[1] Principles of Physiology applied to the Preservation of Health.

[2] Dr. Samuel G. Howe, director of the New England Institution for the Education of the Blind, 1836.

[3] The American Institute of Instruction.

[4] This makes the ratio of representation in the institution from Andover fifty six times greater than from the city of Boston.

[5] I am informed by a lady who passed a long time at the Spanish court, in a distinguished situation, that the grandees have deteriorated by their habits of living, and the restriction of intermarriages to their own rank, to a race of dwarfs; and, though fine persons are sometimes seen among them, they, when assembled at court, appear to be a group of manikins.

[6] For the views presented in the preceding paragraph (as also in several that follow) I would acknowledge my indebtedness to Dr. Andrew Combe's treatise on the "Physiology of Digestion." From the "Principles of Physiology," by the same author, I have already quoted. These admirable works will prove an invaluable treasure to persons desirous of becoming acquainted with the laws of health.

[7] It will frequently be found more convenient, and will be well-nigh as serviceable, to wash in soft water as usual, and excite a reaction in the skin in the use of a towel that has been dipped in brine and dried.

[8] The friends of educational reform may well take courage from the increased attention which the subject of physical education is of late receiving from the pulpit and the press, those mighty conservators of the public weal. Since the text was prepared for the press, the following remarks and pertinent inquiry have appeared in the Family Favorite for February, 1850. They are quoted from a Discourse by the editor, the Rev. James V. Watson, on the First Sabbath of the New Year:

"The true interpretation of the providence of God in Asiatic cholera perhaps has never yet fully been given. Is it not one of God's marked modes of rebuking intemperance, physical uncleanness, and social degradation—evils which result from perverted appetite, wrong forms of government, and a want of Christian benevolence? The reformer, the philanthropist, and the Christian may learn a lesson here."

[9] Quoted into the Schoolmaster (a work published in London under the superintendence of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge) from a lecture delivered by Dr. J. C. Warren before the American Institute of Instruction, August, 1830.

[10] Mr. Woodbridge's lecture before the American Institute of Instruction, 1830.

[11] Taken, with slight alterations, from the description of Dr. A. Combe.

[12] Since the text was prepared for the press, I have noticed from the Syracuse (New York) Journal of January 3d, 1850, mention of the death of General Rensselaer Van Rensselaer, of that city, from breathing "the fumes of charcoal" burned in a "portable furnace." This, it should be remembered, is but one of the many instances that are constantly occurring all over our country, in which immediate death is the result of breathing this destructive agent.

[13] In the district referred to there has since been erected a large and commodious union school house, which constitutes at once the pride and ornament of a beautiful and flourishing village.

[14] Dr. Thackrah, author of a most valuable work on the "Effects of Employments on the Health and Longevity of Mankind."

[15] It would be difficult to say whether carbonic acid gas is in the atmosphere constitutionally, or accidentally, or both.—Dr. Wm. A. Alcott's Health Tracts.

[16] Sulphureted hydrogen gas is the deleterious agent exhaled from privies or vaults, which have been so fatal, at times, to night men, who have been employed to remove or cleanse them.—Dr. Dunglison.

[17] Dr. Franklin, in his usual humorous manner, but with his accustomed gravity, relates, in one of his essays, the following anecdote, for the purpose, doubtless, of showing the influence of pure air upon health, happiness, and longevity.

"It is recorded of Methusalem, who, being the longest liver, may be supposed to have best preserved his health, that he slept always in the open air; for when he had lived five hundred years, an angel said to him, Arise, Methusalem, and build thee a house, for thou shalt live yet five hundred years longer. But Methusalem answered and said, If I am to live but five hundred years longer, it is not worth while to build me a house. I will sleep in the air as I have been accustomed to do."

[18] From Dr. William A. Alcott's Tract on Breathing Bad Air.

[19] S. S. Fitch, M.D., author of "Consumption Cured."

[20] From an Essay upon the Physical and Intellectual Education of Children, written by request of the Managers of the Pennsylvania Lyceum.

[21] Report on Manual Labor, by Theodore D. Weld, 1833.

[22] The testimony of M. Esquirol, whose talent, general accuracy, and extensive experience give great weight to all his well-considered opinions, quoted, also, and confirmed by the Physician Extraordinary to the Queen in Scotland, and consulting Physician to the King and Queen of the Belgians.

