, Latin, etc. All of these branches are successfully taught in a few of our schools.

School Government.—There is, perhaps, as wide a difference in the administration of government in our common schools as in any other particular connected with them. Good government requires the healthful exercise of a rare combination of good qualities. But this can not reasonably be expected in inexperienced youth, who, instead of being guided by enlightened moral sentiment, have not only never subjected themselves to government, but are totally unacquainted with the principles upon which it should be administered. About one third of our schools are tolerably well governed. A portion of them are under a wise and parental supervision, the government being uniformly mild, and at the same time efficient. But indecision, rashness, and inefficiency are far more common. Sometimes teachers resolve to have no whispering, leaving seats, asking questions, etc., among any of the scholars, and severely punish every detected offender. Soon a portion of the patrons justly manifest dissatisfaction. Then all attempts to govern the school are unwisely given up. Many teachers thus rashly fly from one extreme of government to the other, without stopping to test the "golden mean," or even appearing to bestow a single thought upon the subject.

Again: the feelings of the teacher have been outraged by having frequently witnessed severity, and even cruelty, in government; and, in studiously avoiding them, he has inadvertently adopted a lax government, if government it may be called. The latter may be the more amiable extreme, but it is hardly the less fatal. I have heard scholars say in the presence of such a teacher, "We have a good teacher, who gives us all the good advice we need, and then lets us do as we please;" and then I have witnessed whispering, talking, chewing gum and throwing it about the house, passing from seat to seat, playing with tops and whirls, tossing wads of wet paper about the house and to the ceiling, cutting images upon the desks, imitating the practice of botanic physicians, exhibiting and passing from one to another roots and herbs, and discoursing upon their properties, chasing mice about the house, and in some instances slaying them, and practicing sundry other antics too numerous to be mentioned. Good advice was freely given, but it was disregarded with impunity.

Government in school, as elsewhere, should be mild but efficient. The teacher should speak kindly, but with authority. Every request should meet with a ready compliance. The scholars will not only fear to disobey such a teacher, but will, at the same time, respect, and even love him. This is not only good theory, but is susceptible of being reduced to practice. It is, indeed, exemplified in many of our schools, as a visit to them will clearly manifest. I know of no one thing in school government more mischievous in its tendency than the habit of speaking several times without being obeyed.

Mode of Instruction.—In some schools the instruction is thorough and systematic. In them the scholars generally learn principles, and understand, and are able to explain, all that they pass over. But this is the case in comparatively few schools. Scholars generally are poorly instructed, and understand very imperfectly what they profess to have learned. I will give a few illustrations:

First. Scholars are frequently introduced to the twenty-six letters of the alphabet four times a day for several weeks in succession, without making a single acquaintance. They occasionally become so familiar with their names and order as to repeat them down and back, as well without the book as with it, before learning a single letter.

This method of instruction is as unphilosophical as it is unsuccessful. Were I to be introduced to twenty-six strangers, and were my introducer to pronounce their names in rapid succession down and back, giving me merely an opportunity of pronouncing them after him, I should hardly expect to form a single acquaintance with twenty-six introductions. But were he to introduce me to one, and give me an opportunity of shaking hands with him, of conversing with him, of observing his features, etc.; and were he then to introduce me to another, in like manner, with the privilege of shaking hands again with the first, before my introduction to the third; and were he thus to introduce me to them all successively, I might form twenty-six acquaintances with one introduction.

The application is readily made. Introduce the abecedarian to but one letter at first. Describe it to him familiarly. Fix its contour distinctly in his mind. Compare it with things with which he is acquainted, if it will admit of such comparison. It might be well to make the letter upon a slate or black-board. When he shall have become acquainted with one letter so as to know it any where, introduce him to another. After he becomes acquainted with the second, let him again point out the first. As he learns new letters, he will thus retain a knowledge of those he has previously learned. It is immaterial where we commence, provided two conditions are fulfilled. It would be well to have the first letters as simple in their construction, and as easily described, as possible. It would be well, also, to have them so selected as to combine and form simple words, with which the child is familiar. He will thus become encouraged in his first efforts.

Suppose we commence with O, and tell the child that it is round; that it is shaped like the button on his coat, or like a penny, which might be shown to him. After the child has become somewhat familiar with its shape and name, suppose we inquire what there was on the breakfast table shaped like O. It may be necessary to name a few articles, as knives, forks, spoons, plates. Before there is time to proceed further, the child, in nine cases out of ten, will say, "The plates look like O." Suppose we next take X, which may be represented by crossing the fore-fingers, or two little sticks. We can now teach the child that these two letters, combined, spell ox. We might then tell him a familiar story about oxen; that we put a yoke on them; that they draw the cart, etc.; and that cart-wheels are great O's. Suppose we take B next. We might tell the child that it is a straight line with two bows on the right side of it, and that it is shaped some like the ox-yoke. We might then instruct him that these three letters, B, O, and X, combined, spell box; that its top and sides are rectangles, and that its ends are squares, if they are so. The child has now learned three letters, two words, and a score of ideas. He, moreover, likes to go to school. Any other method in which children would be equally interested might be pursued instead of this, which is only introduced as a specimen of the manner in which the alphabet has been successfully taught.[74] Better methods may be devised.

Second. The Roman notation table is sometimes taught after the same manner. After spelling, I have heard the teacher say to the class, One I.? to which the scholar at the head would reply, one; and the exercise would continue through the class, as follows: two I.'s? two; three I.'s? three; IV.? four; and so on, to two X.'s? twenty; three X.'s? twenty-one. No, says the teacher, thirty. Thus corrected, the class went through the entire table, without making another mistake. The thought occurred to me that they did not know their lesson, though they had recited it, making but one mistake. With the permission of the teacher, I inquired of the class, "What does IV. stand for?" None of them could tell. I then inquired, "What do VII. stand for?" They all shook their heads. I next inquired, "What does IX. stand for?" and the teacher remarked, "They have just got it learnt the other way; they ha'n't learnt it that way yet." They had all learned to count; they hence recited correctly to twenty; and when told that three X.'s stand for thirty instead of twenty-one, they passed on readily to forty, fifty, sixty, etc., without making another mistake. And this, too, is but a specimen of the evil.

