Part 5 (1/2)

assu that the principal work of the priive instruction in reading, spelling, writing, , it is just to say that special attention should be bestowed upon the two branches first naht, 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 euage acquired, able to coreater facility, every study to which they are called

Pupils often appear dull in graraphy 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 accustoroups 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 reforree accoht afterwards; but the grah schools can never co done, in the pri is first mechanical, and then intellectual and eiven to , while the intellectual and eree 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 perfor 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 the and s to the early years of school-life; and, if it can be faithfully perforraphy and arithmetic, s, which we are often coht have beco 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 ible 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 coh for any teacher, and it will be found sufficient for any pupil less than ten years of age Nor a 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 raraphy and mental arithmetic, but text-books will not at first be needed Graht by conversation, and in connection with the exercises in reading Grauage 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 froe 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 e 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 co the offices which words perfor 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 , and very satisfactory results ought to be secured as soon as the pupil is in other respects qualified to enter a gra 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 ; it seeraph, or single sentence only, and drill a pupil or a class until theof 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 bestvoluifted men of ancient and modern times, without preparation by the pupil, without exas, by the teacher, cannot be too strongly condemned The time will come when these selectionswell than to read a great deal; or there should be at least thorough drill in connection with every exercise, until the pupils have attained soree 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 , the teacher will have an opportunity to correct whatever is vicious in taste; and the pupilthe selection will be compelled to read in such a manner that those who listen can understand, which is not always the case when the language is addressed to the eye as well as to the ear

The introduction of Colburn's Intellectual Arithe in the ability of the people to apply the power of numbers to the practical business of life Its excellence does not consist in rules and illustrations by which exa the mind of the pupil into natural and apparent processes of reasoning, by which he is enabled to comprehend a proposition as an independent fact Herein is a reat value, not only in the sciences, but in the daily affairs of men of all classes and conditions It is to be feared that equally satisfactory results have not been attained in what is called written arithmetic This partial failure deserves consideration The first causethe difference between mental and written arithmetic Written arithes of the process of what at that point is accomplished But, as written arithmetic tends to lessen the power of the pupil for the performance of those operations that are purelyand rapid drill in lect on the part of teachers explains the singular fact that pupils, well trained into written arithmetic for three or six ained in their knowledge of the science as a whole

The second cause of failure may be found in the fact that rules, processes and simple methods of solution, contained in the books, are substituted for the power of comprehension by the pupil He should be trained to seize an example mentally, whether the slate is to be used or not, and hold it until he can deterht Nor is it a serious objection that he may not at first avail himself of the easiest ether a subordinate consideration Therea truth, but no one of them is as important as the truth itself The text-books should contain all the facts needed for the coiven; 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 co the problem itself, is a serious educational evil, and it exerts a permanent pernicious influence

The re, 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 ed to suggest that better things are possible, by the consideration thatthe alphabet, reading and grammar, are known to me; and that teachers are themselves aware that the work is, upon the whole, inadequately perforhest order of teaching talent is required in the priht out by co it should enjoy the best hest rewards, both in money and public consideration, and they should be induced to labor, without change or interruption, in the same schools and the same people

THE RELATIVE MERITS OF PUBLIC HIGH SCHOOLS AND ENDOWED ACADEMIES

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

H]

Indebted to my friend on the other side, and to you, sir, and this audience, for inviting me to take a position on this floor, I am still without any special preparation to discuss the subject I have thought upon it, because any one, however humbly connected with free schools in this country, must have done so And especially just nohen, 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 systeovernment established there And, therefore, every one who has had his eyes open reat contest, and that underlying it is a principle which is i difference between the advocates of endowed schools and of free schools is this: those who advocate the systeuments 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 systeh schools put the hts of property and liberty, where we put the institutions of law and religion--upon the public judgment And ill stand there If the public will not , 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 systereat leading idea of Aious liberty

It is easy to enues of a system of public education, and the evils--I say evils--of endowed acade payment for tuition Endowed academies are not, in all respects, under all circu this subject, it may be well for me to state the view that I have of the proper position of endowed acadee This is especially true of acadehest rank, which furnish an elevated and extended course of instruction To such I e theard 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 ive that education which is purely professional But e do look to the public for is this: to furnish the means of education to the children of the whole people, without any reference to social, pecuniary, political, or religious distinctions, so that every person may have a preliminary education sufficient for the ordinary business of life

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

Then look and see ould 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 systerowth 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 liulations; 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 coovernht 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 tiulations which forty ulations may at the present o, Thomas Hollis, of London, e, with a provision that on every Thursday a professor should sit in his chair to answer questions in poleh 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 eneration, reat 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 livingwants, 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 knohy 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, fro to his wants Private instruction cannot do this What do we do where we have a correct systeo out when he attains a certain age He ht; there would be as much merit in one case as in the other But he is advanced when he has made adequate attained and stimulated by every sentione up to the grah school when you have e 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 deterrah school May there not be suspicion of partiality? If a boy or girl is rejected, you look for soious influence which has caused the rejection, and the parent and child coreat 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 systee in the systeine the people do not always at first appreciate It is, that the private school, with the saive 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 aratulate theood fortune But it is not so much of a benefit, after all, asin 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 e--but worth reat 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 hi most for himself? Plainly, the latter Nohile a systenified 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 so 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 sentie, or a town, or a nation; that it reat object of a teacher should be to create a public sentiment in favor of virtue There should be so a correct public sentiment; and when it is formed it moves on irresistibly It is like the riveron within 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