The same eminent author has recorded the following fact, illustrating the extent to which the temporary state of the mother, during gestation, may influence the whole future life of the child. A pregnant woman, otherwise healthy, was greatly alarmed and terrified by the threats of her husband when in a state of intoxication. She was afterward delivered, at the proper time, of a very delicate child, which was so much affected by its mother's agitation that, up to the age of eighteen, it continued subject to panic terrors, and then became completely maniacal.

Many illustrative instances might be quoted from medical writers in this and other countries. The author might also refer to cases that have fallen under his own observation.

[23] A man is not an idiot if he hath any glimmering of reason, so that he can tell his parents, his age, or the like matters. But a man who is born deaf, dumb, and blind, is looked upon by the law as in the same state with an idiot, he being supposed incapable of any understanding, as wanting all the senses which furnish the human mind with ideas.—Blackstone's Commentaries, vol. i., p. 304.

[24] I have omitted much in the case of Laura that I should have retained but for want of room. The moral qualities of her nature have developed themselves most clearly. She is honest to a proverb, having never been known to take any thing belonging to another. That she is a Christian there can be no doubt. It is said in the report of her case for 1846, that "on the last occasion of her manifesting any impatience, she said to Miss Wight, her teacher, 'I felt cross, but in a minute I thought of Christ, how good and gentle he was, and my bad feelings went away.'"

[25] In a lecture before the American Institute of Instruction, on the Moral and Religious Training of Children.

[26] I would not be understood to recommend that any person who does not love the Bible, and the doctrines which it inculcates, and who does not seek after that purity of heart which it every where enjoins, should conduct devotional exercises in school; but I would respectfully inquire whether any who do not delight in such exercises, and who do not esteem it a privilege to lead the devotions of those under their charge, do not lack an essential qualification to teach school. Our laws generally require that the school-teacher be, among other things, well qualified in respect to moral character to instruct a Primary School.

[27] The day of writing the above, a lady mentioned to me the following gratifying illustration of my idea. The subject of it is a little girl only five years of age, who has never attended school, but has learned to read at home, under her mother's tuition. After reading in the first number of one of our excellent series of reading books, the story of "the honest boy" who never told a lie, for perhaps the twentieth time, the little girl said to her mother, "Mother, I like to read this story, for it always makes me feel very happy." Similar instances I have witnessed scores of times, in the family and in the school. Teachers may almost invariably lead their scholars to admire and copy the examples of good children about whom they read, and to dislike and avoid those of bad ones. This power over children should always be exercised for good.

[28] In a lecture before the American Institute of Instruction, on the Religious Element in Education.

[29] John Quincy Adams, during his long and eventful life, was accustomed to read daily portions of the Scriptures in several languages.

[30] Common schools have since been organized in both of those counties.

[31] Quoted from an address delivered in Boston by Edward Everett.

[32] See Appendix to Dick's Improvement of Society, p. 338.

[33] In the Duchy of Lorraine, nine hundred females were delivered over to the flames for being witches, by one inquisitor alone. Under this accusation, it is reckoned that upward of thirty thousand women have perished by the hands of the Inquisition.—Quoted by Dr. Dick from "Inquisition Unmasked."

[34] Dr. Dick, to whom I have frequently referred, and whose writings I have freely consulted, expresses in a note a sentiment in which I fully concur. "It would be unfair," says he, "to infer, from any expression here used, that the author denies the possibility of supernatural visions and appearances. We are assured from the records of sacred history that beings of an order superior to the human race have 'at sundry times and in divers manners' made their appearance to men. But there is the most marked difference between vulgar apparitions and the celestial messengers to which the records of revelation refer. They appeared not to old women and clowns, but to patriarchs, prophets, and apostles. They appeared not to frighten the timid and to create unnecessary alarm, but to declare 'tidings of great joy.' They appeared not to reveal such paltry secrets as the place where a pot of gold or silver is concealed, or where a lost ring may be found, but to communicate intelligence worthy of a God to reveal, and of the utmost importance for man to receive. In these and many other respects, there is the most striking contrast between popular ghosts and the supernatural communications and appearances recorded in Scripture."

