THIS VOLUME BELONGS TO THE SCHOOL COMMITTEE OF THE TOWN OF THE SCHOOL AND THE SCHOOLMASTER. A MANUAL FOR THE USE OF TEACHERS, EMPLOYERS, TRUSTEES, INSPECTORS, &C., &C., OF COMMON SCHOOLS. IN TWO PARTS.* PART I. BY ALONZO POTTER, D.D.^ OF NEW-YORK. PART II. BY GEORGE B. EMERSON, A. M. OF MASSACHUSETTS. BOSTON: PUBLISHED BY WM. B. FOWLE & N. CAPEN, NO. 184 WASHINGTON ST. 184 3. Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1842, by Harper & Brothers, In the Clerk's Office of the Southern District of New-York. ADVERTISEMENT TO THE MASSACHUSETTS EDITION The subscriber has been authorized and requested by a dis- tinguished citizen of Boston, Martin Brimmer, Esq., the Mayor elect of the city, — (whose name is here mentioned to satisfy a reasonable public curiosity, though wholly without his consent or knowledge,) to cause an edition o( thirly-Jive hundred co^iies of the following work, entitled "T/te School and the Schoolmaster,^^ to be printed, and to be distributed in the following manner, namely, — one copy to feach of the Public Schools in the Com- monwealth of Massachusetts, — and one copy to each Board of superintending school committee men. Tt is the desire of the donor that these volumes shall be placed in the hands of the prudential committee men, or of such other persons as the districts respectively may select as their trustees, to be by them loaned to the teachers who may be successively employed in the schools, — and after the same have been read by the teachers, then to any inhabitants of the districts who may wish to peruse them. It is also his desire and expectation, that the copies given to the superintending school committees shall be considered the property of said committees, for the time being, and be delivered over by each Board, at the expiration of its official term, to its successors in office. The range and compass of the subjects embraced in this vol- ume, and the masterly manner in which they are treated, com- mend it to the careful perusal of every person engaged in the sacred cause of education, of every lover of his country and friend of mankind. The reputation of the gentlemen by whom it was written is a high guaranty of its excellence ; and it is believed that the more the work is examined and understood, the more will it redound to the credit of its authors. It seems proper here to state, that " TTie School and the School- master " was originally prepared in compliance with the request, and at the expense, of that munificent friend and patron of Com- mon Schools, the Hon. James Wadsworth, of Geneseo, New York, by whom a copy has been gratuitously sent to each district school in that Slate, — almost eleven thousand in number, — one to each deputy superintendent, one to each of the governors of the several States, &c. &c. Although a month has not yet elapsed since the first edition was issued from the press, yet already is Massachusetts the second State, where the liberality of a public-spirited individual has secured the benefits of this admirable work to all who are en- gaged in our public schools, and to the whole of the rising gene- ration. Thus may the States of New York and Massachusetts forever be compeers, if not competitors, in the Christian enter- prise of educating the whole people ; and may these distinguished public benefactors, in addition to the gratitude of their own States, soon enjoy the happiness of seeing their example imi- tated in each of the remaining States of the Union. The subscriber avails himself of this occasion to express an earnest hope, that all teachers, school committees and friends of education will not only give the work an attentive examination themselves, but will commend it to the attention of their fellow- citizens generally. In this way may the benevolent purposes of the donor be fully realized, the public mind be enlarged and quickened on the paramount subject of a universal education for the people, and the high destiny of our nature be fulfilled by a progressive improvement in the character and condition of the race. The strong and sincere commendation which the subscriber gladly accords to the following work, ought not to be understood as an unqualified approval of every sentiment it contains. Pro- bably no two indepouhmt minds ever existed whose opinions would perfectly harmonize in regard to all the particulars of so comprehensive a subject. HORACE MANN, Secretary of the Board of Education. Boston, Dec. 2ifh, 1812. Note. In making up the, number of copies for each of the towns in the Commonwealth, the Abstract of the Massachusetts School Returns, for the year 1841-2, will be taken as a direc- tory. p" f ^ 1^ m- JBeool, trees. | | I^f ^ gate "^ E1tt> -trees-. 8 lods. Hi^lrway. Fhu. of Grounds, &c PART I. THE SCHOOL ITS OBJECTS, RELATIONS, AND USES. ■WITH A SKETC: EDTJCATION MOST NEEDED IN THE UNITED STATES, THE PRESENT STATE OF COMMON SCHOOLS, THE BEST MEANS OF IMPROVING THEM, ANB THE CONSEQUENT DUTIES OF PARENTS, TRUSTEES, INSPECTORS, &c. ALONZO POTTER, D.D., PROFESSOB OF MORAL FKILOSOFHT IN UNION COLLEGE. BOSTON: PUBLISHED BY WM. B. FOWLE & N. CAPEN, NO. 184 WASHINGTON ST. 184 3. CONTENTS. Paso Inteoduction 1 CHAPTER I. EDUCATION OF THE PEOPLE. Sec. I. What is Education ] 19 II. Prevailing Errors in regard to the Nature and End of Education 28^ III. The same Subject continued .... 35 IV. Same Subject continued 50 v. What is the Education most needed by the American People 1 64 VI. The Importance of Education, 1. To the Individual . 91 VII. " " 2. ToSocie- . . Ill CHAPTER II. COMMOX SCHOOLS. Sec. I. Relation of Common Schools to other Means of Educa- tion 154 II. Present State of Common Schools. — 1. Schoolhouses. 2. Manners. 3. Morals 168 III. Same Subject continued. — 4. Intellectual Instruction. 5. Irregular Attendance 180 IV. How can Common Schools he improved? — 1. Discussion. 2. Female Teachers. 3. Union or High Schools. 4. Consolidation of Districts ..... 197 V. The Improvement of Common Schools (continued). Or- ganisation in Cities. — 1. District System. 2. Mon- itorial. 3. Facher System. 4. American System. 5. Diversity of Class-books 218 VI. Same Subject continued. — Education of Teachers . . 236 INTRODUCTION. " Were the benefits of civilization to be partial, not universal, it would be only a bitter mockery and cruel injustice." — Duchatel. A LATE writer (Laraartine) has spoken of the cross and the press as the instruments of the two greatest movements ever made in behalf of human civilization. To these may be added two other agents of mighty power : the steam- engine and the common school. The moral nature of man can be permanently raised and transformed by nothing short of the benignant influence of Christianity. His in- tellectual powers can be duly developed and wisely applied only under the guidance of knowledge ; and of knowledge the press is now the grand expositor and representative. To promote his physical well-being, we need industry ; and of that industry which subdues the earth, vanquishes time and space, and makes all things tributary to man's conve- nience, the steam-engine is unquestionably the most proper symbol. It is worthy of remark, that as each of these great powers is necessary to the improvement of mankind, so each of them becomes more efficient in proportion as it co-operates with the rest. Christianity needs the press, the press needs the steam-engine ; and these, in their turn, are safe and beneficent agents only when they who wield them are animated and controlled by Christian principle. It is still more to our purpose, however, to observe, that no one of them can exert its appropriate influence, or dispense its proper benefits without the aid of the school. Minds, for instance, besotted by ignorance and unaccustomed to thought, A 2 INTRODUCTION. can hardly be reached by the more lofty and spiritual ap- peals which are sent forth from the cross of Christ. The press must speak in vain to those who cannot read, or who, to the mechanical art of interpreting its mysterious symbols, have never added habits of inquiry, or a desire for knowl- edge. And even industry, although it always brings some blessings to those whom it employs, can still do compara- tively little for men who alienate their higher natures when they labour, or who waste its fruits in sensual indulgence, or in mental vacancy. It is only in proportion as minds are awakened by early education, that they can share in the fruits of an improved civilization. To shut them out from the school, is to deny them access to a large propor- tion of the best and noblest influences, which are supplied by Christianity, and by science and the arts. But if the school is an essential agent of civilization, it is the Common School, that forms the appropriate agent of modern and democratic civilization — of that civilization which aims at the greatest good of the greatest number. A.S this end is peculiar to the social movements of modem times, so is the instrument which it employs. Schools have always been found in the train of civilization, as the only means by which her blessings could be preserved and perpetuated ; but the idea of schools which should secure to every human being, by improving his mind, a substantial . share in the triumphs of Learning, Liberty, and Religion, this, it is believed, was an idea unknown to the wisest of ancient sages and states. They wrote and speculated much about education ; but it was an education denied to more than foiu: fifths of the people, who, being barbarians, were bom, according to Aristotle, to be slaves, and who, as slaves, were denied all spiritual as well as civil rights. It was an education, too, by wliich the citizen was to be moulded for the exclusive service of the commonwealth, rather than one INTRODUCTION. 6 which was to unfold in due proportion all his powers, and prepare him for a course of free and generous self-culture. In the Middle Ages, when education was dispensed in monastic establishments, and enjoyed, for the most part, only by the clergy, we are not to wonder that the people were in ignorance. Even after the revival of letters, and when the art of Printing had awakened the slumbering in- tellect of Europe, little progress was made in popular ed- ucation until the Bible had been translated into living lan- guages, and the privilege of reading it had come to be reck- oned as one of the most precious, among the rights of the Christian and the man. The rule which was then exten- sively adopted in the Continental churches, of admitting no one to his first communion who could not read the Scrip- tiu-es, coupled with another rule, which made this first com- munion necessary in order to qualify Mm for marriage or any civil employment — ^these regulations naturally served to make a certain degree of instruction universal through- out the north of Europe. The same religious and enlightened spirit presided over the legislation of the early settlers of New-England. Both in Massachusetts and Connecticut, it was ordained by law, almost immediately after their settlement,* that the select- men of the towns should see that " every parent or master insti-ucted the young members of his family (whether chil- dren, apprentices, or servants) in so much learning as would enable them perfectly to read the English tongue and have a knowledge of the capital laws ; that once a week he should catechise them in the grounds and principles of religion ; and that every young person should be carefully bred and brought up to some honest, lawful calling, labour, or employ- ment." It will be observed that these regulations are, in * In Massachusetts in 1642, in Connecticut in 1650. 4 INTRODUCTION. truth, more enlightened and comprehensive than those which had been adopted in Europe at the era of tlie Reformation. In the latter, religions culture seems to have been almost the only object ; in the former, it was also an object to make enlightened citizens capable of self-government, and trained to habits of regular industry. Not satisfied, however, with these provisions for domestic education, the inhabitants soon proceeded to lay the founda- tion of that Common School system which has been so long the pride and strength of New-England. As early as 1647, only twenty-seven years after the landing of the Mayflower at Plymouth, it was enacted in Massachusetts, in order that " learning," to use the language of the statute, " might not be buried in the graves of their forefathers both in church and commonwealth — that (the Lord assisting their endeav- ours) in every township containing fifty householders or more, one should forthwith be appointed to teach such chil- dren as should resort to him to read and write ; and that, in any township containing one hundred householders, they should set up a grammar-school to fit youth for the Univer- sity." This law, planting elementary schools at the door of every family, was the first, it is presumed, adopted by any Christian state,* and may claim to be the parent of much * It is somewhat humiliating to reflect, that the earhest law on rec- ord, providing for the universal diffusion of school education, was the work of a people whom we are pleased to style barbarians (the Chi- nese), and was in existence two thousand years ago. According to a late writer (Davis), it required that every town and village, down even to a few families, should have a Common School. He also states that one of their works, of a date anterior to the Christian era, speaks of the '^ancient system of instruction." It is proper, how ever, to add, that it does not seem to have been the object of the Chinese, as of the New-England system, to favour a free and full development of man's nature. The studies are confined by authori- ty to one unvarying routine ; science, properly so called, is exclu- ded ; the spirit of spontaneous inquiry is repressed, and the whole aim INTRODUCTION. 5 of the legislation on the subject of Popular Instructioa which has distinguished the last half centuiy.* To maintain and peipetuate religious knowledge among the people was evidently the chief object with the framers of these early school-laws, both in the Old World and in the New. With some notion of the importance, as well to the state as to the individual, of a comprehensive and gen- erous culture, which should awaken and train all the powers of the soul, it is still clear that they failed to recognise all its value in these respects. In Europe it is now admitted that the elementary education given in obedience to these regulations contributed but little to raise the character oi the is to make an orderly and industrious servant of the state as now constituted. To use the language of another, " the whole channel of thought and feeling for each generation is scooped out by that which preceded it, and tiie stream always fills, but rarely overflows its em- bankments." It is also questionable whether the Chinese schools succeed in making the whole population capable, as is sometimes said, of reading. According to some missionaries, many of the in- habitants are unable to read at all, and others do it mechanically, and without any perception of the meaning of the author. * The system of parochial schools in Scotland is sometimes ap- pealed to, as the earliest example of a legal provision for universal education. The law, however, establishing these schools, was not passed till 169G, nearly 50 yfears after the enactment of the one in Massachusetts ; and the preamble of that law clearly shows that the previous efforts of the General Assembly of the Kirk of Scot- land, and of the civil government in behalf of Education, had failed to make it general. This preamble states that " Our Sovereign Lord, considering how prejudicial the loant of schools in many places had been, and how beneficial the establishing and settling thereof will be to this church and kingdom, therefore his majesty, with ad- vice and consent," &c., and then the act proceeds to order that a school be established and a schoolmaster appointed in every parish, and that the landlords be obliged to build a schoolhouse and a dwelling-house for the use of the master, and that they pay him a certain salar)-, exclusive of the fees of the scholars. A2 6 INTRODUCTION. mass of the people. In New-England, much was probably ascribed to schools which resulted from other causes, such as the animating influence of a New World, with all its tempting prizes, its numberless incentives to enterprise and forecast, and the opportunities which it afforded, in its po- litical and ecclesiastical institutions, for the cultivation and gradual development of knowledge and power.* That these schools have exercised a vast and most happy- influence, not only over New-England, but over all parts of our countiy, is unquestionable ; yet it is evident that even in Massachusetts itself, the very cradle of the system, their unspeakable importance has not been duly appreciated. While wealth and population Avere increasing, and educa- tion, of course, was growing more^ and more necessary, the statute-books of that state show for a long period only a de- clining interest in schools. The salutary rigour of the primitive laws was gradually relaxed, till in 1789 it was ordained that common schools need be maintained but six months in the year, and grammar-schools only when there were two hundred householders in a town; and in 1824 it was declared, that in towns having less than five thousand inhabitants, none but a teacher o( English need be provided. f It is grateful to add, however, that during the last five years this downward course of legislation has been arrested,^ and * The influence which our institutions exert (especially as they unfold themselves in New-England) in developing intelligence, self- control, and activity, has been explained with great clearness and accuracy by De Tocqueville. See his Democracy in America. t There was also a provision in the colony charter of Massachu- setts, that towns of more than 500 families should support two gram- mar-schools and Iwo writing-schools. This provision disappeared in the later, commonly called the province, charter. X The testimony of the present enlightened secretary of the Board of Education (in Massachusetts) indicates how much the schools had failed to accomplish their ends. Speaking of their state at the time of his appointment (1837), he says, "The Common School system INTRODUCTION. 7 that the most enlightened and liberal efforts are now ma- king to raise the standard of public instruction in that an- cient and honoured commonwealth. In our own state, the Common School — as part of a sys- tem of public instruction, maintained and encouraged by law — is of recent origin. The act establishing the Com- mon School Fund, which has formed the basis of the sys- tem, was passed in 1805 ;* but no revenue was distributed, of Massachusetts has fallen into a state of general unsoundness and debility ; a great majority of the schoolhouses are not only ill adapt- ed to encourage mental effort, but in many cases are absolutely perilous to the health and symmetrical growth of the children ; the schools are under a sleepy supervision ; many of the most intelligent and wealthy of our citizens have become estranged from their wel- fare ; and the teachers of the schools, although, with very few ex- ceptions, persons of estimable character and of great private worth, yet, in the absence of all opportunities to qualify themselves for the performance of the most delicate and difficult task which, in the ar- rangements of Providence, is committed to human hands, are ne- cessarily, and therefore without fault of their o wn, deeply and wide- ly deficient in the two indispensable prerequisites for their office, viz., a knowledge «f the human mind as the subject of improvement, and a knowledge of the means best adapted wisely to unfold and di- rect its growing faculties." * Ten years eai'lier, a temporary appropriation (S50,000 annually for five years) was made " for the encouragement of schools." Ow- ing to the state of the treasury, but about $150,000 of this appropri- ation was realized. The statute was in many respects imperfect, and was suffered to expire ; but it contained one important princi- ple, which was afterward incorporated with the Common School sys- tem of the state. This was, that the supervisors of the counties should distribute the amount of the grant among the several towns, and that these towns should raise equal amounts by tax. By the existing law, however, the money is apportioned according to the whole population ; by the law of 1795 it was distributed according to the number of taxable inhabitants. The former is evidently the more equitable and benevolent provision ; and it may be doubted whether the principle of it ought not to be extended. The moneys granted from the state treasury are intended both to encourage and to assist 8 INTRODUCTION. nor was any system organized, till ten years later. But twenty-seven years have now elapsed since the organiza- tion was completed, and it is most cheering to consider, that within that brief space, ten thousand and five hundred schools have been established and supplied, with school- houses ; that nearly three millions of dollars are now annu- ally expended in their support ; and that more than five hun- dred thousand children are reported as being under instruc- tion. A fund, amounting in all to more than five millions of dol- lars, is held sacred by the state for their use, and the an- nual revenue of this fund, together with an equal sum raised by taxation, is dispensed each year among all the School Districts of the state, in proportion to the number of chil- dren within the bounds of each, and on condition, that the school is kept open four months in the year, by a teacher who has been duly examined and licensed. That these schools have exerted a great and beneficial influence can hardly be doubted. In 1816,* when the first returns Avere the people in educating their children. In both respects, it is often more needed, and would prove more useful, in sparsely settled dis- tricts, where the inhabitants are generally poor, than in districts which are rich and populous. It may be doubted, too, whether the dis- tribution should not be so regulated as to stimulate improvement, both in the attendance of scholars and in the qualifications of teachers. By the present law, the amount. apportioned to a town depends on the whole population ; the amount apportioned to a district depends on the number of children in said district over Jive and under sixteen years of age. Would it not be an improvement if, leaving the ap- portionment to the towns as it is, the amount allowed to the districts were according to the actual attendance at school for any given period ] * The present Common School system owes its organization to a law passed in 1811, authorizing the governor to appoint five com- missioners, to report to the next Legislature a system for the estab- lishment of Common Schools, and the distribution of the interest of the School Fund. These commissioners reported on the 4th of INTRODUCTION. 9 made, one fifth of all the children in tlie state, between the ages of 5 and 16,Avere not in attendance ; whereas, in 1839, but one eightieth part of the whole were in that condition.* And while this system has been thus rapidly extending in our own state, similar systems have been rising, both in the new states of the West, and in several of the older ones on the Atlantic coast. By law, one thirty-sixth part of all lands owned by the General Government, within the limits of the new states, is reserved for the support of common schools, besides large tracts which are appropriated to academies and colleges ; and thus provision is made that population, as it moves westward, shall carry education in its train, and be kept in constant contact with the genial influ- ences of knowledge and civilization. A similar movement in favour of the universal diffusion of knowledge by means of schools, has been made through- out a large part of Europe. Systems which had been grad- ually maturing for the last two centiu-ies — some under the auspices of governments, and some through private benefi- cence — ^but which were still incomplete and unorganized, have at length been thoroughly digested, and have become more or less incorporated with the state. In Europe, the whole subject of education — from that dispensed in the pri- mary school to that which is imparted in the university — is placed under the supervision of some public functionary ; and by such means, the powerful aid of the government is employed in sustaining, directing, and stimulating the ener- gies of the people, and the liberality of the benevolent. At February, 1812 ; and on the 19th of the following June an act was passed, providing for the appointment of a superintendent, and the organization of a system substantially the same as the one now in force. * See the able report of the superintendent for 1840 — Table marked T). !0 INTRODUCTION. this moment, provisions adequate to the elementary instruc- tion of all the children in the land, exist not only in Prus- sia, but also in Holland, in Saxony, Austria, and all the other states of Germany ; in France, Switzerland, Denmark, Sweden, and Norway. Even in Russia, so long the abode of barbarism, and associated now, in most minds, with little of refinement or civilization, a system of universal educa- tion is in the course of construction ; and already the ge- nial influence of the District School is enjoyed in unhappy Poland, in the dreary wastes of Siberia, and in the wild and inhospitable regions beyond Mount Caucasus.* Indeed, the time seems to have arrived — let the Christian and the phi- lanthropist hail it with joy — when the great truth, so long overlooked by statesmen and philosophers, is to be univer- sally recognised throughout the most enlightened parts of Christendom — the truth that all are entitled to a share in the great heritage of knowledge and thought — that the de- velopment of his faculties by scholastic culture is a right which belongs to every human being, and that it is not more the duty of governments to recognise and protect this right, than it is their interest to cherish and extend it. Nor is this all. The last fifty years have witnessed an- other movement in regard to popular education, scarcely less cheering. It was once thought sufficient, if schools were established and maintained. But it is now known that all this may be accomplished, and yet little be really achieved for the cause of human improvement. That schools may, in some cases, be substantially useless and inoperative — that in others, they may be employed by a despotic govern- ment as convenient agents for keeping aloof the spirit of change and advancement — and that in others, again, they may, by a too exclusive cultivation of the intellect and by * See the report of Prof. Stowe ou the State of Education in Eu- rope. INTRODUCTION. 11 ministering to the lower propensities, train up a factious and disorganizing spirit — these are sad but momentous truths, wliich have at last forced themselves on the atten- tion of the friends of humanity. It has been discovered, too, that everything human tends to degenerate, and that a system of public instruction, however perfect, can be upheld in its vigour and excellence, only by unceasing vigilance. A profound conviction of all tliis has led to the cultivation of a new art, and, it may be added, to the formation of a new science. Elementary teaching, which, it was once supposed, might be intrusted to any one, and which was, in fact, usually committed (would that such were no longer the case) only to those whom physical infirmity had rendered unequal to every other emplojnnent, is now beginning to be regarded as an art requiring skill and address, and as implying, also, an active exercise of the moral sentiments and affections. It is discovered that i^edagogy (as the Germans, by whom its principles have been most thoroughly investigated, term it) is a science founded on the nature of man, and to be de- duced as well from the study of that nature as from the col- lective experience of manldnd ; that if it be absurd for a man to practise medicine or law, without any special in- struction and training preparatory to his profession, so is it absurd in itself — fraught with danger to the subject, and with presumption in the operator — for one to attempt to de- velop, inform, and guide the faculties of a child without previous preparation. In connexion with improved meth- ods of training teachers, there have been adopted more ef- fectual means of supervising their labours, and of securing for them the co-operation of the public as well as the pow- erful aid of the government. Thus has arisen, in most of the countries of central Europe, a new branch of social sci- ence — one which occupies a prominent place in the eyes of the statesman, as well as in those of the philosopher. 12 INTRODUCTION. The end of public instruction is no longer merely to have schools, but to have good schools ; schools which shall be sure to awaken mind and cultivate good principles — which shall be imbued with the spirit alike of progress and of con- servatism — which shall contain within themselves the ele- ments of permanent improvement, and be the perennial sources of a healthy and powerful influence to those whom they train. In this great and benignant reform the people of the' Uni- ted States have shared but partially. Though we are more dependant on education for our welfare than any other na- tion, it is still a melancholy truth that some of the most ar- bitrary governments of Europe have done more, within the last half century, to provide good schools and good teachers for their subjects, than has been done by the free people of this land, to make a similar provision for themselves. We are not left, however, without some grounds of encourage- ment. In Massachusetts and Connecticut, where the Com- mon School system first saw the light, Central Boards have been instituted under the eye of the State Governments, and have been charged with the duty of awakening a new and 'more general interest on the subject of primary education among the people, and of leading them to the adoption of more uniform and efiicient methods. A gentleman of ardent zeal and enlightened views has also been appointed in each of those states, as well as in others, to carry out these plans by personal visitation and addresses, as well as through the medium of the press, and by assembling the people of dif- ferent districts for mutual conference. In New-York — be- sides measures, recently adopted for training teachers and establisliing School District Libraries, which have been pro- ductive of the happiest results — a new element of vigour and improvement has been introduced within the last year, in the appointment of a Deputy Superintendent of Common Schools for each coimty. In the mean time, the press ev INTRODUCTION. 13 erywhere teems with the most earnest and searching dis- cussion of all subjects which have a bearing on the welfare of schools ;* and though the experienced observer may see much in these discussions which is crude and visionary, they still show that the public mind is awake, and that it is bent on improvement. It would seem, then, that we have reached a most inter- esting era in the progress of popular education. With us, the people are now addressing themselves to the work of regenerating and perfecting their own schools. What, in other countries, has been accomplished mainly by the strong arm of laAv, is to be accomplished here (if at all) by the vol- untary action of parents and citizens, aided and superintend- ed by the state ; and in no work more important, or fraught with more eventful consequences, were we ever called to enlist. Did our fathers assert successfully and triumphant- ly our national independence, it was chiefly because they had been fitted for the arduous and high task by the nurtu- ring influence of schools and churches. Did they and their successors lay deep and broad the foundations of our free- dom and prosperity, and rear Avith surpassing skill and prudence the structure of constitutional law, it must be attributed, in gTeat part, to the same causes. An uneduca- ted, imdisciplined people, leave no such monuments of wis- dom and patriotism behind them. Is it to be expected, * More has probably been written on the subject of education within the last fifty years, than during all previous time. Another fact is also worthy of notice, as significant of the change which har. passed over the opinions of mankind on this subject. Formerly, when writers treated of education, they had reference only to "our noble and gentle youth," as Milton terms them ; to those who were intended for the higher walks of life. This was the case with Locke, Fcnelon, Ascham, and with Milton himself It is only within the last century that we find education proper, i. e., the education of the whole people, made the subject of prominent discussion. 13 14 INTRODUCTION. then, that a people uneducated and undisciplined can long preserve these monuments,* or can ever reap the appropri- ate fruits of our institutions and our privileges ? Nothing is now nt>eded to make our heritage as blessed in reality as it is in promise but refined habits, stem principles of virtue, and an enlightened appreciation, diffused among all our peo- ple, of our responsibilities and powers. It is superfluous to add, that such principles are not to be developed except by culture. To expect that men will become wise, virtuous, or happy by mere accident, or without specific exertions di- rected to these ends, is to expect that this world's history is to be reversed, and that its future will give the lie to all its past. " Vice," says Seneca, " we can learn ourselves, but virtue and wisdom require a tutor." This volume is a contribution to the great work of school regeneration which is now in progress. It is offered with a deep sense, not only of the importance, but also of the dif- ficulty of the undertaking. It is offered in the humble but earnest hope of being able to afford some suggestions which will prove useful, not only to teachers, but also to parents, in- spectors, school commissioners, and other officers, as well as to the friends of education generally. During the last thirty years there has been much discussion, as well as ex- periment, in regard to different systems of public instruction. The best methods of providing well-qualified teachers, the relative efficacy of different modes of teaching and disci- pline, and the surest means of maintaining schools in a healthy and efficient state, have all been subjects of exam- ination. It will be the object of this volume, avoiding mere * William Penn, himself a scholar, legislator, and philanthropist, thus announces, in his "Frame of Government," the fundamental principle of a free people : " That which makes a good government," says he, " must .keep it so, viz., men of wisdom and virtue propaga- ted by a virtuous education of youth.'''' INTRODUCTION. 15 conjecture or speculation, to collect such results and prin- ciples, as may seem to have been settled by the experience of the past. It will also aim at the cultivation, among all who are connected with schools, of a more adequate sense of their importance, and of a spirit of improvement and re- form at once active and chastened. It consists of Two Parts. The First Part will treat of, I. The Education of the People ; its nature, object, importance, practicability, means, &c. II. The Common School ; its relation to other means of education, and to civilization. III. The Present State of Common Schools. JV. Means of Improvement. Schaiectady, July, 1842. EDUCATION OF THE PEOPLE. B2 P4RT I. CHAPTER I. THE EDUCATION OF THE PEOPLE. SECTION I. WHAT IS EDUCATION 1 " I call that education which embraces the culture of the whole man, with all his faculties — subjecting his senses, his understanding, and his passions to reason, to conscience, and to the evangelical laws of the Christian revelation." — De Fellenbekg. The term Education* when employed in its primitive and literal signification, means the drawing out or develop- ment of the human faculties. When we look on a child, we perceive at once that, besides corporeal organs and powers, he has a spiritual nature. In these organs them- selves, with their ceaseless but not unmeaning activity, we see evidence that this little being has intelligence, sensi- bility, and will. Such powers exist in early infancy but as germes, which are destined, however, to burst forth, and which, Uke the vegetating powers of the seed that we have planted, are ready to be directed and controlled by us, al- most at our will. As we can train up to a healthy and graceful maturity the young plant, which, if neglected, would have proved unsightly and sterile, so can we train up in the way he should go that child, who, if left to himself, would have been almost certain to be vicious and ignorant. It is the peculiar pliability and impressibility of this early period of life, that give it such claims on the educator. f When * From the Latin words e and duco, to lead or draw out of + " Certainly," says Lord Bacon, " custom is most perfect when 20 THE SCHOOL AND habit has once fastened itself on the intellect and the heart, appeals and influences are comparatively powerless. In whatever degree, then, it may be our interest and duty to promote the welfare of our fellow-creatures, and especially of our own children, in the same degree does it become important, that we lose no portion of that which is the pre- cious seedtime of their lives. Hardly any season is too early for the culture of this soil ; and if it would be reckon- ed the height of guilt to refuse food or raiment to the body of a helpless little one, what must we think of that cruel neglect which leaves its nobler nature to pine, and finally to perish, for lack of knowledge ? Educated in one sense this child will be — if not for weal, then for wo ! " For nature, crescent, does not grow alone In thews and bulk ; but as this temple wjixes, The inward service of the mind and soul Grows wide withal." It is for the parent and guardian to decide what character this development shall take. The power of education we are not disposed to overrate. It has sometimes been described, even by wise men, as an all-prevailing agent, which can " turn the minds of children as easily this way or that, as water itself,"* and before it beginneth in young years ; this we call education, which is, in effect, but an early custom. So we see in languages, the tongue is more pliant to all expressions and sounds ; the joints are more supple to all feats of activity and motions in youth than afterward ; for it is true, that late learners cannot so well take the ply, except it be in some minds that have not suffered themselves to fix, but they kept their minds open and prepared to receive continual amendment, which is exceeding rare." * This is the language of Locke in his Treatise on Education. In another passage he says, " I think I may say, that of all the men we meet with, nine parts out of ten are what they are, good or evil, useful or not, by their education. It is this which makes the great difference in mankind, and in their manners and abilities." THE SCHOOLMASTER. 