Read Ebook: Thoughts on Educational Topics and Institutions by Boutwell George S George Sewall

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the proper facilities, the three upper classes in graded primary schools can be taught to write the letters of the alphabet in a plain script hand, and even to join them into words, without any material hindrance to the other required studies; and, moreover, that the great remedy for the complaint of want of time, in these schools, is the increase of skill in the art of teaching."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

THE RELATIVE MERITS OF PUBLIC HIGH SCHOOLS AND ENDOWED ACADEMIES.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

THE HIGH SCHOOL SYSTEM.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Learning is manifested in what we know; wisdom in what we are, based upon what we know. Philosophy, even, is love for wisdom rather than wisdom itself. The old philosophers defined wisdom to be "the knowledge of things, both divine and human, together with the causes on which they depend;" and in the proverb of Solomon, "The fear of the Lord is the instruction of wisdom." Purity, truth, and justice, are also of its foundation. Wise men of the Jewish and Pagan world built on this foundation, and the Christian can build on none other. Having combined learning with these essential virtues, a liberal, symmetrical, comprehensive character may be built up. In the formation of such a character, industry, powers of observation, strength of will and intellectual humility, are requisite. The virtue and the glory of industry cannot be presented too often to the young. I know of no worldly good or human excellence that can be attained without it; nor is there any inherited possession of name, or wealth, or position, that can be preserved in its extent and quality without active, systematic, judicious labor.

It is not necessary to consider industry as habitual diligence in a pursuit, manual or intellectual; but rather as a judicious arrangement of business and recreation, so as always to have time for the necessary duties of life. Mere diligence is not industry in a good sense; it is labor in a bad sense. Our time should be systematically appropriated to our employments, and each measure of time should be equal to the work or duty appointed for it. Moreover, each work or duty should be accomplished in its appointed time; and this can be secured only by a strong will. The power of will admits of education, culture, improvement, as much as any faculty of the mind or quality of character. A fickle, planless life cannot accomplish much. System in our plans, and firmness of will in their execution, will place us beyond the reach of ordinary disasters; yet how often do young men go through a course of school studies without a plan, even for the moment, and enter upon life the slaves of chance, the victims of what they call fortune, while they might by industry, system and firmness of will, rise superior to circumstances, and extort a measure of success not unworthy of a noble ambition!

Idleness is a wasting disease, a consuming fire, a destroying demon; in youth it is a calamity, in the vigor of manhood it is a disgrace and a sin, and in old age it can be honorably accepted only as the symbol of reflective leisure earned by a life of industry and virtue. Industry is a badge of honor, an introduction everywhere to the true nobility of the world, the security that each may take of the future for his own happiness and prosperity in it.

Cardinal, personal virtues shrink and wither, or are blasted and die, in the company of idleness; and, without firmness of will, the noblest principles and purest sentiments sometimes wear the livery of vice, and often they give encouragement to it. Good principles, good purposes, good ideas, are made fruitful by a strong resolution; while without it they are like bubbles of water, brilliant in the sun-light, but destined to collapse by the changing, silent force of the medium in which they float. And can any life, not positively vicious and criminal, be less desirable than that of the young man who quietly accepts whatever condition circumstances assign to him? I speak now of his moral and intellectual condition rather than of his social position among men. The latter is not in itself important, and only becomes so through the exhibition of high qualities of mind and character. Social and political consideration we cannot demand as a right; but we may acquire knowledge, develop qualities of character, give evidences of wisdom that entitle us to the respect of our fellows.

It may be agreeable, but it is not absolutely essential, for us to enjoy the public confidence, or even the public consideration; though we can be happy ourselves only when we are conscious of not being totally unworthy. But no social or political concession or consideration is acceptable to a noble mind, that is grudgingly yielded or doubtingly bestowed; and the lustre of great intellects is dimmed when they become subservient to claims that they despise.

But can we acquire a knowledge of things, either divine or human, unless we cultivate our powers of observation? Partial or inaccurate observation, especially of natural things, is a great defect of character; and in New England, where the aim of educators and of the public in matters of education is elevated, a remedy for this defect ought at once to be sought and applied. Our ideas are vague concerning many subjects of common sight and common observation. Is adult life, even among the educated classes, equal to a description of the common animals, trees, fruits and flowers? Who will paint with words the elm or the oak so that its species will be known while the name is withheld? The introduction of drawing into the schools will improve the power of observation among the people, especially if the pupils are required to make nature their model. And this should always be done. O, how is education belittled and the mind dwarfed by those teachers who keep their pupils' thoughts upon signs and definitions, when they ought to deal continually with the facts, things and life of the world! It is no fable that a student of the higher mathematics, when his master, a practical engineer upon the Boston water-works, required his services, exclaimed, "I had no idea that you had sines and tangents out of doors." With such,

"Nothing goes for sense or light That will not with old rules jump right; As if rules were not in the schools Derived from truth, but truth from rules."