[35] In two large volumes, published by Greeley and McElrath, New York.

[36] See Lectures on Science and Art, vol. i., p. 315.

[37] Ibid., p. 419-420.

[38] On this subject the prevailing opinions in different countries disagree, as they do also on some of the others.

[39] Late Secretary of the Massachusetts Board of Education. Reference is here especially made to his Fifth Annual Report, bearing date January 1, 1842, from which, with his consent, what follows under this head has been substantially drawn.

[40] The New York Free School State Convention, held in Syracuse the 10th and 11th of July inst. (1850), unanimously adopted an Address to the People of the State, written by Horace Greeley, in which the following passage occurs, inculcating the same sentiment: "Property is deeply interested in the Education of All. There is no farm, no bank, no mill, no shop—unless it be a grog-shop—which is not more valuable and more profitable to its owner if located among a well-educated than if surrounded by an ignorant population. Simply as a matter of interest, we hold it to be the duty of Property to itself to provide Education for All."

[41] In Connecticut the statutes provide "that no child under the age of fifteen years shall be employed to labor in any manufacturing establishment, or in any other business in the state, unless such child shall have attended some public or private day school where instruction is given by a teacher qualified to instruct in orthography, reading, writing, English grammar, geography, and arithmetic, at least three months of the twelve months next preceding any and every year in which such child shall be so employed. And the owner, agent, or superintendent of any manufacturing establishment who shall employ any child in such establishment contrary to the provisions of this act, shall forfeit and pay for each offense a penalty of twenty-five dollars to the treasurer of the state." In Massachusetts the forfeiture is fifty dollars. Similar provisions exist in other American, and in several European states.

[42] This statement was made eight years ago. More such patents may have been taken out within this time.

[43] Quoted from the Report to the Secretary of State for the Home Department, on the Training of Pauper Children, London, 1841.

[44] Fred. Hill, author of National Education, whose testimony is quoted at the head of this article.

[45] See evidence taken by Edwin Chadwick, Esq., Secretary to the Poor-Law Commissioners, a quotation from whose report heads this article.

[46] The writer would here remark, in reference to extracts made from various authors, that, for the sake of abridging, he has often, as in this case, left out parts of a paragraph, but never so as to modify the meaning. Some ideas, not connected with the subject in hand, are omitted, but none are changed.

[47] The escrivanos, who figure so largely in Spain, are the representatives of the lowest class of attorneys. Nothing can be done without them, and they are not unfrequently almost the sole authority in a place capable of reading and writing. Notwithstanding the miserable state of the rural districts, they contrive to make money, and many of them rise from this humble office to much higher places in the state. Their wretched appointments are, consequently, objects of competition. I witnessed the execution of one at Seville by accidentally entering the Plaza, where the Capuchins were bawling out the last words for his repetition, announcing to the crowd that they had done their duty, and he died in the true faith. He had been superseded in some village in the vicinity, and assassinated his rival.—Cook's Sketches in Spain, vol. i., p. 197.

[48] It would seem that the great majority of "educated mothers" do not realize the necessity of supplying pure air to the new-born child. Before birth, the blood of the fetus is purified in the maternal lungs; after birth, in the lungs of the child, if at all; and for this purpose pure air is necessary.

[49] The statements under this head are drawn from Dr. Howe's Report on Idiocy, made in February last, and communicated by the governor to the Legislature of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. The author visited the Institution in South Boston during the past summer, and derived much information on the subject from personal observation and inquiry.

[50] The subject of hereditary transmission of diseased tendency is of vast importance, but it is a difficult one to treat, because a squeamish delicacy makes people avoid it; but if ever the race is to be relieved of a tithe of the bodily ills which flesh is now heir to, it must be by a clear understanding of, and a willing obedience to, the law which makes the parents the blessing or the curse of the children; the givers of strength, and vigor, and beauty, or the dispensers of debility, and disease, and deformity. It is by the lever of enlightened parental love, more than by any other power, that mankind is to be raised to the highest attainable point of bodily perfection.—Dr. S. G. Howe.