In teaching this table, the child should be instructed, in the beginning, that there are but seven letters used, by which all numbers may be represented; that when standing alone, I. represents one; V., five; X., ten; L., fifty; C, one hundred; D., five hundred; and M., one thousand. The child should next be taught that, as often as a letter is repeated, so many times its value is repeated; thus, X. represents ten; two X.'s, twenty; three X.'s, thirty, etc.; that when a letter representing a less number is placed after one representing a greater, its value is to be added; thus, VII. represent seven; LX., sixty, etc.; that when a letter representing a less number is placed before one representing a greater, its value is to be subtracted; thus, IV. represents four; IX., nine; XL., forty, etc. When the child understands what is here presented, he has the key to the whole matter. He is acquainted with the principle upon which the tables are constructed, and a little practice will enable him to apply it, as well to what is not in the table as to what is in it. I have known scholars study that table faithfully four months, and then have but an imperfect knowledge of what was in the book. I have known others who, with one hour's study, after five minutes' instruction in the principles here laid down, understood the table perfectly, and could recite it, without making a single mistake, even before they had studied the whole of it once over.

Third. The manner in which reading is generally taught is hardly superior to the modes of instruction already considered. In many instances, commendable effort is made to secure correct pronunciation, and a proper observance of the inflections and pauses. But there is a great lack in understanding what is read. When visiting schools, with the permission of the teacher, I usually interrogate reading classes with reference to the meaning of what they have read. Occasionally I receive answers that give satisfactory evidences of correct instruction. Generally, however, the scholars have no distinct idea concerning the author's meaning. They, astonished, sometimes say, "I didn't know as the meaning has any thing to do with reading; I try to pronounce the words right, and mind the stops." Teachers sometimes say their scholars are poor readers, and it takes all their attention to pronounce their words correctly. They therefore do not wish to have them try to understand what they read, thinking it would be a hinderance to them. They occasionally justify themselves in the course they pursue, saying, "I don't have time to question my classes on their reading, nor hardly time to look over and correct mistakes." At the same time they will read three or four times around, twice a day or oftener. The idea prevails extensively, judging from the practice of teachers, that the value of their services depends upon the extent of the various exercises of the school. If the classes can read several times around, twice a day, and spell two or three pages, teachers frequently think they have done well, even though one half of the mistakes in reading are uncorrected, and one fourth or more of the words in the spelling lessons are misspelled, to say nothing of understanding what is read. The majority of schools might be very much improved by conducting them upon the principle that "what is worth doing at all is worth doing well." I am fully satisfied that it is incomparably better for classes to read once around, once a day, and understand what they read, than to read four times around, four times a day, without understanding their lessons. Scholars should, indeed, never be allowed to read what is beyond their comprehension; and great pains should be taken to see that they actually understand every lesson, and every book read. The early formation of such a habit will be of incalculable value in after life.

I will introduce one extract from my note-book by way of illustration. The reader will please observe that it relates to neither a back district nor an inexperienced teacher.

"This is one of the oldest and most important districts in town. The school is taught by an experienced and highly-reputable teacher. The first class in the English Reader read the section entitled 'The Journey of a Day; a Picture of Human Life.' Obidah had been contemplating the beauties of nature, visiting cascades, viewing prospects, etc., and in these amusements the hours passed away uncounted, till 'day vanished from before him, and a sudden tempest gathered around his head;' when, it is said, 'he beheld through the brambles the glimmer of a taper.' I inquired of the class, 'What is a taper?' No one replied. I added, 'It is either the sun, a light, a house, or a man,' whereupon one replied, 'the sun;' another, 'a house;' another still, 'a house;' and still another, 'a man.' I next inquired, 'What does glimmer mean?' No reply being given, I added, 'It either means a light, the shadow, the top, or the bottom.' They then replied successively as follows: 'Top, shadow, bottom,' which would give their several ideas of the phrase, 'the glimmer of a taper,' as follows: The shadow of a house. The top of a man. The bottom of the sun, etc. It should be borne in mind, the class had just read that this 'taper' was discovered after 'day had vanished from sight.'"

This example is selected from among more than a hundred, scores of which are more striking illustrations than the one introduced, which is selected because it occurred in the first class of an important school, taught by an experienced and highly-reputable teacher.

The habit of reading without understanding originates mainly in the circumstance that the books put into the hands of children are to them uninteresting. The style and matter are often above their comprehension. It is impossible, for example, for children at an early age to understand the English Reader, a work which frequently constitutes their only reading-book (at least in school) when but seven years of age. The English Reader is an excellent book, and would grace the library of any gentleman. But it requires a better knowledge of language, and more maturity of mind than is often possessed by children ten years old, to understand it, and to be interested in its perusal. Hence its use induces the habit of "pronouncing the words and minding the stops," with hardly a single successful effort to arrive at the idea of the author. To this early-formed habit may be traced the prevailing indifference, and, in some instances, aversion to reading, manifested not only in childhood, but in after life.

The matter and style of the reading-book should be adapted to the capacity and taste of the learner. The teacher should see that it is well understood, and then it can hardly prove uninteresting, or be otherwise than well read. Children should read less in school than they ordinarily do, and greater pains should be taken to have them understand every sentence, and word even, of what they do read. They will thus become more interested in their reading, and read much more extensively, not only while young, but in after life, and with incomparably more profit.

