THE LIBRARY 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES
 
 ( 
 
 SOUTHERN BRANCH, 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, 
 
 LIBRARY, 
 i-OS ANGELES, 8AUg
 
 LECTURES, 
 
 ANNUAL REPORTS, 
 
 EDUCATION. 
 
 BY 
 
 HOR4QJE jMANN. 
 
 CAMBRIDGE: 
 PUBLISHED FOR THE EDITOR. 
 
 1867.
 
 Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 18<5f>, 
 
 BY MRS. MARY MANN, 
 In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts. 
 
 STEREOTYPED AND PRINTED BT 
 SEO. C. BAND t AVERT, 3 COBNIIIt.L, BOSTON.
 
 TO 
 HIS EXCELLENCY 
 
 GEORGE N. BRIGGS, 
 
 GOVERNOR OF THE COMMONWEALTH OF MASSACHUSETTS, AND EX-OFFICIO 
 
 Chairman of the IBoarir of (^buratiott, 
 
 Q o <^? 
 
 AND TO THE OTHER MEMBERS OF SAID BOARD, 
 THIS VOLUME, PREPARED AT THEIR REQUEST, 
 
 IS GRATEFULLY DEDICATED, 
 BT 
 
 THE AUTHOR.
 
 EDITOR'S PREFACE. 
 
 IN preparing the present volumes of Mr. Mann's 
 works for republication, I have gone back to his 
 very first expositions of the deficiencies in the 
 administration of our common-school system, not 
 only because it is a matter of historical interest to 
 note the commencements of the reform in which 
 he was so actively engaged for twelve years, but 
 because, on looking into the present condition of 
 the schools, even in Massachusetts, in towns not 
 twenty miles from Boston, the same defects may 
 be observed in many cases, and in many respects, 
 which at first attracted his attention. 
 
 Schoolhouses, as well as churches, are still 
 erected without the proper means of ventilation ; 
 seats are still arranged without reference to the 
 eye-sight of the children ; examinations of school- 
 teachers, by School Committees, are still very im- 
 perfectly conducted, thus entailing upon schools 
 teachers who are deficient either in knowledge, or 
 in the power of governing upon right principles ; 
 and no amount of knowledge in a teacher is of 
 much avail where a deficiency in this power exists. 
 In reading ever Mr. Mann's exhortations upon
 
 ri EDITOR'S PREFACE. 
 
 these points, one is amazed to find how little head- 
 way has been made ; for these evils are still exist- 
 ent in schools ; and we would commend these Lec- 
 tures and Reports to every citizen who may be 
 eligible to selection as a School-Committee-man. 
 
 In re-organizing the Southern portion of our 
 country, they will prove invaluable guides. And 
 the government of still another country, sister 
 Republics on the other side of the equator, are. 
 subscribing largely for these works of Mr. Mann, 
 by whose help they hope to give vitality and effi- 
 ciency to the common-school system, which they 
 have already adopted on the model of our own. 
 
 It is not denied that common-school education, 
 public, democratic school education, is held in very 
 different and much higher estimation than at the 
 time when the Massachusetts Board of Education 
 and the Normal Schools were inaugurated ; but 
 few persons who are intimately acquainted with 
 the subject will deny that the tone of the schools 
 is still far below what our advanced condition of 
 prosperity and science demands. A suggestion 
 of reform in Harvard University has of late been 
 made by one of the most distinguished and 
 thoughtful of its sons, one who will not be accused 
 of any visionary schemes, but who is so far conser- 
 vative as to be eminently just all round. He ad- 
 mits the necessity, when Harvard shall be changed 
 from a High School to a University, of an ex- 
 tended course of instruction in schools ; where the
 
 EDITOR'S PREFACE. vii 
 
 studies are now, taking schools on an average, so 
 limited in their scope, that they do not answer the 
 purpose of a preparatory school for the colleges, 
 so that private instruction is much sought for this 
 end. When the principle of the "Kindergarten" 
 shall be fully adopted in the primary schools, so 
 that children may be put in possession of all their 
 faculties, besides being taught to read, to write, 
 and to count (which is now all that is truly effected 
 in primary schools, unless individual teachers hap- 
 pen to have a natural vocation for their office, and 
 instinctively supply craving little souls with some 
 of the nourishment adapted to their susceptible 
 age), and when the finest minds and the highest 
 training and preparation shall be considered indis- 
 pensable for teachers of schools of every grade, 
 and are commanded by proper rates of compen- 
 sation, our educational measures may be said to 
 have taken a second step. It may still be said 
 here, as has been said of late in South America by 
 a distinguished educationist, that more appropria- 
 tions are made for railroads than for education. It 
 is true that railroads and schools help one another 
 forward. When railroads penetrate every great 
 section of this immense country, other things 
 follow in regular order ; but statistics will show 
 that education does not take the lead yet, as it 
 ought to do. The laying of railroads seems to 
 create population, not merely to set it in motion. 
 The next thing to be done, surely, is to train this
 
 viii EDITOR'S PREFACE. 
 
 increased population in the way it should go. The 
 present anomalous condition of our country en- 
 forces this argument. We are still in danger of 
 being led by might rather than right, and there is 
 no remedy for this but in the increased intelligence 
 of the people. 
 
 It is interesting to see that the colored people, 
 whose distinguishing trait at the present time 
 seems to be their desire for knowledge, are taking* 
 the schools into their hands in regions where they 
 predominate in numbers over the white popula- 
 tion. They are forming School Committees among 
 themselves, and colored teachers are pressing for- 
 ward more and more to take the places of the 
 white ones who have so eagerly taken up the 
 cause of their neglected education. The force 
 with which the emancipated slaves, and even the 
 free colored population of the South, have been 
 deprived of education, is undoubtedly the main- 
 spring of that wonderful rebound, which has never 
 known a parallel in the world's history, the 
 rebound of a wholly oppressed and degraded 
 people to free themselves suddenly from the 
 trammels of ignorance. They feel, instinctively, 
 that knowledge is power ; and that instinct must 
 serve them until the pleasures of knowledge, for 
 its own sake, can take the place of it. It is 
 devoutly to be hoped, that they may have such 
 furtherance from others as will insure their being 
 enabled to taste these pleasures; because that
 
 EDITOR'S PREFACE. ix 
 
 result alone will carry them through the hard 
 paths they are destined to travel in pursuit of the 
 object which they so ardently desire, an equality 
 of social condition with the whites. No accumu- 
 lation of worldly riches, nothing but education, 
 can ever give it to them. And there is no doubt 
 that every obstacle will be thrown in their way, 
 for generations to come, to bar their entrance into 
 that heaven. Their unsurpassed vitality, their 
 unfathomable faith, are needed, to sustain them 
 under the trial ; but these give fair promise of 
 answering to the demand. That these volumes 
 may help them to wise methods, is the sincere wish 
 of the Editor ; and their author would feel no less 
 earnestly the desire of contributing something to 
 a cause for which he labored so intently and self- 
 forgettingly.
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 LECTURE I. 
 
 PAG*. 
 
 MEANS AND OBJECTS OF COMMON-SCHOOL EDUCATION 39 
 
 LECTURE II. 
 
 SPECIAL PREPARATION A PREREQUISITE TO TEACHING . 
 
 LECTURE III. 
 
 THE NECESSITY OF EDUCATION IN A REPUBLICAN GOV- 
 
 ERNMENT ...... .... 143 
 
 LECTURE IV. 
 
 WHAT GOD DOES, AND WHAT HE LEAVES FOR MAN TO 
 
 o, IN THE WORK OF EDUCATION . . . .191 
 
 LECTURE V. 
 
 AN HISTORICAL VIEW OF EDUCATION ; SHOWING ITS DIG- 
 
 NITY AND ITS DEGRADATION ...... 241 
 
 LECTURE VI. 
 ON DISTRICT-SCHOOL LIBRARIES ...... 297 
 
 LECTURE VH. 
 
 ON SCHOOL PUNISHMENTS ....... 338 
 
 xi
 
 Xli CONTENTS. 
 
 PAOK. 
 
 FIRST ANNUAL REPORT OF THE BOARD OF EDUCATION 371 
 
 FIRST ANNUAL REPORT OF THE SECRETARY OF THE BOARD 
 
 OF EDUCATION 384 
 
 REPORT OF THE SECRETARY OF THE BOARD OF EDUCA- 
 TION ON THE SUBJECT OF SCHOOLHOUSES (SUPPLE- 
 MENTARY TO HIS FIRST ANNUAL REPORT) . . . 433 
 
 SECOND" ANNUAL REPORT OF THE SECRETARY OF THE 
 BOARD OF EDUCATION .... , 493
 
 PROSPECTUS 
 
 COMMON-SCHOOL JOURNAL. 
 
 WE avail ourselves of this opportunity to set forth, at 
 some length, the considerations which have induced us 
 to incur the labor and the responsibility of preparing 
 such a work, and to present an outline of the views which 
 it will be our endeavor hereafter to fill up. 
 
 The title we have chosen will turn the mind of every 
 reader to that ancient and cherished institution, the 
 Common Schools of Massachusetts. It will naturally 
 suggest such questions as these : What rank are com- 
 mon schools entitled to hold in our private and legislative 
 regards ? After an experiment of almost two hundred 
 years, what is the verdict rendered by Time on their 
 utility and necessity? Is the homage we are wont to 
 pay them traditionary merely, or is it founded upon an 
 intelligent conviction and an actual realization of their 
 benefits ? Have they scattered good among past gener- 
 ations, and have they averted evil? Go back to the 
 earliest days of the colony, to the year 1647, when 
 they had their origin, when almost the whole of the 
 present territory of this State was wilderness ; strike out 
 of existence this single element the provision made
 
 2 PROSPECTUS OF TIIE 
 
 for the education of the whole people and would our 
 recorded history be different from what it is? "Would it 
 have been illuminated or darkened by the change? 
 Without the schools, should we have had the great men 
 in the councils and in the fields of the Revolution? or, 
 which is substantially the same question, should we have 
 had the mothers of those men? Should we have had the 
 sages who formed our own state Constitution, and as- 
 sisted in that more arduous work, the formation of the 
 Constitution of the United States? Without the schools^ 
 should we have had the industrious yeomanry, exhibiting 
 so generally within our limits the cheering signs of com- 
 fort, competence, and respectability; or that race of 
 artisans and inventors who have made partnership with 
 the inexhaustible powers of the material world, and won 
 their resistless forces to labor for human amelioration? 
 Without the schools, would the same qualities of intelli- 
 gence and virtue have signalized the hundreds of thou- 
 sands who, from the distant regions of the West and 
 South, turn their eyes hither ward to their ancestral 
 home ? Would our enterprise equally have circuited the 
 globe, and brought back whatever products belong to a 
 milder climate or a richer soil ? Without this simple and 
 humble institution, would no change have come over our 
 character abroad, our social privileges at home, over the 
 laws which sustain, the charities which bless, the morals 
 which preserve, the religion which sanctifies ? 
 
 Set down the true constituents of a people's greatness 
 and happiness, and compare Massachusetts with those 
 states where one may travel from border to border with- 
 out ever seeing a schoolhouse ; compare nations, other- 
 wise similarly circumstanced, in one of which common 
 schools have been maintained, in the other unknown 
 .Scotland with England or Ireland, Holland with Spain
 
 COMMON-SCHOOL JOURNAL. 3 
 
 or Portugal, and say whether the contrast can be but 
 partially and inadequately explained, on any known prin- 
 ciples of human nature, if the system of Public Instruc- 
 tion be left out of the comparison. Indeed, the only 
 consideration of weight to prove the inefficiency of our 
 public schools to elevate and dignify the people who sus- 
 tain them, is the indifference and neglect into which they 
 have fallen amongst ourselves : and yet they have not 
 wholly fallen into forgetfulness in a community which 
 rouses itself to reclaim them. 
 
 It may, indeed, be said, that it was freedom of thought, 
 constituting, as it did, the main element of Protestantism, 
 which has given superiority to the communities where 
 common schools have flourished. But if Protestantism, 
 from which systems of public instruction emanated, has 
 always tended towards free institutions, yet could Prot- 
 estantism itself have survived without the alliance of a 
 system of public instruction ? If the mother watched 
 over the child, protected it at seasons when it would 
 otherwise have perished, and nursed it into manly vigor, 
 has not the child, with filial piety, requited the boon, by 
 vindicating the cause, and even preserving the existence, 
 of the mother ? 
 
 That the general interest once felt in regard to our 
 common schools has subsided to an alarming degree of 
 indifference, is a position not likely to be questioned by 
 any one who has compared their earlier with their later 
 history. This is not to be attributed to any single cause, 
 but to the co-operation of many. First, perhaps, in the 
 series, came the life-struggle of the Revolution. Educa- 
 tion is principally concerned with the future. Its eye is 
 fixed on a remote object, whose magnitude only makes 
 it visible in the distance ; for it is with our moral as with 
 our natural vision, the dimensions of the vast are reduced
 
 4 PROSPECTUS OF THE 
 
 by remoteness to the size of the minute in proximity ; 
 as in the case of the astronomer, who, while looking at 
 the sun, saw an animal of huge limbs and immense bulk 
 rushing up on one side, and soon overshadowing and 
 darkening its whole surface, which proved to be only a 
 fly crossing the upper lens of his telescope. The revo- 
 lutionary struggle was one for self-preservation, and, of 
 course, it condensed the future into the immediate and 
 the present. After that epoch passed, the fiscal condi- 
 tion of the country, the momentous questions connected 
 with the organization of a new government, without 
 model or precedent in the history of mankind, and, at a 
 later period, the agitations of party, have engrossed the 
 time and enlisted the talents of men most interested in 
 elevating the character of the people, and most compe- 
 tent to do it. It cannot be denied, too, that for years past 
 the public eye has been pointed backwards to the achieve- 
 ments of our ancestors, rather than forward to the con- 
 dition of our posterity; as though the praise of dead 
 fathers would provide adequately for living children. 
 The public voice, the public press, and the public mind 
 have been prolific of that doubtful virtue, which substi- 
 tutes empty commendations of what is good for earnest 
 efforts to procure it. 
 
 After the more important institutions of the country 
 had been settled, and an abundant accumulation of the 
 means of subsistence had bestowed leisure, it would 
 naturally happen that a portion of public talent and re- 
 sources would be set at liberty, and left to choose new 
 spheres of action and new objects of bounty. But here 
 arose those various philanthropic enterprises, whose ob- 
 jects lie beyond the limits of our own territory. Had it 
 not been for their claims to precedence, it may be pre- 
 sumed that no inconsiderable portion of that self-sacrifi-
 
 COMMON-SCHOOL JOURNAL. 5 
 
 cing spirit and that copious stream of wealth, so bounti- 
 fully expended upon other causes, would have found a 
 congenial sphere of activity in cultivating the moral and 
 intellectual wastes within our own borders. We have 
 lately heard many of the men, who have been foremost 
 in these works, speak of their past conduct, in language 
 which said, " These things ought we to have done, but 
 not to have left the others undone." And even those 
 munificent contributions in aid of different departments 
 of learning, made amongst ourselves, and to be expended 
 amongst ourselves, have been confined, with one recent 
 and praiseworthy exception, to the higher literary insti- 
 tutions of the country. Though their beams have been 
 vivifying and nourishing, yet they have been shed rather 
 on the solitariness of the summits of society than through 
 the populousness of its valleys. 
 
 Passing by many causes which have conduced to the 
 same end, we shall mention but one more. In no other 
 country was ever such a bounty offered upon industry 
 and practical talent as in ours. Skill, sagacity, the re- 
 sults of intellectual application, have won a large portion 
 of the prizes of fame and of opulence. It has been as 
 though an officer had been sent to every house, to seek 
 out and to impress whatever could be made available for 
 outward and material prosperity. Hence wealth, pos- 
 sessions, whatever makes up the external part the 
 body, if we may so speak of human welfare, have ad- 
 vanced with unparalleled success ; while a general ameli- 
 oration of habits, and those purer pleasures which flow 
 from a cultivation of the higher sentiments, which con- 
 stitute the spirit of human welfare, and enhance a thou- 
 sand-fold the worth of all temporal possessions, these 
 have been comparatively neglected. Perhaps it is in the 
 order of nature that a people, like an individual, shall
 
 6 PEOSPECTUS OF THE 
 
 first provide for its lower and animal wants, its food, 
 its raiment, its shelter, but the demands of this part of 
 our nature should be watchfully guarded, lest in the ac- 
 quisition of sensual and material gratifications we lose 
 sight of the line which separates competence and com- 
 fort from superfluity and extravagance, and thus forget 
 and forfeit our nobler capacities for more rational enjoy- 
 ments. 
 
 From an inherent cause, different opinions will always 
 be entertained of the value of education by different men,. 
 Those who think most correctly upon the subject will 
 still think differently ; and this difference will be meas- 
 ured by the difference in their respective powers of 
 comprehension and forethought. Being infinite in im- 
 portance, the only question can be, Who approximates 
 nearest in his computation of its worth ? Its value will 
 be rated by each just as highly as he can think. 
 
 The necessity of education, who can doubt? The 
 average length of human life is supposed to be between 
 thirty and forty years. How many efforts are to be put 
 forth, how many and various relations to be filled, how 
 many duties to be performed, within that brief period of 
 time ! How ignorant of all these efforts, relations and 
 duties are the early years of infancy ! The human being- 
 is less endowed with instincts for his guidance than the 
 lower orders of animated creation. Consider then his 
 condition when first ushered into life. He is encom- 
 passed by a universe of relations, each one of which will 
 prove a blessing or a curse, just according to the position 
 which he may sustain towards it, and yet in regard to all 
 these relations it is to him a universe of darkness. All 
 his faculties and powers are susceptible of a right direc- 
 tion and control, and, if obedient to them, blessings innu- 
 merable and inexhaustible will be lavished upon him.
 
 COMMON-SCHOOL JOURNAL. 7 
 
 But all his powers and faculties are also liable to a wrong 
 direction and control ; and, obedient to them, he becomes 
 a living wound, and the universe of encompassing rela- 
 tions presses upon him only to torture him. And yet 
 into this universe of opportunities for happiness on the 
 one hand, and of dangers and temptations on the other, 
 he is brought, without any knowledge whither he should 
 go or what he should do, by what means he shall se- 
 cure happiness or avert misery. To leave such a being 
 physically alone, that is, to refuse to provide nourish- 
 ment, raiment, protection against the seasons and the 
 elements, would be to insure his destruction. But such 
 abandonment would be mercy, compared with leaving 
 him alone intellectually and morally. Nor is it guidance 
 merely that he needs ; for his guides will be soon re- 
 moved in the course of nature, when he will be left with 
 the dreadful heritage only of an enlarged consciousness 
 of wants with equal inability to supply them with capa- 
 bilities of suffering immensely multiplied and magnified, 
 without knowledge of antidote or remedy. Before, then, 
 his natural protectors and guardians and teachers are re- 
 moved, they will leave their work undone if he have not 
 been prepared to protect and guide and teach himself. 
 Nay, if the generation that is, do not raise above their 
 own level the generation that is to be, the race must re- 
 main stationary, and the sublime law of human progres- 
 sion be defeated. 
 
 But passing by these general considerations, we will 
 select a few specific topics, in order to demonstrate that 
 a proper education of the rising generation is the highest 
 earthly duty of the risen. 
 
 That intelligence and virtue are the only support and 
 stability of free institutions, was a truism a long time 
 ago. If free institutions have any other security, we
 
 8 PROSPECTUS OF THE 
 
 should be glad to know what it is. This great truth, 
 however, like many others, has received the readiest 
 assent of the reason, without producing that effect upon 
 the feelings which gives birth to action. It has been 
 admitted and forgotten. . We act like those debtors who 
 seem to think that an acknowledgment of the existence 
 of their indebtedness supersedes or postpones the obli- 
 gation of payment. But such a truth as this ought to be 
 wrought into the minds of the whole people, so that it 
 will remain there, not dormant as a mere conclusion of 
 the reason, but impulsive as an instinct of self-preserva- 
 tion. Nor is it the intelligence of a few, which will sup- 
 ply the indispensable condition of freedom, but that of 
 the many; nor a theoretic intelligence either, but a work- 
 ing intelligence. Nor, again, will it suffice to have men 
 who preach virtue or sing it ; but we must have men who 
 produce it themselves and know how to cultivate its 
 germs in others. It is not enough to have men who call 
 themselves Christians ; but Christians must re-examine 
 and verify the text, and learn whether their great Mas- 
 ter went about doing good or talking good merely. 
 
 Who, let us ask, are to control that legislation of the 
 state and country, which has been well compared to the 
 atmosphere, which surrounds us wherever we may be 
 or whithersoever we may go ? In relation to the law, no 
 man is ever alone. There is no earthly interest of any 
 man, which the law, either in its enactment or its admin- 
 istration, cannot reach. It may alter our relation to our 
 property, if we have any, or to all the means of acquiring 
 it, if we have none. It may take away our reputation, 
 or surround us with a community where to be worthy of 
 a good reputation would be a legal disability, arid work 
 a forfeiture of social privileges. The first act of the law 
 is to prohibit every man from redressing his own wrongs.
 
 COMMON-SCHOOL JOURNAL. 9 
 
 Hence, by its perverted or even mistaken judgments, it 
 may inflict wounds upon an injured man, even deeper 
 than those it ought to heal. If the law fails to supply 
 the remedy which it forbids the individual to pursue for 
 himself, it leaves him, in that respect, one degree worse 
 than he would be in a state of utter barbarism. It ties 
 his hands, which in a state of nature would be free, and 
 then permits another to wrong him with impunity. So, 
 too, the laws of a people not only add to or subtract from 
 the value of life, by extending their control over those 
 things which constitute so much of its welfare, but in the 
 case of national hostilities they take life itself without 
 stint or remuneration. 
 
 Now look at the agency and the agents, the com- 
 mission to be executed and those who are to execute it. 
 The agency is the government of the state and country, 
 embracing in its comprehensive sway most of the greater 
 and all the lesser interests of life ; extending far into the 
 future, as well as controlling the present. In the State 
 of Massachusetts, the agents are any citizen who shall 
 have resided within its limits one year, within the town 
 six months, and shall have paid so much as a poll-tax, 
 provided one has been assessed upon him. And these 
 agents have power to act, wholly independent of instruc- 
 tions and exempt from accountability. In the language 
 of the law, they have a power of attorney, irrevocable, to 
 dispose, according to their own good pleasure, of the 
 dearest and most momentous interests of society. Now 
 what man in the community, in the selection of an agent 
 or trustee to administer his private affairs, governs his 
 choice by such a list of qualifications? Is an overseer 
 in a manufactory, a cashier of a bank, a clerk in a count- 
 ing-house, a foreman in a mechanic's shop, a market-man 
 who carries the produce of the farmer to market, chosen
 
 10 PEOSPECTUS OF THE 
 
 without reference to any higher standard of conduct or 
 character than that he has paid a poll-tax within two 
 3 r ears ? And yet no one of these interests is comparable, 
 in importance, to many of those of which tlie voter dis- 
 poses at the ballot-box. In all other cases, we look for 
 fitness and qualification a combination of properties, 
 adapted to the trust to be reposed or the work to be 
 done. A voter is a public man ; he is a member of the 
 p;overnment ; he officiates, indirectly, in the three de- 
 partments, judicial, legislative, executive. Surely, such-* 
 a member of the administration ought to be intelligent, 
 upright, conscientious, impartial, firm ; and yet his pos- 
 session of all these qualities and virtues is inferred, by 
 political argumentation, from a certificate of a brief pe- 
 riod of domicile and the payment of a few shillings ! 
 What consequences will impend over society, and will 
 assuredly befall it too, if, at the great council of the bal- 
 lot-box, we see men, who but yesterday arrived at 
 majority, who know nothing of the principles and struc- 
 ture of the government under which they live, of the 
 functions of its officers, or the qualifications indispensa- 
 ble for discharging them; if we see there men, who, 
 for half a century, have labored to draw society back- 
 wards towards barbarism ; or, what is even worse than 
 barbarism, to prostitute civilized intelligence to gratify 
 savage desires; if we see there men, lately emerged 
 from confinement in prison, where they were doomed for 
 some outrage on the rights of the community, Avhich, 
 however violative of those rights it may have been, may 
 not be half so baneful as the measures they are now 
 favoring? Nor has any man a right to put such ques- 
 tions as these to those disposers of his welfare, perhaps 
 of himself, " What knowest thou of government ; of the 
 deep principles upon which it rests ; of the forethought
 
 COMMON-SCHOOL JOURNAL. 11 
 
 and wisdom its policy requires ; of the equity and fidelity 
 its administration demands ? What carest thou for the 
 honesty of the man whose name is borne upon thy vote? 
 Art thou for making him ruler over many cities, because 
 he has been false to every obligation in ruling over a 
 lew ? " Such questions are out of place ; they are im- 
 pertinent, in that forum over whose portals the great 
 law of POLITICAL EQUALITY is written. At that gate, all 
 characteristics but one drop off. No longer is there re- 
 membered either the virtues of the good or the wisdom 
 of the wise, the folly of the fool or the guilt of the crim- 
 inal. The judges of our courts, who merely expound the 
 laws, are commissioned to hold their offices during good 
 behavior ; but no such limitation is attached to the right 
 of voters, though they virtually enact the laws and ap- 
 point the judges who administer them. In a judicial 
 investigation between one individual and another, a 
 witness may be impeached and rejected for legal infamy 
 or personal interest. He is not allowed to taint with his 
 corruption the pure stream of justice. Either of a long 
 catalogue of villanies works disqualification. But the 
 elective franchise is not forfeited by any magnitude of 
 interest or atrocity of character. Now as there is a wis- 
 dom, prudence, probity, upon which individual prosperity 
 depends, so upon the same qualities does the prosperity 
 of a government depend. Folly, selfishness, and iniquity 
 will be as fatal to the latter as to the former. They will 
 ruin a nation as certainly as they will ruin a man. How 
 long, then, could free institutions subsist, under adminis- 
 trators either weak or wicked? How long under weak- 
 ness and wickedness combined ? 
 
 This topic is so momentous, and, as we fear, so super- 
 ficially considered, that we cannot forbear to present it 
 under another form of elucidation. It is yet to be de-
 
 12 PEOSPECTUS OF THE 
 
 veloped how close a partnership is a republican govern- 
 ment with the right of universal suffrage. It is yet to 
 be manifested, that each citizen, by virtue of this social 
 partnership, contributes, as his part of the common capi- 
 tal, his hopes for the future, his subsistence for the pres- 
 ent, his reputation, his life. By virtue of this compact, 
 the other members of the firm have power to dispose of 
 the investments, according to their own views and mo- 
 tives, be they of policy or plunder. Not entire, however, 
 is the analogy between a business partnership between 
 merchants and this political association. Prom the for- 
 mer a man can withdraw, when he finds that the mis- 
 management of his associates is overwhelming his 
 interests with ruin and his character with disgrace. 
 Retiring, he may withdraw whatever remains of his un- 
 squandered fortune. But not so in this political partner- 
 ship. Though in this each has a more enlarged power 
 of binding the whole, yet none can strike his name from 
 the company and thereby evade the imposition of new 
 responsibilities. The only legalized modes of dissolving 
 the connection are death or self-banishment. Would it 
 not be good policy for the members of such a firm to ex- 
 pend a little, both of their time and their revenue, to 
 qualify all of those future members, whose admission 
 they cannot prevent? 
 
 Shortlived, indeed, would be the fame of our ancestors, 
 if they had established such a frame of government with- 
 out providing some extensive guaranty that it should 
 escape the misrule of ignorance and licentiousness. 
 Otherwise, to have put loaded fire-arms into the hands of 
 children would have been wisdom in comparison. 
 
 Do we then mourn over that political condition of con- 
 tingent peril, into which we have been thrown by the 
 great events of the past ? No ! but we rejoice with un-
 
 COMMON-SCHOOL JOURNAL. 13 
 
 speakable joy. The old cycle of years is -filled; a new 
 era dawns upon the world. In our day, the very condi- 
 tions of social existence are reversed. Heretofore, the 
 rulers of the earth have enjoyed their wealth and their 
 power ; they have rioted in splendid palaces, or played 
 the terrible games of war, because the multitude were 
 robbed not only of their rights, but of all the means of 
 reclaiming them. Political oppression chained the bodies 
 of men ; religious, their souls. Look backwards through 
 the historic vista, and how scantily peopled has the earth 
 been with beings blessed with any knowledge of human 
 duties or any enjoyment of human rights. Rulers, by 
 hereditary descent or by conquest, a few commanders of 
 navies or of armies, some hundred men in a nation of 
 millions are all who emerge into the upper day of his- 
 tory, from that darkness which shrouds the countless 
 myriads of our race. Sometimes a poet in singing the 
 praises of his chief, or a historian in enumerating the 
 elements of a tyrant's power, has noticed the number of 
 his subject millions ; yet with as little recognition of their 
 common nature, as little sympathy for their condition, as 
 is felt by a curious traveller, who computes the number 
 of insects that swarm in a given space on the banks- of 
 the Nile or the Ganges. The beings who bore the 
 moral lineaments and image of God, would have been 
 m;\inly forgotten, except for those brief statistics which 
 number the slaughtered thousands of the battle-field. 
 And in all this, for those times, there was a certain fit- 
 ness and propriety. Prerogative, dominion, could not 
 otherwise exist. Sight and knowledge on one side, blind- 
 ness and ignorance on the other, were the circumstances 
 that made equals unequal. Now social positions are 
 changed. They who were beneath, are above. They 
 who obeyed, rule. And hence, those who have more of
 
 14 PROSPECTUS OF THE 
 
 worldly possessions in their hands ; who, from higher en- 
 lightenment and a more extensive forecast, in regard to 
 their children, have a longer reach of the future in their 
 eye, must seek for help, not in the ignorance and abase- 
 ment, but in the intelligence and elevation of the multi- 
 tude. What would once have been their ruin, is now 
 their only salvation ; for that multitude is safe in the 
 power it wields. No monarch surrounded by his guards, 
 no nobleman with his lengthened retinue, no knight in 
 his harness of mail, was ever half so secure in his suprem- 
 acy, as the humblest voter is with us of making his will 
 known and felt through all the ranks of society. Hence 
 do we rejoice, that in the providence of God a new series 
 of events has been unfolded, which will compel the basest 
 instincts of selfishness to co-operate with the highest 
 sentiments of duty in ameliorating the condition of man- 
 kind, through an enlargement of their understandings 
 and a purification of their affections. If the multitude, 
 who have the power, are not fitted to exercise it, society 
 will be like the herding together of wolves. The only 
 safety, then, is in the concomitance of qualifications and 
 power. 
 
 All our readers must have seen or heard of those 
 strolling companies of tumblers, rope-dancers or balance- 
 masters, who, among other feats, build human pyramids. 
 Four stand side by side in a row ; three more mount up 
 and stand upon their shoulders ; two others overclimb 
 these and make a third tier ; another ascends aloft, some 
 twenty feet, and, poising himself on the topmost shoul- 
 ders, makes the apex of the pyramid. This represents 
 the structure of despotic governments exactly. While 
 those above can put out the eyes of those below when- 
 ever they look upward, and can beat them (with a long 
 pole, commonly called a sceptre) into due subjection,
 
 COMMON-SCHOOL JOUENAL. 15 
 
 things go on very well. But when those below discover 
 how the great and equal law of gravitation bears upon 
 the upper strata, and begin to execute certain well-con- 
 certed jostlings, adapted to topple down their highnesses, 
 then, from having the farthest to fall, they find themselves 
 to be the most exposed part of society ; and if not utterly 
 bereft of reason, they will pray Heaven above and their 
 underlings below to let them get down as safely and as 
 fast as they can. Descended to a common platform, they 
 find their own best welfare dependent upon the common 
 good ; and that, if they would attain superiority, it must 
 be that noble superiority, which arises from higher char- 
 acter and more beneficent conduct. This is the condi- 
 tion of our society, and this the law by which the 
 individual welfare of its members is governed. 
 
 The love and the admiration of knowledge are instinc- 
 tive in the human mind. Savages tremble before those 
 who are supposed to be acquainted with the secret 
 workings of nature. Divine honors are won amongst 
 them by superior knowledge. And with civilized nations 
 in modern times, the veneration for talent and genius 
 has risen to such a height, that, by common consent, dis- 
 coveries in science and achievements in literature have 
 been regarded as a surer test of advancement, as confer- 
 ring higher honor, than exploits in arms or progress in 
 the useful arts. But still the object and the rivalry have 
 been to enlarge the boundaries of science, and, if we may 
 so speak, to pile up knowledge, mass upon mass, to such 
 a height, that its bright summits might be visible in dis- 
 tant lands. There has been no ambition, no competition, 
 to spread it amongst the people. To produce one man, 
 unmatched elsewhere in his department of learning, has 
 been the title to fame amongst emulous nations. To ex- 
 hibit one man who could read twenty foreign languages,
 
 16 PROSPECTUS OF THE 
 
 has been deemed better than to exhibit tens of thousands 
 who could read understandingly the elevating truths con- 
 tained in their own. One prodigy of genius in an age 
 has answered the demands of humanity upon an empire 
 shrouded in ignorance. What a chorus for the triumph 
 of intellect was sung, by the most civilized and learned 
 nation in the old world, when one of its astronomers dis- 
 covered a planet in the distant regions of space, though 
 millions of its people were then suffering under debasing 
 superstitions, derived from heathen astrology. In 1751," 
 the New Style was substituted for the Old, by the Brit- 
 ish Parliament. The scientific labors necessary for the 
 change were principally performed by the Earl of Mac- 
 clesfield and the learned astronomer Dr. Bradley. Great 
 pains were taken beforehand to prepare the public mind 
 for its introduction ; but so great was the ignorance and 
 superstition of the people, that, three years afterwards, 
 when a son of Lord Macclesfield was a candidate for the 
 House of Commons, the mob pursued him, crying, " Give 
 us back the eleven days we have been robbed of; " 
 and even several years afterwards, when Dr. Bradley, 
 worn down by his labors in the cause of science, was 
 sinking under the disease which at last ended his days, 
 the people attributed his sufferings to a judgment from 
 heaven, for having been engaged in so impious an un- 
 dertaking. They probably thought their lives had been 
 shortened by a change in the almanac. As a conse- 
 quence of this view, that an enlargement of knowledge 
 amongst a few was every thing, and the multiplication of 
 the number of minds capable of comprehending and en- 
 joying it was nothing, its stores have been gathered into 
 universities and learned halls ; and an amount of time 
 and of labor has been uselessly spent in cloistered cells, 
 sufficient to have breathed moral life and intellectual ac-
 
 COMMON-SCHOOL JOURNAL. 17 
 
 tivity into millions of minds. While over wide tracts of 
 British territory, persons who could read and write were 
 scarcely to be found, the funds of government were em- 
 ployed to collect libraries so extensive that no mortal 
 could accomplish the perusal of their books, except his 
 life were prolonged to such seniority as would displace 
 Methuselah from his rank in the catechism. In the year 
 1826, the present Lord Brougham, in a pamphlet upon 
 Education, undertook to demonstrate, for the benefit of 
 his fellow-countrymen, that a penny a week, saved from 
 the earnings of a whole family, for one year, would en- 
 able them to purchase one book for their instruction in 
 some of the commonest duties of life. But that great 
 government, instead of supplying such a want, has spent 
 tens of thousands of pounds in hunting, amidst icebergs 
 and polar bears, for a North-west passage, difficult to find, 
 and worthless when discovered. 
 
 Far different is the grateful path, where we are sum- 
 moned to a glorious duty. Not to enter every dwelling 
 and seize its resources, in order to swell the redundancy 
 of some treasure-house of knowledge ; not to collect the 
 rills, whose waters might fertilize the whole land, and 
 gather them into a stagnant reservoir : this is not our 
 work ; but multiplication, diffusion, ever-replenishing, un- 
 til the people shall learn the nature of the true duties 
 and enjoyments of freemen. Let not the quest for new 
 discoveries cease ; let philosopher after philosopher re- 
 veal more and more of the wonderful works of nature, 
 and thus present to all men new reasons for adoration of 
 the Creator. We would not call back any one who is 
 exploring the skies or diving into the earth for know- 
 ledge ; but first of all, we would diffuse the great moral, 
 social, and economical truths, already discovered, amongst 
 the people. What is practically valuable among the
 
 18 PROSPECTUS OF THE 
 
 accumulations of past centuries, we would reproduce, and 
 make it, as far as possible, the fireside companion of 
 every citizen ; so that if an inventory could be taken of 
 the virtue and intelligence of the people, the units would 
 swell to an aggregate, incomputable by the highest 
 standards of former times. 
 
 But shall we aim to make every man a philosopher ? 
 If by this is meant that highest reach of philosophy, 
 which consists in an understanding of one's duty and 
 destination, and a disposition to perform the one and live 
 up to the other, we answer, yes ; but not that every man 
 shall be linguist, rhetorician, or astronomer, any more 
 than we would that every man should be tailor, black- 
 smith, and watchmaker. Let us not, however, overlook 
 one of the most striking facts in the ordination of provi- 
 dence, that the truths, which it required the greatest 
 philosophers, toiling for years, perhaps for lives, to dis- 
 cover, can be made perfectly intelligible to ordinary 
 minds in weeks, or even days. It took the race more 
 than fifty-five centuries to discover and establish the true 
 solar system ; and yet the space of fifty-five hours would 
 suffice to give to an intelligent man such an idea of its stu- 
 pendous movements and beautiful harmony, that with his 
 whole mind and heart he would exclaim, " An undevout 
 astronomer is mad ! " 
 
 One of the most important of all the consequences 
 which have yet resulted from a recognition of the exist- 
 ence of individual man as a being of rights and duties, 
 has been the inquiry, what are his attributes; what re- 
 lation does he bear to other parts of the universe ; that 
 is, what special adaptation and fitness is there in his con- 
 stitution to the material world, to filial, fraternal, conju- 
 gal, parental relations, to society, to his Maker ; how far 
 can any one of these tendencies be carried without en-
 
 COMMON-SCHOOL JOURNAL. 19 
 
 croaching upon the rightful province of others ; and what 
 are the specific consequences of the undue indulgence or 
 neglect of any one of them? From this examination, a 
 beam of light has been thrown directly upon the subject 
 of education. Among the ancients, physical strength 
 was in great demand. The wars they were forever 
 waging required corporeal vigor, a power of bodily en- 
 durance, and that thoughtless bravery which springs 
 from the animal nature, rather than from the moral attri- 
 butes. Hence the invigoration of the body was their 
 paramount object ; and civic games, national rewards, and 
 honors, all tended to rear a race of vigorous animals 
 rather than of exalted men. Except at some Augustan 
 epoch, the greatness which was admired and emulated was 
 that of the body and not of the soul. The word which 
 the Romans used to express " virtue " was that which 
 originally signified "valor." Hercules was deified be- 
 cause of the strong muscles in his arms and legs, and the 
 Israelites proclaimed Saul their king, by acclamation, be- 
 cause he was taller by a head and neck than any other 
 of the people. The opposite extreme has prevailed in 
 modern times. Our mark has been to cultivate the 
 powers of the mind, forgetful of the body as though 
 we were disembodied spirits already ; and among the 
 mental powers, to develop and invigorate the intellect, 
 rather than to regulate those appetites and affections 
 upon which so vast a proportion of all individual and 
 social welfare rests. Each system is partially right; 
 each is mainly wrong. Each has an element of truth in 
 it, upon which its advocates could stand, to defend the 
 attendant errors. In the education of a human being, 
 all his powers are to be regarded. When the perfection 
 of a work depends upon the proportion and harmony of 
 its parts, the absence of any part defeats the whole ; and
 
 20 PROSPECTUS OF THE 
 
 this is a reason why the most civilized people have fallen 
 so immeasurably below an attainable point of elevation. 
 One of the greatest contributions of science to the world 
 is the clearness, the distinctness, with which the details 
 of the idea have been brought out, and made, as it were, 
 visible and tangible, that man is a being, not created for 
 one duty, one enjoyment, one relation only, but for many 
 duties, many enjoyments, and many relations ; that he is 
 endowed by his Maker with distinct original capacities 
 and powers, by which he is fitted for the manifold pur- 
 poses of his being ; that these capacities and powers are 
 neither equal in authority, nor is their gratification at- 
 tended with equal quantities of enjoyment, but that they 
 rise in authority and in their power of bestowing pleas- 
 ure, according to a graduated scale, from those animal 
 gratifications which we hold in common with the brutes, 
 to the sublime emotions, by which we may become kin- 
 dred to perfected spirits. They rise, like the ladder seen 
 in the vision of the patriarch, which, resting on earth, 
 reached heaven. The first feeling of an infant after birth 
 ought to be and is an impulse of the instinct for food, 
 while the last thought of a dying man should be that of 
 a life well spent and an anticipation of a better existence. 
 How near to each other are these extremes in point of 
 time ; how infinitely remote in character ! To prepare 
 the human beings who are coming into this world, as far 
 as human means can do it, to pass from one of these 
 points to the other, is the work of Education. 
 
 Whatever of this noble work is within the compass of 
 human powers, is to be accomplished through an investi- 
 gation of principles, and a skilful application of them to 
 practice, even in their minutest details, however appar- 
 ently trivial and insignificant. The type and paper had 
 first to be mechanically prepared, whereby even the 
 Gospels have come to us.
 
 COMMON-SCHOOL JOURNAL. 21 
 
 Our limits permit only a brief reference to the classes 
 of means by which the objects of education are attain- 
 able. In treating of education, in modern times, it has 
 become as customary to classify its departments under 
 the three heads of Physical, Intellectual, and Moral or 
 Religious, as it is in geographical treatises to consider 
 the earth under the natural divisions of continents, oceans, 
 islands, &c. We shall offer a few remarks under each 
 of these heads. 
 
 When physical education is mentioned, that is a knowl- 
 edge of the laws by which health and strength are at- 
 tained and preserved, many people start and ask in 
 surprise whether every man is to be a physician. The 
 answer to this is easy. Physicians must understand the 
 laws and symptoms of the diseased body. It is enough 
 for common men to understand the laws and functions of 
 the healthy body. The conditions of health are few, 
 simple, intelligible. The action of disease is intricate 
 and infinite. Anybody is competent to a knowledge of 
 the former. After so many lives of study and experience, 
 the latter is still an imperfect science. That knowledge 
 respecting air, exercise, dress, and diet, which is requi- 
 site for the preservation of health, may be acquired with 
 a far less amount of attention and expense, than are com- 
 monly necessary in a three-months' sickness; while a 
 physician has to learn the endless catalogue of diseases 
 and the infinite varieties of pain, together with the prop- 
 erties and applications of a catalogue of supposed reme- 
 dies equally endless. 
 
 The body is not only the instrument through which 
 the mind operates, but it is the first and only one through 
 which the mind can act upon any other instrument, pro- 
 vided for it by science or art. Hence the highest powers 
 of mind, with the most perfect external instruments all
 
 22 PROSPECTUS OF THE 
 
 around it, and the noblest sphere of action before it, may 
 be baffled through the defects of that intermediate in- 
 strument the body. Prom an ignorant violation of the 
 simple laws of health, how many young men sicken and 
 die, after having incurred the expense and volunteered 
 the labor necessary to qualify them for usefulness and 
 honor ; like frail barks, sinking in the ocean at the first 
 approach of the storm, and carrying down the costly 
 freight with which they were laden ! Who that has 
 reached middle life has not seen many of the friends wfTo 
 started with him under the happiest auguries of success, 
 broken down in their career ; not falling nobly in the 
 iace, but ignobly perishing by the wayside and far from 
 the goal of duty ? Mental power is so dependent for its 
 manifestation on physical power, that we deem it not ex- 
 travagant to say, that if, amongst those who lead seden- 
 tary lives, physical power could be doubled, their mental 
 power would be doubled also. The health and constitu- 
 tional vigor of a people is a blessing not to be lost 
 certainly not to be regained in a day. Not only do 
 bodily fragility and incapacity of endurance diminish the 
 available powers of the intellect, but the perpetual pres- 
 ence of pain, the depressing sensations of diseases, not 
 acute, tend to impair the efficient impulses of virtue and 
 to undermine the foundations of moral character. Grad- 
 ually and imperceptibly a race may physically deteriorate, 
 until their bodies shall degenerate into places, Avhich, 
 without being wholly untenantable, are still wholly unfit 
 to keep a soul in. 
 
 A proper intellectual education begins with a cultiva- 
 tion of the senses. Everybody knows the vast difference 
 which exists between different men, in the quickness 
 with which they catch the qualities of things, and the 
 fidelity with which they are able to recall their impres-
 
 COMMON-SCHOOL JOURNAL. 23 
 
 sions. The exquisite sense of touch acquired by the 
 blind, of sight acquired by the deaf and dumb, shows at 
 once what those senses are capable of accomplishing, 
 and how far the mass of the community fall short of what 
 they might acquire. The ideas excited in the mind by 
 means of the senses constitute at least the main portion 
 of the elements of subsequent reasoning. If we may use 
 an artisan's comparison, the senses bring a large part of 
 the rough stock or raw material into the mind, after- 
 wards to be worked up by the reason into solid and use- 
 ful productions. And as no skill of the workman, though 
 it rise to infinite, can make a durable and perfect fabric 
 from worthless substances, so the noblest intellect ever 
 created will produce only erroneous results, if acting 
 upon a store of false perceptions. 
 
 In a volume of the Historical Collections, there is pre- 
 served a map of what now constitutes the territory of 
 Maine and Massachusetts, which was published by Capt. 
 John Smith, in London, in 1614, under the express 
 authority of Prince Charles. In that map Boston is 
 placed about twenty leagues north of Charles River, 
 Salem about twelve leagues south of Boston, and Cam- 
 bridge more than thirty leagues north of Salem. The 
 map represents the distance between Boston and Plym- 
 outh to be about ninety miles. Now suppose any one 
 were to confide in the correctness of that map, and go 
 twelve leagues south of Boston to find Salem, or thirty 
 leagues north of Salem to visit Cambridge. Yet the 
 mischief caused by getting such erroneous ideas into the 
 mind, is no adequate representation of the mischief, and 
 often ruin, of acquiring wrong notions on a thousand 
 subjects of practical business or social duty. 
 