21 wliich all original differences may be made to disappear. It seems to us, that a slight acquaintance with children is sufficient to refute this theor}^ Even when reared in the same family and subjected to the same course of physical and moral training, children exhibit, amid a general resem- blance in manners and principles, the greatest diversity in endowments and disposition. It is evidently not to be de- sired, that all men and women should be cast in the same intellectual more than in the same corporeal mould ; and hence, though compounded of the same primitive elements, these elements have been so variously mingled and com- bined, that each individual has his own peculiar and inde- structible nature, as well as his own sphere of action — ^that thus every place and calling can be filled. As this variety, then, exists, and can never be entirely effaced, it ought to be respected in education. But does it follow that the work of education is therefore slight or unimportant ? While we are bound to take the individual as he is, and having ascertained liis peculiar type of character and measure of capacity, to keep these ever in new, is there not still a vast work to be accomplished ? It is the business of education, to watch the dormant powers and foster their healthy and well-proportioned growth, re- straining and repressing where their natural activity is too great, and stimulating them when they are too feeble. To respect each one's individuality is not only consistent with In a practical work, which aimed at convincing men that much greater care ought to be taken in the education of youth, this was an error on the right side. It is not likely that the bulk of mankind will, in practice, ever exaggerate the efficacy of care and culture. But, among theorists and philanthropists, the error is fraught with bad consequences. It leads them to undervalue the experience of the past, and to expect too much from new plans of training and instruction, and to vary those plans too frequently. 22 THE SCHOOL AND this great work, but is indispensable to its highest success Doing so, we can effect vast changes and improvements in character. The sluggish we may not be able to inspire with great vivacity, nor subdue the ardent and enthusiastic to the tone of a calm and calculating spirit. But we can arrest in each dangerous tendencies ; in each we can cor- rect mental obliquities and distortions, and cultivate a healthy and self-improving power. We can study the purposes of the Creator in framing such a mind, and strive wisely, as well as tmceasingly, to fulfil those purposes. In one word, we can labour to rear this child, yet without fixed charac- ter or compacted energies, to the stature of a perfect man or woman. As one star differeth from another star in mag- nitude and splendour, though each in its appointed place be equally perfect, so in the intellectual and spiritual firmament one mind may outshine another, and yet both alike be per- fect in their sphere, and in fulfilling the mission assigned them by God. Milton has called that " a complete and generous edu- cation which fits a man to perform justly, skilfully, and magnanimously, all the offices, both private and public, of peace and of war." It is evident that such an education can be enjoyed by few ; and that, though enjoyed by all, it would bestow, on but a limited number, the lofty capacities indica- ted by the great poet. A vast proportion of the walks of human life are humble and sheltered. Let us be grateful, however, that while in such walks we escape the fiery trials which await those who tread the high places of earth, they still afford scope and opportunity for the exercise of the most manly and generous qualities. He may be great, both intellectually and morally, who has filled no distin- guished " office," either " of peace or of war." Let it rath- er be our object, then, in rearing the young, to form a. perfect character — to build up a spirit of which all must say, as was said of Brutus by Antony, THE SCHOOLMASTER. 23 ■ His life was gentle, and the elements So mixed in him, that Nature might stand up, And say to all the world. This was a man /" Such, then, in general, is the object of education. Let us be more particular. The child comes into life ignorant and imbecile. With faculties which, duly trained, fit him to traverse the universe of truth, he yet begins his course a helpless stranger. To him, this uiuverse is all a mighty maze, without a plan. He is a stranger alike to himself, to the world, and to God. But daily his faculties open ; his intellectual eye begins to turn towards the light of truth, as his organic eye turns towards the sunbeam that falls across his chamber. His senses, those fleet messengers, carry to hiin constant intelligence from the world without. Soon he comes to remember and compare these reports — to reason and resolve. His mind now yearns after more knowledge. Through the livelong day, save when tired nature claims repose, he is busy seeking, or receiving with unexpected delight, new accessions of truth. All the while his facul- ties of memory and comparison — of judgment and abstrac- tion — of generalization and inference, are in exercise ; and, though no book opens its mysterious light upon his under- standing, nor living voice pours into his ear the fruits of another's experience and knowledge, he is still for himself a learner. Yet such a progress — which is only instinctive and spon- taneous — plainly needs direction, and will, if left to itself, soon reach its utmost limit. The forlorn condition of the untutored deaf mute shows how meager and deceptive are the attainments of every unaided mind ; and, even where such a barrier has not been interposed by nature, we find that those who have been left without fonnal instruction soon become stationary, and that their minds are crowded with errors and prejudices. It is the province of education 24 THE SCHOOL AND {i. e., of a system of training and tuition conducted by rule) to take this restless spirit, rejoicing in the consciousness of its awakened powers and thirsting for knowledge, and to con- duct it, for a time, along the straight path of true wisdom. For, why was that spirit, in the very outset of its course, made so helpless 1 Why was it deprived of those instincts which conduct the inferior animals, infallibly, to their be- ing's end and aim 1 Why attached for months to a mother's breast, and afterward sheltered and kept in life and health only by unceasing vigilance and care ? Why, but to en- gage all a parent's energies in its nurture and full develop- ment ; or, rather, why, but to engage them in fitting it for the unending work of self-development 1 The brute needs but a few powers, for it has but few wants, and they are to last but a few years. Man has wants and desires as bomid- less as his own immortality. To educate the intellect, then, is to so unfold, direct, and strengthen it, that it shall be prepared to be, through all its future course, a zealous and success'ful seeker after truth. It is to give it control of its own powers, and to teach it to- wards what those powers should be directed. It is to en dow it by practice with the ability to collect its energies at will, and to fix them long on one point. It is to train the senses to observe accurately ; the memory to register care- fully and recall readily ; the reason to compare, reflect, and judge without partiality or passion. It is to infuse into the soul a principle of enduring activity and curiosity, such that it shall ever be awake in quest of light, never counting it- self to have apprehended, but pressing continually forward towards higher truths and a larger knowledge. Again, man begins life without virtue. He has propensi- ties that urge him to self-gratification, affections that impel him to gratify others, and moral instincts that incline him to THE SCHOOLMASTER. 25 duty. But, left to himself and without culture, his propen- sities predominate ; the aftections spend themselves in ca- pricious acts of kindness or charity ; and the moral instincts raise, without effect, their solemn and monitory voice. It is the office of moral education to harmonize these contend- ing and irregular powers, by restoring conscience to its rightful authority, and by replacing unreflecting impulses with fixed and enlightened principles. It is its business to cultivate habits which make man master of himself, and .vhich enable him, even when pressed by fierce temptation, to prefer loss, disgrace, and death itself, before dishonour. " The great principle and foundation of all virtue," says Locke, " lies in this : that a man is able to deny himself his own desires, cross his own inclinations, and purely fol- low what reason directs as best, though the appetite lean the other way." Again, man begins life without taste. Through his sen- ses, he is early attracted and charmed by what l|e terms beautiful. As he advances in years, these impiressions, made by outward objects, blend themselves with remem- brances of the past, and with creations of the mind itself. The result is seen in conceptions which bear away the soul from the imperfections and trials of actual life, to a world of imagined purity, beauty, and bliss. Now, in the untutored mind, these conceptions are rude and often un- couth. It is the province of education to give them form and symmetry — to teach the true difference between beau- ty and deformity — to inspire a love for simple excellence in literature and art, as well as a taste for the beauties and sublimities of nature — and, finally, to awaken a profound reverence for moral grandeur, and thus kindle aspirations after glory, honour, and immortalit^^ Finally, man begins life without physical vigour. Nei- C 26 THE SCHOOL AND titer his intellectual nor liis moral powers can hold inter- course with, or act upon the world without, except through material organs. And in our present state, these organs are also necessary to the soul, even in its more spiritual opera- tions ; and they weigh it down to imbecility whenever they become greatly diseased or enfeebled. Mark how a Cae- sar quails before this foe ! " He had a fever when he was in Spain, And when the fit was on him, I did mark How he did shake ; 'tis true, this god did shake : His coward lips did from their colour fly ; And that same eye, whose bend doth awe the world, Did lose his lustre : I did hear him groan ; Ay> and that tongue of his, that bade the Romans Mark him, and write his speeches in their books, Alas ! it cried. Give me some drink, Titinius, As a sick girl." Hence the unspeakable importance o{ physical education, which teaches us how to guard against many diseases, how to maintain and improve the vigour of our bodies, and how to develop and perfect the delicacy of our senses. Do we ask, then, What is Education, or what, in the lan- guage of Milton, is a " virtuous and noble education ?" The answer is ready. It is, whatever tends to train up to a healthy and graceful activity our mental and bodily pow^ers, our affections, manners,* and habits. It is the business, of * The cultivation of manners is not sufficiently regarded in our systems of popular education. The following remarks of an English manufacturer, who devoted great care to the education of the fami- lies employed by him, are full of truth, and are applicable to our own country. " The importance of good manners among this class of people, as among all others, appeared to me to be very great, more so than is generally acknovi^ledged ; for though every one ap- proves and admires thum when met with, little attention is paid to their cultivation in the systems of instruction for the labouring THE SCHOOLMASTER. 27 course, of all our lives, or, more properly, of the whole dura- tion of our being. But since impressions made early are the deepest and most lasting, that is, above all, education which tends in childhood and youth to form a manly, up- light, and generous character, and thus to lay the founda- tion for a course of liberal and virtuous self-culture. " The education,^'' says an able writer, " required for the people, is that which will give them the full command of every facul- ty, both of mind and body ; which will call into play their powers of observation and reflection ; which will make thinking and reasonable beings of the mere creatures of im- pulse, prejudice, and passion ; that which, in a moral sense, will give them objects of pursuit and habits of conduct, fa- vourable to their own happiness, and to that of the communi- ty of which they will form a part ; which, by multiplying the means of rational and intellectual enjoymeui, will diminish the temptations of vice and sensuality ; which, in the social relations of life, and as connected with objects of legislation, will teach them the identity of the individual with the gen- eral interest ; that which, in the physical sciences — espe- cially those of Chemistry and Mechanics — will make them masters of the secrets of nature, and give them powers which even now tend to elevate the moderns to a hiofher I wish to see our people distinguished by their good man- ners, not so much for the sake of those manners, as because they indicate more than tliey show, and they tend powerfully to nourish and protect the growth of the virtues which they indicate. What are they, indeed, when rightly considered, but the silent though ac- tive expression of Christian feelings and dispositions 1 The gentle- ness, the tenderness, the delicacy, the patience, the forbearance, the fear of giving pain, the repression of all angry and resentful feelings, the respect and consideration due to a fellow-man, and which every one should be ready to pay and expect to receive — what is all this but the very spirit of courtesy 1 What is it but the very spirit of Christianity 1 And what is there in this that is not equally an or- nament to the palace and the cottage, to the nobleman and the peasant r' 3« THE SCHOOL AND rank than that of the demigods of antiquity. All this, and more, should be embraced in that scheme of education which would be worthy of statesmen to give, and of a great nation to receive ; and the time is near at hand when the attainment of an object thus comprehensive in its character, and leading to results, the practical benefits of which it is almost impossible for even the imagination to exaggerate, will not be considered a Utopian dream."* SECTION II. PREVAILING ERRORS IN REGARD TO THE NATURE AND END OF EDUCATION. " Locke was not like the pfedants of his ov/n or other ages, who think that to pour their wordy book-learning ipto the memory is the true discipline of cliildhood." — Hallam. If the sk,etch which we have thus drawn of the nature and ends of .education be correct, it must be evident that it is a subject in regard to which great misconception pre- vails. We apprehend, indeed, that hardly one cause so much contributes to maintain existing evils and imperfec- tions in our educational system as the prevalence of these misconceptions. " The improvement of education," says an- other, " will alone lead to its extension ;" and we add, that a clearer comprehension of its nature will alone lead to its improvement. Changes may be multiplied, but they will rarely prove to be improvements, unless they proceed on a clear and definite understanding of the end to be attained. Means are wisely chosen only when they are precisely adapted to the object sought, and they are thus adapted, only when that object stands out clearly and boldly before the mind. Let us, then, look at some of these prevailing misconceptions. * Westminster Review. THE SCHOOLMASTER. 29 By many, education is regarded simply as the means of communicating to the young certain mechanical accom- plishments, which, in the progress of society, have become essential to our comfort and success. Thus, in the opinion of one, a child is educated when he can read, -write, and cipher.* To these, others Avould add certain higher scho- lastic attainments, more or less in number ; and a third party hold no child to be educated, unless to Avhat they term * The influence of this misconception on the state of popular in- struction in England is thus noticed by a late writer : " In the num- ber of schools and of pupils, our account, on the whole, is extremely satisfactory. AVhere, then, do we fail 1 Not in the schools, but in the instruction that is given there : a great proportion of the poorer children attend only the Sunday-schools, and the education of once a week is not very valuable ; but generally, throughout the primary schools, nothing is taught but a little spelling, a very little reading, still less writing, the Catechism, the Lord's Prayer, and an unex- plained, unelucidated chapter or two in the Bible ; add to these the nasal mastery of a hymn, and an undecided conquest over the rule of Addition, and you behold a very finished education for the poor. The schoohnaster and the schoolmistress, in these academies, know little themselves beyond the bald and meager knowledge that they teach, and are much more fit to go to school tlian to give instruc- lions. Now the object of education is to make a reflective, moral, prudent, loyal, and healthy people. A little reading and writing of themselves contribute very doubtfully to that end. Ju.st hear what Mr. Hickson, a most in>. Uigent witness (in his evidence on the Poor Laws), says on this head : " ' Query. Are you of opinion that an eflicient system of national education would materially improve the condition of the labouring classes I " ' Answer. Undoubtedly ; but I must beg leave to observe, that something more than mere teaching to read and write is necessary for the poorer classes. Where books and newspapers are inaccess- ible or not used, the knowledge of the art of reading avails nothing. I have met with adults who, after having been taught to read and write when young, have almost entirely forgotten those arts for want of opportunities to exercise them.' " — England and the English, vol. i., p. 186. C2 30 THE SCHOOL AND " school learning" is added some trade or employment by which he can make a living. The great and all-impor- tant fact that a child has powers and sentiments which pre- destine him to advance forever in knowledge and virtue, but powers which will be stifled or perverted in their very in- fancy without proper culture — this fact is overlooked. It is not considered that he has a moral and intellectual charac- ter to be formed, and that this character will never reach the required excellence, unless wise principles are instilled, and good habits formed. A child leaves school without having contracted either a desire for knowledge, or a love of good books. He knows as little of his own frame, of the laws of his intellectual and moral nature, of the constitution of the material world, and of the past history of his country and race, as if on these subjects books were silent — and yet he is said to he educa- ted ! What is stiU more important, he has been subjected to no early, constant, and efficient training of his disposi- tion, manners, judgment, and habits of thought and conduct. The sentiments held to be appropriate to the adult have not been imbibed with the milk of infancy, and iterated and re- iterated through the whole of subsequent childhood and youth ; the manners considered becoming in men and wom- en have not been sedulously imparted in early years ; nor have the habits regarded as conducive to individual advance- ment, social happiness, and national prosperity, been cidti- vated with the utmost diligence ; and yet — the child is said to be educated ! He knows little, and yet he imagines that he knows all or enough ! " Well !" exclaimed a young lady just returned from school, " my education is at last finished ; indeed, it would be strange if, after five years' hard application, anything were left incomplete. Happily, that is all over now, and I have nothing to do but to exercise my various accomplish' ments. THE SCHOOLMASTER, ^i " Let me see ! as to French, I am mistress of that, and speak it, if possible, with more fluency than English. Ital- ian I can read with ease, and pronounce very well — as well, at least, and better, than any of my friends ; and that is all one need wish for in Italian. Music I have learned till I am perfectly sick of it ; but, now th^t we have a grand pi- ano, it will be delightful to play wlnm we have company. I must still continue to practise a little ; the only tiling, I think, that I need now improve myself in. And then there are my Italian songs ! which everybody allows I sing with taste ; and as it is what so few people can pretend to, I am particularly glad that I can. " My drawings are universally admired, especially the shells and flowers, which are beautiful, certainly ; besides this, I have a decided taste in all kinds of fancy ornaments. " And then my dancing and waltzing ! in which our mas- ter himself owned that he could take me no farther ! just the figure for it, certainly ; it would be unpardonable if I did not excel, " As to common things, Geography, and History, and Po- etry, and Philosophy, thank my stars, I have got through them all ! so that I may consider myself not only perfectly accomplished, but also thoroughly well-informed. " Well, to be sure ! how much I have fagged through ; the only wonder is, that one head can contain it all." With this picture — a picture but too just of most of the subjects, not only of Avhat is called a fine education, but of education of every degTee — the lively writer* contrasts the revery of " a silver-headed sage," who, after passing in re- view all his profound attainments in science and letters, and comparing them with the vast field still unexplored, ex- claims, " Alas ! how narrow is the utmost extent of human knowledge ! how circumscribed the sphere of intellectual * .lane Taylor. 32 THE SCHOOL AND exertion! What folly in man to glory in his contracted powers, or to value himself upon his imperfect acquisi- tions." Akin to the error just noticed is another, which makes education consist in acquiring knowledge. That no educa- tion is complete or sufficient which leaves the subject of it in ignorance is plain ; and there is a certain amount of knowl- edge which, as it seems absolutely needful to man's highest welfare, and is, moreover, within the reach of all, so should it be considered as an indispensable part of the education of the whole people. Such in addition to reading, writing, and arithmetic, and a proper knowledge of the Scriptures, is an acquaintance with the criminal laws of the goverh- ment under which we live, with general geography and his- tory, and, to some extent, with our own physical, intellectual, and moral constitution. The grand error is, that that is called knowledge, which is mere rote-learning and word- mongery. The child is said to be educated, because it can repeat the text of this one's grammar, and of that one's ge- ography and history ; because a certain number of facts, often without connexion or dependance, have, for the time be- ing, been deposited in its memory, though they have never been wrought at all into the understanding, nor have awa- kened, in truth, one effort of the higher faculties. The soil of the mind is left, by such culture, nearly as untouched, and as little likely, therefore, to yield back valuable fruit, as if these same facts had been committed to memory, in an un- known tongue. It is, as if the husbandman were to go forth and sow his seed by the way-side, or on the surface of a field which has been trodden down by the hoofs of innu- merable horses, and then, when the cry of harvest home is heard about him, expect to reap as abundant returns as the most provident and industrious of his neighbours. He for- gets that the same irreversible law holds in mental as in THE SCHOOLMASTER, 33 materia/ husbandry : Whatever a man soweth, that shall he also reap. The first duty of the teacher, whether he be a parent, or hired instructer, is to enrich and turn up the soil* of the mind, and thus quicken its productive energies. Awaken a child's facuhies ; give him worthy objects on which to exer- cise them ; invest him with proper control over them, and let liim have tasted often the pleasure of employing them in the acquisition of truth, and he will gain knowledge for him- self. Yet it is worthy of remark, that this cannot be done effectually and thoroughly, without imparting, at the same time, much loiOAvledge. It is in the act of apprehending truth, of perceiving the evidence on which it rests, of tra- cing out its relations to, and dependance on other truths, and then of applying it to the explanation of phenomena and events — it is by such means that we excite, invigorate, and discipline the faculties. It has been much disputed, whether it be the primary object of education, to discipline and develop the powers of the soul, or to communicate knowledge. Were these two objects distinct and independ- ent, it is not to be questioned, that the first is unspeakably more important than the second. But, in truth, they are in- separable. That training which best disciplines and un- folds the faculties will, at the same time, impart the great- est amount of real and effective knowledge ; while, on the other hand, that which imparts thoroughly, and for perma- nent use and possession, the greatest amount of knowledge, will best develop, strengthen, and refine the powers. In proportion, however, as intellectual vigour and activity are more important than mere rote-learning, in the same pro- portion ought we to attach more value to an education * Berkeley, in one of his queries, asks, "Whether the mind, like the soil, does not by disuse grow stiff, and whether reasoning and study be not like dividing the glebe." — Querist, p. 140. 34 THE SCHOOL AND which, though it only teaches a child to read, has, in doing so, taught him also to thlnk, than we should to one which, though it may have bestowed on him the husks and shells of half a dozen of the sciences, has never taught him to use with pleasure and effect his reflective faculties.* He who can think, and loves to think, will become, if he has a few good books, a wise man. He who knows not how to think, or who hates the toil of doing it, will remain imbecile, though his mind be crowded with the contents of a library. This is, at present, perhaps the greatest fault in intellect- ual education. The new power, with Avhich the scientific discoveries of the last three centuries have clothed civilized man, renders knowledge an object of unbounded respect and desire ; while it is forgotten, that that knowledge can be mastered and appropriated only by the vigorous exercise and application of all our intellectual faculties. If the mind of a child, when learning, remains nearly passive — merely receiving knowledge as a vessel receives water which is poured into it — ^little good can be expected to accrue. It is as if food were introduced into the stomach which there is no power to digest or assimilate, and which -will therefore be rejected from the system, or lie a useless and oppressive load upon its energies. * " At the first," says Erasmus, " it is no great matter how much you learn, but how well you learn iV-^CoUoquies, p. 607. THE SCHOOLMASTER. 35 SECTION in. THE SAME S'UBJECT CONTINUED. " The exaltation of talent, as it is called, above virtue and re- liigion, is the curse of the age. Education is now chiefly a stimulus to learning, and thus men acquire power without the principles whicli alone make it a good. Talent is worshipped ; but if divorced from rectitude, it will prove more of a demon than a god." — Chan- NING. Another and not less pernicious error, is to mistake for education a ■partial, narrow culture, which operates on but a part of the mind. In some instances, the moral nature is addressed, to the exclusion or neglect of the intellectual ; but much more frequently, the intellectual powers are fos- tered, to the grievous neglect of the spiritual and moral. The child is dealt with, not only as though these two class- es of powers were separate and independent of each other, which is a great mistake, but as if one class could be safe- ly roused and enlisted in action, while the other remains dormant. Undel' the reign »jf the scholastic philosophy, a discipline which developed the reasoning faculty and cultivated the study of th(iology, took sole possession of places dedicated to education. In our own age, we have passed to the op- posite extr(!me. Unbounded pains are now taken, to en- lighten a child in the first principles of science and letters, and also in regard to the business of life. At a time, too, when an intellectual has been substituted for a physical su- premacy, and results are produced almost entirely by talent and address, it is thought an object of vast consequence, to develop mental energy and activity. In the mean time, the culture of the heart and conscience is often sadly neg- lected ; and the child grows up a shrewd, intelligent, and influential man, perhaps, but yet a slave to liis lower pro- 36 THE SCHOOL AND pensities. Talent and knowledge are rarely blessings ei- ther to their possessor or to the world, unless they are pla- ced under the control of the higher sentiments and prirtciples of our nature. Better that men should remain in ignorance, than that they should eat of the fruit of the tree of loiowl- edge, only to be made more subtle and powerful adversaries of God and of humanity.* In this respect, " much," to borrow the language of Dr. Morrison, " may be learned from the Chinese. They not only make education universal, but they place that which is moral above that which is physical." With a system of philosophy, and religious faith, which is eminently deficient in large and comprehensive views, they still succeed, to a de- gree, perhaps, unparalleled in the history of the world, in inculcating certain social and political duties. The great object of their policy, is to maintain industry, subordination, and social order ; and their chief instrument for attaining this object, is the training of the young, as distinguished from mere instruction. With us, the latter is the chief part of education ; with them, the former. We, too, talk much to the young of their " rights ;" the Chinese dwell princi- pally, and, we may add, only, on their duties. They rely on the " habitual and universal inculcation of obedience and deference, in unbroken series, from one end of society to the other ; beginning in the relation of children to their pa- rents, continuing through that of the young to the aged, of * " In the Celestial Hierarchy," says a late writer, " according to Dionysius Areopagita, the Angels of Love hold the first place, the Angels of Light the second, and Thrones and Dominations the third. Among Terrestrials, the intellects which act through the imagination upon the heart may be accounted the first in order, the merely scientific intellects the second, and the merely ruling intel- lects — those which apply themselves to mankind without the aid of either science or imagination — will not be disparaged ilthey are placed last." THE SCHOOLMASTER. 37 the uneducated to the educated, and terminating in that of the peopl3 to their rulers."* This topic occupies the whole of the first four books of Con- fucius ; and twice in every moon, sixteen discourses of one ol their wisest and most virtuous monarchs, which treat of these and kindred social duties, are read to the whole Empire. ■} The results of such precepts constantly repeated — to which conformity is rigidly exacted, and which are enforced by the examples of parents, instructors, and all classes of citi- zens — may be foreseen. " They are apparent," says Davis, " on the very face of the most cheerfully industrious and orderly, and the most wealthy nation of Asia." The peo- ple are contented ; there is little abject poverty ; age is rev- erenced more than wealth ; and the subjects are devoted, * See Davis's China, chap. vi. \ The texts of these discourses will illustrate the spirit of Chi- nese economy and education. "1. Be strenuous in filial piety and paternal respect, that you may thus duly perform the social duties. 3. Be firmly attached to your kindred and parentage, that your union and concord may be conspicuous. 3. Agree with your coun- trymen and neighbours, in order that disputes and litigation may be prevented. 4. Attend to your farms and mulberry-trees, that you may have sufficient food and clothing. 5. Observe moderation and economy, that your property may not be wasted. 6. Extend your schools of instruction, that learning may be duly cultivated. 7. Re- ject all false doctrines, in order that you may duly honour true learn- mg. 8. Declare the laws and their penalties, for a warning to the foolish and ignorant. 9. Let humility and propriety of behaviour be duly manifested, for the preservation of good habits and laudable customs. 10. Attend each to your proper employments, that the people may be fixed in their purposes. 11. Attend to the education of youth, in order to guard them from doing evil. 12. Abstain from false accusing, that the good and honest may be in safety. 13. Ab- stain from the concealment of deserters, that others be not involved in their guilt. 14. Duly pay your taxes and customs, to spare the necessity of enforcing them. 15. Let the tithings and hundreds unite for the suppression of thieves and robbers. 16. Reconcile animosities, that your lives be not lightly hazarded." D 38 THE SCHOOL AND with a loyalty the most ardent and inflexible, to their gov- ernment. If all this can be accomplished under a system so imperfect, merely by the use of wise means, what might not be expected in a free, enlightened, and Christian land, if we would but give to moral education its proper promi- nence, and substitute thorough training for mere instruc tion? This error of postponing moral to intellectual culture has, like all other errors, engendered its opposite. Perceiving its danger and deploring its prevalence, good and thought- ful men are led, in some cases, to doubt altogether the ex- pediency of educating the people ; in others, they maintain, in their zeal for religious education, that that alone is ne- cessary or desirable. It must be remembered, however, tliat a moral and religious culture which does not awaken and develop the faculties of the understanding, and build itself upon clear and rational convictions, can have little value. It will neither regidate the life, nor sustain the for- titude and confidence of the believer. The powers of thought must be so far unfolded and strengthened, that the mind can seize upon truths and moral motives, and hold them with a steady, unyielding grasp, before moral or reli- gious lessons can make a deep and lasting impression. " It is the same spirit and principle," says South, " that pu- rifies the heart and clarifies the understanding;" and we have no more right to suppose that the heart can be en- lightened while the understanding is left in darkness, than we have to suppose that the intellectual part of man can be healthy while his moral nature is unsound. So long as the heart is neglected, passions and prejudices will gather be- fore the intellectual eye, and darken or distort all its per- ceptions of truth. On the other hand, a torpid and imen- lightened intellect reduces religious faith to a mere blind assent, which makes no distinction between the substance THE SCHOOLMASTER. 59 and accidents of truth, and substitutes its tithe of mint, anise, and cummin for the weightier matters of the law.* That the great truths of Christianity, when properly taught, form one of the best means of rousing and impro- Tuig the intellect, is a delightful fact. But in connexion with this fact, we cannot be reminded, too often, that what is called religious education, frequently fails in this respect ; that too much faith is apt to be reposed in the mere name and form of it, when the spirit is wanting ; and hence that hopes are excited by the bare circumstance that children are in attendance at a Sunday-school, or are members of a Bible or catechetical class, or by the fact that the Bible and * Confirmations of this truth may be found in every neighbour- hood. A rcmaitable one has been afforded recently by the peasant- ry in the county of Kent (Eng.). An impostor appeared among them in 1838, named Thoms, who, with no other advantages than a hand- some person and a slender education, succeeded in persuading great numbers to receive him, first, as Baron Rothschild ; then as the Earl of Devon ; afterward as King of Jerusalem ; and, finally, after one or two other transformations, as the Saviour of mankind. He gave them the sacrament, anointed hunself and them with oil, and inspired them Avith the belief that no bullet could touch them. This was not only in a beautiful country in which there was no hostility to the poor laws, and where the peasantry had good wages and were lightly taxed, but it was under tlte very spires of the Canterbury Cathedral, and amid a population accustomed to go to church, pos- sessing hardly any but religious books, and of whom a majority had, in their youth, gone to Sunday-schools. These facts show that re- ligious instruction will be powerless in most cases, unless the mind has been developed by general culture. Truth must not only be presented to the mind ; there must be capacity to apprehend and disposition to act upon it. In the case just referred to, the Bible or Testament, the Catechism, and a few religious tracts, were the only books known in the houses or used in the schools. The conse- quence had been, that these were read without interest or intelli- gence, and children who could read in the Testament with fluency, instantly began to spell and hesitate when desired to read out of another book. 40 THE SCHOOL AND Other religious books are used in schools, which hopes prove, in the end, to be utterly fallacious. No plan of edu- cation is entitled to confidence, because none is founded upon a just view of the nature and wants of man, which does not recognise the importance of both intellectual and moral culture, and which does not cultivate a taste for ev- eiy branch of liberal and useful knowledge. I cannot dismiss the subject of moral education, without adverting to the great insensibility which seems to prevail among us, in regard to the power of example. What meets the eye, always sinks deeper into the mind than what only falls upon the ear. This is peculiarly the case with moral instructions. When imbodiedin action, and illustrated and adorned by the daily life of a parent, teacher,^r friend, they become surpassingly impressive and attractive. On the other hand, when our precepts are glaringly contradicted by our practice, they are worse than useless. " Parents," says Palejr, and the remark may be extended to teachers, " pa- rents, to do them justice, are seldom sparing in lessons of virtue and religion ; in admonitions which cost little, and profit less ; while their example exhibits a continual contra- diction of what they teach. A father, for instance, will, with much solemnity and apparent earnestness, warn his son against idleness and extravagance, who himself loiters about all day without employment, and wastes the fortune, which should support or remain a provision for his family, in riot, or luxury, or ostentation. Or he will discourse gravely before his children of the obligation and importance of revealed religion, while they see the most frivolous and oftentimes feigned excuses detain him from its reasonable and solemn ordinances. Or he will set before them, per- haps, the supreme and tremendous authority of Almighty God ; that such a being ought not to be named, or even thought upon, without sentiments of profound awe and ven- THE SCHOOLMASTER. 