Fourth. I have heard several classes in geography bound states and counties with a considerable degree of accuracy, when none of them could point to the north, south, east, or west. Indeed, a portion of them were not aware that these terms relate to the four cardinal points of the compass. Still more: some of them say that "geography is a description of the earth," but they do not know as they ever saw the earth. They have no idea that they live upon it. Scholars in grammar frequently think that the only object of the study is to enable them to recite the definitions and rules, and to parse. They do not look for any assistance in thinking, speaking, or writing correctly, neither do they expect any aid therefrom in understanding what they read.

Classes in arithmetic not unfrequently think the principal object in pursuing that science is to be able to do the sums according to the rule, and perhaps to prove them. Propose to them a practical question for solution, and their reply is, "That isn't in the arithmetic." Some one more courageous may say, "If you'll tell me what rule it is in, I'll try it!" Practical questions should be added by the teacher, till the class can readily apply the principles of each rule to the ordinary transactions of business in which they are requisite. Generally, in grammar, arithmetic, and elsewhere, there is too much inquiry, comparatively, after the how, and too little after the why.]

Now if these paragraphs, descriptive of the condition of common schools and the qualifications of teachers at the commencement of the educational reform in New York, are applicable to those states of the Union whose provisions for general education are not equal to what hers then were, nothing can be plainer than that there exists an imperative demand for the establishment of normal schools in every part of the Union. Massachusetts has three; but her provisions in this respect are not adequate to her necessities.

Union schools, and systems of graded schools in cities and villages, should possess a normal characteristic; that is, young men and women who have the requisite natural and acquired ability should be employed as assistants in the lower departments, and should sustain essentially the relation of apprenticed teachers, to be promoted or discontinued according as they shall prove themselves worthy or otherwise. In the public schools of the city of New York there are about two hundred teachers of this description. These and all the less experienced teachers meet at a stated time every week for the purpose of receiving normal instruction from a committee of teachers whose instructions are adapted to their wants. A similar feature has been adopted in other cities, and in many villages, and should become universal among us.

In connection with the suggestions I have just introduced from a former report, I wish to say, I know of no reform which is more needed in our schools than that of rendering instruction at once thorough and practical. The suggestion in the note on the 428th page, in relation to teaching the alphabet, will admit of general application. As fast as principles are learned, they should be applied. Practical questions for the exercise of the student should be interspersed with the lessons in all our text-books, when the nature of the subject will admit of it. When these are not given by the author, they should be supplied by the teacher.

I will illustrate by an example. Several years ago a teacher had the charge of a class in natural philosophy. There were no questions in the text-book used for the exercise of the student, as here recommended. In treating upon the hydraulic press, the author said, in relation to the force to be obtained by its use, "If a pressure of two tons be given to a piston, the diameter of which is only a quarter of an inch, the force transmitted to the other piston, if three feet in diameter, would be upward of forty thousand tons." The teacher inquired of the class, How much upward of forty thousand tons would the pressure be? Not one in a large class was prepared to answer the question. Some of the scholars laughed outright at the idea of asking such a question. After a few familiar remarks by the teacher, the class was dismissed. This question, however, constituted a part of their review lesson. The next day found it solved by every member of the class. Several of the scholars said to the teacher that they had derived more practical information in relation to natural philosophy from the solution of this one question, than they had previously acquired in studying it several quarters.

In treating upon the velocity of falling bodies, such questions as the following might be asked: Suppose a body in a vacuum falls sixteen feet the first second, how far will it fall the first three seconds? How far will it fall the next three seconds? How much further will it fall during the ninth second than in the fifth? If this paragraph should be read by any teacher or student of natural philosophy who has not been accustomed thus to apply principles, the author would suggest that it may be found pleasant and perhaps profitable to pause and solve these questions before reading further.

The importance of reducing immediately to practice every thing that is learned, is no less essential in moral and religious education than in physical or intellectual. Indeed, any thing short of this is jeoparding one's dearest interests; for "to him that knoweth to do good and doeth it not, to him it is sin." The practical educator should bear in mind that man is susceptible of progression in his moral and religious nature as well as in his physical and intellectual. "Cease to do evil; learn to do well," is the Divine command. He who does only the former has but a negative goodness. The practice of the latter is essential to the healthful condition of the soul. It is important that we seek earnestly to be "cleansed from secret faults." Without this, our progress in excellence will at best be slow. While "the way of the wicked is as darkness, and they stumble at they know not what," it is nevertheless true that "the path of the just is as the shining light, that shineth more and more unto the perfect day."

Understanding what we do of the nature of man, the subject of education, and knowing that "the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom," and that the Great Teacher, who "taught as one having authority," hath said, "Seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness," can we regard it any thing less than consummate folly to enter upon the work of education in the open neglect of these precepts? Should we not rather cheerfully comply with them, and do what we can to encourage all teachers, and all who receive instruction, to regard this law of progression, so that, while their physical and intellectual natures are being cultivated and developed, they may not remain "babes" in the practice of morality and the Christian virtues, but "grow in grace and in the knowledge of the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ?"

We can not expect the student will excel his teacher, if indeed he equals him, in merely intellectual pursuits; much less can we reasonably look for superior attainments in morals and religion. If, then, the teacher would secure the most perfect obedience of his scholars from the highest motives, he must show them that he himself cheerfully and habitually complies, in heart and in life, with all the precepts of the Great Teacher, with whom is lodged all authority, and from whom he derives his. When the members of a school become convinced that their teacher habitually asks wisdom of the Supreme Educator, whose will he aims constantly to do, they will feel almost irresistibly urged to yield obedience to the precepts of Christianity, and, with suitable encouragement, will take upon themselves the easy yoke of Christ.[75]

Even common arithmetic, when well taught, and illustrated by judiciously constructed examples, may be made not only more practical than it has usually been heretofore, but while the student is becoming acquainted with the science of numbers, it may be rendered an efficient instrumentality in showing the advantages of knowledge and virtue, and the expense and burden to the community of ignorance and crime, thus promoting the great work of moral culture, as is beautifully illustrated by the following examples, selected from a recent treatise on that subject:

"In the town of Bury, England, with an estimated population of twenty-five thousand, the expenditure for beer and spirits, in the year 1836, was estimated at £54,190. If this was 24 per cent. of the entire loss, resulting from the waste of money, ill health, loss of labor, and the other evils attendant upon intoxication, what was the average loss from intemperance, for each man, woman, and child in the place, estimating the pound sterling at $4.80. Ans. $43,332."

