Part 7 (2/2)
Text-books help us a little on the road of learning; but, by and by, whatever our pursuit or profession, we leave them behind, or else content ourselves with a subordinate position. Practical men have made book-farmers the subject of ridicule; and there is some propriety in this; for he is not a master in his profession who has not got, as a general thing, out of and beyond the books which treat of it.
Books are necessary in the school-room; but the good teacher has little use for them in his own hands, or as aids in his own proper work. He should be instructed in his subject, aside from and above the arbitrary rules of authors; and he will be, if he is himself inspired with a love of learning. _Inspired with a love of learning!_ Whoever is, is sure of success; and whoever is not, has the best possible security for the failure of his plans. There cannot be a good school where the love of learning in teacher and pupil is wanting; and there cannot be a bad one where this spirit has control. As the master, so is the disciple; as the teacher, so is the pupil; for the spirit of the teacher will be communicated to the scholars. There must also be habits of industry and system in study. We have mult.i.tudes of scholars who study occasionally, and study hard; but we need a race of students who will devote themselves habitually, and with love, to literature and science.
On the teachers, then, is the chief responsibility, whether the young women who go out from this inst.i.tution are well qualified for their profession or not. The study of technicalities is drudgery of the worst sort to the mere pupil; but the scholar looks upon it as a preparation for a wide and n.o.ble exercise of his intellectual powers--as a key to unlock the mysteries of learning. It is the business of the teacher to lighten the labors of to-day by bright visions of to-morrow.
There is a school in medicine, whose chief claim is, that it invites and prepares Nature to act in the removal of disease.
We pa.s.s no judgment upon this claim; but he is, no doubt, the best teacher who does little for his pupils, while he incites and encourages them to do much for themselves. Extensive knowledge will enable the teacher to do this.
He is a poor instructor of mathematics who sees only the dry details of rules, tables and problems, and never ascends to the contemplation of those supreme wonders of the universe which mathematical astronomy has laid open. The grammar of a language is defined to be the art of reading and writing that language with propriety. The study of its elements is dry and uninteresting; and, while the teacher dwells with care upon the merits of the text, he should also lift the veil from that which is hidden, and lead his pupils to appreciate those riches of learning which the knowledge of a language may confer upon the student.
It is useful to know the division of the globe into continents and oceans, islands and lakes, mountains and rivers--and this knowledge the text-books contain; but it is a higher learning to understand the effect of this division upon climate, soil and natural productions--upon the character and pursuits of the human race. Books are so improved that they may very well take the place of poor, or even ordinary teachers.
Explanations and ill.u.s.trations are numerous and appropriate, and very little remains for the mere text-book teacher to do. But, when the duties of teacher and the exercises of the school-room are properly performed, the entire range of science, business, literature and art, is presented to the student. May it be your fortune to see education thus elevated here, and then will the same spirit be infused into the public schools of the vicinity.
The Ma.s.sachusetts system of education is a n.o.ble tribute to freedom of thought. The power of educating a people, which is, in fine, the chief power in a state, has been often, if not usually, perverted to the support of favored opinions in religion and government. The boasted system of Prussia is only a prop and ally of the existing order of things. In France, Napoleon makes the press, which has become in civilized countries an educator of the people, the mere instrument of his will. Tyrants do not hesitate to pervert schools and the press, learning and literature, to the support of tyranny. But with us the press and the school are free; and this freedom, denied through fear in other countries, is the best evidence of the stability of our inst.i.tutions. It is now a hundred years since an attempt was made in Ma.s.sachusetts to exercise legal censors.h.i.+p over the press; but we occasionally hear of movements to make the public schools of America subservient to sect or party. The success of these movements would be as great a calamity as can ever befall a free people. Ignorance would take the place of learning, and slavery would usurp the domain of liberty.