41 eration. This may be the lecture he delivers to his family one hour ; when the next, if an occasion arise to excite his anger, his mirth, or his surprise, they will hear him treat the name of the Deity with the most irreverent profanation, and sport with the terms and denimciations of the Christian religion, as if they were the language of some ridiculous ajid long exploded superstition. Now even a child is not to be imposed upon by such mockeiy. He sees through the grimace of this counterfeited concern for virtue. He discovers that his parent is acting a part ; and receives his admonitions as he would hear the same maxims from the mouth of a player. And when once this opinion has taken possession of the child's mind, it has a fatal effect upon the parent's influence in all subjects, even those in which he himself may be sincere and convinced. Whereas a silent, but observ^able regard to the duties of religion, in the pa- rent's own behaviour, will take a sure and gradual hold of the child's disposition, much beyond fonnal reproofs and chidings, which, being generally prompted by some present provocations, discover more of anger than of principle, and are always received with a temporary alienation and dis- gust."* Another, and, at present, much neglected branch of edu- cation, is the culture of taste and imagination. These are leading principles of the human mind, which must always exert great influence over its operations and its welfare. If duly cultivated, they aid and quicken the understanding, ex- alt the aspirations of the heart, and lend grace and dignity to manners. Truth is never more readily apprehended, nor does it ever lay stronger hold upon the memory and affec- tions, than when illustrated and embellished by fancy. High purposes to honour God and benefit man, are by none conceived Avith so much force, nor by any maintained with such indomitable firmness, as by those whose imagina* * Paley's Moral Philosophy, b. iii., pt. iii., chap. ix. D2 42 THE SCHOOL AND tions bring tlie far distant future near, and transform possi' ble into actual achievements. To children, the creations of fancy or imagination are a principal source, both of pleasure and of activity. In youth, they inspire ardour and gener- osity of purpose ; and through life, men are stimulated to exertion by the promises with which they clothe the future, and by that irrepressible yearning after a higher excellence to Avhich they give birth. It must be evident, then, to every one, that much of our happiness and dignity will depend on the direction given to these faculties by culture. If allied to Adrtue, and placed under the guidance of reason, they must become fruitful sources of enjoyment, and contribute most efficiently to our intellectual and moral progress ; whereas they must become equally efficient in inducing wretchedness and corruption, when they usurp the place which belongs to reason, and fonn an alliance with our vicious or malevolent feelings. One of the means of securing to these faculties a healthy and perfect development, is to employ them in aid of intel- lectual education. In selecting text-books for the young, as well as books for ordinary reading," always prefer those which portray truth with vivid and rich illustrations, and which conform, in style and method, to the rules of good taste. Another and most important means of cultivating imagi- nation and taste is found in the study of the fine arts, inclu- ding poetry and eloquence. In contemplating the works of a great master in any art, we substitute regular effijrts of imagination, for those wild and eccentric movements, to which it is so prone, and by this means we gradually gain control over it. Instead of surrendering our minds to its capricious guidance, and wasting on dreams the time which ought to be given to duty or improvement, we leam to sub- ordinate it to specific ends and uses. In this way, too, our conceptions of beauty and sublimity are enlarged and per- THE SCHOOLMASTER. 43 fected. If careful to study none but works conceived in the spirit of truth and virtue, our hearts are made better ; taste is refined ; the soul learns to breathe freely in an atmo- sphere above the world, and yet not so remote, but it can icturn refreshed and invigorated, to meet the claims of life. An mnocent and elegant resource is also provided against seasons of leisure and recreation. We close the avenues tlirough which many gross temptations assail the heart, and remedy, in part, the disproportioned development of our powers which is occasioned by our profession, or by the spirit of the age. In our age, there is special occasion for tliis kind of cul- ture. The social condition of most civilized nations is such that intelligence and activity are awakened to a degree un- paralleled in history ; but they have been hitherto, directed, too exclusively, to material or political interests. Imagina- tion is too much employed on dreams of a golden prosperity for the individual, or on visions of a national greatness which is to be the wonder of the world. Everything is apt to be measured by the standard of palpable utility, and whatever does not tend to swell the credit side of the bal- ance sheet, or to add to reputation and influence, is held of little account. The essential dignity of the mind — its inde- pendence on the outward world — these are lost sight of; while we regard ourselves too much as ciphers without in- trinsic value, and dependant for our consideration and im- portance on position, or property ; on connexion with the state, or on relation to a party. Might not the cultivation of the arts contribute to recall us to a sense of our proper worth ? By affording to imagination a more tranquil and elevating employment, might it not serve, also, to allay, in some de- gree, the excessive fervour of our activity, and thereby ren- der us more contented and happy ? And by promoting a more delicate and refined taste, 44 THE SCHOOL AND would it not be likely to lessen the rage for display which is the vice of the times, and contribute to substitute grace of manners for vulgar pretension — the chaste embellish- ments of art, for extravagance and ostentation in dress and furniture 1 We shall learn, moreover, in this way, that there is a utility which does not admit of being estimated by material standards ; that, though the arts called useful minister to wants more urgent and obvious than those supplied by the fine arts, the latter are equally real ; and that the civili- zation of any people may be estimated by the degree of im- portance which is ascribed to one of them as compared with the other. And, finally, we may hope that, by recalling men to a clearer consciousness of their inward powers and capaci- ties, the culture of these arts will serve, in some degree, to arm them against the encroachments of society, and to save them from a moral and spiritual bondage, which is worse, than any political servitude. I will advert to but one other branch of education before closing this subject. This is physical culture ; the great importance of which seems to have been much more thor- oughly appreciated by the ancients than it is by us. Edu- cation was by them reduced to four heads : grammar, mu- sic, drawing, and gymnastics ; the object of the last being, according to Aristotle, to invigorate the body and fortify the mind. It was a settled principle with them, that moral ed- ucation ought to precede the intellectual, and that the cul- ture of the body ought to precede that of the mind. " Until children have completed their fifth year," says Aristotle, •' no painful task should be imposed and no violent exertion required from the mind or body, lest health might be in- jured and growth obstructed. All that utility demands is to keep the faculties awake and to prevent them from con- THE SCHOOLMASTER. 45- trading any habits of sloth ; which will be best eiTected by- such plays and sports as are neither illiberal, nor fatiguing, nor sedentary." He adds, in another passage, " Before the eighth year the school for children ought to be the father's house ; but during this early period they must be strictly guarded against the infectious communication of servants no illiberal gesture is to be presented to their sight ; no il liberal image is to be suggested to their fancy. Lewd in decency of language ought to be reprobated in every well- regulated city ; for, from using filthy expressions without shame, there is an easy transition to the practising of filthy actions without disgust."* And again : " Till the age of puberty the lighter gymnastic exercises only should be en- joined and practised ; athletic exertions and a forced regi- men ought to be proscribed and prohibited ; for such arti- ficial violence would mar the work of nature, disfigure the * There can be no doubt that the neglect of physical, as connected with moral culture, is often the cause of insamty. Says one of the ablest physicians who has devoted himself to the treatment of this fearful malady, " A defective and faulty education, through the pe- riod of infancy and childhood, may perhaps be found to be the most prolific cause of insanity ; by this, in many, a predisposition is pro- duced, in others it is excited, and renders incontrollable the animal propensities of our nature. Appetites indulged and perverted, pas- sion unrestrained, and propensities rendered vigorous by indulgence and subjected to no salutary restraint, bring us into a condition in which both moral and physical causes easily operate to produce in- sanity, if they do not produce it themselves." He adds in another report, ■• The first principles of physical education, which teach us how to avoid disease, are all-important to all liable to insanity from hereditary predisposition. The physical health must be attended to, and the training of the faculties of the mind be such as to counter- act the active propensities of our nature, correct the disposition ot the mind to wrong currents and too great activity, by bringing into action the antagonizing powers. Neglect of this early training en- tails evils upon the young which are felt in all after life." — See Dr. S. B. Woodward's Seventh and Eighth Reports as Superintendent of the State Lunatic Asylum {Mass.). 46 THE SCHOOL AND shape, impede the growth, and forever preA^ent the attain- ment of manly strength. During the three years immedi- ately following puberty, the application of youth should be directed to those branches of education which form and in- vigorate the mind. They will then, at the age of seven- teen, be capable of submitting to a regulated diet, and of sustaining the fatigue of athletic exercises."* This system of physical training was not, with the an- cients, a mere theory. It was rigidly observed, and the re- sult was seen in the vigour of their health, and the grace- fulness of their carriage. The moderns have made many discoveries in regard to the laws of life and health ; but these laws are strangely neglected when we come to prac- tical education. To borrow the words of Spurzheim, " Many parents are anxious to cultivate the mind, though at the ex- pense of the body. They think they cannot instruct their offspring early enough to read and to write, while their bodily constitution and health are overlooked." Children are shut up, forced to sit quiet, and to breathe a confined air. This error is the greater, the more delicate the chil- dren and the more premature their mental powers are. The bodily powers of such children are sooner exhausted ; they suffer from dyspepsy, headache, and a host of nervous complaints ; their brain is liable to inflammation and serous effusion ; and a premature death is frequently a consequence of such a violation of nature. It is, indeed, to be lamented that the influence of the physical on the moral part of man is not sufficiently understood. There are parents who will pay masters very dearly, in hope of giving excellence to their children, but who will hesitate to spend the tenth part to procure them bodily health. Some, by an absmd infatu- ation, take their own constitutions as a measure of those of their children, and because they themselves, in advanced life, can support confinement and intense application with * Aristotle's Politics, book v. THE SCHOOLMASTER. 47 little injury to health, they conclude that their young and delicate children can do the same. Such notions are alto- gether erroneous ; bodily deformities, curved spines, and un- fitness for various occupations, and the fulfilment of future du- ties, frequently result from such misunderstood mismanage- ment of children. The advantages of a sound body are in- calculable for the individuals themselves, their friends, and their posterity. Body and mind ought to be cultivated in harmony, and neither of them at the expense of the other. Health should be the basis, and instruction the ornament of early education. The development of the body will assist the manifestations of the mind, and a good mental education will contribute to bodily health. " Young geniuses often descend, at a later age, into the class of common men. Indeed, experience shows, that among children of almost equal dispositions, those who are brought up Avithout particular care, and begin to read and write when their bodily constitution has acquired some so- lidity, soon overtake those who are dragged early to their spelling-books at the detriment of their bodily frame. No school education, strictly speaking, ought to begin before seven years of age. We shall, however, see, in a follow- ing chapter on the laws of exercise, that many ideas and notions may be communicated to children by other means than books, or by keeping them quiet on benches. When education shall become practical and applicable to the fu- ture destination of individuals, children will be less plagued with nothings, but they will be made answerable not only for their natural gifts of intellect, but also for the just em- ployment of their moral powers and the preservation and cultivation of their bodily constitution, since vigour in it is indispensable to enjoyment and usefulness. They will be made acquainted with the natural laws of nutrition and all vital functions, and with their influence on health."* * Spurzheim on Education, p. 80. 48 THE SCHOOL AND I have thus insisted on the necessity of a comprehensiifi culture which aims at the education of the whole man. It is a subject which claims, at this time, particular attention. The causes which operate on the formation of human char- acter are extremely numerous and diversified, and studies whicn, in the estimation of many, are useless or of trifling importance, may still be essential to a perfect development of our powers and susceptibilities.* This truth, and the consequent responsibility which rests on all classes of citi- zens in regard to education, is forcibly illustrated in the fol- lowing passage from a sermon of Dr. Ramsden, formerly assistant Professor of Divinity at Cambridge (Eng.). He is showing the tendency of all knowledge to form the heart of a nation. " We will venture to say how, in the mercy of God to man, this heart comes to a nation, and how its exercise or affection appears. It comes by priests, by lawyers, by philosophers, by schools, by education, by the nurse's care, the .mother's anxiety, the father's severe brow. It comes by letters, by silence, by every art, by sculpture, painting, and poetry ; by the song on war, on peace, on domestic vir- tue, on a beloved and magnanimous king ; by the Iliad, by the Odyssey, by tragedy, by comedy. It comes by sympa- thy, by love, by the marriage union, by friendship, generos- ity, meekness, temperance ; by virtue and example of vir- tue. It comes by sentiments of chivalry, by romance, by music, by decorations and magnificence of buildings ; by the culture of the body, by comfortable clothing, by fash- ions in dress, by luxury and commerce. It comes by the * Bishop Berkeley asks, " Wliether an early habit of reflection, though obtained by speculative sciences, may not have its use in prac- tical affairs.'^ Also, "Whether those parts of learning which are forgotten may not have improved and enriched the soil, like those vegetables which are raised, not for themselves, but are ploughed in
SECTION IV. SAME SUBJECT CONTINUED. " A skilful master, who has a child placed under his care, must begin by sounding well the character of his genius and natural parts." — QuiNTiLiAN. Another fault in prevailing systems of education is, that they do not sufficiently adapt themselves to the different char- acters, capacities, and circumstances of children. We are far from holding, with some, that a free and imregulated development is all that is needed for a child ; and hence that the sole province of parents and teachers is to remove un- friendly influences, and leave him to himself. This was the theor)' of Rousseau, as expounded in his Emile ;* and * This may be regarded, says a late writer, as the principal work of Rousseau. It is a moral romance, which appeared in 1762, and treats chiefly of education. The plan of instruction which it incul- cates is to allow the youthful mind to unfold itself without restraint, and rather to protect it against bad impressions than to attempt to load it with positive instruction. Tiie objects of Nature are to be gradually presented to it. Necessity alone is to regulate and re- strain it, till reason, unfettered l)y prejudice and previous habits, is able to weave the drapery in which it is afterward to be swathed. The child of reason, thus thrown into a mass of human beings, ac- tuated by different motives, guided by different principles, and pur- suing different objects from itself, like a skilfully-constructed bark without its rudder, and stripped of its canvass and cordage, can have no other fote than that of being dashed against the cliffs or sunk be- neath the waves. In discussing the subject of religious education, he exhibited the same inconsistency and absurd views. The French savants were displeased with his glowing sentiments of piety, witii liis impassioned admiration of the morality of the Gospel and of thti character of its Founder ; while the friends of religion and social order were shocked with his attacks upon miracles and prophecy, V ith his insidious and open objections to Christianity, and with the ap^ilication of human reason to subjects beyond its sphere and above its power. The French parliament not only condemned the Emile THE SCHOOLMASTER. 51 how little faith he himself had in it, may be inferred from the answer, which he is said to have given, to a gentleman who introduced to him his son, whom he said he had edu- cated according to the principles of the Emile. " So much the worse," quickly replied Rousseau, " for you and your son too." It is by no means to be assumed that each child is an angel in disguise, and that those who have the care of him are to welcome, as a necessary part of liis being, every de- velopment which he may present of feeling and disposition. With much that requires regulating and directing, they will also find much in him, that needs to be repressed, with a stern hand. But does it follow, therefore, that we are to dis- regard the peculiarities of talent and temper in children, and subject them all to the same inflexible rule ? " Some," says Quintilian,* " are indolent unless spurred on, others cannot bear imperious treatment ; some are kept to their duty by fear, others are discouraged by it ; some need continual pains, others proceed by fits and starts." Are all these to be passed through precisely the same process, and reduced, if possible, to the same type and level ? Is it to be forgotten that the world is greatly benefited by the material diversities which appear among men in respect to character, capacity, and taste, and that no discipline is to be desired which would obliterate such diversities ? It must be evident, too, that such a discipline offers violence to nature, and, what is more to be lamented, that it fails altogether to reach some minds, while on others it inflicts incurable injury. In addition to this prevailing disregard of individual pecu- liarities, there is, perhaps, still greater inattention to peculi- arities of sex and condition in life. One cannot look at the but compelled Rousseau to retire precipitately from France, by com- mencing a criminal prosecution against hina. * Lib. i., cap. iii. 52 THE SCHOOL AND female — with less muscular vigour and more nervous sen- sibility than the other sex ; with more timidity and gentle- ness ; with deeper affections and more aciite sensitiveness — without perceiving, that she has been appointed to a sphere very different from that of man. Her appropriate empire is over the family, where she not only lays the foimd- ation of society by laying the foundation, during childhood, of individual character, but where yhe ever exerts, through her acquaintance, and especially through her husband and children, a humanizing influence over the world. Her heart does not, like man's, become indurated or alloyed by intercourse with business, and by collision wdth sordid pas- sions. She retains, if properly educated, her generous and virtuous instincts in greater vigour, and continues more keenly alive to the wants and woes of suffering humanity. How salutary and powerful, then, is her ministry, when, in the sanctuary of home, she breathes gentleness and kindness into the sterner natures of the other sex ; when, in the spirit of a Roman, or, rather, of a Christian matron, she summons her husband, brothers, and sons, to do valiantly, and yet meekly, for God and the right. But, to fit her for such a noble ministry, she needs a training, quite different from that given to the other sex. Her delicacy and purity must remain untarnished. Her diffi- dence and even bashfulness, at once a grace and a protection, should be cherished as a peculiar treasure. She is to have all accomplishments which lend a charm to her person and manners ; but these must be held as insignificant, when compared with those which qualify her for the duties of a wife and mother, and which tend to inspire a taste for the privacy of domestic life, for its pleasmres and privileges. If she has no more urgent duties, her gi-aceful pen may well be employed in the service of truth and virtue ; and her presence and assiduities are always like sunshine in the dark abodes of poverty and sorrow, and even in the retreats THE SCHOOLMASTER. 53 of guilt and sliamc. But she cannot too studiously shim the gaze of the multitude. The strifes and tumults of the senate-house and the platform are too rude even for her eye to rest upon, much more for her voice to mingle in. Her chastity is her tower of strength, her modesty and gen- tleness are her charm, and her abiUty to meet the high claims of her family and dependants, the noblest power she can exhibit to the admiration of the world. Such being her destination, it is obvious that she requires a corresponding education. Instead of needing, as seems to have been the opinion of Locke and Fenelon,* but little intellectual culture, she should have a mind well disciplined, and stored with knowledge. She ought, also, to be thorough- ly versed in whatever belongs to domestic life and occupa- tions. She should have, on the one hand, such a taste for books and study, that she Avill never willingly remit the work of self-culture ; and, on the other, she should be so imbued with a sense of the dignity and responsibility of woman's mission in life, and so instructed in its duties, that she will always be ready for the humblest and most ardu- ous of its claims. Above all things, that feminine grace, which results from the possession of delicate feelings and gentle thoughts and manners, should be preserved, and she should be taught to skriide from noise and notoriety. ♦ In his work on Female Education, entitled Sur I'Ediication des Filles, Fenelon has this passage : " Keep their minds as much as you can within the usual limits, and let them understand that the modesty of tiieir sex ought to shrink from science with almost as nmch delicacy as from vice." This doctrine is afterward somewhat qualified, and the treatise itself is full of wise suggestions in regard to the moral training of childhood, which were then new. It has been beautifully said of it by Hallam, that its author " May, perhaps, be considered the foimder of that school which has endeavoured to dissipate the terrors and dry the tears of childhood." E2 54 THE SCHOOL AND That such trainhig is not as general as it ought to be, is but too e^ddent. Though destined, especially in this coun- try, to enter early on the duties of a wife and mother, she is rarely qualified for those duties in youth. Much of the time which might have sufficed to give her knowledge and practical skill, in respect to household affairs, is wasted in a manner injurious alike to health, habits, and taste. In lior intellectual training, vast consequence is attached to ac- complishments, which, in most instances, are learned im- perfectly at first, and then entirely laid aside in after life, Avhile the foundation of a robust, intellectual character is seldom laid. At the same time, she grows up, in too many cases, with a feeble constitution of body, and with little rel- ish for substantial acquirements in literature, or even for the more elegant pursuits which embellish the life of woman.* In the absence, too, of proper restraint and of a discipline sufficiently domestic and private, she does not always ex- hibit the diffidence and the maidenly reserve so appropriate to her age and sex. To borrow, from a private letter lately received, the words of a distinguished foreig-ner, who has * Tliat man is worthily despised v/ho does not qualify himself to support that family of' which he has voluntarily assumed the office of protector. Nor, surely, is that v/oman less deserving of con- tempt, who, having consumed the period of youth in frivolous read- ing, dissipating amusement, and in the acquisition of accomplish- ments which are to be consigned, immediately after marriage, to en- tire forgetfulness, enters upon the duties of a wife with no other expectation than that of being a useless and prodigal appendage to a household, ignorant of her duties and of the manner of discharging them, and with no other conceptions of the responsibilities whicli she has assumed, than such as have been acquired from a life of childish caprice, luxurious self-indulgence, and sensitive, feminine, yet thoroughly finished selfishness. And yet I fear that the system of female education at present in vogue is, in many respects, liable to the accusation of producing precisely this tendency. — Wayland's Moral Science (1835), p. 342. THE SCHOOLMASTER. 55 spent some years in this country, " There is a class of girls, unfortunately very large in tlio United States, who are weaned from the delicate influence of strict domesticity, who think that pert boldness and freedom make them la- dies, who go all sorts of lengths in bantering with young men, and who pride themselves more upon taking, on board a steamboat, the 'seat of an old man, without thanking him, than upon the glorious character of a meek, pure, and kind- ly sister, daughter, or friend." Even when great pains are taken Avith the education of females, and the avowed object is to give a thorough, substan- tial course of instruction, the methods adopted are not al- ways judicious. A prevailing fault, in all education, at pres- ent, is a too free use oi stimulants ; and this fault is, perhaps, most prevalent — where it is most injurious — in the training of girls. Teachers aim too much at immediate and stri- king results ; and when this is the case with enthusiastic and accomplished instructors — operating on minds which, from age, sex, and mutual cmidation, are intensely excita- ble — there is much danger that paroxysms of study may be occasioned, not only unfavourable to health, but also to that calm and steady love for books, and that spirit of self-cul- ture, which form the only sure guarantee for ultimate and great excellence. Nothing is more common, than to find youth who have distinguished themselves for ardent appli- cation at school, but who carry from it no habits of judi- cious reading, and no vciy evident love for knov/lodge. They have been confined over the desk, when their health imperiously required exercise and sports in the open air; they have been encouraged to exhibit themselves as prod- igies of acquirement, before they could either relish or di- gest the studies so prematurely pursued ; and they too fre- quently leave school, at an early age, with shattered consti- tutions, undisciplined characters, and minds in wlxich mem- ory and judgment have been severely taxed, at the expense 56 THE SCHOOL AND of taste, and, perhaps, too, of that modest delicacy, which forms the highest grace of the female character. This error, doubtless, springs, in part, from the very early age, at which school education commences with us. In Prussia, children are rarely placed at school before scve?/. Here, they usually begin at four. Another cause, which also has its effect, is the active emulation rfiaintained among our seminaries, and which, with the mistaken ambition of parents to have their children taught many branches in the shortest possible space of time, renders it almost necessary, that an institution which aims at a large share of public pat- ronage, should strive rather to teach much, than to teach well, and to lay more stress upon the acquisition of .loiowledge, than upon the due cultivation and development of all the faculties of the soul. Still the error is a serious one, and ought to be avoided. The length to which these remarks have alre9,dy extend- ed, preclude me from dwelling on another species of adap- tation, which ought to characterize our systems of training and instruction, i. e., adaptation to the future condition and pursuits of a child. It is not held, that early in life the boy or girl should be educated, as if their specific destination were already fixed, and they could therefore be profitably employed in acquiring the peculiar skill and knowledge which belong to their adopted profession. But there is one common destination, to wliich all the people of this coun- try seem appointed, and this is a life of useful, and, in most cases, laborious occupation. Our children, therefore, need to be taught early, by example and by precept, that there is respectability and happiness, in a life of labour. Instead of being dealt with, as if industry were a great hardship, they should be taught, practically, that it is the appropriate busi- ness, in some form, of all mankind, and that to labour with the hands is no more necessarily a degradation, than to la- THE SCHOOLMASTER. 57 hour with the pen. They should be taught, that there is scope for talent, and for a generous ambition, elsewhere, than in the professions usually called learned or liberal, and thai it is high time that every pursuit should be made liberal, by being prosecuted in a liberal and enlightened spirit. And in a nation, where a vast proportion of the people must be employed in husbandry, the affections of children ought to be won early towards rural life. A taste for horticulture, and for the beautiful and picturesque in nature ; some knowl- edge of the principles of rural economy, and a proper sense of the independence, security, and happiness, which attach to the life of a well-educated cultivator of the soil : these ought to be instilled into the minds of children ; and those Avho live in the country, instead of being left to think that the path to happiness and success leads to the citj'- or the village, should be encouraged to seek enjoyment, in the due improvement of their own opportunities and privileges. It would be well, also, if some knowledge of the application of the first principles of science to the other industrial arts, were generally cultivated among the young ; that, thus, they might not only be better prepared for the life of a mechanic or artisan, but might be accustomed to regard all these pur- suits of industry, in their connexion with science and liberal studies. The last misconception in regard to education which I shall notice is one, in some respects, more important than any or all others ; since it involves them all, and is apt to result in the greatest evils, both to individuals and to soci- ety. It consists in supposing, that the great end and use of education is to give us worldly success and consideration. It is first assumed, that these are our greatest good, and then education is recommended, as the most certain means ofob- taniing them. Now it is not to be denied, that a good edu- cation does materially aid us in acquiring property, reputa- tion, and influence ; but it will do this quite as much, and. 58 THE SCHOOL AND indeed, more, for those whose aims are higher than proper- ty or reputation, as it will for those, who regard these as the ultimate end of life. He, who is bent most earnestly on discharging his duty, and on the improvement of his own nature, will almost invariably prosper in business, and will become to others the object of respect and confidence. He will not be less industrious than others ; he will generally be more prudent in selecting means, and more skilful and persevering in applying them. He moves in harmony with those great and inflexible laws of the Creator which make wealth and dignities means rather than ends, and which ren- der it impossible, that such objects should ever satisfy our nobler desires. In disregarding these laws, lies the grand mistake of most of us. We look for happiness, to outward estate. We forget that " the mind is its own place, and can make a hell of heaven — a heaven of hell." Happiness can dwell, where there is neither wealth, nor pom.p, nor power. Indeed, it rarely dwells where these are. It is not to be bought with money. It cannot be won, in the strifes, and heart-burning rivalries of the fashionable or ambitious. It is the reward only of inward effort — of self-control. It calls for that supreme reference to the interests of the mind, and that independence of outward events, which form the principle of faith, and which can be found, only in subordi- nating the sensual to the spiritual element of our nature. It is to be found in that peace which passeth understanding — that contentment which is inspired, not by sloth or sensual- ity, but by a calm and wise estimate of the true ends of life ; which, though employed in acquiring, still holds it more blessed to give than to receive, and which, in all its efforts for public or private weal, leaves the issue to Infinite Wisdom and Mercy. To attain such a spirit is to succeed in life ; all other success will prove baseless and unsubstantial. An eloquent writer* has well exposed this great and per- ♦ Mrs. Austin, translator of Cousin's Report on Public Instruction in Prussia. THE SCHOOLMASTER. 59 nicious error of many friends of popular education. " It seems* to me, too, that we are guilty of great inconsislency as to the ends and objects of education. How industrious ly have not its most able and zealous champions been con- tinually instilling into the mind of the people, that educa- tion is the way to advancement, that knowledge is power, that a man cannot ' better himself without some learning ! And then we complain, or we fear, that education will set them above their station, disgust them with labour, make them ambitious, envious, dissatisfied! We must reap as we sow : we set before them objects tlie most tempting to the desires of uncultivated men ; we urge them on to the acquirement of knowledge by holding out the hope that knowledge will enable them to grasp these objects ; if their minds are corrupted by the nature of the aim, and imbitter- ed by the failure Avhich vmst be the lot of the mass, who is to blame 1 " If, instead of nurturing expectations which cannot be fulfilled, and tiu'ning the mind on a track which must lead to a sense of continual disappointment, and thence of wrong, we were to hold out to our humbler friends the appropriate and attainable, nay, unfailing ends of a good education ; the gentle and kindly sympathies ; the sense of self-respect and of the respect of fellow-men ; the free exercises of the intellectual faculties ; the gi-atification of a curiosity that ' grows by what it feeds on,' and yet finds food forever ; the power of regulating the habits nad the business of life, so as to extract the greatest possible portion of comfort out of small means ; the refining and tranquillizing enjoyment of the beautiful in nature and art, and the kindred percep- tion of the beauty and nobility of virtue ; the strengthening consciousness of duty fulfilled, and, to crown all, ' the peace which passeth all understanding ;' if we directed their as- pirations this way, it is probable that we should not have to complain of being disappointed, nor they of being deceived. 