This one example may do more, in many instances, toward establishing young men who may be engaged in its solution in habits of total abstinence, than a score of lectures on temperance, or as many lessons on domestic or political economy. The following, also, may more effectually check existing abuses of some of the laws of health and longevity than a month's study of physiology and moral science: "It has been estimated that a man, in a properly ventilated room, can work twelve hours a day with no greater inconvenience than would be occasioned by ten hours' work in a room badly ventilated; and that, where there is proper ventilation, a man may gain ten years' good labor on account of unimpaired health. According to this estimate, what is the loss in thirty years to each individual in a badly-ventilated work-shop, valuing the labor at ten cents per hour? Ans. $5008." What an astonishing result! Five thousand and eight dollars moneyed loss to each individual who respires impure air, estimating labor at but ten cents an hour.

Now suppose this loss occurs only in the case of the eight hundred thousand voters in the United States who are unable to read and write—and it must accrue to a much greater number of persons—and one fourth of the annual loss would be sufficient to maintain an efficient system of common schools in every state of the Union the entire year.

It has sometimes been said, even by individuals occupying high stations in society, that persons of the second or third order of intellect make the best school-teachers. But in the light of what has been said, this statement needs but be made to prove its fallacy. In order properly to fill the teachers' office, we need men and women of the first order of intellect, brought to a high state of cultivation. A well-qualified and faithful school-teacher earns, and of right ought to receive, a salary equal to that paid to the clergyman, or received by the members of the other learned professions. He who can teach a good school can ordinarily engage with proportionate success in more lucrative pursuits. So true is this remark, that scarcely a man can be found that has attained to any considerable eminence as a teacher, who has not been repeatedly solicited, and perhaps strongly tempted, to relinquish teaching and engage in pursuits less laborious and more profitable. Many yield to this temptation, and hence much of the best talent has been attracted to the other professions. School committees, however, can generally secure the services of teachers of any grade of qualifications they desire, upon the simple condition of offering an adequate remuneration.

We have said, as is the teacher so will be the school. We might add, as are the wages, so ordinarily is the teacher. Let it be understood that in any township, county, or state, a high order of teachers is called for, and that an adequate remuneration will be given, and the demand will be supplied. Well-qualified teachers will be called in from abroad until competent ones can be trained up at home. Here, as in other departments of labor, as is the demand, so will be the supply.

The best means which citizens can employ to give character and stability to the vocation of the teacher is to select competent and worthy individuals to take the charge of their schools, and then pay them so liberally that they can have no pecuniary inducement to change their employment. Let this be generally done, and teaching will soon be raised, in public estimation, to the rank of a learned profession; and the fourth learned profession—the vocation of the practical educator—will be taken up for life by as great a proportion of men and women eminent for talent, cultivation, and moral worth, as either of the other three professions have ever been able to boast.

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It is not enough that good school-houses be provided and well-qualified teachers be employed. Our schools should be kept open a sufficient length of time during the year to make their influence strongly and most favorably felt. The work of instruction, while it is going forward, should be the business of both teachers and scholars. If children are habituated to industry, to close application, to hard study, and to good personal, social, and moral habits during the period of their attendance upon school, these habits will be favorably felt in after life, in the development of characters whose possessors will be at once respectable and useful members of society, and a blessing to the age in which they live. On the contrary, if children are allowed to attend an indifferent school three months during the year, to work three months, to play three months, and are permitted to spend the remaining three months in idleness, the influence of this course will be felt, and it will be likely to give character to their future lives.

Under such circumstances, the good, if any, that children will receive while attending an indifferent school one fourth of the year, will be more than counterbalanced by the evil influences that surround them during the half of the year they devote to play and idleness. We can not reasonably expect that children brought up under such unfavorable and distracting influences will become even respectable members of society, much less that they will be a blessing to the generation in which they live.

In villages and densely-settled neighborhoods schools should be kept open at least ten full months during the year; in other words, the entire year, with the usual quarterly or semi-annual vacations; and, if possible, they should not, under any circumstances, be continued less than eight months. And, I may add, the same teacher should be retained in the charge of a school, wherever practicable, from year to year. The teacher occupies, for the time being, the place of the parent. But what kind of government and discipline should we expect in a family where a new step-father or step-mother is introduced and invested with parental authority every six months, and where the children are left in orphanage half of the year! Much more may we inquire, what kind of instruction and educational training may we reasonably expect in a large school whose wants are no better provided for! A school-teacher should be selected with as great care as the minister of the parish; and when selected, the services of the one should be continued as uninterruptedly and permanently as those of the other. Then will be beautifully illustrated this interesting truth: It is easier, cheaper, and pleasanter incomparably, and infinitely more effectual, rightly to train the rising generation, than it is to reform men grown old in sin.

Lalor, in his prize essay on education, published ten years ago in London, has recorded a kindred sentiment in this very beautiful and highly-expressive language: "The schoolmaster alone, going forth with the power of intelligence and a moral purpose among the infant minds of the community, can stop the flood of vice and crime at its source, by repressing in childhood those wild passions which are its springs. Nay, often will the mature mind, hard as adamant against the terrors of the law and the contempt of society, be softened to tears of penitence by the innocence of its educated child speaking unconscious reproof."