[51] One would hardly be credited if he should put down half the instances of gross ignorance manifested by parents in this enlightened community [the State of Massachusetts] in the treatment of idiotic children. Sometimes they find that the children seem to comprehend what they hear, but soon forget it; hence they conclude that the brain is soft, and can not retain impressions, and then they cover the head with cold poultices of oak-bark in order to tan or harden the fibers. Others, finding that it is exceedingly difficult to make any impression upon the mind, conclude that the brain is too hard, and they torture the poor child with hot and softening poultices of bread and milk; or they plaster tar over the whole skull, and keep it on for a long time. These are innocent applications compared with some, which doubtless render weak-minded children perfectly idiotic.—Dr. S. G. Howe.

What a striking illustration have we here of the necessity of diffusing correct physiological information more widely among the masses than has yet been done even in enlightened Massachusetts!

[52] In the education of many, very many, I fear, the same mistake is made as in the case of Lord Dudley, thus described in a late number of the London Quarterly Review: "The irritable susceptibility of the brain was stimulated at the expense of bodily power and health. His foolish tutors took a pride in his precocious progress, which they ought to have kept back. They watered the forced plant with the blood of life; they encouraged the violation of Nature's laws, which are not to be broken in vain; they infringed the condition of conjoint moral and physical existence; they imprisoned him in a vicious circle, where the overworked brain injured the stomach, which reacted to the injury of the brain. They watched the slightest deviation from the rules of logic, and neglected those of dietetics, to which the former are a farce. They thought of no exercises but Latin; they gave him a Gradus instead of a cricket-bat, until his mind became too keen for its mortal coil, and the foundation was laid for ill health, derangement of stomach, moral pusillanimity, irresolution, lowness of spirits, and all the Protean miseries of nervous disorders, by which his after life was haunted, and which are sadly depicted in almost every letter before us."

[53] See Chapter IV., especially from the 89th page to the 105th.

[54] I may here add, that exactly the reverse is true in the melting of snow and ice. It requires as much heat to convert these solids into fluids, without at all increasing their temperature, as it does to raise the temperature of water from the freezing point, one hundred and forty degrees, or from thirty-two to one hundred and seventy-two degrees, as indicated by the thermometer. This principle is of vast importance to the world, and particularly to the inhabitants of cold countries, where the ground is covered with snow and ice a part or the whole of the year. The transition from the cold of winter to the heat of summer, in some of the northern climates, takes place within a few days. In these climates, also, there are vast accumulations of snow and ice, which, but for this principle, would be converted into water as soon as the temperature of the atmosphere becomes above thirty-two degrees, which would produce a flood sufficient to inundate and destroy the whole country. But the uniform action of this law renders the melting of snow gradual, and no such accident ensues.

A similar law is observed in the conversion of water into vapor, which is of great use in enabling us to cool apartments by sprinkling floors or hanging up moistened cloths. The heat of even a whole city is in like manner greatly moderated by frequently sprinkling the streets. It is on this account that gentle showers in hot weather are so cooling and refreshing.

[55] In the annual report of the Trustees of the New England Institution for the Education of the Blind for the year 1834, this beautiful passage occurs: "The expression of one of the pupils, 'that she had never known, before she began to learn, that it was a happiness to be alive,' may be applied to many."

[56] From "an Oration delivered before the Authorities of the City of Boston, July 4th, 1842, by Horace Mann, Secretary of the Massachusetts Board of Education."

[57] Joseph Story, before the American Institute of Instruction.

[58] The census for 1850 is now being taken. Whether its results will tell more favorably upon the general interests of education in the United States than those of the last census, remains to be seen. Some of the states during the last ten years have done nobly; others have evidently retrograded. We have also a tide of foreign immigration pouring in upon us hitherto unprecedented, averaging a thousand a day for the past year, all of whom need to be Americanized.

[59] According to the last census, there were twenty states below Michigan, and only five above her. But even this estimate, favorable as it is in the scale of states, does not allow Michigan an opportunity to appear in her true light, for it is well known that a great proportion of the illiterate population of this state is confined to a few counties. In Mackinaw and Chippewa counties there is one white person over twenty years of age to every five of the entire population that is unable to read and write. In Ottawa, one in fourteen; in Cass, one in twenty-two; in Wayne and Saginaw, each, one in thirty-six. On the other hand, there were eight organized counties in the state in which, according to the census referred to, there was not a single white inhabitant over twenty years of age that was unable to read and write. It is an interesting fact, at least to persons residing in the Northwest, that in Ohio also (on the Western Reserve) there were seven such counties, making fifteen in these two states, while in all New England there were but two—Franklin in Massachusetts, and Essex in Vermont.