60 THE SCHOOL AND Who can say that wealth can purchase better things than these ? and who can say that they are not within the reach of every man of sound body and mind, who, by labour not destructive of either, can procure for himself and his family food, clothing, and habitation ? " It is true, the same motives, wearing different forms, aro presented to all classes. ' Learn' that you may ' get on' ir. the motto of English education. The result is answerable. To those who think th:;r, result satisfactory, a change in the system, and, above all, in the spirit of education, holds out no advantages." I have thus dwelt, at much greater length than I intended, on prevailing misconceptions, in regard to the nature and end of education. My apology is, that all wise efforts, for the improvement of schools and of domestic education, must be founded on a clear perception of the object to be attained. The most grievous mistakes which are made in the man- agement and tuition of the young, can be traced directly back to erroneous or inadequate notions on this subject. In dismissing it now, I do not know that I can, in any way so clearly or forcibly set forth the views which I am anx- ious to impress on the reader, as by presenting an example. It is an example furnished by our own histoiy ; and, most happily, it is found in the person of him whom we all most delight to honour. It seems, indeed, a providential fact, that the individual, who draws towards his name and mem- ory a profounder reverence than any other American, who is most closely identified with the establishment both of our national independence and of the permanent union of the States, and who presents, in his life and character, the most perfect model of the man and the citizen, should also have re- ceived only such an education, as ought to be within the reach of everj'- child among us. The school education of Washington was only what is usually termed a common one. Reading, v/riting, arithme- THE SCHOOLMASTER. 61 tic, and keeping accounts, with the addition of Geometry and Sun'eying, formed the whole of his scholastic attain- ments ; and, like a large portion of American youth, he left school before he reached the age of sixteen. But was he, therefore, uneducated or badly educated ? He had already, even at that early age, given evidence that his character was moulding under the influence of discipline and culture, and that the foundation was laid for those moral and intel- lectual habits, which formed the secret of his power and eminence tlirough life. With great fondness for athletic amusements, and even for military sports, he combined a probity and self-control, which made him the object of uni- versal respect among his companions, and which led to his being almost invariably selected as the arbiter of their dis- putes. To show, how early he cultivated habits of dili- gence, regularity, and neatness, and how deeply he was impressed with the importance of controlling his own pas- sions, and discharging every social and relative duty, Mr. Sparks gives extracts from one of his manuscript school- books, written before he was thirteen years old. Besides various forms for the transaction of business, such as notes of hand, receipts, indentm'es, bonds, &c., and selections of poetry pervaded by a religious spirit, this book contains what he called Rules of Behaviour in Company and Convert sation, compiled by himself from various sources, and of which, many are admirably calculated to soften and polish the manners, to keep alive the best aff'ections of the heart, to inculcate a reverence for every moral duty, and especial- ly to cultivate habits of self-control.* * " One hundred and ten rules," Mr. Sparks says, " are here writ- ten out and numbered. The source from which they were derived is not mentioned. They form a minute code of regulations for build- ing up the habits of morals, manners, and good conduct in a very young person. A few specimens will be enough to show their gen- eral complexion; and whoever has studied the character of Wash- F bZ THE SCHOOL AND Here, then, at the early age of thirteen, we see in this boy's education, the germes of that patriot, statesman, and chief, who was always to bo " without fear and without re- proach." Proper prominence was assigned, in his training, to moral culture. The gTeatest pains were taken, to form habits of diligence, and persevering application. Though much knowledge was not conveyed to him at school, yet an active curiosity Avas awakened, and a spirit of self-cul- ture and self-reliance developed, which always enabled ington, will be persuaded that some of its most prominent features took their shape from these rules thus early selected and adopted as his guide.'* In the Appendix (No I.) of the second volume of Wash- ington's Writings, Jlfly-scven of these rules are given. I extract a few of them .- " 1. Every action in company ought to be with some sign of. re- spect towards those present. •'2. Be no flatterer. " 3. Show not yourself glad at the misfortune of another, though he were your enemy. "4. Strive not with your superiors in argument, but always sub- mit your judgment to others with modesty. " 5. Take aU admonitions thankfully, in what time or place soever given ; but afterward, not being culpable, take a time or place con- venient to let him know it that gave them. " 6. Use no reproachful language against any one, neither curse, nor revile. " 7. Let your conversation be without malice or envy, for it is a sign of a tractable and commendable nature ; and in all causes of passion, admit reason to govern. " 8. Gaze not on the marks or blemishes of others, and ask not how they came. " 9. When you deliver a matter, do it without passion and with discretion, however mean the person be you do it to. " 10. In disputes, be not so desirous to overcome, as not to give liberty to each one to deliver his opinion. "11. When you speak of God or his attributes, let it be seriously in reverence. Honour and obey your natural parents, although they be poor. " 12. Labour to keep alive in your breast that little spark of celes- tial lire called conscience." THE SCHOOLMASTER. 63 him, even imder the most difficult and mitried circumstan- ces, to meet the claims of his station. In liis case, educa- tion was made to perform its gi-eat and most important of- fice, by training its subject to habits of ardent and generous self-improvement. It is true, doubtless, that education has rarely had so noble a subject to operate on. Still, it is to be remembered, that Washington seems to have had origi- nally no very splendid endowments, and tliat his strength lay chiefly in that fine balance of powers, and in that unblench- ing perseverance of labour and purpose, which are the gift rather of education than of nature. Hence we maintain, that his life does present a most cheering example to his young countrymen. A sphere so exalted, and duties so eventful as his, will probably never devolve on any of the generation of his countrjTnen now rising into life. But ev- ery walk of life affords scope for energy, diligence, self- control, and a lofty public spirit. In every sphere, if we would be men and live as men, we shall be called to mas- ter great difiiculties, and in all we may make vast progress in knowledge and virtue, and may render vast service to our country' and race. Let us, then, remember what Wash- ington was, and what, by the faithful use of his powers and opportunities, he became, and let us listen to the monitory and inspiring summons which comes forth from his life — " Go THOU and do likewise."* * Hume has shown, in the following passage, that he appreciated the great and ssJutary power of good example when combined with proper efforts on our o\'vti part. " The prodigious effects of educa- tion," he says, " may convince us that the mind is not altogether stubborn and inflexible, but will admit of many alterations from its original make and structure. Let a man propose to himself the model of a character which he approves ; let him be well acquaint- ed with those particulars in which his own character deviates from this model ; let him keep a constant watch over himself, and bend his mind, by a continual effort, from the vices towards the virtues, and I doubt not but in time lie will find in his temper an alicrationfor ike betMrr 64 THE SCHOOL AND SECTION V. WHAT IS THE EDUCATION MOST NEEDED BY THE AMER' ICAN PEOPLE ? '• In proportion as the structure of a government gives force to public opinion, it is essential that public opinion should be enlight- ened." — Washington. " In vain would that man claim the tribute of patriotism vi^ho should labour to subvert these great pillars of human happiness" — religion and morality — " these firmest props of the duties of men and citizens." — Ibid. I HAVE already intimated, that education is a right of every human being, and in the previous sections of this chapter, I have endeavoured to explain, what kind and de- gree of education is called for, everywhere, by the condition of man as man. It is important to determine, farther, in what way the education of the people ought to be modified, by the spirit of the age, and especially by the condition of our own country. Every state of society, and every form of government has its dangers as well as advantages, and we should never forget, that it is through education, which in- corporates principles and habits Avith the very nature of children, that we can most effectually avert the one, and se- cure the other. What, then, are the dangers and advan- tages of our condition ? It is believed, that a slight exam- ination of them Avill satisfy us that special and most anxious attention ought, now, to be given to 1. Moral and Religious Education. Moral motives and restraints, which are always necessary, have become, in this age and land, of the last importance. " Where is the security," asks Washington, in his farewell address, " for property, for reputation, for life, if the sense of religious ob- ligation desert the oaths which are the instruments of in- THE SCHOOLMASTER. 65 v^stigation in courts of justice," and which bind, it may be added, incumbents of office to the faithful discharge of their duties ? Moral ties once dissolved, those of a political na- ture would be utterly powerless. And if this is the case, everj^-where and at all times, it must be especially so with us, and at this time. Men are, now, less patient than they once were, of the restraints of authority and even of law, and are more bent on change. They are excited, and some- times almost maddened, by the vast revolutions Avhich arc accomplished, with magical celerity, in the physical relations of nations and individuals. Constantly they are tempted, to grasp at glittering prizes held out by a material and sensual civilization, and to substitute hazardous and gambling spec- ulation for industry, frugality, and virtue. A gross and out- ward success occupies, in the minds of the people, that place which ought to be given only to worth ; and a man is thought to be nothing unless he is rich, or popular, or in- stalled in office. In this country, with immense general industry and acti\dty, there is still a great want of regular occupation — which the individual adopts for life, and which he pursues in a contented and cheerful spirit. Each one seems to be struggling for something other, and, as he vain^^ ly imagines, better than his own ; yet, though rarely satis- tied with his lot, he is apt to be abundantly satisfied with himself. Politicians find it expedient to flatter the people grossly, in order to lead them ; and the people, while glorying in their collective liberty, exhibit, too often, the sad spectacle of being, as individuals, overawed by public opinion or en- slaved by faction. In such a state of things, there may be a high degree of outward refinement, much of the show of virtue, and even brilliant advances in what styles itself civ- ilization. The danger is, lest, under this fair exterior, the soul of true virtue be eaten out — lest the lower passions and propensities, by becoming everpvhere predominant, gradu- ally sap the veiy foundation of the social edifice, and leave F 2 66 THE SCHOOL AND it to perish througli its own weight and rottenness.* Situ ated as the people of this country are, they cannot too vigi- lantly guard against the approach of that era of dark and fatal degeneracy, when, according to the ironical defini- tions of Fielding, patriot comes to mean a candidate for place ; worth, power, rank, and wealth ; ivisdom, the art of getting all three. I am well aware, that these evils and dangers are coun- terpoised by signal advantages, both in our institutions, and in our position. But with all these, we shall still need the utmost aid of moral and religious culture. We need that, in the absence of positive laws, the people shall be able to restrain and direct themselves ; and that, when laws are es- tablished, they shall be objects of profound respect and sub- mission. We need that our youth should be taught, in their earliest j'-ears, to entertain the deepest horror of fraud and falsehood, and to resolve that, through life, their faith, when once plighted, whether in private or public contracts, wheth- er in affairs of a personal or political nature, shall be sacred * A great poet points out the fatal defect of this species of civil- ization. " Egyptian Thebes, Tyre, by the margin of the sounding waves, Pahnyra, central in the desert, fell, And the arts died by which they had been raised. Call Archimedes from his buried tomb Upon the plain of vanished S3Tacuse, And feelingly the sage shaU make report How insecure, how haseless in itself. Is the philosophy whose sway depends On mere material instruments ; how weak Those arts and high inventions, if unpropped By Virtue ! He, with sighs of pensive grief Amid his calm abstractions, would admit That not the slender privilege is theirs To save themselves from rank forgetfumess !" Wordsworth. THE SCHOOLMASTER. 67 and irrevocable. We need to build up a force of character, and a strength of principle, which will enable men to breast themselves against the corrupt influences of fashion, party, and prevailing immorality ; and to lift their protest, when necessary-, with meekness, but yet without fear, against the encroachments of an unhallowed public opin- ion. We need, too, a training which shall inspire tho young with deep reverence for parents and for old age, with proper deference towards the judgment of the wise and good of all ages, and with that gi-aceful diffidence in their own sagacity and power, which will lead them, with- out surrendering their own independence, to have due re- spect for the recorded wisdom and experience of the past.* * By reverence I mean "that earnestness in contemplating things, which strives to know their real character and connexion, and the absence of arrogant forwardness and self-sufficiency, which considers everything silly, useless, or unmeaning, because not agree- ing with its own views, or not showing its character at once to the superficial observer ; and, lastly, the habit of honesty. We have seen that it is the high prerogative of man to acknowledge superiors and inferiors, to have laws, and to obey them ; but, since individual interest, as well as the pleasure or allurement of resistance and op- position, is in itself frequently very strong, as selfishness is but too apt to grow up like a rank weed, we ought to imbue the young early with true loyalty, that is, a sincere desire to act as members of a so- ciety, according to rules not arbitrarily prescribed by theinselves, and with a submission of individual will and desire to that of so- ciety. They ought to learn that it is a privilege of men to obey laws, and a delight to obey good ones. That these habits, early and deeply inculcated, may lead to submissiveness and want of in- dependence, is only to be feared when education is imperfect oi liberty at a low ebb. The greater the liberty enjoyed by a society, the more essential are these habits, especially in modern times, when various new and powerful agents of intercommunication and diffusion of knowledge have produced a movability and thirst for inquiry, which cannot leave in us any sincere fear on the ground of dull tameness in the adult wherever liberty is at all estabUshed. The ancients knew the value of these habits, and all their wise men 68 THE SCHOOL AND We also need to join with the spirit of enterprise, which is carrying forward all our people to an improved condition, a spirit of contentment with a life of labour, together with a just appreciation of its advantages and duties, and a cheer- ful acquiescence in the allotments of Providence.* And, finally, we need to cultivate, in the young, a settled detesta- tion of all those incitements and indulgences, which are multiplied by a vulgar civilization, and which inflame their lower propensities, while they arm them against the holiest influences of truth and virtue— such as the intoxicating cup and the gaming-table. f And, while employing means for this purpose, " let us, with caution," to borrow again the words of the great and wise, " indulge the supposition, that insisted upon them. Nations which lose the precious habit of obey- ing, that is, self-determined obedience to the laws, because laws, lose invariably, likewise, the precious art of ruling. Greece, Rome, and Spain, for the last centuries, as well as the worst times of the feudal ages, are examples." — See Lieher on Political Ethics. * Idleness, as a political evil, reached its " classical age" in the worst periods of Grecian democracy and in Rome. In the former, attendance at the popular assembly came to be paid for, as in the worst times of the French Revolution. During the decline of Rome, the idling wretches sank so low, that, too cowardly to march against the conquering tribes, they nevertheless were dehghted at seeing the agony of the dying gladiator. When Treves was devastated by German predatory tribes, the first thing which the inhabitants, de • prived of house and property, asked for, was, Gircensian games.-— Liebek's Political Ethics, vol. ii., p. 243. t The contrast between the energy of barbarians, and the imbe- cility of a people rendered sensual and sordid by a vicious civiliza- tion, is forcibly exhibited, in the following passage from the late work of Dumas on Democracy. " He (Genseric) arrived before Gar- thage ; and while his troops were mounting the ramparts, the peo- ple were descending to the circus. Without was the tumult of arms, and within, the resounding echoes of the games : at the foot of the waUs were the shrieks and curses of those who slipped in gore and fell in the melee ; on the steps of the .-Vmphitheatre were the songs of musicians and the sounds of accompanying flutes " THE SCHOOLMASTER. 69 morality can be maintained without religion. Whatever may be conceded to the influence of refined education on minds of peculiar structure, reason and experience both for- bid us to expect, that national morality can prevail in exclu- sion of religious principle"* 2. We need an intellectual culture, which will impart more knowledge and wisdom. Where laws are but ema- nations of public opinion, it is supremely important that that public opinion should be enlightened ; and it can hardly be- come so, unless men acquire, in youth, a love for reading, and habits of patient thought. In proportion, as the people are called to act, through legislation and by voluntary associ- ation, on a greater number of important questions, in the same proportion is it necessary that their range of informa- tion be extended, and their judgments more thoroughly de- veloped. Tempted as Americans are by bright promises in the future, and living, too, in the midst of intense activity and excitement, they need, more than any other nation, habits of careful and deliberate inquirj'. They need, more- over, that enlightened estimate of the diificulties inherent in many subjects, which they can obtain only by candid study, and which would tend to make them at once more tolerant towards those who think differently, and less clamorous, in public affairs, after one exclusive line of policy. In theory, we are supposed to think each one for himself, and to carry, to the ballot-box, the unbiased result of our own convictions and preferences. Is it not most desirable, that the educa- tion of the whole people should become so improved, that this theory can be reduced to practice, and that dema- gogues and all the leaders of faction shall see, in the grow- ing intelligence of the people, waniing signs of the decline of their own power and consequence ? Without enumerating, here, the various branches of study, which are called for by the state of the times, and of our * Washington's Farewell Address. 70 THE SCHOOL AND own country, 1 may remark, that more thorough instruction in the first principles of politics is all-important. We all read enougbi about political affairs ; but fundamental instruc- tion in tlie elements of the science of government — in those great truths which guided our fathers through times of trial, and which can alone give strength, and enduring glory to our institutions and our freedom — tliis is greatly needed. Much time, which is now given to other studies, might be profitably devoted to the histor}.' and structure of our gov- ernment, and to those noble examples of public virtue and achievements, which shine as lights along the tract of the past.* In holding up such examples, however, one caution ought to be observed. The noblest specimens of our fall- en nature are marred by imperfection. Instead, then, of teaching our children to admire great men in the gross, we should rather teach them to discriminate between their acts of wisdom and their errors, as well as between their virtues and their vices. Otherwise the power of judgment is grad- ually obscured ; distinctions the most sacred and important are confounded ; and men are taught first to tolerate, and at length to admire and imitate, what they ought most anxious- ly to shun. In one of the numbers of the Spectator, the writer judiciously suggests, " whether, instead of a theme or copy of verses, which are the usual exercises, as they are called in the school plirase, it would not be more proper that a boy should be tasked once or twice a week to write * To illustrate the disproportioned attention paid, even in ele- mentary schools, to mathematics as compared with moral science, I may mention the following fact, with which I met recently on vis- iting the teachers' department in one of our largest and best-con- ducted academies. Out of seventy-five young persons in this de- partment who were preparing to teach district and other elementary Echools, hxAfivc were studying history of any kind ; none were stud- }ing the history of the United States ; while thirty-four were study- ing Algebra, and almost all, Geometrj', Trigonometry, and Survey- ing. THE SCHOOLMASTER. 71 down his opinion of such persons and things as occur to him in his reading ; that he shoidd descant upon the ac- tions of Turnus or vEneas, show wherein they excelled or were defective, censure or approve any particular action, observe how it might have been carried to a gi'eater degree of perfection, and how it exceeded or fell short of another. He might, at the same time, mark what was moral in any speech, and how far it agreed with the character of the person speaking. This exercise would soon strengthen his judgment in what is blamable or praiseworthy, and give him an early seasoning of morality."* 3. I have already insisted on the necessity of having some reference, even in the school-education of children, to their future pursuits. I now remark that, after leaving school, each child should be bred to some regular occupa- tion. This industrial training is even more important than that given at school. Without a definite pinsuit, a man is an excrescence on society. He has no regular place or part to fill, and is apt to feel little concern for the general welfare. In isolating himself from the cares and employ- ments of other men, he forfeits much of their sympathy, and can neither give nor receive great benefit. If rich enough to live in idleness, he is, now, morbid through want of object or interest, and now, through profligacy, reckless of liimself and a curse to others. If he is poor and yet idle, or, even though not idle, if he lives rather by shifts than by regular and systematic industry, he rarely becomes useful or re- spectable, and, in a vast proportion of cases, sinks to infamy or crime. This is apparent from the statistics of our pris- ons ; and it would be equally obvious if we could analyze * The teacher and parent may derive useful hints and assistance in prescribing such exercises, from that part of Rollin's Belles Let- tres which is devoted to the study of History. The author dwells at length, and with many interesting examples, on the moral lessons 10 be gathered from the leading events and characters of history. 72 THE SCHOOL AND the composition of most mobs, or the character and history of those who lead a life of vice. Dr. Lieber states, that of three hundred and fifty-eight criminals whose cases he had examined, two hundred and twenty-seven had never been hound out to any trade or regular occupation, seventy-nine were bound out, but ran away before they had stayed out their time, and only fifty -two were bound out and remained with their respective masters until the completion of their proper time ; while the average term for which they were imprisoned was, in case of those who had served out their time, not quite four years, whereas, in case of those who ran away, it was more than^ue years.* Similar facts might be multiplied to almost any extent, and they show that this kind of education is truly of the last importance. Among the ancients, the parent who neglected to give his son a trade was deemed to have forfeited, in his old age, a claim upon that son for support ; and by the law of Solon, which enforced it most strenuously in ordinary cases, this claim was expressly dispensed with, when the parent had been delinquent in this matter.f * Political Ethics, ii., 242. t One of the most striking features, in the improved system of German education, is the great attention paid to order, economy, and neatness. " One of the circumstances," says Professor Stowe, " that interested me most, was the excellent order and rigid econo- my with which all the Prussian institutions are conducted. Partic- ularly in large boarding-schools, where hundreds, and sometimes thousands of youth are collected together, the benefits of the system are strikingly manifest. Every boy is taught to wait upon himself; to keep his person, clothing, furniture, and books in perfect order and neatness ; and no extravagance in dress, and no waste of fuel, or food, or property of any kind, is permitted. Each student has his own single bed, which is generally a light mattress laid upon a frame of slender bars of iron, because such beds are not likely to be infested with insects, and each one makes his own bed and keeps it in order. In the house there is a place for everything, and every- thing must be in its place. In one closet are the shoe-brushes and THE SCHOOLMASTER. 73 4. The state of our country, and the character of the age, call loudly ybr a more elegant and humanizing culture. In the habits of a people, few things have a more important in- fluence, for good or evil, than the use they make of leisure. Some relief from labour men must have ^ something to vary the monotony of life, and restore the mind to a sense of its elasticity. If this relief be not afforded by innocent and improving recreations, it v/ill be sought for in sensual in- dulgence.* In our country it is peculiarly so. The ardour blacking, in another the lamps and oil, in another the fuel. At the doors are good mats and scrapers, and everything of the kind neces- sary for neatness and comfort, and every student is taught, as care- fully as he is taught any other lesson, to make a proper use of all these articles at the right time, and then to leave them in good or der at their proper places. Every instance of neglect is sure to re- ceive its appropriate reprimand, and, if necessary, severe punish- ment. I know of nothing that can benefit us more than the intro- duction of such oft-repeated lessons on carefulness and frugality into all our educational establishments ; for the contrary habits of care lessness and wastefulness, notwithstanding all the advantages which we enjoy, have already done us immense mischief Very many of our families waste and throw away nearly as much as they use ; and one third of the expenses of housekeeping might be saved by a system of frugality. It is true, that we have such an abundance of everything, that this enormous waste is not sensibly felt, as it would be in a more densely populated region ; but it is not always to be so with us." — Stowe's Report 071 Elcme7ilary Public Instruction in Europe. * Tliis want of resource and recreation is not to be supplied in all cases by mere intellectual pursuits. There are many whose minds are not sufficiently cultivated to avail themselves of these ; they have little or no taste for them, and yet are quite capable of being made very worthy, sensible, respectable, and happy men. Resour- ces must be provided of sufficient variety to supply the different tastes and capacities we have to deal with ; and we must not shut our gates against any, merely because they feel no ambition to be- come philosophers. By gently leading them, or rather, perhaps, by letting them find their own way, from one step to another, you may at length succeed in making them what you wish them to be. '* It is with these views that I have endeavoured to provide objects G 74 THE SCHOOL AND with which men engage here in business, they carry to their pleasures ; and, in the absence of higher sources of exhilaration, they rush to the gaming-table, and, above all, to the intoxicating cup. The contrast, in this respect, be- tween our people, and those of countries in which the fine arts are generally cultivated, is most striking and instruct- ive. Take Germany, for example. There, the people have access to ardent spirits as well as wine ; moral restraints are not more powerful than with us ; and yet, in many provinces, drunkenness is almost unknov/n. It will not be easy to find an explanation for this fact, except in the prev- alence, throughout the same provinces, of a taste for music and other arts ; a taste which has been developed by culture, and in which all the people, from the highest to the lowest, find an inexhaustible resource. Efforts to avert the prog- ress of intemperance are doubtless most necessary and im- portant, and they are eminently worthy of encouragement ; but, to be permanently useful, they should be coupled with of interesting pursuit or innocent amusement for our colony. The gardens and the cultivation of flowers, which is encouraged by ex- hibitions and prizes, occupy the summer evenings of many of the men or elder boys. Our music and singing engage many of both sexes — young and old, learned and unlearned. We have a small glee class, that meets once a week round a cottage fire. There is another, more numerous, for sacred music, that meets every Wed- nesday and Saturday during the winter, and really performs very well ; at least, I seldom hear music that pleases me more. There is also a band, &c., &c. ; and when you remember how few families we muster, not more than seventy or eighty, you will think, with me, that we are quite a musical society, and that any trouble I took at first to introduce this pursuit has been amply repaid. You must observe that all these instruments are entirely their own, and of their own purchasing. I have nothing to do with them farther than now and then helping them to remunerate their teachers." " We find drawing ahnost as useful a resource as music, except that a much smaller niunber engage in it." — Letter of an English Manufacturer on the Elevation of the Labouring Classes THE SCHOOLMASTER. 75 measures to supply, from higher and purer sources, the ex- hilaration wliich men, when at leisure, always require. If the mind of the reclaimed drunkard be left to brood over va- cancy, we must not be surprised that he returns to his cups ; nor must we wonder that so many, who are now forming habits of indulgence, decline surrendering their pleasures, when they are offered no substitute. In order to effect a lasting change in the habits of the people, we must raise and purify their tastes. Hence the importance of libraries, of associations for mutual improvement, and of every institution which proposes the diffusion of knowledge.* The fine arts, however, have one advantage which can hardly be claimed for books. As things now stand, each * " Let no superficial judgment regard as illusory the beneficent moral effect here imputed to general diifusive education." " The most prevalent vice of the United States is intoxication. How many youth of bright promise, how many really amiable men of advanced age, annually fall victims to this destructive habit ! Would this^gccur if the head of each family found in its bosom the soothing enjoyment of intellectual converse in his hours of domes- tic retirement and leisure 1 if among his domestic circle each mem- ber could contribute something to enUven his hours of rest in the sultiy midday heat of summer, or the long nights of winter 1 or, when conversation had exliausted its stores, could cheer him with agreeable narratives of biography and history, of voyages and trav- els, or the lessons of more profitable knowledge extracted from the neighbouring newspaper and village library 1" " Would well-educated youth, brought up to respect labour, after seeking in vain for lucrative employment in the crowded professions of law and physic, abandon themselves to this suicidal vice, rathei than seek an honourable subsistence in rural and mechanical pur suits 1" "Would old men of amiable, and even polished manners, after a life of generous hospitality, or a manhood devoted to the public ser- vice, but uninspired by that religious hope that brightens at ap- proaching dissolution, sink into this Lethean gulf, because they could find nothing to interest them longer in this world, and timo had become an insupportable burden 1" — C. F. Meeceb. 76 THE SCHOOL AND one reads such book as gratifies his own taste, or as maybe thrown in his way by chance, or by the design of others. The consequence is, that the reading of many men only contributes to strengthen their lower propensities. This can hardly be the case with the fine arts. Their produc- tions are more limited in their range, and are exposed to more general scrutiny. Among a people, too, who have such notions of decorum as prevail with us, these arts can hardly venture to appeal, openly and directly, to our worst passions. There is another benefit, to be anticipated in our country, from the cultivation of a taste for the arts, to which I will advert in this connexion. Foreign travellers have com- plained of the American people, that they rarely have leis- ure, and that, when they have, they know not how to enjoy it. There is some truth in the remark. We are eminent- ly a working people. Part of this industry results, no doubt, from our condition, and from the powerful incite- ments to enterprise, afforded by a young and prosperous country. Part of it, however, seems to result from impa- tience of rest. Not a few of the rash adventures and lU- inous speculations, by which we have distinguished our- selves of late, had their origin in a love of excitement, and in our aversion to being without employment. A partial remedy for this evil, might be found by diffusing a taste for the elegant and ornamental arts. These arts would furnish that moderate and agreeable excitement which is so desira- ble in the intervals of labour. They would tranquillize, in some degree, the minds which have been agitated by bu- siness, and would dispose them to seek more frequent re- lief from its cares, and to plunge with less haste into new, hazardous, and anxious undertakings. They would teach us all, that there is a time for rest and refreshment as well as for exertion ; and that the one may conduce as well as the other, not only to our enjoyment and dignity, but also to our penuanent prosperity in business. THE SCHOOLMASTER. 77 It may be alleged, by way of objection, that the arts are liable to abuse, and that they have, sometimes, been enlist- ed, in the service of vice and licentiousness. This is doubt- less true of art, as it is of literature. But in regard to the latter, we encourage men to cultivate it, and we give them access to books of all kinds, because we are confident that, with a fair field, truth and right must ultimately triumph. So we would encourage the arts, because we believe that the natural affinities of the human mind will in the end se- cure a preference for works conceived in a pure taste ; and that in our country, this would at once be the case, so far as moral considerations are involved. It must be remembered, that the noblest efforts of art have been made in the service of virtue and religion. History shows that the wing of Fan- cy has always drooped when she attempted to soar in a sensual or misanthropic mood. At such seasons she can- not gaze upon the unveiled sun ; her visions are dim and earthly ; they do violence to truth and nature, and are soon consigned to merited obscurity. Among a volatile and dissipated people, the arts would doubtless be rendered subservient to amusement and licen- tious indulgence. It would be at the expense, however, of their highest excellence. On the other hand, among a grave people, charged with serious cares, they would be likely to take a different type, and contribute, as music has always done in Germany since the days of Luther, to the refinement of taste and the strengthening of moral feeling. The greatest composers of that land have consecrated their genius to the service of religion. Haydn, whose memory is so honoured, was deeply religious. His Oratorio of the Creation was produced, as he himself tells us, at a time V hen he was much in prayer. In writing musical scores, he was accustomed to place, both at the beginning and at the close of each one, a Latin motto, expressive of his pro- found feeling, that he was dependant on God in all his ef- 01 78 THE SCHOOL AND forts, and that to His glory should be consecrated every offspring of his genius. The mention of music leads me to notice the special claims which that art has upon us. All men have been endowed with susceptibility to its influence. The child is no sooner born, than the nurse begins to sooth it to repose by music. Through life, music is employed to animate the depressed, to inspire the timid with courage, to lend new wings to devotion, and to give utterance to joy or sorrow. It is pre-eminently the language of the heart. The under- standing gains knowledge, through the eye. The heart is excited to emotion, through tones falling on the ear. And so universal, is the disposition to resort to music, for- the purpose of either expressing or awakening emotion, that the great dramatist, that master in the science of the heart, declares that " The man that hath no music in himself, Nor is not moved with concord of sweet sounds, Is fit for treason, stratagems, and spoils ; The motions of his spirit are dull as night, And his affections dark as Erebus : Let no such man be trusted." Well may this be said of an art which has power to raise the coarsest veteran to noble sentiments and deeds, and to inspire the rawest and most timorous recruit with a con- tempt of death. It is worthy of remark, too, that, as the susceptibility to no other art is so universal, so none seems to have so strong an affinity for virtue, and for the purer and gentler affections. It is affirmed as a curious fact, that the natural scale of mu- sical sounds can only produce good and kindly feelings, and that this scale must be reversed, if you would call forth sentiments of a degraded or vicious character. It is certain that, from the fabled days of Orpheus and Apollo, music has always been regarded as the handmaid of civili- THE SCHOOLMASTER. 