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Good school-houses maybe built, well-qualified teachers may be employed, and schools may be kept open the entire year, but all this will not secure the correct education of the people, unless those schools are patronized; patronized, not by a few persons, not by one half, or three fourths even of a community, but by the whole community. As was said in a former chapter, there is no safety but in the education of the masses. A few vile persons will taint and infect a whole neighborhood. In the graphic language of the Scriptures, One sinner destroyeth much good.

The better portions of the community every where provide for the education of their children. If they are not instructed at home, they are sent to good schools, public or private, where their education is well looked after. Unfortunately, those children whose education is most neglected at home are the very ones, usually, that are sent least to school, and when at all, to the poorest schools.

But how shall the evil in question be remedied? How shall we secure the attendance of children generally at the schools, provided good ones are established? In the first place, diligent effort should be made to arouse the public mind to an appreciation of the importance and necessity of universal attendance. This will go far toward remedying the evil. It should be made every where unpopular, and be regarded as dishonorable in a member of our social compact, and unworthy of a citizen of a free state, to bring up a child without giving him such an education as shall fit him for the discharge of the duties of an American citizen.

But there is a portion of almost every community who feel hardly able to allow their children the necessary time to pursue an extended course of common school education, and who are really unable to clothe them properly, furnish them with useful books, and pay their tuition. This class, although comparatively small, is not unimportant. The legal provisions made for such children vary in different states. Wherever the free school principle is adopted, their tuition is of course provided for. This provision in some instances extends further. The statutes of Michigan relating to primary schools make it the duty of the district board to exempt from the payment of teachers' wages not only, but from providing fuel for the use of the district, all such persons residing therein as in their opinion ought to be exempted, and to admit the children of such persons to the school free of charge not only, but the district board is authorized to purchase, at the expense of the district, such books as may be necessary for the use of children thus admitted by them to the district school. The entire expense incurred for tuition, fuel, and books, in such cases, is assumed by the district, and paid by a tax levied upon the property thereof.

We have now arrived at an interesting crisis. We have exhausted the legal provision, generous as it is, and yet the blessing of universal education is not secured to those who will succeed us. Good schools may every where be established, in which the wealthy, and those in comfortable circumstances, may educate their children. Provision—yes, generous provision, though but just—has been made to meet the expense of tuition and books for the children of indigent parents. Still, they may not sufficiently appreciate an education to send their children; or, if this be not so, they may keep them at home from motives of delicacy, being unable to clothe them decently. How shall such cases be met? How shall we actually bring such children into the peaceable possession and enjoyment of a good common school education, that rich legacy which noble-minded legislators have bequeathed to them, and which is the inalienable right of every son and daughter of this republic?

Legislation has already, in many of the states, done much—perhaps all that can be reasonably expected, at least, until a good common education shall be better appreciated by the community at large, and be ranked, as it ought to be, among the necessaries of life. The work, then, must be consummated chiefly by the united and well-directed efforts of benevolent and philanthropic individuals.

Benevolent females—and especially Christian mothers, who have long been pre-eminently distinguished for their successful efforts in protecting the innocent, administering to the wants of the necessitous, and reclaiming the wanderer from the paths of vice—have felt the claims of this innocent and unoffending portion of the community, and have, in some instances, organized themselves into associations to meet those claims.

Benevolent and Christian females can doubtless accomplish more, by visiting the poor and needy in their respective school districts, and making known unto them their privileges, and encouraging and assisting them, if need be, to avail themselves of these privileges, than by the same expenditure of time and means in any other way. They have long and very generally been accustomed to clothe the children of the destitute, and accompany them to the Sunday-school, and there teach them those things which pertain to their present and everlasting well-being, and have thus accomplished incalculable good; but by co-operating with the civil authorities in securing the attendance of every child in their respective districts at the improved common school, they can hardly fail to accomplish vastly more.

Several associations have been formed for this noble purpose, and many children who, but for their fostering care, would have remained at their cheerless homes, have, by this labor of love, been sought out, properly cared for, and led to the common school, that fountain of intellectual life, and of social and moral culture, which is alike open to all. Gentlemen should everywhere encourage the formation of such associations, and, when formed, should offer every facility in their power to increase their usefulness. Clergymen might help forward such benevolent labors, where they are entered upon, by preaching occasionally from that good text, Help those women.

But there are two classes of our fellow-citizens—perhaps I should say fellow-beings—who, notwithstanding the abundant legal provisions to which I have referred, and the utmost that the benevolent and philanthropic can accomplish by voluntary effort, will utterly refuse to give their children such an education as we have been contemplating. These are, first, men in comfortable circumstances, who have so much blindness of mind, and such an utter disregard for the welfare of their offspring, as to deprive them of the advantages of even a common school education; and, secondly, those who have such an obduracy of heart as absolutely to refuse to allow their children to attend school, and who, although the abundant provisions of the law are made known unto them, in meekness and love, by "man's guardian angel," prove utterly incorrigible.

Such persons are unworthy to sustain the parental relation, and the safety of the community requires that the forfeiture be claimed, and that the right of control be transferred from such unnatural parents to the civil authorities; for, as Kent says, "A parent who sends his son into the world uneducated, and without skill in any art or science, does a great injury to mankind as well as to his own family, for he defrauds the community of a useful citizen, and bequeaths to it a nuisance." How true is it that "the mobs, the riots, the burnings, the lynchings perpetrated by the men of the present day, are perpetrated because of their vicious or defective education when children! We see and feel the havoc and the ravage of their tiger passions now, when they are full grown, but it was years ago that they were whelped and suckled."

In the very expressive language of Macaulay, the right to hang includes the right to educate. This is not a strange nor a new idea. It long ago entered into civil codes in the Old World not only, but in the New. In Prussia, when a parent refuses, without satisfactory excuse, to send his child to school the time required by law, he is cited before the court, tried, and, if he refuses compliance, the child is taken from him and sent to school, and the father to prison.