 The next office of the intellect is to observe the rela- 
 tions which exist between objects, and how they may be
 
 24 PROSPECTUS OF THE 
 
 made subservient to human welfare. Innumerable as 
 are the individual objects around us, the relations be- 
 tween them and our personal relations to them are in- 
 definitely more numerous. Hence it is that not u waking 
 hour passes, during the whole course of our lives, which 
 does not require an observation of the things around us, 
 and an exercise of judgment, either in adjusting them to 
 our condition, or our condition to theirs. Let us illus- 
 trate this by a supposition. The architect sits musing 
 in his office. He is arranging in his mind the ideas of 
 all the different parts of a perfect edifice, and, one after 
 another, they rise and take their proper places in his 
 imagination, until the mental archetype stands forth in 
 fair proportions from the foundation to the cope-stone. 
 Then a thousand instruments, and hands and limbs, 
 which are but instruments, are put in motion : the stone 
 comes from the quarry, the wood from the forest, the 
 iron from the earth ; the soft clay becomes solid in the 
 bricks, and the solid limestone soft for the mortar ; 
 the sand is turned into glass ; a change is wrought in the 
 form and place of many thousand things ; and in a few 
 months, that image, which the musing architect had in 
 his mind, has taken body and form, and has become the 
 admiration of every beholder and a home for many gen- 
 erations. Yet in all the countless operations of the work, 
 each one of which demanded the constant aid of the per- 
 ceptive and judging powers, not a single mistake could 
 have been committed without retarding the completion 
 or impairing the perfections of the structure. And so in 
 all the businesses of life, in agriculture, arts, com- 
 merce, government ; in all the sacredness of domestic and 
 social relations ; in fine, wherever we touch any part of 
 the material or spiritual universe, the possession and 
 the exercise of a sound intellect are necessary, or mis-
 
 COMMON-SCHOOL JOURNAL. 25 
 
 take, discomfiture, ruin, misery, will thwart and frustrate 
 our plans. Who can think, without anxiety, of commit- 
 ting interests, infinite in number and immeasurable in 
 importance, to a generation with perverted or unculti- 
 vated intellects? 
 
 But the highest function of the intellect is that of dis- 
 covering the Laws which the Creator has impressed 
 upon every work of his hands. A superficial survey of 
 the operations of nature and events of life might lead 
 one to infer that they are unregulated, the produ-fction 
 of chance, thrown out promiscuously, without regard 
 to order or system, instead of being certain results of 
 immutable principles. On the contrary, one of the most 
 striking manifestations of divine wisdom seems to be, 
 that each part of the creation is endued with a definite 
 nature, has its appropriate properties and uses, and is 
 made subject to such invariable laws, that the same cir- 
 cumstances will always produce the same results, and 
 different circumstances different results. These laws, so 
 far as discovered, constitute the body of human science ; 
 so far as undiscovered, a noble field for intellectual labor. 
 They are one great element in the superiority of civilized 
 man. We know the laws by which the pathless ocean 
 can be traversed, so that a navigator will leave one of 
 our ports, and strike the narrowest inlet on the other 
 side of the globe. We know thousands of those laws by 
 which the earth yields her increase, and by which her 
 varied productions are changed into innumerable forms, 
 to subserve the comfort and happiness of man. We are 
 forever encompassed by these laws, equally in the 
 most trivial and the most momentous concerns of life. 
 We never take a step, or breathe a breath, or form a reso- 
 lution, but they attach to the act, and affix their conse- 
 quences. Nor, in one sense, does it matter whether we
 
 26 PROSPECTUS OP THE 
 
 know them or not. They affix the appropriate results to 
 ignorance as well as to wisdom, to involuntary as well as 
 to voluntary infringements. The fire will burn the finger 
 of the innocent infant who plays with it, as well as the 
 body of the Hindoo widow who leaps into it for self-de- 
 struction. How indispensable then is a knowledge of 
 these laws ! How long should we remain at liberty, and 
 unpunished, were we to go into a foreign country and 
 proceed at once to the gratification of our desires, with- 
 out Becoming acquainted with its laws? We come into 
 this world, as into a strange country, ignorant of these 
 infinitely numerous laws, and we must learn and obey 
 them, or suffer infinitely numerous penalties for their 
 violation. 
 
 All the plans of wise men are founded upon the as- 
 sumption of the regularity and invariableness of Nature's 
 laws. We may rely with confidence upon their fidelity, 
 for they will never betray us. We anticipate the course 
 of the seasons, and spring, summer, autumn, winter, fol- 
 low with grateful vicissitude. We foretell the daily ap- 
 parent revolution of the sun, and it never fails to rise 
 and set at the appointed moment. When we suffer from 
 the irresistible action of these laws, it is because we have 
 not yet discovered them, or are wickedly regardless of 
 them. So in our physical and moral nature, we are sub- 
 ject to the laws of exercise, temperance, veracity, justice, 
 benevolence, piety, and if these are obeyed, it cannot be 
 ill with us. In the midst of all this beauty and harmony, 
 how lamentable it is to find in the houses of our citizens, 
 and often on the counters of our bookstores, stories of 
 ghosts and apparitions, and dream-books and fortune- 
 tellers, by which the most trivial occurrences of the day 
 or the incongruous visions of the night are held to be 
 auguries of human destiny ; filling minds, made to be
 
 COMMON-SCHOOL JOURNAL. 27 
 
 rational, with illusive hopes and cruel fears ; going back 
 to the times when madmen were the accredited expound- 
 ers of Nature ; and proving, if we may express our- 
 selves in mercantile phrase, that the old firm of Night 
 and Chaos are still doing an extensive business. Intelli- 
 gence is the only weapon wherewith this vermin brood 
 can be hunted. The philosophy or the opinion, which 
 refers events that are within our control to an agency 
 beyond it, bereaves man of a power graciously conferred 
 on him by Heaven for the promotion of his welfare. 
 
 On these momentous subjects, we can hardly say any 
 thing beyond what is to be found in our Prospectus, 
 without entering fields of thought which' it is here im- 
 possible to traverse. Yet, on the other hand, it is 
 scarcely possible even to mention so impulsive a theme, 
 without being roused to expressions in attestation of its 
 value. What deep and unfathomable meaning dwells in 
 the words veracity, impartiality, benevolence, justice, 
 duty ! Attaching to us in our earliest childhood, follow- 
 ing us, through every waking moment of our lives, with 
 the imposition of ever-renewing commands ; attaching 
 to us in the narrowness of the domestic circle, yet, as 
 our knowledge and our relations expand to fill up larger 
 and larger circles, fastening new obligations upon us, 
 commensurate with our powers of performance ; in this 
 view, the all-infolding law of morality may seem to be a 
 task and a burden ; but when we perceive its consonance 
 to our nature, its pure and inexhaustible rewards for 
 obedience, its power of imparting an all-conquering 
 energy, wherever loftiest efforts are demanded, we must 
 hail its authority as among our highest honors and bless- 
 ings. For what slaves are they, over whom conscience 
 is not supreme ! What sovereignty awaits those who 
 yield submission to its dictates ! Never since the crea-
 
 28 PROSPECTUS OF THE 
 
 tion of man has there been a nation like ours, so nursed 
 in its infancy by the smiles of Providence, endued with 
 such vigor in the first half-century of its being, and made 
 capable in its advancing years at once of rising to such 
 unparalleled power, and of making existence so rich a 
 boon to its multitudinous members. For this very rea- 
 son, debasement would stand in appalling contrast with 
 its early promises ; and if, through immorality, it inflict 
 upon itself suicidal wounds, the pangs of its death-strug- 
 gle will be terrible in proportion to the vigor of its frame 
 and the tenacity of its young life. It has been well said 
 that it took Rome three hundred years to die. Her 
 giant heart still beat, though corruption festered through 
 all her members. Fiercer will be the throes and deeper 
 the shame of this young republic, if, in the bright morn- 
 ing of its days, and enriched with all the beneficence of 
 heaven, it grows wanton in its strength, and, maddening 
 itself with the cup of vice, perishes basely in sight of its 
 high destiny. 
 
 There is every thing in our institutions to give (if that 
 were possible) even an artificial and extraneous value to 
 upright conduct, to nobleness and elevation of character. 
 Our institutions demand men, in whose hearts great 
 thoughts and great deeds are native, spontaneous, irre- 
 pressible. And if we do not have a generation of men 
 whose virtues will save us, we shall have a generation 
 whose false pretensions to virtue will ruin us. In a state 
 and country like ours, a thousand selfish considerations 
 tempt men to become hypocrites and to put on the out- 
 ward guises of morality. Ambition may counsel that 
 honors are most easily won through honest seemings. 
 Avarice may covet a fair reputation for its pecuniary 
 value. Pride and vanity may look for regard without 
 the worth which alone can challenge it. But all such
 
 COMMON-SCHOOL JOURNAL. 29 
 
 supports will fail in the hour of temptation. They have 
 no depth of root in the moral sentiments. The germs of 
 morality must be planted in the moral nature of children 
 at an early period of their life. In that genial soil they 
 will flourish and gather strength from surer and deeper 
 sources than those of time-serving policy ; like those pas- 
 ture oaks we see scattered about the fields of the farm- 
 ers, which, striking their roots downward into the earth 
 far as their topmost branches ascend into the air, draw 
 their nourishment from perennial fountains, and thereby 
 preserve their foliage fresh and green, through seasons 
 of fiery drought, when all surrounding vegetation is 
 scorched to a cinder. 
 
 The diversity of religious doctrines, prevalent in our 
 community, would render it difficult to inculcate any 
 religious truths, through the pages of a periodical de- 
 signed for general circulation, were it not for two rea- 
 sons : first, that the points on which different portions of 
 a Christian community differ among themselves are far 
 less numerous than those on which they agree; and, 
 secondly, were it not also true, that a belief in those 
 points in which they all agree, constitutes the best pos- 
 sible preparation for each to proceed in adding those dis- 
 tinctive particulars, deemed necessary to a complete and 
 perfect faith. A work, devoted to education, which did 
 not recognize the truth that we were created to be re- 
 ligious beings, would be as though we were to form a 
 human body forgetting to put in a heart. 
 
 While, therefore, we rejoice that each member of this 
 Christian community possesses the Protestant liberty of 
 adopting and avowing such peculiar doctrines as best 
 approve themselves to his own mind, we shall open our 
 columns to them neither for defence nor confutation ; 
 contenting ourselves, in this sphere of duty, with unfold-
 
 30 PROSPECTUS OF THE 
 
 ing and applying the great principles of love to God and 
 love to man, on which " hang all the law and the pro- 
 phets." We have no fear of giving offence to any sect, 
 by teaching children to do unto others as they would 
 that others should do unto them. 
 
 We have sketched an imperfect outline of what a man 
 should do, and what he should not do ; so that in educat- 
 ing children they may be prepared to perform the one 
 and discard the other. The great events of life are the 
 consequences which flow from precedent means. If we 
 would have improved men, we must have improved 
 means of educating children. By using the appropriate 
 means, it is perfectly practicable to have a community, 
 whose main body shall march forward in the line of in- 
 dustry, prosperit} 7 -, and uprightness, while a few strag- 
 glers or deserters only shall leave its compact ranks to 
 enlist under the banners of vice ; or, by discarding the 
 appropriate means, it is perfectly easy to reverse this 
 condition, so that the main body of society shall be the 
 abandoned, the sensual, the profligate, with only here and 
 there an heroic exception, fleeing apostate ranks. Of all 
 the means in our possession, the common school has pre- 
 cedence, because of its universality ; because it is the 
 only reliance of the vast majority of children ; because it 
 gives them the earliest direction, and an impulse whose 
 force is seldom spent until death. Whatever advances 
 the common school, then, will enhance individual and 
 social well-being for generations to come. History must 
 be written and read with different emotions of joy or 
 grief, as they rise or decline ; and individual minds will 
 bear ineffaceable traces of their good or evil inscriptions. 
 As, to every great river, the confluence of a thousand 
 streams are necessary, so every great result is only the 
 sum the product the gathering together of a
 
 COMMON-SCHOOL JOURNAL. 31 
 
 countless number of minute operations. "We would go 
 back, therefore, to the fountain of youth. We would act 
 upon the great truth, which led one of the master paint- 
 ers of Italy to begin, in his art, back at the very grinding 
 and mixing of his paints, that no unskilfulness in the pre- 
 paration of the colors should be found on completion to 
 have marred the beauty or dimmed the clearness of 
 works which were to challenge the admiration of pos- 
 terity. Hence, to improve the places where the business 
 of education is carried on ; to better what may be called 
 their outward and material organization ; to attend to 
 arrangements merely mechanical ; to adapt with a nicer 
 adjustment the implements and the processes, and to 
 arrange more philosophically the kind and the succession 
 of studies ; to increase the qualifications and the rewards 
 of instructors, and to advance them to that social posi- 
 tion they deserve to hold ; to convince the community 
 that their highest interests are dependent upon the cul- 
 ture of their children, is the sphere of action to which 
 this periodical is dedicated. 
 
 CITIZENS OP MASSACHUSETTS, Will you proifer your 
 aid for the promotion of this object ? It appeals to your 
 patriotism. It appeals to your philanthropy. None of 
 you is so high as not to need the education of the people 
 as a safeguard ; none of you so low as to be beneath its 
 uplifting power. To be emulous of the good name of 
 your ancestors may be an honor ; but to be devoted to 
 the welfare of your posterity is a duty. The one may 
 be founded on selfishness ; the other is allied to religion. 
 We invoke your co-operation, not so much for the out- 
 ward and perishable good of your children, as for their 
 inward and abiding good ; not for a temporary object, 
 but for the interminable future. We seek less for their 
 external and mutable interests, than for the establish-
 
 32 PROSPECTUS OF THE COMMON-SCHOOL JOURNAL. 
 
 raent of those great principles which lie under the whole 
 length of existence. Let them be educated to be above 
 pride as well as above abasement ; to be the master, 
 instead of the slave, of accident and of circumstance ; to 
 live less in the region of the senses and appetites, and 
 more in the serener and happier sphere of intellect, of 
 morals, and religion. Then, though you leave them no 
 patrimony, they will never be poor ; though temporal 
 adversity befall them, they cannot be deprived of the 
 substantial part of all happiness. 
 
 NOVEMBER, 1838.
 
 AUTHOR'S PREFACE 
 
 VOLUME OF LECTURES NOW REPUBLISHED. 
 
 THE Act creating the Massachusetts Board of Edu- 
 cation was passed April 20, 1837. In June follow- 
 ing, the Board was organized, and its Secretary 
 chosen. The duties of the Secretary, as expressed 
 in the Act, are, to " collect information of the actual 
 condition and efficiency of the Common Schools, 
 and other means of popular education ; and to 
 diffuse as widely as possible, throughout every 
 part of the Commonwealth, information of the most 
 approved and successful methods of arranging the 
 studies, and conducting the education of the young, 
 to the end that all children in this Commonwealth, 
 who depend upon Common Schools for instruction, 
 may have the best education which those schools 
 can be made to impart," 
 
 The Board, immediately after its organization, 
 issued an " Address to the Public," inviting the 
 friends of education to assemble in convention, in 
 their respective counties, in the ensuing autumn ; 
 and the Secretary was requested to be present at 
 
 33
 
 34 AUTHOR'S PREFACE. 
 
 those conventions, both for the purpose of obtain- 
 ing information in regard to the condition of the 
 schools, and of explaining to the public what were 
 supposed to be the leading motives and objects of 
 the Legislature in creating the Board. 
 
 The author of the following Lectures was a 
 member of the Legislature when the act establish- 
 ing the Board was passed ; and he was intimately^ 
 acquainted with the general views of its projectors 
 and advocates. At that time, however, the idea 
 never entered his mind that he should be even a 
 candidate for the Secretaryship ; but when the 
 Board was organized, and the station was offered 
 him, he was induced to accept it ; not so much 
 from any supposed fitness for the office, as from 
 the congeniality of its duties with all his tastes and 
 predilections, and because he thought that what- 
 ever of industry, or of capacity for usefulness, he 
 might possess, could be exerted more beneficially 
 to his fellow-men in this situation than in any 
 other. On accepting the appointment, therefore, 
 it became his duty to meet the county conventions, 
 which were held throughout the State, in the 
 autumn of 1837 ; and the first of the following 
 lectures was prepared for those occasions. Its 
 object was to sketch a rapid outline of deficiencies 
 to be supplied, and of objects to be pursued, in 
 relation to the Common-School system of Massa- 
 chusetts. 
 
 In the session of 1838, the Legislature provided
 
 AUTHOR'S PREFACE. 35 
 
 that a Common-School convention should be held, 
 each year, in each county of the Commonwealth, 
 and that the Secretary should be present at every 
 convention. This law continued in force until the 
 year 1842, when it was repealed. During the first 
 five years, therefore, after the establishment of the 
 Board, a Common-School convention was annually 
 held in each county in the Commonwealth ; and 
 in some of the large counties two or more such 
 conventions were held. The Secretary made his 
 annual circuit through the State, and was present 
 at them all; and the first five of the following 
 lectures were respectively delivered before the an- 
 nual conventions. The lecture on " District-School 
 Libraries " was prepared in view of the great defi- 
 ciency of books in our towns, suitable for the read- 
 ing of children ; and was delivered before Teach- 
 ers' Associations, Lyceums, &c., in different parts of 
 the State. In the year 1839, a number of the 
 friends of education in Boston instituted a course 
 of lectures for the female teachers in the city, and 
 the lecture on " School Punishments " was deliv- 
 ered, as one of that course. 
 
 On almost all the occasions above referred to, a 
 copy of the lecture delivered was requested for the 
 press ; but the inadequacy of the views presented, 
 when compared with the magnitude and grandeur 
 of the subject discussed, always induced the author 
 (except in regard to the first lecture, which was 
 printed in 1840, in order to make known, more
 
 36 AUTHOR'S PREFACE. 
 
 generally, the objects which the Board had in 
 view) to decline a compliance with the request. 
 In the month of May last, however, the Board of 
 Education, by a special and unanimous vote, re- 
 quested him to prepare a volume of his Lectures 
 on Education for the press, and to this request he 
 has now acceded. 
 
 In preparing this volume, the author was led to- 
 doubt whether he should retain those portions of 
 the lectures which contained special and direct 
 allusions to the times and circumstances in which 
 they were delivered ; or whether, by omitting all 
 reference to temporary and passing events, he 
 should publish only those parts in which an at- 
 tempt was made to discuss broad and general prin- 
 ciples, or to enlist parental, patriotic, and religious 
 motives in behalf of the cause. He has been in- 
 duced to adopt the first part of the alternative, 
 both because itjQresents the lectures as they were 
 delivered, and because it gives an aspect of practi- 
 cal reform, rather than of theoretic speculation to 
 the work. 
 
 The author begs leave to add, that, as the lec- 
 tures were designed for popular and promiscuous 
 audiences, and pertained to a cause in which but 
 very little general interest was felt, he was con- 
 strained not only to confine himself to popular top- 
 ics, but also to treat them, as far as he was able, in 
 a popular manner. The more didactic expositions 
 of the merits of the great cause of Education, and
 
 AUTHOR'S PREFACE. 37 
 
 some of the relations which that cause holds to the 
 interests of civilization and human progress, he 
 has endeavored to set forth in his Annual Reports ; 
 while his more detailed and specific views, in re- 
 gard to modes and processes of instruction and 
 training, may be found in the volumes of the 
 Common-School Journal. Each one of these three 
 channels of communication with the public he has 
 endeavored to use for the exposition of a particular 
 class of the views and motives belonging to the 
 comprehensive subject of education. 
 
 Justice to himself compels the author to add 
 another remark, although of an unpleasant char- 
 acter. Some of the following lectures have been 
 delivered not only before different audiences in 
 Massachusetts, but in other States ; and, in several 
 instances, the author has seen, not only illustra- 
 tions and clauses, but whole sentences taken bodily 
 from the lectures, and transferred to works subse- 
 quently published. Should cases of this kind be 
 noticed by the reader, he is requested to compare 
 dates before deciding the question of plagiarism. 
 
 BOSTON, March, 1845. 
 
 4 1 ** f i > s\ 
 . ;,> j 8 9
 
 LECTURES ON EDUCATION. 
 
 LECTURE I. 
 
 MEANS AND OBJECTS OF COMMON-SCHOOL EDUCATION. 
 
 GENTLEMEN OF THE CONVENTION : 
 
 IN pursuance of notice, contained in a circular letter, 
 lately addressed to the school committees and friends of 
 Education, in this county, I now appear before you, as 
 the Secretary of the Massachusetts Board of Education. 
 That Board was constituted by an Act of the Legislature, 
 passed April 20, 1837. It consists of the Governor and 
 Lieutenant Governor of the Commonwealth, for the time 
 being, who are members ex officiis, and of eight other 
 gentlemen, appointed by the Executive, with the advice 
 and consent of the Council. The object of the Board is, 
 by extensive correspondence, by personal interviews, by 
 the development and discussion of principles, to collect 
 such information, on the great subject of Education, as 
 now lies scattered, buried, and dormant ; and after digest- 
 ing, and, as far as possible, systematizing and perfecting 
 it, to send it forth again to the extremest borders of the 
 State; so that all improvements which are local, may 
 be enlarged into universal ; that what is now transitory 
 and evanescent, may be established in permanency ; and 
 that correct views, on this all-important subject, may be 
 
 39
 
 40 MEANS AND OBJECTS OP 
 
 multiplied by the number of minds capable of under- 
 standing them. 
 
 To accomplish the object of their creation, however, 
 the Board are clothed with no power, either restraining 
 or directory. If they know of better modes of education, 
 they have no authority to enforce their adoption. Nor 
 have they any funds at their disposal. Even the services 
 of the members are gratuitously rendered. Without 
 authority, then, to command, and without money to re-. 
 mimerate or reward, their only resources, the only sinews 
 of their strength, are, their power of appealing to an 
 enlightened community, to rally for the promotion of its 
 dearest interests. 
 
 Unless, therefore, the friends of Education, in different 
 parts of the State, shall proffer their cordial and strenu- 
 ous co-operation, it is obvious, that the great purposes 
 for which the Board was constituted, can never be accom- 
 plished. Some persons, indeed, have suggested, that the 
 Secretary of the Board should visit the schools, individ- 
 ually, and impart such counsel and encouragement as he 
 might be able to do; not reflecting that such is their 
 number and the shortness of the time during which they 
 are kept, that, if he were to allow himself but one day 
 for each school, to make specific examinations and to give 
 detailed instructions, it would occupy something more 
 than sixteen years to complete the circuit ; while the 
 period, between the ages of four and sixteen, during which 
 our children usually attend school, is but twelve years ; 
 so that, before the Secretary could come round upon his 
 track again, one entire generation of scholars would have 
 passed away, and one-third of another. At his quickest 
 speed, he would lose sight of one-quarter of all the chil- 
 dren in the State. The Board, therefore, have no voice, 
 they have no organ, by which they can make themselves
 
 COMMON-SCHOOL EDUCATION. 41 
 
 heard, in the distant villages and hamlets of this land, 
 where those juvenile habits are now forming, where those 
 processes of thought and feeling are, now, to-day, matur- 
 ing, which, some twenty or thirty years hence, will find 
 an arm, and become resistless might, and will uphold, or 
 rend asunder, our social fabric. The Board may, 1 
 trust they will, be able to collect light and to radiate 
 it ; but upon the people, upon the people, will still rest the 
 great and inspiring duty of prescribing to the next gen- 
 eration what their fortunes shall be, by determining in 
 what manner they shall be educated. For it is the ances- 
 tors of a people, who prepare and predetermine all the 
 great events in that people's history ; their posterity 
 only collect and read them. No just judge will ever de- 
 cide upon the moral responsibility of an individual, with- 
 out first ascertaining what kind of parents he had ; 
 nor will any just historian ever decide upon the honor or 
 the infamy of a people, without placing the character of 
 its ancestors in the judgment-balance. If the system of 
 national instruction, devised and commenced by Charle- 
 magne, had been continued, it would have changed the 
 history of the French people. Such an event as the 
 French Revolution never would have happened with free 
 schools ; any more than the American Revolution would 
 have happened without them. The mobs, the riots, the 
 burnings, the lynchings, perpetrated by the men of the 
 present day, are perpetrated, because of their vicious or 
 defective education, when children. We see, and feel, 
 the havoc and the ravage of their tiger-passions, now, 
 when they are full grown ; but it was years ago that they 
 were whelped and suckled. And so, too, if we are dere- 
 lict from our duty, in this matter, our children, in their 
 turn, will suffer. If we permit the vulture's eggs to be 
 incubated and hatched, it will then be too late to take 
 care of the lambs.
 
 42 MEANS AND OBJECTS OF 
 
 Some eulogize our system of Popular Education, as 
 though worthy to be universally admired and imitated. 
 Others pronounce it circumscribed in its action, and fee- 
 ble, even where it acts. Let us waste no time in cornpos- 
 , ing this strife. If good, let us improve it ; if bad, let us 
 reform it. It is of human institutions, as of men, not 
 any one is so good that it cannot be made better ; nor so 
 bad, that it may not become worse. Our system of edu- 
 cation is not to be compared with those of other states or^ 
 countries, merely to determine whether it may be a little 
 more or a little less perfect than they ; but it is to be 
 contrasted with our highest ideas of perfection itself, and 
 then the pain of the contrast to be assuaged, by improving 
 it, forthwith and continually. The love of excellence 
 looks ever upward towards a higher standard ; it is unim- 
 proving pride and arrogance only, that are satisfied with 
 being superior to a lower. No community should rest 
 , contented with being superior to other communities, while 
 f> it is inferior to its own capabilities. And such are the 
 beneficent ordinations of Providence, that the very thought 
 of improving is the germination of improvement. 
 
 The science and the art of Education, like every thing 
 human, depend upon culture, for advancement. And they 
 would be more cultivated, if the rewards for attention, 
 and the penalties for neglect, were better understood. 
 When effects follow causes, quick as thunder, light- 
 ning, even infants and idiots learn to beware ; or they 
 act, to enjoy. They have a glimmer of reason, sufficient, 
 in sucli cases, for admonition, or impulse. Now, in this 
 world, the entire succession of events, which fills time 
 and makes up life, is nothing but causes and effects. 
 These causes and effects are bound and linked together 
 by an adamantine law. And the Deity has given us 
 power over the effects, by giving us power over the causes.
 
 COMMON-SCHOOL EDUCATION. 43 
 
 This power consists in a knowledge of the connection 
 established between causes and effects, enabling us to 
 foresee the future consequences of present conduct. If 
 you show to me a handful of perfect seeds, I know, that, 
 with appropriate culture, those seeds will produce a 
 growth after their kind ; whether it be of pulse, which is 
 ripened for human use in a month, or of oaks, whose life- 
 time is centuries. So, in some of the actions of men, 
 consequences follow conduct with a lockstep ; in others, 
 the effects of youthful actions first burst forth as from a 
 subterranean current, in advanced life. In those great 
 relations which subsist between different generations, 
 between ancestors and posterity, effects are usually 
 separated from their causes by long intervals of time. 
 The pulsations of a nation's heart are to be counted, not 
 by seconds, but by years. Now, it is in this class of cases, 
 where there are long intervals lying between our conduct 
 and its consequences ; where one generation sows, and 
 another generation reaps ; it is in this class of cases, 
 that the greatest and most sorrowful of human errors 
 originate. Yet, even for these, a benevolent Creator has 
 supplied us with an antidote. He has given us the faculty 
 of reason, whose especial office and function it is, to dis- 
 cover the connection between causes and effects ; and 
 thereby to enable us so to regulate the causes of to-day, 
 as to predestinate the effects of to-morrow. In the eye 
 of reason, causes and effects exist in proximity, in jux- 
 taposition. They lie side by side, whatever length of 
 time, or distance of space, comes in between them. If I 
 am guilty of an act or a neglect, to-day, which will cer- 
 tainly cause the infliction of a wrong, it matters not 
 whether that wrong happens on the other side of 
 the globe, or in the next century. Whenever or 
 wherever it happens, it is mine ; it belongs to me ; my
 
 44 MEANS AND OBJECTS OF 
 
 conscience owns it, and no sophistry can give me absolu- 
 tion. Who would think of acquitting an incendiary, 
 because the train which he had laid and lighted, first 
 circuited the globe before it reached and consumed his 
 neighbor's dwelling? From the nature of the case, in 
 education, the effects are widely separated from the causes. 
 They happen so long afterwards, that the reason of the 
 community loses sight of the connection between them. 
 It does not bring the cause and the effect together, and 
 lay them, and look at them, side by side. 
 
 If, instead of twenty-one years, the course of Nature 
 allowed but twenty-one days, to rear an infant to the full 
 stature of manhood, and to sow in his bosom the seeds 
 of unbounded happiness or of unspeakable misery, I 
 suppose, in that case, the merchant would abandon his 
 bargains, and the farmer would leave the in-gathering of 
 his harvest, and even the drunkard would hie homeward 
 from the midst of his revel, and that twenty-one days 
 would be spent, without much sleep, and with many 
 prayers. And yet, it cannot be denied, that the conse- 
 quences of a vicious education, inflicted upon a child, are 
 now precisely the same as they would be, if, at the end of 
 twenty-one days after an infant's birth, his tongue were 
 already roughened with oaths and blasphemy ; or he were 
 seen skulking through society, obtaining credit upon false 
 pretences, or with rolls of counterfeit bills in his pocket ; 
 or were already expiating his offences in the bondage and 
 infamy of a prison. And the consequences of a virtuous 
 education, at the end of twenty-one years, are now pre- 
 cisely the same as they would be, if, at the end of twenty- 
 one days after his birth, the infant had risen from his 
 cradle into the majestic form of manhood, and were 
 possessed of all those qualities and attributes, which a 
 being created in the image of God ought to have ; with
 
 COMMON-SCHOOL EDUCATION. 45 
 
 a power of fifty years of beneficent labor compacted into 
 his frame ; with nerves of sympathy, reaching out from 
 his own heart and twining around the heart of society, 
 so that the great social wants of men should be a part of 
 his consciousness ; and with a mind able to perceive 
 what is right, prompt to defend it, or, if need be, to die 
 for it. It ought to be understood, that none of these con- 
 sequences become any the less certain, because they are 
 more remote. It ought to be universally understood and 
 intimately felt, that, in regard to chUdren,all precept and 
 example ; all kindness and harshness ; all rebuke and 
 commendation ; all forms, indeed, of direct or indirect 
 education, affect mental growth, just as dew, and sun, 
 and shower, or untimely frost, affect vegetable growth. 
 Their influences are integrated and made one with the 
 soul. They enter into spiritual combination with it, 
 never afterwards to be wholly decompounded. They are 
 like the daily food eaten by wild game, so pungent and 
 saporific in its nature, that it flavors every fibre of their 
 flesh, and colors every bone in their body. Indeed, so 
 pervading and enduring is the effect of education upon 
 the youthful soul, that it may well be compared to a cer- 
 tain species of writing-ink, whose color, at first, is scarcely 
 perceptible, but which penetrates deeper and grows black- 
 er by age, until, if you consume the scroll over a coal-fire, 
 the character will still be legible in the cinders. It ought 
 to be understood and felt, that, however it may be in a 
 i-ocial or jurisprudential sense, it is nevertheless true, in 
 the most solemn and dread-inspiring sense, that, by an 
 irrepealable law of Nature, the iniquities of the fathers are 
 still visited upon the children, .unto the third and fourth 
 generation. Nor do the children suffer for the iniquities 
 only, of their parents ; they suffer for their neglect and 
 even for their ignorance. Hence I have always admired
 
 46 MEANS AND OBJECTS OF 
 
 that law of the Icelanders, by which, when a minor child 
 commits an offence, the courts first make judicial inquiry, 
 whether his parents have given him a good education ; 
 and, if it be proved they have not, the child is acquitted 
 and the parents are punished. In both the old Colonies 
 of Plymouth, and of Massachusetts Bay, if a child, over 
 sixteen, and under twenty-one years of age, committed a 
 certain capital offence against father or mother, he was 
 allowed to arrest judgment of death upon himself, by. 
 showing that his parents, in the language of the law, 
 " had been very unchristianly negligent in his education." 
 
 How, then, are the purposes of education to be accom- 
 plished ? However other worlds may be, this world of 
 ours is evidently constructed on the plan of producing 
 ends by using means. Even the Deity, with his Omni- 
 science and his Omnipotence, carries forward our system, 
 by processes so minute, and movements so subtile, as 
 generally to elude our keenest inspection. He might 
 speak all the harvests of the earth, and all the races of 
 animals and of men, into full-formed existence, at a word, 
 and yet the tree is elaborated from the kernel, and the 
 wing from the chrysalis, by a series of processes, which 
 occupies years, and sometimes centuries, for its comple- 
 tion. Education, more than any thing else, demands not 
 only a scientific acquaintance with mental laws, but the 
 nicest art in the detail, and the application of means, for 
 its successful prosecution ; because influences, impercep- 
 tible in childhood, work out more and more broadly into 
 beauty or deformity, in after-life. No unskilful hand 
 should ever play upon a harp, where the tones are left, 
 forever, in the strings. 
 
 In the first place, the best methods should be well 
 ascertained ; in the second, they should be universally 
 diffused. .In this Commonwealth, there are about three
 
 COMMON-SCHOOL EDUCATION. 47 
 
 thousand Public Schools, in all of which the rudiments 
 of knowledge are taught. These schools, at the present 
 time, are so many distinct, independent communities, 
 each being governed by its own habits, traditions, and 
 local customs. There is no common, superintending 
 power over them ; there is no bond of brotherhood or 
 family between them. They are strangers and aliens to 
 each other. The teachers are, as it were, embedded, each 
 hi his own school district, and they are yet to be exca- 
 vated and brought together, and to be established, each 
 as a polished pillar of a holy temple. As the system is 
 now administered, if any improvement in principles or 
 modes of teaching is discovered by talent or accident, in 
 one school, instead of being published to the world, it 
 dies with the discoverer. No means exist for multiplying 
 new truths, or even for preserving old ones. A gentle- 
 man, filling one of the highest civil offices in this Com- 
 monwealth, a resident in one of the oldest counties 
 and in one of the largest towns in the State, a sincere 
 friend of the cause of education, recently put into my 
 hands a printed report, drawn up by a clergyman of high 
 repute, which described, as was supposed, an important 
 improvement in relation to our Common -Schools, and 
 earnestly enjoined its general adoption, when it happened 
 to be within my own knowledge, that the supposed new 
 discovery had been in successful operation for sixteen 
 years, in a town but little more than sixteen miles dis- 
 tant. Now, in other things, we act otherwise. If a 
 manufacturer discovers a new combination of wheels, or 
 a new mode of applying water or steam-power, by which 
 stock can be economized, or the value of fabrics enhanced 
 ten per cent., the information flies over the country at 
 once ; the old machinery is discarded, the new is substi- 
 tuted. Nay, it is difficult for an inventor to preserve the
 
 48 MEANS AND OBJECTS OF 
 
 secret of his invention, until he can secure it by letters- 
 patent. Our mechanics seem to possess a sort of keen, 
 grey-hound faculty, by which they can scent an improve- 
 ment afar off. They will sometimes go in disguise to the 
 inventor, and offer themselves as workmen ; and instances 
 have been known of their breaking into his workshop, 
 by night, and purloining the invention. And hence that 
 progress in the mechanic arts, which has given a name to 
 the age in which we live, and made it a common wonder. 
 Improvements in useful, and often in useless, arts, com- 
 mand solid prices, twenty, fifty, or even a hundred 
 thousand dollars, while improvements in education, in 
 the means of obtaining new guaranties for the perma- 
 nence of all we hold dear, and for making our children 
 and our children's children wiser and happier, these are 
 scarcely topics of conversation or inquiry. Do we not 
 need, then, some new and living institution, some animate 
 organization, which shall at least embody and diffuse all 
 that is now known on this subject, and thereby save, 
 every year, hundreds of children from being sacrificed to 
 experiments which have been a hundred times exploded ? 
 Before noticing some particulars, in which a common 
 channel for receiving and for disseminating information, 
 may subserve the prosperity of our Common Schools, 
 allow me to premise that there is one rule, which, in all 
 places, and in all forms of education, should be held as 
 primary, paramount, and, as far as possible, exclusive. 
 Acquirement and pleasure should go hand in hand. They 
 should never part company. The pleasure of acquiring 
 should be the incitement to acquire. A child is wholly 
 incapable of appreciating the ultimate value or uses of 
 knowledge. In its early beginnings, the motive of gen- 
 eral, future utility will be urged in vain. Tell an abece- 
 darian, as an inducement to learn his letters, of the
 
 COMMON-SCHOOL EDUCATION. 49 
 
 sublimities of poetry and eloquence, that may be wrought 
 out of the alphabet, and to him it is not so good as moon- 
 shine. Let me ask any man whether he ever had, when 
 a child, any just conception of the uses, to which he is 
 now, as a man, daily applying his knowledge. How vain 
 is it, then, to urge upon a child, as a motive to study, 
 that which he cannot possibly understand ! Nor is the 
 motive of fear preferable. Fear is one of the most de- 
 basing and dementalizing of all the passions. The senti- 
 ment of fear was given us, that it might be roused into 
 action, by whatever should be shunned, scorned, abhorred. 
 The emotion should never be associated with what is to 
 be desired, toiled for, and loved. If a child appetizes his 
 books, then lesson-getting is free labor. If he revolts at 
 them, then it is slave-labor. Less is done, and the little 
 is not so well done. Nature has implanted a feeling of 
 curiosity in the breast of every child, as if to make her- 
 self certain of his activity and progress. The desire of 
 learning alternates with the desire of food ; the mental 
 with the bodily appetite. The former is even more crav- 
 ing and exigent in its nature than the latter, and acts 
 longer without satiety. Men sit with folded arms, even 
 while they arc surrounded by objects of which they know 
 nothing. Who ever saw that done by a child ? But we 
 cloy, disgust, half-extirpate, this appetite for knowledge, 
 and then deny its existence. Mark a child, when a clear, 
 well-defined, vivid conception seizes it. The whole ner- 
 vous tissue vibrates. Every muscle leaps. Every joint 
 plays. The face becomes auroral. The spirit flashes 
 through the body, like lightning through a cloud. Tell 
 a child the simplest story, which is adapted to his present 
 state of mental advancement, and therefore intelligible, 
 and he will forget sleep, leave food untasted, nor would 
 he be enticed from hearing it, though you should give
 
 50 MEANS AND OBJECTS OP 
 
 him for playthings, shining fragments broken off from the 
 sun. Observe the blind, and the deaf and dumb. So 
 strong is their inborn desire for knowledge, such are the 
 amazing attractive forces of their minds for it, that, al- 
 though those natural inlets, the eye and the ear, are 
 closed, yet they will draw it inward, through the solid 
 walls and incasements of the body. If the eye be cur- 
 tained with darkness, it will enter through the ear. If 
 the ear be closed in silence, it will ascend along the 
 nerves of touch. Every new idea that enters into the 
 presence of the sovereign mind, carries offerings of de- 
 light with it, to make its coming welcome. Indeed, our 
 Maker created us in blank ignorance, for the very purpose 
 of giving us the boundless, endless pleasure of learning 
 new things ; and the true path for the human intellect 
 leads onward arid upward from ignorance towards om- 
 niscience, ascending by an infinity of steps, each novel 
 and delightful. 
 
 The voice of Nature, therefore, forbids the infliction of 
 annoyance, discomfort, pain, upon a child, while engaged 
 in study. If he actually suffers from position, or heat, 
 or cold, or fear, not only is a portion of the energy of his 
 mind withdrawn from his lesson, all of which should 
 be concentrated upon it, but, at that undiscriminating 
 age, the pain blends itself with the study, makes part of 
 the remembrance of it, and thus curiosity and the love 
 of learning are deadened, or turned away towards vicious 
 objects. This is the philosophy of children's hating study. 
 We insulate them by fear ; we touch them with non-con- 
 ductors ; and then, because they emit no spark, we gravely 
 aver that they are non-electric bodies. If possible, pleas- 
 ure should be made to flow like a sweet atmosphere 
 around the early learner, and pain be kept beyond the 
 association of ideas. You cannot open blossoms with a
 
 COMMON-SCHOOL EDUCATION. 51 
 
 north-east storm. The buds of the hardiest plants will 
 wait for the genial influences of the sun, though they 
 perish while waiting. 
 
 The first practical application of these truths, in rela- 
 tion to our Common Schools, is to School-house Archi- 
 tecture, a subject so little regarded, yet so vitally im- 
 portant. The construction of school-houses involves, not 
 the love of study and proficiency, only, but health and 
 length of life. I have the testimony of many eminent 
 physicians to this fact. They assure me that it is within 
 their own personal knowledge, that there is, annually, 
 loss of life, destruction of health, and such anatomical 
 distortion as renders life hardly worth possessing, growing 
 out of the bad construction of our school-houses. Nor is 
 this evil confined to a few of them, only. It is a very 
 general calamity. I have seen many school-houses, in 
 central districts of rich and populous towns, where each 
 seat connected with a desk, consisted only of an upright 
 post or pedestal, jutting up out of the floor, the upper end 
 of which was only about eight or ten inches square, with- 
 out side-arms or back-board ; and some of them so high 
 that the feet of the children in vain sought after the floor. 
 They were beyond soundings. Yet, on the hard top of 
 these stumps, the masters and misses of the school must 
 balance themselves, as well as they can, for six hours in 
 a day. All attempts to preserve silence in such a house 
 are not only vain, but cruel. Nothing but absolute em- 
 palement could keep a live child still, on such a seat ; 
 and you would hardly think him worth living, if it could. 
 The pupils will resort to every possible bodily evolution 
 for relief ; and, after all, though they may change the place, 
 they keep the pain. I have good reasons for remembering 
 one of another class of school-houses, which the scien- 
 tific would probably call the sixth order of architecture,
 
 52 MEANS AND OBJECTS OF 
 
 the wicker-work order, summer-houses for winter res- 
 idence, where there never was a severely cold day, 
 without the ink's freezing in the pens of the scholars 
 while they were writing ; and the teacher was literally 
 obliged to compromise between the sufferings of those who 
 were exposed to the cold of the windows and those exposed 
 to the heat of the fire, by not raising the thermometer of 
 the latter above ninety degrees, until that of the former fell 
 below thirty. A part of the children suffered the Arctic" 
 cold of Captains Ross and Parry, and a part, the torrid 
 heat of the Landers, without, in either case, winning the 
 honors of a discoverer. It was an excellent place for 
 the teacher to illustrate one of the facts in geography ; 
 for five steps would have carried him through the five 
 zones. Just before my present circuit, I passed a school- 
 house, the roof of which, on one side, was trough-like ; 
 and down towards the eaves there was a large hole ; so 
 that the whole operated like a tunnel to catch all the rain 
 and pour it into the school-room. At first, I did not 
 know but it might be some apparatus designed to explain 
 the Deluge. I called and inquired of the mistress, if she 
 and her little ones were not sometimes drowned out. 
 She said she should be, only that the floor leaked as badly 
 as the roof, and drained off the water. And yet a health- 
 ful, comfortable school-house can be erected as cheaply as 
 one which, judging from its construction, you would 
 say, had been dedicated to the evil genius of deformity 
 and suffering. 
 
 There is another evil in the construction of our school- 
 houses, whose immediate consequences are not so bad, 
 though their remote ones are indefinitely worse. No fact 
 is now better established, than that a man cannot live 
 without a supply of about a gallon of fresh air, every 
 minute ; nor enjoy good health, indeed, without much
 
 COMMON-SCHOOL EDUCATION. 53 
 
 more. The common air, as is now well known, is mainly 
 composed of two ingredients, one only of which can sus- 
 tain life, The action of the lungs upon the vital portion 
 of the air, changes its very nature, converting it from a 
 life-sustaining to a life-destroying element. As we inhale 
 a portion of the atmosphere, it is healthful ; the same 
 portion, as we exhale it, is poisonous. Hence, ventila- 
 tion in rooms, especially where large numbers are col- 
 lected, is a condition of health and life. Privation ad- 
 mits of no excuse. To deprive a child of comfortable 
 clothes, or wholesome food, or fuel, may sometimes, pos- 
 sibly, be palliated. These cost money, and often draw 
 hardly upon the scanty resources of the poor. But what 
 shall we say of stinting and starving a child, in regard to 
 this prime necessary of life, fresh air ? of holding his 
 mouth, as it were, lest he should obtain a sufficiency of 
 that vital element, which God, in His munificence, has 
 poured out, a hundred miles deep, all around the globe ? 
 Of productions, reared or transported by human toil, 
 there may be a dearth. At any rate, frugality in such 
 things is commendable. But to put a child on short al- 
 lowances out of this sky-full of air, is enough to make a 
 miser weep. It is as absurd, as it would have been for 
 Noah, while the torrents of rain were still descending, to 
 have put his family upon short allowances of water. This 
 vast quantity of air was given us to supersede the neces- 
 sity of ever using it at second-hand. Heaven has or- 
 dained this matter with adorable wisdom. That very 
 portion of the air which we turn into poison, by respiring 
 it, becomes the aliment of vegetation. What is death to 
 us, is life to all verdure and flowerage. And again, vege- 
 tation rejects the ingredient which is life to us. Thus 
 the equilibrium is forever restored ; or rather, it is never 
 destroyed. In this perpetual circuit, the atmosphere is
 
 54 MEANS AND OBJECTS OP 
 
 forever renovated, and made the sustainer of life, both 
 for the animal and vegetable worlds. 
 
 A simple contrivance for ventilating the school-room, 
 unattended with any perceptible expense, would rescue 
 children from this fatal, though unseen evil. It is an in- 
 disputable fact, that, for years past, far more attention 
 has been paid, in this respect, to the construction of jails 
 and prisons, than to that of school-house?. Yet, why 
 should we treat our felons better than our children? I 
 have observed in all our cities and populous towns, that, 
 wherever stables have been recently built, provision has 
 been made for their ventilation. This is encouraging, for 
 I hope the children's turn will come, when gentlemen 
 shall have taken care of their horses. I implore physi- 
 cians to act upon this evil. Let it be removed, extirpated, 
 cut off, surgically. 
 
 I cannot here stop to give even an index of the advan- 
 tages of an agreeable site for a school-house ; of attrac- 
 tive, external appearance ; of internal finish, neatness, 
 and adaptation ; nor of the still more important subject 
 of having two rooms for all large schools, both on the 
 same floor, or one over the other, so as to allow a sep- 
 aration of the large from the small scholars, for the pur- 
 pose of placing the latter, at least, under the care of a 
 female teacher. Each of these topics, and especially the 
 last, is worthy of a separate essay. Allow me, however, 
 to remark, in passing, that I regard it as one of the 
 clearest ordinances of nature, that woman is the appointed 
 guide and guardian of children of a tender age. And 
 she does not forego, but, in the eye of prophetic vision, 
 she anticipates and makes her own, all the immortal 
 honors of the academy, the forum, and the senate, when 
 she lays their deep foundations, by training up children 
 in the way they should go.
 