[60] In Massachusetts, according to a statement made by the Secretary of the Board of Education, the whole number of scholars who were in all the public schools any part of the school year 1840-41 was but 155,041, and the average attendance was, in the winter, 116,398, and in the summer, 96,802; while the number given in the census is 158,351, which is greater by 3310 than the entire number that attended school any part of the year, according to the returns, and 55,751 more than the average attendance for half of the year.

[61] In determining the proportion for this state, the census for 1845 and the school returns for that year were the data used. In the other states I have been obliged to use the census returns of 1840.

[62] My information is derived from the "Southern Journal of Education" for May, 1850—a monthly for the promotion of popular intelligence, published from Knoxville, Tenn.—Samuel A. Jewett, Editor and Publisher. This journal is ably conducted, and has now reached its third volume. This certainly is a very encouraging omen, especially when we consider that it has so long survived in a state where, according to the last census, only one in thirty-three of the entire population attended school. May it long continue to do good service in this important cause.

[63] This improvement well illustrates the advantages resulting to the state from the able and faithful supervision of her public schools. A correspondent of the Baltimore American speaks of the Annual Report of Dr. Robert Breckenridge, Superintendent of Public Instruction, to the General Assembly of Kentucky, as follows: "It is the most important document which has been submitted to that body during the present session, and reflects great credit upon the energy, fidelity, and comprehensive aims of the superintendent in the discharge of his high duties. It is now but two years since Dr. Breckenridge was appointed to the office, and the great service he has rendered to the cause of popular education in the state is strikingly exhibited in the contrast between the present condition of the common schools, and that in which he found them when he received his appointment from the Board of Education."

[64] Even in Massachusetts the average length of time the schools of the state continue is less than eight months, and the average continuance in several of the counties is only five months. The average attendance upon the schools for the time they are kept open is sixty-two per cent. of the number between the ages of four and sixteen years; but in some instances only twenty-six per cent. of the children in a town—about one fourth of the number within the school ages—attend school.

[65] Bishop Butler is here answering the objections of some "people who speak of charity schools as a new-invented scheme, and therefore to be looked upon with suspicion; whereas it is no otherwise new than as the occasion for it is so."

[66] See Tract on "The Liquor Manufacture and Traffic," prepared by request of the National Division of the Sons of Temperance, by S. F. Cary, Most Worthy Patriarch.

[67] A year ago the schools of New York were made entirely free by law. See the foot-note on the 267th page of this work.

[68] First Annual Report of the State Superintendent (Hon. Horace Eaton) of Common Schools, made to the Legislature of Vermont, October, 1846.

[69] "School Architecture," or Contributions to the Improvement of School-houses in the United States, by Henry Barnard, Commissioner of Public Schools in Rhode Island, p. 383. This excellent treatise embodies a mass of most valuable information in relation to school-houses and apparatus. It contains the plans of a great number of the best school-houses in various portions of the United States, and should be consulted by every committee before determining upon a plan for the construction of a valuable school-house.

[70] Dumb-bells are usually made of cast iron, and sometimes of bell-metal, of the shape indicated by the figure, and should weigh from two to ten pounds each, according to the strength of the person using them.

[71] I would by no means free parents from responsibility in this matter. They, if any class, may be said to be "alone responsible;" but, in fact, all who are intrusted with the care of children share in the responsibility. Secret vice, in the opinion of those who have had occasion to remark the extent to which it is practiced, from colleges and the higher seminaries of learning down to the common school, and even in the nursery before the child is sent to school, prevails to an alarming extent. It is often the principal, and, in many instances, the sole cause of a host of evils that are commonly attributed to hard study, among which are impaired nutrition, and general lassitude and weakness, especially of the loins and back; loss of memory, dullness of apprehension, and both indisposition and incapacity for study; dizziness, affections of the eyes, headaches, etc., etc. Secret vice in childhood and youth is also a fruitful source of social vice later in life, and of excesses even within the pale of wedlock, ruinous alike to the parties themselves and to their offspring. Licentiousness in some of its forms, as we have frequently had occasion to see, from the highest testimony introduced into the text in various passages, in addition to the evils here referred to, sometimes leads to the most driveling idiocy, and to insanity in its worst forms. All, then, who have the charge of children, and especially parents and teachers, should exercise a rational familiarity with them on this delicate but important subject. They should give them timely counsel in relation to the temptations to which they may be exposed, apprise them of the evils that follow in the train of disobedience, and endeavor, by kindly advice and friendly admonition, to infix in their minds a delicate sense of honor, an abhorrence for this whole class of vice, and a determination never to entertain a thought of indulging the appetite for sex except within the pale of wedlock, and in accordance with God's own appointment.