Similar laws were enacted and enforced by our New England fathers more than two hundred years ago, which history informs us were attended with the most beneficial results.[76] Although their descendants of the present generation should blush for their degeneracy, still we should be encouraged from an increasing disposition of late to return to these salutary restraints and needful checks upon ignorance and crime. Said the Honorable Josiah Quincy, Jr., late mayor of the city of Boston, in his inaugural address, "I hold that the state has a right to compel parents to take advantage of the means of educating their children. If it can punish them for crime, it should surely have the power of preventing them from committing it, by giving them the habits and the education that are the surest safeguards." Similar sentiments have been recently promulgated by the heads of the school departments of several states in their official reports, and by governors in their annual messages; and we have much reason for believing that the time is not distant when an enlightened public sentiment shall demand the re-enactment of these most salutary laws of our ancestors.

Compulsory Attendance upon School.—Since the preceding paragraphs were prepared for the printer, the author has received the statutes and resolves of the Massachusetts Legislature of 1850, relating to education, which recognize the principle here contended for. Each of the several cities and towns in that commonwealth is "authorized and empowered to make all needful provisions and arrangements concerning habitual truants, and children not attending school, without any regular and lawful occupation, growing up in ignorance, between the ages of six and fifteen years; and, also, all such ordinances and by-laws respecting such children as shall be deemed most conducive to their welfare and the good order of such city or town; and there shall be annexed to such ordinances suitable penalties, not exceeding, for any one breach, a fine of twenty dollars."

It is made the duty of the "several cities and towns availing themselves of the provisions of this act, to appoint, at the annual meetings of said towns, or annually by the mayor and aldermen of said cities, three or more persons, who alone shall be authorized to make the complaints, in every case of violation of said ordinances or by-laws, to the justice of the peace, or other judicial officer, who, by said ordinances, shall have jurisdiction in the matter, which persons thus appointed shall alone have authority to carry into execution the judgments of said justices of the peace, or other judicial officer."

It is further provided that "the said justices of the peace, or other judicial officer, shall, in all cases, at their discretion, in place of the fine aforesaid, be authorized to order children proved before them to be growing up in truancy, and without the benefit of the education provided for them by law, to be placed, for such periods of time as they may judge expedient, in such institution of instruction, or house of reformation, or other suitable situation, as may be assigned or provided for the purpose in each city or town availing itself of the powers herein granted."

This principle has been incorporated into several municipal codes. Children in the city of Boston, under sixteen years of age, whose "parents are dead, or, if living, do, from vice, or any other cause, neglect to provide suitable employment for, or to exercise salutary control over" them, may be sent by the court to the house of reformation. By the late act, establishing the State Reform School, male convicts under sixteen years of age may be sent to this school from any part of the commonwealth, to be there "instructed in piety and morality, and in such branches of useful knowledge as shall be adapted to their age and capacity." The inmates may be bound out; but, in executing this part of their duty, the trustees "shall have scrupulous regard to the religious and moral character of those to whom they are bound, to the end that they may secure to the boys the benefit of a good example, and wholesome instruction, and the sure means of improvement in virtue and knowledge, and thus the opportunity of becoming intelligent, moral, useful, and happy citizens of the commonwealth."

The Massachusetts State Reform School is designed to be a "school for the instruction, reformation, and employment of juvenile offenders." Any boy under sixteen years of age, "convicted of any offense punishable by imprisonment other than for life," may be sentenced to this school. Here he may be kept during the term of his sentence; or he may be bound out as an apprentice; or, in case he proves incorrigible, he may be sent to prison, as he would originally have been but for the existence of this school.

The buildings erected are sufficiently large for three hundred boys. Attached to the establishment is a large farm, the cost of all which, when the buildings are completed and furnished, and the farm stocked and provided with agricultural implements, it is estimated will be about one hundred thousand dollars. A citizen of that state has given twenty-two thousand five hundred dollars to this institution, partly to defray past expenses and partly to form a fund for its future benefit.

"In visiting this noble institution, one can not but think how closely it resembles, in spirit and in purpose, the mission of Him who came to seek and to save that which was lost; and yet, in traversing its spacious halls and corridors, the echo of each footfall seems to say that one tenth part of its cost would have done more in the way of prevention than its whole amount can accomplish in the way of reclaiming, and would, besides, have saved a thousand pangs that have torn parental hearts, and a thousand more wounds in the hearts of the children themselves, which no human power can ever wholly heal. When will the state learn that it is better to spend its units for prevention than tens and hundreds for remedy? How long must the state, like those same unfortunate children, suffer the punishment of their existence before it will be reformed?"

Kindred institutions have existed in several of our principal cities for a quarter of a century, among which are the House of Reformation for Juvenile Delinquents in New York, the House of Refuge in Philadelphia, and the House of Reformation in Boston. Considering the degradation of their parents, the absence of correct early instruction, and the corrupting influences to which the children sent to these institutions have been exposed, becoming generally criminals before any effort has been made by the humane for their correct educational training, one may well wonder at the success which has crowned the efforts that have been put forth in their behalf, for the greater part of them are effectually and permanently reformed. This, however, only shows more clearly the power of education, and the advantages that may be derived from the establishment and maintenance of improved common schools throughout our country.