And Butler, in his satirical description of Sir Hudibras, ascribes to his hero more practical philosophy than he appears to have intended, and more, certainly, than is found in some modern systems of education:

"In mathematics he was greater Than Tycho Brahe or Erra Pater; For he, by geometric scale, Could take the size of pots of ale; Resolve by sines and tangents straight, If bread or butter wanted weight; And wisely tell what hour o' th' day The clock does strike, by algebra."

It is idle for any one to imagine that there is nothing more for him to learn. Indeed, such a theory is good evidence of defective education and limited attainments, if not of a defective mental and moral structure.

Naturalists delight and instruct their pupils and auditors with the wonderful truths folded in the flower, garnered in the plant, or imprisoned in the rock. Yet how much more there must be of God's wisdom in the humblest of the beings created in his image! There are distinctions among men; and out of these distinctions come the truth and the necessity that each may be both a teacher and a pupil of every other. No man, however learned he may be, does know or can know all that is known by his neighbor, though that neighbor be the humblest of shepherds or of fishermen. We are not independent of each other in anything. The earnest and faithful disciple of wisdom goes through life everywhere diffusing knowledge, and everywhere gathering it up. Over the great gateway of life is the inscription, "None but learners enter here;" and along its paths and in its groves are tablets, on which is written, "None but learners sojourn here." He is a poor teacher who is not a learner, and he is but little of a learner who is not something of a teacher also. The best teachers are they who are pupils, and the best pupils are already teachers. Such was the real and avowed character of the great teachers of antiquity; such is the best practice of modern continental Europe, and such is the requirement of nature in all ages. He who does not learn cannot teach. Socrates professed to know only this, that he knew nothing. Plato was a disciple of Socrates and Euclid; a pupil in the school of Pythagoras; and, as a traveller, under the disguise of a merchant and a seller of oil, he visited Egypt, and thus gained a knowledge of astronomy, and added something to his learning in other departments. He numbered among his pupils Isocrates, Lycurgus, Aristotle, and Demosthenes; and for eight years Alexander the Great was the pupil of Aristotle, while Demosthenes

"Wielded at will that fierce Democratie, Shook the arsenal, and fulmined over Greece To Macedon, and Artaxerxes' throne."

Thus we trace Demosthenes and Alexander, the master spirits in the struggle of Grecian independence against Macedonian supremacy, through teachers and culture up to Socrates, the wanderer in the streets, and the disturber of the peace of Athens.

It is stated that a distinguished modern philosopher often says, "I don't know," when the curiosity or science of his pupils suggests questions that he has not considered. If we respect and admire the wisdom of the wise, how ought we to be humbled, intellectually, by the reflection that the unknown far exceeds the known, and that all become as little children when they enter the temple of the sages! The ancients prized schools, teachers, and learning, because they were essential to wisdom; and wisdom enabled them to live temperately, justly, and happily, in the present world; while we prize schools, teachers, and learning, because they contribute to what we call success in life. The population of New England, is composed of skilful artisans, intelligent merchants, shrewd or eloquent lawyers, industrious and intelligent farmers; and to these results our system of education is too exclusively subservient. These results are not to be condemned, nor are the processes by which they are secured to be neglected. But our schools ought to do something always and for every one, for the full development of a character that is essential to artisans, merchants, lawyers, or farmers. Learning should not be prized merely as an aid to the daily work of life,--though this it properly is and ever ought to be,--but for its expansive power in the mind and soul, by which we attain to a more perfect knowledge of things human and divine. There are many persons who accomplish satisfactorily the tasks assigned them, but who do not always comprehend the processes of life, in its political, social, literary, scientific and industrial relations, by which the affairs of the world are guided.

In the gardens of the wealthy, we often see peach-trees and pear-trees trained against brick or stone walls, to which they are attached by substantial thongs. These trees are carefully and systematically trained, and they are trained so as to accomplish certain results. They present a large surface, in proportion to the whole, to the sun and air; in addition to the direct rays of the sun, they receive the reflected and accumulated heat of the walls to which they are fastened; and they furnish ripe fruit much in advance of trees in the gardens and fields of the common farmers. Here art and nature, in brick walls, manure, the germinating power of the peach or pear, and rigid training and pruning, have produced very good machines for the manufacture of fruit; but for the full-grown, symmetrically developed tree, or even for the choicest fruit in its season, we must look elsewhere. And who does not perceive, if all the trees of the gardens, fields, and forests, were treated in the same way, that the world would be deprived of a part of its beauty and glory, and that many species of trees would soon become extinct? Who would not give back the luscious pear and peach to their native acritude, rather than subject the highest forms of vegetable life to such irreverence? And, upon reflection, we shall say that such cruelty to inanimate life can be justified only as we justify the naturalist who dexterously and suddenly extracts a vital organ from a reptile, that he may observe the effect upon that form of animal existence.