 COMMON-SCHOOL EDUCATION. 55 
 
 A great mischief, I use the word mischief, because it 
 implies a certain degree of wickedness, a great mis- 
 chief is suffered in the diversity and multiplicity of our 
 school books. Not more than twenty or thirty different 
 kinds of books, exclusive of a school library, are needed 
 in our Common Schools ; and yet, though I should not 
 dare state the fact, if I had not personally sought out the 
 information from most authentic sources, there are now, 
 in actual use in the schools of this State, more than three 
 hundred different kinds of books; and, in the markets of 
 this and the neighboring States, seeking for our adoption, 
 I know not how many hundreds more. The standards, 
 in spelling, pronunciation, and writing ; in rules of gram- 
 mar and in processes in arithmetic, are as various as the 
 books. Correct language, in one place, is provincialism 
 in another. While we agree in regarding the confusion 
 of Babel as a judgment, we unite in confounding it more, 
 as though it were a blessing. But is not uniformity on 
 these subjects desirable ? Are there not some of these 
 books, to which all good judges, on comparison, would 
 award the preference ? Could they not be afforded much 
 cheaper for the great market which uniformity would 
 open ; thus furnishing better books at lower prices ? And 
 why not teach children aright, the first time ? It is much 
 harder to unlearn than to learn. Why go through three 
 processes instead of one, by first learning, then unlearn- 
 ing, and then learning, again ? This mischief grew out 
 of the immense profits formerly realized from the manu- 
 facture of school books. There seems never to have been 
 any difficulty in procuring reams of recommendations, 
 because patrons have acted under no responsibility. An 
 edition once published must be sold ; for the date has be- 
 come almost as important in school books, as in almanacs. 
 All manner of devices are daily used to displace the old
 
 56 MEANS AND OBJECTS OF 
 
 books, and to foist in new ones. The compiler has a 
 cousin in the town of A, who will decry the old and re- 
 commend the new ; or a literary gentleman in the city of 
 B has just published some book on a different subject, 
 and is willing to exchange recommendations, even ; or 
 the author has a mechanical friend, in a neighboring town, 
 who has just patented some new tool, and who will rec- 
 ommend the author's book, if the author will recom- 
 mend his tool ! Publishers often employ agents to hawk- 
 their books about the country ; and I have known several 
 instances where such a peddler, or picaroon, has taken 
 all the old books of a whole class in school, in exchange 
 for his new ones, book for book, looking, of course, to 
 his chance of making sales after the book had been estab- 
 lished in the school, for reimbursement and profits ; so 
 that at last, the children have to pay for what they sup- 
 posed was given them. On this subject, too, cannot the 
 mature views of competent and disinterested men, resid- 
 ing, respectively, in all parts of the State, be the means 
 of effecting a much-needed reform ? 
 
 There is another point, where, as it seems to me, a 
 united effort among the friends of education would, in 
 certain branches of instruction, increase tenfold the 
 efficiency of our Common Schools. I mean, the use of 
 some simple apparatus, so as to employ the eye, more 
 than the ear, in the acquisition of knowledge. After the 
 earliest years of childhood, the superiority of the eye over 
 the other senses, in quickness, in precision, in the vast- 
 ness of its field of operations, and in its power of pene- 
 trating, like a flash, into any interstices, where light can 
 go and come, is almost infinite. The senses of taste, and 
 smell, and touch, seem to be more the servants of the 
 body than of the soul ; and, amongst the infinite variety 
 of objects in the external world, hearing takes notice of
 
 COMMON-SCHOOL EDUCATION, 57 
 
 sounds only. Close your eyes, and then, with the aid of 
 the other senses, examine a watch, an artisan's workshop, 
 a manufactory, a ship, a steam-engine ; and how meagre 
 and formless are all the ideas they present to you. But 
 the eye is the great thoroughfare between the outward and 
 material infinite, and the inward and spiritual infinite. 
 The mind often acquires, by a glance of the eye, what 
 volumes of books and months of study could not reveal 
 so livingly through the ear. Every thing that comes 
 through the eye, too, has a vividness, a clear outline, a 
 just collocation of parts, each in its proper place, 
 which the other senses can never communicate. Ideas 
 or impressions acquired through vision are long-lived. 
 Those acquired through the agency of the other senses 
 often die young. Hence, the immeasurable superiority 
 of this organ is founded in Nature. There is a fund of 
 truth in the old saying, that " seeing is believing." There 
 never will be any such maxim in regard to the other 
 senses. To use the ear instead of the eye, in any case 
 where the latter is available, is as preposterous, as it 
 would be for our migratory birds, in their overland pas- 
 sage, to walk rather than to fly. We laugh at the Ger- 
 mans, because in using their oxen, they attach the load 
 to the horns, instead of the neck ; but do we not commit 
 a much greater absurdity, in communicating knowledge 
 through the narrow fissure of the ear, which holds com- 
 munication only with a small circle of things, and in that 
 circle, only with things that utter a sound, instead of con- 
 veying it through the broad portals of the earth and 
 heaven surveying eye ? Nine tenths, may I not say 
 ninety-nine hundredths, of all our Common School in- 
 struction are conveyed through the ear ; or, which is 
 the same thing, through the medium of written instead 
 of spoken words, where the eye has been taught to do
 
 58 MEANS AND OBJECTS OF 
 
 the work of the ear. In teaching those parts of geogra- 
 phy which comprise the outlines and natural features of 
 the earth, and in astronomy, the use of the globe and the 
 planetarium would reduce the labor of months to as 
 many hours. Ocular evidence, also, is often indispensa- 
 ble for correcting the imperfections of language, as it is 
 understood by a child. For instance, (and I take this 
 illustration from fact and not from imagination,) a child, 
 born in the interior, and who has never seen the ocean, is 
 taught that the earth is surrounded by an elastic medium, 
 called the atmosphere. He thereby gets the idea of per- 
 fect circumfusion and envelopment. In the next lesson, 
 he is taught that an island is a small body of land sur- 
 rounded by water. If he has a quick iniad, he may get the 
 idea that an island is land, enveloped in water, as the 
 earth is in air. Mature minds always modify the mean- 
 ing of words and sentences by numerous rules, of which 
 a child knows nothing. If, when speaking of the Deity 
 to a man of common intelligence, I use the word 
 *' power," he understands omnipotence ; and if I use the 
 same word when speaking of an ant, he understands that 
 I mean strength enough to lift a grain ; but a child 
 would require explanations, limiting the meaning of the 
 word in the one case, and extending it in the other. 
 
 Other things being equal, the pleasure which a child 
 enjoys, in studying or contemplating, is proportioned to 
 the liveliness of his perceptions and ideas. A child who 
 spurns books, will be attracted and delighted by visible 
 objects of well-defined forms and striking colors. In the 
 one case, he sees things through a haze ; in the other, by 
 sunlight. A contemplative child, whose mind gets as 
 vivid images from reading as from gazing, always prefers 
 reading. Although it is undoubtedly true, that taste and 
 predilection, in regard to any subject, will give brightness
 
 COMMON-SCHOOL EDUCATION. 59 
 
 and distinctness to ideas, yet it is also true that bright 
 and distinct ideas will greatly modify tastes and predilec- 
 tions. Now the eye may be employed much more exten- 
 sively than it ever has been, in giving what I will venture 
 to call the geography of ideas, that is, a perception, where 
 one idea bounds on another ; where the province of one 
 idea ends, and that of the adjacent ideas begins. Could 
 children be habituated to fixing these lines of demarca- 
 tion, to seeing and feeling ideas as distinctly as though 
 they were geometrical solids, they would then experience 
 an insupportable uneasiness, whenever they were lost in 
 fog-land, and among the Isles of the Mist ; and this un- 
 easiness would enforce investigation, survey, and perpet- 
 ual outlook, and, in after-life, a power would exist of 
 applying luminous and exact thought to extensive combi- 
 nations of facts and principles, and we should have the 
 materials of philosophers, statesmen and chief-justices. 
 The pleasure which children enjoy in visiting our miser- 
 able toy-shop collections, the dreams of crazy brains, 
 done into wood and pewter, comes mainly from the 
 vividness, the oneness, wholeness, completeness, of their 
 perceptions. The gewgaws do not give delight, because 
 of their grotesqueness, but in spite of it. Natural ideas 
 derived through a microscope, or from any mechanism 
 which would stamp as deep an imprint, aud glow with as 
 quick a vitality, would give them far greater delight. 
 And how different, as to attainments in useful knowledge, 
 would children be, at the end of eight or ten years, ac- 
 cordingly as they had sought their gratifications from one 
 or the other of these sources. 
 
 And what higher delight, what reward, at once so in- 
 nocent and so elevating, as to explain by means of suitable 
 apparatus, to the larger scholars in a school, the cause 
 and manner of an eclipse of the sun or moon ! And
 
 60 MEANS AND OBJECTS OP 
 
 when those impressive phenomena occur, how beautiful 
 to witness the manifestations of wonder and of reverence 
 for God, which spring spontaneously from the intelligent 
 observation of such sublime spectacles, instead of their 
 being regarded with the horrible imaginings of superstition, 
 or with such stupid amazement as belongs only to the 
 brutes that perish ! If a model were given, every inge- 
 nious boy, with a few broken window panes and a pocket- 
 knife, could make a prism. With this, the rainbow, the- 
 changing colors of the dew-drop, the gorgeous light of 
 the sunset sky, could be explained ; and thus might the 
 minds of children be early imbued with a love of pure 
 and beautiful things, and led upward towards the angel, 
 instead of downward towards the brute, from this middle 
 ground of humanity. Imbue the young mind with these 
 sacred influences, and they will forever constitute a part 
 of its moral being ; they will abide with it, and tend to 
 uphold and purify it, wherever it may be cast by fortune 
 in this tumultuous arena of life. A spirit so softened 
 and penetrated, will be 
 
 " Like the vase in which roses have once been distilled ; 
 You may break, you may ruin the vase, if you will, 
 But the scent of the roses will hang round it still." 
 
 At the last session of the Legislature, a law was enacted, 
 authorizing school districts to raise money for the purchase 
 of apparatus and Common School libraries, for the use 
 of the children, to be expended in sums not exceeding 
 thirty dollars for the first year, and ten dollars for any 
 succeeding year. Trifling as this may appear, yet I re- 
 gard the law as hardly second in importance to any which 
 has been passed since the year 1647, when Common 
 Schools were established. Every district can find some 
 secure place for preserving them, until, in repairing or
 
 COMMON-SCHOOL EDUCATION. 61 
 
 rebuilding schoolhouses, a separate apartment can be 
 provided for their safe-keeping. As soon as one half the 
 benefits of these instruments of learning shall be under- 
 stood, I doubt not that public-spirited individuals will be 
 found, in most towns, who will contribute something to 
 the library ; and artisans, too, who will feel an honorable 
 pleasure in adding something to the apparatus, wrought 
 by their own hands, perhaps devised by their own in- 
 genuity. " Build dove-holes," says the proverb, " and 
 the doves will come." And what purer satisfaction, what 
 more sacred object of ambition, can any raau propose to 
 himself, than to give the first impulse to an improvement, 
 which will go on increasing in value forever ! It may be 
 said, that mischievous children will destroy or mutilate 
 whatever is obtained for this purpose. But children will 
 not destroy or injure what gives them pleasure. Indeed, 
 the love of malicious mischief, the proneness to deface 
 whatever is beautiful, this vile ingredient in the old 
 Saxon blood, wherever it flows, originated, and it is 
 aggravated, by the almost total want, amongst us, of 
 objects of beauty, taste, and elegance, for our children to 
 grow up with, to admire, and to protect. 
 
 The expediency of having District School Libraries is 
 fast becoming a necessity. It is too late to stop the art 
 of printing, or to arrest the general circulation of books. 
 Reading of some kind, the children will have ; and the 
 question is, whether it is best that this reading should be 
 supplied to them by the choice of men, whose sole object 
 is gain, or whether it shall be prepared by wise and 
 benevolent men, whose object is to do good. Probably, 
 not one child in ten in this State, has free access to any 
 library of useful and entertaining knowledge. Where 
 there are town, parish, or social libraries, they either do 
 not consist of suitable books, or they are burdened with
 
 62 MEANS AND OBJECTS OF 
 
 restrictions which exclude more than are admitted. A 
 District School Library would be open to all the children 
 in the district. They would enter it independently. 
 Wherever there is genius, the library would nourish it. 
 Talents would not die of inaction, for want of some 
 sphere for exercise. Habits of reading and reflection 
 would be formed, instead of habits of idleness and ma- 
 licious mischief. The wealth and prosperity of Massa- 
 chusetts are not owing to natural position or resources. 
 They exist, in despite of a sterile soil and an inhospitable 
 clime. They do not come from the earth, but from the 
 ingenuity and frugality of the people. Their origin is 
 good thinking, carried out into good action ; and intelli- 
 gent reading in a child will result in good thinking in the 
 man or woman. But there is danger, it is said, of read- 
 ing bad books. So there is danger of eating bad food ; 
 shall we therefore have no harvests ? No ! It was the 
 kindling excitement of a few books, by which those Mas- 
 sachusetts boys, John Adams and Benjamin Franklin, 
 first struck out an intellectual spark, which broadened 
 into magnitude and brightened into splendor, until it 
 became a mighty luminary, which now stands, and shall 
 forever stand, among the greater lights in the firmament 
 of glory. 
 
 But in the selection of books for school libraries, let 
 every man stand upon his honor, and never ask for the 
 introduction of any book, because it favors the distinctive 
 views of his sect or party. A wise man prizes only the 
 free and intelligent assent of unprejudiced minds ; he dis- 
 dains a slavish and non-compos echo, even to his best- 
 loved opinions. In striving together for a common end, 
 peculiar ends must neither be advocated nor assailed. 
 Strengthen the intellect of children, by exercise upon the 
 objects and laws of Nature ; train their feelings to habits
 
 COMMON-SCHOOL EDUCATION. 63 
 
 of order, industry, temperance, justice ; to the love of 
 man, because of his wants, and to the love of God, be- 
 cause of his universally-acknowledged perfections ; and, 
 so far as public measures, applicable to all, can reach, you 
 have the highest human assurance, that, when they grow 
 up, they will adopt your favorite opinions, if they are right, 
 or discover the true reasons for discarding them, if they 
 are wrong. 
 
 An advantage altogether invaluable, of supplying a 
 child, by means of a library and of apparatus, with vivid 
 ideas and illustrations, is, that he may always be possessed, 
 in his own mind, of correct standards and types with 
 which to compare whatever objects he may see in his ex- 
 cursions abroad ; and that he may also have useful sub- 
 jects of reflection, whenever his attention is not engrossed 
 by external things. A boy who is made clearly to under- 
 stand the philosophical principle on which he flies his kite, 
 and then to recognize the same principle in a wind or a 
 water-wheel, and in the sailing of a ship ; wherever busi- 
 ness or pleasure may afterwards lead him, if he sees that 
 principle in operation, he will mentally refer to it, and 
 think out its applications, when, otherwise, he would 
 be singing or whistling. Twenty years would work out 
 immense results from such daily observation and reflec- 
 tion. Dr. Franklin attributed much of his practical turn 
 of mind, which was the salient point of his immortal- 
 ity, to the fact, that his father, in his conversations 
 before the family, always discussed some useful subject, 
 or developed some just principle of individual or social 
 action, instead of talking forever about troiit-catching or 
 grouse-shooting ; about dogs, dinners, dice, or trumps. 
 In its moral bearings this subject grows into immense im- 
 portance. How many months, may I not say years, 
 in a child's life, when, with spontaneous activity, his mind
 
 64 MEANS AND OBJECTS OP 
 
 hovers and floats wherever it listeth ! As he sits at home, 
 amid familiar objects, or walks frequented paths, or lies 
 listlessly in his bed, if his mind be not pre-occupied with 
 some substantial subjects of thought, the best that you 
 can hope is, that it will wander through dream-land, and 
 expend its activity in chasing shadows. Far more prob- 
 able is it, especially if the child is exposed to the contam- 
 ination of profane or obscene minds, that in these seasons 
 of solitude and reverie, the cockatrice's eggs of impur.fi 
 thoughts and desires will be hatched. And what boy, at 
 least, is there who is not in daily peril of being corrupted 
 by the evil communications of his elders ? We all know, 
 that there are self-styled gentlemen amongst us, self- 
 styled gentlemen, who daily, and hourly, lap their 
 tongues in the foulness of profanity ; and though, through 
 a morally-insane perversion, they may restrain themselves, 
 in the presence of ladies and of clergymen, yet it is only 
 for the passing hour, when they hesitate not to pour out the 
 pent-up flood, to deluge and defile the spotless purity of 
 childhood, and this, too, at an age when these pollut- 
 ing stains sink, centre-deep, into their young and tender 
 hearts, so that no moral bleachery can ever afterwards 
 wholly cleanse and purify them. No parent, no teacher, 
 can ever feel any rational security about the growth of 
 the moral nature of his child, unless he contrives in some 
 way to learn the tenor of his secret, silent meditations, 
 or prepares the means, beforehand, of determining what 
 those meditations shall be. A child may soon find it no 
 difficult tiling, to converse and act by a set of approved 
 rules, and then to retire into the secret chambers of his 
 own soul, and there to riot and gloat upon guilty pleas- 
 ures, whose act would be perdition, and would turn the 
 fondest home iijto a hell. But there is an antidote, I 
 do not say for all, but for most, of this peril. The mind
 
 COMMON-SCHOOL EDUCATION. 65 
 
 of children can be supplied with vivid illustrations of the 
 works of Nature and of Art ; its chambers can be hung 
 round with picture-thoughts and images of truth, and 
 charity, and justice, and affection, which will be compan- 
 ions to the soul, when no earthly friend can accompany 
 it. 
 
 It is only a further development of this topic, to con- 
 sider the inaptitude of many of our educational processes, 
 for making accurately-thinking minds. It has been said 
 by some one, that the good sense and sound judgment, 
 which we find in the community, are only what have es- 
 caped the general ravage of a bad education. School 
 studies ought to be so arranged, as to promote a harmo- 
 nious development of the faculties. In despotic Prussia, 
 a special science is cultivated, under the name of methodik, 
 the scope of which is to arrange and adapt studies, so as 
 to meet the wants and exercise the powers of the opening 
 mind. Li free America, we have not the name ; indeed, 
 we can scarcely be said to have the idea. Surely, the 
 farmer, the gardener, the florist, who have established 
 rules for cultivating every species of grain, and fruit, and 
 flower, cannot doubt, that, in the unfolding and expand- 
 ing of the young mind, some processes will be congenial, 
 others fatal. Those whose business it is to compound in- 
 gredients, in any art, weigh them with the nicest exact- 
 ness, and watch the precise moments of their chemical 
 combinations. The mechanic selects all his materials 
 with the nicest care, and measures all their dimensions to 
 a hair's breadth ; and he knows that if he fails in aught, he 
 will produce a weak, loose, irregular fabric. Indeed, can 
 you name any business, avocation, profession, or employ- 
 ment, whatever. even to the making of hob-nails or 
 wooden skewers, where chance, ignorance, or accident, 
 is ever rewarded with a perfect product ? But in no call-
 
 66 MEANS AND OBJECTS OP 
 
 ing is there such a diversity as in education, diversity 
 in principles, diversity in the application of those prin- 
 ciples. Discussion, elucidation, the light of a thousand 
 minds brought to a focus, would result in discarding the 
 worst and in improving even the best. Under this head 
 are included the great questions respecting the order and 
 succession of studies ; the periods of alternation between 
 them ; the proportion between the exact and the approx- 
 imate sciences ; and what is principle and what is subsid- 
 iary, in pursuing them. 
 
 There is a natural order and progression in the devel- 
 opment of the faculties : " First the blade, then the ear, 
 afterwards the full corn in the ear." And in the mind, 
 as in the grain, the blade may be so treated that the full 
 corn will never appear. For instance, if any faculty is 
 brooded upon and warmed into life before the period of 
 its natural development, it will have a precocious growth, 
 to be followed by weakness, or by a want of symmetry and 
 proportion in the whole character. Consequences still 
 worse will follow, where faculties are cultivated in the 
 reverse order of their natural development. Again, if 
 collective ideas are forced into a child's mind, without his 
 being made to analyze them, and understand the individ- 
 ual ideas of which they are composed, the probability is, 
 that the collective idea will never be comprehended. Let 
 me illustrate this position by a case where it is least likely 
 to happen, that we may form some idea of its frequency 
 in other things. A child is taught to count ten. He is 
 taught to repeat the words, one, two, &c., as words, 
 merely ; and if care be not taken, he will attach no more 
 comprehensive idea to the word ten, than he did to the 
 word one. He will not think of ten ones, as he uses it. 
 In the same way, he proceeds to use the words, hundred, 
 thousand, million, &c., the idea in his mind, not keep-
 
 COMMON-SCHOOL EDUCATION. 67 
 
 ing within hailing distance of the signification of the 
 words used. Hence there is generated a habit of using 
 words, not as the representatives of ideas, but as sounds, 
 merely. How few children there are of the age of six- 
 teen years, an age at which almost all of them have 
 ceased to attend upon our schools, who have any ade- 
 quate conception of the power of the signs they have been 
 using. How few of them know even so simple a truth as 
 this, that, if they were to count one, every second, for ten 
 hours in a day, without intermission, it would take about 
 twenty-eight days to count a million. Yet they have been 
 talking of millions, and hundreds of millions, as though 
 they were units. Now, suppose you speak to such a per- 
 son of millions of children, growing up under a highly 
 elaborated system of vicious education, unbalanced by 
 any good influences ; or suppose you appeal to him, in 
 behalf of a million of people wailing beneath the smitings 
 of the oppressor's rod, he gets no distinct -idea of so 
 many as fifty ; and therefore he has no intellectual sub- 
 stratum, upon which to found an appropriate feeling, or 
 by which to graduate its intensity. 
 
 Again ; in geography, we put a quarto-sized map, or 
 perhaps a globe no larger than a goose's egg, into a child's 
 hands, and we invite him to spread out his mind over 
 continents, oceans, and archipelagoes, at once. This pro- 
 cess does not expand the mind of the child to the dimen- 
 sions of the objects, but it belittles the objects to the nut- 
 shell capacity of the mind. Such a course of instruction 
 may make precocious, green-house children ; but you will 
 invariably find, that, when boys are prematurely turned 
 into little men, they remain little men, always. Physical 
 geogfapby should be commenced by making a child de- 
 scribe and plot a room with its fixtures, a house with its 
 apartments, the adjoining yards, fields, roads or streets,
 
 68 MEANS AND OBJECTS OF 
 
 hills, waters, <fec. Then embracing, if possible, the oc- 
 casion of a visit to a neighboring town, or county, that 
 should be included. Here, perpetual reference must be 
 had to the points of the compass. After a just extension 
 has been given to his ideas of a county, or a state, then 
 that county or state should be shown to him on a globe ; 
 and, cost what labor or time it may, his mind must be ex- 
 panded to a comprehension of relative magnitudes, so that 
 his idea of the earth shall be as adequate to the size of 
 the earth, as his idea of the house or the field was to the 
 size of the house or the field. Thus the pupil founds his 
 knowledge of unseen things upon the distinct notions of 
 eyesight, in regard to familiar objects. Yet I believe it 
 is not very uncommon to give the mind of the young 
 learner a continent, for a single intellectual meal, and an 
 ocean to wash it down with. It recently happened, in a 
 school within my own knowledge, that a class of small 
 scholars in geography, on being examined respecting the 
 natural divisions of the earth, its continents, oceans, 
 islands, gulfs, &c., answered all the questions with ad- 
 mirable precision and promptness. They were then asked, 
 by a visitor, some general questions respecting their lesson, 
 and, amongst others, whether they had ever seen the 
 earth about which they had been reciting ; and they 
 ijnanimously declared, in good faith, that they never had. 
 Do we not find here an explanation, why there are so 
 many men whose conceptions on all subjects are laid 
 down on so small a scale of miles, so many thousand 
 leagues to a hair's breadth ? By such absurd processes, 
 no vivid ideas can be gained, and therefore no pleasure is 
 enjoyed. A capacity of wonder is destroyed in a day, 
 sufficient to keep alive the flame of curiosity for years. 
 The subjects of the lessons cease to be new, and yet are 
 not understood. Curiosity, which is the hunger and
 
 COMMON-SCHOOL EDUCATION. 69 
 
 thirst of the mind, is forever cheated and balked ; for 
 nothing but a real idea can give real, true, intellectual 
 gratification. A habit, too, is inevitably formed of re- 
 citing, without thinking. At length, the most glib reci- 
 tation becomes the best; and the less the scholars are 
 delayed by thought, the faster they can prate, as a mill 
 clacks quicker when there is no grist in the hopper. 
 Thoroughness, therefore, thoroughness, and again I 
 say, thoroughness, for the sake of the knowledge, and 
 still more for the sake of the habit, should, at all 
 events, be enforced ; and a pupil should never be suffered 
 to leave any subject, until he can reach his arms quite 
 around it, and clinch his hands upon the opposite side. 
 Those persons, who know a little of every thing but 
 nothing well, have been aptly compared to a certain sort 
 of pocket-knife, which some over-curious people carry 
 about with them, which, in addition to a common knife, 
 contains a file, a chisel, a saw, a gimlet, a screw-driver, 
 and a pair of scissors, but all so diminutive, that the 
 moment they are needed for use, they are found useless. 
 It seems to me that one of the greatest errors in edu- 
 cation, at the present time, is the desire and ambition, at 
 single lessons, to teach complex truths, whole systems, 
 doctrines, theorems, which years of analysis are scarcely 
 sufficient to unfold ; instead of commencing with simple 
 elements, and then rising, by gradations, to combined re- 
 sults. All is administered in a mass. We strive to 
 introduce knowledge into the child's mind, the great end 
 first. When lessons are given in this way, the pupil, being- 
 unable to comprehend the ideas, tries to remember the 
 words, and thus, at best, is sent away with a single fact, 
 instead of a principle, explanatory of whole classes of 
 facts. The lessons are learned by rote ; and when a 
 teacher practises upon the rote system, he uses the minds
 
 70 MEANS AND OBJECTS OF 
 
 of the pupils, just as they use their own slates, in working 
 arithmetical questions ; whenever a second question is 
 to be wrought, the first is sponged out, to make room for 
 it. What would be thought of a teacher of music, who 
 should give his pupils the most complicated exercises, be- 
 fore they had learned to sound simple notes ? It is said 
 of the athlete, Milo of Crotona, that he began by lifting 
 a calf, and continuing to lift it daily, he gained strength 
 as fast as the animal gained weight ; so that he was able 
 to lift it when it became an ox. Had he begun by strain- 
 ing to lift an ox, he would probably have broken down, 
 and been afterwards unable to lift even a calf. The point 
 to which I would invite the regards of the whole commu- 
 nity, is, whether greater attention should not be paid to 
 gradation, to progression in a natural order, to adjustment, 
 to the preparation of a child's mind for receiving the high- 
 er forms of truth, by first making it thoroughly acquainted 
 with their elements. The temptation to this error is, 
 perhaps, the most seductive, that ever beguiles a teacher 
 from his duty. He desires to make his pupils appear well. 
 He forgets that the great objects of their education lie in 
 the power, and dignity, and virtue of life, and not in their 
 recitations at the end of the quarter. Hence, he strives 
 to prepare them for the hastening day of exhibition. 
 They must be able to state, in words, the great results, in 
 science, which human reason has achieved, after almost 
 sixty centuries of labor. For this purpose, in which 
 they also are tempted to conspire, he loads their mem- 
 ories with burden after burden of definitions and formu- 
 las ; which is about as useful a process, and is it not 
 also about as honest ? as it would be for the rearer of 
 nursery trees to buy golden pippins in the market, and, 
 tying them upon the branches of his young trees, to palm 
 them off upon purchasers, as though the delicious fruit
 
 COMMON-SCHOOL EDUCATION. 71 
 
 had been elaborated from the succulence of the stock he 
 sells. 
 
 Another question of method, to which I most earnestly 
 solicit the attention of teachers and of the whole public, 
 is, whether there is not too much teaching of words, in- 
 stead of things. Never was a severer satire uttered 
 against human reason, than that of Mirabeau, when he- 
 said, '"words are things." That single phrase explains 
 the whole French Revolution. Such a revolution never 
 could have occurred amongst a people who spoke things, 
 instead of words. Just so far as words are things, just so 
 far the infinite contexture of realities pertaining to body 
 and soul, to earth and heaven, to time and eternity, is 
 nothing. The ashes, and shreds, and wrecks of every 
 thing else are of some value ; but of words not freighted 
 with ideas, there is no salvage. It is not words, but words 
 fitly spoken, that are like apples of gold in pictures of sil- 
 ver. Words are but purses ; things, the shining coin 
 within them. Why buy seventy or eighty thousand 
 purses, for it is said we have about that number of 
 imtcchnical words in the language, without a copper for 
 deposit? I believe it is almost universally true, that 
 young students desire to be composers ; and as universally 
 true, that they dread composition. When they would 
 compose, of what service, then, are those columns of 
 spelling-book words, which they have committed to mem- 
 ory by the furlong ? Where then, too, are the rich mines 
 of thought contained in their Readers, their First-Class 
 Books, and their little libraries ? These they have been 
 accustomed to consider merely as instruments, to practise 
 pronunciation, empliasis, and cadence, upon. They have 
 moved, for years, in the midst of ideas, like blind men in 
 picture-galleries. Hence they have no knowledge of 
 things, and their relations; and, when called upon for
 
 72 MEANS AND OBJECTS OF 
 
 composition, they have nothing to compound. But, as 
 the outward and visible sign of composition is a sheet-full 
 of words, a sheet is filled, though more from the diction- 
 ary than from the head. This practice comes at last, to 
 make them a kind of sportsmen or warriors, who think 
 their whole business is to fire, not to hit. Some, who 
 have a strong verbal memory, become dexterous in the 
 use of language ; so that, if they can have two ideas, on 
 any subject, to set up at the ends, as termini, they will fill 
 up with words any distance of space between them. 
 Those who have not this verbal memory, become the 
 wind-driven bubbles of those who have. When the habit 
 is confirmed, of relying on the verbal faculty, the rest 
 of the mind dies out. The dogma taught by Aristotle, 
 that Nature abhors a vacuum, is experimentally refuted. 
 I know of but one compensation for these word-men ; I 
 believe they never become insane. Insanity requires 
 some mind for a basis. 
 
 The subject of penal discipline, I hardly dare to men- 
 tion ; especially discipline by corporal punishment. In 
 this department, extremes both of doctrine and of practice 
 prevail. The public have taken sides, and parties arc 
 arrayed against each other. Some repudiate and condemn 
 it altogther. With others, it is the great motive-power ; 
 and they consider it as, at least, the first and second, if 
 not the throp estates in the realm of school-keeping. 
 Generally speaking, I fear that but little judgment and 
 forethought are brought to the decision of its momentous 
 questions. It cannot be discussed, alone. It is closely 
 connected with intellectual progress ; its influences per- 
 vade the whole moral nature ; and it must be looked at, 
 in its relations to them. The justifiable occasions, if any, 
 for inflicting it ; the mode, and emphatically, the spirit, 
 of its administration ; its instruments ; its extent ; the
 
 COMMON-SCHOOL EDUCATION. 73 
 
 conduct that should precede and should follow it, are 
 questions worthy of the deepest attention. That corporal 
 punishment, considered by itself, and without reference 
 to its ultimate object, is an evil, probably none will deny. 
 Yet, with almost three thousand public schools in this 
 State, composed of all kinds of children, with more than 
 five thousand teachers, of all grades of qualification, to 
 govern them, probably the evils of corporal punishment 
 must be endured, or the greater ones of insubordination 
 and mutiny be incurred. I hesitate, also, to speak so 
 fully of the magnitude of these evils, as I would wish to 
 do ; because there are some excellent teachers, who man- 
 age schools without resorting to it ; while others, ambi- 
 tious for the same honor, but destitute of skill and of the 
 divine qualities of love, patience, sympathy, by which 
 alone it can be won, have discarded what they call cor- 
 poral punishment, but have resorted to other modes of 
 discipline, which, though they may bear a milder name, 
 are, in reality, more severe. To imprison timid children in 
 a dark and solitary place ; to brace open the jaws with a 
 piece of wood ; to torture the muscles and bones by the 
 strain of an unnatural position, or of holding an enor- 
 mous weight ; to inflict a wound upon the instinctive 
 feelings of modesty and delicacy, by making a girl sit 
 with the boys, or go out with them, at recess ; to bring a 
 whole class around a fellow-pupil, to ridicule and shame 
 him ; to break down the spirit of self-respect, by enforcing 
 some ignominious compliance ; to give a nick-name ; 
 these, and such as these, are the gentle appliances, by 
 which some teachers, who profess to discard corporal pun- 
 ishment, maintain the empire of the schoolroom; as 
 though the muscles and bones were less corporeal than 
 the skin ; as though a wound of the spirit were of less 
 moment than one of the flesh ; and the bodv's blood more
 
 74 MEANS AND OBJECTS OF 
 
 sacred than the soul's purity. But of these solemn topics, 
 it is impossible here to speak. I cannot, however, for- 
 bear to express the opinion, that punishment should never 
 be inflicted, except in cases of the extremest necessity ; 
 while the experiment of sympathy, confidence, persuasion, 
 encouragement, should be repeated, for ever and ever. 
 The fear of bodily pain is a degrading motive ; but we 
 have authority for saying, that where there is perfect love, 
 every known law will be fulfilled. Parents and teachers, 
 often create that disgust at study, and that incorrigible- 
 ness and obstinacy of disposition, which they deplore. It 
 is a sad exchange, if the very blows, which beat arith- 
 metic and grammar into a boy, should beat confidence 
 and manliness out. So it is quite as important to consider 
 what feelings are excited, in the mind, as what are sub- 
 dued, by the punishment. Which side gains, though the 
 evil spirit of roguery or wantonness be driven out, if seven 
 other evil spirits, worse than the first, sullenness, irrev- 
 erence, fraud, lying, hatred, malice, revenge, are allowed 
 to come in ? The motive from which the offence emanated, 
 and the motives with which the culprit leaves the bar of 
 his judge and executioner, are every thing. If these are 
 not regarded, the offender may go away worse than he 
 came, in addition to a gratuitous flagellation. To say a 
 child knows better, is nothing ; if he knows better, why 
 does he not do better ? The answer to this question re- 
 veals the difficulty ; and whoever has not patience and 
 sagacity to solve that inquiry, is as unworthy of the pa- 
 rental trust, as is the physician, of administering to the 
 sick, who prescribes a fatal nostrum, and says, in justifi- 
 cation, that he knew nothing of the disease. In fine, if 
 any thing, in the wide range of education, demands pa- 
 tience, forethought, judgment, and the all-subduing spirit 
 of love, it is this ; and though it may be too much to say,
 
 COMMON-SCHOOL EDUCATION. 75 
 
 that corporal punishment can be disused by all teachers, 
 with regard to all scholars, in all schools, yet it may be 
 averred, without exception, that it is never inflicted with 
 the right spirit, nor in the right measure, when it is not 
 more painful to him who imposes, than to him who re- 
 ceives it. 
 
 Of emulation in school, as an incitement to effort, I 
 can here say but a word ; but I entreat all intelligent 
 men to give to this subject a most careful consideration. 
 And let those who use it, as a quickener of the intellect, 
 beware, lest it prove a depraver of the social affections. 
 There is no necessary incompatibility between the upward 
 progress of one portion of our nature, and the lower and 
 lower debasement of another. The intellect may grow 
 wise, while the passions grow wicked. No cruelty towards 
 a child can be so great as that which barters morals for 
 attainment. If, under the fiery stimulus of emulation, 
 the pupil comes to regard a successful rival with envy or 
 malevolence, or an unsuccessful one with arrogance or 
 disdain ; if, in aiming at the goal of precedence, he loses 
 sight of the goal of perfection ; if, to gain his prize, he 
 becomes the hypocrite, instead of the reverer of virtue ; 
 then, though his intellect should enter upon the stage of 
 life with all the honors of an early triumph, yet the no- 
 blest parts of his nature, his moral and social affec- 
 tions, will be the victims, led captive in the retinue. 
 Suppose, in some Theological Seminary, a prize were 
 offered for the best exposition of the commandment, 
 " Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself,' and two known 
 competitors were to task their intellects to win it ; and, 
 on the day of trial, one of these neighbor-loving rivals, 
 with dilated nostril and expanded frame, should clutch 
 the honor ; while the other neighbor-loving rival, with 
 quivering lip and livid countenance, stood by, the vul-
 
 76 MEANS AND OBJECTS OF 
 
 ture of envy, all the while, forking her talons into his 
 heart ; would it not be that very mixture of the ludi- 
 crous and the horrible, which demons would choose for 
 the subject of an epigram ! Paint, or chisel the whole 
 group of neighbor-loving rivals, and pious doctors sitting 
 around and mingling, in one chalice, the hellebore of 
 pride, and in another, the wormwood of defeat, to be 
 administered to those who should be brothers, and can 
 aught be found more worthy to fill a niche in the council- 
 hall of Pandemonium ! Who has not seen winter, with 
 its deepest congelations, come in between ingenuous- 
 minded and loving fellow-students, whose hearts would 
 otherwise have run together, like kindred drops of water ? 
 Who has not witnessed a consumption, not of the lungs, 
 but of the heart ; nay, both of lungs and heart, wast- 
 ing its victims with the smothered frenzy of emulation ? 
 It surely is within the equity of the prayer, " lead us not 
 into temptation," not to lead others into it. And ought 
 not the teacher, who, as a general and prevalent, I do 
 not say a universal rule, cannot sustain order and in- 
 sure proficiency, in a school, without resorting to fear and 
 emulation, to consider, whether the fault be in human 
 nature or in himself ? And will there ever be any more 
 of that secret, silent beneficence amongst us, where the 
 left hand knows not of the blessings scattered by the 
 right ? will there ever be any less of this deadly strife 
 for the ostensible signs of precedence, in the social and 
 political arena, while the germs of emulation are so 
 assiduously cultivated in the schoolroom, the academy, 
 and the college ? The pale ambition of men, ready to 
 sacrifice country and kind for self, is only the fire of 
 youthful emulation, heated to a white heat. Yet, there 
 is an inborn sentiment of emulation, in all minds, and 
 there are external related objects of that sentiment. The
 
 COMMON-SCHOOL EDUCATION. 77 
 
 excellent, who may be present with us, but who are ad- 
 vanced in life ; the great and good, who are absent, but 
 whose fame is everywhere ; the illustrious dead ; these 
 are the objects of emulation. A rivalry with these yields 
 sacred love, not consuming envy. On these, therefore, 
 let the emulous and aspiring gaze, until their eyes over- 
 flow with tears, and every tear will be the baptism of 
 honor and of purity. 
 
 Such are some of the most obvious topics, belonging to 
 that sacred work, the education of children. The 
 science, or philosophical principles on which this work is 
 to be conducted ; the art, or manner in which those prin- 
 ciples are to be applied, must all be rightly settled and 
 generally understood, before any system of Public Instruc- 
 tion can operate with efficiency. Yet all this has been 
 mainly left to chance. Compared with its deserts, how 
 disproportionate, how little, the labor, cost and talent, 
 devoted to it. We have a Congress, convening annually, 
 at almost incredible expense, to decide upon questions of 
 tariff, internal improvement, and currency. We have a 
 State Legislature, continuing in session more than a fourth 
 part of every year, to regulate our internal polity. We 
 have Courts, making continual circuits through the Com- 
 monwealth, to adjudicate upon doubtful rights of person 
 or property, however trivial. Every great department of 
 literature and of business has its Periodical. Every party, 
 political, religious and social, has its Press. Yet Educa- 
 tion, that vast cause, of which all other causes are only 
 constituent parts ; that cause, on which all other causes 
 are dependent, for their vitality and usefulness, if I 
 except the American Institute of Instruction, and a few 
 local, feeble, unpatronized, though worthy associations, 
 Education has literally nothing, in the way of comprehen- 
 sive organization and of united effort, acting for a com-
 
 78 MEANS AND OBJECTS OF 
 
 mon end, and under the focal light ot a common intelli- 
 gence. It is under these circumstances, it is in view of 
 these great public wants, that the Board of Education 
 has been established, not to legislate, not to enforce, 
 but to collect facts, to educe principles, to diffuse a knowl- 
 edge of improvements ; in fine, to submit the views of 
 men who have thought much upon this subject to men 
 who have thought but little. 
 
 To specify the labors which education has yet to per-, 
 form, would be only to pass in review the varied interests 
 of humanity. Its general purposes are to preserve the 
 good and to repudiate the evil which now exist, and to 
 give scope to the sublime law of progression. It is its 
 duty to take the accumulations in knowledge, of almost 
 six thousand years, and to transfer the vast treasure to 
 posterity. Suspend its functions for but one generation, 
 and the experience and the achievements of the past are 
 lost. The race must commence its fortunes anew, and 
 must again spend six thousand years, before it can grope 
 its way upward from barbarism to the present point of 
 civilization. With the wisdom, education must also teach 
 something of the follies of the past, for admonition and 
 warning ; for it has been well said, that mankind have 
 seldom arrived at truth, on any subject, until they had 
 first exhausted its errors. 
 
 Education is to instruct the whole people in the proper 
 , care of the body, in order to augment the powers of that 
 wonderful machine, and to prevent so much of disease, 
 of suffering, and of premature death. The body is the 
 mind's instrument ; and the powers of the mind, like the 
 skill of an artisan, may all be baffled, through the imper- 
 fection of their utensils. The happiness and the useful- 
 ness of thousands and tens of thousands of men and 
 women have been destroyed, from not knowing a few of
 
 COMMON-SCHOOL EDUCATION. 79 
 
 the simple laws of health, which they might have learned 
 in a few months ; nay, which might have been so im- 
 pressed upon them, as habits, in childhood, that they 
 would never think there was any other way. I do not 
 speak of the ruin that comes from slavery to throned 
 appetites, where the bondage might continue in defiance 
 of knowledge ; but I speak of cases, where the pros- 
 tration of noble powers and the suffering of terrible 
 maladies result from sheer ignorance and false views of 
 the wise laws to which God has subjected our physical 
 nature. No doubt, Voltaire said truly, that the fate of 
 many a nation had depended upon the good or bad diges- 
 tion of its minister ; and how much more extensively 
 true would the remark be, if applied to individuals ! 
 How many men perfectly understand the observances by 
 which their horses and cattle are made healthy and strong, 
 while their children are puny, distempered, and have 
 chronic diseases, at the very earliest age at which so 
 highly-finished an article as a chronic disease can be pre- 
 pared. There is a higher art than the art of the physi- 
 cian ; the art, not of restoring, but of making' health. 
 Health is a product. Health is a manufactured article, 
 as much so as any fabric of the loom or the workshop ; 
 and, except in some few cases of hereditary taint, or of 
 organic lesion from accident or violence, the how much, 
 or the how little, health any man shall enjoy, depends 
 upon his treatment of himself, or rather, upon the treat- 
 ment of those who manage his infancy and childhood, 
 and create his habits for him. Situated, as we are, in a 
 high latitude, with the Atlantic ocean on one side, and a 
 range of mountains on the other, we cannot escape fre- 
 quent and great transitions in the temperature of our 
 weather. Our region is the perpetual battle-ground of 
 the torrid and the arctic, where they alternately prevail ;
 
 80 MEANS AND OBJECTS OF 
 
 and it is only by a sort of average that we call it temper- 
 ate. Yet to this natural position we must adapt ourselves, 
 or abandon it, or suffer. Hence the necessity of making 
 health, in order to endure natural inclemencies ; and 
 hence also the necessity of including the simple and 
 benign laws on which it depends, in all our plans of edu- 
 cation. Certainly, oiir hearts should glow with gratitude 
 to Heaven, for all the means of health ; but every expres- 
 sion indicating that health is a Divine gift, in any other- 
 sense than all our blessings are a Divine gift, should be 
 discarded from the language ; and it should be incorpo- 
 rated into the forms of speech, that a man prepares his 
 own health, as he does his own house. 
 
 Education is to inspire the love of truth, as the su- 
 premest good, and to clarify the vision of the intellect to 
 discern it. We want a generation of men above deciding 
 great and eternal principles, upon narrow and selfish 
 grounds. Our advanced state of civilization has evolved 
 many complicated questions respecting social duties. We 
 want a generation of men capable of taking up these 
 complex questions, and of turning all sides of them 
 towards the sun, and of examining them by the white 
 light of reason, and not under the false colors which 
 sophistry may throw upon them. We want no men who 
 will change, like the vanes of our steeples, with the course 
 of the popular wind ; but we want men who, like moun- 
 tains, will change the course of the wind. We want no 
 more of those patriots who exhaust their patriotism, in 
 lauding the past ; but we want patriots who will do for 
 the future what the past has done for us. We want men 
 capable of deciding, not merely what is right in principle, 
 that is often the smallest part of the case ; but we 
 want men capable of deciding what is right in means, to 
 accomplish what is right in principle. We want men who
 
 COMMON-SCHOOL EDUCATION. 81 
 
 will speak to this great people in counsel, and not in 
 flattery. We want godlike men who can taine the mad- 
 ness of the times, and, speaking divine words in a divine 
 spirit, can say to the raging of human passions, "Peace, 
 be still ; " and usher in the calm of enlightened reason 
 and conscience. Look at our community, divided into so 
 many parties and factions, and these again subdivided, on 
 all questions of social, national, and international, duty ; 
 while, over all, stands, almost unheeded, the sublime 
 form of Truth, eternally and indissolubly One ! Nay, 
 further, those do not agree in thought who agree in 
 words. Their unanimity is a delusion. It arises from 
 the imperfection of language. Could men, who sub- 
 scribe to the same forms of words, but look into each 
 other's minds, and see, there, what features their own 
 idolized doctrines wear, friends would often start back 
 from the friends they have loved, with as much abhor- 
 rence as from the enemies they have persecuted. Now, 
 what can save us from endless contention, but the love 
 of truth ? What can save us, and our children after us, 
 from eternal, implacable, universal war, but the greatest 
 of all human powers, the power of impartial thought ? 
 Many, may I not say most, of those great questions, 
 which make the present age boil and seethe, like a cal- 
 dron, will never be settled, until we have a generation of 
 men who were educated, from childhood, to seek for truth 
 and to revere justice. In the middle of the last century, 
 a great dispute arose among astronomers, respecting one 
 of the planets. Some, in their folly, commenced a war 
 of words, and wrote hot books against each other ; others, 
 in their wisdom, improved their telescopes, and soon set- 
 tled the question forever. Education should imitate the 
 latter. If there are momentous questions which, with 
 present lights, we cannot demonstrate and determine, let 
 
 rot, i,
 
 82 MEANS AND OBJECTS OF 
 
 us rear up stronger, and purer, and more impartial, minds, 
 for the solemn arbitrament. Let it be for ever and ever 
 inculcated, that no bodily wounds or maim, no deformity 
 of person, nor disease of brain, or lungs, or heart, can be 
 so disabling or so painful as error ; and that he who heals 
 us of our prejudices is a thousand fold more our benefac- 
 tor, than he who heals us of mortal maladies. Teach chil- 
 dren, if you will, to beware of the bite of a mad dog ; 
 but teach them still more faithfully, that no horror of 
 water is so fatal as a horror of truth, because it does not 
 come from our leader or our party. Then shall we have 
 more men who will think, as it were, under oath ; not 
 thousandth and ten thousandth transmitters of falsity ; 
 not copyists of copyists, and blind followers of blind 
 followers ; but men who can track the Deity in his ways 
 of wisdom. A love of truth, a love of truth; this is 
 the pool of a moral Bethesda, whose waters have miracu- 
 lous healing. And though we lament that we cannot 
 bequeath to posterity this precious boon, in its perfect- 
 ness, as the greatest of all patrimonies, yet let us rejoice 
 that we can inspire a love of it, a reverence for it, a devo- 
 tion to it; and thus circumscribe and weaken whatever 
 is wrong, and enlarge and strengthen whatever is right, 
 in that mixed inheritance of good and evil, which, in the 
 order of Providence, one generation transmits to another. 
 If we contemplate the subject with the eye of a states- 
 man, what resources are there, in the whole domain of 
 Nature, at all comparable to that vast influx of power 
 which comes into the world with every incoming genera- 
 tion of children ? Each embryo life is more wonderful 
 than the globe it is sent to inhabit, and more glorious 
 than the sun upon which it first opens its eyes. Each 
 one of these millions, with a fitting education, is capable 
 of adding something to the sum of human happiness, and
 
 COMMON-SCHOOL EDUCATION. 83 
 
 of subtracting something from the sum of human misery ; 
 and many great souls amongst them there are, who may 
 become instruments for turning the course of nations, as 
 the rivers of water are turned. It is the duty of moral 
 and religious education to employ and administer all 
 these capacities of good, for lofty purposes of human be- 
 neficence, as a wise minister employs the resources of a 
 great empire. " Suffer little children to come unto me," 
 said the Saviour, " and forbid them not, for of such is the 
 kingdom of Heaven." And who shall dare say, that 
 philanthropy and religion cannot make a better world 
 than the present, from beings like those in the kingdom 
 of Heaven ! 
 