79 zation and moral refinement. Wherever we would awake the better affections, v/hether in the sanctuary or the closet, in the school for infants or in the House of Refuge for ju- venile delinquents, we employ its aid. The Germans have a proverb, vi^hich has come dovi^n from Luther, that, where music is not, the devil enters. As Da- vid took his harp, when he would cause the evil spirit to depart from Saul, so the Germans employ it to expel obdu- racy from the hearts of the depraved. In their schools for the reformation of youthful offenders, (and the same remark might be applied to those of our own country), music has been found one of the most effectual means of inducing do- cility among the stubborn and vicious.* ItAvould seem that so ong as any remains of humanity linger in the heart, it *• " At Berlin I visited an establishment for the reformation of youthful offenders. Here boys are placed, who have committed of- fences that bring them under the supervision of the police, to be in- structed and rescued from vice, instead of being hardened in iniquity by living in the common prison with old offenders. It is under the care of Dr. Kopf, a most simple-hearted, excellent old gentleman ; just such a one as reminded us of the ancient Christians, who lived in the times of the persecution, simplicity, and purity of the Chris- tian Church. He has been very successful in reclaiming the young offender ; and many a one, who would otherwise have been forever lost, has, by the influence of this institution, been saved to himself, to his country, and to God. As I was passing with Dr. K. from room to room, I heard some beautiful voices singing in an adjoining apartment, and, on entering, I found about twenty of the boys sitting at a long table, making clothes for the establishment, and singing at their work. The doctor enjoyed my surprise, and, on going out, re- marked, ' I always keep these little rogues singing at their w^ork ; for while the children sing the devil cannot come among them at all ; he can only sit out doors there and growl ; but if they stop singing, in the devil comes.' The Bible and the singing of religious hymns are among the most efficient instruments which he employs for softening the hardened heart, and bringing the vicious and stub- born wiU to docility."— Tic^or; of Professor Stowc on Elementary Puh- AC InstnirAum in Europe. 80 THE SCHOOL AND retains its susceptibility to music. And as proof that this music is more powerful for good than for evil, is it not wor- thy of profound consideration that, in all the intimations which the Bible gives us of a future world, music is associ- ated only with the employments and happiness of Heaven ? We read of no strains of music coming up from the re- gions of the lost. To associate its melodies and harmonies with the wailings and convulsions of reprobate spirits would be doing violence, as all feel, to our conceptions of its true character.* Nothing could illustrate more impressively its natural connexion with our better nature. Abused it doubt- less may be — for which of God's gifts is not abused ? — but its value, when properly employed as a means of culture, as a source of refined pleasure, and as the proper aid and ally of our efforts and aspirations after good, is clear and unques- tionable. " In music," says Hooker, " the very image of vice and virtue is perceived. It is a thing that delighteth all ages and beseemeth all states — a thing as seasonable in grief as joy, as decent being added to actions of greatest solemnity, as being used when men sequester themselves from actions." So the pious Bishop Beveridge : " That which I have found the best recreation both to my mind and body, when- soever either of them stands in need of it, is music, which ex- ercises at once both my body and soul, especially when I play myself ; for then, methinks, the same motion that my hand makes upon the instrument, the instrument makes upon my heart. It calls in my spirits, composes my thoughts, de- lights my ear, recreates my mind, and so not only fits me for after business, but fills my heart at the present with pure and * Has not Milton offered violence both to nature and revelation, in the picture which he draws towards the close of the first book of his Paradise Lost, where he represents the legions of Satan as mo- ving " in perfect phalanx to the Dorian mood of flutes and soft re- corders," " soft pipes that charmed their painful steps," &.c., &c THE SCHOOLMASTER. 81' useful thoughts ; so that, when the music sounds the sweet- liest in my ears, truth commonly flows the clearest in my mind. And hence it is that I find my soul is become more harmonious by being accustomed so much to hanuony, and adverse to all manners of discord, that the least jarring sounds, either in notes or words, seem very harsh and un- pleasant to me." I have spoken of the fact, that all men are more or less susceptible to the influence of music. It is also tme that all can acquire the rudiments of the art. It has long been supposed that, in order to learn to sing, a child must be en- dowed with what is called a musical ear. That this, how- ever, is an error, is evident from experiments which have been made on the most extensive scale in Germany, and which are now repeating in this country. In Germany, al- most every child at school, is instructed in singing, as well as in reading. The result is, that though in this respect, as in many others, there is great difference in the natural aptitude of children, still all who can learn to read, can also learn to sing.* It is found, farther, that this knowledge can be ac- * " The universal success, also, and very beneficial results, with which the arts of drawing and designing, vocal and instrumental music, moral instruction, and the Bible, have been introduced into schools, was another fact peculiarly interesting to me. I asked all the teachers with whom I conversed, whether they did not sometimes find children who were actually incapable of learning to draw and to sing. I have had but one reply, and that was, that they found the same diversity of natural talent in regard to these as in regard to reading, writing, and the other branches of education ; but they had never seen a child who was capable of learning to read and \\Tite, who could not be taught to sing well and draw neatly, and that, too, with- out taking any time which would at all interfere with, indeed, which would not actually promote, his progress in other studies. In re- gard to the necessity of moral instruction, and the beneficial influ- ence of the Bible in schools, the testimony was no less explicit and uniform. I inquired of all classes of teachers, and of men of every grade of religious faith ; instructers in common schools, high 82 THE SCHOOL AND quired without interfering with the other branches of study, and with evident benefit both to the disposition of the scholars, and the discipUne of the school. A gentleman Avho, in this country, has had more than 4000 pupils in mu- sic, affirms that his experience gives the same result. The number of schools among us, in which music is made one of the regular branches of elementary instruction, is already great, and is constantly increasing, and I have heard of no case in which, with proper training, every child has not been found capable of learning. Indeed, the fact, that among the ancients and in the schools of the Middle Ages, music was regarded as indispensable in a full course of ed- ucation, might of itself teach us, that the prejudice in ques- tion is founded in error. Another consideration which gives music special claims on our regard as a branch of cidture, is, that the best speci- mens of the art are within our reach. It is rare, that the pupil can ever look, in this country, on the original works of a mas- ter, in painting or sculpture. We have engravings, casts, schools, and schools of art ; of professors in colleges, universities, and professional seminaries in cities and in the country ; in places where there was a uniformity and in places where there was a di- versity of creeds ; of believers and unbelievers ; of rationalists and enthusiasts ; of Catholics and Protestants, and I never found but one reply ; and that was, that to leave the moral faculty uninstnioted was to leave the most important part of the human mind undevel- oped, and to strip education of almost everything that can make it valuable ; and that the Bible, independently of the interest attend- ing it, as containing the most ancient and influential writings ever lecorded by human hands, and comprising the religious system of almost the whole of the civilized world, is in itself the best hook that can be put into the hands of children to interest, to exercise, and to unfold the intellectual and moral powers. Every teacher whom I consulted repelled with indignation the idea that moral in- struction is not proper for schools, and that the Bible cannot be in- troduced mto common schools without encouraging sectarian bias in the matter of teaching." — Stowe's Report, &.C. THE SCHOOLMASTER. 83 and other copies, but they can give us only faint conceptions of the artist's design, and of his execution hardly an idea. In written music, we have a transcript of the conceptions of the composer, almost as complete as in written poetry or eloquence, and as easy of access. In all these arts, however, much may be done, to call forth and improve the taste of our people. By multiplying exhibitions of art ; by extending patronage to the native tal- ent for painting and sculpture which abounds among us ; by promoting efforts for the diffusion of a correct taste in music, and a love for that art, so essential in our devotions, and so useful everywhere ; and, finally and especially, by introdu- cing elementary instruction, both in music and drawing, into our schools, we can do much towards securing for our land the multiplied blessings Avhich would result from the gen- eral love of art. Says a late Report of the School Committee of the City of Boston, when speaking of Drawing, " Your committee cannot help remarking, as they pass, that, in their opinion, there is no good reason for excluding the art of linear draw- ing from any liberal scheme of popular instruction. It has a direct tendency to quicken that important faculty, the fac- ulty of observation. It is a supplement to writing. It is in close alliance with geometry. It is conversant Math form, and intimately connected with all the improvements in the mechanic arts. In all the mechanical, and many of the olher employments of life, it is of high practical utility. Drawing, like music, is not an accomplishment only ; it has important uses : and if music be successfully introduced into our public schools, your committee express the hope and the conviction that drawing, sooner or later, will fol- low." In the same report the committee observe, " There are said to be at this time not far from eighty thousand com- mon schools in this country, in which are to be found the 84 THE SCHOOL AND people who, m coming years, will mould the character of this democracy. If vocal music were generally adopted as a branch of instruction in these schools, it might be reason- ably expected, that in at least two generations, we should be changed into a musical people. The great point to be considered, in reference to the introduction of vocal music into popular elementar}^ instruction, is, that thereby you set in motion a mighty power, Avhich silently, but surely in the end, will humanize, refine, and elevate a whole communi- ty.* Music is one of the line arts ; it therefore deals with * "We have listened," says a recent traveller in Switzerland, " to the peasant children's songs, as they went out to their morning oc- cupations, and saw their hearts enkindled to the highest tones of music and poetry by the setting sun or the familiar objects of na- ture, each of which was made to echo some truth, or point to some duty, by an appropriate song. We have heard them sing ' the har- vest h3Tnan' as they went forth, before daylight, to gather in the grain. We have seen them assemble in groups at night, chanting a hymn of praise for the glories of the heavens, or joining in some patriotic chorus or some social melod}", instead of the frivolous and corrupting conversation which so often renders such meetings the source of evil. In addition to this, we visited communities where the youth had been trained from their childhood to exercises in vo- cal music, of such a character as to elevate instead of debasing the mind, and have found that it served in the same manner to cheer their social assemblies, in place of the noise of folly or the poisoned cup of intoxication. We have seen the young men of such a com- munity assembled to the number of several hundreds, from a cir- cuit of twenty miles ; and, instead of spending a day of festivity in rioting and drunkenness, pass the whole time, with the exception of that employed in a frugal repast and a social meeting, in a concert of social, moral, and religious hymns, and devote the proceeds of the exhibition to some object of benevolence. We could not but look at the contrast presented on similar occasions in our own coun- try with a blush of shame. We have visited a village whose whole moral aspect was changed in a few years by the introduction of music of this character, even among adults, and where the aged were compelled to express their astonishment at seeing the young abandon their corrupting and riotous amusements for this delightfiil and improving exercise." THE SCHOOLMASTER. 85 abstract beauty, and so lifts man to the source of all beauty — from finite to infinite, and from the world of matter to the world of spirits and to God. Music is the great handmaid of civilization. Whence come those traditions of a rever- end antiquity — seditions quelled, cures wrought, fleets and armies governed by the force of song — whence that respond- ing of rocks, woods, and trees to the harp of Orpheus — whence a city's walls uprising beneath the wonder-working touches of Apollo's lyre 1 These, it is true, are fables ; yet they shadow forth, beneath the veil of allegory, a profoimd truth. They beautifully proclaim the mysterious union be- tween music, as an instrument of man's civilization, and the soul of man. Prophets and wise men, large-minded law- givers of an olden time, understood and acted on this truth. The ancient oracles were uttered in song. The laws of the Twelve Tables were put to music and got by heart at school. Minstrel and sage are, in some languages, con- vertible terms. Music is allied to the highest sentiments of man's moral nature : love of God, love of country, love of friends. Wo to the nation in which these sentiments are allowed to go to decay ! What tongue can tell the un- utterable energies that reside in these three engines — church music, national airs, and fireside melodies — as means of informing and enlarging the mighty heart of a free people !" In thus describing the kind of education which is called for by the situation of our country and the spirit of the age, I have referred, not only to school education, but to all the agencies, which tend to form the minds, and characters of the rising generation. It is one thing to set forth what this education ought to be, and quite another to determine what it actually is. On this latter point, all who wish well to their country ought to speak plainly ; their evidence should be given in without prejudice or passion ; with no alloy of H 86 THE SCHOOL AND party feeling ; and with a single desire to see the American people fulfilling the high destiny marked out for them by Providence. He is the best friend of his country who, on such subjects, utters the truth, and the whole truth. It is, unhappily, the interest of many in every party, who wish to use the people for the accomplishment of their own sor- did purposes, to lavish upon them the most unbounded pro- fessions of confidence in their wisdom : and it is not easy, in such a state of things, for one, however loyal to the in- stitutions of his country, or however devoted to the popular Avelfare, to hint at prevailing imperfections, without incur- ring reproach and exposing himself to misapprehension. And yet, if tliis is not done, if he who thinks he sees dan- gerous maxims pervading the popular mind, and radical de- fects in existing systems of education, may not proclaim them boldly, and with impunity, too, where is our boasted freedom, and where the hope that our future shall be better than our past ? All advancement in a higher civilization must be the result of a clear perception of existing evils and dangers ; and such perception can evidently never be attained unless individuals are free to discuss and expose them. I ask, then, what is the aggregate intelligence and moral culture bestowed by education on the people of this coun- try ? I answer, in the words of one who has always been known as the advocate of the largest liberty, and whose fmnness in the declaration of his opinions has only been , equalled by the sincerity with which, in the estimation of all his fellow-citizens, he has held them.* " Nothing is more common than for public journalists to rxtol in unmeasured terms ' the intelligence of the commu- iiirv. On all occasions, according to them. Vox populi est vox Dei. We are pronounced to be a highly cultivated, in- tellectual, and civilized people. When we, the people, * Lecture on Civilization, by Samuel Young. THE SCHOOLMASTER. 87 called for the exclusion of small bills, we were right ; when we called for the repeal of the exclusion, we were equally right. We are divided into political parties nearly- equal, but we are both right. We disagree respecting the fundamental principles of government ; we quarrel about the laws of a circulating medium ; we are bank and anti- bank, tariff and anti-tariff, for a national bankrupt law and against a national bankrupt law, for including corporations and for excluding corporations, for unlimited internal im- provement, judicious internal improvement, and for no in- ternal improvement. We have creeds, sects, denom- inations, and faiths of all varieties, each insisting that it is right, and that all the others are wrong. We have cold water societies, but many more that habitually deal in hot water. We are anti-masonic and masonic, ' pro-slavery and anti-slavery ;' and are spiced and seasoned with ab- olitionism, immediateism, gradualism, mysticism, material- ism, agrarianism, sensualism, egotism, skepticism, ideal- ism, transcendentalism. Van Burenism, Harrisonism, Mor- monism, and animal magnetism. Every public and private topic has its furious partisans, struggling with antagonists equally poshive and unyielding, and yet we are told that we are a well-informed, a highly civilized people. " If we look to our legislative halls, to the lawgivers of the land, to the men who have been selected for the greatest wisdom and experience, we shall see the same disagree- ment and collision on every subject. " He who would play the politician must shut his eyes to all this, and talk incessantly of the intelligence of the peo- ple. Instead of attempting to lead the community in the right way, he must go with them in the wrong. " It is true, he may preach sound doctrine in reference to the education of youth. He may state the vast influence it has upon the whole life of man. He may freely point out the imperfections in the moral, intellectual, and physical in- 08 THE SCHOOL AND struction of the children of the present day. He may nrge the absolute necessity of good teachers, of the multiplica- tion of libraries, and every other means for the diffusion of useful knowledge. He may expatiate upon the supersti- tious fears, the tormenting fancies, the erroneous notions, the wrong prepossessions, and the laxity of morals which most children are allowed to imbibe for want of early and correct instruction, and which, in the majority of cases, last through life. He may, with truth and freedom, de- clare, that the mental impress, at twenty, gives the colour- ing to the remainder of life ; and that most young men of our country, of that age, have not half the correct informa- tion and sound principles which might, with proper care, have been instilled into their minds before they were ten years old. " But here the politician must stop his censures and close his advice . At twenty one, the ignorant, uneducated, and way- ward youth is entitled to the right of suffrage, and mingles with a commimity composed of materials like himself. He bursts the shell which had enveloped him; he emerges from the chrysalis state of darkness and ignorance, and at once becomes a component part of ' a higlily intelligent, en- lightened, and civilized community.' " If we honestly desire to know society as it is, we must subject it to a rigorous analysis. We must divest ourselves of all partiality, and not lay the ' flattering imction' of van- ity to our souls. The clear perception of our deficiencies, of the feeble advances already made in knowledge and civ- ilization, is the best stimulus to united, energetic, and useful exertion. Bitter truth is much more w.holesome than sweet delusion. " The gross flattery which is weekly and daily poured out in legislative speeches and by a time-serving press, has a most pernicious influence upon the public mind and morals. The greater the ignorance of the mass, the more readily the THE SCHOOLMASTER. 89 flattery is swallowed. He who is the most circumscribed in knowledge, perceives not a single cloud in his mental horizon. Attila and his Huns doubtless believed them- selves to be the most civilized people on earth ; and if they had possessed our editorial corps, they would have proved it to be so. " Weak and vain females, in the days of their youth, have been charged by the other sex with an extraordinary fond- hess for flattery. But, judging by the constant specimens which are lavishly administered and voraciously swallowed, the male appetite for hyperboles of praise is altogether su- perior. " The vainglorious boastings of the American press ex- cite the risibility of all intelligent foreigners. According to the learned and philosophic De Tocqueville, this is the country, of all others, where public opinion is the most dic- tatorial and despotic. Like a spoiled child, it has been in- dulged, flattered, and caressed by interested sycophants un til its capriciousness and tyranny are boundless. " When Americans boast of their cultivated minds and humane feelings, foreigners point them to the existence of negro slavery. When they claim the civic merit of un- qualified submission to the rules of social order, they are re- ferred to the frequent exhibition of duels and of Lynch law. When they insist upon the prevalence among us of strict integrity, sound morals, and extensive piety, they are shown an American newspaper, which probably contains the an- nunciation of half a dozen thefts, robberies, embezzlements, horrid murders, and appalling suicides. " Burns, the eminent Scotch poet, seems to have believed that good would result " ' If Providence the gift would gie us, To see ourselves as others see us.' If we had this gift, much of our overweening vanity would H 2 90 THE SCHOOL AND doubtless be repressed, and many would seriously ponder on the means of reformation and improvement. " But that any great improvement can be made upon the moral propensities of the adults of the present day is not to be expected. The raw material of humanity, after being even partially neglected for twenty years, generally bids defiance to every manufacturing process. " The moral education — that is, the proper discipline of the dispositions and affections of the mind, by which a reverence for the Supreme Being, a love of justice, of benevolence, and of truth are expanded, strengthened, and directed, and the conscience enlightened and invigorated, must have its basis deeply and surely laid in childhood. Truth, in the impor- tant parts of moral science, is most easily taught, and makes the most indelible impressions in early life ; before the in- fusion of the poison of bad example ; before false notions and pernicious opinions have taken root ; before the under- standing is blunted and distorted by habit, or the mind cloud- ed by prejudice." The length to which this quotation has extended will hardly be regretted by our readers ; and it prepares us to en- ter at once on the last topic which remains to be discussed in this chapter, viz., The Importance of Education. THE SCHOOLMASTER. 91 SECTION VI. THE IMPORTANCE OF EDUCATION. I. TO THE INDIVIDUAL. " "VMiat is a man If his chief good and market of his time Be but to sleep and feed 1 — a beast, no more. Sure, He that made us with such large discourse, Looking before and after, gave us not That capability and godhke reason To rust in us unused." — Shakspeare. " Men generally need knowledge to overpower their passions and master their prejudices ; and, therefore, to see your brother in ig- norance is to see him unfurnished to all good works ; and every mas- ter is to cause his family to be instructed, every governor is to in- struct his charge, every man his brother, by all possible and just pro- visions. For if the people die for want of knowledge, they who are set over them shall also die for want of charity." — Jeremy Taylor. It may be proper to remind the reader, that by education, we understand a system of training and instruction, which aims at the due culture of all the powers of the souJ, both intellectual and moral. We shall be the better prepared, to appreciate the necessity and importance of such culture, if we consider that, in its absence, the individual will be edu- cated by circumstances. Even when he is most neglected, there will still be companions, parents, or masters, daily oc- currences, and other causes, both physical and moral, which will act forcibly upon some of his powers to develop and ex- cite them. But wliich of his powers will these be ? When parents do not take the trouble to provide for the proper edu- cation of their children, it must be ob\dous that neither their example, nor the associations with which they will surround those children, whether in high or low life, will be likely to foster their better and purer sentiments. Add to the force 92 THE SCHOOL AND of natural propensity, the sensualizing influences wliich in such cases will inevitably be applied from without to the young and plastic mind, and what can be expected 1 Beyond a doubt, whatever this little being has in com- mon with animals will be cherished and strengthened ; whatever he has in common with angels of light and purity will be repressed and stifled. The gratification of his lower appetites will be predominant among the objects of his de- sire ; and as these appetites are essentially selfish, he will become less and less regardful of the claims of justice and of charity. He may improve in cunning, in the readiness with which he invents and the pertinacity with which he em- ploys expedients to compass his base ends ; but he will have less and less of true wisdom. When sorely pressed by danger or difficulty, he will show that he is not unacquaint- ed with moral distinctions ; but then the dexterity with which he tries to make the worse appear the better reason, and the facility with which he invents specious apologies for the worst acts, these will show, too, that in his mind the light has emphatically become darkness, and that even his highest faculties are little better than panders to his lowest appetites. An ignorant, uncultivated mind, then, is the native soil of sensuality and cruelty, and the whole history of the world proves, that in a large proportion of instances, it does not fail to bring forth its appropriate fruit. In what countries, are the people most given to the lowest forms of animal gratification, and also most regardless of the lives and hap- piness of others 1 Is it not in pagan lands, over which moral and intellectual darkness broods, and where men are vile without shame, and cruel without remorse ? If from pagan we pass to Christian countries, we shall find that those in which education is least prevalent are precisely those in which there is the most immorality, and the great- est indifference to the sufferings of sentient and animated THE SCHOOLMASTER. 93 beings. Spain, in which, until recently, there was but one newspaper, and in which not more than one in twenty of the people are instructed in schools, has a population about equal to that of England and Wales. What is the relative state of morals ? In England and Wales the whole num- l)er of convictions for murder in one year (1826) was thir- teen, and the number convicted of wounding, &c., with in- tent to kill, was fourteen, while in Spain the niunber con- victed during the same year was, for murder, twelve hundred and thirtty-three ! and for maiming with intent to kill, seven- teen hundred and seventy-three* * I add an extract from a late traveller (Inglis) on the state ol manners and morals. " If vice degrade the manners of the upper and middle classes in Seville, crime of a darker turpitude disfigures the character and conduct of the lower orders. Scarcely a night passes ^vithout the commission of a murder. But. these crimes are not perpetrated in cold blood from malevolent passions, still less from love of gain ; they generally spring from the slightest possible causes. The Andalusian is not so abstemious as the Castilian, and the wine he drinks is stronger ; he has also a great propensity for gambling, the fruitful engenderer of strife ; and the climate has, doubtless, its influence upon his passions. ' WiU you taste with me1' an Andalusian will say to some associate with whom he has had some slight difference, offering him his glass. ' No gracias,' the other will reply. The former, already touched with wine, will half drain his glass, and present it again, saying, ' Do you not wish to drink with mel' and if the other still refuses the proffered civil- ity, it is the work of a moment to drain the glass to the dregs, to say, ' How ! not taste with me V and to thrust the knife an Andalu- sian always carries with him into the abdomen of the comrade who refuses to drink with him. It is thus, and in other ways equally simple, that quarrel and murder disfigure the nightly annals of ev- ery town in Andalusia, and of the other provinces of the south of Spain. There is an hospital in Seville dedicated to the sole purpose of receiving wounded persons. I had the curiosity to visit it, and ascertained that, during the past fourteen days, twenty-one persons had been received into the hospital wounded from stabs ; they would not inform me how many of these had died." — Spain in 1830, vol. ii.. p. 56. 94 THE SCHOOL AND We cannot be surprised that, in such a land, scenes of cruelty and blood should constitute the favourite amusement of the people. Their gTcatest delight is in bullfights ; " and how," says an eyewitness, " do the Spaniards con- duct themselves during these scenes ? The intense inter- est which they feel in this game is visible throughout, and often loudly expressed ; an astounding shout always ac- companies a critical moment: whether it be the bull or man who is in danger, their joy is excessive; but their greatest sympathy is given to the feats of the bulk If the picador receives the bull gallantly, and forces him to re- treat, or if the matador courageously faces and wounds the bull, they applaud these acts of science and valour ; but if the bull overthrow the horse and his rider, or if the mata- dor miss his aim and the bull seems ready to gore him, their delight knows no bounds. And it is certainly a fine spectacle to see the thousands of spectators rise simulta- neously, as they always do when the interest is intense ; the greatest and most crowded theatre in Europe presents nothing half so imposing as this. But how barbarous, how brutal is the whole exhibition ! Could an English audi- ence witness the scenes that are repeated every week in Madrid 1 A universal burst of ' shame !' would follow the spectacle of a horse gored and bleeding, and actually tread- ing upon his ovm entrails while he gallops round the are- na : even the appearance of the goaded bull could not be borne ; panting, covered with wounds and blood, lacerated by darts, and yet brave and resolute to the end. " The spectacle continued two hours, and a half, and during that time there were seven bulls killed and six horses. When the last bull was despatched, the people immediately rushed into the arena, and the carcass was dragged out amid the most deafening shouts." — Spain in 1830, vol. i., p. 191. In another passage, the same writer, after describing a THE SCHOOLMASTER. 95 fight, in wliich one bull had killed three horses and one man, and remained master of the arena, adds, " This was a time to observe the character of the people. When the unfortunate picador was killed, in place of a general excla- mation of horror and loud expressions of pity, the unit«'ersal cry was ' Que es bravo ese toro !' (' Ah ! the admirable bull !'). The whole scene produced the most unbounded delight; and I did not perceive a single female avert her head, or betray the slightest symptom of wounded feeling." How different is the spirit and character developed by a proper system of education. Discipline gives its subjects command over their passions, and instead of a love for vi- cious excitement, cultivates the taste for simple and inno- cent pleasures. Objects higher than any gratification mere- ly animal awaken desire ; objects in the pursuit of which the faculties find a healthful and agreeable employment, and the individual, though intent on liis own advantage, still serves the commimity. His charities, too, are enlarged and strengthened. From a mere clald of impulse, he is trans- formed into a reflective being, looking before and after with large discourse of reason. He forms plans for a distant future, and thus rises nearer and nearer to a spiritual exist- ence ; while, divested of no sentiments or principles which the Creator has bestowed upon him, all are still made to occupy their proper places, and to move together in subor- dination to the great ends of his being. It is to be observed here, again, that we mean by educa- tion a large and generous culture, which comprehends the whole man, and which assigns, therefore, the first place to the immortal nature. We would never forget, that there may be much know^ledge and much discipline of the intellectual powers, which leaves, in darkness and sin, the moral and spiritual man. Such education we repudiate. Instead of a narrow and partial training, which would make its subject a monster rather than a man ; we go for one which would 96 THE SCHOOL AND build up that subject to the perfection which corresponds to his nature and position. And let us add, if mere knowledge cannot make men wise, much less can ignorance. Her appropriate office is not to improve, but to deteriorate and degrade. It has been said that " ignorance is the mother of devotion." It would have been much nearer truth, to represent her as the parent of a dark idolatry, which bows the spirit to an abject but imholy service, and robs it of its noblest instincts. This has been well put in an old allegory of the days of Bimyan. ApoUyon invades the country of Nonage, and, in order to accomplish more fully his designs, resolves "that a great part of the weak and feeble inhabitants should be tutored by Mrs. Ignorance." Accordingly, accosting that person- age, he says, " My dear cousin and friend, I have a great number of pretty boys and girls for you to tutor and bring up for me : will you undertake the charge ?" " Most dread and mighty ApoUyon," she replies, "you know I never yet declined any drudgery for you which lay in my power." ApoUyon then, after complimenting her upon what she had already done for the advancement of his kingdom and great- ening of his power in the world, turns to his associate and says, " Noble Peccatum (Sin), this gentlewoman, Madam Ignorance, is your child, your natural offspring, your own flesh and blood ; therefore I charge you to help and assist her in this great work ; for I should be glad if she had the education of all the children in the whole world." The influence of education, on happiness, is also worthy of deep consideration. Man has been supplied with va- rious desires, sensual, intellectual, and moral ; some prompt- ing him to serve others, and some to benefit himself, but all intended to yield him happiness. Education enlarges the capacity for enjoyment, of each of these desires. Even his sensual appetites need the guidance of knowledge to keep them from excess, while they are refined and elevated by THE SCHOOLMASTER. 97 the cultm-e of liis other powers. And tlien that brood of hopes and fears which must always cluster round man's heart — taking him out of the present, and in some sort compelling him to live and labour for an unseen future — liow these are all rectified and enlightened by knowledge and culture. Imagination, chastened and regulated, no lon- ger fills the view Avith lying spectres of horror or delusive anticipations of bliss. She becomes the handmaid of the un- derstanding and the heart. The mind is steadied ; its vision purged and enlarged. It sees objects as they are, neither magnifying our blessings nor multiplying our sorrows.