No defence, excuse, or palliation, can be offered for such movements; and their triumph will safely produce all the evils which it is possible for an enlightened people to endure. Our system of instruction is what it professes to be,--a public system. As sects or parties, we have no claim whatever upon it. A man is not taxed because he is of a particular faith in religion, or party in politics; he is not taxed because he is the father of a family, or excused because he is not; but he contributes to the cause of education because he is a citizen, and has an interest in that general intelligence which decides questions of faith and practice as they arise. It is for the interest of all that all shall be educated for the various pursuits and duties of the time. The education of children is, no doubt, first in individual duty. It is the duty of the parent, the duty of the friend; but, above all, it is the duty of the public. This duty arises from the relations of men in every civilized state; but in a popular government it becomes a necessity. The people are the source of power--the sovereign. And is it more important in a monarchy than in a republic that the ruler be intelligent, virtuous, and in all respects qualified for his duties?
The inst.i.tution here set up is an essential part of our system of public instruction, and, as such, it claims the public favor, sympathy and support.
This is a period of excitement in all the affairs and relations of men, and America is fast becoming the central point of these activities. They are, no doubt, a.s.sociated with many blessings, but they may also be attended by great evils. We claim for our country preeminence in education. This may be just, but it is also true that Americans, more than any other people, need to be better educated than they are. Where else is the field of statesmans.h.i.+p so large, or the necessity for able statesmen so great?
With the single exception of Great Britain, there is no nation whose relations are such as to require a union in rulers of the rarest practical abilities with accurate, sound and varied learning; and there is no nation whose people are so critical in the tests they apply to their public agents. We need men thoroughly educated in all the departments of learning; to which ought to be added, travel in foreign countries, and an intimate acquaintance with every part of our own. Such men we have had--such men we have now; but they will be more and more important as we advance in numbers, territory and power. A corresponding culture is necessary in theology, in law, and in all the pursuits of industry.
No other nation has so great a destiny. That destiny is manifest, and may be read in the heart and purpose of the people. They seek new territories, an increase of population, the prosperity of commerce, of all the arts of industry, and preeminence in virtue, learning and intellectual power. And all this they can attain; for the destiny of a people, within the limits prescribed by reason, is determined by themselves. If, however, by conquest, annexation and absorption, we acquire new territories, and strange races and nations of men, and yet neglect education, every step will but increase our burdens and perils, and hasten our decay.
FEMALE EDUCATION.
[An Address before the Newburyport Female High School.]
I accepted, without a moment's delay, the invitation of the princ.i.p.al of this school to deliver the customary address on this, the fifteenth anniversary of its establishment. My presence here in connection with public instruction is not a proper subject for comment by myself; but I have now come, allow me to say, with unusual alacrity, that we may together recognize the claims of an inst.i.tution which furnishes the earliest evidence existing among us of a special design on the part of the public to provide adequate intellectual and moral training for the young women of the state.
Those movements which have accomplished most for religion, liberty, and learning, have not been sudden in their origin nor rapid in their progress. Christianity has been preached eighteen hundred years, yet it is not now received, even intellectually, by the larger part of the human race. Magna Charta is six centuries old, but its principles are not accepted by all the nations of Europe and America; and it is not, therefore, strange that a system of public instruction, originated by the Puritans of New England, should yet be struggling against prejudice and error. In Asia woman is degraded, and in Europe her common condition is that of apparent and absolute inferiority. When America was settled she became a partic.i.p.ator in the struggles and sufferings which awaited the pioneers of civilization and liberty on this continent, and she thus earned a place in family, religious, and even in public life, which foreshowed her certain and speedy disenthrallment from the tyranny of tradition and time. Her rights with us are secure, and the anxiety and boisterous alarm exhibited by some strong-minded women, and the horror-fringed apprehensions and prophecies of some weak-minded men, are equally unreasonable and absurd. Woman is sharing the lot of humanity, and therewith she ought to be content. Man does not remove the burden of ignorance and oppression from his s.e.x, merely, but generally from his kind. At least, this is the experience and promise of America. If woman does not vote because she is woman, so and for the same reason she is not subject to personal taxation. It is an error to suppose that voting is a privilege, and taxation, ever and always, a burden. Both are duties; and the privilege of the one and the burden of the other are only incidental and subordinate. The human family is an aggregation of families; and the family, not the man nor the woman, is the unit of the state. The civil law a.s.sumes the existence of the family relation, and its unity where it exists; hence taxation of the woman brings no revenue to the state that might not have been secured by the taxation of the man; and hence the exercise of the elective franchise by the woman brings no additional political power; for, in the theory of the relation to which there are, in fact, but few exceptions, there is in the household but one political idea, and but one agent is needed for its expression. The ballot is the judgment of the family; not of the man, merely, nor of the woman, nor yet, indeed, always of both, even. The first smile that the father receives from the child affects every subsequent vote in munic.i.p.al concerns, and likely enough also in national affairs. From that moment forward, he judges constables, selectmen, magistrates, aldermen, mayors, school-committees, and councillors, with an altered judgment. The result of the election is not the victory or defeat of the man alone; it is the triumph or prostration of a principle or purpose with which the family is identified.