 Education must be universal. It is well, when the 
 wise and the learned discover new truths ; but how much 
 better to diffuse the truths already discovered, amongst 
 the multitude ! Every addition to true knowledge is an 
 addition to human power ; and while a philosopher is 
 discovering one new truth, millions may be propagated 
 amongst the people. Diffusion, then, rather than dis- 
 covery, is the duty of our government. With us, the 
 qualification of voters is as important as the qualification 
 of governors, and even comes first, in the natural order. 
 Yet there is no Sabbath of rest in our contests about the 
 latter, while so little is done to qualify the former. The 
 theory of our government is, not that all men, however 
 unfit, shall be voters, but that every man, by the power 
 of reason and the sense of duty, shall become fit to be a 
 voter. Education must bring the practice as nearly as 
 possible to the theory. As the children now arc, so will 
 the sovereigns soon be. How can we expect the fabric of 
 the government to stand, if vicious materials are daily 
 wrought into its frame-work ? Education must prepare 
 our citizens to become municipal officers, intelligent jurors,
 
 84 MEANS AND OBJECTS OF 
 
 honest witnesses, legislators, or competent judges of legis- 
 lation, in fine, to fill all the manifold relations of life. 
 For this end, it must be universal. The whole land must 
 be watered with the streams of knowledge. It is not 
 enough to have, here and there, a beautiful fountain play- 
 ing in palace-gardens ; but let it come like the abundant 
 fatness of the clouds upon the thirsting earth. 
 
 Finally, education, alone, can conduct us to that enjoy- 
 ment which is, at once, best in quality and infinite in 
 quantity. God has revealed to us, not by ambiguous 
 signs, but by His mighty works ; not in the disputable 
 language of human invention, but by the solid substance 
 and reality of things, what He holds to be valuable, 
 and what He regards as of little account. The latter He 
 has created sparingly, as though it were nothing worth ; 
 while the former he has poured forth with immeasurable 
 munificence. I suppose all the diamonds ever found, 
 could be hid under a bushel. Their quantity is little, 
 because their value is small. But iron ore, without 
 which mankind would always have been barbarians ; 
 without which they would now relapse into barbarism, 
 he has strewed profusely all over the earth. Compare 
 the scantiness of pearl, with the extent of forests and 
 coal-fields. Of one, little has been created, because it is 
 worth little ; of the others, much, because they are worth 
 much. His fountains of naphtha, how few, and myrrh 
 and frankincense, how exiguous ; but who can fathom 
 His reservoirs of water, or measure The light and the air ! 
 Tiiis principle pervades every realm of Nature. Creation 
 seems to have been projected upon the plan of increasing 
 the quantity, in the ratio of the intrinsic value. Em- 
 phatically is this plan manifested, when we come to that 
 part of creation we call ourselves. Enough of the mate- 
 rials of worldly good has been created to answer this
 
 COMMON-SCHOOL EDUCATION. 85 
 
 great principle, that, up to the point of competence, up 
 to the point of independence and self-respect, few things 
 are more valuable than property ; beyond that point, few 
 things are of less. And hence it is, that all acquisitions 
 of property, beyond that point, considered and used as 
 mere property, confer an inferior sort of pleasure, in 
 inferior quantities. However rich a man may be, a cer- 
 tain number of thicknesses of woollens or of silks is all 
 he can comfortably wear. Give him a dozen palaces, lie 
 can live in but one at a time. Though the commander 
 be worth the whole regiment, or ship's company, he can 
 have the animal pleasure of eating only his own rations ; 
 and any other animal eats with as much relish as he. 
 Hence the wealthiest, with all their wealth, are driven 
 back to a cultivated mind, to beneficent uses and appropria- 
 tions ; and it is then, and then only, that a glorious vista 
 of happiness opens out into immensity and immortality. 
 
 Education, then, is to show to our youth, in early life, 
 this broad line of demarcation between the value of those 
 things which can be owned and enjoyed by but one, and 
 those which can be owned and enjoyed by all. If I own 
 a ship, a house, a farm, or a mass of metals called pre- 
 cious, my right to them is, in its nature, sole and exclu- 
 sive. No other man has a right to trade with my ship, to 
 occupy my house, or gather my harvests, or to appropriate 
 my treasures to his use. They are mine, and are incapa- 
 ble, both of a sole and of a joint possession. But not so 
 of the treasures of knowledge, which it is the duty of 
 education to diffuse. The same truth may enrich and en- 
 noble all intelligences at once. Infinite diffusion subtracts 
 nothing from depth. None are made poor because others 
 are made rich. In this part of the Divine economy, the 
 privilege of primogeniture attaches to all ; and every son 
 and daughter of Adam are heirs to an infinite patrimony.
 
 86 COMMON-SCHOOL EDUCATION. 
 
 If I own an exquisite picture or statue, it is mine exclusive- 
 ly. Even though publicly exhibited, but few could be 
 charmed by its beauties, at the same time. It is incapable 
 of bestowing a pleasure, simultaneous and universal. But 
 not so of the beauty of a moral sentiment ; not so of the 
 glow of sublime emotion ; not so of the feelings of con- 
 scious purity and rectitude. These may shed rapture upon 
 all, without deprivation of any; be imparted, and still 
 possessed; transferred to millions, yet never surrendered ; 
 carried out of the world, yet still left in it. These may 
 imparadise mankind, and, undiluted, unattenuated, be 
 sent round the whole orb of being. Let education, then, 
 teach children this great truth, written as it is on the fore- 
 front of the universe, that God has so constituted this 
 world, into which He has sent them, that whatever is real- 
 ly and truly valuable may be possessed by all, and pos- 
 sessed in exhaustless abundance. 
 
 And now, you, my friends ! who feel that you are patri- 
 ots and lovers of mankind, what bulwarks, what ram- 
 parts for freedom can you devise, so enduring and im- 
 pregnable, as intelligence and virtue ! Parents ! among 
 the happy groups of children whom you have at home, 
 more dear to you than the blood in the fountain of life, 
 you have not a son nor a daughter who, in this world of 
 temptation, is not destined to encounter perils more dan- 
 gerous than to walk a bridge of a single plank, over a 
 dark and sweeping torrent beneath. But it is in your power 
 and at your option, with the means which Providence will 
 graciously vouchsafe, to give them that firmness of intellec- 
 tual movement and that keenness of moral vision, that 
 light of knowledge and that omnipotence of virtue, by 
 which, in the hour of trial, they will be able to walk, with 
 unfaltering step, over the deep and yawning abyss below, 
 and to reach the opposite shore, in safety, and honor, and 
 happiness.
 
 LECTURE H. 
 
 1838.
 
 LECTURE II 
 
 SPECIAL PREPARATION A PREREQUISITE TO TEACHING. 
 
 GENTLEMEN OF THE CONVENTION: 
 
 AFTER the lapse of another year, we are again assembled 
 to hold counsel together for the welfare of our children. 
 On this occasion, we have much reason to meet each other 
 with voices of congratulation and hearts of gladness. Dur- 
 ing the past year, the cause of Popular Education, in this 
 Commonwealth, has gained some suffrages of public 
 opinion. On presenting its wants and its claims to citizens 
 in every part of the State, I have found that there were 
 many individuals who appreciate its importance, and who 
 only awaited an opportunity to give utterance and action 
 to their feelings ; in almost every town, some, in 
 many, a band. 
 
 Some of our hopes, also, have become facts. The last 
 Legislature acted towards this cause, the part of a wise 
 and faithful guardian. Inquiries having been sent into all 
 parts of the Commonwealth, to ascertain the deficiencies 
 in our Common School system, and the causes of failure 
 in its workings ; and the results of those inquiries having 
 been communicated to the Legislature, together with 
 suggestions for the application of a few obvious and ener- 
 getic remedies, that body forthwith enacted such laws 
 as the wants of the system most immediately and imperi- 
 ously demanded. Probably, at no session since the origin 
 of our Common School system, have laws more propitious 
 
 89
 
 90 SPECIAL PREPARATION 
 
 to its welfare been made, than during the last. True, the 
 substantive parts of the great system of Public Instruction, 
 pre-existed ; but, in many respects, these parts were like 
 the wheels of some excellent machine, unskilfully put 
 together ; and hence, if not absolutely refusing to go, for 
 want of proper adjustment, yet going, at best, only accord- 
 ing to our expressive word, bunglingly. The enactments 
 of the last session, have, to no inconsiderable extent, ad- 
 justed the relative parts of this machinery, in an admira- 
 ble manner ; and it now only remains for the people to do 
 their part, by vigorously applying the power that is to 
 move it. 
 
 For instance, the law formerly compelled towns, under 
 a penalty, to choose school committees ; and it accumu- 
 lated such an amount of duties upon these officers, that 
 the efficiency, nay, I might almost say, the very existence, 
 of the schools, for any useful purpose, depended upon their 
 intelligence and fidelity ; and yet, because this law pro- 
 vided no compensation for their services, nor even indem- 
 nity for their actual expenses, it left the whole weight of 
 private interest gravitating against public duty. In the 
 apprehension of many persons, too, there seemed to be 
 something of officiousness and obtrusion, when the com- 
 mittees entered earnestly and faithfully upon the discharge 
 of the legal obligations they had assumed. An office was 
 lightly esteemed to which public opinion attached no 
 rank, and the law no emolument. It was an office, too, 
 in which fidelity often gave offence, and one whose duties 
 were always deemed burdensome, and but rarely accounted 
 honorable. Hence, the punctilious discharge of its vari- 
 ous duties, required a higher degree of public spirit, or a 
 greater enthusiasm in the noble cause of education, than 
 the present condition of our society is likely to furnish. 
 Besides, many towns circumvented the law ; for, though the
 
 A PREREQUISITE TO TEACHING. 91 
 
 law had provided that the office of school committee man 
 should not lie dormant, yet it could make no such wake- 
 ful provision in regard to the officer. Hence, school com- 
 mittees were not unfrequently chosen, by the towns, with 
 a tacit, and sometimes even with an express understand- 
 ing, that they were to sleep during the whole of the school 
 terms, and only to rouse themselves up in sufficient 
 season to make such an annual Return, as would secure 
 a share of the income of the school fund of their respec- 
 tive towns. But this condition of things is now changed. 
 By the late law, school committees are hereafter to 
 receive a moderate compensation for services rendered, 
 or, at least, a sufficient sum to reimburse the expenses 
 which they actually incur. Is it too much, therefore, for 
 us now to say. in regard to these officers, that, not only 
 their own townsmen, but the friends of education general- 
 ly, have a right to expect, that they will so fulfil the requi- 
 sitions of the law, that a looker-on may know what the law 
 is, by seeing what the committees do, as well as he could 
 by reading its provisions in the pages of the statute book ? 
 Is this demand too great, when we consider the claims 
 which the office has upon the efforts of all wise and 
 benevolent men ? The committees are to prescribe the 
 books which are to be used in the schools. They are to 
 see that every child whose parents are unable to supply it 
 with books, is supplied at the expense of the town. They 
 are to visit every district school soon after its opening, 
 and shortly before its close, and once a month during its 
 continuance; and this duty of visitation, let me say, 
 means something more than just stopping, when engaged 
 on some other errand or business, fastening a horse at 
 the schoolhouse door, and going in for a few minutes to 
 rest or to warm. Emphatically, I would speak it with 
 tenfold emphasis, they are to see that none but the very
 
 92 SPECIAL PREPARATION 
 
 best persons who can possibly be procured, are put in as 
 keepers of that inestimable, unutterable treasure, the 
 children of the district. 
 
 Another provision of the late law requires the commit- 
 tee of each town to keep a record, in a permanent form, 
 of all their acts, votes, and proceedings ; and, at the end 
 of their official year, to deliver the record-book to their 
 successors in office. 
 
 If the affairs of the pettiest manufacturing corporation 
 cannot be systematically nor economically conducted, 
 without a sworn clerk, and the registration of every cor- 
 porate act, must not the incomparably greater interests of 
 the schools suffer, if all the orders and regulations of the 
 school committees have no other depository, nor means 
 of verification in case of dispute, than the imcertainty of 
 human memory, and the faithlessness of oral testimony? 
 
 A far more important duty imposed upon school com- 
 mittees by the new law, one which will form an epoch 
 in the history of education in Massachusetts, is that 
 of making to the towns, annually, a " detailed " report of 
 the condition of the schools, "designating particular im- 
 provements and defects in the methods or means of edu- 
 cation, and stating such facts and suggestions in relation 
 thereto, as, in their opinion, will best promote the inter- 
 ests, and increase the usefulness of said schools." The 
 significance of this provision lies in the word "detailed." 
 The reports are to be specific, not general. They are to 
 expose errors and abuses, and to be accompanied by plans 
 for their rectification. They are to particularize improve- 
 ments, and to devise the means for their attainment. The 
 mere fact of knowing that a report must be made at the 
 end of the year, will attract the attention of committee- 
 inen to a. variety of facts, and will suggest numerous con- 
 siderations, which would otherwise elude both their ob-
 
 A PREREQUISITE TO TEACHING. 93 
 
 servatiou and reflection. We are so constituted that, the 
 moment we have a fixed purpose in our minds, there 
 arises, at once, a sort of elective affinity between that pur- 
 pose and its related ideas ; and the latter will come, one 
 after another, and, as it were, crystallize around the former. 
 Besides, no man ever comprehends his own views clearly 
 and definitely, or ever avails himself of all the resources 
 of his own mind, until he reduces his thoughts to writing, 
 or embodies them in some visible, objective form. To 
 make a " detailed report," which is based upon facts, 
 which will be useful to the town, and creditable to the 
 committee, will doubtless require great attention and 
 forethought. But if school committees perform this duty 
 with half that far-reaching sagacity, that almost incredi- 
 ble thoroughness, which is always displayed by those 
 town-agents who are chosen to employ counsel, and hunt 
 up evidence, in pauper-cases, such reports will be most 
 invaluable documents. And yet the manner in which 
 this duty is performed will settle the question prospective- 
 ly, for many a child, whether he shall be a pauper or not, 
 not the question of the body's pauperism only, but of the 
 soul's pauperism. 
 
 These annual reports of the committees are by law to 
 be deposited with the town clerk. They are to be tran- 
 scribed, and the copy forwarded to the office of the Sec- 
 retary of State, for the use of the Board of Education. 
 Each succeeding year, therefore, there will be placed in 
 the hands of the Board, three hundred reports, describing 
 the condition of the schools, in every part of the State, 
 with more or less particularity and ability, according to 
 the intelligence and fidelity of the respective committees. 
 It seems to me that selections may then be made, if 
 the work is not too great, of the most instructive por- 
 tions of the whole body of these reports. Let a volume
 
 94 SPECIAL PREPARATION 
 
 consisting of these selections be transmitted to every town 
 in the State. Each town will then receive hack its own 
 contribution, in a permanent form, multiplied by the con- 
 tributions of three hundred other towns. Such a course, 
 if adopted, will make known to all, the views, the plans 
 and experiments of each. It will be a Multiplying-glass, 
 increasing each beam of light, three hundred times. I ven- 
 ture to predict that, hereafter, no document will be found 
 to transcend these, in value, and in the interest and grat- 
 itude they will inspire. Posterity will here see what was 
 done for them by their fathers. Surely, the interest in- 
 herent in these records, cannot be less than that which 
 has lately led the Commonwealth to publish those Colo- 
 nial and Revolutionary papers, which trace out the very 
 paths in the wilderness, through which, under the gui- 
 dance of the pillar and the cloud, our fathers came out of 
 the land of Egypt and out of the house of bondage. 
 Compared with the bondage of ignorance and vice, Pha- 
 raoh was clement and his task-masters merciful.* 
 
 Another provision of the law requires that Registers, 
 in such form as shall be prescribed by the Board of Edu- 
 cation, shall be kept in all the schools. As a means of 
 collecting accurate statistics, registers are indispensable. 
 They will also reveal a fact, to the existence of which 
 the public eye seems almost wholly closed. I mean the 
 amount or extent of non-attendance upon our schools, 
 and the enormous losses thereby occasioned. In the hand 
 of an adroit teacher, too, the register may be made an 
 efficient means of remedying that irregularity of attend- 
 ance which it discloses. If the school is what it should 
 be, the remark will be literally true, that every mark in 
 the register indicating a vacancy in the child's seat at 
 school, will indicate a corresponding vacuum in his mind. 
 
 * See Appendix A.
 
 A PREREQUISITE TO TEACHING. 95 
 
 But, before I go on to speak of other provisions of the 
 law, perhaps there may be a class of persons ready to 
 ask, "Why all this interference ? Why this obtrusion 
 of the State into the concerns of the individual ? Arc 
 not our children," say they, " our own ? Who can be 
 presumed to care more for them than we do ? And 
 whence your authority," they demand, " to fetter our 
 free-will, and abridge our sovereignty in their manage- 
 ment ? " The vagabond, the drunkard, the monster-parent 
 who wishes to sell his children to continuous labor, who, 
 for the pittance of money they can earn, is willing they 
 should grow up without schooling, without instruction, 
 and be used, year after year, as parts of machinery, 
 these may cry out to the Legislature, " By what right 
 do you come between ns and our offspring ? By what right 
 do you appoint a Board of Education and a Secretary to 
 pry into our domestic arrangements, and take from us our 
 parental rights ? We wish to be our own Board of Educa- 
 tion, and Secretary also." Such questions may, perhaps, 
 be honestly put, and therefore should be soberly answered. 
 
 The children, whom parents have brought into this 
 world, are carried forward by the ceaseless flow of time, 
 and the irresistible course of nature, and will soon be 
 men. They are daily gathering forces and passions of 
 fearful energy, soon to be expended upon society. The 
 powers of citizenship, which reach every man's home and 
 every man's hearth, will soon be theirs. In a brief space, 
 these children will have the range of the whole commu- 
 nity, and will go forth to pollute or to purify, to be bane 
 or blessing to those who are to live with them, and to 
 come after them. On the day when their minority ceases, 
 their parents will deliver them over, as it were, into the 
 hands of society, without any regard to soundness or un- 
 souuclnoss in their condition. Forthwith, that society has
 
 96 SPECIAL PREPARATION 
 
 to assume the entire responsibility of their conduct for 
 life ; for society, in its collective capacity, is a real, not 
 a nominal sponsor and godfather for all its children. So- 
 ciety has no option whether to accept or to reject them. 
 Society cannot say to any parent, " Take back this felon- 
 brood of yours ; we never ordered any such recruits ; we 
 know not what to do with them ; we dread them, and 
 therefore we will not receive them;" but society must 
 equally accept them, whether they are pieces of noblest" 
 workmanship, inwrought with qualities of divinest beauty 
 and excellence, or whether they are mere trumpery and 
 gilded pasteboard, impossible to be thought of for any use- 
 ful purpose. Now, in those cases from which the object- 
 ors draw their analogies, the circumstances are totally 
 different. If I make a general contract with my neighbor 
 for an article of merchandise, the iutendment of the law 
 is, that it shall be, at least, of a fair, merchantable quality ; 
 and if it be valueless, or even materially defective, in 
 stock or workmanship, the law exonerates me from all 
 obligation to receive it. I may cast it back into the hands 
 of the producer, and make the loss wholly his, not mine. 
 So if, for a sound price, I contract with a dealer to furnish 
 me a horse for a specified journey or business, and he, in- 
 stead of providing for me an animal suitable for the 
 object stipulated, sends me an old hack, whose only merit 
 is that one might study all the diseases of farriery upon 
 him, there is not a court or jury in the country but 
 would make the fraudulent jockey take back the beast, 
 and pay smart-money, and all the costs of litigation. But 
 not so, when parents deliver over to the community a son 
 who carries the poison of asps beneath his glistening 
 tongue ; or a daughter, who, from her basilisk eye, streams 
 guilt into whomsoever she looks upon. Twenty-one years 
 after a child's birth, and often much earlier than that.
 
 A PREREQUISITE TO TEACHING. 97 
 
 be lie sot, brawler, libeller, poisoner, lyncher, society 
 lias, none the less, to take him into her bosom, and bear 
 his stings and stabs; and this, as I suppose, is the rea- 
 son why all those good citizens who care what they have 
 in their bosoms, have an undoubted right to take these 
 precautions beforehand. 
 
 Another provision of law, which transfers the power to 
 select and employ teachers, from the prudential to the 
 town's committee, unless the town shall otherwise or- 
 der, is worthy of commendation. While this arrange- 
 ment allows a continuance of the old system, in towns 
 where it is preferred, it proposes a course which is far 
 better, and which is sure to be adopted just as fast as the 
 interests of education and the best means of promoting 
 it, become better understood and more appreciated by the 
 community. 
 
 But not inferior in importance to any of the preceding, 
 is another law, passed by the Legislature at its last ses- 
 sion. It is not a compulsory, but a permissive enactment. 
 You doubtless anticipate, that I refer to the law which 
 authorizes the union of two or more existing school dis- 
 tricts, so as to form a Union or Central school, for teach- 
 ing more advanced studies to the older children. 
 
 Heretofore the practice, in most towns, has been, to sub- 
 divide territory into smaller and smaller districts; and 
 this practice has drawn after it the calamitous consequen- 
 ces of stinted means, and of course, cheap schoolhouses, 
 cheap teachers and short schools. Under this weakening 
 process, many of our children have fared like southern 
 fruits in a northern clime, where, owing to the coldness 
 of the soil and the shortness of the season, they never 
 more than half ripen. Immature fruits, at the close 
 of the year, are not only valueless, but they sometimes 
 breed physical diseases ; such diseases are a blessing com-
 
 98 SPECIAL PREPARATION 
 
 pared to those moral distempers which must be engen- 
 dered, when immature minds, fermenting with unsound 
 principles, are sent forth into the community. The pre- 
 vailing argument, in favor of the subdivision of districts, 
 has been the inconvenience of sending small children, 
 great distances, to school. The new law remedies this 
 difficulty. It allows the continuation of existing districts 
 for the small scholars, while it invites the union of two or 
 more of them for the accommodation of the larger ones- 
 As the benefits of this arrangement are set forth in my 
 supplementary Report to the Board of Education, on 
 schoolhouses, (pp. 30, 31,) I need not dwell upon them 
 here. On reference to that report, it will be seen that the 
 advantages to the older scholars, attending the union or 
 central school, will be more than doubled, at a diminished 
 expense. Nor will the benefits of this arrangement, to 
 the small children, be less, particularly because it will 
 secure to them the more congenial influences of female 
 teaching. 
 
 I believe there will soon be an entire unanimity in pub- 
 lic sentiment in regarding female as superior to male 
 teaching for young children. As a plain man of excel- 
 lent sense once said to me, " A woman will find out 
 where a child's mind is, quickest." I may add, that she 
 will not only find where a child's mind is, more quickly 
 than a man would do, but she will follow its movements 
 more readily ; and, if it has gone astray, she will lead it 
 back into the right path more gently and kindly. 
 
 Under our present system, the proportion of the female 
 to the male teachers, in our public schools, is about as 
 three to two. This disparity of numbers may be increased 
 with advantage to all, both as to quantity and quality 
 of instruction. It is also universally known that there is, 
 in our community, a vast amount of female talent, of
 
 A PREREQUISITE TO TEACHING. 99 
 
 generous, philanthropic purpose, now unappropriated. 
 It lies waste and dormant for want of some genial sphere 
 of exercise ; and its possessors are thereby half driven, 
 from mere vacuity of mind, and the irritation of unem- 
 ployed faculties, to the frivolities and despicableness of 
 fashion, to silly amusements, or to reading silly books, 
 merely to kill time, which, properly understood, means 
 killing one's self. I trust there are many noble-minded 
 young women amongst us, whose souls are impatient of a 
 degradation to that idleness and uselessness to which false 
 notions of rank and wealth would consign them ; and 
 who would rejoice, in some form, either as public servants 
 or as private benefactors, to enter this sphere of useful, 
 beneficent employment. As the tone of society now is, 
 the daughters of the poor do not suffer more from a want 
 of the comforts and the refinements of life than the 
 daughters of the rich do, from never knowing or feeling 
 what the high destinies of woman are. But it is begin- 
 ning to be perceived that the elevation of the character, 
 the condition and the social rank of the female sex, pro- 
 duced by Christianity and other conspiring causes, has, 
 by conferring new privileges, also imposed new duties 
 upon them. 
 
 In reference to this topic, I wish it to be considered 
 more deeply than it has ever yet been, whether there be 
 not, in truth, a divinely appointed ministry for the per- 
 formance of the earlier services in the sacred temple of 
 education. Is there not an obvious, constitutional differ- 
 ence of temperament between the sexes, indicative of a 
 pre-arranged fitness and adaptation, and making known 
 to us, as by a heaven-imparted sign, that woman, by her 
 livelier sensibility and her quicker sympathies, is the fore- 
 chosen guide and guardian of children of a tender age ? 
 After a child's mind has acquired some toughness and in-
 
 100 SPECIAL PREPARATION 
 
 duration, by exposure for a few years to the world's hard- 
 ening processes, then let it be subjected to the firmer grasp, 
 to the more forcible, subduing- power of masculine hands. 
 But when the infant spirit, which even too rude an em- 
 brace would wound, is first ushered into this sharp and 
 thorny life, let whatever the gross earth contains of gen- 
 tleness, of ethereal delicacy, of loving tenderness, be its 
 welcomer, and cherish it upon its halcyon bosom, and 
 lead it as by still waters. And why should woman, 
 lured by a false ambition to shine in courts or to mingle 
 in the clashing tumults of men, ever disdain this sacred 
 and peaceful ministry ? Why, renouncing this serene 
 and blessed sphere of duty, should she ever lift up her 
 voice in the thronged market-places of society, higgling 
 and huckstering to barter away that divine and acknowl- 
 edged superiority in sentiment which belongs to her own 
 sex, to extort confessions from the other, of a mere 
 equality in reason ? Why, in self-debasement, should 
 she ever strive to put off the sublime affections and the 
 ever-beaming beauty of a seraph, that she may clothe 
 a coarser, though it should be a stronger spirit, in 
 the stalwort limbs and hugeness of a giant ? Nature 
 declares that whatever has the robustness of the oak, 
 shall have its ruggedness also. To no portion of her 
 works has she at once given pre-eminence both in 
 strength and in grace. If the intellect of woman, 
 like that of man, has the sharpness and the penetrancy 
 of iron and of steel, it must also be as cold and as 
 hard. No ! but to breathe pure and exalted sentiments 
 into young and tender hearts. to take the censers which 
 Heaven gives, and kindle therein the incense which 
 Heaven loves, this is her high and holy mission. To 
 be the former of wise and great minds, is as much more 
 noble than to be wise and great, as the creative is higher
 
 A PREREQUISITE TO TEACHING. 101 
 
 than the created. In camps or senates, she could shine 
 but for a day, and with a fitful light ; but if, with endur- 
 ing patience and fidelity, she fulfils her sacred duties to 
 childhood, then, from the sanctuary of her calm and se- 
 questered life, there will go forth a refulgent glory to irra- 
 diate all countries and all centuries. The treasures of 
 virtue arc self-perpetuating and self-increasing, and when 
 she gathers them into young hearts, to grow with their 
 growth and strengthen with their strength, she makes 
 Time so rich an almoner, that though he goes strewing 
 and scattering his blessings over the earth and over the 
 ages, yet he will never be impoverished, but only so much 
 the more abound. The loftiest spirits, the finest geniuses 
 of pagan antiquity passed by the gods of the deep and full- 
 flowing river with moderated reverence, but, nicely true 
 to a moral and a religious instinct, they bore their richest 
 offerings and paid their deepest homage to the goddess 
 who presided at the fountain. 
 
 But amongst all the auspicious events of the past year, 
 ought not the friends of popular education to be most 
 grateful, on account of the offer made by a private gen- 
 tleman* to the Legislature, of the sum of ten thousand 
 dollars, upon the conditions that the State should add 
 thereto an equal sum, and that the amount should be 
 expended, under the direction of the Board of Education, 
 in qualifying teachers for our Common Schools, and of 
 the promptness and unanimity with which the Legisla- 
 ture acceded to the proposition ? I say, the unanimity , for 
 the vote was entirely unanimous in the House of Repre- 
 sentatives, and there was but one nay in the Senate. Vast 
 donations have been made in this Commonwealth, both 
 by the government and by individuals, for the cause of 
 learning in some of its higher, and, of course, more lim- 
 
 * Hon. Edmund Dwight, of Boston.
 
 102 SPECIAL PEEPARATION 
 
 ited departments ; but I believe this to be the first instance 
 where any considerable sum has been given for the cause 
 of education, generally, and irrespective of class, or sect, 
 or party. Munificent donations have frequently been 
 made, amongst ourselves, as well as in other States and 
 countries, to perpetuate some distinctive theory or dogma 
 of one's own, or to requite a peculiar few who may have 
 honored or flattered the giver. But this was given to 
 augment the common mass of intelligence, and to pro- 
 mote universal culture ; it was given with a high and 
 enlightened disregard of all local, party, personal or sec- 
 tional views ; it was given for the direct benefit of all the 
 heart and all the mind, extant, or to be extant, in our 
 beloved .Commonwealth ; and, in this respect, it certainly 
 stands out almost, if not absolutely alone, both in the 
 amount of the donation, and in the elevation of the motive 
 that prompted it. I will not tarnish the brightness of 
 this deed, by attempting to gild it with praise. One of 
 the truest and most impressive sentiments ever uttered 
 by Sir Walter Scott is, however, so appropriate, and forces 
 itself so strongly upon my mind, that I cannot repress its 
 utterance. When that plain and homely Scotch girl, 
 Jeannie Deans, the highest of all the characters ever 
 conceived by that gifted author, is pleading her suit 
 before the British queen, and showing herself therein 
 to be ten times a queen, she utters the sentiment I 
 refer to : " But when," says she, " the hour of trouble 
 comes to the mind or to the body, and when the hour 
 of death comes, that comes to high and low, then it isna 
 what we hae dune for oursells, but what we hae dune for 
 ithers, that we think on maist pleasantly." 
 
 There is, then, at last, on the part of the government 
 of Massachusetts, a recognition of the expediency of pro- 
 viding means for the special qualification of teachers for
 
 A PREREQUISITE TO TEACHING. 103 
 
 our Common Schools ; or, at least, of submitting that 
 question to a fair experiment. Let us not, however, 
 deceive or flatter ourselves with the belief, that such an 
 opinion very generally prevails, or is very deeply seated. 
 A few, and those, as we believe, best qualified to judge, 
 hold this opinion as an axiom. But this cannot be said 
 of great numbers ; and it requires no prophetic vision to 
 foresee that any plan for carrying out this object, however 
 wisely framed, will have to encounter not only the preju- 
 dices of the ignorant, but the hostility of the selfish. 
 
 The most momentous practical questions now before 
 our state and country are these : In order to preserve 
 our republican institutions, must not our Common Schools - 
 be elevated in character and increased in efficiency ? and, 
 in order to bring our schools up to the point of excellence 
 demanded by the nature of our institutions, must there 
 not be a special course of study and training to qualify 
 teachers for their office ? No other worldly interest pre- 
 sents any question comparable to these in importance. 
 To the more special consideration of the latter, namely, 
 whether the teachers of our public schools require a 
 special course of study and training to qualify them for 
 their vocation, I solicit your attention, during the resi- 
 due of this address. 
 
 I shall not here insist upon any particular mode of pre- 
 paration, or of preparation in any particular class of in- 
 stitutions, whether Normal Schools, special departments 
 hi academies, colleges, or elsewhere, to the exclusion 
 of ail other institutions. What I insist upon, is, not the 
 form, but the substance. 
 
 In treating this subject, duty will require me to speak 
 of errors and deficiencies, and of the inadequate con- 
 ceptions now entertained of the true office and mission 
 of a teacher. This is a painful obligation, and in dis-
 
 104 SPECIAL PREPARATION 
 
 charging it I am sure I shall not be misunderstood by any 
 candid arid intelligent mind. Towards the teachers of 
 our schools, as a class, I certainly possess none but 
 the most fraternal feelings. Their want of adequate 
 qualifications is the want of the times, rather than of 
 themselves. Teachers, heretofore, have only been par- 
 takers in a general error, an error in which you and I, 
 my hearers, have been as profoundly lost as they. Let 
 this be their excuse hitherto, and let the ignorance of the 
 past be winked at; but the best service we can now render 
 them, is to take this excuse away, by showing the inade- 
 quacy and the unsoundness of our former views. Let all 
 who shall henceforth strive to do better, stand acquitted 
 for past delinquencies ; but will not those deserve a 
 double measure of condemnation who shall set themselves 
 in array against measures, which so many wise and good 
 men have approved, at least until those measures have 
 been fairly tested ? When the tree shall have been 
 planted long enough to mature its fruit, then let it be 
 known by its fruit. 
 
 No one has ever supposed that an individual could 
 build up a material temple, and give it strength, and con- 
 venience, and fair proportions, without firsl/ mastering the 
 architectural art); but we have employed thousands of 
 teachers for our children /to build up the immortal Tem- 
 ple of the Spirit, who have never given to this divine, edu- 
 cational art, a day nor an hour of preliminary study or 
 attention. How often have we sneered at Dogberry in 
 the play, because he holds that " to read and write comes 
 by nature ; " when we ourselves have undertaken to teach, 
 or have employed teachers, whose only fitness for giving 1 
 instruction, not only in reading and writing, but in all 
 other things, has come by nature, if it has come at all ; 
 that is, in exact accordance with Dogberry's philosophy.
 
 A PREREQUISITE TO TEACHING. 105 
 
 111 maintaining the affirmative of this question, name- 
 ly, that all teachers do require a special course of study 
 and training-, to quality them for their profession, I will 
 not higgle with my adversary in adjusting preliminaries. 
 He may be the disciple of any school in metaphysics, and 
 he may hold what faith he pleases, respecting the mind's 
 nature and essence. Be he spiritualist or materialist, it 
 here matters not, nay, though he should deny that 
 there is any such substance as mind or spirit, at all, I will 
 not stop to dispute that point with him, preferring 
 rather to imitate the example of those old knights of the 
 tournament, who felt such confidence in the justness of 
 their cause, that they gave their adversaries the advantage 
 of sun and wind. For, whatever the mind may be, in its 
 inscrutable nature or essence, or whether there be any 
 such thing as mind or spirit at all, properly so called, this 
 we have seen and do know, that there come beings into 
 this world, with every incoming generation of children, 
 who, although at first so ignorant, helpless, speechless, 
 so incapable of all motion, upright or rotary, that we 
 can hardly persuade ourselves they have not lost their 
 way, and come, by mistake, into the wrong world ; yet, 
 after a few swift years have passed away, we see thousands 
 of these same ignorant and helpless beings, expiating hor- 
 rible offences in prison cells, or dashing themselves to 
 death against the bars of a maniac's cage ; others of 
 them, we see, holding " colloquy sublime," in halls where 
 a nation's fate is arbitrated, or solving some of the might- 
 iest problems that belong to this wonderful universe ; 
 and others still, there are, who, by daily and nightly con- 
 templation of the laws of God, have kindled that fire of 
 divine truth within their bosoms, by which they become 
 those moral luminaries whose light shine th from one part 
 of the heavens unto the other. And this amazing change
 
 10G SPECIAL PREPARATION 
 
 in these feeble and helpless creatures, this transfigura- 
 tion of them for good or for evil, is wrought by laws 
 of organization and of increase, as certain in their opera- 
 tion, and as infallible in their results, as those by which 
 the skilful gardener substitutes flowers, and delicious 
 fruits, and healing herbs, for briers and thorns and 
 poisonous plants. And as we hold the gardener respon- 
 sible for the productions of his garden, so is the commu- 
 nity responsible for the general character and conduct of 
 its children. 
 
 Some, indeed, maintain, erroneously as we believe, 
 that a difference in education is the sole cause of all the 
 differences existing among men. They hold that all per- 
 sons come into the world just alike in disposition and 
 capacity, though they go through it, and out of it, so 
 amazingly diverse. They hold, in short, that if any two 
 men had changed cradles, they would have changed char- 
 acters and epitaphs ; that, not only does the same 
 quantity of substance or essence go to the constitution of 
 every human mind, but that all minds are of the same 
 quality also, all having the same powers, and bearing, 
 originally, the same image and superscription, like so 
 many half-dollars struck at the government mint. 
 
 But deeply as education goes into the core of the heart 
 and the marrow of the bones, we do not claim for it any 
 such prerogative. There are certain substructures of 
 temperament and disposition, which education finds, at 
 the beginning of its work, and which it can never wholly 
 annul. Nor does it comport with the endless variety and 
 beauty manifested in all other parts of the Creator's 
 works, to suppose that he made all ears and eyes to be 
 delighted with the same tunes and colors ; or provided so 
 good an excuse for plagiarism, as that all minds were 
 made to think the same thoughts. This inherent and
 
 A PREREQUISITE TO TEACHING. 107 
 
 original diversity, however, only increases the difficulty 
 of education, and gives additional force to the argument 
 for previous preparation ; for, were it true that all children 
 are born just alike, in disposition and capacity, the only 
 labor would be to discover the right method for educating 
 a single child, and to stereotype it for all the rest. 
 
 This, however, we must concede to those who affirm 
 the original equality and exact similitude of all minds ; 
 namely, that all minds have the same elementary or con- 
 stituent faculties. This is all that we mean when we say 
 that human nature is everywhere the same. This is, in 
 part, what the Scriptures mean when they say, " God hath 
 made of one blood all nations of men." The contrasts 
 among men result, not from the possession of a different 
 number of original faculties, but from possessing the same 
 faculties, in different proportions, and in different degrees 
 of activity. The civilized men of the present day, have 
 neither more nor less faculties, in number, than their barba- 
 rian ancestors had. If so, it would be interesting to ascer- 
 tain about what year, or century, a new good faculty was 
 given to the race, or an old bad one was taken away. An 
 assembly of civilized men, on this side of the globe, con- 
 vening to devise measures for diminishing the number of 
 capital crimes, and thus to reduce the number of capital 
 punishments, were born with the same number and kind 
 of faculties, though doubtless differing greatly in pro- 
 portion and in activity, with a company of Battas 
 islanders, on the opposite side of the globe, who, perhaps 
 at the same time, may be going to attend the holiday rites 
 of a public execution, and, as is their wont, to dine on the 
 criminal. As each human face has the same number of 
 features, each human body the same number of limbs, mus- 
 cles, organs, &c., so each human soul has the same capaci- 
 ties of Reason, Conscience, Hope, Fear, Love, Self-love, &c.
 
 108 SPECIAL PREPARATION 
 
 The differences lie in the relative strength and supremacy 
 of these powers. The human eye is composed of about 
 twenty distinct parts or pieces ; yet these constituent parts 
 are so differently arranged that one man is far-sighted, 
 another near-sighted. When an oculist has mastered a 
 knowledge of one eye, he knows the general plan upon 
 which all eyes have been formed ; but lie must still learn 
 the peculiarities of each, or, in his practice, he will ruin 
 all he touches.* When a surgeon, or an assassin, knows 
 where one man's heart is, he knows, substantially, where 
 the hearts of all other men may be found. And so of the 
 mind and its faculties. It is because of this community 
 of original endowments, that all the great works of nature 
 and art and science, address a common susceptibility or 
 capacity, existing in all minds. It is because of this kin- 
 dred nature that the same earth is given to us all, as a 
 common residence. The possession by each of his com- 
 plement of powers and susceptibilities, confers the common 
 nature, while the different portions or degrees in which 
 they exist, and the predominance of one or a few over the 
 others, break us up into moral and intellectual classes. 
 It is impossible to vindicate the propriety of making or of 
 carrying a Revelation to the whole human race, unless 
 that race has common capacities and wants to which the 
 revelation is adapted. And hence we learn the appalling 
 truth, a truth which should strike " loud on the heart 
 as thunder on the ear," that every child born into this 
 
 * I have heard that distinguished surgeon, Dr. John C. Warren, of Boston, 
 relate the following anecdote, which happened to him in London: Being 
 invited to witness a very difficult operation upon the human eye, by a celebrat- 
 ed English oculist, he was so much struck by the skill and science which were 
 exhibited by the operator, that he sought a private interview with him, to 
 inquire by what means he had become so accomplished a master of his art. 
 " Sir," said the oculist, " I spoiled a hat-full of eyes to learn it." Thus it is 
 with incompetent teachers ; they may spoil schoolrooms-full of children to learn 
 how to teach, and perhaps may not always learn even then.
 
 A PREREQUISITE TO TEACHING. 109 
 
 world has tendencies and susceptibilities pointing to the 
 furthest extremes of good and evil. Each one has the 
 capacity of immeasurable virtue or vice. As each body 
 has an immensity of natural space open all around it, so 
 each spirit, when waked into life, has an immensity of 
 moral space open all around it. Each soul has a pinion 
 by which it may soar to the highest empyrean, or swoop 
 downwards to the Tartarean abyss. In the feeblest voice 
 of infancy, there is a tone which can be made to pour a 
 sweeter melody into the symphonies of angels, or thunder 
 a harsher discord through the blasphemies of demons. 
 To plume these wings for an upper or a nether flight ; to 
 lead these voices forth into harmony or dissonance ; to 
 woo these beings to go where they should go, and to be 
 what they should be, does it, or does it not, my friends, 
 require some knowledge, some anxious forethought, some 
 enlightening preparation ? 
 
 You must pardon me, if, on this subject, I speak to you 
 with great plainness ; and you must allow me to appeal 
 directly to your own course of conduct in other things. 
 You have property to be preserved for the support of your 
 children while you live, or, when you die, for their patri- 
 mony ; you have health and life to be guarded and con- 
 tinued, that they may not be bereaved of their natural 
 protectors ; and you have the children themselves, with 
 their unbounded, unfathomable capacities of happiness 
 and misery. Now, in respect to your property, what is it 
 your wont to do, when a young lawyer comes into the 
 village, erects his sign, and, (the most unexclusive of 
 men,) gives to the public a general invitation ? Though 
 he has a diploma from a college, and the solemn approval 
 of bench and bar, yet how warily do the public approach 
 him. How much he is reconnoitred before he is retained. 
 How many premeditated plans are laid to appear to meet
 
 110 SPECIAL PREPARATION 
 
 him accidentally, to talk over indifferent subjects with 
 him, the weather, the crops, or Congressional matters, 
 in order to measure him, and probe him, and see if 
 there be any hopefulness in him. And should all things 
 promise favorably, the young attorney is intrusted, in the 
 first instance, only with some outlawed note, or some 
 doubtful account, before a justice of the peace. No man 
 ever thinks of trusting a case which involves the old 
 homestead, to his inexperienced hands. He would as soon 
 set fire to it. 
 
 So, too, of a young physician. No matter from what 
 medical college, home or foreign, he may bring his cre- 
 dentials. From day to day the neighbors watch him 
 without seeming to look at him. In good-wives' parties, 
 the question is confidentially discussed, whether, in a case 
 of exigency, it would be safe to send for him. And when, 
 at last, he is gladdened with a call, it is only to look at 
 some surface ailment, or to pother a little about the ex- 
 tremities. Nobody allows him to lay his unpractised hand 
 upon the vitals. Now this common sentiment, this 
 common practice of mankind, is only the instinctive 
 dictate of prudence. It is only a tacit recognition of a 
 truth felt by all sensible men, that there are a thousand 
 ways to do a thing wrong, but only one to do it right. 
 And if it be but reasonable to exercise such vigilance and 
 caution, in selecting a healer for our bodies which perish, 
 or a counsellor for our worldly estates, who shall assign 
 limits to the circumspection and fidelity with which the 
 teachers of our children should be chosen, who, in the 
 space of a few short years, or even months, will determine, 
 as by a sort of predestination, upon so much of. their 
 future fortunes and destiny ? 
 
 Again ; it is the universal sense of mankind, that skill 
 and facility, in all other things, depend upon study and
 
 A PREREQUISITE TO TEACHING. Ill 
 
 practice. We always demand more, where opportunities 
 have been greater. We stamp a man with inferiority, 
 though he does ten times better than another, if he has 
 had twenty times the advantages. We know that a skilful 
 navigator will carry a vessel through perilous straits, in a 
 gale of wind, and save cargo and lives ; while an ignorant 
 one will wreck both, in a broad channel. With what a 
 song of delight we have all witnessed, how easily and 
 surely that wise and good man, at the head of a great 
 institution in our own State, will tame the ferocity of the 
 insane ; and how, when each faculty of a fiery spirit 
 bursts away like an affrighted steed from its path, this 
 mighty tamer of madmen will temper and quell their wild 
 impetuosity and restore them to the guidance of reason. 
 Nay, the great moral healer can do this, not to one only, 
 but to hundreds at a time ; while, even in a far shorter 
 period than he asks to accomplish such a wonderful work, 
 an ignorant and passionate teacher will turn a hundred 
 gentle, confiding spirits into rebels and anarchists. And, 
 my hearers, we recognize the existence of these facts, we 
 apply these obvious principles, to every thing but to the 
 education of our children. 
 