* Hopes are built on a solid and rational foundation, and fear, which to so many is the disease of the soul,t making more * " Wisdom makes all the troubles, griefs, and pains incident to life, whether casual adversities or natural afflictions, easy and sup- portable, b)' rightly valuing the importance and moderating the in- fluence of them. It suffers not busy fancy to alter the nature, am- plify the degree, or extend the duration of them, by representing them more sad, hea\^', and remediless than they truly are. It allows them no force beyond what naturally and necessarily they have, nor contributes nourishment to their increase. It keeps them at due distance, not pennitting them to encroach upon the soul, or to prop- agate their influence beyond their proper sphere. — Dr. Barrow." t "Ignorance," says a -vrnter, "can shake strong sinews with idle thoughts, and sink brave hearts with light sorrows, and doth lead innocent feet to impure dens, and haunts the simple rustic with credulous fears, and the swart Indian with that more potent magic, under which spell he pines and dies. And by ignorance is a man fast bound from childhood to the grave, till knowledge, which is the revelation of good and evil, doth set him free." Among the numberless superstitions which have been dissipated by science, may be instanced the Spectre of the Brocken, which had appeared from time to time, near the Hartz Mountains in Germany This was a gigantic figure, seen indistinctly in the heavens, in form always resembUng a human being, and the appearance of which waa regarded, for ages, as a certain indication of approaching misfortune. At length a celebrated philosopher (Abbe Haiiy) determined to in- vestigate this apparition. After ascending the mountain ihirti' I 98 THE SCHOOL AND danger than it avoids, becomes, to a well-trained and en- lightened mind, the instrument of caution rather than anx- iety — ^" a guard, not a torment, to the breast." It is suffi- ciently vigilant in anticipating and guarding against earthly evils, but the loss of immortality is the object of its supreme dread. " It is fixed," to use the language of South, " on Him who is only to be feared, God ; and yet with a filial fear, which at the game time both fears and loves. It is awe without amazement — dread without distraction. There is a beauty in its very paleness, giving a lustre to rever- ence and a gloss to humility." In estimating the happiness to be derived from educa- tion, let us not overlook the vast addition which may thus be made to domestic and social enjoyments. Without the facts and ideas which are supplied by reading, how meager and spiritless would conversation prove ! In rearing chil- dren, and in the difficult task of making home pleasant and attractive, books form an unfailing resource, and many who now waste life and talent in a round of harassing dissipa- tions or in low vice, might have been both happy and use- ful, if they had early imbibed a taste for good books. It is worthy of consideration, too, that the highest and purest pleasiu'es to be derived from gratifying curiosity, are confined to cultivated minds, which are intent on truth ra- ther than novelty, and which look beyond mere facts and events, to their causes and reasons.* The vague interest times, he at last saw it, and soon discovered that it was nothing but his own shadow cast upon clouds. " When the rising sun," says he, " throws his rays over the Brocken upon the body of a man standing opposite to fleecy clouds, let him fix his eye steadfastly upon them, and in all probability he will see his own shadow ex- tending the length of five or six hundred feet, at the distance of about two miles from him." * " How charming is divine philosophy ! Not harsh and crabbed, as dull fools suppose, But musical as is Apollo's lute, THE SCHOOLMASTER. 99 with vvliicli the ignorant look on the beauties and sublimi- ties of nature — how much inferior is this, to that intelligent and ever-new delight, Avith which the well-informed and cu- rious mind traces these same objects as parts of a great system of law and order, resplendent as well with moral as with material charms. A poet has asked, And a perpetual feast of nectar'd sweets. Where no crude surfeit reigns." Milton's Comus. " It is not the eye that sees the beauties of heaven, nor the ear that hears the sweetness of music, or the glad tidings of a prosperous accident, but the soul that perceives all relishes of sensual and in- tellectual perfections ; and the more noble and excellent the soul is, the greater and more savoury are its perceptions." — Bishop Taylob. " The pleasure and delight of knowledge and learning far surpass- eth all other in nature ; for shall the pleasures of the affections so exceed the pleasures of the senses, as much as the obtaining of de- sire or victory exceedeth a song or a dinner 1 and must not, of con- sequence, the pleasures of the intellect or understanding exceed the pleasures of the affections 1 We see in all other pleasures there is a satiety, and after they be used their verdure dcparteth ; which showeth well they be but deceits of pleasure, and not pleasure, and that it was the novelty which pleased, and not the quality ; and therefore we see that voluptuous men turn friars, and ambitious princes turn melancholy ; but of knowledge there is no satiety, but satisfaction and appetite are ever interchangeable, and therefore appeareth to be good in itself simply, without fallacy or accident. Neither is that pleasure of small efficacy and contentment to the mind of man, which the poet Lucretius describeth elegantly : " ' Suave marl magno, turbantibus aequora ventis,' &c. " ' It is a view of delight,' saith he, ' to stand or walk upon the shore side, and to see a ship tossed with tempest upon the sea, or to be in a fortified tower, and to see two battles join upon a plain. But it is a pleasure incomparable for the mind of man to be settled, landed, and fortified in the certainty of truth, and from thence to descry and behold the errors, perturbations, labours, wanderings up and down of other men' — so always that this prospect be with pity, and noi with swelling or pride." — Lord Bacon. 100 THE SCHOOL AND " Do not all charms fly At the mere touch of cold philosophy ] There was an awful rainbow once in heaven : We know her woof and texture ; she is given In the dull catalogue of conunon things. Philosophy will clip an angel's wings, Conquer all mysteries by rule and line, Einpty the haunted air and gnomed mine. Unweave a rainbow :" Let another poet (Akenside) answer : " Nor ever yet The melting rainbow's vernal tinctured hues To me have shone so pleasing, as when first The hand of science pointed out the path In Avhich the sunbeams, gleaming from the west. Fall on the watery cloud :" So Wordsworth : " My heart leaps up when I behold A rainbow in the sky : So Avas it when my life began, So is it now I am a man, So be it when I shall grow old," &c. To those who imagine that the progi-ess of knowlecVs may be mifavourable to enjoyment, by dispelling ilhisions and mysteries, it may be sufficient to remark, that science dispels one mystery only to encounter another and a high- er one. Whatever pleasure, therefore, can be derived from obscurity, is enjoyed in common by the educated and un- educated ; while the fonner has the additional satisfaction of discovering some of the links in the long chain of causes, and of combining an admiration which reasons and under- stands, with one which can only wonder and adore. I cannot close this branch of the subject without advert- ing to the influence which education has on our usefulness and success in life. The practice of holding up, before the young, the prospect of a vulgar, worldly success as the great motive to study, I have already condemned ; and I want words to express my deep conviction of its dangejf THE SCHOOLMASTER. 101 and folly. But it would be a grievous omission, to over- look, on the other hand, the intimate connexion which does subsist, between knowledge and culture, as cause, and the capacity to act wisely and successfully, as effect. We all know, how perfectly fettered and helpless a man is, in the present state of the world, who cannot read and write ; and yet these mechanical accomplishments are but the means to education, rather than education itself. Educa- tion, properly understood, aims not merely to qualify a man to read and write letters, to look over newspapers, and to keep accounts ; it aims to make him a thoughtful and re- flecting being ; to habituate him* to the systematic applica- *• The effects of a deficiency of education on success in mechan- ical pursuits is strikingly illustrated in the evidence recently given by an intelligent engineer, accustomed to employ many hundred workmen of different nations (Mr. A. G. Escher, of Zurich), before the British Poor-Law Conunissioners. He says, these " effects are most strongly marked in the Italians, who, though with the advan- tage of greater natural capacity than the English, Swiss, Dutch, or Germans, are still of the lowest class of worlmien. Though they comprehend clearly and quickl}', as I have stated, any simple prop- osition made or explanation given to them, and are enabled quickly to execute any kind of work when they have seen it performed once, yet their minds, as I imagine, /rom icant of development by train- ing or school education, seem to have no kind of logic, no power of sys- tematic arrangement, no capacity for collecting any series of observa- tions, and mailing sound inductions from the whole of them. This want of capacity of mental arrangement is shown in their manual operations. An Italian will execute a simple operation with great dexterity ; but when a number of them are put together, all is con- fusion. For instance : within a short time after the introduction of cotton-spinning into Naples in 1830, a native spinner would produce as much as the best English workman ; and yet, up to this time, not one of the Neapolitan operatives is advanced far enough to take the superintendence of a single room, the superintendents being all Northerns, who, though less gifted by nature, have had a higher de- gree of order or arrangement imparted to their minds by a superior education." — See last Report of Poor-Law Commissioners. 12 302 THE SCHOOL AND tion of his powers to the production of useful results ; to render his mind active and enterprising, by storing it with ideas ; and to give him power over the world of mind and matter, by teaching him the laws to which they are subject- ed. In bestowing on all men mind, and then allotting to most of them a life of labour and care, God has plainly taught us, that even the handicraftsman is to work with his intellect and his heart, rather than with his muscles. Ev- ery occupation, even the humblest and simplest, requires skill, &nA. skill requires some training and instruction. Ev- ery occupation may be made more easy, as well as more productive, if the labourer imderstands his own powers, and the properties of the objects with which he deals ; and it will be certain to be more pleasant, too, if his mind is cheered while he is at work with pleasant and profitable thoughts, and with the consciousness that he lives as be- comes an intelligent being. And while education thus tends to make the labourer a more happy as well as a more efficient producer ; to add to his own enjoyments while he is himself adding to the sum of purchaseable enjoyments in the world ; it tends, also, to make him more provident. The ignorant are usually wasteful ;* and when not so, they * Those who have conversed familiarly with the very poor, and especially with the inmates of poorhouses and workhouses, must have discovered the entire absence among them of that ■prudential wisdom which is the result of education. " Out of sixteen paupers," says a late writer, " examined at the Workhouse of the Union in Fa- versham (Eng.), only two had ever saved up so much as ten pounds, notwithstanding that several of them had been in the receipt, for some time, of from twenty to forty shillings a week ! and not one had ever kept any account of receipt and expenditure ! The being merely able to read makes little difference in this respect, for, in the number ex- amined, there were several who could do so. Indeed, the most pru- dent of the two who had saved had received no education. He had been a workman in the powder-mills at Faversham, and out of his wages of thirty shillings a week, had amassed a sum of 200/., which THE SCHOOLMASTER. 103 rarely form those plans of a snug and far-reaching econo- my, which combine present comfort and liberality. Avith a steady increase of wealth. The Chinese have a saying, that " by learning, the sons of the common people become great ; without learning, the sons of the great become mingled with the mass of the peo- ple." This remark is particularly applicable among that people, because, with them, all offices are bestowed accord- ing to talent and literary acquirement ; and there seems to be a settled design, to maintain an aristocracy of learning, instead of one founded on Avealth. But in every civilized country, and especially where there is any great degi-ee of liberty, knowledge and ^nental cultivation form the most cer- tain means of success.* Capital invested in the heart and he afterward lost by the failure of a bank. He bitterly regretted his want of education, which, he said, had prevented his embracing many opportunities that offered of bettering his condition, and com- pelled him to linish a life of industry in the workhouse, instead of occupying a respectable situation in society. Several others com- l.'lained that they had never been taught to look forward to the con- .sequences of their own acts. One man, a shoemaker, about twen- ty-eight years of age, who was in the house with his wife and five children, attributed his poverty and pitiable condition entirely to this cause. When asked if he did not calculate, before marrying so early, his means to support a wife and family, his answer was, ' No, sir — never gave it a thought — never thought of anything. You see, sir, we ain't used to look forward.' " — Sec A Papa; hy F. Liardet, Esq., on the State of the Peasantry iyi the County of Kent (Eng.), in the third volume of the Publications of the Central Society of Education. * On this point I quote again from Mr. Escher. Having been asked whether education would not tend to render workmen discon- tented and disorderly, and thus impair their value as operatives, he answers : " My own experience, and my conveisation with eminent mechanics in different parts of Europe, lead me to an entirely dif- ferent conclusion. In the present state of manufactures, where so much is done by machinery and tools, and so little done by mere brute labour (and that little diminishing), mental superiority, sys- tem, order, punctuality, and good conduct, qualities all developed 104 THE SCHOOL AND head is better than a mere money capital, not simply because it is inalienable, but because it enables its possessor to avail and promoted by education, are becoming of the highest conse- quence. There are now, I consider, few enlightened manufacturers who will dissent from the opinion, that the workshops peopled with the greatest number of educated and well-informed worlcmen, will turn out the greatest quantity of the best work in the best manner." In another place he states that, " as workmen only, the prefer- ence is undoubtedly due to the English ; because, as we find them, they are all trained to special branches, on which they have had comparatively superior training, and have concentred all their thoughts. As men of business or of general usefulness, and as men with M'hora an employer would best like to be surrounded, I should, however, decidedly prefer the Saxons and the Swiss, but more es- pecially the Saxons, because they have had a very careful general education, which has extended their capacities beyond any special employment, and rendered them fit to take up, after a short prepar- ation, any employment to which they may be called. If I have an Enghsh workman engaged in the erection of a steam-engine, he will understand that, and nothing else." In regard to the moral effect of education, his testimony is ex- plicit and worthy of deep consideration : '' The better educated work- men, we find, are distinguished by superior moral habits in every respect. They are discreet in their enjoyments, which are more of a rational and refined kind ; they have a taste for much better society, which they approach respectfully, and, consequently, find much read- ier admittance to it ; they cultivate music, they read, they enjoy the pleasures of scenery, and, consequently, make parties for excursions in the country ; they are, consequently, honest and trustworthy." " The Scotch workmen get on much better on the Continent than the English, which I ascribe chiefly to their better education, which renders it easier for them to adapt themselves to circumstances, and especially in getting on better with their fellow- worlcmen, and with all the people with whom they come in contact." " The Eng- lish workmen are in conduct the most disorderly, debauched, and unruly, and least respectful and trustworthy of any nation whatso- ever which we have employed (and in saying this, I express the ex- perience of every manufacturer on the Continent to whom I have spoken, and especially of the English manufacturers, who make the loudest complaints). These characters of depravity do not apply to THE SCHOOLMASTER. 105 himself of the advantages of any position in which he may happen to be placed. The activity of his mind, the enterprise and forecast with which he forms plans, the readiness with which he avails himself of every opportunity — all will be proportionedjto the degree in which his mind has been de- veloped by culture. I have before me the history of two families — children of brothers, who occupied adjoining farms, and started in life with the same advantages. The one was blessed with an intelligent, high-principled wife, who was fond of books, and was always giving impulse and enlargement to the minds of her children. The wife of the other, though a worthy per- son, was ignorant and without cultivation. The result has been, that the sons of the latter are ordinary men, Avith tor- pid minds, and coarse tastes, though free from vice. The children of the other are full of a generous and useful activ- ity, and are all rising to stations of great respectability and influence. Some part of this diflference may doubtless be ascribed, to differences in the organization and natural en- dowments of these children. But it is believed that, had the same difference obtained in the education of children of the the English workmen who have received an education, but attach to the others in degree in which they are in want of it. "Wlien the uneducated English workmen are released from the bonds of iron discipline in which they have been restrained by their employers in England, and are treated with the urbanity and friendly feeling which the more educated workmen on the Continent expect and re- ceive from their employers, they (the English workmen) completely lose their balance ; they do not understand their position, and, after a certain time, become totally unmanageable and useless. The edu- cated. English workmen in a short time comprehend their position, and adopt an appropriate bchavioiir." The reader will find nmch similar testimony on these points, from various sources, in the same re- port. He is referred especially to the examination of William Fair- bam, Esq., a manufacturer of Manchester. — Sec Report to the Secre- tary of State for the Home Department, on the Training of Pauper Children, London, 1841. 106 THE SCHOOL AND same parents, the result would have presented a conti-asl hardly less striking. Apprehension is often expressed, and no doubt felt, les4 education should inspire a restless and discontented spirit — lest it should make men unhappy, under the toils and obscu- rity which always await the majority in every land. If, in educating people, we teach them, directly or indirectly, that the only use of knowledge is to enable them " to get along," or " to get up in the world," as it is termed ; if, in other words, ev- ery appeal is addressed to a sordid ambition, then, doubtless, such result will not be unlikely to follow. But let it be ob- served here, that there neither is nor can be, in this country, any such prevailing ignorance and nlental torpor as will keep the masses perfectly at rest, after the manner of older coun- tries, or as will prevent them from struggling to better their condition. Such multifarious and multitudinous incitements to activity surround them on every hand — so many examples of individuals rising rapidly from the humblest circumstances to wealth or influence, that they who are looking on, must be agitated with some desire to share in the same success. But whose minds are most likely to be unsettled by these de- sires ? Are they those of the educated, or those of the igno- rant and unreflecting ? Who are most likely to forget, that happiness is to be found, not in any measure of outward suc- cess or distinction, but in riding our own spirits, and in culti- vating a proper sense of our duties and privileges 1 Who is most likely to find, in his regular pursuits, however humble, as well as in his hours of leisure, that full and pleasant oc- cupation for his thoughts and faculties, which will render a feverish excitement from without, unnecessary and undesir- able ? It seems to me, that these questions carry with them their own answer. It can hardly be doubted that, the more fully the mind is stored with knowledge, and with resources of an intellectual and moral nature, the less is it likely to be- come restless or discontented ; that, Avhile education imparts higher and more refined tastes, it imoarts, at the same time. THE SCHOOLMASTER. 107 the means of satisfying those tastes, without strugghng per- petually against the allotments of life, and the claims of oui station. But two causes can interfere with this, the natural order of things. The one may be found in the practice, so mon- strously absurd — would w^e could add, so rare — of teaching that education is useful only so far as it enables its possess- or to rise in the world — as if position were everything, and the soul nothing. The other is, that we restrict the bless- ings of knowledge, and of a taste for reading, to a small por- tion of those who spend their lives in labom- ; and by that means leave them without sympathy among their compan- ions, while we at the same time invest them with a distinc- tion which will not be unlikely to inflame their vanity, and which may' thus render them objects of envy and dislike. "VVe occasionally meet those, whom education does seem to have made unhappy ; because it has brought with it, to their minds, the mistaken notion that knowledge and talent are out of place in an humble sphere or in a life of labom- ; but we must remember, that they owe such unhappiness, not to edu- cation, but to an entire misconception of the end and use of education.* Those who suffer through education, or higher * " Already," says Howitt, in his Rural Life of England, " I know some who, through books, have reaped those blessings of an awaken- ed heart and intellect, too long denied to the hard path of poverty, and which render them not the less sedate, industrious, and provi- dent, but, on the contrary, more so. They have made them, in the humblest stations, the happiest of men ; quickened their sensibili- ties towards their wives and children ; converted the fields, the pla- ces of their daily toil, into places of earnest meditative delight — schools of perpetual observation of God's creative energy and wis- dom. " It was but the other day that the farming man of a neighbouring lady having been pointed out to me as at once remarkably fond of reading and attached to his profession, I entered into conversation with him, and it is long since I experienced such a cordial pleasure as in the contemplation of the character that opened upon me. He 108 THE SCHOOL AND intellectual tastes, merely because they are deprived thereby of the sympathy of their associates, are more rare ; and they was a strong man, not to be distinguished by his dress and appear- ance from those of his class, but having a very intelHgent counte- nance ; and the vigorous, healthful feelings and right views that seemed to fill not only his mind, but his whole frame, spoke volumes for that vast enjoyment and elevation of character which a rightly- directed taste for reading would diffuse among our peasantry. His sound appreciation of those authors he had read — some of our best poets, historians, essayists, and travellers — u^as truly cheering, when contrasted with the miserable and frippery taste which dis- tinguishes a large class of readers." " I found this countryman was a member of our Artisans' Library, and every Saturday evening he walked over to the town to exchange his books. I asked him whether reading did not make him less sat- isfied with his daily work ; his answer deserves univereal attention. ' Before he read, his work was weary to him ; for in the solitary fields, an empty head measured the time out tediously to double its length ; but now, no place was so sweet as the solitary fields ; he had always something pleasant floating across his mind, and the la- bour was delightful, and the day only too short.' Seeing his ardent attachment to the country, I sent him the last edition of the ' Book of the Seasons ;' and I must here give a verhatim et literatim extract from the note in which he acknowledged its receipt, because it not only contains an experimental proof of the falsity of a common alarm on the subject of popular education, but shows at what a little cost much happiness may be conveyed to a poor man. ' Believe me, dear sir, this kind act has made an impression on my heart which time will not easily erase. There are none of your works, in my opinion, more valuable than this. The study of nature is not only the most delightful, but the most elevating. This will be true in every station of life. But how much more- ought the •poor man to prize this study ! which, if prized and pursued as it ought, will ena- ble him to bear, with patient resignation and cheerfulness, the lot by ProAadence assigned him. Oh, sir, I pity the working man who possesses not a taste, for reading. 'Tis true, it may sometimes lead him to neglect the other more important duties of his station ; but his better and more enlightened judgment will soon correct itself in this particular, and will enable him, while he steadily and diligently pursues his private studies, and participates in intellectual enjoy- THE SCHOOLMASTER. 109 all admit that, while this inconvenience may be charged in part to their own indiscretion, in not sufficiently cultivating those associates, it is overbalanced, on the other hand, a thou- sand times, by the inexhaustible fund of pleasure, which they find in books, and in the exercise of their reflective faculties. The remedy for these evils is obvious. In the first place, let all be so far educated, as to awaken a taste for reading and a desire for improvement, and knowledge will then cease to be a distinction, and can no longer make its possessor an object of emy. In the second place, let all be taught that education is given, not that we may buy a short-lived and doubtful success, but that we may have enlightened minds and improved hearts, and be better able to fill with dignity and pleasure the claims of any station, however lowly, and then contentment will prevail just in proportion as instruc- tion becomes more general and more thorough. How much wisdom is there in the following lines of Wordsworth — the most philanthropic as well as the most philosophical poet of our age — Avhose heart and fancy have always been among the poor, and who, at the same time, has looked with more than doubt, on many modern schemes for social improve- ment. He is speaking of the early years of his Wanderer ; " Early had he learned To reverence the volume that displaj's The mystery, the life which cannot die : \^n[iat wonder if his being thus became Sublime and comprehensive ! Low desires, Low thoughts, there had no place ; yet was his heart Lowly ; for he was meek in gratitude, Oft as he called those ecstasies to mind, And whence they flowed ; and from them he acquired Wisdom, which works through patience : hence he learned, In oft-recurring hours of sober thought. To look on nature with an humble heart, ment, to prize as he ought his character as a man, in every relative duty of life.'" K 110 THE SCHOOL AND Self-questioned where it did not understand, And with a superstitious eye of love. So passed the time ; yet to the nearest town He duly went, with what small overplus His earnings might supply, and brought away The book that most had tempted his desires, While at the stall he read. Among the hills, He gazed upon that mighty orb of song, The divine Milton. Lore of different kind, The annual savings of a toilsome life, His schoolmaster supplied ; books that explain The purer elements of truth, involved In lines and numbers, and, by charm severe (Especially perceived where nature droops And feeling is suppressed), preserve the mind Busy in solitude and poverty. In dreams, in study, and in ardent thought, • Thus was he reared ; much wanting to assist The growth of intellect, yet gaining more, And every moral feeling of his soul Strengthened and braced, by breathing in content The keen, the wholesome air of poverty. And drinking from the well of homely life." The Excursion, b. L THE SCHOOLMASTER. IH SECTION vir. THE IMPORTAXCE OF EDUCATION (CONTINUED). n. TO SOCIETY. " Whether a wise state hath any interest nearer heart than the education of youth." — Berkeley's Querist. " WTien the clouds of ignorance are dispelled by the radiance of knowledge, power trembles, but the authority of law remains im- movable." — Beccaria. " Almost all the calamities of man, except the physical evils which are inherent in his nature, are in a great measure to be imputed to erroneous views of religion or bad systems of government, and these cannot be coexistent for any considerable tune with an ex- tensive diffusion of knowledge. Either the freedom of intelligence will destroy the government, or the government will destroy it. Either it will extirpate superstition and enthusiasm, or they will contaminate its purity and prostrate its usefulness. Knowledge is the cause as well as the effect of good government." — De Witt Clinton. Society may be regarded as a partnership. It is an ex tended system of co-operation, in Avliich every individual has a part to perform, and from which, in return for his efforts, each individual receives a greater amount of benefit than he could have attained, had he relied only on his own unaided and solitary exertions. It is the object of civilization or social progress, to increase these advantages, or, in other words, to enable individuals to obtain from society, with a given amount of eflbrt, a greater and greater amount of re- spiting benefit. Now, in regard to limited partnerships, which include but a small number of persons, nothing is more eAddent than that their success, and the success, of course, of each individual member, will be in exact propor- tion to the sagacity, integrity, and diligence with which each applies himself to liis proper duties. If all the part- ners are ignorant, idle, and unprincipled, bankruptcy and 112 THE SCHOOL AND ruin must be the speedy result. If this be the character of some only of the firm, even then, hardly any amount of ef- fort and skill on the part of the remainder will prevent great losses ; whereas, should all devote themselves to business with singleness of purpose, and with intelligence and activ- ity, the result must be great prosperity. The application of these principles to the subject under considaraiioii is ob- vious. Let us consider society, in the first place, as a material partnership, or, in other words, as an association established merely for the production and accumulation of wealth. It is a truth often overlooked, but yet most unquestionable as well as most important, that the richest capitalist and the poorest labourer are joint proprietors in that great co-operative firm, through which, God ordains that man shall procure most of his blessings. A poor emigrant, who has just reached our shores, with no other means than his health and strong sinews, and who has skill but just sufficient to enable him to handle a pickaxe and shovel, is s.et at work in excavating a canal or grading a railroad. He knows nothing of the wealthy proprietor in New-York, who lives in luxury, and who wields his tens and hundreds of thousands in daily op- erations on 'change, and that proprietor knows still less of him. Yet it is no less true that they are partners — joint owners and managers of stock, in the same great company. Every dollar that the capitalist acquires by fair and legiti- mate business, goes to swell the facilities of the labourer, in getting employrnent, and in getting liberal remuneration for his services. It is by him, and others like him, that capi- tal is furnished, not only to construct public hnprovements, but to carry forward private undertakings of a useful and productive character. On the other hand, every blow which the labourer strikes, tends to enrich the capitalist. As he deepens and widens the canal, or grades the railroad, THE SCHOOLMASTER. 113 he contributes to cheapen and to accelerate the transit of those commodities, in which the capitaUst deals, thus en- abling him to extend his operations, and to increase his profits. And these are but examples. Take any two men, however remote from each other, within the limits of the state or of the Union, and no matter how dissimilar their pursuits, nor how unequal their apparent positions, they are still, if engaged in lawful callings, partners, — co-operating for their mutual benefit, and for the common benefit of all their associates, or, in other words, of all their fellow-citizens. Is it not, then, a matter of unspeakable importance, that each one should be qualified to perform his part, in the most effi- cient and useful manner 1 After what we have advanced in previous sections, and especially in the last, it can hardly be necessary to insist that education does contribute most powerfully to render men more efficient both as producers and preservers of prop- erty. If properly conducted, it renders them, in the first place, more trustworthy, and thus multiplies the ways, in which they can be employed with profit to themselves, and with advantage to the community. In the second place, a labourer, whose mind has been disciplined by culture, works more steadily and cheerfully, and, therefore, more product- ively, than one who, when a child, was left to grovel in ig- norance and idleness. In the third place, such a labourer, having both knowledge and habitual activity of mind, is fruitful in expedients to render his exertions more diversi- fied and profitable* And while, in these several ways, ed- ucation contributes to swell the aggi-egate of values, pro- * Since I wrote this chapter, I have read, with great interest, the last report of the Hon. Mr. Mann, as secretary of the Massachu- setts Board of Education. During the last year he directed his at- tention to the relative productiveness of the labour of the unedu- cated, and of those who have had the advantages of a good common- school education ; and he gives the following as the substance of K2 114 THE SCHOOL AND duced in a coinniunity in any given time ; it also secures, in the fourth place,* that these vakies, instead of being the answers which he has obtained from a number of the most in- telhgent manufacturers and business men of New-England. " The result of the investigation is a most astonishing superiority in pro- ductive power on the part of the educated over the uneducated la- bourer. The hand is found to he unuthcr hand when guided by an in- telligent mind. Processes are pertormed, not only more rapidly, but better, when faculties which have been cultivated in early life fur- nish their assistance. Individuals who, without the aid of knowl- edge, would have been condemned to perpetual inferiority of condi- tion, and subjected to all the evils of want and poverty, rise to com- petence and independence by the uplifting power of education. In great establishments, and among large bodies of labouring men, where all services are rated according to their pecuniary value ; where there are no extrinsic circumstances to bind a man down to a fixed condition, after he ha-s shown a capacity to rise above it ; where, indeed, men pass tiy eacn other, ascending or descending, in their grades of labour, iust as easilv and certainly as particles of water of different degrees of temperature glide by each other, there is it found as an almost invariable fact, other things being equal, that those who have been blessed with a good common-school edu- cation rise to a higher and higher point in the kinds of labour per- formed, and also in the rate of wages paid, while the ignorant sink, like dregs, and are always found at the bottom." *" From the accounts which pass through my hands," says M. Escher, "I invariably find that the best educated of our work-people manage to live in the most respectable manner at the least expense, or make their money go the farthest in obtaining comforts. This applies equally to the work-people of all nations that have come un- der my observations ; the Saxons, and the Dutch, and the Swiss, being, however, decidedly the most saving, without stinting them- selves in their comforts or failing in general respectability. With regard to the English, I may say, that the educated workmen are the only ones who save money out of their very large wages. By education, I may say, that I, throughout, mean not merely instruc- tion in the art of reading, writing, and arithmetic, but better general mental development ; the acquisition of better tastes, of mental amusements and enjoyments, which are cheaper, while they are more refined. The most educated of our British workmen is a THE SCHOOLMASTER. 