[72] Among the many excellent works already before the public, I would name the following, which the practical teacher may profitably consult: The School and the Schoolmaster, by Dr. Potter and G. B. Emerson; Theory and Practice of Teaching, by D. P. Page; The School Teacher's Manual, by Henry Dunn; The Teacher, by Jacob Abbott; The Teacher's Manual, by Thomas H. Palmer; The Teacher Taught, by Emerson Davis; Slate and Black-board Exercises, by Wm. A. Alcott; Lectures on Education, by Horace Mann; Corporal Punishment, by Lyman Cobb; Confessions of a Schoolmaster, by Wm. A. Alcott; The Teacher's Institute, by Wm. B. Fowle; The True Relation of the Sexes, by John Ware. These are also useful to parents. A more extended list, with tables of contents, may be found in Barnard's School Architecture, p. 279 to 288.

[73] A female teacher in the Bay State, in 1847, addressed the following inquiry through the columns of the Massachusetts Common School Journal:

"I have been laboring for the last year in a large school, and have endeavored, according to the best of my ability, to inculcate habits of neatness among the pupils, especially to break them of the filthy habit of spitting upon the floor. I have often told them gentlemen never do it. But at a recent visit of the committee, an individual, who has been elected by the town to superintend the educational interests of the rising generation, spit the dirty juice of his tobacco quid upon the floor of my school-room with apparent self-complacency.

"Shall I say to the children that this person is not a gentleman, and thus destroy his influence? or shall I pass it over in silence, and thus leave them to draw the natural inference that all I have said on the subject is only a woman's whim?"

Mr. Mann, the editor, gave a full reply through the Journal, from which I have here quoted part of a paragraph. He closes by offering a prize of the "eternal gratitude of all decent men" to the discoverer of a remedy or antidote for the evil.

[74] Since these suggestions were first given to the public, several excellent books for children have been published, constructed on a similar plan to that here recommended. It will generally be found advantageous to teach the vowels first, and then to teach such consonants as combine with the long sound of the vowel; as, for example, first o; then g, h, l, n, and s, when the child can read go, ho, lo, no, and so. After this, e may be learned, and then b, m, and s, when the child can read be, bee, me, and see. Then these may be combined as see me; lo, see me; see me ho; lo, see me ho, etc. The idea is, that every letter and combination of letters be used as fast they are learned.

[75] In a former chapter, the necessity of moral and religious education was dwelt upon at length. The importance of the Scriptures as a text-book, containing as they do the only perfect code of morals known to man, and the objections sometimes urged against their use, were duly considered. I wish here simply to add, that their exclusion from our schools would be even more sectarian than their perverted use; for the atheistical plan, which forbids the entrance of the Bible into multitudes of our schools, under the pretense of excluding sectarianism, shuts out Christianity, and establishes the influence of a single sect, that would dethrone the Creator, and break up every bond of social order.

[76] The following paragraph is from the Massachusetts Colony Laws of 1642; "Forasmuch as the good education of children is of singular behoof and benefit to any commonwealth, and whereas many parents and masters are too indolent and negligent of their duty in that kind, it is ordered that the select-men of every town in the several precincts and quarters, where they dwell, shall have a vigilant eye over their brethren and neighbors, to see, first, that none of them shall suffer so much barbarism in any of their families as not to teach, by themselves or others, their children and apprentices so much learning as may enable them perfectly to read the English tongue, and knowledge of the capital laws, upon penalty of twenty shillings for each neglect therein."