 Why cannot we derive instruction even from the folly 
 of those wandering show-men who spend a life in teaching 
 brute animals to perform wonderful feats ? We have all 
 seen, or at least we have all heard of, some learned horse, 
 or learned pig, or learned dog. Though the superiority 
 over their fellows, possessed by these brute prodigies, may 
 have been owing, in some degree, to the possession of 
 greater natural parts, yet it must be mainly attributed to 
 the higher competency of their instructor. Their teacher 
 had acquired a deeper insight into their natures; his 
 sagacious practice had discovered the means by which 
 their talents could be unfolded and brought out. How-
 
 112 SPECIAL PREPARATION 
 
 ever unworthy and even contemptible, therefore, the mere 
 trainer of a dog may be, yet he illustrates a great princi- 
 ple. By showing us the superiority of a well-trained dog, 
 lie shows what might be the superiority of a well-trained 
 child. He shows us that higher acquisitions, what may 
 be called academical attainments, in a few favored in- 
 dividuals of the canine race, are not so much the results 
 of a more brilliant genius on the part of the dog-pupil, as 
 they are the natural reward and consequence of his 
 enjoying the instructions of a professor who has concen- 
 trated all his energies upon dog-teaching. 
 
 Surely, it will not be denied that a workman should 
 understand two things in regard to the subject-matter of 
 his work; fast, its natural properties, qualities, and 
 powers ; and secondly, the means of modifying and regu- 
 lating them, with a view to improvement. In relation to 
 the mechanic arts, this is admitted by all. Everybody 
 knows that the strength of the blow must be adjusted to 
 the malleability of the metal. It will not do to strike 
 glass and flint, either with the same force or with the same 
 implements ; and the proper instrument will never be 
 selected by a person ignorant of the purpose to be effected 
 by its use. If a man working on wood, mistakes it for 
 iron, and attempts to soften it in the fire, his product is 
 ashes. And so if a teacher supposes a child to have 
 but one tendency, and one adaptation, when he has many ; 
 if a teacher treats a child as though his nature were 
 wholly animal, or wholly intellectual, or wholly moral and 
 
 , religious, he disfigures and mutilates the nature of that 
 child, and wrenches his whole structure into deformity. 
 
 The being Man is more complex and diversified in 
 constitution, and more variously endowed in faculties, 
 than any other earthly work of the Creator. It is in this 
 assemblage of powers and prerogatives that his strength
 
 A PREREQUISITE TO TEACHING. 113 
 
 and majesty reside. They constitute his sovereignty and 
 lordship over the creation around him. By our bodily 
 organization we are adapted to the material world in 
 which we are placed ; our eye to the light, which makes 
 known to us every change in the form, motion, color, 
 position, of all objects within visual range ; our ear and 
 tongue to the air, which flows around us in silence, yet is 
 forever ready to be waked into voice and music ; our 
 hand to all the cunning works of art which subserve 
 utility or embellishment. Still more wonderfully does the 
 spiritual nature of man befit his spiritual relations. 
 Whatever there is of law, of order, of duty, in the works 
 of God, or in the progressive conditions of the race, all 
 have their spiritual counterparts within him. By his per- 
 ceptive and intellectual faculties, he learns the properties 
 of created things, and discovers the laws by which they 
 are governed. By tracing the relation between causes 
 and effects, he acquires a kind of prophetic vision and 
 power ; for, by conforming to the unchanging laws of 
 Nature, he enlists her in his service, and she works with 
 him in fulfilling his predictions. Regarded as an individ- 
 ual, and as a member of a race which reproduces itself and 
 passes away, his lower propensities, those which he 
 holds in common with the brutes, are the instincts and 
 means to preserve himself and to perpetuate his kind ; 
 while by his tastes, and by the social, moral, and religious 
 sentiments of which he is capable, he is attuned to all the 
 beauties and sublimities of creation, his heart is made 
 responsive to all the delights of friendship and domestic 
 affection, and ho is invited to hold that spiritual inter- 
 course with his Maker, which at once strengthens and 
 enraptures. 
 
 Now the- voice of God and of Nature declares audibly 
 which of these various powers within us are to command.
 
 114 SPECIAL PEEPARATION 
 
 and which are to obey ; and with which, in every ques- 
 tionable case, resides the ultimate arbitrament. Even the 
 lowest propensities are not to be wholly extirpated. 
 Within the bounds prescribed by the social and the divine 
 law, they have their rightful claims. But the moral and 
 the religious sentiments, Benevolence, Conscience, 
 Reverence for the All-creating and All-bestowing Power, 
 these have the prerogative of supremacy and absolute 
 dominion. These are to walk the halls of the soul, like a 
 god, nor suffer rebellion to live under their eye. Yet how 
 easy for this many-gifted being to fall, more easy, indeed, 
 because of his many gifts. Some subject-faculty, some 
 subordinate power, in this spiritual realm, unfortunately 
 inflamed, or, what is far more common, unwisely 
 stimulated by an erroneous education, grows importunate, 
 exorbitant, aggrandizes itself, encroaches upon its fellow- 
 faculties, until, at last, obtaining the mastery, it subverts 
 the moral order of the soul, and wages its parricidal war 
 against the sovereignty of conscience within, and the laws 
 of society and Heaven without. And how unspeakably 
 dreadful are the retributions which come in the train of 
 these remorseless usurpers, when they obtain dominion 
 over the soul ! Take, for instance, the earliest-developed, 
 the most purely selfish and animal appetite that belongs 
 to us, that for nourishing beverage. It is the first which 
 demands gratification after birth. Subjected to the laws 
 of temperance, it will retain its zest, fresh and genial, for 
 threescore years and ten, and it aifords the last corporal 
 solace -upon earth to the parched lips of the dying man. 
 Yet, if the possessor of this same pleasure-giving appetite 
 shall be incited, either by examples of inordinate indul- 
 gence, or by festive songs in praise of the vine and the 
 wine-cup, to inflame it, and to feed its deceitful fires, 
 though but for the space of a few short years, then the
 
 A PREREQUISITE TO TEACHING. 115 
 
 spell of the sorcerer will be upon him ; and, day by day, 
 he will go and cast himself into the fiery furnace which 
 he has kindled ; nor himself, the pitiable victim, alone, 
 but he will seize upon parents and wife and his group of 
 innocent children, and plunge with them all into the 
 seething hell of intemperance. 
 
 So there is, in human nature, an innate desire of 
 acquiring property, of owning something, of using 
 the possessives my and mine. Within proper limits, this 
 instinct is laudably indulged. Its success affords a pleas- 
 ure in which reason can take a part. It stimulates and 
 strengthens many other faculties. It makes us thought- 
 ful and forethoughtful. It is the parent of industry and 
 frugality, and industry and frugality, as we all know, 
 are blood-relations to the whole family of the virtues. 
 But to the eye and heart of one in whom this love of ac- 
 quisition has become absorbing and insane, all the diver- 
 sified substances in creation are reduced to two classes, 
 that which is gold, and that which is not; and all the 
 works of Nature are valued or despised, and the laws and 
 institutions of society upheld or assailed, as they are sup- 
 posed to be favorable or unfavorable to the acquisition of 
 wealth. Whether at home or abroad, in the festive circle 
 or in the funeral train ; whether in hearing the fervid and 
 thrilling appeals of the sanctuary, or the pathos of civic 
 eloquence, one idea alone, that of money, money, 
 money, holds possession of the miser's soul ; its voice 
 rings forever in his ear ; and were he in the garden of 
 Eden, its beauty, and music, and perfume suffusing all 
 his senses, his only thought would be, how much money 
 it would bring ! Such mischief comes from giving suprem- 
 acy to a subordinate, though an essential and highly 
 useful faculty. This mischief, to a greater or less extent, 
 parents and teachers produce, when, through an ignorance
 
 116 SPECIAL PEEPARATION 
 
 of the natural and appropriate methods of inducing chil- 
 dren to study, they hire them to learn by the offer of 
 pecuniary rewards. 
 
 So, too, we all have an innate love for whatever is beau- 
 tiful; a sentiment that yearns for higher and higher 
 degrees of perfection in the arts, and in the embellish- 
 ments of life, a feeling which would prompt us to " gild 
 refined gold, to paint the lily, to throw a porfume on the 
 violet, and add another hue unto the rainbow." Portions 
 of the external world have been exquisitely adapted to 
 this inborn love of the beautiful, by Him who has so 
 clothed the lilies of the field that they outshine Solomon 
 in all his glory. Tin's sentiment may be too much or too 
 little cultivated; so little as to make us disdain gratifi- 
 cations that are at once innocent and pure ; or sojnuch 
 as to over-refine us into a hateful fastidiousness. In the 
 works of nature, beauty is generally, if not always, subor- 
 dinated to utility. In cases of incompatibility, graceful- 
 ness yields to strength, not strength to gracefulness. How 
 would the rising sun mock us with his splendor, if he 
 brought no life or warmth in his beams ! The expectation 
 of autumnal harvests enhances the beauty of vernal bloom. 
 These manifestations of nature admonish us respecting the 
 rank which ornament or accomplishment should hold in 
 the character and in the works of men ; and, of course, 
 in the education of children. Christ referred occasionally 
 to the beauties and charms of nature, but dwelt perpetually 
 upon the obligations of duty and charity. But what oppo- 
 site and grievous offences are committed on this subject 
 by different portions of society! The laboring classes, by 
 reason of early parental neglect in cultivating a love for 
 the beautiful, often forego pleasures which a bountiful 
 Providence scatters profusely and gratuitously around 
 them, and strews beneath their feet ; while there is a class
 
 A PREREQUISITE TO TEACHING. 117 
 
 of persons at the other extremity of the social scale, who, 
 from never comprehending the immeasurable value of the 
 objects for which they were created, and the vast benefi- 
 cence of which, from their wealth and station, they are 
 capable, actually try every thing, however intrinsically 
 noble or vsacrod, by some conventional law of fashion, by 
 some arbitrary and capricious standard of elegance. In 
 European society, this class of " fashionables " is numer- 
 ous. They have their imitators here, beings, who are 
 not men and women, but similitudes only, who occupy 
 the vanishing point in the perspective of society, where 
 all that is true, or noble, or estimable in human nature, 
 fades away into nothing. With this class, it is no matter 
 what a man does with the " Ten Commandments," pro- 
 vided he keeps those of Lord Chesterfield ; and, in their 
 society, Beau Brummell would take precedence of Dr. 
 Franklin. 
 
 In a Report lately made by the Agricultural Commis- 
 sioner for the survey of this Commonwealth, I noticed a 
 statement respecting some farmers in the northern part 
 of the County of Essex, who attempted to raise sun-flow- 
 ers for the purpose of extracting oil from the seeds. 
 Twenty bushels to the acre was the largest crop raised by 
 any one. Six bushels of the seed yielded but one gallon 
 of oil, worth, in the market, one dollar and seventeen 
 cents only. It surely required no great boldness to assert 
 that the experiment did not succeed: cultivation, one 
 acre ; product, three gallons of oil ; value, three dollars 
 and fifty cents ! which would, perhaps, about half repay 
 the cost of labor. Woe to the farmer who seeks for inde- 
 pendence by raising sun-flowers ! Ten times woe to the 
 parents who rear up sun-flower sons or sun-flower daugh- 
 ters, instead of sons whose hearts glow and burn with 
 an immortal zeal to run the noble career of usefulness
 
 118 SPECIAL PREPARATION 
 
 and virtue which a happy fortune has laid open before 
 them ; instead of daughters who cherish such high re- 
 solves of duty as lift them even above an enthusiasm for 
 greatness, into those loftier and serene regions where 
 greatness comes not from excitement, but is native, and 
 ever-springing and ever-abiding. Every son, whatever 
 may be his expectations as to fortune, ought to be so 
 educated that he can superintend some part of the com- 
 plicated machinery of social life ; and every daughter 
 ought to be so educated that she can answer the claims 
 of humanity, whether those claims require the labor of 
 the head or the labor of the hand. Every daughter ought 
 to be so trained that she can bear, with dignity and self- 
 sustaining ability, those revolutions in Fortune's wheel, 
 which sometimes bring the kitchen up and turn the parlor 
 down. 
 
 Again : we have a natural, spontaneous feeling of self- 
 respect, an innate sense that, simply in our cajiaeiiy as 
 human beings, we are worth something, and entitled to 
 some consideration. This principle constitutes the inte- 
 rior frame-work of some of the virtues, veiled, indeed, by 
 their own beautiful covering, but still necessary in order 
 to keep them in an erect posture, amidst all the over- 
 bearing currents and forces of the world. Where this 
 feeling of self-respect exists too weakly, the whole charac- 
 ter becomes limber, flaccid, impotent, sinks under the 
 menace of opposition, and can be frightened out of any 
 thing or into any thing. On the other hand, when this 
 propensity aggrandizes itself, and becomes swollen and 
 deformed with pride, and conceit, and intolerance, it is a 
 far more offensive nuisance than many of those which the 
 law authorizes us to abate, summarily, by force and 
 arms. Our political institutions are a rich alluvium for 
 the growth of self-esteem ; for, while everybody knows
 
 A PREREQUISITE TO TEACHING. 119 
 
 that there are the greatest differences between men in 
 point of honesty, of ability, of will to do good and to pro- 
 mote right, yet our fundamental laws, and rightly too, 
 ordain a political equality. But what is not right is, 
 that the political equality is the fact mainly regarded, 
 while there is a tendency to disregard the intellectual and 
 moral inequalities. And thus a faculty, designed to sub- 
 serve, and capable of subserving the greatest good, engen- 
 ders a low ambition, and fills the land with the war-whoop 
 of party strife. 
 
 These are specimens only of a long list of original ten- 
 dencies or attributes of the human mind, from a more 
 full enumeration and exposition of which, I must, on this 
 occasion, refrain. But have not enough been referred to, 
 to authorize us to assert the general doctrine, that every 
 teacher ought to have some notions, clear, definit^ yyd- 
 comprehensive, of the manifold powegs,T the varioujfpp^ 
 tare, of the beings confided to his hands, so that he 
 may repress the redundancy of a too luxuriant growth, 
 and nourish the feeble with his fostering: care ? No idea 
 can be more erroneous than that children po to school to 
 lea ni ilic rudiments of knowledge, only, and not to form 
 .liaracier. The character of children is always forming. 
 No place, no companion, is without an influence upon it ; 
 and at school it is formed more rapidly than anywhere 
 else. The mere fact of the presence of so many children 
 together, puts the social or dissocial nature of each into 
 fervid action. To be sent to school, especially in the coun- 
 try, is often as great an event in a child's life, as it is, in 
 his father's, to be sent to the General Court ; and we all 
 know with what unwonted force all things affect the 
 mind, in new places and under new circumstances. 
 Every child, too, when he first goes to school, under- 
 stands that he is put upon his good behavior ; and, with
 
 120 SPECIAL PREPARATION 
 
 man or child, it is a very decisive thing, and reaches deep 
 into character and far into futurity, when put upon his 
 good behavior, to prove recreant. Now, teachers take 
 children under their care, as it were, during the firxf 
 irarm days of the spring of life, when more can be done 
 towards directing their growth and modifying their dis- 
 positions, than can be done in years, at a later season of 
 their existence. 
 
 Equally indispensable is it, that every teacher should 
 know by what means, by virtue of what natural laws, 
 the human powers and faculties are strengthened or 
 enfeebled. There is a principle running through, every 
 mental operation, without a knowledge of which, 
 without a knowledge how to apply which, the life of the 
 most faithful teacher will be only a succession of well- 
 intentioned errors. The growth or decline of all our 
 powers depends upon a steadfast law. There is no more 
 chance in the processes of their growth or decay than 
 there is in the Multiplication Table. They grow by exer- 
 cise, and they lose tone and vigor by inaction. All the 
 faculties have their related objects, and they grow by- 
 being excited to action through the stimulus or instru- 
 mentality of those objects. Each faculty, too, has its 
 own set or class of related objects ; and the classes of re- 
 lated objects differ as much from each other, as do the 
 
 corresponding faculties which they naturally excite. If 
 
 any one power or faculty, therefore, is to be strengthened, 
 s-o as to perform its office with facility, precision and de- 
 spatch, that identical faculty, not any other one, _mu jt 
 be exercised, (jt does not strengthen my left arm to exer- 
 cise my right ;) and this is just as true of the powers of 
 the mind, as of the organs of the body. The whole pith 
 of that saying of Solomon, "Train up a child in the way 
 he should go," consists in this principle, because i( i te
 
 A PREREQUISITE TO TEACHING. 121 
 
 . 
 
 train " moans to drill, to repeat, to do the same thing 
 ovpr_nnrL QVP.P a orpin 7 t.TmA - ia^ f.n exercise. Solomon 
 does not say, " Tell a child the way he should go, and 
 when he is old, he will not depart from it." Had he said 
 this, we could refute him daily by ten thousand facts. 
 Unfortunately, education amongst us, at present, consists 
 too much in telling, not in training, on the part of par- 
 ents and teachers ; and, of course, in hearing, not in 
 doing, on the part of children and pupils. The black- 
 smith's right arm, the philosopher's intellect, the philan- 
 thropist's benevolence, all grow and strengthen accord- 
 ing to this law of exercise. The farmer works solid 
 flesh upon his cattle ; the pugilist strikes vigor into his 
 arms and breast ; the foot soldier marches strength into 
 his limbs ; the practical man thinks quickness and judg- 
 ment into his mind ; and the true Christian lives his 
 prayers of love and his thoughts of mercy, until every 
 man becomes his brother. Our own experience and ob- 
 servation furnish us with a life-full of evidence attesting 
 this principle. How did our feet learn to walk, our fin- 
 gers to write, our organs of speech to utter an innumera- 
 ble variety of sounds ? By what means does the musi- 
 cian pass from coarse discords to perfect music, from 
 hobbling and shambling in his measure, to keeping time 
 like a chronometer, from a slow and timid touch of 
 keys or chords, to such celerity of movement, that, 
 though his will sends out a thousand commands in a 
 minute, his nimble fingers obey them all ? It is this exer- 
 cise, this repetition, which gives to jugglers their marvel- 
 lous dexterity. By dint of practice, their motions be- 
 come quicker than our eyesight, and thus elude inspection. 
 A knowledge of this principle solves many of the riddles 
 of life, by showing us whence comes the domineering 
 strength of human appetites and passions. It comes
 
 122 SPECIAL PREPARATION 
 
 from exercise, from a long indulgence of them in 
 thought and act, until the offspring of sinful desire 
 turn back, and feast upon the vitals of the wretch who 
 nurtured them. It is this which makes the miser pant 
 and raven for gain, more and more, just in proportion to 
 the shortness of the life during which he can enjoy it. 
 It is this which sends the drunkard to pay daily tribute 
 to his own executioner. It is this which scourges back 
 the gambler to the hell he dreads. 
 
 It is by this law of exercise that the perceptive and re- 
 flective intellect, I mean the powers of observing and 
 judging, are strengthened. If, therefore, in the edu- 
 cation of the child, the action of these powers is early 
 arrested ; if his whole time is engrossed and his whole 
 energy drawn away, by other things ; or, if he is not sup- 
 plied with the proper objects or apparatus on which these 
 faculties can exert themselves, then the after-life of 
 such a child will be crowded with practical errors and 
 misjudgments. As a man, his impressions of things will 
 be faint and fleeting ; he will never be able to describe 
 an object as he saw it, nor to tell a story as he heard it. 
 No handicrafts-man or mechanic ever becomes what we 
 call a first-rate workman, until after innumerable experi- 
 ments and judgments, that is, repetitions, or exercises. 
 And the rule is the same even with genius, artisan or 
 artist, he must practise long and sedulously upon lines, 
 proportions, reliefs, before he can become the first sculp- 
 tor of the age, or the first boot-maker in the city. The 
 teacher, then, must continue to exercise the powers of 
 his pupils, until he secures accuracy even in the minut- 
 est things he teaches. Every child can and should learn 
 to judge, almost with mathematical exactness, how long 
 an inch is ; no matter if he does not guess within a 
 foot of it the first time. Whether the story of Casper
 
 A PREREQUISITE TO TEACHING. 123 
 
 Hauser be true or not, it has verisimilitude, and is there- 
 fore instructive. It warns us what the general result 
 must be, if, by a non-presentation of their related objects, 
 the -faculties of a child are not brought into exercise. 
 We meet with persons, every day, who, in regard to some 
 one or more of the faculties, are Casper Hausers. This 
 happens, almost universally, not through any natural de- 
 fect, but because parents and teachers have been igno- 
 rant, either of the powers to be exercised, or of the 
 related objects through whose instrumentality they can 
 be excited to action. 
 
 But here arises a demand for great skill, aptitude and 
 resources, on the part of the teacher ; for, by continuing 
 to exercise the same faculty, I do not mean a monoto- 
 nous repetition of the same action, nor a perpetual pres- 
 entation of the same object or ' idea. Such a course 
 would soon cloy and disgust, and thus terminate all effort 
 in that direction. Would a child ever learn to dance, if 
 there were but one figure ; or to sing, it there were but 
 one tune ? Nature, science, art, offer a boundless variety 
 of objects and processes, adapted to quicken and employ 
 each of the faculties. These resources the teacher 
 should have at his command, and should make use of 
 them, in the order, and for the period, that each particu- 
 lar case may require. ^Look into the shops of our inge- 
 nious artisans and mechanics, and see their shining rows 
 of tools, hundreds in number, but each adapted to 
 some particular process in their curious art.) Look into 
 the shop or hut of a savage, an Indian mechanic, and 
 you will find his chest of tools composed of a single jack- 
 knife ! So with our teachers. Sonae of them have ap- 
 paratus, diagram, chart, model ; they have anecdote, 
 epigram, narrative, history, by which to illustrate every 
 branch of study, and to fit every variety of disposition ;
 
 124 SPECIAL PREPARATION 
 
 while the main resource of others, for all studies, for all 
 ages and for all dispositions, is the rod ! 
 
 Again ; a child must not only be exercised into correct- 
 ness of observation, comparison and judgment, but into 
 accuracy in the narration or description of what he has 
 seen, heard, thought or felt, so that, whatever thoughts, 
 emotions, memories, are within him, he can present them 
 all to others in exact and luminous words. Dr. Johnson 
 said, "Accustom your children constantly to this ; if a 
 thing happened at one window, and they, when relating 
 it, say that it happened at another, do not let it pass, but 
 instantly check them. You do not know where deviation 
 from the truth will end." Every man who sees effects in 
 causes, will fully concur with the Doctor in regard to the 
 value of such a habit of accuracy as is here implied. If. 
 in the narration of an event, or in the recitation of a 
 lesson, a child is permitted to begin at the last end of it, 
 and to scatter the middle about promiscuously, depend 
 upon it, if that child, after growing up, is called into 
 court as a witness, somebody will suffer in fortune, in 
 reputation, or perhaps in life. When practising at the 
 bar, I was once engaged in an important case of slan- 
 der, where the whole question of the innocence or 
 guilt of the defendant turned upon the point, whether, 
 at a certain time, he was seen out of one window, or 
 out of another ; and the stupid witness first swore 
 that is was one window, then another window, and 
 at last, thought it might be a door ; and doubtless, 
 he could have been made to swear that he saw him 
 through the sky-light. Would you appreciate the im- 
 portance of accuracy, in observation and statement, 
 take one of those cases which so frequently occur in our 
 courts of law, where a dozen witnesses, all honest, 
 swear one way, and another dozen, equally honest, .
 
 A PREREQUISITE TO TEACHING. 125 
 
 counter-swear ; and contrast it with a case, which so rare- 
 ly occurs, where a witness, whose mind, like a copying 
 machine, having taken an exact impression of whatever 
 it has seen or heard, attests to complicated facts, in a 
 manner so orderly, luminous, natural, giving to each, 
 time, locality, proportion, that when he has finished, 
 every auditor, bench, bar, spectators, all feel as 
 though they had been personally present and witnessed 
 the whole transaction. Now, although something of this 
 depends, unquestionably, upon soundness in physical and 
 mental organization, yet a vast portion of it is referable 
 to the early observation or neglect, on the part of teacher 
 or parent, of the law we are considering. 
 
 There is another point, too, which the teacher should 
 regard, especially where only a small portion of non-age 
 is appropriated to school attendance. In exercising the 
 faculties for the purpose of strengthening them, the 
 greatest amount of useful knowledge should be commu- 
 nicated. The faculties may be exercised and strength- 
 ened in acquiring useful or useless knowledge. A farmer 
 or a stone-mason may exercise and strengthen the mus- 
 cles of his body, by pitching or rolling timbers or stones, 
 backwards and forwards ; but. by converting the same 
 materials into a house or a fence, he may at once gain 
 strength and do good. Every teacher, at the same time 
 that he exercises the faculties of his pupils, ought to im- 
 part the greatest amount of valuable knowledge ; and he, 
 .-Tiould always be above the temptation of keeping a pu- 
 pil in a lower department, of study, because he himself 
 Iocs not understand the higher ; or, on the other hand, 
 of prematurely carrying his pupil into a higher depart- 
 ment, because of his own ignorance of the lower) Sup- 
 pose a bright boy, for instance, to be studying arithmetic 
 and geography, at school. Now, arithmetic cannot be
 
 126 SPECIAL PREPARATION 
 
 taught unless it is understood ; but. with the help of an 
 atlas, and a text-book whose margin is all covered with 
 questions, the business of teaching geography may be set 
 up on a very slender capital of knowledge. And here a 
 teacher who is obliged to be very economical of his arith- 
 metic, would be tempted to keep his pupil upon all the 
 small towns, and tiny rivers, and dots of islands in the 
 geography, in order to delay him, and gain time, like 
 the officers of those banks whose specie runs low, who 
 seek to pay off their creditors in cents, because it takes 
 so long to count the copper. Every teacher ought to 
 know vastly more than he is required to teach, so that he 
 may be furnished, on every subject, with copious illustra- 
 tion and instructive anecdote ; and so that the pupils may 
 be disabused of the notion they are so apt to acquire, 
 that they carry all knowledge in their satchels. Eveiy 
 teacher should be possessed of a facility at explanation, 
 a tact in discerning and solving difficulties, not to 
 be used too often, for then it would supersede the effort it 
 should encourage, but when it is used, to be quick and 
 sure as a telescope, bringing distant objects near, and 
 making obscure ones distinct. In the important, but 
 grossly neglected and abused exercise of reading, for in- 
 stance, every new fact, every new idea, is news to the 
 child ; and did he fully understand it, he would be as 
 eager to learn it, as we are to learn what is news to us. 
 But how. think you, should we be vexed, if our news- 
 bringer spoke every third word in a foreign language ; or 
 gave us only a Pennsylvania newspaper printed in Ger- 
 man, when we wanted to know how their votes stood in 
 an election for President. Whatever words a child does 
 not understand, in his reading lesson, are, to him, words 
 in a foreign language ; and they must be translated into 
 his own language before he can take any interest in them.
 
 A PREREQUISITE TO TEACHING. 127 
 
 But if, instead of being translated into his language, they 
 are left unnoticed, or are translated into another foreign 
 language still, that is, into other words or phrases of 
 which he is ignorant, then, the child, instead of de- 
 lightful and instructive ideas, gets empty words, mere 
 sounds, atmospheric vibrations only. In Dr. Johnson's 
 Dictionary, the word, "Network" is denned to be " any 
 thing reticulated or decussated, with interstices between 
 the intersections." Now who, ignorant of the meaning 
 of the word " network," before, would understand it any 
 better by being told, that it is " any thing reticulated or 
 decussated, with interstices between the intersections ? " 
 Nor would he be much enlightened, if, on looking far- 
 ther, he found that the same author had given the follow- 
 ing definitions of the defining words : "reticulated," 
 "formed with interstitial vacuities ; " " decussated," 
 " intersected at acute angles ; " " interstice," " space 
 between one thing and another;" "intersection," 
 " point ivhere lines cross each other."" If this is not, as 
 Milton says, " dark with excess of bright," it is, at least, 
 " darkness visible." A few years since, a geography was 
 published in this State, the preface of which boasted 
 of its adaptation to the capacities of children ; and, on 
 the second page, there was this definition of the words 
 " zenith and nadir : " ;i zenith and nadir, two Arabic 
 words importing' their own signification." A few years 
 since, an English traveller and book-maker, who called 
 himself Thomas Ashe, Esq., visited the Big Bone Licks, 
 in Kentucky, where he found the remains of the mam- 
 moth, in great abundance, and whence he carried away 
 several wagon-loads of bones. In describing the size of 
 one of the shoulder-blades of that animal, he says, it 
 " was about as large as a breakfast-table ! " A child's 
 mind may be dark and ignorant before, but, under such
 
 128 SPECIAL PREPARATION 
 
 explanations as these, darkness will coagulate, and igno- 
 rance be sealed in hermetically. Let a school be so con- 
 ducted but for one season, and all life will be abstracted 
 from it ; and it will become the painful duty of the school 
 committee, at its close, to attend a post mortem examina- 
 tion of the children, without even the melancholy sat- 
 isfaction of believing that science will be benefited by the 
 horrors of the dissection. 
 
 f Every teacher should be competent to some care of the 
 Jhoalth of his pupils, not merely for the purpose of rcg- 
 ynifttUig the temperature of the schoolroom, and, of 
 /course, the transition which the scholars must undergo, 
 if on entering or leaving it, though this is of no small 
 importance, but so that, as occasion offers, he may in- 
 culcate a knowledge of some of the leading conditions 
 jipon which health and life depend. I saw, last year, in 
 the public town school of Northampton, under the care 
 of Mr. R. M. Hubbard, more than a hundred boys, 
 from ten or eleven to fifteen or sixteen years of age, who 
 pointed out the place and gave the name of all the prin- 
 cipal bones in their bodies, as well as an anatomist would 
 have done ; who explained the physiological processes of 
 the circulation of the blood and the alimentation of food, 
 and described the putrefactive action of ardent spirits 
 upon the delicate tissues of the stomach. Now such 
 boys have a chance, nay, a certainty, of far longer life 
 and far better health, than they would otherwise have ; 
 and as they grow up, they will be far less easily tempted 
 to emulate either of the three cockney graces, Gin, 
 Swearing and Tobacco. 
 
 But 1 must pass by other considerations, respecting the 
 growth and invigoration of the intellectual faculties, and 
 the classes of subjects upon which they should be em- 
 ployed. I hasten to the consideration of another topic, 
 incalculably more important.
 
 A PREREQUISITE TO TEACHING. 129 
 
 The moral faculties increase or decline, strengthen or 
 languish, by the same law of exercise. In legislating for 
 "loenTacgg^rare mainly regarded ; but in the education 
 of children, motives are every thing > MOTIVES ARE EVERY 
 THING! All, this side of the motive, is mere mechanism, 
 anxTTt matters not whether it be done by the hand, or by 
 a crank. There was profound philosophy in the old theo- 
 logical notion, that whoever made a league with the 
 devil, in order to gratify a passion through his help, be- 
 came the devil's property afterwards. And so, when a 
 teacher stimulates a child to the performance of actions, 
 externally right, by appealing to motives intrinsically 
 wrong, he sells- that child into bondage to the wrong 
 motive. Some parents, finding a desire of luxurious food 
 a stronger motive-power in their children than any other, 
 accomplish every thing through its means. They hire 
 them to go to school and learn, to go to church and re- 
 member the text, and to behave well before company, by 
 a promise of dainties. Every repetition of this enfeebles 
 the sentiment of duty, through its inaction, while it in- 
 creases the desire for delicacies, by its exercise ; and as. 
 they successively come into competition afterwards, the 
 virtue will be found to have become weaker, and the ap- 
 petite stronger. Such parents touch the wrong pair of 
 nerves, the sensual instead of the moral, the bestial 
 instead of the divine. These springs of action lie at the 
 very extremes of human nature, one class down among 
 the brutes, the other up among the seraphim. When a 
 child, so educated, becomes a man, and circumstances 
 make him the trustee or fiduciary of the friendless and 
 unprotected, and he robs the widow and orphan to obtain 
 the means of luxury or voluptuousness, we exclaim, 
 " Poor human nature I " and are ready to appoint a Fast; 
 when the truth is, he was educated to be a knave under
 
 130 SPECIAL PREPARATION 
 
 that very temptation. Were a surgeon to operate upon 
 a human body, with as little knowledge of his subject as 
 this, and whip round his double-edged knife where the 
 vital parts lie thickest, he would be tried for manslaugh- 
 ter at the next court, and deserve conviction. 
 
 Take another example ; and I instance one of the 
 motive-forces which, for the last fifty or a hundred years, 
 has been mainly relied on, in our schools, academies and 
 colleges, as the stimulus to intellectual effort ; and 
 which has done more than every thing else, to cause 
 the madness and the profligacy of those political and 
 social rivalries that now convulse the land. Let us 
 take a child who has only a moderate > love of learning, 
 but an inordinate passion for praise and place ; and we 
 therefore allure him to study by the enticements of pre- 
 cedence and applause. If he will surpass all his fellows, 
 we advance him to the post, and signalize him with the 
 badges of distinction, and never suffer the siren of flat- 
 tery to cease the enchantments of her song. If he ever 
 has any compassionate misgivings in regard to the 
 effect which his own promotion may have upon his less 
 brilliant, though not less meritorious fellow-pupils, then 
 we seek to withdraw his thoughts from this virtuous 
 channel, and to turn them to the selfish contemplation of 
 his own brilliant fortunes in future years ; if waking 
 conscience ever whispers in his ear, that that pleasure is 
 dishonorable which gives pain to the innocent ; then we 
 dazzle him with the gorgeous vision of triumphal honors 
 and applauding multitudes ; and when, in after-life, 
 this victim of false influences deserts a righteous cause 
 because it is declining, and joins an unrighteous one be- 
 cause it is prospering, and sets his name in history's pil- 
 lory, to be scoffed and jeered at for ages, then we pour 
 out lamentations, in prose and verse, over the moral sui-
 
 A PREREQUISITE TO TEACHING. 131 
 
 cide ! And yet, by such a course of education, he was 
 prepared beforehand, like a skilfully organized machine, 
 to prove a traitor and an apostate at that very conjuncture. 
 No doubt, a college-boy will learn more Greek and Latin 
 if it is generally understood that college-honors are to be 
 mainly awarded for proficiency in those languages ; but 
 what care we though a man can speak seven languages, 
 or dreams in Hebrew or Sanscrit, because of their fami- 
 liarity, if he has never learned the language of sympathy 
 for human suffering, and is deaf when the voice of truth 
 and duty utters their holy mandates ? We want men 
 who feel a sentiment, a consciousness, of brotherhood for 
 the whole human race. We want men who will instruct 
 the ignorant, not delude them ; who will succor 'the 
 weak, not prey upon them. We want men who will 
 fly to the moral breach when the waters of desolation 
 are pouring in, and who will stand there, and, if need 
 be, die there, applause or no applause. No doubt, 
 every one is bound to take watchful care of that portion 
 of his happiness which rightfully depends upon the good 
 opinion of others ; but before any teacher attempts to 
 secure the proficiency of his pupils by inflaming their 
 love of praise and place, ought he not to appeal, with 
 earnest and prolonged entreaty, to every higher senti- 
 ment ; and even then, should he fail of arousing a desire 
 for improvement, would it not be better to abandon a 
 pupil to mediocrity, or even insignificance, than to insure 
 him the highest eminence by awakening an unholy ambi- 
 tion in his bosom ? It is infinitely better for any nation 
 to support a hospital for fools, than to have a parliament 
 or a congress of knaves. 
 
 And thus it is with all moral developments. Igno- 
 rance may appeal to a wrong motive, and thus give inor- 
 dinate strength to an inferior sentiment, while honestly
 
 132 SPECIAL PEEPAEATION 
 
 iii quest of a right action. For a few times, perhaps 
 even for a few years, the appeal may be successful ; but, 
 by and by, the interior sentiment or propensity will gain 
 predominance, and usurp the throne, and rule by virtue 
 of its own might. 
 
 So, too, a train of circumstances may be prepared, or 
 a system of government adopted, designed by their 
 author for good, yet productive of a venomous brood of 
 feelings. .Suppose a teacher attempts to secure obedi- 
 ence by fear, instead of love-, but still lacks the energy or 
 the talent requisite for success. Forthwith, and from the 
 necessity of the case, there are two hostile parties in that 
 school, the teacher with his government to maintain, the 
 pupils with their various and ever-springing desires to 
 gratify, in defiance of that government. Not only will 
 there be revolts and mutinies, revolutions and counter- 
 revolutions, iu sucli a school, but, what is infinitely worse 
 because of its meanness and baseness, there will be gene- 
 rated a moral pestilence of deception and trickery. The 
 boldest spirits, those already too bold and fool-hardy, 
 will break out into open rebellion, and thus begin to 
 qualify themselves to become, in after-life, violators and 
 contemners of the laws of society ; while those who are 
 already prone to concealment and perfidy will sharpen 
 their wits for deception ; they will pretend to be saying 
 or doing one thing when saying or doing another ; they 
 will sever the connection between tongue and heart ; they 
 will make the eyes, the face, and all the organs that con- 
 tribute to the natural language, belie the thoughts ; and, 
 in fine, will turn the whole body into an instrument of 
 dissimulation. Such children, under such management, 
 are every day preparing to become, not men of frank- 
 ness, of ingenuousness, of a beautiful transparency of 
 disposition, but sappers and miners of character,
 
 A PREREQUISITE TO TEACHING. 133 
 
 men accomplishing all their ends by stratagem and am- 
 bush, and as full of guile as the first serpent. Who of us 
 has not seen some individual so secretive and guileful as 
 to be impervious to second-sight, or even to the boasted 
 vision of animal magnetism ? I cannot but believe that 
 most of those hateful specimens of duplicity, I might 
 rather say, of triplicity, or multiplicity, which we 
 sometimes encounter in society, had their origin in the 
 attempts made in early life to evade commands injudi- 
 ciously given, or not enforced when given. If any thing 
 pertaining to the education of children demands discre- 
 tion, prudence, wisdom, it is the commands which we im- 
 pose upon them. In no case ought a command ever to 
 be issued to a child without a moral certainty either that 
 it will be voluntarily obeyed, or, if resisted, that it can 
 be enforced ; because disobedience to superiors, who stand 
 at first in the place of a child's conscience, prepares the 
 way for disobedience to conscience itself, when that fac- 
 ulty is developed. Hence the necessity of discriminat- 
 ing, as a preliminary, between what a child will do, or 
 can be made to do, and the contrary. Hence, when dis- 
 obedience is apprehended, the issue should be tried rather 
 on a case of prohibition than of injunction, because a 
 child can be deterred when he cannot be compelled. 
 Hence, also, the necessity of discriminating between what 
 a child has the moral power to do, and what it is in vain 
 to expect from him. Take a child who has been brought 
 up luxuriously, indulgently, selfishly, and command him, 
 in the first instance, to incur some great sacrifice for a 
 mere stranger, or for some object which he neither un- 
 derstands nor values, and disobedience is as certain as long 
 days in the middle of June ; I mean the disobedience 
 of the spirit, for fear, perhaps, may secure the perform- 
 ance of the outward act. Such a child knows nothing of
 
 134 SPECIAL PKEPARATION 
 
 the impulsions of conscience, of the joyful emotions 
 that leap up in the heart after the performance of a gen- 
 erous deed ; and it is as absurd to put such a weight of 
 self-denial upon his benevolence, the first time, as it 
 would be to put a camel's load upon his shoulders. Such 
 a child is deeply diseased. He is a moral paralytic. In 
 regard to all benevolent exertion and sacrifice, he is as 
 weak as an infant ; and he can be recovered and strength- 
 ened to virtuous resolutions only by degrees. What 
 should we think of a physician, who, the first time his 
 patient emerged from a sick -chamber, pallid, emaci- 
 ated, tottering, should prescribe a match at wrestling, 
 or the running of races ? Yet this would be only a par- 
 allel to the mode in which selfish or vicious children are 
 often treated ; nay, some persons prepare or select the 
 most difficult cases, cases requiring great generosity or 
 moral intrepidity, by which to break new beginners 
 into the work of benevolence or duty. If, by a bad edu- 
 cation, a child has lost all generous affections, (for no 
 child is. born without them ;) if he never shares his books 
 or divides his luxuries with his playmates ; if he hides 
 his playthings at the approach of his little visitors ; if his 
 eye never kindles at the recital of a magnanimous deed, 
 of course 1 mean one the magnanimity of which he 
 can comprehend, then he can be won back to kindness 
 and justice only by laborious processes, and in almost im- 
 perceptible degrees. In every conversation before such 
 children, generosity and self-denial should be spoken of 
 with a fervor of admiration and a glow of sympathy. 
 Stories should be told or read before them, in which the 
 principal actors are signalized by some of the qualities 
 they delight in, (always provided that no element of evil 
 mingles with them,) and when their attachments are firm- 
 ly fastened upon hero or heroine, then the social, amia-
 
 A PREREQUISITE TO TEACHING. 135 
 
 
 
 ble and elevated sentiments which are deficient in the 
 children themselves, should be developed in the actors or 
 characters whom they have been led to admire. A child 
 may be led to admire qualities on account of their relation- 
 ships and associations, when he would be indifferent to 
 them if presented separately. If a child is selfish, the 
 occasion for kind acts should be prepared, where all the 
 acompaniments are agreeable. As the sentiment of be- 
 nevolence gains tone and strength, and begins to realize 
 some of those exquisite gratifications which God, by its 
 very constitution, has annexed to its exercise, then let the 
 collateral inducements be weakened, and the experiments 
 assume more of the positive character of virtue. In this 
 way, a child so selfish and envious as to be grieved even 
 at the enjoyment of others, may be won, at last, to seek 
 for delight in offices of humanity and self-sacrifice. There 
 is always an avenue through which a child's mind can be 
 reached ; the failures come from our want of persever- 
 ance and sagacity in seeking it. We must treat moral 
 more as we treat physical distempers. Week after week 
 the mother sits by the sick-bed, and welcomes fasting and 
 vigils ; her watchfulness surrounds her child, and, with all 
 the means and appliances that wealth or life can com- 
 mand, she strives to bar up every avenue through which 
 death can approach him. Did mothers care as much for 
 the virtues and moral habits as for the health and life of 
 their offspring, would they not be as patient, as hopeful, 
 and as long-suffering in administering antidote and rem- 
 edy to a child who is morally, as to one who is physi- 
 cally, diseased ? 
 
 Is it not in the way above described, after a slowly 
 brightening twilight of weeks, perhaps of months, that 
 the occulist, at last, lets in the light of the meridian sun 
 upon the couched eye ? Is it not in this way that the
 
 136 SPECIAL PREPARATION. 
 
 
 
 convalescent of a fevered bed advances, from a measured 
 pittance of the weakest nutrition, to that audacious 
 health which spurns at all restraints upon appetite, wheth- 
 er as to quantity or quality ? For these healings of the 
 diseased eye or body, we demand the professional skill " 
 and science of men educated and trained to the work ; 
 nay, if any impostor or empiric wantonly tampers with 
 eye or life, the injured party accuses him, the officers of 
 the law arrest him, the jurors upon their oaths convict 
 him, the judges pass sentence, and the sheriff executes 
 the mandates of the law ; while parties, officers, jurors, 
 judges and sheriffs, with one consent, employ teachers to 
 direct and train the godlike faculties of their children, 
 who never had one hour of special study, who never re- 
 ceived one lesson of special instruction, to fit them for 
 their momentous duties. 
 
 If, then, the business of education, in all its depart- 
 ments, be so responsible ; if there be such liability to 
 excite and strengthen any one faculty of the opening 
 mind, instead of its antagonist ; if there be such danger 
 of promoting animal and selfish propensities into com- 
 mand over social and moral sentiments ; if it be so easy 
 for an unskilful hand to adjust opportunity to temptation 
 in such a way that the exposed are almost certain to fall ; 
 if it be a work of such delicacy and difficulty to reclaim 
 those who have wandered ; if, in fine, one, not deeply con- 
 versant with the human soul, with all its various facul- 
 ties and propensities, and with all the circumstances and 
 objects which naturally excite them to activity, is in incom- 
 parably greater danger of touching the wrong spring of 
 action, than one, unacquainted with music, is of touching 
 the wrong key or chord of the most complicated musical 
 instrument, then ought not every one of those who 
 are installed into the sacred office of teacher to be " a
 
 A PREEEQUISITE TO TEACHING. 137 
 
 workman who needeth not to be ashamed " ? Surely, 
 they should know, beforehand, how to touch the right 
 spring, with the right pressure, at the right time. 
 
 There is a terrible disease that sometimes afflicts indi- 
 viduals, by which all the muscles of the body seem to be 
 unfastened from the volitions of the mind, and then, after 
 being promiscuously transposed, to be re-fastened ; so 
 that a wrong pair of muscles is attached to every volition. 
 In such a case, the afflicted patient never does the thing 
 he intends to do. If he would walk forwards, his will 
 starts the wrong pair of muscles, and he walks back- 
 wards. When he would extend his right arm to shake 
 hands with you, in salutation, he starts the wrong pair of 
 muscles, thrusts out his left, and slaps or punches you. 
 Precisely so is it with the teacher who knows not what 
 faculties of his pupils to exercise, and by what objects, 
 motives, or processes, they can be brought into activity. 
 He is the will of the school ; they are the body which that 
 will moves ; and, through ignorance, he is perpetually 
 applying his will to the wrong points. What wonder, 
 then, if, spending day after day in pulling at the wrong 
 pairs of muscles, the teacher involves the school in inex- 
 tricable disorder and confusion, and, at last, comes to the 
 conviction that they were never made to go right? 
 
 But, says an objector, can any man ever attain to such 
 knowledge that he can touch as he should this " harp of 
 a thousand strings " ? Perhaps not, I reply ; but ask, in 
 my turn, Cannot every man know better than he now 
 does ? Cannot something be done to make good teachers 
 better, and incompetent ones less incompetent ? Cannot 
 something be done to promote the progress and to di- ' j 
 minish the dangers of all our schools? Cannot some- 
 thing be done to increase the intelligence of those female \ 
 teachers, to whose hands our children are committed in
 
 138 SPECIAL PREPARATION 
 
 the earliest and most impressible periods of childhood ; 
 and thus, in the end, to increase the intelligence of moth- 
 ers, for every mother is ex officio a member of the Col- 
 lege of Teachers ? Cannot something be done, by study, 
 by discussion, by practical observation, and especially 
 by the institution of Normal Schools, which shall dif- 
 fuse both the art and the science of teaching more widely 
 through our community than they have ever yet been 
 diffused ? 
 