In the days of our ancestors, one hundred or two hundred years ago, this training, as a part of a system of education, was not needed. We had no cities, and but few large towns. Agriculture and the ruder forms of mechanical labor were the chief occupations of the people. Populous cities, narrow streets, dark lanes, cellar habitations, crowded workshops, over-filled and over-heated factories, and the number of sedentary pursuits that tax and wear and destroy the physical powers, and undermine the moral and mental, were unknown. These are the attendants of our civilization, and they have brought a melancholy train of evils with them. In the seventeenth century, men perished from exposure, from ignorance of the laws of health, from the prevalence of malignant diseases that defied the science of the times; and, as a consequence, the average length of human life was not greater than it now is. At present, there is but little exposure that is followed by fatal results; malignant diseases are deprived of many of their terrors; rules of living, founded upon scientific principles, are accessible to all; and yet we daily meet young men and women who are manifestly unequal to the lot that is before them. In some cases, the sin of the parent is visited upon the children, and the measure of life meted out to them is limited and insufficient. In other cases, the individuals, first yielding in their own persons, are the victims of positive vice, or of some of the evils stated. Civilization is not an unmixed good; and we cannot offer to the city or the factory any adequate compensation for the loss of pure water, pure air, and the healthful exercise of body, which may be enjoyed in the country villages and agricultural districts of the state.

Yet even in cities and large towns the culture of home and school should diminish these evils; and it is a pleasure to believe that our system of domestic and public education is doing something at the present moment in behalf of the too much neglected body; but nowhere, either in city or country, do we observe the evidences of juvenile health and strength that a friend of the race would desire to see. And it is, I fear, specially true of schools, and to some extent it is true of teachers, as a class, that too little attention is given to those exercises and habits which secure good health. There are many causes which tend to lower the average health and strength of our people. 1st. The practice of sending children to school at the tender age of five, four, or even three years. Every school necessarily imposes some restraint upon the pupils; and I assume that no child under five years of age should be subject to such restraints. But the education of the child is not, therefore, to be neglected. Parents, brothers and sisters, may all do something for the young inquirer; but he should never have lessons imposed, nor be subject to the rules of a school of any description. The moment of his admission must be determined by circumstances, and the force of the circumstances must be judged of by parents. If a child is blessed with kind, considerate, intelligent parents, the first eight years of his life can be spent nowhere else as profitably as at home. The true mother is the model teacher. No other person can ever acquire the control over her off-spring that is her own rightful possession. When she neglects the trust confided to her, she is guilty of a serious wrong; and when she transfers it to another, she takes upon herself a greater responsibility than she yields up. The instinctive judgment of the world cannot be an erroneous judgment. The mother has always, to a great extent, been made responsible for the child; and the honor of his virtues or the disgrace of his crimes has been traced through him to her.

Private schools may be established and controlled by an individual, or by an association of individuals, who have no corporate rights under the government, but receive pupils upon terms agreed upon, subject to the ordinary laws of the land.

Private schools may be founded also by one or more persons, and by them endowed with funds, for their partial or entire support. In such cases, the founder, through the money given, has the right to prescribe the rules by which the school shall be controlled, and also to provide for the appointment of its managers or trustees through all time. In such cases, corporate powers are usually granted by the government for the management of the business. But the chief rights of such an institution are derived from the founder, and the facilities for their easy exercise and quiet enjoyment are derived from the state.

Such schools are sometimes, upon a superficial view, supposed to be public, because they receive pupils upon terms of equality, and no rule of exclusion exists which does not apply to all. And especially has it been assumed that a free school thus founded, as the Norwich Free Academy, which makes no charges for tuition, and is open to all the inhabitants of the city, is therefore a public school. These institutions are public in their use, but not in their foundation or control, and are therefore not public schools. The character of a school, as of any eleemosynary institution, is derived from the will of the founder; and when the beneficial founder is an individual, or a number of individuals less than the whole political organization of which the individuals are a part, the institution is private, whatever the rules for its enjoyment may be. To say that a school is a public school because it receives pupils free of charge for tuition, or because it receives them upon conditions that are applied alike to all, is to deny that there are any private schools, for all come within the definition thus laid down.

It maybe said that boards of trustees are usually better qualified to manage a school than the committees elected by the respective cities and towns. Judged as individuals, this is probably true; though upon this point I prefer to admit a claim rather than to express an opinion. But positively incompetent school committees are the exception in Massachusetts; usually the people make the selection from their best men. But in the public school you get the immediate, direct supervision of the public. Not merely in the election of committees, but in a daily interest and vigilance whose results are freely disclosed to the superintending committee, as every inhabitant feels that his contribution, as a tax-payer, gives him the right to judge the character of the school, and makes it his duty to report its defects to those charged with its management. The real defects of a school, especially of a high school, will be first discovered by pupils; and they are likely to report these defects to their parents. In the case of the endowed private school, the parent feels that he buys whatever the trustees have to sell, or takes as a gift whatever they have to offer free; and he does not, logically nor as a matter of fact, infer from either of these relations his right to participate in the government of the school. In one case you have the observation, the judgment, the supervision, of the whole community; in the other case you have the learning and judgment of five, seven, ten, or twelve men.

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