Is it said that there is occasionally, if not frequently, a divided judgment in the household upon those questions that are decided by the ballot? This must, of course, be granted as an exceptional condition of domestic life; but, for the wisest reasons of public policy, whose avoidance by the state would be treachery to humanity, the law universal can recognize only the general condition of things. So, and for kindred but not equally strong reasons, the elective franchise is exercised by men without families, and denied to those women who by the dispensations of Divine Providence are called to preside in homes where the father's face is seen no more. But why, in the eye of the state, shall the man stand as the head of the family, rather than the woman? Because G.o.d has so ordained it; and no civil community has ever yet escaped from the force of His decree in this respect. Those whose physical power defends the nation, or tribe, or family, are naturally called upon to decide what the means of defence shall be. Is not woman, then, the equal of man? We cannot say of woman, with reference to man, that she is his superior, or his inferior, or his equal; nor can we say of man, with reference to woman, that he is her superior, or her inferior, or her equal. He is her protector, she is his helpmeet. His strength is sufficient for her weakness, and her power is the support of his irresolution and want of faith. Woman's rights are not man's rights; nor are man's rights the measure of woman's rights. If she should a.s.sert her independence, as some idiosyncratic persons desire, she could only declare her intention to do all those acts and things which woman may of right do. Given that this is accomplished, and I know not that she would possess one additional domestic, political, or public right, or enjoy one privilege in the family, neighborhood, or state, to which she is not, in some degree, at least, already accustomed.
These views and reflections may serve to ill.u.s.trate and enforce the leading position of this address--that we are to educate young women for the enjoyments and duties of the sphere in which they are to move. We speak to-day of public instruction; but it should ever be borne in mind that the education of the schools is but a part, and often only the least important part, of the training that the young receive. There is the training of infancy and early childhood, the daily culture of home, with its refining or deadening influences, and then the education of the street, the parlor, the festive gathering, and the clubs, which exert a power over the youth of both s.e.xes that cannot often be controlled entirely by the school.
Womanhood is sometimes sacrificed in childhood, when the mother and the family fail to develop the womanly qualities of modesty, grace, generosity of character, and geniality of temper, which dignify, adorn, and protect,
”The s.e.x whose presence civilizes ours.”
The child, whether girl or boy, reflects the character of its home; and therefore we are compelled to deal with all the homes of the district or town, and are required often to counteract the influences they exert.
Early vicious training is quite as disastrous to the girl as to the boy; for, strange as it may seem, the world more readily tolerates ignorance, coa.r.s.eness, rudeness, immodesty, and all their answering vices, in man than in woman. In the period of life from eight to twenty years of age the progress of woman is, to us of sterner mould, inconceivably rapid; but from twenty to forty the advantages of education are upon the other side. It then follows that a defective system of education is more pernicious to woman than to man.
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