 My friends, you cannot go for any considerable distance 
 in any direction, within the limits of our beloved Com- 
 monwealth, without passing one of those edifices profes- 
 sedly erected for the education of our children. Though 
 rarely an architectural ornament, yet, always, they are 
 a moral beauty, to the land in which we dwell. Enter 
 with me, for a moment, into one of these important, 
 though lowly mansions. Survey those thickly-seated 
 benches. Before us are clustered the children of to-day, 
 the men of to-morrow, the immortals of eternity ! What 
 costly works of art, what splendid galleries of sculpture 
 or of painting, won by a nation's arms, or purchased by a 
 nation's wealth, are comparable, in value, to the treasures 
 we have in these children ? How many living and pal- 
 pitating nerves come down from parents and friends, and 
 centre in their young hearts ; and, as they shall advance 
 in life, other living and palpitating nerves, which no man 
 can number, shall go out from their bosoms to twine 
 round other hearts, and to feel their throbs of pleasure or 
 of pain, of rapture or of agony ! How many fortunes of 
 others shall be linked with their fortunes, and shall share 
 an equal fate ! As yet, to the hearts of these young be- 
 ings, crime has not brought in its retinue of fears, nor 
 disappointment its sorrows. Their joys are joys, and their 
 hopes more real than our realities ; and, as visions of the
 
 A PREREQUISITE TO TEACHING. 139 
 
 future burst upon their imaginations, their eye kindles, 
 like the young eagle's at the morning sunbeam. Group- 
 ing these children into separate circles, and looking for- 
 ward, for but a few short years, to the fortunes that await 
 them, shall we predict their destiny, in the terrific lan- 
 guage of the poet : 
 
 " These shall the fury passions tear, 
 The vultures of the mind, 
 Disdainful Anger, pallid Fear, 
 And Shame that skulks behind. 
 
 Ambition this shall tempt to rise, 
 Then whirl the wretch from high, 
 To bitter Scorn a sacrifice, 
 And grinning Infamy. 
 
 The stings of Falsehood those shall try, 
 And hard Unkindness' altered eye 
 That mocks the tear it forced to flow; 
 And keen Remorse, with blood denied, 
 And moody Madness, laughing wild, 
 Amid severest woe." 
 
 Or, concentrating our whole souls into one resolve, 
 high and prophetically strong, that our duty to these 
 children shall be done, shall we proclaim, in the blessed 
 language of the Saviour : " IT is NOT THE WILL OF YOUR 
 FATHER WHICH is IN HEAVEN THAT ONE OF THESE LITTLE 
 
 ONES SHOULD PERISH " ?
 
 LECTURE m. 
 
 1838.
 
 LECTURE III. 
 
 THE NECESSITY OF EDUCATION IN A REPUBLICAN 
 GOVERNMENT. 
 
 GENTLEMEN OF THE CONVENTION : 
 
 THE common arguments in favor of Education have 
 been so often repeated, that, in rising to address you on 
 this subject, I feel like appealing to your own judgment 
 and good sense to bear testimony to its worth, rather 
 than attempting to make your convictions firmer, or your 
 feelings stronger, by any attestations of mine. 
 
 I hardly need to say, that, by the word Education, I 
 mean much more than an ability to read, write, and keep 
 common accounts. I comprehend, under this noble 
 word, such a training of the body as shall build it up 
 with robustness and vigor, at once protecting it from 
 disease, and enabling it to act, formatively, upon the 
 crude substances of Nature, to turn a wilderness into 
 cultivated fields, forests into ships, or quarries and clay- 
 pits into villages and cities. I mean, also, to include 
 such a cultivation of the intellect as shall enable it to 
 discover those permanent and mighty laws which pervade 
 all parts of the created universe, whether material or 
 spiritual. This is necessary, because, if we act in obedi- 
 ence to these laws, all the resistless forces of Nature become 
 our auxiliaries, and cheer us on to certain prosperity and 
 triumph ; but, if we act in contravention or defiance of 
 these laws, then Nature resists, thwarts, baffles us ; and, 
 in the end, it is just as certain that she will overwhelm 
 
 143
 
 144 NECESSITY OF EDUCATION 
 
 us with ruin, as it is that God is stronger than man. 
 And, finally, by the term Education, I mean such a cul- 
 ture of our moral affections and religious susceptibilities, 
 as, in the course of Nature and Providence, shall lead to 
 a subjection or conformity of all our appetites, propen- 
 sities, and sentiments to the will of Heaven. 
 
 My friends, is it not manifest to us all, that no individ- 
 ual, unless he has some acquaintance with the lower 
 forms of education, can superintend even the coarsest 
 and most common interests of life, without daily error 
 and daily shame? The general utility of knowledge, 
 also, and the higher and more enduring satisfactions of 
 the intellect, resulting from the discovery and contem- 
 plation of those truths with which the material and the 
 spiritual universe are alike filled, impart to this subject 
 a true dignity and a sublime elevation. But, in its office 
 of attempering feelings which otherwise would blast or 
 consume us ; in its authority to say to the clamorous 
 propensities of our nature, "Peace, be still!" in its 
 auxiliary power to fit us for the endearments of domestic, 
 for the duties of social, and for the sanctity of immortal 
 life; in its twofold office of enhancing the enjoyment 
 which each one of us may feel in the virtue and happiness 
 of all others, and of increasing the virtue and happiness 
 of all others, to make a larger fund for common enjoy- 
 ment ; in these high and sacred prerogatives, the cause 
 of education lays claim to our mind and heart and 
 strength, as one of the most efficient instruments pre- 
 pared by the Creator for the welfare of His creatures, 
 and the honor of Himself. 
 
 Take any individual you please, separate him from the 
 crowd of men, and look at him, apart and alone, like 
 some Robinson Crusoe in a far-off island of the ocean, 
 without any human being around him, with no prospect
 
 IN A REPUBLICAN GOVERNMENT. 145 
 
 of leaving any human being behind him. and, even 
 in such a solitude, how authoritative over his actions, 
 how decisive of his contemplations and of his condition, 
 are the instructions he received and the habits he formed 
 in early life ! But now behold him as one of the tumul- 
 tuous throng of men ; observe the wide influences which 
 he exerts upon others, in the marts of business, in the 
 resorts of pleasure, in the high places of official trust, 
 and reflect how many of all these influences, whether 
 beneficent or malign, depend upon the education he has 
 received, and you will have another gauge or standard 
 whereby to estimate the importance of our theme. Look 
 at him again, not as a being, coming, we know not 
 whence, alighting for a brief residence upon this earth, 
 and then making his exit through the door of the tomb, 
 to be seen and heard of no more, and leaving no more 
 impression upon society of his ways or works, than the 
 sea-bird leaves upon the surface of the deep, when she 
 stoops from the upper air, dips her breast for a moment 
 in the wave, and then rises again to a viewless height ; 
 but look at him in his relations to posterity, as the father 
 of a family, as a member of a generation which sows 
 those seeds of virtue or vice, that, centuries hence, shall 
 bear fruit or poison ; look at him as a citizen in a free 
 government, throwing his influence and his vote into one 
 or the other of the scales where peace and war, glory and 
 infamy, are weighed ; look at him in these relations, 
 and consider how a virtuous or a vicious education tends 
 to fit or to unfit him for them all, and you will catch one 
 more glimpse of the importance of the subject now pre- 
 sented to your consideration. But if we ascend to a still 
 higher'point of vision, and, forgetting the earthly, per- 
 sonal career, and the wide sphere of social influences, 
 and those acts of life which survive life, fasten our 
 
 VOL. I. 10
 
 146 NECESSITY OF EDUCATION 
 
 eyes upon effects which education may throw forward 
 into immortal destinies, it is then that we are awed, 
 amazed, overpowered, by the thought, that we have been 
 created and placed in a system, where the soul's eternal 
 flight may be made higher or lower by those who plume 
 its tender wings and direct its early course. Such is the 
 magnitude, the transcendence of this subject. In a phil- 
 osophical view, beginning at what point we will, and fol- 
 lowing the most rigid connection and dependence of 
 cause and effect, of antecedent and consequence, we shall 
 find that education is intimately related to every good, 
 and to every evil, which, as mortal, or as immortal be- 
 ings, we can desire or dread. 
 
 Were a being of an understanding mind and a benevo- 
 lent heart, to see, for the first time, a peaceful babe re- 
 posing in its cradle, or on its mother's breast, and were 
 he to be told, that that infant had been so constituted 
 that every joint and organ in its whole frame might 
 become the rendezvous of diseases and racking pains ; 
 that such was its internal structure, that every nerve and 
 fibre beneath its skin might be made to throb with a 
 peculiar torture ; that, in the endless catalogue of human 
 disasters, maladies, adversities or shame, there was 
 scarcely one to which it would not be exposed ; that, in 
 the whole criminal law of society, and in the more com- 
 prehensive and self-executing law of God, there was not 
 a crime which its heart might not at some time will, and 
 its hand perpetrate ; that, in the ghastly host of tragic 
 passions, Fear, Envy, Jealousy, Hate, Remorse, De- 
 spair, there was not one which might not lacerate its 
 soul, and bring down upon it an appropriate catastro- 
 phe ; were the benevolent spectator whom I have 
 supposed, to see this environment of ills underlying, 
 surrounding, overhanging their feeble and unconscious
 
 IN A REPUBLICAN GOVERNMENT. 147 
 
 victim, and, as it were, watching to dart forth and seize 
 it, might he not be excused for wishing the newly-created 
 spirit well back again into nonentity ? 
 
 But we cannot return to nonentity. We have no ref- 
 uge in annihilation. Creative energy has been exerted. 
 Our first attribute, the vehicle of all our other attributes, 
 is immortality. We are of indestructible mould. 
 Do what else we please with our nature and our faculties, 
 we cannot annihilate them. Go where we please, self- 
 desertion is impossible. Banished, we may be, from the 
 enjoyment of God, but never from his dominion. There 
 is no right or power of expatriation. There is 110 neigh- 
 boring universe to fly to. If we forswear allegiance, it is 
 but an empty form, for the laws by which we are bound 
 do not only surround us, but are in us, and parts of us. 
 Whatsoever other things may be possible, yet to break up 
 or suspend this perpetuity of existence ; to elude this sus- 
 ceptibility to pains, at once indefinite in number and in- 
 describable in severity ; to silence conscience, or say that 
 it shall not hold dominion over the soul ; to sink the past 
 in oblivion ; or to alter any of the conditions on which 
 Heaven has made our bliss and our woe to depend, 
 these things are impossible. Personality has been given 
 us, by which we must refer all sensations, emotions, re- 
 solves, to our conscious selves. Identity has been given 
 us, by virtue of which, through whatever ages we exist, 
 our whole being is made a unity. Now, whether curses 
 or blessings, by these conditions of our nature we must 
 stand ; for they are appointed to us, by a law higher than 
 Pate, by the law of God. 
 
 Were any one of this assembly to be shipwrecked upon 
 a desert island, " out of Humanity's reach," would 
 it not be his first act to ascend the nearest eminence and 
 explore his position ? Would he not at once strive to
 
 148 NECESSITY OF EDUCATION 
 
 descry the dangers and the resources by which he might 
 bo surrounded ? And, if reason, or even an enlightened 
 self-love, constitutes any attribute of our nature, is it any 
 the less our duty, finding ourselves to be, and to have 
 entered upon an interminable career of existence, find- 
 ing ourselves inwrought and organized with certain fac- 
 ulties and susceptibilities, so that we are necessitated to 
 enjoy pleasure or to suffer pain, and so that neutrality 
 between good and evil is impossible, is it, I say, any 
 the less our duty and our interest to look around us and 
 within us, and to see what, on the whole, we can best do 
 with this nature and with these faculties, of which we 
 find ourselves in possession ? Ought we not to inquire 
 what mighty forces of Nature and of Providence are 
 sweeping us along, and whither their currents are tending ? . 
 what parts of the great system in which we are placed 
 can be accommodated to us, and to what parts we must 
 accommodate ourselves ? 
 
 Before such a theme I stand in awe. On which side 
 shall its vastness be approached ? Shall I speak of the 
 principles on which an educational system for a State 
 should be organized ; or of the means and agencies by 
 which it should be administered, in contrast with the ab- 
 sence of any fundamental plan ? Prom the Capitol, where 
 the sovereign la,w is enacted, and whence it is promul- 
 gated, to the school district and the fireside, where the grand 
 results of that law are to appear, in a more prosperous, 
 more intelligent, more virtuous, and, of course, more hap- 
 py generation of men and women, there is a vast inter- 
 vening distance ; upon which one of the many links of 
 the chain that binds these two extremes together shall I 
 expatiate ? 
 
 I venture, my friends, at this time, to solicit your at- 
 tention, while I attempt to lay before you some of the re-
 
 IN A REPUBLICAN GOVERNMENT. 149 
 
 lations which we bear to the cause of Education, because 
 we are the citizens of a Republic ; and thence to deduce 
 some of the reasons, which, under our political institu- 
 tions, make the proper training of the rising generation 
 the highest earthly duty of the risen. 
 
 It is a truism, that free institutions multiply human 
 energies. A chained body cannot do much harm ; a 
 chained mind can do as little. In a despotic govern- 
 ment, the human faculties arc benumbed and paralyzed ; 
 in a Republic, they glow with an intense life, and burst 
 forth with uncontrollable impetuosity. In the former, 
 they aro circumscribed and straitened in their range of 
 action ; in the latter, they have " ample room and verge 
 enough," and may rise to glory or plunge into ruin. 
 Amidst universal ignorance, there cannot be such wrong- 
 notions about right, as there may be in a community par- 
 tially enlightened ; and false conclusions which have been 
 reasoned out are infinitely worse than blind impulses. 
 
 To demonstrate the necessity of education in our gov- 
 ernment, I shall not attempt to derive my proofs from 
 the history of other Republics. Such arguments are 
 becoming stale. Besides, there are so many points of 
 difference between our own political institutions, and 
 those of any other government calling itself free, which 
 has ever existed, that the objector perpetually eludes or 
 denies the force of our reasoning, by showing some want 
 of analogy between the cases presented. 
 
 I propose, therefore, on this occasion, not to adduce, 
 as proofs, what has been true only in past times ; but 
 what is true at the present time, and must always con- 
 tinue to be true. I shall rely, not on precedents, but on 
 the nature of things ; and draw my arguments less from 
 history than from humanity. 
 
 Now it is undeniable that, with the possession of cer-
 
 150 NECESSITY OP EDUCATION 
 
 tain higher faculties, common to all mankind, whose 
 proper cultivation will bear us upward to hitherto undis- 
 covered regions of prosperity and glory, we possess, also, 
 certain lower faculties or propensities ; equally com- 
 mon ; whose improper indulgence leads, inevitably, to 
 tribulation, and anguish, and ruin. The propensities to 
 which I refer seem indispensable to our temporal exist- 
 ence, and, if restricted within proper limits, they are pro- 
 motive of our enjoyment ; but, beyond those limits, they 
 work dishonor and infatuation, madness and despair. 
 As servants, they are indispensable ; as masters, they tor- 
 ture as well as tyrannize. Now despotic and arbitrary 
 governments have dwarfed and crippled the powers of 
 doing evil as much as the powers of doing good ; but a 
 republican government, from the very fact of its freedom, 
 unreins their speed, and lets loose their strength. It is 
 justly alleged against despotisms, that they fetter, muti- 
 late, almost extinguish the noblest powers of the human 
 soul ; but there is a per contra to this, for which we have 
 not given them credit ; they circumscribe the ability to 
 do the greatest evil, as well as to do the greatest good. 
 
 My proposition, therefore, is simply this : If republican 
 institutions do wake up unexampled energies in the whole 
 mass of a people, and give them implements of unexam- 
 pled power wherewith to work out their will, then these 
 same institutions ought also to confer upon that people 
 unexampled wisdom and rectitude. If these institutions 
 give greater scope and impulse to the lower order of fac- 
 ulties belonging to the human mind, then they must 
 also give more authoritative control and more skilful 
 guidance to the higher ones. If they multiply tempta- 
 tions, they must fortify against them. If they quicken 
 the activity and enlarge the sphere of the appetites and 
 passions, they must, at least in an equal ratio, establish
 
 IN A REPUBLICAN GOVERNMENT. 151 
 
 the authority and extend the jurisdiction 'of reason and 
 conscience. In a word, we must not add to the impul- 
 sive, without also adding to the regulating forces. 
 
 If we maintain institutions, which bring us within the 
 action of new and unheard-of powers, without taking any 
 corresponding measures for the government of those 
 powers, we shall perish by the very instruments prepared 
 for our happiness. 
 
 The truth has been so often asserted, that there is no 
 security for a republic but in morality and intelligence, 
 that a repetition of it seems hardly in good taste. But 
 all permanent blessings being founded on permanent 
 truths, a continued observance of the truth is the condi- 
 tion of a continued enjoyment of the blessing. I know 
 we are often admonished that, without intelligence and 
 virtue, as a chart and a compass, to direct us in our un- 
 tried political voyage, we shall perish in the first storm ; 
 but I venture to add that, without these qualities, we 
 shall not wait for a storm, we cannot weather a calm. 
 If the sea is as smooth as glass we shall founder, for we 
 are in a stone boat. Unless these qualities pervade the 
 general head and the general heart, not only will repub- 
 lican institutions vanish from amongst us, but the words 
 prosperity and happiness will become obsolete. And all 
 this may be affirmed, not from historical examples mere- 
 ly, but from the very constitution of our nature. We 
 are created and brought into life with a set of innate, 
 organic dispositions or propensities, which a free govern- 
 ment rouses and invigorates, and which, if not bridled and 
 tamed, by our actually seeing the eternal laws of justice, 
 as plainly as we can see the sun in the heavens, and 
 by our actually feeling the sovereign sentiment of duty, 
 as plainly as we feel the earth beneath our feet, will 
 hurry us forward into regions populous with every form 
 of evil.
 
 152 NECESSITY OP EDUCATIOS 
 
 Divines, moralists, metaphysicians, almost without 
 exception, regard the human being as exceedingly 
 complex in his mental or spiritual constitution, as well 
 as in his hodily organization ; they regard him as hav- 
 ing a plurality of tendencies and affections, though 
 brought together and embodied in one person. Hence, 
 in all discussions or disquisitions respecting human na- 
 ture, they analyze or assort it into different classes of 
 powers and faculties. 
 
 First, there is a conscience in every one of us, and a 
 sense of responsibleness to God, which establish a moral 
 relation between us and our Creator ; and which, 
 though we could call all the grandeur and the splendors 
 of the* universe our own, and were lulled and charmed 
 by all its music and its beauty, will forever banish all 
 true repose from our bosom, unless our nature and our 
 lives are supposed to be in harmony with the divine will. 
 The object of these faculties is, their Infinite Creator ; 
 and they never can be supremely happy unless they are 
 tuned to perfect concord with every note in the celestial 
 anthems of love and praise. 
 
 Then there is a set of faculties that we denominate so- 
 cial or sympathetic, among the most conspicuous of which 
 is benevolence or philanthropy, a sentiment which mys- 
 teriously makes our pulse throb, and our nerves shrink, 
 at the pains or adversity of others, even though, at the 
 same time, our own frame is whole, and our own for- 
 tunes gladdening. How beautiful and marvellous a 
 thing it is, when imbosomed in a happy family, sur- 
 rounded by friends and children, ->.- which even Paradise 
 had not, that the history of idolatry in the far-off is- 
 lands of the Pacific, or of the burning of Hindoo widows 
 on the other side of the globe, amongst a people whom 
 we never saw and never shall see, should pierce our
 
 IN A REPUBLICAN GOVERNMENT. 153 
 
 hearts like a knife ! How glorious a quality of our na- 
 ture it is, that the story of some old martyr or hero, who 
 nobly upheld truth with life, though his dust has now 
 been blown about by the winds for twenty centuries, 
 should transport us with such feelings of admiration and 
 ecstasy, that we long to have been he, and to have borne 
 all his sufferings ; and we find ourselves involuntarily 
 sublimed by so noble a passion, that the most terrible form 
 of death, if hallowed by a righteous cause, looks lovely 
 as a bride to the bridegroom ! 
 
 There are also the yearning, doting fondness of parents 
 for children, of natural kindred for each other, and the 
 passionate, yet pure affection of the sexes, which fit us 
 for the duties and the endearments of domestic life. 
 Even that vague general attachment to our fellow- 
 beings, which binds men together in fraternal associa- 
 tions, is so strong, and is universally recognized as so 
 natural, that we look upon hermits and solitaries as crea- 
 tures half-mad or half-monstrous. The sphere of these 
 sentiments or affections is around us and before us, 
 family, neighborhood, country, kind, posterity. 
 
 And lastly, there is the strictly selfish part of our na- 
 ture, which consists of a gang of animal appetites, a 
 horde of bandit propensities, each one of which, by 
 its own nature, is deaf to the voice of God, reckless of 
 the welfare of men, blind, remorseless, atheistic ; each 
 one of the whole pack being supremely bent upon its own 
 indulgence, and ready to barter earth and heaven to win 
 it. We all have some pretty definite idea of beasts of 
 prey and of birds of prey ; but not among the whelps 
 of the lion's lair, not among the young of the vulture's 
 nest, are there any spoilers at all comparable to those 
 that may be trained from the appetites and propensities 
 which each human being brings with him into the world.
 
 154 . NECESSITY OF EDUCATION 
 
 I am sorry not to be able to speak of this part of our 
 common nature in a more complimentary manner ; but 
 to utter what facts will not warrant, would be to ex- 
 change the records of truth for a song of Delilah. 
 
 The first of these animal propensities is the simple 
 want of food or nourishment. This appetite may be very 
 gentlemanly and well-behaved. There is nothing in it 
 necessarily incompatible with decorum and good-breed- 
 ing, or with the conscientious fulfilment of every pri- 
 vate and every public duty. When duly indulged, and 
 duly restrained, it furnishes the occasions, around the 
 family and the hospitable board, for much of the pleas- 
 ure of domestic, and the enjoyment of social existence. 
 But thousands go through life, without ever having oc- 
 casion to know or to think of its awful strength. Be- 
 hold, what this appetite has actually and not unfrequently 
 become, when, taking the ghastly form of Hunger in a 
 besieged city, or amongst a famishing people, it forces 
 the living to feed upon flesh torn from the limbs of the 
 dead. Look at that open boat, weltering in mid-ocean ; 
 it holds the crew of a foundered vessel who have escaped 
 with life only, but days and days have passed away, and 
 no morsel of food or drop of drink has assuaged the tor- 
 tures of hunger and thirst. At first, they wept together 
 as suffering friends, then they prayed together as loving 
 Christians ; but now friendship is extinct and prayer is 
 choked, for hunger has grown to a cannibal, uttering 
 horrible whispers, and proposing the fatal lot, by which 
 the blood of one is to fill a bowl to be quaffed by the rest ! 
 Look again at the ravages of this appetite, in its other 
 and more familiar, though not less appalling forms ; 
 look at its havoc of life in China, where thousands annu- 
 ally perish by opium ; in Turkey, where the pipe kills 
 more than the bowstring ; and at the Golgothas of Intern-
 
 IN A REPUBLICAN GOVERNMENT. 155 
 
 perance, in Ireland,* in Old England, and in New Eng- 
 land. Now, the elements of this appetite are common 
 to us all ; and no uutempted mortal can tell what he 
 would do, or would not do, if he were in the besieged 
 city, or in the ocean-tost, provisionless boat. The sensa- 
 tions belonging to this appetite reside in the ends of a few 
 nerves, called by the anatomists, papillce, which are 
 situated about the tongue and .throat ; and yet, on the 
 wants of this narrow spot, are founded the cultivation of 
 myriads of orchards, vineyards and gardens, the tilling 
 of grain-fields, prairie-like in extent, the scouring of for- 
 ests for game, the dredging of seas, and the rearing of 
 cattle upon a thousand hills. Granaries are heaped, cel- 
 lars filled, vintages flow, to gratify this instinct for food. 
 And what toils and perils, what European as well as 
 African slavery among the ignorant, and what epicurean 
 science among the learned, have their origin and end in 
 this one appetite ! Once, cooling draughts from the 
 fountain, and delicious fruits from the earth, sufficed for 
 its demands. Now, whenever the banquet table is spread, 
 there must be mountains of viands and freshets of wine. 
 What absurdities as well as wickednesses it tempts men, 
 otherwise rational and religious, to commit. Have we 
 not all seen instances of men, who will ask the blessing 
 of Heaven upon the bounties wherewith a paternal Provi- 
 dence has spread their daily board, who will pray that 
 their bodies may be nourished and strengthened for use- 
 fulness, by partaking of its supplies ; and will then sit 
 down and almost kill themselves by indulgence ! It is as 
 impossible to satisfy the refinements, as to satiate the 
 grossness of this appetite. The Roman, Apicius, by his 
 gold, provided a dish for his table composed of thousands 
 
 * At the time this was written, the redemption of Ireland by Father Mathew 
 was only beginning.
 
 156 NECESSITY OP EDUCATION 
 
 of nightingales' tongues ; a despot, by his power, distils 
 the happiness of a thousand slaves, to make one delicious 
 drop for his palate. This appetite, then, though consist- 
 ing of only a few sensations about the mouth and throat, 
 is a crucible in which the treasures of the world may be 
 dissolved. Behold the epicure and the inebriate. men 
 who affect a lofty indignation if you question that they 
 are rational beings ; see them bartering friends, family 
 and fame, body, soul and estate, to gratify a space not 
 more than two inches square in the inside of the mouth ! 
 Do we not need some new form of expression, some sin- 
 gle word, where we can condense, into one monosyllable, 
 the meaning of ten thousand fools ! 
 
 Take another of these animal wants, that of cloth- 
 ing. How insignificant it seems, and yet of what excess- 
 es it is capable ! What sacrifices it demands ! what fol- 
 lies and crimes it suborns us to commit ! Compare the 
 first fig-leaf suit with the monthly publication of London 
 and Parisian fashions ! Our first parents began with a 
 vegetable, pea-green wardrobe, plucked from the nearest 
 tree, and were their own dress-makers. Now, how many 
 fields are tilled for linen and cotton and silks ! how many 
 races of animals are domesticated, or are hunted under 
 the line, around the poles, in ocean or in air, that their 
 coverings may supply the materials of ours ! How many 
 ships plough the ocean to fetch and carry ; what ponder- 
 ous machinery rolls ; how many warehouses burst with 
 an opulence of merchandise, all having ultimate refer- 
 ence to this demand for covering ! Nor is there any as- 
 signable limit to the refinements and the expenditures, 
 to the frauds and the cruelties, which may grow on this 
 stock. The demands of this propensity, like those of the 
 former, if suffered to go onward unrestrained, increase to 
 infinity. The Austrian, Prince Esterhazy, lately visited
 
 IN A REPUBLICAN GOVERNMENT. 157 
 
 the different courts of Europe, dressed in a coat which 
 cost five hundred thousand dollars ; and it cost him from 
 five hundred to a thousand dollars every time he put it 
 on. Yet, undoubtedly, if he had not thought himself 
 sadly stinted in his means, he would have had a better 
 coat, and underclothes to match ! 
 
 Nor is this all which is founded upon the sensations of 
 the skin, when the thermometer is much below, or much 
 above sixty-five degrees. Shelter must be had ; and how 
 much marbje and granite rises from the quarry ; what 
 masses of clay are shaped and hardened into bricks ; how 
 many majestic forests start from their stations, and move 
 afield, to be built up into villages and cities and temples, 
 for the habitations of men ! And, notwithstanding all 
 that has been done under the promptings of this appe- 
 tite, who, if his wishes could execute themselves, would 
 remain satisfied with the house he lives in, the temple he 
 worships in, or the tomb in which he expects to sleep ? 
 
 Again ; there are seasons of the year when vegetable 
 life fails, when the corn and the vine cease to luxuriate 
 in the fields, and the orchards no longer bend with fruit- 
 age. ' There is also the season of infancy, when, though 
 bountiful Nature should scatter her richest productions 
 spontaneously around us, we could not reach out our 
 hands to gather them ; and again, there is the season of 
 old age, with its attendant infirmities, when our exhaust- 
 ed frame can no longer procure the necessaries of exist- 
 ence. Now, that in summer we may provide for winter, 
 that during the vigor of manhood we may lay up pro- 
 visions for the imbecility of our old age, and for the help- 
 lessness of children, we have been endued by our Ma- 
 ker with an instinct of acquisition, of accumulation ; 
 or with a desire, as we familiarly express it, to lay up 
 something for a rainy day. Thus a disposition, or mental
 
 158 NECESSITY OF EDUCATION 
 
 pre-adaptation, was given us, before birth, for these neces- 
 sities which were to arise after it, just as our eye was 
 fitted for the light to shine through, before it was born 
 into this heaven-full of sunshine. Look at this blind in- 
 stinct, the love of gain, as it manifests itself even in 
 infancy. A child, at first, has no idea that there is any 
 other owner of the universe but himself. Whatever 
 pleases him, he forthwith appropriates. His wants are 
 his title-deeds and bills of sale. He does not ask in 
 whose garden the fruit grew, or by whose diving the 
 pearl was fished up. Carry him through a museum or a 
 market, and he demands, in perfectly intelligible, though 
 perhaps in inarticulate language, whatever arrests his 
 fancy. His whole body of law, whether civil or crimi- 
 nal, omne ejus corpus juris, is in three words,"! 
 want it." If the candle pleases him, he demands the 
 candle ; if the rainbow and the stars please him, he de- 
 mands the rainbow and the stars. 
 
 And how does this blind instinct overleap the objects 
 for which it was given ! Not content with competency in 
 means, and disdaining the gradual accumulations of hon- 
 est industry, it rises to insatiate avarice and rapacity. 
 From the accursed thirst for gold have come the felon 
 frauds of the market-place, and the more wicked pious 
 frauds of the church, the robber's blow, the burglars 
 stealthy step around the midnight couch, the pirate's 
 murders, the rapine of cities, the plundering and captiv- 
 ity of nations. Even now, in self-styled Christian com- 
 munities, are there not men who, under the sharp goad- 
 ings of this impulse, equip vessels to cross the ocean, 
 not to carry the glad tidings of the gospel to heathen 
 lands, but to descend upon defenceless villages in a whirl- 
 wind of fire and ruin, to kidnap men, women and chil- 
 dren, and to transport them through all the horrors of
 
 IN A REPUBLICAN GOVERNMENT. 150 
 
 the middle passage, where their cries of agony and de- 
 spair outvoice the storm, that the wretched victims may 
 at last be sold into remorseless bondage, to wear chains, 
 and to bequeath chains ; and all this is perpetrated 
 and suffered because a little gold can be transmuted, by 
 such fiery alchemy, from human tears and blood ! Such 
 is the inexorable power of cupidity, in self-styled Chris- 
 tian lands, in sight of the spires of God's temples point- 
 ing upward to heaven, which, if Truth had its appropriate 
 emblems, would be reversed and point downward to hell. 
 
 Startle not, my friends, at these far-off enormities. 
 Are there not monsters amongst ourselves, who sell their 
 own children into bondage for the money they can earn ? 
 who coin not only the health of their own offspring, but 
 their immortal capacities of intelligence and virtue, into 
 pelf ? Are there not others, who, at home, at the town- 
 meeting, and at the school-meeting, win all the victories 
 of ignorance by the cry of expense ? Are there not men 
 amongst us, possessed of superfluous wealth, who will 
 vote against a blackboard for a schoolroom, because the 
 scantling costs a shilling and the paint sixpence ! 
 
 Nay, do we not see men of lofty intellects, of mind 
 formed to go leaping and bounding on from star to star 
 in the firmament of knowledge, absorbed, sunk, in the 
 low pursuit of gain ? and if, perchance, some of their su- 
 perfluous coffers are lost, they go mad, the fools ! 
 and whine and mope in the wards of a lunatic hospital, 
 because, forsooth, they must content themselves with a 
 little less equipage, or upholstery, or millinery ! Such 
 follies, losses, crimes, prove to what infinite rapacity the 
 instinct of acquisition may grow. 
 
 Again ; there is the natural sentiment of self-respect, 
 or self-appreciation ; when existing in excess, it is 
 popularly called self-esteem. This innate tendency im-
 
 160 NECESSITY OP EDUCATION 
 
 parts to every individual the feeling that, in and of him- 
 self, he is of some mark and consequence. This instinct 
 was given us that it might act outwards and embody 
 itself in all dignity and nobleness of conduct ; that it 
 might preserve us, at all times, from whatever is beneath 
 us or unworthy of us, though we were assured that no 
 other being in the universe knew it, or ever would know 
 it. For, when a man of true honor, one who has 
 formed a, just estimate of the noble capacities with which 
 God has endowed him, and of his own duty in using 
 them, when such a man is beset by a base temptation, 
 and the tempter whispers, "You may yield, for, in this 
 solitude and impenetrable darkness, none can ever 
 know your momentary lapse," his indignant reply is, 
 " But I shall know it myself! " Without this elevating 
 and sustaining instinct, existing in some degree, and 
 acting with some efficiency, no man could ever hold him- 
 self erect, in the midst of so many millions of other men, 
 each by the law of nature equal to himself. Without 
 this, when surveying the sublimities of creation, the 
 cataract, the mountain, the ocean, the awful magnificence 
 of the midnight heavens ; or when contemplating the 
 power and perfections of Jehovah, every one would 
 lay his hand on his mouth and his mouth in the dust, 
 never to rise again. 
 
 But this common propensity, like the others, is capable 
 of infinite excess. There are no bounds to its expansive- 
 ness and exorbitancy. When acting with intensity, it 
 seems to possess creative power. It changes emptiness 
 into fulness. It not only reveals to its possessor a self- 
 worthiness wholly invisible to others, but it so overflows 
 with arrogance and pride as to confer an excellence upon 
 every thing connected with or pertaining to itself. The 
 tyrant Gessler mounted his cap upon a pole, and com-
 
 IN A REPUBLICAN GOVERNMENT. 101 
 
 manded his subjects to pay homage to it. It had imbibed 
 a virtue from contact with his head, which made it of 
 greater value than a nation of freemen. It is said of one 
 of the present British dukes, that he will give a thousand 
 pounds sterling for a single worthless book, or for some 
 ancient marble or pebble, provided it is known to be the 
 only one of the kind in existence, a unique, so that 
 his pride can blow its trumpet in the ears of all man- 
 kind, and say, " In respect of this old book, or marble, or 
 pebble, I have what no other man has, and am superior 
 to the rest of the world. " Constable was so inflated 
 with the supposed honor of being the publisher of Sir 
 Walter Scott's novels, that, in one of his paroxysms of 
 pride, he exclaimed with an oath, " I am all but the 
 author of the Waverley novels ! " Yes, he came as near 
 as type-setter ! It is this feeling which makes the organ- 
 blower appropriate the plaudits bestowed upon the musi- 
 cian, and the hero's valet mistake himself for his master. 
 It is this propensity that makes a man proud of his 
 ancestors, who were dead centuries before he was born ; 
 proud of garments which he never had wit enough to 
 make, while he despises the tailor by whose superior skill 
 they were prepared ; and proud of owning a horse 
 that can trot a mile in three minutes, though the credit 
 of his speed belongs to the farmer who reared, and the 
 jockey who trained, and even to the hostler who grooms 
 him, infinitely more than to the self-supposed gentleman 
 who sits behind him in a gig, and just lets him go ! 
 Other selfish propensities play the strangest tricks, delu- 
 sions, impostures, upon us, and make us knaves and fools; 
 but it is the inflation of pride, more than any thing else, 
 that swells us into an Infinite Sham. 
 
 I have time to mention but one more of this" lower or- 
 der of the human faculties, the Love of Approbation. 
 
 VOL. I. 11
 
 162 NECESSITY OF EDUCATION 
 
 As a proper self-respect makes us discard and disdain all 
 unworthy conduct, even when alone ; so a rational desire 
 to obtain the good-will of others stimulates us to gene- 
 rosity, and magnanimity, and fortitude, in the perform- 
 ance of our social duties. It is a strong auxiliary motive, 
 useful as an impulse, though fatal as a guide. I think 
 it is by the common consent of mankind, that the plau- 
 dits of the world rank as the third, in the list of rewards 
 for virtuous conduct, coming next after the smiles of 
 Heaven and the approval of conscience. In this country, 
 the bestowment of offices is the current coin in which the 
 love of approbation pays and receives its debts. Offices, 
 in the United States, seem to be a legal tender, for no- 
 body refuses them. But if this desire becomes rabid and 
 inappeasable, if it grows from a subordinate instinct into 
 a domineering and tyrannical passion, it reverses the 
 moral order, and places the applauses of men before the 
 rewards of conscience and the approval of Heaven. The 
 victim of this usurper-passion will find the doctrines of 
 revealed truth in the prevalent opinions of the commu- 
 nity where he resides ; and the doctrines of political truth 
 in the majority of votes at the last election, modified 
 by the chances of a change before the next. Under its 
 influence, the intellect will plot any fraud, and the tongue 
 will utter any falsehood, in order to cajole and invei- 
 gle a majority of the people ; but should that majority 
 fail, it will compel its poor slave to abandon the old party, 
 and try its fortunes with a new one. 
 
 There are other original, innate propensities, which can- 
 not properly be discussed on an occasion like this. Their 
 action, within certain limits, is necessary to self-preserva- 
 tion, and to the preservation of the race ; a description 
 of their excesses would make every cheek pale and every 
 heart faint.
 
 IN A REPUBLICAN GOVERNMENT. 163 
 
 Now there are a few general truths appertaining to this 
 whole tribe of propensities. Though existing with differ- 
 ent degrees of strength, in different individuals, yet 
 they are common to the whole race. As they are neces- 
 sary to self-preservation, their bestowment is almost uni- 
 versal, and we regard every man as so far unnatural, and 
 suffering privation, who has not the elements of them all, 
 mingled in his composition. As they are necessary to the 
 continuance of the race, we must suppose, at least during 
 the present constitution of human nature, that they will 
 always exist ; and that all improvements in government, 
 science, morals, faith, and other constituents of civiliza- 
 tion, will produce their blessed effects, not by extirpating, 
 but by controlling them, and by bringing them into sub- 
 jection to the social and the divine law. As we have a 
 moral nature to which God speaks, commanding us to 
 love and obey his holy will ; as we have a social nature, 
 which sends a circulating current of sympathy from our 
 hearts around through the hearts of children, friends, 
 kindred and kind, mingling our pleasures and pains and 
 their pleasures and pains in one common stream ; so, by 
 these propensities, we are jointed into this earthly life, 
 and this frame of material things. 
 
 Again ; each one of these propensities is related to the 
 whole of its class of objects, and not to any proportionate 
 or definite quantity of them ; just as the appetite of a 
 wolf or a vulture is adapted or related to the blood of all 
 lambs and all kids, and not merely to the blood of some 
 particular number of lambs and kids. Each one of them, 
 also, is blind to every thing but its own gratification ; it 
 sallies forth, if uncontrolled, and seizes and riots 
 upon its objects, regardless of all sacrifices, and defiant 
 of all consequences. Each one of them is capacious as 
 an abyss, is insatiable by indulgence, would consume
 
 164 NECESSITY OF EDUCATION 
 
 whatever lias been created for all, and then task Omnipo- 
 tence to invent new pleasures for its pampering. Was 
 any royal epicure ever satisfied, while a luxury was 
 known to exist which he had not tasted ? To rear an ar- 
 chitectural pile, or a mausoleum, vast as the unrestrained 
 desires of man, the cedars of Lebanon would be too few ; 
 nor cotild the materials of his wardrobe be supplied, 
 though Damascus were his merchant. There have been 
 thousands of men, all whose coffers were literally filled 
 with gold ; but where the avaricious man in whose heart 
 there was not room for more coffers ? The experiment 
 was tried with Alexander of Macedon, whether the love 
 of power could be satisfied by the conquest of all the na- 
 tions of the earth. He did not weep, at first, for the 
 conquest of the world ; it was only after conquering one 
 world that he wept for the conquest of more. The ambition 
 of Napoleon never burned with a fiercer flame than when 
 he escaped from his island-prison to remount the throne 
 of France ; although it is said that the wars in which he 
 had then been engaged had cost Europe five millions of 
 human lives. But to slake his thirst for power and fame, 
 the blood of five millions or of five hundred millions, the 
 destruction of a continent or a constellation, of zone or 
 zodiac, would have been nothing. 
 
 And thus it is with all the propensities. Their object 
 must be obtained, whether, like Richard, they murder two 
 male children, or, like Herod, all under two years of age. 
 Pride built the pyramids and the Mexican mounds. Ap- 
 petite led down the Goths and Vandals into the delicious 
 South. Cupidity brought forth the slave-trade. And so 
 of other enormities, the Bastille, the Inquisition, the 
 Harem, they grew on the same stock. And though 
 our bodies seem so small, and occupy so little space, yet, 
 through these propensities, they are capable of sending
 
 IN A REPUBLICAN GOVERNMENT. 165 
 
 out earth-o'erspreading branches, all clustering with 
 abominations. 
 
 Our propensities have no affinity with reason or con- 
 science. Did you ever hear two persons conversing about 
 a third, whose ruin and infamy they agreed had come 
 from the amount of his fortune, or from his facilities for 
 indulgence, when, in the very breath in which they spoke 
 of the resistless power of the temptation over him, they 
 did not add that, in their own persons, they should be 
 willing to run the same risk ? This is the language of 
 all the propensities. They are willing to run any risk, 
 whether it be of health or of character, of time or of 
 eternity. This explains how it is, that some men not 
 wholly lost to virtue, men who acknowledge their re- 
 sponsibleness to God, and their obligations to conscience, 
 but in whom the propensities predominate and tyran- 
 nize ; I say this explains how it is that such men, when 
 stung and maddened by the goadings of desire, wish them- 
 selves bereft of their better attributes, that they might 
 give full career to passion, without remorse of conscience 
 or dread of retribution. That human depravity, which, 
 hitherto, has made the history of our race, like the roll 
 of the prophet, a record of lamentation and mourning 
 and woe, has worked out through these propensities ; and, 
 if the very substance and organization of human nature 
 be not changed, by the eradication of these instincts, that 
 depravity which is, to a greater or less degree, to make 
 the future resemble the past, will pour out its agonies 
 and its atrocities though the same channels ! 
 
 Such, then, are our latent capabilities of evil, all 
 ready to be evolved, should the restraints of reason, con- 
 science, religion, be removed. Here are millions of men, 
 each with appetites capacious of infinity, and raging to 
 be satisfied out of a supply of means too scanty for any
 
 166 NECESSITY OP EDUCATION 
 
 one of them. Millions of coveting eyes are fastened on 
 the same object, millions of hands thrust out to seize 
 it. What ravening, torturing, destroying, then, must 
 ensue, if these hounds cannot be lashed back into their 
 kennel ! They must be governed ; they cannot be de- 
 stroyed. Nature declares that the germs, the embryos, of 
 these incipient monsters, shall not be annihilated. She 
 reproduces them with every human being that comes into 
 the world. Nor, indeed, is it desirable, even if it were 
 practicable, that they should be wholly expunged and 
 razed out of our constitution. He who made us, knew our 
 circumstances and necessities, and He has implanted 
 them in our nature too deep for eradication. Besides, 
 within their proper sphere, they confer an innocent, 
 though a subordinate enjoyment. Certainly, we would 
 not make all men hermits and anchorites. Let us be 
 just, even to the appetites. No man is the worse because 
 he keenly relishes and enjoys the bountiful provisions 
 which Heaven has made for his food, his raiment, and his 
 shelter. Indeed, why were these provisions ever made, 
 if they are not to be enjoyed ? Surely they are not su- 
 perfluities and supernumeraries, cumbering a creation 
 which would have been more perfect without them. Let 
 them then be acquired and enjoyed, though always with 
 moderation and temperance. Let the lover of wealth 
 seek wealth by all honest means, and with earnestness, if 
 he will ; let him surround himself with the comforts 
 and the embellishments of life, and add the pleasures of 
 beauty to the pleasures of utility. Let every honorable 
 man indulge a quick and sustaining confidence in his own 
 worthiness, whenever disparaged or maligned ; and let 
 him count upon the affections of his friends, and the 
 benedictions of his race, as a part of the solid rewards of 
 virtue. These, and kindred feelings, are not to be crushed,
 
 IN A REPUBLICAN GOVERNMENT. 167 
 
 extinguished. Let them rouse themselves in presence 
 of their objects, and rush out to seize them, and neigh, 
 like a war-horse for the battle, only let them know that 
 they have a rider, to whose eye no mist can dim the severe 
 line they are never to pass, and whose arm can bend 
 every neck of them, like the twig of an osier. 
 