115 wasted througli improvidence and vice, sliall be employed as instruments of reproduction, and thus become perma- nent sources of welfare and happiness. Nor ought we to omit, in this brief enumeration of the material advan- tages of education to society, that it tends both to multiply and to refine our artificial wants ; thus stimulating us, on one hand, to greater exertion in order to satisfy these wants, and shielding us, on the other, from those coarse temptations which tend to make men idlers and sots. Here is a truth which seems all but self-evident, and yet it is one, grievously neglected in the speculations of politi- cal economists, and in the measures of practical statesmen. Writers on Political Economy dwell much, on the importance of enlisting science in the service of industry ; but it is science confined for the most part to physics, and to be stud- ied by the proprietor or superintendent, rather than by the operative. So statesmen, especially in older countries, be- stow much time, and invent many fruitless expedients, in or- der to improve the condition of the working classes, at the very time that the intellectual and moral condition of those classes renders improvement next to impossible. Scotch engineer, a single man, who has a salary of 3/. a week, or 1.50/. a year, of which he spends about the half; he lives in very respectable lodgings ; he is always well-di-essed ; he frequents read- ing-rooms ; he subscribes to a circulating library ; purchases math- ematical instruments, studies German, and has every rational en- joyment. We have an English workman, a single man, of the same standing, and who has the same wages, also a very orderly and so- ber person ; but, as his educaHion does not open to him the resources of mental enjoyment, he spends his evenings and Sundays in wine-houses, because he cannot find other sources of amusement which presup- pose a better education, and he spends his whole pay, or one half more than the other. The extra expenditure of the loorkman of laioer condi- tion, of 751. a yc^r, arises entirely, as far as I can judge, from the in- ferior arrangement, and the comparatively higher cost of the more sen- sual enjoyment in the wine-house.'" — Report of Poor- Law Commis- sioners. 116 THE SCHOOL AND In all these matters we must begin at the beginning. We must remember, that mind forms the chief prerogative of man, and that he can never exercise his proper or most useful agency in any capacity, how^ever humble, unless that mind be cultivated by discipline and enlightened by knovirl- edge. England has neglected the education of her labour- ing population, and the consequence is, that the land swarms with paupers and vagabonds ; New-England, on the con- trary, from the first, made the intellectual and moral instruc- tion of every child a sacred duty, incumbent both on his parents and on the commonwealth ; and what was the re- sult ? " The first years of the residence of the Puritans in America," says Bancroft, " were years of great hardship and affliction ; yet it is an error to suppose that this short season of distress was not promptly followed by abundance and happiness. The people were, from the first, industri- ous, enterprising, and frugal, and affluence followed, of course. When persecution ceased in England, there were already in New-England ' thousands who would not change their place for any other in the world,' and they were tempt- ed in vain with invitations to the Bahama Isles, to Ireland, to Jamaica, to Trinidad." " One might dwell there from year to year, and not see a drunkard, or hear an t)ath, or meet a beggar.* The consequence was universal health, one of the chief elements of public happiness. The aver- age duration of life in New-England, compared Avith Eu- rope, was nearly doubled ; and the human race was so vig- orous, that of all who were born into the world, more than two in ten, full four in nineteen, attained the age of seven- ty ; of those who lived beyond ninety, the proportion," as compared with European tables of longevity, was still more remarkable." — -Sc^aBancroft, vol. i., p. 467. In order to appreciate these material and economical ad- vantages, which education confers on society, we may insti- * New-England's First Fruits, printed 1613. THE SCHOOLMASTER. 117 tute various other comparisons. We may, for instance, compare New-England, with her free-schools and her uni- versal education, moving steadily and rapidly forward in wealth and population, in spite of a steril soil and an ungenial climate, and while destitute of all natural channels for in- land commerce — we may compare her, thus physically crip- pled, with other portions of our Republic to which nature has been more bountiful, but on which the light of general edu- cation has not shined, — and we shall at once perceive that such education is unspeakably more important than a luxu- riant soil, fine climate, or noble rivers. So, if we compare the largest manufacturing town of Eng- land (Manchester) with that which holds a corresponding place in our own country (Lowell) : in Manchester, full one third of all the children between the ages of five and fifteen receive no instruction at all in schools, while a large portion of the remaining two thirds attend schools of the most wretched description.* In Lowell, schools of a high char- * See Reports of the Statistical Society of Manchester on the State of Education. Also vol. i. of the Publications of the Central Society of Education, p. 292, &c. The following extracts will show the condition of many of them. *' Under the head of dame-schools are included all those in which reading and a little sewing are taught. This is the most numerous class of schools, and they are generally in a most deplorable condi- tion. The greater part of them are kept by females, but some by old men, whose only qualification for this eniploj-ment seems to be their unfitness for any other. Neither parents nor teachers seem to consider instruction as the principal object in sending the chil- dren to these .schools ; they, seem to regard them as asylums for mischievous and troublesome children." — " These schools are gen erally found in very dirty, unwholesome rooms, frequently in close, damp cellars, or old, dilapidated garrets." — " More than one half of them are used as dwelling, dormitory, and schoolroom, accommoda- ting, in many cases, families of seven or eight persons. Above forty of them are in cellars." — " Very few of the teachers of dame- schools allow the duties which they owe to their scholars to inter- 118 THE SCHOOL AND acter, supported at the public expense, and under the super- vision of gentlemen of the first respectability, are open to all. Not only are parents anxious to send their children to these schools, but they are constantly urged to do it by the propri- etors themselves, who are convinced that they gain more 'by having their operatives educated than they can lose by hav- ing them absent from the mills, when children, during a por- tion of each year. The results of these opposite systems are such as we might anticipate. The operatives of Manchester are im- provident and immoral ; they are at war with their employ- ers ;* and multitudes of them are on the verge of beggary. The consequence is, that they consume almost as rapidly as they produce. In Lowell, on the other hand, " The factory operatives," to use the language of a late English traveller,! " form a community that commands the respect of the neigh- bourhood, and of all under whose observation they come. A fere with their household occupations." Very few of these schools were found to possess more than fragments of books ; and, in many cases, no books were to be seen, the childrcri depending for their instruc- tion on the chance of some one of them bringing a book, or a -part of one, from home. * " I have uniformly found," says H. Bartlett, Esq., of Lowell, " the better educated, as a class, possessing a higher and better state of • morals, more orderly and respectful in their deportment, and more ready to comply with the wholesome and necessary regulations of an establishment. And in times of agitation, on account of some change in regulations or wages, I have always looked to the most intelligent, best educated, and the most moral for support, and have seldom been disappointed. For, while they are the last to submit to imposition, they reason, and if your requirements are reasonable, they will generally acquiesce, and exert a salutary influence upon their associates. But the ignorant and uneducated I have generally found the most turbulent and troublesome, acting under the impulse of excited passion and jealousy." — See Report of the Secretary of the Massachusetts Board of Education for 1841. t A Visit to the United States in 1841, by Joseph Sturge. THE SCHOOLMASTER. 119 considerable number of the girls are farmers' daughters, and eome hither from the distant states of Vermont and New- Hampshire, &.C., to work for two, three, or four years, when they return to their native hills, dowered with a little capi- tal of their own earnings. No female of an immoral char- acter could remain a week in any of the mills. The super- intendent of the Boott Corporation told me that, during the five and a half years of his superintendence of that factory, employing about nine hundred and fifty young women, he had known of but one case of an illegitimate birth — and the mother was an Irish ' immigrant.' Any male or female em- ployed, who Avas known to be in a state of inebriety, would be at once dismissed." We cannot be surprised to hear that such a community is eminently prosperous. " The average wages, clear of board, amount to about two dollars a week.* Many an aged fa- ther or mother, in the country, is made happy and comfort- able by the self-sacrificing contributions from their affec- tionate and dutiful daughter here. Many an old homestead has been cleared of its encimibrances, and thus saved to the * The average of women's wages in the departments requiring the most skill is $2 50 per week, exclusive of board. The average of wages in the lowest department is $1 25. To show the influence which education has on the earnings of the female operative, one of the directors of the large-st establishment at Springfield (J . K. Mills, Esq., of Boston) states that two thirds of those who are unable to write are employed in the lowest departme?it, and that their wages are lower by 66 per cent, than the wages of an equal number of the better educated class. He also states it " as his behef, that the best cotton-mill in New-England, with such operatives as these, who are unable to WTite their names, would never yield the proprietor a profit ; that the machinery would soon be worn out, and he would be left in a short time" with a population no better than one of six- ty-three persons which they had imported from England, and which, being destitute of education, proved to be unable to earn sufficient to pay for their subsistence. — See Report for 1841 of the Secretary of the Massachusetts Board of Education. 120 THE SCHOOL AND' family, by llicse liberal and honest earnings. Of the depos- itors in the Lowell Institution for Savings, nine hundred and seventy-eight (being about one half of the whole num- ber of depositors) are factory girls, and the amount of their funds now in the bank is estimated, in round numbers, at one hundred thousand dollars, which is about one third of the whole amount on deposite. It is a common thing for one of these girls to have five hundred dollars in deposite, and the only reason why she does not exceed this sum is the fact that the institution pays no interest on any larger sum than this. After reaching this amount, she invests her remaining funds elsewhere." I might easily multiply proofs of this kind ; but I proceed to two most important conclusions which they seem to sug- gest, and which are worthy of deep consideration in this country. The first is, that education affords the most certain and effectual means of developing the industrial resources of a country, and promoting its growth and prosperity. Free- dom is doubtless indispensable to the largest development even of wealth ; but, unless it be combined with the diffu- sion of knowledge among the whole people, and with the refined tastes and orderly habits induced by education, it will often degenerate into vice and idleness, and will em- ploy itself, now in wasting property, and now in obstructing the best means for increasing it. So, again, much may bt accomplished by associations for the encouragement of manufactures and agxiculture, and much, too, by legislation so directed as to foster native enterprise, and protect the la- bour of our own citizens against the overwhelming compe- tition of foreigners. But these expedients are often tran- sient and irregular in their action ; and they also promote, too frequently, a spurious and premature gi'owth in some branches of industry, to the neglect of others equally im- portant. Render the people intelligent, frugal, and indus- THE SCHOOLMASTER. 121 trious, by means of education, and there need, then, be no fear. They will find means to protect themselves. They will be equally ready to apply individual effort, the power of associated action, and the influence of wise and well-di- gested laws. In order to encourage native talent and en- terprise, and promote the amplest development of their re- sources, they will maintain all necessary restraints on freedom, but they will submit to none that are not neces- sary. What is yet more important, the inhabitants of each section of the country will be able to comprehend the ca- pabilities of their own position, and will be impelled to make the most of them.* * " It is a fact of universal notoriety, that the manufacturing pop- ulation of England, as a class, work for half, or less than half, the wages of our own. The cost of machinery there, also, is but about half as much as the cost of the same articles with us ; while our capital, when loaned, produces nearly double the rate of English in- terest. Yet, against these grand adverse circumstances, our man- ufacturers, with a small per centage of tariff, successfully compete with English capitalists in many branches of manufacturing busi- ness. No explanation can be given of this extraordinary fact, which does not take into account the difference of education between the operatives of the two countries." It follows, too, " as a most im- portant and legitimate inference, that it is our wisest policy, as citi- zens — if, indeed, it be not a duty of self-preservation as men — to im- prove the education of our whole people, both in its quantity and quality. I have been told by one of our most careful and successful manufacturers, that on suhstituting, in one of his cotto7i-mills, a better for a poorer class of operatives, he was enabled to add twelve per cent, to the speed of his machinery, without any increase of damage or danger from the acceleration.^' — Report of H. Mann for 1841. To the same effect is the opinion of Mr. Bartlett, of Lowell, from whom I have already quoted. " From my own observation and ex- perience," says he, " I am perfectly satisfied that the owners of man- ufacturing property have a deep pecuniary interest in the education and morals of their help ; and I believe the time is not distant when the truth of this will appear more and more clear. And, as compe- L 122 THE SCHOOL AND I would suggest here, whether, in addition to a good general education, it is not important, at this time, that our youth should receive some special instruction, in the theory and processes of the various useful arts. In other coun- tries, great pains have been taken, for the last twenty years, to instruct young persons, intended for trades, in a knowl- edge of such branches of science and art, as are most near- ly related to those trades ; and also, to give them some ac- quaintance with general technology. Schools of arts and manufactures, agricultural seminaries, and institutions in which the children of the poor may be early trained to hab- its of industry, and to some skill in the rudiments of art, are now rapidly multiplying over Europe. On the Continent, in particular, they are much relied on, as among the most ef- ficient means of developing and perfecting the arts of indus- try, and of thus enabling the several governments to compete successfully with the immense skill and capital which Eng- land has invested in these arts, and by means of which, in connexion with her restrictive policy in trade, she has made herself, until recently, the workshop of the world. The states of Europe are now fast emancipating themselves tition becomes more close, and small circumstanees of more impor- tance in turning the scale in favour of one establishment over an- other, I believe it will be seen that the establishment, other things being equal, which has the best educated and the most moral help, will give the greatest production at the least cost per pound. So confident am I that production is affected by the intellectual and moral character of help, that, whenever a mill or a room should fail to give the proper amount of work, my first inquiry, after that re- specting the condition of the machinery, would be, as to the charac- ter of the heip ; and if the deficiency remained any great length of time, I am sure I should find mani/ who had made their marks on the pay-roll, being unable to write their names ; and I should be great- ly disappointed if I did not, upon inquiry, find a portion of them of u-regular habits and suspicious character." THE SCHOOLMASTER. 123 from this state of dependance, by cultivating their own re- sources ; and in doing this, they place great reliance on the improved education of their people, and especially on such education as will develop the industrial skill and talent which are now required. Is it not of the utmost importance, that a similar policy should be pursued in our own country ? A second conclusion, forced upon us by the views which we have now taken, is, that general education among a peo- ple forms the best preventive of pauperism. This is a dis- ease which, once ingrafted on the state, seems hardly to admit of remedy. It is the very cancer of the body poli- tic, and tends to reproduce and perpetuate itself, in the most insidious and inveterate manner. The only wise or effect- ual expedient, then, is to anticipate, and prevent it. To ward off such indigence as results from mental imbecility, and from those sudden and fearful reverses which Providence sometimes sends to teach us our frailty, is, of course, impos- sible ; but nearly nine tenths of all pauperism actually exist- ing in any country may be traced directly to moral causes, such as improvidence, idleness, intemperance, and a want of moderate energy and enterprise. Now it is hardly necessa- ry to add, that education, if it be imparted to all the rising generation, and be pervaded, also, by the right spirit, will re- move these fruitful sources of indigence. It will make the young provident, industrious, temperate, and frugal ; and with such virtues, aided by intelligence, they can hardly fail, in after life, to gain a comfortable support for them- selves and their families. I have already (p. 102, note) quo- ted one fact which confirms this position, and others, not less impressive and convincing, would be found in every almshouse in the world. Could the paupers of our own state be collected into one group, it would be found, I doubt not, that three out of every four, if not five out of every six, owe their present humiliating position, to some defect or omission in their early training. I annex, in a note, one 124 THE SCHOOL AND statement, which will show, how closely, pauperism and a defective education are related in England.* * The committee of the Central Society has been favoured by a gentleman connected with the Poor-Law Commission, with returns exhibiting the state of education among paupers above the age of sixteen, the inmates of workhouses in the two incorporated hun- dreds and ten unions in the county of Suffolk ; in the three incor- porated hundreds and twelve unions in the county of Norfolk, and the twelve unions in the eastern division of Kent. The number of paupers inchided in these returns is 2725, viz., 1323 men and 1412 women, and the time when the information was collected was June, 1837. Besides the distinction of sexes, the paupers are divided into three classes, viz., able-bodied, temporarily disabled, and old and infirm ; and it is stated, with reference to each class, how many can read in a superior manner, how miany can read decently, and how many imperfectly ; their acquirements in regard to writing are also given with the same gradations ; the number of paupers who can neither read nor write is next stated, and, lastly, the number of each class who had been the inmates of workhouses before the fonuation of the respective unions. The difference observable in these various respects between the paupers of the different counties is not so great as to require their being separately noticed ; and it will, therefore, be sufficient for the present purpose to present the result of the inquiry as though the whole were belonging to the same conununity. Number Number Number Number Number Number Number Number Number of each class in workhouses . who can read superiorly who can read decently . who can read imperfectly who can write superiorly who can write decently who can write imperfectly who can neither read nor write of inmates of workhouses before i Men Women. [ "k >. i = . .a 1 1 li 1 .B u l61 147 1015 508 196 698 6 7 22 26 13 14 49 46 292 149 50 174 14 21 125 106 33 99 1 2 4 4 2 1 21 39 167 43 13 44 12 2a 113 40 30 33 86 62 544 211 95 404 84 90 710 235 129 513 It cannot fail to strike every one who sees these figures, how ex- ceedingly small is the proportion of those persons who, having been so far instructed as to be able to read and write in a superior man- ner, are found to be inmates of the workhouse. Fluency in the art THE SCHOOLMASTER. 125 II. If, again, we consider society as ?i political and moral partnership, intended to protect its members in the enjoy- ment of their rights, and to enlarge their means of happi- ness and improvement we shall find education equally use- ful. Though its ostensible object should only be to im- prove the intellect, it will still be apt to operate benignly on the moral sentiments and habits, and will tend to make its subjects better men and better citizens. By its lessons and tasks it tends to substitute reflection and deliberative effort in place of mere impulse. By its discipline it con- tributes, insensibly, to generate a spirit of subordination to lawful authority, a power of self-control, and a habit of postponing present indulgence to a greater future good ; and, finally, by the knowledge which it communicates, it enlarges a child's conceptions of his true interests, and teaches him that forecast, self-restraint, and a correct moral deportment are indispensable prerequisites to success in life. The same effects must follow, in a much higher de- gree, when intellectual instruction has been combined with proper moral culture. We never expect, in such cases, that men will employ the power which education has given them, in injuring their country by violence or by more insid- ious means ; we expect to find them obedient to the laws, careful of the public welfare, judicious and exemplary in the management of their families, and upright and respectable in all their deportment. If they live under a popular form of government, where they choose their own magistrates, and have a controlling voice in legislation, we expect to find of reading, unaccompanied by proficiency in writing, affords no proof of adequate instruction. It would be more correct to say, that the absence of the latter acquirement is in itself evidence of the uncul- tivated condition of the mind. It will be seen that among the 2725 paupers, included in the foregoing statement, only fourteen, or one in 19.5, could write well; and that if we add to the 1402 persons who can neither read nor write those who can read only imper- fectly, they make up just two thirds. L2 126 THE SCHOOL AND them distiiij^iislied for enlightened attachment to their coim- try, and for the sagacity and honesty with which they ex- ercise their political powers. " It has been observed," says a judicious writer,* " that if the French had been an educated people, many of the atrocities of their revolution would never have happened ; and I believe it. Furious mobs are composed, not of en- lightened, but of unenlightened men ; of men in Avhom the passions are dominant over the judgment, because the judg- ment has not been exercised, and informed, and habituated to direct the conduct. A factious declaimer can much less easily influence a number of men who acquire at schools the rudiments of knowledge, and who have subsequently devo- ted their leisure to a Mechanics' Institute, than a multitude who cannot read or write, and who have never practised rea- soning and considerate thought. And as the education of a people prevents political evils, it effects political good. Do- mestic rulers well Itnow, that Imowledge is inimical to their power. This simple fact is a sufficient reason to a good and wise man to approve knowledge and extend it. The attention to public institutions and public measuies which is inseparable from an educated population, is a great good. We well know, that the human heart is such, that the posses- sion of power is commonly attended with a desire to increase it, even in opposition to the general weal. It is acknowl- edged that a check is needed, and no check is either so ef- ficient or so safe, as that of a watchful and intelligent public mind : so watchful that it is prompt to discover and expose what is amiss ; so intelligent that it is able to form rational judgments respecting the nature and the means of amend- ment.! In all public institutions there exists, and it is happy * Dymond: see Essays on the Principles of Morals, Ess. ii., chap. xiii. t A striking example of this powerful and salutary restraint on arbitrary power is thus noticed by a late traveller • " The victory of THE SCHOOLMASTER. 1^ that there does exist, a sort of vis inertiae which habitually resists change. This, which is beneficial as a general ten- dency, is often injurious from its excess. The state of pub- lic institutions, almost throughout the world, bears sufficient testimony to the truth, that they need alteration and amend- ment faster than they receive it ; that the internal resistance to change is greater than is good for man. Unhappily, the ordinary way in which a people have endeavoured to amend their institutions, has been by some mode of violence. If you ask when a nation acquired a gi-eater degree of freedom, you are referred to some era of revolution, and probably of blood. These are not proper — certainly they are not Chris- tian remedies for the disease. It is becoming an undispu- ted proposition, that no bad institution can permanently stand intellect over the trammels of aristocracy has been powerfully ex- emplified within the space of sixty years, in the Protestant states of Germany. Constitutional governments they may not have secured ; forms of liberty they still want ; but the lethargy and servitude of mind which the olden dynasties had so rigorously cherished, have passed away through the one opening left to the freedom of the German people. They were permitted to read, and they had men to write. Imposts, oppressions, and the whole train of feudal be- quests have fled, one by one, before the minds emancipated and moulded by the newborn literature of the present century. The people have possessed themselves of the records of their ancient glory and independence. Midler, Goethe, and Schiller revived and immortalized the faded memory of foregone greatness, and gave im- perishable impulse to worthier and yet more fruitful influences. The press of Germany has achieved the freedom of more than was ever enslaved. The Prussian government, a nominal oligarchy, is among the most essentially popular of all the governments of Eu- rope. The people do not elect their representatives, but the gov- ernment, nevertheless, faithfully represents the people. They have, therefore, the substance without the outward form of freedom. This must not be attributed to any virtue inherent in irresponsible power. It is because the power of the Prussian government is re- sponsible to an educated opinion, an opinion of which it too thor- oughly partakes not to regard " — Londcm Athenaum, No. 748, p 148. 128 THE SCHOOL AND against the distinct opinion of a people. This opinion is likely to be universal, and to be intelligent only among an enlightened community." If this is everywhere true, it must be pre-eminently so, in a republic. In this country it has become almost a truism, that general education is indispensable, in order to qualify our people, for the discharge of their political and social du- ties. The vast responsibilities with which they are charged, are not to be duly met by means of any instincts, however powerful or generous. God has not given to man, as to the beasts of the field, blind but unerring impulses, which supersede all vigilance and painful effort, and which con- duct him by a path, never to be mistaken, to his true des- tiny. The people of this great Republic, have no more a native and inherent ability to exercise wisely the privilege of voting, than they have to predict Avithout instruction, and yet with unfailing precision, the return of a comet, or the occultation of some bright star in the heavens. All these are powers to be unfolded and enlightened by culture ; and the culture which qualifies a free people for their political duties must be generous and comprehensive, including the moral as well as the intellectual faculties, and aiming to make good citizens by first maldng good and enlightened men. It must be a culture which, though commenced at school and under the guidance of others, shall be subsequently pros- ecuted by the individual himself, and carried forward amid the cares of active life ; and which, if it would fulfil completely its high purposes, must never count itself to have apprehended. Wo to the people with democratic in- stitutions who shall forget or underrate this momentous truth.* * A late eloquent writer on Education in France (Girardin) has touched upon this truth with force : " Tlie best institutions," says he, " where the education of the people is not sufficiently profound and general to develop their principles, are only elements of disturb- ance cast into the bosom of society ; for they create wants which THE SCHOOLMASTER. 129 Already, to the provident and reflecting mind, does Ichabod seem inscribed on that land wliich forgets its own weak- ness, and which does not, with prayer to the God of na- tions, couple general and generous efforts to cultiA^ate mind, and to uphold in its midst the interests of truth and vir- tue. When such a land allows itself to be lulled to sleep by the siren song that the people cannot err, and that they have only to be left without restraint or guidance, in order to develop the greatest perfection of the social state — when this, the cant of demagogues, becomes the real creed of the people themselves, in their homes and their hearts, is it presumptuous to say that such a nation, so deceived and betrayed, must soon, however bright with promise now, be numbered among the republics that have been; that its name, at no distant dav will oe quoted only as a beacon, bv ^he ^lejuaiced to warn against all free institutions, and by the wise to prove the folly and peril of such institutions — when not based on intelligence and virtue.* they cannot satisfy ^aey are lavish of rights and duties ; they weak":, governments, which, by the multiplication of laws, render their execution impossible ; they concentre to excess in a few ar- dent minds those ideas which ought to be imperceptibly absorbed by the whole population. These ideas ferment and explode for want of vent. It is thus that institutions which produce more poivcr than they can usually employ, perish by the excess of that which it be- comes necessary to compress. — The instruction of the people en- dangers absolute governments ; their ignorance, on the contrary, imperils representative governments ; for the parliamentary debates, while they reveal to the masses the extent of their rights, do not wait till they can exercise them with discernment ; and when a people knows its rights, there is but one way to govern — to educate them." * One of the most striking proofs of the aid and support atforded to republican institutions by a good system of popular education, is presented by the democratic cantons of Switzerland. The condi- tion of the people is described by tourists as one of great social com- fort, great equality of condition, and, under all their peculiarities of 130 THE SCHOOL AND The power of education is never displayed more striking- ly, than when it enters some community which has been hitherto deprived of it. Dr. Johnson has somewhere no- soil and climate, as one of singular prosperity. They seem to live like one great family rather than in the distinct relations of classes, demarcated and distanced by degrees of wealth and rank. "This intermixture of classes, however," says a traveller, " is wonderfully divested of the offensive familiarities which would infaUibJy arise from it in less educaled countries. Deferential respect is paid, perhaps, rather to age and moral station than to mere affluence ; but I have seldom witnessed any departure, from a tone and manner of affec- tionate courtesy, on the part of the poorer towards the higher class- es. This may, however, be mainly attributable to the habitual and kindly consideration, shown to the working classes, by their supe- riors. Whether this results from a higher religious sense of the duty of doing to others as we would be done by ; whether from nat- ural kind-heartedness, or whether from a knowledge of the power possessed by each man, merely as a man, in a country where they assemble round the fountain in the market-place, and select their law-makers after their own free choice and judgment, I know not ; but, be it from love or be it from fear, certain is it that a kindly feel- ing is evinced by employers to the employed in Northern Switzer- land, of which few other countries afford an example." After referring to the rapidity with which, owing to their general intelligence, this people overcame their deep repugnance to the in- troduction of cotton-mills and machine power, the same writer pro- ceeds to account for their happy social condition. " Switzerland is clearly indebted to the highly-educated, or, to speak more correctly, to the extensively-educated mind of her people, for her singular prosperity and advancement. Brilliant talents, or any eminent pow- ers of intellect, are very rarely found among the Swiss ; but for sound good sense, and general proficiency in the commoner branches of education, I do not think that there is a people equal to them. A family in one of the villages I visited in the canton of Zurich was pointed out to me as unusually disreputable, and I was cautioned not to take anything I saw there as a sample of the rest. One of the heaviest charges made against the conduct of the master was, that he had been repeatedly warned by the gemeindamman to send two of his children to school, who were turned of eight years old ; that he had proved so refractory that at length the stadtholder had been THE SCHOOLMASTER. 131 ticed the reformation of a parish in a very savage state, by the civilizing influence of a decayed gentlewoman, who infoiined of his conduct, and it was only when he found he was about to be fined that he compHed with the law." The effect of an improved and extended education on the inhab- itants' of Prussia is thus stated by Mr. Wyse, after a tour of jf ersonal inspection in that country : " What is the real social result of all this ! How has it affected the population for good or ill 1 How is it likely to affect them in future 1 The narratives given by Pesta- lozzi, De Fellenberg, Oberlin, and the Pere Girard. of the singular revolution, mental and moral, I may also add, physical, effected by the application of their system of teaching on a hitherto ignorant and vicious population, though admitted to be isolated experiments, ought not the less to be considered evidences of the intrinsic force of the instrument itself, and of its power to produce similar results, wherever and whenever fairly tried, without reference to country or numbers ; that is, whenever applied with the same earnestness, honesty, and skill in other instances as in theirs. And of this por- tion of Prussia — of the Rhenish provinces — it may be surely averred, that it has now been for some time under the influence of this sys- tem, and that during that period, whether resulting from such influ- ence or not, its progress in intelligence, industry, and morality, in the chief elements of virtue and happiness, has been steadOy and strikingly progressive. In few parts of the civilized world is there more marked exemption from all crimes of violence." "The same abstinence from offences against property is conspicuous." " Doubtless much of this most gratifying result may be ascribed to comfort and employment. But this, again, must be ascribed to some still higher cause. There is comfort, because there is frugality ; there is employment, because there is the desire, and search, and love of it. There is industry, incessant, universal, in every class, from high to low, because there are the early habits of useful occu- pation, and there are these habits because there is sound and gen- eral education." " The clergjman admitted that his flock had not become worse Christians for becoming more intelligent men ; the officer, that his men had grown more obedient as they had grown more inistructed : a word now led where a cane formerly was insuf- ficient ; the farmer for the increased profits of his farm, as the man- ufacturer for those of his factory, thanked the school. Skill had in- creased, and conduct had improved with knowledge — profits with 132 THE SCHOOL AND came among them to teach school. It was a subject wor- thy of'liis pen. The world has recently witnessed a sim- ilar transformation, effected, in part, through the same means, by the Pastor Oberlin, on the Mountains of Alsace. No- thing could exceed the poverty, ignorance, and wretchedness which* prevailed among the peasants who composed his parish. The state of education in the principal village may be inferred from the character of their only schoolmaster. Oberlin's predecessor (M. Stouber),a man of like spirit, be- gan his efforts to improve the parish by inquiring into the state of instruction. Asking for the school, he was con- ducted to a miserable hovel, where there were a number of children crowded together, without occupation, and in so wild and noisy a state, that it was with some difficulty he could gain a reply to his inquiries for the master. " There he is," said one of them, as soon as silence could be ob- tained, pointing to a withered old man, who lay on a little bed in one corner of the apartment. " Are you the school- master, my good friend?" inquired Stouber. " Yes, sir." " And what do you teach the children ?" " Nothing, sir." " Nothing ! How is that ?" " Because," replied the old man, with characteristic simplicity, " I know nothing myself." " Why, then, were you instituted schoolmaster?" " Why, sir, I had been taking care of the Waldbach pigs for a great both. Even household management had reaped its advantage when the first vanity and presumption arising out of the partial nature ot instruction had worn off— when it had become general, sound, and appropriate ; the servant, especially the female servant, was not less faithful, and had become far more useful than before." It may not be improper to add, that the education of Prussia fits its subjects for the government under which they live, but wants that spirit of free- dom and self-reliance which would qualify them for a government like ours. The depreciating accounts which some recent travellers, such as Laing, have given of the state of morals in Prussia, is de- clared, by those who have had the best opportunities and the strongest disposition to judge impartially, to be without foundation- THE SCHOOLMASTER. 