But how are these reforms effected? The means are simple, and are slightly different from those already described for the correct training of unoffending children. Take, for instance, the House of Reformation in the City of New York. In the first place, they have a good school-house, embracing nearly all the modern improvements. The yard and play-ground are of ample dimensions, and are inclosed by a substantial fence. This constitutes a barrier beyond which the children, once within, can not pass. But the clean gravel-walks, the beautiful shade-trees, the green grass-plats, the sparkling fountains, the ornamental flower-garden, all conspire to render the place delightful. It is, indeed, a prison in one sense, but the children seem hardly to know it. Then, again, well-qualified teachers and superintendents are employed. The spirit which actuates them is that of love. By proving themselves the friends of the children, the children become their friends, and are hence easily governed, considering their former neglect. Being well instructed, they love study, and generally make commendable progress. Their habits are regular, and they are constantly employed. A portion of the day is devoted to study; another portion to industrial pursuits; and still another to recreation and amusements. Strict obedience is required. This may be yielded at first from restraint, but ultimately from love. The love of kind and faithful teachers, the love of approving consciences, the love of right, the love of God, separately and conjointly influence them, until they can say ultimately of a truth, "The love of Christ constraineth us."

Their industrial habits are of incalculable benefit to them. They all learn some trade, and acquire the habits and the skill requisite to constitute them producers, and thus practically conform to this fundamental law, "that if any man would not work, neither should he eat." The other conditions that have been stated as essential to success are also complied with, the scholars being kept under the influence of good teachers, and of the same teachers from year to year, during their continuance in the institution.

The well-qualified and eminently successful teacher who has long been connected with the Refuge in New York, in a late report says, "The habits of industry which the children here acquire will be of incalculable benefit to them through life. Yet we look upon the School Department as the greatest of all the means employed to save our youthful charge from ignorance and vice. As it is the mind and the heart that are mostly depraved, so we must act mostly upon the mind and the heart to eradicate this depravity.

"The education here is a moral education. We do endeavor, it is true, by all the powers we possess, to impress upon the mind the great importance of a good education; and not only to impress it upon the mind, but to assist the mind to act, that it may obtain it. But our principal aim is to fan into life the almost dying spark of virtue, and kindle anew the moral feelings, that they may glow with fresh ardor, and shine forth again in the beauty of innocence. Our object is not to store the memory with facts, but to elevate the soul; not to think for the children, but to teach them to think for themselves; to describe the road, and put them in the way; never to hint what they have been, nor what they are, but to point them continually to what they may be.

"We feel assured that our labor will not be lost. Judging the future from the past, we are sanguine in our belief that our toils have left an impress upon the mind which time can not efface. Scarcely a week passes but our hearts are cheered and animated, and our eyes are gladdened at the sight of those whom we taught in by-gone years, who bid no fairer then to cheer us than those with whom we labor now. Yet they are saved—saved to themselves; saved to society; saved to their friends—who, but for this Refuge, would have poisoned the moral atmosphere of our land, and breathed around them more deadly effluvia than that of the fabled Upas."

The success which has attended well-directed efforts for the reformation of juvenile delinquents, and evening free schools for the education of adults of all ages whose early education has been neglected, ought to inspire the friends of human improvement with increased confidence in the redeeming power of a correct early education, such as every state in this Union may provide for all her children. When this confidence is begotten, and when a good common education comes to be generally regarded as the birth-right of every child in the community, then may the friends of free institutions and of indefinite human advancement look for the more speedy realization of their long-cherished hopes. For one generation the community must be doubly taxed—once in the reformation of juvenile delinquents, and in the education of ignorant adults in evening schools, and again in the correct training of all our children in improved schools. This done, each succeeding generation will come upon the stage under more favorable circumstances than the preceding, and each present generation will be better prepared to educate that which is to follow, to the end of time.

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I might here introduce a vast amount of incontrovertible evidence to show that, if the attendance of all the children in any commonwealth could be secured at such improved common schools as we have been contemplating for ten months during the year, from the age of four to that of sixteen years, they would prove competent to the removal of ninety-nine one hundredths of the evils with which society is now infested in one generation, and that they would ultimately redeem the state from social vices and crimes.

The Hon. Horace Mann, late Secretary of the Massachusetts Board of Education, issued a circular in 1847, in which he raised the question now under consideration. This circular was sent out to a large number of the most experienced and reputable teachers in the Northern and Middle States, all of whom were pleased to reply to it. Each reply corroborates the position here stated; and, taken together as a whole, they are entitled to implicit credence. The whole correspondence is too voluminous to be here exhibited; I can not, however, forbear introducing a few illustrative passages.

Says Mr. Page, the late lamented principal of the New York State Normal School, "Could I be connected with a school furnished with all the appliances you name; where all the children should be constant attendants upon my instruction for a succession of years; where all my fellow-teachers should be such as you suppose; and where all the favorable influences described in your circular should surround me and cheer me, even with my moderate abilities as a teacher, I should scarcely expect, after the first generation submitted to the experiment, to fail in a single case to secure the results you have named."

Mr. Solomon Adams, of Boston, who has been engaged in the profession of teaching twenty-four years, remarks as follows: "Permit me to say that, in very many cases, after laboring long with individuals almost against hope, and sometimes in a manner, too, which I can now see was not always wise, I have never had a case which has not resulted in some good degree according to my wishes. The many kind and voluntary testimonials given years afterward by persons who remembered that they were once my way-ward pupils, are among the pleasantest and most cheering incidents of my life. So uniform have been the results, when I have had a fair trial and time enough, that I have unhesitatingly adopted the motto, Never despair. Parents and teachers are apt to look for too speedy results from the labors of the latter. The moral nature, like the intellectual and physical, is long and slow in reaching the full maturity of its strength. I was told a few years since by a person who knew the history of nearly all my pupils for the first five years of my labor, that not one of them had ever brought reproach upon himself or mortification upon friends by a bad life. I can not now look over the whole of my pupils, and find one who had been with me long enough to receive a decided impression, whose life is not honorable and useful. I find them in all the learned professions and in the various mechanical arts. I find my female pupils scattered as teachers through half the states of the Union, and as the wives and assistants of Christian missionaries in every quarter of the globe.

"So far, therefore, as my own experience goes, so far as my knowledge of the experience of others extends, so far as the statistics of crime throw any light upon the subject, I confidently expect that ninety-nine in a hundred, and I think even more, with such means of education as you have supposed, and with such Divine favor as we are authorized to expect, would become good members of society, the supporters of order, and law, and truth, and justice, and all righteousness."