 But I must pass to the next topic for consideration, 
 the stimulus which, in this country, is applied to the pro- 
 pensities ; and the free, unbarred, unbounded career, 
 which is here opened for their activity. In every other 
 nation that has ever existed, not even excepting Greece 
 and Rome, the mind of the masses has been obstructed 
 in its development. Amongst millions of men, only some 
 half-dozen of individuals, often only a single individ- 
 ual, have been able to pour out the lava of their pas- 
 sions, with full, volcanic force. These few men have 
 made the Pharaohs, the Neros, the Napoleons of the race. 
 The rest have usually been subjected to a systematic 
 course of blinding, deafening, crippling. As an inevita- 
 ble consequence of this, the minds of men have never 
 yet put forth one-thousandth part of their tremendous 
 energies. Bad men have swarmed upon the earth, it is 
 true, but they have been weak men. Another consequence 
 is, that we, by deriving our impressions from history, 
 have formed too low an estimate of the marvellous powers 
 and capacities of the human being for evil as well as for 
 good. The general estimate is altogether inadequate to 
 what the common mind will be able to effect, when apt 
 instruments are put into its hands, and the wide world is 
 opened for its sphere of operations. Amongst savage na- 
 tions, it is true, the will has been more free ; but there it 
 has had none of the instruments of civilized life, where- 
 with to execute its purposes such, for instance, as the
 
 168 NECESSITY OF EDUCATION 
 
 mechanic arts ; a highly cultivated language, with the 
 general ability to read and write it : fire-arms ; engineer- 
 ing; steam; the press, and the post-office ; and among 
 civilized nations, though the means have been far more, 
 ample, yet the will has been broken or corrupted. Even 
 the last generation in this country, the generation that 
 moulded our institutions into their present form, were 
 born and educated under other institutions, and they 
 brought into active life strong hereditary and traditional 
 feelings of respect for established authority, merely be- 
 cause it was established, of veneration for law, simply 
 because it was law, and of deference both to secular and 
 ecclesiastical rank, because they had been accustomed to 
 revere rank. But scarcely any vestige of this reverence 
 for the past now remains. The momentum of heredi- 
 tary opinion is spent. The generation of men now enter- 
 ing upon the stage of life, the generation which is to 
 occupy that stage for the next forty years, will act out 
 their desires more fully, more effectively, than any gene- 
 ration of men that has ever existed. Already, the tramp 
 of this innumerable host is sounding in our ears. They 
 are the men who will take counsel of their desires, and 
 make it law. The condition of society is to be only an 
 embodiment of their mighty will ; and if greater care be 
 not taken than has ever heretofore been taken, to inform 
 and regulate that will, it will inscribe its laws all over the 
 face of society in such broad and terrific characters, that, 
 not only whoever runs may read, but whoever reads will 
 run. Should avarice and pride obtain the mastery, then 
 will the humble and the poor be ground to dust beneath 
 their chariot-wheels ; but, on the other hand, should be- 
 sotting vices and false knowledge bear sway, then will 
 every wealthy, and every educated, and every refined in- 
 dividual and family, stand in the same relation to society, 
 in which game stands to the sportsman 1
 
 IN A REPUBLICAN GOVERNMENT. 169 
 
 111 taking a survey of the race, we see that all of human 
 character and conduct may be referred to two forces ; the 
 innate force of the mind acting outwards, and the force of 
 outward things acting upon the mind. First, there is an 
 internal, salient, elancing vigor of the mind, which, ac- 
 cording to its state and condition, originates thoughts, 
 desires, impulses, and projects them outwards into words 
 and deeds ; and secondly, there is the external force of 
 circumstances, laws, traditions, customs, which besieges 
 the mind, environs it, places a guard at all its outer gates, 
 permits some of its desires and thoughts to issue forth, 
 and to become words and actions, but forbids others to es- 
 cape, beats them back, seals the lips that would utter 
 them, smites off the arm that would perform them, pun- 
 ishes the soul that would send them forth by finding an 
 avenue in every sense arid in every nerve, through which 
 to send up tormentors to destroy its hopes and lay waste 
 its sanctuaries ; and finally, if all these means fail to sub- 
 due and silence the internal energy, then the external 
 power dismisses the soul itself from the earth, by crushing 
 the physical organization which it inhabits. These two 
 forces, on the one hand, the mind trajecting itself 
 forth, and seeking to do its will on whatever is external 
 to itself, and, on the other hand, whatever is external 
 to the mind, modifying or resisting its movements, 
 these constitute the main action of the human drama. 
 As a mathematician would express it, human conduct and 
 character move in the diagonal of these two forces. 
 Sometimes, indeed, both forces are coincident, sometimes 
 antagonistic ; but it is useless to inquire which force has 
 predominated, as no universal rule can be laid down re- 
 specting them. In despotisms, the external prevails ; in 
 revolutions, such as the French, for instance, the 
 internal. Why are the Chinese, for a hundred succes-
 
 170 NECESSITY OF EDUCATION 
 
 sive generations, transcripts and fac-similes of each other, 
 as though the dead grandparent had come back again in 
 the grandchild, and so round and round ? It is because, 
 among the Chinese, this external force overlays the grow- 
 ing faculties of the soul, and compels them, as they grow, 
 to assume a prescribed shape. In that country the laws 
 and customs are so inflexible, and the spirit of the people 
 is so impotent, that their minds grow, as it were, into the 
 hollow of a brazen envelope, whose walls are not remova- 
 ble nor penetrable ; and hence, all growth must conform 
 to the shape and size of the concave surface. By their 
 education, laws, and penalties, the minds of the people 
 ara made to grow into certain social, political, and reli- 
 gious forms, just as certainly, and on the same principle of 
 force, as the feet of their beauties are made, by small, in- 
 olastic shoes, to grow hoof-wise. In Russian Poland, a 
 subject is as much debarred from touching certain topics, 
 in the way of discussion, as from seizing on the jewels of 
 the crown. The knout and the Siberian mines await the 
 first outward expression of the transgressor. Hence the 
 divinely-formed soul, created to admire, through intelli- 
 gence, this glorious universe; to go forth, through knowl- 
 edge, into all lands and times ; to be identified, through 
 sympathy, with all human fortunes : to know its Maker, 
 and its immortal destiny, is driven back at every door of 
 egress, is darkened at every window where light could en- 
 ter, and is chained to the vassal spot which gave it birth, 
 where the very earth, as well as its inhabitant, is blast- 
 ed by the common curse of bondage. In Oriental and 
 African despotisms, the mind of the millions grows, only 
 as the trees of a noble forest could grow in the rocky 
 depths of a cavern, without strength, or beauty, or heal- 
 ing balm, in impurity and darkness, fed by poisonous 
 exhalations from stagnant pools, all upward and outward
 
 IN A REPUBLICAN GOVERNMENT. 171 
 
 expansion introverted by solid barriers, and forced back 
 into unsightly forms. Thus has it always fared with the 
 faculties of the human soul when caverned in despotism. 
 They have dwelt in intellectual, denser than subterra- 
 nean, darkness. Their most tender, sweet, and hallowed 
 emotions have been choked and blighted. The pure and 
 sacred effusions of the heart have been converted into 
 hatred of the good and idolatry of the base, for want of 
 the light and the air of true freedom arid instruction. 
 The world can suffer no loss equal to that spiritual loss 
 which is occasioned by attempting to destroy, instead of 
 regulating, the energies of the mind. 
 
 Since the Christian epoch, great has been the change 
 in Christian countries between the relative strength of 
 the mind, acting outwards, and the strength of outward 
 things, repulsing and stifling the action of the mind. 
 Christianity established one conviction in the minds of 
 thousands and tens of thousands, which other religions 
 had established in the mind of here and there an individ- 
 ual only. This conviction was, that the future existence 
 is infinitely more important than the present ; the dif- 
 ference between the two being so great as to reduce all 
 mere worldly distinctions to insignificance and nothing. 
 Hence it might have been predicted from the beginning, 
 that the human mind, acting under the mighty stimulus 
 of Christianity, would eventually triumph over despotism. 
 The interests of despotism lie in this life ; those of Chris- 
 tianity, not only in this, but in the life to come. It was, 
 therefore, mortality at one end of the lever, and immor- 
 tality at the other. When one party contends for the 
 1 Blessings of life merely, while the other contends for bless- 
 ings higher than life, the latter, by a law of the moral 
 nature, must ultimately prevail. 
 
 Although many of the ancients had a belief in a fu-
 
 172 NECESSITY OF EDUCATION 
 
 ture state of existence, yet it was apprehended by them 
 so dimly, and its retributions were pressed home so feebly 
 on their consciences, that the belief appears to have had 
 but little effect upon the conduct of individuals, or the 
 administration and policy of states ; and, for all practical 
 purposes, it would hardly be too strong an expression to 
 say, that immortality was first revealed by Christ. Dur- 
 ing the first three centuries of our era, the knowledge of 
 this discovery, so to call it, was widely diffused 
 among men. Then, by the union of Church and State, 
 under Constantino, the civil power came in, and attemptr 
 ed to appropriate the benefits of the new discovery to 
 itself, so that it might use divine motives for selfish pur- 
 poses. And, had the throne and the priesthood sought to 
 govern men by the motive of fear alone, they might have 
 retained their ascendency, we cannot tell for what pe- 
 riod of time. But they found a natural conscience in 
 men, a sense of responsibleness to duty, which they were 
 so short-sighted as to enlist in their service ; I say, 
 short-sighted, for, when they aroused the sentiment of 
 duty in the human soul, and used it as a means of secur- 
 ing obedience to themselves, they called up a power 
 stronger than themselves. The ally was mightier than 
 the chief that invoked its aid. Hence the uprisings, the 
 rebellions of the people against regal and ecclesiastical 
 oppression. Rulers attempted to subdue the people, by 
 persecutions, massacres, burnings, but in vain ; becaiise, 
 though they could kill men, they could not kill conscience. 
 After a conflict of sixteen centuries, the victory has 
 been achieved. Mind has triumphed over the quellers of 
 mind, the internal force over the external. When 
 mankind shall be removed by time to such a distance that 
 they can see past events in their true proportions and rel- 
 ative magnitude, this struggle between oppression on the
 
 IN A REPUBLICAN GOVERNMENT. 173 
 
 one side, striving to keep the human mind in its prison- 
 house, and to set an eternal seal upon the door ; and, on 
 the other hand, the convulsive efforts of that mind to dis- 
 inthrall itself, and to utter its impatient thoughts ; and to 
 form, and to abide by, its own convictions of truth, 
 this conflict, I say, will be the grand, central, conspicuous 
 object, in the history of our era. The history of wars 
 between rival dynasties, for the conquest or dismember- 
 ment of empires, will fade away, and be but dimly visible 
 in the retrospect ; while this struggle between the soul 
 and its enslavers will stand far out in the foreground, 
 the towering, supereminent figure on the historic can- 
 vas. 
 
 It has not been in accustomed modes, nor with weapons 
 of earthly temper only, that this warfare has been waged. 
 As the energies of the soul, acting under the mighty im- 
 pulses of a sense of duty and the prospect of an endless 
 futurity, waxed stronger and stronger, tyrants forged new 
 engines to subdue it. Their instruments have been the 
 dungeons of a thousand Bastilles ; the Inquisition, whose 
 ministers were literally flames of fire ; devastations of 
 whole provinces ; huntings of entire communities of men 
 into the mountains, like timorous flocks; massacres, in 
 one only of which, thirty thousand men and women were 
 slaughtered at the ringing of a signal-bell ; and, after 
 exhausting all the agonies of earth and time, they un- 
 vaulted the Bottomless Pit, and, suspending their victims 
 over the abyss, they threatened to hurl them down into the 
 arms of beckoning demons, impatient to begin their pas- 
 time of eternal torture. But, impassive to annihilation ; 
 though smitten down, yet, witli recuperative energy, 
 springing from its fall ; victorious over the sufferings of 
 this world and the more formidable terrors of another, 
 the human soul, immortal, invulnerable, invincible, has
 
 174 NECESSITY OP EDUCATION 
 
 at last unmanacled and emancipated itself. It has tri- 
 umphed ; and here, in our age and in our land, it is now 
 rising- up before us, gigantic, majestical, lofty as an arch- 
 angel, and, like an archangel, to be saved or lost by its 
 obedience or its transgressions. Amongst ourselves it is, 
 that this spirit is now walking forth, full of its new-found 
 life 1 , wantoning in freshly-discovered energies, surrounded 
 by all the objects which can inflame its boundless appe- 
 tites, and, as yet, too purblind, from the long darkness of 
 its prison-house, to discern clearly between its blessing 
 and its bane. That unconquerable force of the human 
 soul, which all the arts and power of despotism, which 
 all the enginery borrowed from both worlds, could not 
 subdue, is here, amongst ourselves, to do its sovereign 
 will. 
 
 Let us now turn for a moment to see what means and 
 stimulants our institutions have provided for the use of 
 the mighty powers and passions they have unloosed. No 
 apparatus so skilful was ever before devised. Instead of 
 the slow and cumbrous machinery of former times, we 
 have provided that which is quick-working and far-reach- 
 ing, and which may be used for the destruction as 
 easily as for the welfare of its possessors. Our institu- 
 tions furnish as great facilities for wicked men, in all 
 departments of wickedness, as phosphorus and lucifer 
 matches furnish to the incendiary. What chemistry has 
 done, in these preparations, over the old art of rubbing- 
 two sticks together, for the wretch who would fire your 
 dwelling, our social partnerships have done for flagitious 
 and unprincipled men. Through the right, almost 
 universal, of suffrage, we have established a commu- 
 nity of power ; and no proposition is more plain and self- 
 evident, than that nothing but mere popular inclination
 
 IN A REPUBLICAN GOVERNMENT. 175 
 
 lies between a community of power and a community in 
 every thing else. And though, in the long-run, and when 
 other things are equal, a righteous cause always has a 
 decisive advantage over an evil one, yet, in the first onset 
 between right and wrong, bad men possess one advantage 
 over the good. They have double resources, two 
 armories. The arts of guilt are as welcome to them as 
 the practices of justice. They can use poisoned weapons 
 as well as those approved by the usages of war. 
 
 Again ; has it been sufficiently considered, that all 
 which has been said, and truly said, of the excel- 
 lence of our institutions, if administered by an upright 
 people, must be reversed and read backwards, if adminis- 
 tered by a corrupt one ? I am aware that some will be 
 .ready to say, " We have been unwise and infatuated to 
 confide all the constituents of our social and political 
 welfare to such irresponsible keeping." But let me ask 
 of such, of what avail is their lamentation ? The ir- 
 resistible movement in the diffusion of power is still pro- 
 gressive, not retrograde. Every year puts more of social 
 strength into the hands of physical strength. The arith- 
 metic of numbers is more and more excluding all estimate 
 of moral forces, in the administration of government. 
 And this, whether for good or for evil, will continue to 
 be. Human beings cannot be remanded to the dungeons 
 of imbecility, if they are to those of ignorance. The sun 
 can as easily be turned backwards in its course, as one 
 particle of that power, which has been conferred upon the 
 millions, can be again monopolized by the few. To dis- 
 cuss the question, therefore, whether our institutions are 
 not too free, is, for all practical purposes, as vain as it 
 would be to discuss the question whether, on the whole, 
 it was a wise arrangement on the part of Divine Provi- 
 dence, that the American continent should ever have
 
 176 NECESSITY OF EDUCATION 
 
 been created, or that Columbus should have discovered it. 
 And let me ask, further, have those who believe our insti- 
 tutions to be too free, and who, therefore, would go back 
 to less liberal ones, have they settled the question, how 
 far back they will go ? Will they go back to the dark 
 ages, and recall an eclipse which lasted centuries long ? 
 or will they ascend a little higher for their models, to 
 a time when our ancestors wore undressed skins, and 
 burrowed in holes of the earth ? or will they strike at 
 once for the institutions of Egypt, where, though the 
 monkey was a god, there was still a sufficient distance 
 between him and his human worshipper ? But all such 
 discussions are vain. The oak will as soon go back into 
 the acorn, or the bird into its shell, as we return to the 
 monarchical or aristocratic forms of by-gone ages. 
 
 Nor let it be forgotten, in contemplating our condition, 
 that the human passions, as unfolded and invigorated by 
 our institutions, are not only possessed of all the preroga- 
 tives, and equipped with all the implements of sover- 
 eignty ; but that they are forever roused and spurred to 
 the most vehement efforts. It is a law of the passions, 
 that they exert strength in proportion to the causes which 
 excite them, a law which holds true in cases of sanity, 
 as well as in the terrible strength of insanity. And with 
 what endless excitements are the passions of men here 
 plied ! With us, the Press is such a clarion, that it pro- 
 claims all the great movements of this great country, with 
 a voice that sweeps over its whole surface, and comes 
 back to us in echoes from its extremest borders. From 
 the Atlantic to the Pacific, from the Lakes to the Gulf, 
 men cheer, inflame, exasperate each other, as though 
 they were neighbors in .the same street. What the ear 
 of Dionysius was to him, making report of every word 
 uttered by friend or foe, our institutions have made this
 
 IN A REPUBLICAN GOVERNMENT. 177 
 
 land to every citizen. It is a vast sounding gallery ; 
 and from horizon to horizon every shout of triumph and 
 every cry of alarm are gathered up and rung in every 
 man's dwelling. All objects which stimulate the passions 
 of men are made to pass before the eyes of all, as in a 
 circling panorama. In very truth we are all hung upon 
 the same electrical wire, and if the ignorant and vicious 
 get possession of the apparatus, the intelligent and the 
 virtuous must take such shocks as the stupid or profligate 
 experimenters may choose to administer. 
 
 Mark how the excitements which our institutions sup- 
 ply have wrought upon the love of gain and the love of 
 place. Vast speculations, such as in other countries 
 would require not only royal sanctions and charters, but 
 the equipment of fleets, and princely outfits of gold and 
 arms, are here rushed into, on flash paper, by clerks 
 and apprentices, not out of their time. What party can 
 affirm that it is exempt from members who prize office, 
 rather than the excellence that deserves it'? Where can 
 I be, not what can I be, is the question suggested to 
 aspirants for fame. How many have their eyes fixed 
 upon posts of honor and emolument which but one only 
 can fill ! While few will be satisfied with occupying less 
 than their portion of space in the public eye, thousands 
 have marked out some great compartment of the sky for 
 the blazonry of their names. And hence it is, that, 
 wherever there is a signal of gain, or of power, the vul- 
 tures of cupidity and of ambition darken the air. Young 
 men launch into this tumultuous life, years earlier than 
 has ever been witnessed elsewhere. They seek to win 
 those prizes without delay, which, according to Nature's 
 ordinances and appointments, are the rewards of a life 
 of labor. Hence they find no time for studying the eter- 
 nal principles of justice, veracity, equality, benevolence, 
 
 VOL. i. is
 
 178 NECESSITY OF EDUCATION 
 
 and for applying them to the complicated affairs of men. 
 What cares a young adventurer for the immutable laws 
 of trade, when he has purchased a ticket in some lottery 
 of speculation, from which he expects to draw a fortune-? 
 Out of such an unbridled, unchastened love of gain, 
 whether it traffics in townships of land or in twopenny 
 toys, do we not know beforehand, there will come infinite 
 falsehoods, knavery and bankruptcy ? Let this state of 
 things continue, and he will be a happy man who dares 
 to say of any article of food or of apparel, which he eats 
 or wears, that it has not, at some period of its prepara- 
 tion, or in some of its transfers, been contaminated by 
 fraud. And what a state of society would it argue, in 
 other respects, if the people at large should ever become 
 indifferent to the question, whether fraud be, or be not, 
 inwoven into the texture, and kneaded into the substance 
 of what they daily consume, whether what they eat or 
 drink or wear be not an embodiment of the spirit of lies ! 
 So the inordinate love of office will present the specta- 
 cle of gladiatorial contests, of men struggling for sta- 
 tion as for life, and using against each other the poisonous 
 weapons of calumny and vituperation ; while the abid- 
 ing welfare, the true greatness and prosperity of the 
 people will be like the soil of some neutral Flanders, over 
 which the hostile bands of partisans will march and coun- 
 termarch, and convert it into battle-fields, so that, 
 whichever side may triumph, the people will be ruined. 
 And even after one cause or one party has prevailed, the 
 conquered land will not be wide enough to settle a tithe 
 of the conquerors upon. Hence must come new ral- 
 lyings ; new banners must be unfurled, and the repose of 
 the land be again broken by the convulsions of party 
 strife. Hence, too, the death-grapple between the defend- 
 ers of institutions which ought to be abolished, and the
 
 IN A REPUBLICAN GOVERNMENT. 179 
 
 assailants of institutions which ought to be preserved. 
 Laocoon cries, " My life and my children are mine." 
 The hissing and inwreathing serpents respond, " They 
 are ours." If eacli party espouses and supports whatever 
 is wrong on its own side, because such a course is deemed 
 necessary to union and strength ; and denounces whatever 
 is right in the plans of its antagonists, because such are 
 the approved tactics of opposition ; if each party sounds 
 the loudest alarms, when the most trivial danger from its 
 opponents is apprehended, and sings the gentlest lullabies 
 over perils of its own producing, can seer or prophet 
 foretell but one catastrophe ? 
 
 Again ; we hear good men, every day, bemoaning the 
 ignorance of certain portions of our country, and of indi- 
 viduals in all parts of it. The use often made of the 
 elective franchise, the crude, unphilosophical notions, 
 sometimes advanced in our legislative halls on questions 
 of political economy, the erroneous views entertained by 
 portions of the people, respecting the relation between 
 representative and constituent, and the revolutionary 
 ideas of others in regard to the structure of civil society, 
 these are cited as specimens and proofs of the igno- 
 rance that abounds amongst us. No greater delusion can 
 blind us. This much-lamented ignorance, in the cases 
 supposed, is a phantom, a spectre. The outcry against it 
 is a false alarm, diverting attention from a real to an 
 imaginary danger. Ignorance is not the cause of the 
 evils referred to. With exceptions comparatively few, we 
 have but two classes of ignorant persons amongst us, and 
 they are harmless. Infants and idiots are ignorant ; few 
 others are so. Those whom we are accustomed to call 
 ignorant, are full of false notions, as much worse than 
 ignorance as wisdom is better. A merely ignorant man 
 has no skill in adapting means to ends, whereby to jeop-
 
 180 NECESSITY OP EDUCATION 
 
 ard the welfare of great interests or great numbers. 
 Ignorance is blankness ; or, at most, a lifeless, inert mass, 
 which can, indeed, be moved and placed where you 
 please, but will stay where it is placed. In Europe, there 
 are multitudes of ignorant men, men into whose minds 
 no idea ever entered respecting the duties of society or 
 of government, or the conditions of human prosperity. 
 They, like their work-fellows, the cattle, are obedient to 
 their masters ; and the range of their ideas on political 
 or social questions is hardly more extensive than that of 
 the brutes. But with our institutions, this state of things, 
 to any great extent, is impossible. The very atmosphere 
 we breathe is freighted with the ideas of property, of ac- 
 quisition and transmission ; of wages, labor and capital ; 
 of political and social rights ; of the appointment to, and 
 tenure of offices ; of the reciprocal relations between the 
 great departments of government executive, legisla- 
 tive, and judicial. Every native-born child amongst us 
 imbibes notions, either false or true, on these subjects. 
 Let these notions be false ; let an individual grow up, 
 with false ideas of his own nature and destiny as an im- 
 mortal being, with false views respecting what govern- 
 ment, laws, customs, should be ; with no knowledge of 
 the works or the opinions of those great men who framed 
 our government, and adjusted its various parts to each 
 other ; and when such an individual is invested with 
 the political rights of citizenship, with power to give an 
 authoritative voice and vote upon the affairs of his coun- 
 try, he will look upon all existing things as rubbish which 
 it is, his duty to sweep away, that lie may have room for 
 the erection of other structures, planned after the model 
 of his own false ideas. No man that ever" lived could, 
 by mere intuition or instinct, form just opinions upon a 
 thousand questions, pertaining to civil society, to its juris-
 
 IN A REPUBLICAN GOVERNMENT. 181 
 
 prudence, its local, national and international duties. 
 Many truths, vital to the welfare of the people, differ in 
 their reality, as much from the appearances which they 
 present to uninstructed minds, as the apparent size of the 
 sun differs from its real size, which, in truth, is so many 
 thousand times larger than the earth, while to the un- 
 taught eye it appears to be so many thousand times 
 smaller. And if the human propensities are here to 
 manifest themselves through the enlarged means of false 
 knowledge which our institutions, unaided by special in- 
 struction, will furnish ; if they are to possess all the instru- 
 ments and furtherances which our doctrine of political 
 equality confers ; then the result must be, a power to do 
 evil almost infinitely greater than ever existed before, 
 instigated by impulses proportionately strong. Hence 
 our dangers are to be, not those of ignorance, which 
 would be comparatively tolerable, but those of false knowl- 
 edge, which transcend the powers of mortal imagination 
 to portray. Would you appreciate the amazing difference 
 between ignorance and false knowledge, look at Prance, 
 before and during her great revolution. Before the revo- 
 lution, her people were merely ignorant ; during the revo- 
 lution, they acted under the lights of false knowledge. 
 An idiot is ignorant, and does little harm ; a maniac has 
 false ideas, and destroys, burns and murders. 
 
 Looking again at the nature of our institutions, we find 
 that it is not the material or corporeal interests of man 
 alone that are here decided by the common voice ; 
 such, for instance, as those pertaining to finance, revenue, 
 the adjustment of the great economical interests of socie- 
 ty, the rival claims between agriculture, commerce and 
 manufactures, the partition and distribution of legisla- 
 tive, judicial and executive powers, with a long catalogue 
 of others of a kindred nature ; but also those more sol-
 
 182 NECESSITY OP EDUCATION 
 
 emu questions which pervade the innermost sanctuary of 
 domestic life, and, for worship or for sacrilege, enter the 
 Holy of Holies in the ark of society : these also are 
 submitted to the general arbitrament. The haughty lord- 
 ling, whose heart never felt one throb for the welfare of 
 mankind, gives vote and verdict on the extent of popular 
 rights ; the libertine and debauchee give vote and verdict 
 on the sanctity of the marriage covenant ; the atheist 
 on the definition of blasphemy. Nor is this great people 
 invited merely to speculate, and frame abstract theories, 
 on these momentous themes ; to make picture models, on 
 paper, in their closets ; they are not invited to sketch 
 Republics of Fancy only, but they are commissioned to 
 make Republics of Fact ; and in such Republics as they 
 please to make, others, perforce, must please to live. If 
 I do not like my minister, or my parish, I can sign off, 
 (as we term it,) and connect myself with another ; if I 
 do not like my town, I can move out of it ; but where 
 shall a man sign to, or move to, out of a bad world ? 
 Nor do our people hold these powers, as an ornament 
 merely, as some ostensible but useless badge of Freedom ; 
 but they keep them as instruments for use, and sometimes 
 wield them as weapons of revenge. So closely indeed 
 are we inwoven in the same web of fate, that a vote given 
 on the banks of the Missouri or Arkansas may shake 
 every plantation and warehouse on the Atlantic, and, 
 reaching seaward, overtake and baffle enterprise, into 
 whatever oceans it may have penetrated. 
 
 Such, then, is our condition. The minds that are to 
 regulate all things and govern all things, in this country, 
 are innately strong ; they are intensely stimulated ; they 
 are supplied with the most formidable artillery of means ; 
 and each one is authorized to form its own working-plan,
 
 IN A REPUBLICAN GOVERNMENT. 183 
 
 its own ground-scheme, according to which, when the so- 
 cial edifice has been taken to pieces, it is to be recon- 
 structed ; some are for going back a thousand or two 
 thousand years for their model ; others, for introducing 
 what they consider the millennium, at once, by force of 
 law, or by force without law. 
 
 And now, my friends, I ask, with the deepest anxiety, 
 what institutions exist amongst us, which at once possess 
 the power and are administered with the efficiency, requi- 
 site to save us from the dangers that spring up in our own 
 bosoms ? That the propensities, which each generation 
 brings into the world, possess terrific power, and are 
 capable of inflicting the completest ruin, none can deny. 
 Nor will it be questioned that amongst us, they have an 
 open career, and a command of means, such as never 
 before co-existed. What antagonist power have we pro- 
 vided against them ? By what exorcism can we lay the 
 spirits we have raised ? Once, brute force, directed by a 
 few men, trampled upon the many. Here, the many are 
 the possessors of that very force, and have almost abolished 
 its use as a means of government. The French gen- 
 darmerie, the British horse-guards, the dreadful punish- 
 ment of the Siberian mines, will never be copied here. 
 Should the government resort to a standing army, that 
 army would consist of the very forces they dread, organ- 
 ized, equipped and officered. Can laws save us ? With 
 us, the very idea of legislation is reversed. Once, the 
 law prescribed the actions and shaped the wills of the 
 multitude ; here, the wills of the multitude prescribe and 
 shape the law. With us, legislators study the will of the 
 multitude, just as natural philosophers study a volcano, 
 not with any expectation of doing aught to the volca- 
 no, but to see what the volcano is about to do to them. 
 While the law was clothed with majesty and power, and
 
 184 NECESSITY OF EDUCATION 
 
 the mind of the multitude was weak, then, as in all cases 
 of a conflict between unequal forces, the law prevailed. 
 But now, when the law is weak, and the passions of the 
 multitude have gathered irresistible strength, it is falla- 
 cious and insane to look for security in the moral force 
 of the law. As well might the man who has erected his 
 dwelling upon the verge of a cliff overhanging the deep, 
 when the equilibrium of the atmosphere is destroyed, and 
 the elements are on fire, and every billow is excavating 
 his foundations, expect to still the tempest by reading the 
 Riot-act. Government and law, which ought to be the 
 allies of justice and the everlasting foes of violence and 
 wrong, will here be moulded into the similitude of the 
 public mind, and will answer to it, as, in water, face an- 
 swereth to face. 
 
 But, if arms themselves would be beaten in such a con- 
 test, if those who should propose the renewal of ancient 
 severities in punishment would themselves be punished, 
 have we not some other resource for the security of modera- 
 tion and self-denial, and for the supremacy of order and 
 law ? Have not the scholars who adorn the halls of 
 learning, and woo almost a hallowed serenity to dwell in 
 their academic shades, have they not, amongst all the 
 languages which they speak, some tongue by which they 
 can charm and pacify the mighty spirits we have evoked 
 into being ? Alas ! while scholars and academists are 
 earnestly debating such questions, as whether the name 
 of error shall or shall not be spelled with the letter u, the 
 soul of error becomes incarnate, and starts up, as from 
 the earth, myriad-formed and ubiquitous, and stands by 
 the side of every man, and whispers transgression into 
 his ear, and, like the first Tempter, entices him to pluck 
 the beautiful, but fatal fruit of some forbidden tree. 
 Our ancestors seem to have had great faith that the alumni
 
 IN A REPUBLICAN GOVERNMENT. 185 
 
 of our colleges would diffuse a higher order of intelli- 
 gence through the whole mass of the people, and would 
 imbue them with a love of sobriety and a reverence for 
 justice. But either the leaven has lost its virtue, or the 
 lump has become too large ; for, surely, in our day, the 
 mass is not all leavened. 
 
 I speak with reverence of the labors of another profession 
 in their sacred calling. No other country in the world 
 has ever been blessed with a body of clergymen, so learn- 
 ed, so faithful, .so devout as ours. But by traditionary 
 custom and the ingrained habits of the people, the efforts 
 of the clergy are mainly expended upon those who have 
 passed the forming state ; upon adults, whose charac- 
 ters, as we are accustomed to express it, have become 
 fixed, which being interpreted, means, that they have 
 passed from fluid into flint. Look at the ablest pastor, in 
 the midst of an adult congregation whose early education 
 has been neglected. Though he be consumed of zeal, 
 and ready to die of toil, in their behalf, yet I seem to see 
 him, expending his strength and his years amongst them, 
 like one solitary arborist working, single-handed and 
 alone, in a wide forest, where there are hundreds of stoop- 
 ing and contorted trees, and he, striving with tackle and 
 guy-ropes to undouble their convolutions, and to straight- 
 en the flexures in trunks whose fibres curled as they 
 grew ; and, with his naked hand, to coax out gnarls and 
 nodosities hard enough to glance off lightning ; when, 
 could he have guided and trained them while yet they 
 were tender shoots and young saplings, he could have 
 shaped them into beauty, a hundred in a day. 
 
 But perhaps others may look for security to the public 
 Press, which has now taken its place amongst the organ- 
 ized forces of modern civilization. Probably its politi- 
 cal department supplies more than half the reading of
 
 186 NECESSITY OF EDUCATION 
 
 the mass of our people. But, bating the point, whether, 
 in times of public excitement, when the society and 
 thoughtfulness of wisdom, when severe and exact 
 truth, are, more than ever else, necessary, whether, at 
 such times, the press is not itself liable to be inflamed by 
 the heats it should allay, and to be perverted by the obli- 
 quities it should rectify ; bating this point, it is still 
 obvious that its principal efforts are expended upon one 
 department only of all our social duties. The very exist- 
 ence of the newspaper press, for any useful purpose, 
 presupposes that the people are already supplied with the 
 elements of knowledge and inspired with the love of 
 right ; and are therefore prepared to decide, with intelli- 
 gence and honesty, those complicated and conflicting 
 claims, which the tide of events is constantly presenting, 
 and which, by the myriad messengers of the press, are 
 carried to every man's fireside for his adjudication. For, 
 of what value is it, that we have the most wisely-framed 
 government on earth ; to what end is it, that the wisest 
 schemes which a philanthropic statesmanship can devise, 
 are propounded to the people, if this people has not the 
 intelligence to understand, or the integrity to espouse 
 them ? Each of two things is equally necessary to our 
 political prosperity ; namely, just principles of govern- 
 ment and administration, on one side, and a people able 
 to understand and -resolute to uphold them, on the other. 
 Of what use is the most exquisite music ever composed 
 by the greatest masters of the art, until you have orches- 
 tra or choir that can perform the pieces ? Pupils must 
 thoroughly master the vocal elements, musical language 
 must be learned, voices must be long and severely trained, 
 or the divinest compositions of Haydn or Mozart would 
 only set the teeth of an auditory on edge. And so 
 must it be with our government and laws ; the best
 
 IN A REPUBLICAN GOVERNMENT. 187 
 
 will be useless, unless we have a people who will appre- 
 ciate and uphold them. 
 
 Again, then, I ask, with unmitigated anxiety, what in- 
 stitutions we now possess, that, can furnish defence or bar- 
 rier against the action of those propensities, which eacli 
 generation brings into the world as a part of its being, 
 and which our institutions foster and stimulate into 
 unparalleled activity and vigor ? Can any Christian man 
 believe, that God has so constituted and so governs the 
 human race, that it is always and necessarily to be suici- 
 dal of its earthly welfare ? No ! the thought is impious. 
 The same Almighty Power which implants in our nature 
 the germs of these terrible propensities, has endowed us 
 also with reason and conscience and a sense of responsibil- 
 ity to Him ; and, in his providence, he has opened a way 
 by which these nobler faculties can be elevated into domin- 
 ion and supremacy over the appetites and passions. But 
 if this is ever done, it must be mainly done during the 
 docile and teachable years of childhood. I repeat it, my 
 friends, if this is ever done, it must be mainly done during 
 the docile and teachable years of childhood. Wretched, 
 incorrigible, demoniac, as any human being may ever 
 have become, there was a time when he took the first step 
 in error and in crime ; when, for the first time, he just 
 nodded to his fall, on the brink of ruin. Then, ere he 
 was irrecoverably lost, ere he plunged into the abyss of 
 infamy and guilt, he might have been recalled, as it were 
 by the waving of the hand. Fathers, mothers, patriots, 
 Christians ! it is this very hour of peril through which 
 our children are now passing. They know it not, but 
 we know it ; and where the knowledge is, there rests the 
 responsibility. Society is responsible ; not society con- 
 sidered as an abstraction, but society as it consists of liv- 
 ing members, which members we are. Clergymen are
 
 188 EDUCATION IN A REPUBLICAN GOVERNMENT. 
 
 responsible ; all men who have enjoyed the opportuni- 
 ties of a higher education in colleges and universities are 
 responsible, for they can convert their means, whether of 
 time or of talent, into instruments for elevating the mass- 
 es of the people. The conductors of the public press are 
 responsible, for they have daily access to the public ear, 
 and can infuse just notions of this high duty into the 
 public mind. Legislators and rulers are responsible. In 
 our country, and in our times, no man is worthy the hon- 
 ored name of a statesman, who does not include the 
 highest practicable education of the people in all his 
 plans of administration. He may have eloquence, he 
 may have a knowledge of all history, diplomacy, jurispru- 
 dence ; and by these he might claim, in other countries, 
 the elevated rank of a statesman ; but, unless he speaks, 
 plans, labors, at all times and in all places, for the culture 
 and edification of the whole people, he is not, he cannot 
 be, an American statesman. 
 
 If this dread responsibility for the fate of our children 
 be disregarded, how, when called upon, in the great 
 eventful day, to give an account of the manner in which 
 our earthly duties have been discharged, can we expect 
 to escape the condemnation : " Inasmuch as ye have not 
 done it to one of the least of these, ye have not done it 
 unto me " ?
 
 LECTURE IV. 
 1840.
 
 LECTURE IV. 
 
 WHAT GOD DOES, AND WHAT HE LEAVES FOE MAN TO 
 DO, IN THE WORK OF EDUCATION. 
 
 GENTLEMEN OF THE CONVENTION : 
 
 WITH the coming of another year, I come to you 
 again, asking and offering sympathy for the welfare of 
 our children. 
 
 When I last had the pleasure of meeting a convention 
 of the friends of Common Schools in this county, I 
 addressed them on the subject of the Necessity of Educa- 
 tion, under a government and with institutions like our 
 own. I endeavored to demonstrate, that here, in our 
 country arid in our age, the enlightenment of the intel- 
 lect, and the cultivation of the affections, of the rising 
 generation, had not been left optional with us, but made 
 indispensable ; that the efficient and thorough education 
 of the young was not merely commended to us, as a 
 means of promoting private and public welfare, but com- 
 manded, as the only safeguard against such a variety and 
 extent of calamities as no nation on earth has ever 
 suffered. 
 
 The argument, in brief, ran thus: All men are born 
 into the world with many appetites and propensities of a 
 purely animal and selfish nature. Some of these appe- 
 tites and propensities are necessary to the existence of the 
 individual, and therefore they adhere to him and remain 
 a part of him as long as he lives ; others are necessary to 
 the continuance of the race, and therefore we must ex- 
 
 191
 
 192 THE WOEK OF EDUCATION. 
 
 pect that they will be reproduced with every new-born 
 generation to the end of time. Each individual, for in- 
 stance, brings into the world, and carries through it, an 
 appetite for food ; and this appetite perpetually tends to 
 an excess ruinous to health and fatal to life, among the 
 vulgar running into the coarseness of gluttony, among 
 the refined to a no less injurious epicurism. Each indi- 
 vidual brings into the world, and carries through it, an 
 appetite for beverage ; and what multitudes has this 
 desire stretched upon the " burning marl " of Intemper- 
 ance ! All are born with a love of wealth, or, at least, of 
 acquisition, which leads to wealth ; and we should be 
 unfit to live in such a world as this is, without such an 
 innate tendency ; because, in health, we must lay by 
 something for sickness, and in the strength of manhood 
 something for the helplessness of children and for the 
 feebleness of old age. Yet how easily does this propen- 
 sity run out into avarice and cupidity, leading on to fraud, 
 robbery, rapine, and all the enormities of the slave-trade, 
 the opium-trade, the rum-trade ! So we all have a desire 
 for the good will of others, an instinct beautifully 
 adapted to diffuse pleasure over all the intercourse of 
 life. But in this country, where the rule once was that 
 the honors of office should be awarded to merit, detur 
 digniori, the sign seems to have been mistaken for the 
 thing signified ; and now, whenever there is an office to 
 be filled, a crowd of applicants throng around, more than 
 sufficient, in point of numbers, to fill the vacancy for the 
 next thousand years. Again, a certain feeling of self- 
 estimation is absolutely essential to us all ; because, 
 without it, every man would be awed into annihilation 
 before the majesty of the multitude, or the glories of the 
 visible universe. But how readily does this feeling of 
 self-importance burst out into pride and a love of domina-
 
 THE WORK OP EDUCATION. 193 
 
 tion, and that intolerance towards the opinions of others, 
 which does not seek to enlighten or persuade, but dog- 
 matizes, denounces, and persecutes ! 
 
 All history cries out, with all her testimonies and her 
 admonitions, proclaiming to what excesses these innate 
 and universal appetites may grow, when supplied with 
 opportunities and incitements for indulgence. If men 
 consult their propensities alone, no sacrifice ever seems 
 too great to purchase indulgence for the lowest and mean- 
 est of them all. Each one of them is not only capable 
 of unlimited growth, but each, also, is blind to all con- 
 sequences, and demands gratification, though the next 
 hour brings perdition as the penalty. We need not go 
 back to patriarchal or primeval times to find a man who, 
 because he was hungry or thirsty, would barter a glorious 
 inheritance for a mess of pottage ; or a woman who would 
 forfeit paradise through curiosity to taste an apple. 
 When the political destiny of his family and of all France 
 depended upon the speed which Louis XVI. should make 
 in his flight from Paris, he paused by the wayside to 
 drink a bottle of Burgundy, said coolly, that it was 
 the best bottle he overdrank, and suffered the scale, 
 which held the fortunes of twenty-five millions of people, 
 to turn, irrevocably, while he prolonged his gustations. To 
 add a few more items to his inventory of conquered na- 
 tions, Napoleon snatched the scythe from the hand of 
 Death, 'and, forerunning the great Destroyer, he strewed 
 the earth, from torrid sands to arctic snows, with the 
 corses of human slain, mowed down in the morning 
 beauty and vigor of life ; and, rather than not to be em- 
 peror at all, he would have reigned the emperor of a Euro- 
 pean solitude. He played the game of war, as he played 
 his favorite game of chess, for the sake of triumph, 
 making no more account of nations than of pawns. 
 
 VOL. I. 13
 
 194 THE WOKK OF EDUCATION. 
 
 Pope Innocent III. founded an Inquisition, modelled 
 after the plan of Pandemonium, that he might compel 
 mankind to acknowledge the infallibility of his dogmas. 
 Notwithstanding the manifest intentions of nature in 
 making the sexes almost numerically equal, the Sultan 
 culls nations to fill his seraglio with beauty. Did not 
 Mark Antony forget his hard-earned fame, perfidiously 
 abandon his faithful troops, and shut his eyes upon the 
 vision of a kingdom, for a transient hour of voluptuous- 
 ness in the arms of Cleopatra ? Herod hears that a 
 man-child is born in Judsea, who may one day endanger 
 his throne ; and forthwith, to avert that possible event, 
 he murders all the male children in the land under two 
 years of age ; and the moment power was given, a wo- 
 man, to avenge a private pique, brings in the head of 
 John the Baptist on a charger. Even good men, those 
 for whose steadfastness we would almost be willing to 
 pledge our lives, exemplify the terrible strength of the 
 propensities. Moses rebels ; David murders ; Peter, 
 although forewarned, yet denies his Master, and for- 
 swears himself. 
 
 Now, the germs or elements of these propensities be- 
 long to us all. We possess them at birth; they abide with 
 us till death. Vast differences exist in the power which 
 they exert over men, owing to differences in their innate 
 vigor ; still greater differences, perhaps, result from 
 early education. In bad men they predominate, and 
 break out into the commission of as much iniquity as 
 finite beings, with limited means, can compass. They 
 exist also in good men ; but, in them, they are either 
 feebly developed, or they are bound and leashed in by 
 pure and holy affections. By nature, they were boiling 
 seas of passion in the breasts of Socrates and of Wash- 
 ington ; but god-like sentiments of justice and duty and
 
 THE WORK OF EDUCATION. 195 
 
 benevolence kept down their rage, as the deep granite 
 beneath New England's soil keeps down the central fires 
 of the globe, and forbids earthquake or volcano to agitate 
 her surface. When subordinated to conscience and the 
 will of God, these propensities give ardor to our zeal and 
 strength to our exertions ; just as the genius of man con- 
 verts wind and fire from destroyers into servants. 
 
 From our very constitution, then, there is a downward 
 gravitation forever to be overcome. The perpetual bias 
 of our instincts is, from competency and temperance to 
 luxury and inebriation ; from frugality to avarice ; from 
 honest earnings to fraudulent gains ; from a laudable 
 desire of reputation, and a reasonable self-estimate, to 
 unhallowed ambition, and a determination to usurp the 
 prerogative of God by writing our creeds on other men's 
 souls. Hence these propensities require some mighty 
 counterpoise to balance their proclivity to wrong. They 
 must he governed, cither by the pressure of outward 
 force, or by the supremacy of inward principle. In other 
 countries and ages, external force, the civil execu- 
 tioner, Pretorian cohorts, Janizaries, standing armies, an 
 established priesthood, have kept them down. The 
 propensities and appetites of a few men have overlaid and 
 smothered those of the rest. A few men, whom we call 
 tyrants and monsters, having got the mastery, have 
 prevented thousands of others from being tyrants and 
 monsters like themselves. And although it is with entire 
 justice that we charge the despotisms of the old world 
 with having dwarfed and crippled whatever is great and 
 noble in human nature ; yet it is equally true that they 
 have dwarfed and crippled, in an equal degree, whatever 
 is injurious and base. The Neros and Napoleons have 
 prevented others from being Neros and Napoleons, as well 
 as from becoming Senecas and Howards.
 
 196 THE WORK OF EDUCATION. 
 
 But with the changed institutions of this country, all is 
 changed. Here history may be said, in familiar phrase, 
 not merely to have turned over a new leaf, but to have 
 opened a new set of books. With our Revolution, the 
 current of human events was turned quite round, and set 
 upon a new course. That external power which, thereto- 
 fore, had palsied the propensities of the mass, was abol- 
 ished. Instead of the old axiom, that the ruler is a lord, 
 a vicegerent of God, here, to a proverb, rulers are 
 servants. Lightly and fearfully the law lays its hand 
 upon men ; and, should the wisest law ever framed chafe 
 the passions or propensities of the majority, or of men 
 who can muster a majority, they speak, and the law 
 perishes. The will of the people must be our law, 
 whether that will reads the moral code forwards or back- 
 wards. 
 
 Now, for one moment, compare the collected vastness 
 of men's desires with the sum of the world's resources. 
 Compare the demand with the supply, where the propen- 
 sities are the customers. Suppose the wealth of this 
 country were divided into fifteen million equal parts, and 
 each man were allowed to subscribe for what number of 
 shares he might please ; how many, think you, would 
 have subscribed, before it would be announced that all 
 the stock had been taken up ? Had each man permission 
 to drop a folded ballot into the urn of fate, designating 
 the rank and the office which he and his children should 
 hold, would not the nominal aristocracy be tremendous ? 
 Were each religious dogmatist and bigot authorized to 
 write out article's of faith for universal adoption, what a. 
 mad-house of creeds and theological systems would there 
 be ! But this is endless. All know, if every holder of a 
 lottery ticket could name the amount of his prize, how 
 soon the office would be bankrupt.
 
 THE WORK OF EDUCATION. 197 
 
 Now the simple question for an American, is, whether 
 all this mighty accession of power, growing out of our 
 free institutions, shall or shall not be placed in the hands 
 of these ravenous and tyrannizing propensities. 
 
 From this view of the subject it is obvious, that we may 
 become just as much worse than any other nation that 
 ever existed, as the founders of our institutions hoped we 
 should be better. If the propensities are to prevail, then 
 speculation will supersede industry ; violence will usurp 
 the prerogatives of the law ; the witness will be perjured 
 upon the stand, and the guilty be rescued by forsworn 
 jurors ; the grand council-halls of the nation will be con- 
 verted from an Areopagus of wise and reverend men, into 
 a gladiatorial ring ; the depositaries of public and of 
 private trusts will administer them for personal ends ; not 
 only individuals, but States, will become reckless of their 
 obligations ; elections will be decided by bribery and cor- 
 ruption ; and the newspaper press, which scatters its 
 sheets over the country, thick as snow-flakes in a wintry 
 storm, will justify whatever is wrong on one side, and 
 vilify whatever is right on the other, until nothing that is 
 right will be left on either. Ay, my friends, if you put 
 your ear to the ground, can you not hear, even now, the 
 sappers and miners at their work ? 
 
 Even in the present state of society, and with all our 
 boastings of civilization arid Christianity, if all men were 
 certain that they could, with entire impunity, indulge 
 their wishes for a single night, what a world would be 
 revealed to us in the morning ! Should all selfish desires 
 at once burst their confines, and swell to the extent of 
 their capacity, it would be as though each drop of the 
 morning dew were suddenly enlarged into an ocean. 
 