133 number of. years, and when I got too old and infirm for that employment, they sent me here to take care of the chil- dren !" Under the superintendence of these wise and faithful men, good schools were established ; a liberal course of instruction Avas instituted ; religious influence was carefully and constantly applied ; and the industry and enterprise of the inhabitants fostered by the presence, counsel, and ex- ample of their pastor. The results were delightful, and, to most persons, amazing. In spite of all the physical disad vantages of their position, they became prosperous. Their manners were refined, their tastes elevated, population rap- idly increased, concord reigned among them, and they were alike intelligent and contented. Now the results produced in this humble district, by a wise system of education, have always followed, in other places, just in proportion as such a system has been introduced. Take the countries, in which the instruction of the people has made most progress during the last centur}', and it Avill be found that they are the very countries, in which the social and political condition of the inhabitants has most improved. The average length of hu- man life has materially increased ; there has been a great advance in the wealth and comfort of all classes ; while, at the same time, crime, mendicity, riots, and political tumults have greatly diminished. Indeed, so powerful is education, as a means of national improvement, that, to borrow the language of a late -writer, who has made an extended sur- vey, of the relative state of instruction and social welfare, in the leading nations of the world, " if the different coun- tries of the world be arranged according to the state of edu cation, they will also be found to be arranged, with few ex- ceptions, according to wealth, morals, and general happiness : and not only does this rule hold good, as respects a country taken as a whole, but it will generally apply to the differ- ent parts of the same country. Thus, in England, educa- M 134 THE SCHOOL AND tion is in the best state in the northern agricultural district, and in the worst state in the southern agTicultural district, and the agricultural parts of the midland district ; while in the great towns and other manufacturing places, education is in an intermediate state ; at the same time, the condition of the people, and the extent of crime and violence among them, follow a like order P* I cannot refrain from placing on record one fact, as a farther confirmation of the latter part of this statement. It is derived from a chart, published a few years since in England, by Joseph Bentley, which professes to exhibit the moral condition, of the different counties of England, as compared with their means of education. In parallel col- umns, are placed the population, number of schools, number of libraries, number of literary and scientific institutions, number of places for the sale of intoxicating liquors, and, lastly, the number of criminal convictions within the year. I am well aware that the number of schools in a country is not a certain criterion of the proportion of the children i;n- der instruction, nor of the degree and quality of such in- struction. Still, it affords an approximation to the real state of education, and the best returns on this subject, considered as tests, are but approximations. The result to which I have referred, as gathered from these returns, is most striking ; it is this : If you take the four hest instruct- ed counties of England, as exhibited on this chart, and also the four worst insti'ucted, it will be found that the average amount of crime is almost exactly in the inverse ratio of the average amount of instruction.^ * See National Education, its Present State and Prospects, by Fred. Hill, in 2 vols., London, 1836. t The four best instructed counties in England, according to this table, are : Inhabitants. Inhabitants. Rutland, having 1 school to every 695, and 1 crim'l. conviction per ann. to eveiy 718 Westminster, " " G96, " " " 2201 Cumberland, " " 736, « " " 1101 Middlesex, « " 747, " " « 415 THE SCHOOLMASTER. 135 But, it may be asked, what charm is there about reading and \vTiting, that these should forthwith banish the propensi- ties to crime and vice ? " I am simple enough," says a late writer, " to believe that a man may be utterly ignorant of A B C, and yet be not given to cutting throats ; and wholly un- slvilled in the art of penmanship, and still have no bias in fa- vour of burglary. Nay, it is my deliberate opinion — mad as it may appear in these days of societies for the diffusion of horn-books and propagation of primers — that Mavor is no preventive to murder, nor Vyse any corrective of vice. And I cannot, by any course of reasoning, bring myself to per- ceive that an inability to read must be generally accompani- ed with a like inability to distinguish between right and wrong, as if the question of meum and tuum had more to do with Lindley Murray than morals."* Or an average of One school to every 701 inliabitants, and one criminal conviction to 1108 inhabitants. The four worst instructed counties are : Inhabitants. Inhlbilanls. Northampton, 1 school to every 1757, and 1 crim'l. conviction per ann. to every 601 Dorset, " " 1435, " " " 610 Somerset, " " 1427, " " " 393 Hereford, " " 1366, " " " 596 Or an average of One school to every 1501 inhabitants, and one criminal conviction to 550 inhabitants. * This passage is extracted from a work recently published in England, entitled, What to Teach, and how to Teach it so that the Child may become a wise and good Man. By Henky Mayhew. Part I. — The Cultivation of the Intellect. It contains many valuable suggestions in regard to the nature and end of education, stated, however, witli somewhat too much of flippancy, and with an unne- cessary parade of metaphysical learning. In his zeal to correct the prevalent error of putting reading and writing in place of real edu- cation, the author gravely proposes that we should first teach the pupil science, and then, as the last step, "add a hwivledge of read- ing, so that he may be able to trace the history and progress of it, which is extremely curious and interesting; and of nriting, so that he may be able (should he have it in his power, by any new discov- ery, to increase the general knowledge) to give that discovery to the world. We must recollect that, educationally, writing is the means of educating those who are absent and future; reading, the 136 THE SCHOOL AND It seems hardly necessary to say, that these remarks are entirely irrelevant to the point now under discussion. We have insisted, throughout this volume, that we mean by edu- cation much more than the ability to read and write. We mean something, by which the pupil shall be taught to respect both himself and others ; to find pleasure in the cultivation of his intellectual powers, and to act habitually upon the im- pulse of liis higher sentiments. Why, then, it may be urged, do you insist so much, in your reasoning and statistical sur- veys, upon the proportion of criminals, &c.,who are imable to read and write 1 I answer, because, in treating of the state of education in a country, we must fix upon some index or exponent. Nothing is more indefinite than the term ed- ucation, nor than the thing signified by that term. It is to be presumed, however, in the present state of the world, when the means of education are so abundant, and when they are so easy of access even to the very poor, that children who have not been taught so much as to read and write, nave been neglected in other respects. Such children will be found, in a large proportion of instances, to have been train- ed to no regular occupation nor to any habits of industry, and to have grown up, in truth, without instruction of any kind. In referring, then, so constantly to reading and writing, we use them merely as signs, not as causes, and as negative rather than as positive signs. In other words, while we re- gard ignorance, of these simplest elements of knowledge, as proof that the education of the child has been greatly neg- lected, we do not regard a knowledge of them, as proof that that education has been properly cared for.* In the ab- means of being educated by. those who are absent and past ; and speaking, the means of educating those loJio are present ! /" * It is evident, however, that comparisons made on this princi- ple bear unjustly against education, or, rather, do not bear wilh suf- ficient force in its favour ; since they rank, as educated, many, who, though they can read and write, are yet destitute of the appropriate fruits of a sound and thorough education. THE SCHOOLMASTER. 137 sence of any other criterion, more definite and tangible, we take the best which offers itself ; but we would always in- sist, most strenuously, upon the necessity of aiming, in edu- cation, at something vastly higher. It is of education, in this higher and more real sense, that we always speak through- out this work ; we maintain that it is a controlling power in society ; and we appeal to the fact that, in improving and ex- tending the education of a people, Ave invariably improve their social condition, as proof that this power is benignant, as well as great.* ♦ " It is with grief," says M. Cousin, in his Report on the State of Education in Holland, " that I contemplate the mistaken zeal, the illogical reasoning of certain philanthropists, and even of certain governments, M'ho bestow so much pains upon prisons, and neglect schools : they allow crime to spring up, and vicious habits to take root, by the utter neglect of all moral training, and of all education in children ; and when crime is grown, and is strong and full of life, they attempt to cope with it ; they try to subdue it with the terror of punishment, or to mitigate it, in some degree, by gentleness and kindness. After having exhausted all their resources both of thought and of money, they are astonished to find that their efforts are vain ; and why ? because all they do is in direct opposition to common sense. To correct is very important, but to prevent is far more so. The seeds of morality and piety must be early sown in the heart of the child, in order that they may be found again, and be made to shoot forth in the breast of the man whom adverse circumstances may have brought under the avenging hand of the law. To edu- cate the people, is the necessary foundation of all good prison disci- pline. It is not the purpose of a penitentiary to change monsters into men, but to revive, in the breasts of those who have gone astray, the principles which were taught and inculcated to them in their youth, and which they acknowledged and carried into practice in former days, in schools of their infancy, before passion, and wretch- edness, and bad example, and the evil chances of life, had hurried them away from the faths of rectitude. To correct, we must ex- cite remorse and awaken the voice of conscience '; but how can we recall a sound that has never been heard ! How are we to revive a language that had never been taught ] I approve of, nay, I bless . Avith my whole heart, every kind of penitentiary ; but I conBidei M2 138 THE SCHOOL AND It is alleged, however, that, notwithstanding the progress of education, crime and immorality increase. If the present be compared with any distant era of history, even the most brilliant, it will be found that the very reverse is true. In the reign of Elizabeth, for instance, of which Hume boasts that " learning had not then prostituted itself by becoming too common," England was covered with gipsies and ban- ditti, and every year, there were from three to four hundred executions for capital crimes. In Scotland, before the pa- rochial schools were established, and education made univer- sal, two hundred thousand vagrants, according to Fletcher of Saltoim, roamed over the land, living by pillage and beg- gary, and having " no regard or subjection either to the laws of the land, or even to those of God and Nature." What a change has since been wrought ! and who can doubt that, in producing it, education has been a most powerful, though certainly not the only cause ? It is not to be forgotten, that the causes which affect social welfare are various, and hence crime may for awhile increase, and civilization decline, even though education does advance ; not, however, because education is powerless, but because its influence is, for the time, overborne or counteracted by other agencies. Is it a truth, however, that crime and immorality do in- crease 1 Let us consider this question for a moment with regard to our own state ; and that we may limit the inqui- ry, let us speak only of crime in the technical or judicial sense. I remark, then. First, That, so far as our own state is concerned, the re- turns of criminal convictions, annually made to the office of the secretary of state, show that the increase of crimes of that they must forever remain ahnost fruitless, unless their power to reclaim is made to rest upon the effect of schools for the people universally established, attendance upon which is obligatory, and where instruction is considered as only one of the means of educa- tion." THE SCHOOLMASTER. 139 every description, within the last ten years, is not greater than the increase of population, even on the supposition, by no means probable, that the returns M^ere as full and com- plete, when first required, ton years since, as they arc at present.* Secondly, This increase of crime would have been much less, but for the unusual influx of foreigners within the last few years. Dr. Julius states, as the result of a laborious examination of all the principal prisons of the United States, that about otie third of the convicts are foreigners. The re- turns of this state show that, with us, the proportion is even larger, being in some years nearly one half. Thirdly, Before this increase of crime could, under any circumstances, be ascribed with plausibility to an increase of education, for this is gravely maintained by some per- sons, it would be necessary to show that those offences have multiplied fastest which, in their conception and prep- aration, require the greatest knowledge and forethought. The facts, however, are remarkably the reverse. In this state, as appears by a late annual report (for 1840) of the secretary of state on criminal convictions, the crimes of forgery, perjury, burglary, &c., which imply skill and knowledge, have been diminishing, while those which are the usual concomitants of ignorance and , mental debase- ment have increased. To the same effect is the experi- ence of other states. Says the chaplain of the Connecticut State Prison, in a late report, " that knowledge is not very frequently used as an instrument in the commission of crime, may be presumed from the fact that, of the 66 committed to this prison last year, the crimes of only four were of such * It ought to be considered, also, that in proportion as the detec- tion and punishment of offences is facihtated by an improved police, and by a better state of public morals, in that proportion criminal arrests and convictions may become more numerous, though crime itself is decreasing. 140 THE SCHOOL AND a nature as to require for their commission ability either to read or write." The directors of the Ohio Penitentiary- state that " it is an erroneous impression that the convicts are inteUigent, shrewd men, whose minds have been per- verted to vice, rather than blunderers into low and vicious habits, and vdtimately into the commission of crime, from idleness, ignorance, and opacity of mental vision. It will be seen that nearly the whole number of convicts are be- low mediocrity in point of information ; and, indeed, our in- quiries and observations have long since fully satisfied us that, not only in our own prison, but in others which we have visited or inquired after, depraved appetites and cor- rupt habits, which have led to the commission of crime, are usually found with the ignorant, uninformed, and duller part of mankind. Of the 276, nearly all below mediocri- iry, 175 are grossly ignorant, and in point of education scarcely capable of transacting the ordinary business of life." Is it not a question for grave reflection, how far so- ciety, after thus suffering individuals to grow up in igno- rance and incapacity, retains, in respect to them, the right of inflicting punishment 1* FGurthly, To show, however, still more clearly that edu- cation, instead of being responsible for any portion of this increase of crime, is directly and greatly calculated to ar- * It has been said, that, though ignorance and want of education are concomitanls of crime, they are not the causes of it, but are only effects, conjointly with crime, of some other cause or causes, such as poverty. I reply that, though the proximate cause of some crimes is poverty, the ultimate cause, even in such cases, is generally the want of a good education. Poverty itself, as we have already shown, may, in most instances, be attributed, in this country, to a neglect- ed or eiToneous education ; and, moreover, it is not true, that our criminals are generally from among the sufTering poor. Their crimes have, in most cases, resulted from idleness and vice ; and these, as all knoAv, are the ofleot usually of bad training in childhood and youth. THE SCHOOLMASTER. 141 rest it, I would place in juxtaposition, and ask attention to two facts, which seem to me alike conclusive and stri- king. I. It appears by the late census, that there are but 43,000 white adults in this state, who are unable to read and write. If to this number, Ave add one half of the whole coloured population of the state as sufl'ering from a like inability, and make a large allowance for children old enough to commit crime, yet without education, we shall get a total of about 83,000 ; i. e., about aV^h of the whole population of the state, who cannot read and write. If, then, education has no tendency to diminish crime, so that a person, after having enjoyed its advantages, is as likely to commit crime as the ignorant, we should expect, on examining the records of our courts and prisons, to find the same proportion be- tween the instructed and uninstructed among the convicts, as among the whole population. In other words, we should expect to find 28 convicts able to read and write to every one unable to do so. Now what is the fact? II. If we take the whole number of convictions in this state for the last two years, in courts of record and at spe- cial sessions, we find not 1 in 29 who is unable to read, but 1 in 2 ; showing that the tendency to crime among the ignorant is fourteen and a half times greater than it ought to be, on the supposition that education has no tendency to diminish crime. An examination of the Auburn prison, made something more than a year ago, gave, out of 244 prisoners, but 59 who could read well, and but 39 who could read and write. In the New Penitentiary of Philadelphia, out of 217 pris- oners received during the year 1835, but 85 could read and write, and most of these could do either the one or the other in but a very imperfect manner. Facts of this kind might be adduced to almost any extent. By showing that the proportion of imeducated convicts is much greater than 142 THE SCHOOL AND that of uneducated inhabitants, they seem to me to demon- strate that ignorance is one of the great highways to crime, and that, in proportion as men are left without instruction, in that proportion they are hkely to become convicts. In dismissing this subject, I ought, perhaps, to refer to a statement, made a few years since by a distinguished French writer (M. Guerry), which seems to militate seriously against the views here taken, and which is frequently adduced, as proof that education is powerless in preventing, if it be not efficient in producing crime. It was alleged by M. Gueny, after an elaborate survey of the " moral statistics" of France, that there was more crime in the best instructed than in the worst instructed provinces of the kingdom. Admitting the fact to be as stated, and admitting, also, that education was the cause of this increase of crime, it must be obvious to every one bestowing a moment's reflection on the subject, that the true explanation is to be found in the absence, un - til recently, from French systems of instruction, of a moral and religious spirit. It has been ascertained, however, on a more thorough ex- amination, that it did not hold, as a general fact, that crime was more prevalent in the better instructed provinces ; and, moreover, that, if such vt^ere the fact, it was susceptible of demonstration that education was not to be held responsible for it. From a paper read a few years since before the Sta- tistical Society of London, by G. R. Porter, Esq., it appears that the conclusions of M. Guerry were based upon the re- turns of a single year, whereas five years taken in succession would furnish a result entirely difl^erent. The returns for the five years ending 1833 show, that the annual average number of criminals was nearly ten per cent, greater in the least instructed, than it was in the most instructed depart- ments ; and it so happens that the year (1831) taken by M. Guerry for examination, was the only one of the five, in which the excess of criminals was not arranged on the THE .SCHOOLMASTER. 143 side of the least instructed departments. It is farther to be considered — and this, indeed, is the all-essential point — that an excess of crime, in the best instructed provinces in 1831, proves nothing against education, unless it can be shown, that the criminals themselves were educated. But it turns out, on examination, that |ths of the whole number were un- able to read and write well, and that the proportion of igno- rant criminals, as compared with the whole number of nnin- structed inhabitants, was even greater in the more enlighten- ed provinces than elsewhere. The reason for the latter fact probably is, that where education is pretty generally imparted, the wholly ignorant find themselves more embar- rassed in obtaining employment, and hence are more likely to betake themselves to lawless courses.* * It is usual now, in the criminal statistics of France and England, to divide the persons accused or convicted into four classes, as it respects their education. The 1st class is composed of those who are unable to read and write. 2. Able to read and write imperfect- ly, '.i. Able to read and write well. 4. Superiorly instructed. In France, during seven years, the proportion borne by the well edu- cated to the other three classes of the accused was, on an average, 227 to 9773. In Scotland and England, where the proportionate number of well-educated persons must be much greater than it is in France, the proportion of the accused of that character was (in 1836) considerably less. In Scotland it was but 188 to 9812, while in England it v.'as no more than 91 to 9909. The following table is worthy of inspection : Unable to read and write . . . . Able to read and write imperfectly . Able to read and write well . . . En«hnd and Wales. Scotland. 0. accused. ''•"'=°"=«™»i' N'o. accused. CenlMimal priporMon. propnrlion. 7,033 33.52 539 18.45 10.9.->3 52.33 1427 48.84 2,215 10.56 489 16.73 191 0.91 55 1.88 502 2.68 412 14.10 20,984 100.00 2922 100.00 Superiorly instructed Degree of instruction not ascertained Of the 55 educated persons, accused in Scotland, 41 were convict- ed, viz. : 15 for common assaults, 15 for simple thefts, 2 for frauds, 3 for forgery, 1 for subornation of perjury, 2 for house breaking, 1 for a nameless offence, 2 for other slight offences. It is obvious that in- temperance must have occasioned a large proportion of these 144 THE SCHOOL AND We have thus shown that education, even in its present state, though so imperfect, so wanting in a lofty moral aim, and so destitute of a truly intellectual spirit, still does much to diminish crime, and to promote the social well-being of communities and nations. How much more would this be the case, if all young persons enjoyed such training and in- struction as might be bestowed, and such as we are bound to claim and struggle after in their behalf. Throughout this and the preceding section, I have assumed that the education of a whole people is practicable. It would be worse than mockery, to unfold and dwell on the vast impor- tance of the education of the masses, if it be a blessing be- yond their reach, or beyond the reach of most of them. That a good moral and industrial training might be enjoyed by all, in a well-ordered state of society, will probably be ad- mitted ; but it is not so generally conceded, that we can be- stow on all, knowledge, and the blessings of an active, culti- vated mind. It must not be forgotten, says De Tocqueville, that a great majority, in every civilized country, must spend their lives in manual labour j and that, in their case, no high degree of culture can be expected. It seems to me, how- ever, that this remark is founded on a great, though very prevalent misconception in regard to the nature and effects of manual labour. It was for ages supposed that its tenden- crimes ; for example, the assaults. The punishments awarded were as follows : Tried and discharged 11 Imprisoned one month and under ... 8 " above 1 and not exceeding 2 months 8 "3 '< « 6 " . 5 " 6 " «' 12 " . 3 Outlawed . 2 Transported for 7 years 1 " 14 years 1 life 2 Total 41 THE SCHOOLMASTER. 145 cy and efiect must be, to deaden and debase the powers of the soul. The rudeness and ignorance which abounded among the Avorking-chisses, and which ought to have been ascribed to the neglect or oppression of their superiors, were, by a strange perversion, attributed to their occupa- tions ; and tliis, too, in the face of the undeniable fact, that those classes were, over all Europe, forcing their way upward in the scale of intelligence and political power, in spite of the most strenuous and formidable opposition ; and in face, too, of the fact, now so obvious, that they owed their increasing intelligence and consideration, in a great measure, to their industry. It has been assumed, also, that a labour- ing man has no time for mental culture, and that it is pre- posterous to expect, that reading and thinking beings can be made out of those wlio&e lives are doomed to unceasing toil. The answer to these objections is, first, that labour has no tendency, to debase and deaden the intellect. To think so, is to impeach the wisdom and goodness of that Being who has made labour our great duty. It is to overlook the fact, that no labour is so humble or so circumscribed, but that knowledge and mental culture will assist the workman to perform it cheerfully, and will also enable him to make it more productive to himself, and more useful to others. It is to forget, too, that no one is condemned by Providence to one dull round of toil ; that it is the right and duty of every one to seek, if he be duly qualified, a less laborious or a more intellectual employment, and that it is education alone which can thus prepare him, to var}^ his condition. If the labouring population were educated, as thoroughly as their situation admits, and were made provident, we should no longer hear of multitudes being obliged to spend their whole lives in heading nails, or pointing pins. It is also worthy of consideration, that most kinds of manual labour require some degree of thought and intelligence, thus con- N 146 THE SCHOOL AND tributing to improve the mind ; and that there are many moments, even when most busy, that the workman can de- vote his mind to reflection on the contents of the books he has read, or to those excursions of a healthy and well-reg- ulated imagination, which tend to strengthen the under- standing and to improve the heart. But, secondly, is it true that a life of labour aflbrds no time for reading and self-culture ? I can hardly conceive of any occupation so incessant or toilsome that it would not afford two or three hours in a week, besides many " odd ends of time," to be appropriated to books and lectures. Add to these, the time which God has especially conse- crated to the improvement of the mind in knowledge as well as virtue — the Christian Sabbath. Add, also, the op- portunities for improving thought, and for instructive con- versation, which the labourer has when at work,* and it becomes evident, that no inconsiderable part of the time of the most industrious may be spent in gaining knowledge and wisdom. It can be deemed no exaggeration, if we maintain that, in addition to days of sacred rest, which form one seventh part of life, there are other seasons of leisure which may be given to mental culture, sufficient to form, * " Where workmen are employed in the same apartment, and there is nothing noisy in the work, one may always read while the others are employed. If there are twenty-four men together, this arrangement would only require each man to make one extra day in four weeks, supposing the reading to go on the whole day, which it would not ; but a boy or a girl might be engaged to perform the task at an expense so trifling as not to be felt. This expedient, too, it may be observed, would save money as well as time ; one copy of a book, and that borrowed for the purpose, or obtained from a reading society or circulating library, would suffice for a number of persons. I may add, that great help would be given by the better- informed and more apt learners to such as are slower of apprehen- sion and more ignorant ; and discussion (under proper regulations) would be of singular use to all, even the most forward proficients." — Lord !Rbough.\m. THE SCHOOLMASTER. 147 with those days, a portion of hfe not less tlian one sixth, and in many cases, not less than one fourth of the whole. " I begin," says Lord Brougham, at the opening of a pamphlet, published several years since, on Popular Edu- cation, " by assuming that there is no class of the commu- nity so entirely occupied with labour as not to have aa hour or two, every other day at least, to bestow upon the pleasure and improvement to be derived from reading, or so poor as not to have the means of contributing something towards purchasing this gratification ; the enjoyment of which, besides the present amusement, is the surest way both to raise our character and belter our condition." CONCLUSION. I have thus dwelt at great length upon the nature, objects, and uses of Education. It may be thought, that on these subjects, so protracted a discussion was unnecessary, since they are already well understood, and thoroughly appreci- ated, in this coimtry. But is it so ? Our people have ab- solute control over the whole subject of education, not only as it respects their own families, but, to a great extent, in schools and seminaries of learning. If, then, the people were fully awake, to its importance and true nature, we should soon have a perfect system, and we should witness results from it, for which we now look in vain. Here, in truth, is the great desideratum. We all com- plain that our schools are defective, our teachers imperfect- ly qualified, and the training which our children receive, both at home and at school, wanting, in some of the first elements of a good education. Why is this ? Why do not the people demand, and compel an immediate change ? Why are so many instructers allowed to occupy places for which they are incompetent, and to return our children to us, after months, or even years, of attendance at school, without any generous improvement in mind or manners ^ 148 THE SCHOOL AND Why is it so difficult to gain a liberal and prompt support for efforts that are made to extend, and, above all, to per- fect education ? And why are these efforts, when they are sustained, so often leavened by a sordid spirit, or by a total misconception of what education ought to do for youth ? Is it not because, as a people, we do not, after all, appreciate as we ought the inestimable importance of " a right virtuous and noble education ?" Is it not because, we misapprehend the ends to be answered by it, as well as the best means for attaining those ends ? How few of us look upon education, as that which is to rear our children to high mental and moral excellence, and inspire ttem with an ambition above this world ; an ambition to perform, with unfailing and un- faltering fidelity, the humblest as well as the most exalted duties ! How few of us rank such an education, higher in our esteem, than all worldly wealth or distinction, and feel that, in bestowing it, we give to our children the richest in- heritance, the noblest and most enviable patrimony ! How few apprehend, clearly, the uses to which a good education ought to be applied, or entertain views, sufficiently large and liberal, of the spirit of self-ciiltm'e which it ought to in- spire and cherish ! I cannot, in closing this chapter, do better, perhaps, than recapitulate the leading principles Avhich I have developed, and ask the reader, as he reviews them, to inquire how far they have hitherto been appreciated, and acted upon by him- self. Let liim consider, that our efforts to train up 0(u- -chil- dren in' the way that they should go must be misdirected, and, therefore, be in part or wholly fruitless, unless we un- derstand well the end and object of education. Let him consider, too, that errors on this subject are exceedingly prevalent, and that, even when they do not infect our own minds, they are very apt to reach and taint our children, and that special eflbrts are ne Moral Education, to harmonize the contending impulses of our nature, and subject all to conscience and the moral law. jEsthetical Education, to refine the taste, regulate and exalt the imagination, and render both subservient, to ener- gy of action, and purity of purpose. Physical Education, to perfect the delicacy of the sen- ses, establish vigorous health, and fonn habits and impart knowledge calculated to preserve that health. SEC. II. PREVAILING ERRORS IN REGARD TO EDUCATION. To correct these, and form clear notions of the nature and end of education, is the first and most essential step to- wards improvement. These errors are : 1. The notion, that education is comprehended in certain scholastic acquirements. 2. That it consists in knowledge. 3. Cultivating the intellect to the neglect of the heart, or the heart to the neglect of the intellect. 4. Overlooking the necessity of good example, and the power of bad. 5. Overlooking the proper culture of taste and imagina- tion. 6. Disregarding the danger of a premature development of intellect, at the expense of health. 7. Forgetting, how manifold are the causes, which tend to form character, or give " heart to a nation." 8. ■ Not adapting itself, sufficiently, to the different char- acters and circumstances of children, nor to peculiarities of age and sex. 9. Making a too free use of stimulants. 10. Not attaching sufficient importance, to intellectual and moral iharaUT, and too rr.wcli to s-uoi^s^. THE SCHOOLMASTER, 151 11. In not having sufficient reference to the future pur- suits and condition of children. SEC. V. THE EDUCATION NEEDED BY THE AMERICAN PEOPLL. 1. Moral and religious, as a means of cultivating habits of self-control, and of obedience to lawful authority. 2. Thorough intellectual culture, in order to promote hab- its of inquiry, and of deliberating before we act ; and also to render us more tolerant of opinions differing from our own. 3. Industrial training, as a security against the tempta- tions of idleness, as affording useful discipline .to the mind and feelings, as promoting habits of order and regular- ity, as favourable to health, and as a pledge of interest in the common welfare. 4. A more elegant and humanizing culture, as, 1. A se- curity against sensual indulgence. 2. A resource in leisure. 3. An innocent and healthy source of enjoyment. 4. Im- proving manners. 5. Strengthening virtuous principles and feelings. The education now bestowed on the mass of the Ameri- can people does not answer this description. SEC. VI. IMPORTANCE OF EDUCATION. I. To the Individual. Education of some kind is unavoidable. We must choose, therefore, between the casual education of circumstances, which is bad, and the formal tuition of teachers and parents, which may, and should be, good. 1. The uneducated are sensual, and, therefore, selfish and cruel. 2. They are the victims of groundless hopes and fears ; therefore credulous, superstitious, and unhappy. 3. They are prejudiced ; therefore averse to new truths, and unable to appreciate them 152 THE SCHOOL AND 4. They are deprived of the personal and domestic re» sources enjoyed by all who love books. 5. They do not enjoy the emotions even of surprise, wonder, or adoration, as highly as those, who inquire and reason. 6. They are unfitted for the more profitable and honour- able employments of life. 7. They are less likely to be satisfied with their station in life, and with the labours and cares to which they are subjected. SEC. VII. IMPORTANCE OF EDUCATION. II. To Society, Society is a partnership, and may be considered, first, aa a material partnership ; second, as s. political and social one, I.Asa material partnership, engaged in producing and distributing wealth, it is benefited by education, because, (a) Education makes men more industrious ; {h) more trustworthy ; (c) more active and systematic ; [d) more cheerful ; (e) more far-sighted ; (/) more economical, as producers and preservers of property. By neglecting these truths, England has suffered. By observing them, New-England has greatly prospered. Cor. It follows : 1 . That education affords the most cer- tain means of developing the industrial resources of a country, and promoting its growth and prosperity. 2. That general education is the best preventive of pauperism, 2. As a political and moral partnership, society is bene- fited by education, because, {a) It tends to make a people more orderly, and to sub- stitute reflection for passion ; (b) to predispose them to re- spect lawful authority ; (c) to indispose them to submit to oppression ; (J) to render political revolutions gradual and bloodless ; (e) to qualify men for the ex