The Rev. Jacob Abbott, who has been engaged in the practical duties of teaching for about ten years in the cities of Boston and New York, and who has had under his care about eight hundred pupils of both sexes, and of all ages from four to twenty-five, has expressed in a long letter the sentiment placed at the head of this section. "If all our schools were under the charge of teachers possessing what I regard as the right intellectual and moral qualifications, and if all the children of the community were brought under the influence of these schools for ten months in the year, I think the work of training up the whole community to intelligence and virtue would soon be accomplished as completely as any human end can be obtained by human means."

Mr. Roger S. Howard, of Vermont, who has been engaged in teaching about twenty years, remarks, among other things, as follows: "Judging from what I have seen and do know, if the conditions you have mentioned were strictly complied with; if the attendance of the scholars could be as universal, constant, and long-continued as you have stated; if the teachers were men and women of those high intellectual and moral qualities—apt to teach, and devoted to their work, and favored with that blessing which the word and providence of God teach us always to expect upon our honest, earnest, and well-directed efforts in so good a cause—on these conditions and under these circumstances, I do not hesitate to express the opinion that the failures need not be—would not be one per cent."

Miss Catharine E. Beecher, of Brattleboro, Vermont, who has been engaged directly and personally as a teacher about fifteen years, in Hartford, Connecticut, and Cincinnati, Ohio, and who has had the charge of not less than a thousand pupils from every state in the Union, after stating these and other considerations, remarks as follows: "I will now suppose that it could be so arranged that, in a given place, containing from ten to fifteen thousand inhabitants, in any part of the country where I ever resided, all the children at the age of four shall be placed six hours a day, for twelve years, under the care of teachers having the same views that I have, and having received that course of training for their office that any state in this Union can secure to the teachers of its children. Let it be so arranged that all these children shall remain till sixteen under these teachers, and also that they shall spend their lives in this city, and I have no hesitation in saying I do not believe that one, no, not a single one, would fail of proving a respectable and prosperous member of society; nay, more, I believe every one would, at the close of life, find admission into the world of endless peace and love. I say this solemnly, deliberately, and with the full belief that I am upheld by such imperfect experimental trials as I have made, or seen made by others; but, more than this, that I am sustained by the authority of Heaven, which sets forth this grand palladium of education, 'Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it.

"This sacred maxim surely sets the Divine imprimatur to the doctrine that all children can be trained up in the way they should go, and that, when so trained, they will not depart from it. Nor does it imply that education alone will secure eternal life without supernatural assistance; but it points to the true method of securing this indispensable aid.

"In this view of the case, I can command no language strong enough to express my infinite longings that my countrymen, who, as legislators, have the control of the institutions, the laws, and the wealth of our physically prosperous nation, should be brought to see that they now have in their hands the power of securing to every child in the coming generation a life of virtue and usefulness here, and an eternity of perfected bliss hereafter. How, then, can I express, or imagine, the awful responsibility which rests upon them, and which hereafter they must bear before the great Judge of nations, if they suffer the present state of things to go on, bearing, as it does, thousands and hundreds of thousands of helpless children in our country to hopeless and irretrievable ruin!"

Testimony similar to the preceding might be multiplied to almost any extent. Enough, however, I trust, has been said to remove any doubts in relation to the redeeming power of education which the reader may have previously entertained. Universal education, we have seen, constitutes the most effectual and the only sure means of securing to individuals and communities, to states and nations, exemption from all avoidable evils of whatever kind, and the possession of a competency of this world's goods, with the ability and disposition so to enjoy them as most to augment human happiness. Yes, education, and nothing short of it, will dissipate the evils of ignorance; it will greatly increase the productiveness of labor, and make men more moral, industrious, and skillful, and thus diminish pauperism and crime, while at the same time it will indefinitely augment the sum total of human happiness. By diminishing the number of fatal accidents that are constantly occurring in every community, and securing to the rising generation such judicious physical and moral treatment as shall give them sound minds in sound bodies, it will lay an unfailing foundation for general prosperity, will greatly promote longevity, and will thus, in both of these and in many other ways, do more to increase the population, wealth, and universal well-being of the thirty states of this Union than all other means of state policy combined.

At the late Peace Convention at Paris to consider the practicability and necessity of a Congress of Nations to adjust national differences, composed of about fifteen hundred members, picked men from every Christian nation, Victor Hugo, the President of the Convention, on taking the chair, made an address that was received with great applause, in which the following passages occur:

"A day will come when men will no longer bear arms one against the other; when appeals will no longer be made to war, but to civilization! The time will come when the cannon will be exhibited as an old instrument of torture, and wonder expressed how such a thing could have been used. A day, I say, will come when the United States of America and the United States of Europe will be seen extending to each other the hand of fellowship across the ocean, and when we shall have the happiness of seeing every where the majestic radiation of universal concord."

That such a time will come, every heart that glows with Christian benevolence must earnestly desire and fervently pray. But we can not hope to attain the end without the use of the necessary means. So glorious a result as this, that has become an object of universal desire throughout Christendom, must follow when the conditions upon which it depends are complied with. What these are there can be little room for doubt. Let, then, every friend of Universal Peace seek it in the use of the appropriate means—Universal Education.

The same remark will apply to every form of Christian benevolence and universal philanthropy; for, as has been well remarked, in universal education, every "follower of God and friend of human kind" will find the only sure means of carrying forward that particular reform to which he is devoted. In whatever department of philanthropy he may be engaged, he will find that department to be only a segment of the great circle of beneficence of which Universal Education is the center and circumference; and that he can most successfully promote the permanent advancement of his most cherished interest in securing the establishment of, and attendance upon, Improved Schools Free to All.

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