Part 1 (1/2)

Popular Education

by Ira Mayhew

PREFACE

Who is sufficient for these things? is a question which any onedown to the preparation of a treatise on popular education The author of this ould have shrunk froment of the honorable body that unanied not a little by uished for his labors in the departland, says, ”I rejoice at your good beginnings at the West You have a noble and inspiring field of action 'No pent-up Utica contracts your powers' I beseech you, fail not to fill it with your glorious educational truth, though you should pour out your spirit and your life to do so”

The duties required by law of the Superintendent of Public Instruction in the State of Michigan are coo, and soon after entering upon the discharge of those duties, undertook _voluntary labors_ for the purpose of awakening a deeper interest with all classes of the co confidence in their redee, as they do, _the only reliable instrueneration_ These labors, which were hailed as proreat usefulness, and which were prosecuted in every county of the state, were every where received with unexpected favor, and constitute the foundation of the present volureatly a the lectures referred to in the resolution under which this work has been undertaken, was one on the ”Michigan School System” But as the Convention for the revision of the Constitution of this state is now in session, it has been deemed advisable to omit, in this connection, the extensive consideration of the details of that system This may constitute the theme of a small manual which shall hereafter appear

In the present volume the author has endeavored so to present the subject of popular education, which should have reference to the _whole man_--the body, the es, and claims, as to ood coht of every child in the co the necessaries of life_ For the better accos of practical educators, his aiinality This course has been adopted, in so the sentiments inculcated by the authority of the naenerally been made in the body of the work These may have been unintentionally omitted in some instances, and especially in those portions of the hich ritten several years ago, and the sources whence information was drawn are now unknown

An examination of the table of contents, and especially of the index at the end of the volue of subjects considered, and their adaptation to the wants and _necessities_, I may say, of the several classes of persons nae, for whose use it was undertaken Written, as it has been, for Parents and Teachers, and for Young Persons of both sexes, it is what its title implies--a treatise on Popular Education--and is equally applicable to the wants of families and schools in every portion of our wide-spread country

With all its imperfections, of which no one can be iven to the public, with the hope that it eneral education in the United States, but an

IRA MAYHEW

Monroe, Mich, July 4th, 1850

NATIONAL POPULAR EDUCATION

CHAPTER I

IN WHAT DOES A CORRECT EDUCATION CONSIST?

I call that education which embraces the culture of the wholehis senses, his understanding, and his passions to reason, to conscience, and to the evangelical laws of the Christian revelation--DE FELLENBERG

Fro of human records to the present tie upon which they feed, or the trees beneath which they find shelter In one generation, they attain all the perfection of which their nature is susceptible That Being without whose notice not even a sparrow falls to the ground, has provided for the supply of their wants, and has adapted each to the ele of feathers; and to quadrupeds, of furs, adapted to their latitudes Where art is requisite in providing food for future want, or in constructing a needful habitation, as in the case of the bee and the beaver, a peculiar aptitude has been bestohich, in all the inferior races of animals, has been found adequate to their necessities The crocodile that issues fro in the warm sand, and never sees its parent, beco as any crocodile

Not so with man! ”He comes into the world,” says an eloquent writer, ”theto continue so

If deserted by parents at an early age, so that he can learn only what the experience of one life may teach him--as to a few individuals has happened, who yet have attained rows up in soards ions of the earth, history exhibits the early hunorance and barbarisrade, which civilized men may shudder to conte hordes of ainst the wild beasts that shared the woods with them, and the incleue; and who to each other were oftenthee, and even cannibal cruelty--countries so occupied formerly, are now become the abodes of myriads of peaceful, civilized, and friendly ed into cultivated fields, rich gardens, andintellect of e as a e

By language, fathers coathered experience and reflections to their children, and these to succeeding children, with new accuenerations, the precious store had grown until , and then of printing, arose,illie thus, at the present moment of the world's existence, may be said to bind the whole huantic rational being, whose s of written records, and retains imperishably the i the treasures oflaws of nature, and has built on the far into futurity, sees clearly many of the events that are to co mind at thisand recording new phenonificence and beautiful order of creation, and of ht be very interesting to show here, in ressed in accordance with the gradual increase of e of the universe; but it would lead too far fro sketch norance and barbarisht by cultivation We possess a material and an immaterial part, mutually dependent on each other On one hand, we may well say to corruption, Thou art my father; and to the worm, Thou art my mother and my sister On the other hand, the Psalmist says of els

In the Scriptures we learn the origin and history of e of his Maker It was his delightful earden in which he dwelt Presently we learn he transgressed His subsequent career becomes infelicitous In the earlier history of the hue were protracted several hundred years In process of tie swept away the entire fahteousness--and those of his household Subsequently his days were shortened to three score years and ten Much of this ti the necessaryanih; but not so Man finds himself beset with teradation, by giving reign to unbridled passion

But a Light has shi+ned upon his dark pathway, pointing hi him thither Under these adverse circumstances, it becoies of his youthful charge; to mold their plastic character, and to assist their efforts in the recovery of that which was lost, and in the attain views, I a less would be adequate to the nature and wants of man In these views I am fully sustained by nearly every writer of any distinction in Europe and America In a volu the profession of the educator in society, published in London, under the direction of the central society of education, one of the writers, introducing a quotation from an A a few of Alcott's brief sentences, by way of conclusion to the present division of the argument The voice that has been sent athwart the Atlantic may find an echo in some British bosoms

These are its words: ”Education includes all those influences and disciplines by which the faculties of ency that takes the helpless and pleading infant fro its entire nature, tempts it forth, now by austere, and now by kindly influences and disciplines, and thus e of a perfect man; arrowth and renewal, and to hold dos of the outward It seeks to realize in the soul the ie of the Creator Its end is a perfect e of influence, is self-renewal The body, nature, and life are its instruments and materials Jesus is its worthiest ideal--Christianity its purest organ The Gospels are its fullest text-book--genius is its inspiration--holiness its law--temperance its discipline--immortality its reward”