 Does any possessor of wealth, or leisure, or learning, 
 ask, " What interest have I in the education of the multi-
 
 198 THE WORK OF EDUCATION. 
 
 tude ? " I reply, You have at least this interest, that, 
 unless their minds are enlightened by knowledge and con- 
 trolled by virtuous principle, there is not, between their 
 appetites and all you hold dear upon earth, so much as 
 the defence of a spider's web. Without a sense of the 
 inviolability of property, your deeds are but waste-paper. 
 Without a sense of the sacredness of person and life, you 
 are only a watch-dog whose baying is to be silenced, that 
 your house may be more securely entered and plundered. 
 Even a guilty few can destroy the peace of the virtuous 
 many. One incendiary can burn faster than a thousand 
 industrious workmen can build ; and this is as true of 
 social rights as of material edifices. 
 
 Had God, then, provided no means by which tin's part 
 of our nature can be controlled, we should indeed say 
 that we had been lifted up to heaven in point of privi- 
 leges, that we might, so much the more certainly, be 
 dashed in pieces by our inevitable fall. 
 
 But we have not been inexorably subjected to such a 
 doom. If it befalls us, it befalls us with our own consent. 
 Means of escape are vouchsafed ; and not of escape only, 
 but of infinite peace and joy. 
 
 The world is to be rescued through physical, intel- 
 lectual, moral and religious action upon the young. I 
 say, upon the young, for the number of grown men who 
 ever change character for the better is far too small to lay 
 the foundation of any hope of a general reform. After 
 the age of twenty-five, or even after that of twenty-one 
 years, few men commence a course of virtue or abandon 
 one of vice ; and even when this is done, its cause almost 
 invariably dates back to some early impression, which for 
 many years has lain dormant in the mind. Let that 
 period be passed, and, ordinarily, you must wait for a 
 death-bed repentance ; and often will your waiting be in
 
 THE WORK OF EDUCATION. 199 
 
 vain even for that. By the time the age of manhood has 
 been reached, the course of life has usually acquired a 
 momentum which propels it onwards, substantially in the 
 same direction, to its close. 
 
 Now for the great end of ransoming the human race 
 from its brutish instincts and its demoniac indulgences, 
 let us see what the benevolence of God does for us, in the 
 common course of nature and providence, and what His 
 wisdom has left for us to do ; -because it is obvious, that 
 He may go on doing his part of the work, for a hundred, 
 or for a thousand generations, and yet, unless we also do 
 our part, the work never will be done. And it may be 
 further remarked, that while He does His part, and we 
 neglect ours, the work, so far from being half done, will 
 be worse than undone. Our folly perverting His good- 
 ness will be like an unskilful hand operating upon an 
 exquisitely wrought machine. But His part of the work, 
 
 that is, the general course of nature and providence, 
 
 will go on, whether we co-operate or oppose. It is not 
 for us, therefore, to say with the Psalmist, " Awake ! why 
 sleepest Thou, O Lord ! " for it is not the Lord who 
 sleeps, but it is we ourselves. 
 
 The general truth here stated may find its illustrations 
 and analogies in all the departments of nature. I will 
 give only a single example. 
 
 The husbandman is promised that seed-time and harvest 
 shall not fail ; and, in pursuance of that promise, the 
 fountains of the clouds are opened to saturate the earth 
 with fatness ; the sun shoots a genial warmth into the soil, 
 and the rich mould and the richer atmosphere are ready 
 for a magical transformation into verdure and flowers and 
 fruit ; but unless the husbandman knows how to scatter 
 the seed at the right time, and to cultivate the tender 
 plant in the right way, in vain shall the fields be visited 
 by the reapers.
 
 200 THE WORK OP EDUCATION. 
 
 For all Africa and for all Asia, nature has done her part 
 of the work, for thousands of years ; and yet the miser- 
 able generations rise and suffer and perish, like so many 
 swarms of insects on the banks of the Nile or the Ganges. 
 Nor does nature show any symptoms of impatience at 
 their delay ; with awful tranquillity, she waits for their 
 part of the work to be done. 
 
 The first thing done for us, in the course of nature and 
 providence, is the creation of children in a state of entire 
 ignorance and receptiveness. Were children born with 
 characters full-formed, with minds inflexibly made up 
 on all possible subjects, and armed at all points for their 
 defence ; were babes, as soon as they can speak, to start 
 up into ferocious partisans and fanatics, then nature 
 would have done the whole work, and left nothing for us 
 to do ; nay, in that case, she would have rendered it 
 impossible for us to interfere, to any practical purpose. 
 But it depends hardly less upon the language of the 
 household, which, of all the tongues upon earth, the child 
 shall most readily speak, than it does upon the opinions 
 of the household, what opinions, on a great variety of the 
 most important subjects, he shall adopt. Hence we find, 
 almost without exception, the children of Pagans to be 
 Pagans ; of Mahommedans, Mahommedans ; and of 
 Catholics and Protestants, to be respectively Catholics 
 and Protestants. It depends upon residence in a partic- 
 ular latitude and longitude, what natural objects a child 
 shall become acquainted with ; and one who is born 
 in the frigid zone will be as little accustomed to the social 
 habits as to the natural productions of the torrid. And 
 finally, it depends upon the examples and the institutions, 
 amidst which a child is reared, what shall be his earliest, 
 and probably his most enduring impressions, respecting 
 the great realities of existence.
 
 THE WORK OP EDUCATION. 201 
 
 Here, then, is an ample sphere for the exertion of our 
 influence. We should transfuse our hest sentiments, 
 transplant our best ideas and habits, into the receptive 
 soul of childhood. It is our duty to separate the right from 
 the wrong, in our own minds and conduct, and to incor- 
 porate the former only in the minds and conduct of chil- 
 dren. Then the force of habit will aid them in doing 
 those duties, whose performance, in our own case, habit 
 may have opposed. It is an admirable proverb which 
 says, " Happy is the man whose habits are his friends." 
 Could we ever know that we are infallibly right on all the 
 great questions which pertain to our temporal and eternal 
 destiny, then it might be our duty to inculcate our views 
 authoritatively and dogmatically upon children, and to 
 insist upon their acquiescence and conformity ; but as we 
 can never know in this life, with absolute and positive 
 certainty, that we are right on such mighty themes, it 
 becomes our first and highest duty to awaken in their 
 hearts the sentiment of truth, to inculcate the love and 
 the pursuit of it, wherever it may be found, and to teach 
 them to abandon every thing else, even their own most 
 cherished opinions, for its sake. That is the worst of 
 sacrilege which creates a belief in a child's soul that any 
 opinion is better than truth. 
 
 The entire helplessness of children, for a long period 
 after birth, is another circumstance not within our control, 
 and one deserving of great moral consideration. In one 
 respect, children may be said to possess their greatest 
 power, at this, the feeblest period of their existence ; a 
 power which, however paradoxical it may seem, 
 originates in helplessness, and therefore diminishes just 
 in proportion as they gain strength. It was most beauti- 
 fully said by Dr. Thomas Brown, that after a child has 
 grown to manhood, " he cannot, even then, by the most
 
 202 THE WORK OP EDUCATION. 
 
 imperious orders, which he addresses to the most obse- 
 quious slaves, exercise an authority more commanding 
 than that, which, in the very first hours of his life, when 
 a few indistinct cries and tears were his only language, 
 he exercised irresistibly over hearts, of the very existence 
 of which he was ignorant." It may be added that, under 
 no terror of a despot's rage ; under no bribe of honors or 
 of wealth ; under no fear of torture or of death, have 
 greater struggles been made, or greater sacrifices endured, 
 than for those helpless creatures, who, for all purposes of 
 immediate availability, are so utterly worthless. All, 
 unless it be the lowest savages, fly to the succor and melt 
 at the sufferings of infancy. God has so adapted their 
 unconscious pleadings to our uncontrollable impulses, 
 that they, in their weakness, have the prerogative of com- 
 mand, and we, in our strength, the instinct of obedience. 
 It was the highest wisdom, then, not to intrust the fate of 
 infancy to any volitions or notions of expediency, on our 
 part ; but, at once, by a sovereign law of the constitution, 
 to make our knowledge and power submissive to their 
 inarticulate commands. 
 
 In proportion as this power of helplessness wanes, the 
 child begins to excite our interest and sympathy, by a 
 thousand personal attractions and forms of loveliness. 
 The sweetness of lips that never told a lie ; the smile that 
 celebrates the first-born emotions of love ; the intense gaze 
 at bright colors and striking forms, gathering together the 
 elements from whose full splendor and gorgeousness 
 Raphael painted and Homer wrote ; the plastic imagina- 
 tion, fusing the solid substances of the earth, to be recast 
 into shapes of beauty ; what Rothschild, what Croesus 
 has wealth that can purchase these ! 
 
 How cheap and how beautiful, too, are the joys of 
 childhood ! Paley, in speaking of the evidences of the
 
 THE WORK OF EDUCATION. 203 
 
 goodness of God, says, there is always some " bright spot 
 in the prospect ; " some " single example," " by which 
 each man finds himself more convinced than by all others 
 put together. I seem, for my own part," he adds, " to 
 see the benevolence of the Deity more clearly in the 
 pleasures of young children, than in any thing in the 
 world. The pleasures of grown persons may be reckoned 
 partly of their own procuring, especially if there has been 
 any industry, or contrivance, or pursuit to come at them ; 
 or, if they are founded, like music, painting, &c., upon 
 any qualifications of their own acquiring. But the pleas- 
 ures of a healthy infant are so manifestly provided for it 
 by another, and the benevolence of the provision is so 
 unquestionable, that every child I see at its sport affords, 
 to my mind, a kind of sensible evidence of the finger of 
 God, and of the disposition which directs it." At the age 
 of two or three years, before a child has ever seen a jest- 
 book, whence comes his glad and gladdening laughter, 
 at once costless and priceless ? Whence comes that flow 
 of joy, that gurgles and gushes up from his heart, like 
 water flung from a spouting-spring ? That bright-haired 
 boy, how came he as full of music and poetry as a sing- 
 ing-book ? Who imprisoned a dancing-school in each of 
 his toes, which sends him from the earth with bounding 
 and rebounding step ? What an JEolian harp the wind 
 finds in him ! Nor music alone does it awaken in his 
 bosom ; for, let but its feathery touch play upon his locks, 
 or fan his cheek, and gravitation lets go of him, he 
 floats and sails away, as though his body were a feather 
 and his soul the zephyr that played with it. Indeed, 
 half his discords come, because the winds, the buds, the 
 flowers, the light, so many fingers of the hand of nature, 
 are all striving to play different tunes upon him at the 
 same time. These delights are born of the exquisite
 
 204 THE WOEK OF EDUCATION. 
 
 workmanship of the Creator, before the ignorance and 
 wickedness of men have had time to mar it ; and they 
 flow out spontaneously and unconsciously, like a bird's 
 song, or a. flower's beauty. 
 
 Even to those who have no children of their own, 
 unless they are, as the apostle expresses it, " without 
 natural affection," even to those, the wonderful growth 
 of a child, in knowledge, in power, in affection, makes all 
 other wonders tame. Who ever saw a wretch so hea- 
 thenish, so dead, that the merry song or shout of a group 
 of gleeful children did not galvanize the misanthrope into 
 an exclamation of joy ? What orator or poet has elo- 
 quence that enters the soul with such quick and subtle 
 electricity, as a child's tear of pity for suffering, or his 
 frown of indignation at wrong ? A child is so much more 
 than a miracle, that its growth and future blessedness are 
 the only things worth working miracles for. God did not 
 make the child for the sake of the earth, nor for the sake 
 of the sun ; but he made the earth and the sun, as a foot- 
 stool and a lamp, to sustain his steps and to enlighten his 
 path, during a few only of the earliest years of his immor- 
 tal existence. 
 
 You perceive, my friends, that in speaking of the love- 
 liness of children, and their power to captivate and subdue 
 all hearts to a willing bondage, I have used none but mas- 
 culine pronouns, referring only to the stronger and 
 hardier sex ; for by what glow and melody of speech 
 can I sketch the vision of a young and beautiful daughter, 
 with all her bewildering enchantments ? By what cun- 
 ning art can the coarse material of words be refined and 
 subtilized into color, and motion, and music, till they shall 
 paint her bloom of health, " celestial, rosy red ; " till they 
 shall trace those motions that have the grace and the free- 
 dom of flame, and echo the sweet and affectionate tones
 
 THE WORK OF EDUCATION. 205 
 
 of a spirit yet warm from the hand that created it ? 
 What less than a divine power could have strung the 
 living chords of her voice to pour out unbidden and exult- 
 ing harmonies ? What fount of sacred flame kindles and 
 feeds the light that gleams from the pure depths of her 
 eye, and flushes her cheek with the hues of a perpetual 
 morning, arid shoots auroras from her beaming forehead ? 
 Oh ! profane not this last miracle of heavenly workmanship 
 with sight or sound of earthly impurity. Keep vestal 
 vigils around her inborn modesty ; and let the quickest 
 lightnings blast her tempter. She is Nature's mosaic of 
 charms. Looked upon as we look upon an object in 
 Natural History, upon a gazelle or a hyacinth, she is 
 a magnet to draw pain out of a wounded breast. While 
 we gaze upon her, and press her in ecstasy to our bosom, 
 we almost tremble, lest suddenly she should unfurl a wing 
 and soar to some better world. But, my friends, with 
 what emotions ought we to tremble, when our thoughts 
 pass from the present to the future, when we ponder 
 on the possibilities of evil as well as of good, which now, 
 all unconsciously to herself, lie hidden in her spirit's 
 coming history, now hidden, but to be revealed 
 soon as her tiny form shall have expanded to the stature 
 and her spirit to the power of womanhood ! When we 
 reflect, on the one hand, that this object, almost of our 
 idolatry, may go through life, solacing distress, minister- 
 ing to want, redeeming from guilt, making vice mourn 
 the blessedness it has lost because it was not virtue ; and, 
 as she walks holy and immaculate before God and before 
 men, some aerial anthem shall seem to be forever hymn- 
 ing peaceful benedictions around her ; or, on the other 
 hand, that, from the dark fountains of a corrupted heart, 
 she shall send forth a secret, subtle poison, compared with 
 which all earthly venoms are healthful ; when we reflect
 
 206 THE WORK OF EDUCATION. 
 
 that, so soon, she may become one or the other of all this, 
 the pen falls, the tongue falters and fails, while the hope- 
 ful, fearful heart rushes from thanksgiving to prayer, and 
 from prayer to thanksgiving. 
 
 But the most striking and wonderful provision which Is 
 made, in the accustomed course of nature and providence, 
 for the welfare of children, remains to be mentioned. 
 Reflect, for a moment, my friends, how it has come to 
 pass, that the successive generations of children, from 
 Adam to ourselves, each one of which was wholly inca- 
 pable of providing for itself for a single day, how has it 
 come to pass, that these successive generations have been 
 regularly sustained and continued to the present day, 
 without intermission or failure ? The Creator did not 
 leave these ever-returning exigencies without adequate 
 provision ; for how universal and how strong is the 
 love of offspring in the parental breast ! This love is the 
 grand resource, the complement of all other forces. 
 "We are accustomed to call the right of self-preservation 
 the first law of nature ; yet how this love of offspring 
 overrules and spurns it ! To rescue her child, the mother 
 breaks through a wall of fire, or plunges into the fathom- 
 less flood ; or, if it must be consumed in the flames, 
 or lie down in the deep, she clasps it to her bosom and 
 perishes with it. This maternal impulse does not so 
 much subjugate self, as forget that there is any such thing 
 as self; and, were .the mother possessed of a thousand 
 lives, for the welfare of her offspring she would squander 
 them all. Mourning, disconsolate mothers, bewailing lost 
 children ! Behold the vast procession, which reaches 
 from the earliest periods of the race to those who now 
 stand bending and weeping over the diminutive graves 
 which swallow up their hopes ; and what a mighty attes- 
 tation do they give to the strength of that instinct which
 
 THE WORK OF EDUCATION. 207 
 
 God lias implanted in the maternal breast ! Nor is it in 
 the human race only that this love of offspring bears 
 sway. All the higher orders of animated nature are 
 subjected to its control. It inspires the most timid races 
 of the brute creation with boldness, and melts the most 
 ferocious of them into love. To express its strength and 
 watchfulness, the hare is said to sleep with ever-open eye 
 on the form where her young repose ; and the pelican to 
 tear open her breast with her own beak, and pour out her 
 life-blood to feed her nestlings. The famishing eagle 
 grasps her prey in her talons and carries it to her lofty 
 nest ; and though she screams witli hunger, yet she will 
 not taste it until her young are satisfied ; and the gaunt 
 lioness bears the spoils of the forest to her cavern, nor 
 quenches the fire of her own parched lips until her whelps 
 have feasted. And thus, from the parent stock, from 
 the Adam and Eve, whether of animals or of men, who 
 came into the world full-formed from the hands of their 
 Creator, down through all successive generations, to 
 the present dwellers upon earth, has this invisible but 
 mighty instinct of the parents' heart brooded and held 
 its jealous watch over their young, nurturing their weak- 
 ness and instructing their ignorance, until the day of their 
 maturity, when it became their turn to re-affirm this great 
 law of nature towards their offspring. 
 
 This, my friends, is not sentimentality. It is the con- 
 templation of one of the divinest features in the Economy 
 of Providence. It was for the wisest ends that the Crea- 
 tor ordained, that as the offspring of each, " after its 
 kind," should be brought into life, then, in that self- 
 same hour, without volition or forethought on their part, 
 there should flame up in the breast of the parent, as 
 from the innermost recesses of nature, a new and over- 
 mastering impulse, an impulse which enters the soul
 
 208 THE WORK OP EDUCATION. 
 
 like a strong invader, conquering, revolutionizing, trans- 
 forming old pains into pleasures and old pleasures into 
 pains, until its great mission should be accomplished. 
 On this link the very existence of the races was suspended. 
 Hence Divine foreknowledge made it strong enough to 
 sustain them all ; for in vain would the fountain of 
 life have been opened in the maternal breast, if a deeper 
 fountain of love had not been opened in her heart. 
 
 Would you more adequately conceive what an insup- 
 portable wretchedness and torment the rearing of children 
 would be, if, instead of being rendered delightful by these 
 endearments of parental love, it had been merely com- 
 manded by law, and enforced by pains and penalties ; 
 would you, I say, more fully conceive this difference ; 
 contrast the feelings of a slave-breeder, (a wretch ab- 
 horred by God and man !) contrast, I say, the feelings of 
 a slave-breeder, who raises children for the market, with 
 the feelings of the slave-mother, in whose person this 
 sacred law of parental love is outraged. If one of these 
 doomed children, from what cause soever, becomes puny 
 and sickly, and gives good promise of defeating the cu- 
 pidity that called it into life, with what bitter emotions 
 does the master behold it ! He thinks of investments 
 sunk, of unmerchantable stock on hand, of the profit-and- 
 loss account ; and perhaps he is secretly meditating 
 schemes for preventing further expenditures by bringing 
 the hopeless concern to a violent close. But what an in- 
 expressible joy does the abused mother find in watching 
 over and caressing it, and cheating the hostile hours ; 
 and, (for such is the impartiality of nature,) if she can 
 beguile it of one pain, or win one note of gladness from its 
 sorrow-stricken frame, her dusky bosom thrills with as keen 
 a rapture as ever dilated the breast of a royal mother, when, 
 beneath a canopy and within curtains of silk and gold, 
 she nursed the heir of a hundred kings.
 
 THE WORK OF EDUCATION. 209 
 
 Iii civilized and Christianized man, this natural instinct 
 is exalted into a holy sentiment. At first, it is true, there 
 springs up this blind passion of parental love, yearning 
 for the good of the child, delighted by its pleasures, tor- 
 tured by its pains. But this vehement impulse, strong as 
 it is, is not left to do its work alone. It summons and 
 supplicates all the nobler faculties of the soul to become 
 its counsellors and allies. It invokes the aid of con- 
 science ; and conscience urges to do all and suffer all, for 
 the child's welfare. For every default, conscience ex 
 postulates, rebukes, mourns, threatens, chastises. That 
 is selfishness, and not conscience, in the parent, which 
 says to the child, " You owe your being and your capaci- 
 ties to me." Conscience makes the parent say, " I owe 
 my being and my capacities to you. It is I who have 
 struck out a spark which is to burn with celestial efful- 
 gence, or glare with baleful fires. It is I who have 
 evoked, out of nothingness, unknown and incalculable 
 capacities of happiness and of misery ; and all that can 
 be done by mortal means is mine to do." 
 
 Nor does this love of offspring stop with conscience. 
 It enlists, in its behalf, the general feeling of benevolence, 
 benevolence, that god-like sentiment which rejoices in 
 the joys and suffers in the sufferings of others. The soul 
 of the truly benevolent man does not seem to reside much 
 in its own body. Its life, to a great extent, is the mere 
 reflex of the lives of others. It migrates into their 
 bodies, and, identifying its existence with their existence, 
 finds its own happiness in increasing and prolonging their 
 pleasures, in extinguishing or solacing their pains. And 
 of all places into which the whole heart of benevolence 
 ever migrates, it is in the child, where it finds the readiest 
 welcome, and where it loves best to prolong its residence. 
 
 So the voice of another sentiment, a sentiment 
 
 VOL. I. 14
 
 210 THE WORK OP EDUCATION. 
 
 whose commands are more authoritative than those of 
 any other which ever startles the slumbering faculties 
 from their guilty repose, I mean the religious senti- 
 ment, the sense of duty to God, this, too, comes in aid 
 of the parental affection ; and it appeals to the whole 
 nature, in language awful as that which made the camp 
 of the Israelites tremble at the foot of Sinai. This sense of 
 duty to God compels the parent to contemplate the child 
 in his moral and religious relations. It says, " However 
 different you may now be from your child, you strong, 
 and he weak ; you learned, and he ignorant ; your mind 
 capacious of the mighty events of the past and the 
 future, and he alike ignorant of yesterday and to-morrow, 
 yet, in a few short years, all this difference will be lost, 
 and one of the greatest remaining differences between 
 yourself and him will be that which your own conduct 
 towards him shall have caused or permitted. If, then, 
 God is Truth, if God is Love, teach the child above 
 all things to seek for Truth, and to abound in Love." 
 
 So much, then, my friends, is done, in the common 
 and established course of nature, for the welfare of our 
 children. Nature supplies a perennial force, unexhausted, 
 inexhaustible, re-appearing whenever and wherever the 
 parental relation exists. We, then, who are engaged in 
 the sacred cause of education, are entitled to look upon 
 all parents as having given hostages to our cause ; and, 
 just as soon as we can make them see the true relation 
 in which they and their children stand to this cause, they 
 will become advocates for its advancement, more ardent 
 and devoted than ourselves. "We hold every parent by a 
 bond more strong and faithful than promises or oaths, - 
 by a Heaven-established relationship, which no power on 
 earth can dissolve. Would parents furnish us with a 
 record of their secret consciousness, how large a portion
 
 THE WORK OF EDUCATION. 211 
 
 of those solemn thoughts and emotions, which throng the 
 mind in the solitude of the night-watches, and fill up 
 their hours of anxious contemplation, would be found to 
 relate to the welfare of their offspring ! Doubtless the 
 main part of their most precious joys comes from the 
 present or prospective well-being of their children ; and 
 oh ! how often would they account all gold as dross, and 
 fame as vanity, and life as nothing, could they bring back 
 the look of the cradle's innocence upon the coffined 
 reprobate ! 
 
 With some parents, of course, these pleasures and pains 
 constitute a far greater share of the good or ill of life 
 than with others ; and with mothers generally far more 
 than with fathers. We have the evidence of this superior 
 attachment of the mother, in those supernatural energies 
 which she will put forth to rescue her child from danger ; 
 we know it by the vigils and fasting she will endure to 
 save it from the pangs of sickness, or to ward off the 
 shafts of death ; when, amid all the allurements of the 
 world, her eye is fastened, and her heart dwells upon but 
 one spot in it ; we know it by her agonies, when, at last, 
 she consigns her child to an early grave ; we know it by 
 the tear which fills her eye, when, after the lapse of years, 
 some stranger repeats, by chance, its beloved name ; and 
 we know it by the crash and ruin of the intellect some- 
 times produced by the blow of bereavement ; all these 
 are signatures written by the finger of God upon human 
 nature itself, by which we know that parents are con- 
 stituted and predestined to be the friends of education. 
 They will, they must be its friends, as soon as increasing 
 intelligence shall have demonstrated to them the indis- 
 soluble relation which exists between Education and Hap- 
 piness.
 
 212 THE WORK OF EDUCATION. 
 
 I have now spoken, my friends, of what is done for us, 
 in the accustomed course of nature and providence, as it 
 regards the well-being of our children. But here I come 
 to the point of divergence. Here I must speak of OUR 
 part of the work ; of those duties which the Creator has 
 devolved upon ourselves. Here, therefore, it becomes 
 my duty to expose the greatest of all mistakes, committed 
 in regard to the greatest of all subjects, and followed by 
 proportionate calamities. 
 
 Two grand qualifications are equally necessary in the 
 education of children, Love and Knowledge. Without 
 love, every child would be regarded as a nuisance, and 
 cast away as soon as born. Without knowledge, love 
 will ruin every child. Nature supplies the love ; but she 
 does not supply the knowledge. The love is spontaneous ; 
 the knowledge is to be acquired by study and toil, by the 
 most attentive observation and the profoundest reflection. 
 Here, then, lies the fatal error : parents rest contented 
 with the feeling of love ; they do not devote themselves 
 to the acquisition of that knowledge which is necessary 
 to guide it. Year after year, thousands and tens of 
 thousands indulge the delightful sentiment, but never 
 spend an hour in studying the conditions which are in- 
 dispensable to its gratification. 
 
 In regard to the child's physical condition, its growth, 
 and health, and length of life, these depend, in no in- 
 considerable degree, on the health and self-treatment of 
 the mother before its birth. After birth, they depend 
 not only on the vitality and temperature of the air it 
 breathes, on dress, and diet, and exercise, but on certain 
 proportions and relations which these objects bear to each 
 other. Now the tenderest parental love, a love which 
 burns, like incense upon an altar, for an idolized child, 
 for a quarter of a century, or for half a century, will
 
 THE WORK OF EDUCATION. 213 
 
 never teach the mother that there are different ingredi- 
 ents in the air we breathe, that one of them sustains 
 life, that another of them destroys life, that every breath 
 we draw changes the life-sustaining element into the life- 
 destroying one ; and therefore that the air which is to be 
 respired must be perpetually renewed. Love will never 
 instruct the mother what materials or textures of cloth- 
 ing have the proper conducting or non-conducting quali- 
 ties for different climates, or for different seasons of the 
 year. Love is no chemist or physiologist, and therefore 
 will never impart to the mother any knowledge of the 
 chemical or vital qualities of different kinds of food, of 
 the nature or functions of the digestive organs, of the 
 susceptibilities of the nervous system, nor, indeed, of any 
 other of the various functions on which health and life 
 depend. Hence, the most affectionate but ignorant mo- 
 ther, during the cold nights of winter, will visit the 
 closet-like bed-chamber of her darling, calk up every 
 crevice and cranny, smother him with as many integu- 
 ments as. incase an Egyptian mummy, close the door of 
 his apartment, and thus inflict upon him a consumption, 
 born of love. Or she will wrap nice comforters about 
 his neck, until, in some glow of perspiration, he flings 
 them off, and dies of the croup. Or she will consult the 
 infinite desires of a child's appetite, instead of the finite 
 powers of his stomach, and thus pamper him, until he 
 languishes into a life of suffering and imbecility, or becomes 
 stupefied and besotted by one of sensual indulgence. 
 
 A mother has a first-born child, whom she dotes upon 
 to distraction, but, through some fatal error in its man- 
 agement, occasioned by her ignorance, it dies in the first, 
 beautiful, budding hour of childhood, nipped like the 
 sweet blossoms of spring by an untimely frost. Another 
 is committed to her charge, and in her secret heart she
 
 214 THE WORK OF EDUCATION. 
 
 says, " I will love this better than the first." But it is 
 not better love that the child needs ; it is more knowl- 
 edge. 
 
 It is the vast field of ignorance pertaining to these 
 subjects, in which quackery thrives and fattens. No one 
 who knows any thing of the organs and functions of the 
 human system, and of the properties of those objects in 
 nature to which that system is related, can hear a quack 
 descant upon the miraculous virtues of his nostrums, or 
 can read his advertisements in the newspapers, wherein, 
 fraudulently towards man, and impiously towards God, 
 he promises to sell an " Elixir of Life," or " The Balm 
 of Immortality," or " Resurection Pills," without con- 
 tempt for his ignorance, or detestation of his guilt. Could 
 the quack administer his nostrums to the great enemy, 
 Death, then, indeed, we might expect to live forever. 
 
 And what is the consequence of this excess of love and 
 lack of knowledge on the part of the parent ? More than 
 one-fifth part, almost a fourth part, of all the children 
 who are born, die before attaining the age of one year. 
 A fifth part have died before a seventieth part of the term 
 of existence has been reached ! What would the farmer 
 or the shepherd say, if he should lose one-fifth part of 
 his lambs or his kids before a seventieth part of their 
 natural term of life had been reached ? And before the 
 age of five years, more than a third part of all who are 
 born of our race have returned again to the earth, 
 the great majority of them having died of that most fatal 
 and wide-spread of all epidemics, unenlightened pa- 
 rental love. What an inconceivable amount of anxiety 
 for the health and life of children might he prevented ; 
 how much of the agony of bereavement might be saved ; 
 how much joy might be won from beholding childhood's 
 rosy beauty and bounding health, if parents, especially
 
 THE WORK OF EDUCATION. 215 
 
 mothers, would study such works as those of Doctor 
 Combe, on the Principles of Physiology, as applied to 
 Health and Education, and on Digestion and Dietetics ; 
 of Doctor Brigham, on Mental Excitement ; or Miss Sedg- 
 wick's Means and Ends ; and, (if they are to stand at all 
 in the way of mastering this knowledge,) throw Cooper, 
 and Bulwer, and Maryatt, and Boz, into the grate, or 
 under the fore-stick ! 
 
 When we ascend from the management of the body to 
 the direction and culture of the intellectual and moral 
 nature, the calamitous consequences of ignorance are as 
 much greater, as spirit is more valuable than matter, 
 because the mischief wrought by unskilfulness is always 
 in proportion to the value of the material wrought upon. 
 In regard to the child's advancement in knowledge and 
 virtue, with what spontaneity and vigor do the parental 
 impulses spring up ! They seek, they yearn, they pray 
 for his welfare, for his worldly renown, for his moral ex- 
 cellence, that he may grow, not only in stature, but in 
 favor with God and man. These parental affections 
 watch over him; they stand like an angelic guard around 
 him; they agonize for his growth in the right, for his 
 redemption from the wrong. But all these affections are 
 blind impulses. They do not know, they cannot devise 
 a single measure, whereby to accomplish the object they 
 would die to attain. Love of children has no knowledge 
 of the four different temperaments, the fibrous, the 
 sanguine, the nervous, the lymphatic, or of the differ- 
 ent combinations of them, and how different a course of 
 treatment each one of them, or the predominance of either, 
 demands. Love of children does not know how to com- 
 mand, in order to insure the habit of prompt and willing 
 obedience, obedience, in the first place, to parental 
 authority, afterwards to the dictates of conscience when
 
 216 THE WORK OF EDUCATION. 
 
 that faculty is developed, and to the laws of God when 
 those laws are made known to them. Love of children 
 does not know in what manner, or in what measure, to 
 inflict punishment; or how to reconcile inflexibility of- 
 principle with changes in circumstances. It does not 
 understand the favorable moments when the mind is fitted 
 to receive the seeds of generous, noble, devout sentiments ; 
 or when, on the other hand, not even the holiest princi- 
 ples should be mentioned. All this invaluable, indispen- 
 sable knowledge comes from reading, from study, from 
 observation, from reflection, from forethought ; it never 
 comes, it never can come, from the blind instinct or feel- 
 ing of parental love. Hence, as we all know, those pa- 
 rents do not train up their children best who love them 
 most. Nay, if the love be not accompanied with knowl- 
 edge, it precipitates the ruin of its object. This result 
 can be explained in a single word. The child has appetites 
 and desires, without knowledge. These, if unrestrained, 
 all tend to excess. They demand too much of food, dress, 
 liberty, authority, and so forth. The child has a throng 
 of selfish propensities, which, if unbalanced by the higher 
 sentiments, prompt to acts of disrespect, pride, cruelty, 
 injustice. Now the dictate of unintelligent love in the 
 parent is, to assist the child in realizing all its wants. 
 Hence the parent's power supplies the child's weakness 
 in procuring the means for gratifying its excessive desires; 
 and thus, that love which nature designed as its blessing, 
 becomes its curse. What intelligent observer has not 
 seen many a parent run, at the first call of a child, re- 
 move all obstructions from his path, and hasten his slow 
 steps onward to ruin ! 
 
 Solomon says, explicitly and without qualification, 
 " Train up a child in the way he should go, and when 
 he is old, HE WILL NOT DEPART FROM IT." Now, if this be
 
 THE WORK OF EDUCATION. 217 
 
 true, then it is a short and a clear syllogism, that if men 
 do depart from the way in which they should go, they 
 were not, as children, trained up in it. Or, take the say- 
 ing only as a general proposition, one to be applied to 
 the great majority of cases, and it equally follows that 
 if men, generally-, do depart from the way in which they 
 should go, then, generally, they were not trained up in 
 it. Under the loosest construction, Solomon must have 
 meant, that there are powers, faculties, instrumentalities, 
 graciously vouchsafed by Heaven to man, by which, if 
 discovered, and applied to the processes of education, 
 children, generally, when they become men, will go and 
 do, and love to go and do, as they ought to go and do. 
 No latitudinarianisni of interpretation can escape this 
 inference. 
 
 And yet, with this authority from the Scriptures before 
 us, as to what may be done, how often does the miscon- 
 duct of children bring down the gray hairs of parents 
 with sorrow to the grave ! With every generation, there 
 re-appear amongst us, the arts of fraud, the hand of vio- 
 lence, and the feet that are swift to shed blood. Nor are 
 flagitious deeds and abandoned lives confined to families 
 alone, where the treatment of children, by their parents, 
 is characterized by gross ignorance and heathenism. 
 Such cases, it is true, abound, and in such numbers, too, 
 as almost to laugh to scorn our claims, as a people, to 
 civilization and Christianity, But how often do we see 
 children issuing from the abodes of rational and pious 
 parents, where a burning love, a hallowed zeal, a life- 
 consuming toil, have been expended upon them, of 
 parents who have bedewed the nightly pillow with tears, 
 and, morning and evening, have wrestled with the angel 
 of mercy to bring down blessings upon their heads, 
 how often do we see these children bursting madly forth,
 
 218 THE WORK OF EDUCATION. 
 
 and rushing straight onward to some precipice of destruc 
 tion ; and though parents and kindred and friends pursue, 
 and strive to intercept them ere they reach the brink of 
 ruin ; and gather in long array and stand with outstretched 
 arms and imploring voice, to arrest their fatal career, 
 
 yet, gathering strength and swiftness, the victims rush 
 by, and plunge into the abyss of perdition ! Yet, if there 
 is any truth in the declaration of Solomon, these victims, 
 
 at least most of them, might have been saved, and 
 would have been saved, had the knowledge of the parents 
 been equal to their love. God grant that in saying these 
 things, I may not shoot an arrow of pain through any 
 parent's heart ; still more fervently do I say, God grant 
 that a timely consideration of these truths may turn aside 
 the arrows of pain from every parental breast ! 
 
 The instinctive love which parents feel for their chil- 
 dren is only one of a large class of natural desires, all 
 of which are subjected to the same conditions. Nature, 
 in each case, supplies the desire, but she leaves it to us 
 to acquire the knowledge which is necessary to guide it. 
 She leaves it to us so to control and regulate the desire, 
 that, in the long-run, it may receive the highest amount 
 of gratification. This truth is susceptible of most exten- 
 sive illustration. Time, however, will allow me to adduce 
 only a few analogies. 
 
 All men are born with a desire for food, but they are 
 born without any knowledge of agriculture, or of the arts 
 or implements of the chase, by means of which food can 
 be procured. The lowest grade of savages feel a natural 
 hunger or thirst as keen as that of the .highest orders of 
 civilized man. But the savage has no knowledge how to 
 rear the luxuries of the garden, the orchard, the grain- 
 field, the pasture, or the fold. Hence he subsists upon 
 such uncooked roots or unsodden flesh as can be found
 
 THE WOEK OP EDUCATION. 219 
 
 or caught in the neighborhood of his cave or wigwam. 
 But knowledge an excited and cultivated intellect 
 has been at work for civilized man ; and, in obedience 
 to its command, the earth teems with delicious fruits, the 
 valleys abound with fatness, the ocean becomes tributary ; 
 in fine, all the fields of nature are converted into one 
 great laboratory to prepare sweets and fragrance and 
 flavor for his voluptuous table. We derive the appetite, 
 perfect and full-grown, from our Maker ; but we are left 
 to discover for ourselves the means and processes by which 
 this appetite can best be gratified. The result of all our 
 knowledge on this subject is expressed in the common 
 proverb, that the temperate man is the greatest epicure ; 
 that is, the greatest possible amount of gratification 
 from eating and drinking will be enjoyed by the temperate 
 man ; a conclusion, the very opposite of that which the 
 appetite itself suggests. 
 
 So in regard to a love of beauty. Nature confers this 
 sentiment, in a greater or less degree, upon all the race. 
 But the cultivation of it, the preparation of objects to 
 gratify it, architecture, painting, sculpture, these 
 come through art and genius, by the application of a 
 knowledge of our own acquiring. The Indian bridegroom, 
 stung with love, and seeking to beautify the tawny idol 
 of his affections, besmears her face with red or yellow 
 ochre ; he tattoos her skin, and for jewels suspends a 
 string of bears' claws over her sooty bosom. In conse- 
 quence of possessing a somewhat higher knowledge, our 
 sense of beauty is elevated perhaps two or three degrees 
 above that of the barbarian. Hence we seek to clothe 
 a beloved object with fine linen, and Tyrian purple, and 
 silken stuffs of colors rich and costly ; and instead of the 
 claws of bears, we adorn her with carcanets of pearl and 
 diamonds. When mankind shall be blessed with that
 
 220 THE WORK OF EDUCATION. 
 
 purer and higher knowledge which shall identify the types 
 of beauty with those of excellence, then will our ideal, 
 advancing with the advancing light, demand, as the price 
 of its admiration, richer ornaments than Ophir or Gol- 
 conda can supply ; it will demand the bloom and elas- 
 ticity of perfect health, manners born of artlessness and 
 enthusiasm, and a countenance so inscribed with the 
 records of pure thoughts and benevolent deeds, as to be 
 one beaming, holy hieroglyph of love and duty. Then 
 will our exalted sense of beauty repel the aggression of 
 foreign ornaments. 
 
 So the love of property, to which for another purpose 
 I have before referred, is common to all. There is an 
 inborn desire for the conveniences, the comforts, the ele- 
 gances, the independence, which property confers. But 
 men are not born with one particle of knowledge respect- 
 ing the means or instruments by which property can be 
 acquired. And we all know how certainly a man, who 
 acts from the blind desire, without any knowledge of the 
 appropriate means, brings ruin upon himself and family. 
 How much knowledge is requisite, what long courses of 
 previous study and apprenticeship are demanded, to fit 
 men for the learned professions, for commerce, manufac- 
 tures and the mechanic arts ! Who would consign his 
 goods to a merchant who knows nothing of the laws of 
 trade, of demand and supply, of eligible markets, seasons, 
 and so forth ? What a variety and extent of preliminary 
 knowledge respecting modes and processes must be ob- 
 tained, before the fabrics of the artisan or the manufac- 
 turer can be produced. Suppose a young man of twenty 
 or twenty-five years of age, to begin to rear a family of 
 children. Suppose him, at the same time, to inherit a 
 hundred thousand dollars in money. He seeks to gratify 
 his parental instinct, by educating his children ; and he
 
 THE WORK OF EDUCATION. 221 
 
 seeks also to enlarge his estate, by purchasing and carry- 
 ing on a manufacturing establishment ; but neither on 
 the subject of education nor of manufactures, has he ever 
 thought, or read, or sought instruction. How long, think 
 you, my friends, would it be, before the most perfect 
 machinery ever made by human skill would be wrenched, 
 or crushed, or torn in pieces, under his ignorant manage- 
 ment; the best of cottons or woollens spoiled, and his 
 whole fortune dissipated ? Without some knowledge of 
 the art of manufacturing, he would hardly know which 
 way to turn the wheels of his machinery ; he would not 
 know in what quantities to feed it, or in what order and 
 succession to carry the material from part to part. With- 
 out knowledge, also, he will conduct the education of 
 his children quite as ruinously as his pecuniary invest- 
 ments. If he is unacquainted with the different temper- 
 aments which his children may have, the lymphatic, 
 the sanguine, the nervous, the fibrous, he will make 
 as great mistakes in regard to diet and exercise, to intel- 
 lectual and moral training, to mental stimulus or restraint, 
 as though he should attempt to weave hemp upon a silk- 
 loom. If he does not know in what order nature develops 
 the faculties, one after another, he will commit the same 
 error, as though he should put the raw material, in the 
 first instance, on the finishing machine, and carry it, last 
 of all, through the preliminary stages. If you will allow 
 me to carry on the comparison, I will add, that, to feed 
 machinery, in any stage of the work, with such an over- 
 quantity of stock as clogs and chokes it, is only the paral- 
 lel of that common misjudgment which gives to children 
 longer lessons than they can learn. So, to ply the minds 
 of children with improper motives, in order to accelerate 
 their progress, is a far greater mistake than it would be 
 to drive machinery by doubling the head of water or the
 
 222 THE WOEK OF EDUCATION. 
 
 power of steam, until every shaft should be twisted, 
 every baud stretched, and every pinion loosened, in it. 
 Such a silly adventurer would bring depravation and ruin 
 alike upon the mechanical and the educational depart- 
 ments of his enterprise. 
 
 Here lies the great and the only difference between the 
 cases. When material fabrics or commodities are spoiled 
 by a bungler, when ore is turned into dross in the 
 smelting, when garments are ruined in the making, when 
 a house will not stand, or a ship will not sail, we see 
 what mischief has been done, what materials have been 
 wasted. We understand enough of the subject to know 
 what should have been done, and to compare it with 
 what has been done. But no reflecting man can doubt, 
 for a moment, that the minds of our children, those 
 treasures of inestimable value, are corrupted and de- 
 vastated by every ignorant parent, in a degree at least 
 equal to what the most precious earthly materials would 
 be, in the hands of the rudest workman. 
 
 But it is not every child, nor even a majority of chil- 
 dren, who, with any propriety, can be compared to mechan- 
 ical structures, or to those pliant and ductile materials 
 that are wrought into beautiful forms by the skill of the 
 artisan. Children formed in the prodigality of nature, 
 gifted to exert strong influences upon the race, are not 
 passive ; they are endued with vital and efficient forces 
 of their own. Their capacious and fervid souls were 
 created to melt and recast opinions, codes, communities, 
 as crude ores are melted and purified in the furnace. To 
 the sensitive and resilient natures of such children, an 
 ungentle touch is a sting ; a hot word is a living coal. 
 By mere innate, spontaneous force, their vehement spirits 
 rise to such a pitch of exaltation, that, if all bland and 
 sedative arts do not assuage them, if all wisdom does not
 
 THE WOEK OF EDUCATION. 223 
 
 guide them, they become scourges instead of blessings 
 to mankind. Such natures are among the richest gifts 
 of Heaven to the race, created for great emergencies 
 and enterprises, always finding or making occasions for 
 deeds of immortality ; like Moses, scorning the power 
 of kings and giving deliverance to a captive nation ; or 
 like Paul, speaking undaunted in the face of courts, and 
 making potentates tremble. Yet how few parents know, 
 or have ever sought to know, how to manage these impet- 
 uous and fiery souls ! How many parents regard physi- 
 cal strength as the only antagonist and corrective of 
 spiritual strength, ignorant of the truth that, to a great 
 extent, they are incommensurable quantities. How few 
 reflect that a child may be as much stronger than the 
 parents in his passions, as the parents are stronger than 
 the child, in their limbs ; that wisdom in them, therefore, 
 is the only true correlative of will in him; and that 
 prudence and discretion in the arrangement of circum- 
 stances beforehand, are, in thousands of cases, the effectual 
 preventive of the necessity of punishment afterwards. 
 If a man rashly undertakes to use materials which are 
 liable to spontaneous combustion, without any knowledge 
 of the conditions which are sure to generate the flame, 
 ought he to complain of the laws of nature, or of his 
 own ignorance, when he suffers a conflagration ? We 
 know that a man of intelligence and circumspection will 
 spend a life in the manufacture or the transportation 
 of gunpowder, without an accident ; while a stupid 
 clodpoll will celebrate his first day's service by an ex- 
 plosion. 
 
 My friends, is it not incredible that any parent should 
 ever attempt to manage and direct that mighty force, 
 a child's soul, without having first sought to acquire 
 some knowledge of its various attributes, of its upward
 
 224 THE WORK OF EDUCATION. 
 
 and its downward tending faculties, of the reciprocal re- 
 lations existing between it and the world into which it 
 has been brought, and of the manner in which its marvel- 
 lous capacities may be developed into harmony and beauty-, 
 and sanctified into holiness ? Look at that every-day re- 
 ality in life, which, were it not so familiar, we should 
 pronounce the most delightful sight in this sorrowing 
 world, that of a young mother clasping her first-born 
 infant to her breast, while the light and shade that cross 
 her countenance reveal the infinite hopes and fears that 
 alternate within. What is there of ease, pleasure, luxury, 
 fortune, health, life, that she would not barter, could she 
 win a sign from heaven, that her child should grow to 
 manhood, and as it should wax strong in body, should 
 grow also in favor with God and man ? Yet, was there 
 any thing in her own education, is there any thing in her 
 daily pursuits in life, or in the tone and habits of society, 
 which lead her to lay hold upon the promise, that if she 
 brings up her child in the way he should go, when he is 
 old he WILL NOT depart from it ? If the hospitalities of 
 her house are to be tendered to a distinguished guest, 
 nay, if she is only to prepare a refection of cakes for a 
 tea-party, she fails not to examine some cookery-book, or 
 some manuscript recipe, lest she should convert her rich 
 ingredients into unpalatable compounds ; but without 
 ever having read one book on the subject of education, 
 without ever having reflected one hour upon this great 
 theme, without ever having sought one conversation with 
 an intelligent person upon it, she undertakes so to mingle 
 the earthly and the celestial elements of instruction for 
 that child's soul, that he shall be fitted to discharge all 
 duties below, and to enjoy all blessings above. When the 
 young mother has occasion to work the initials of her 
 name upon her household napery, does she not consult
 
 THE WOKK OF EDUCATION. 225 
 
 the sampler, prepared in her juvenile days, that every 
 stitch may be set with regularity and in order ? 'Yet this 
 same mother surrenders herself to blind ignorance and 
 chance when she is to engrave immortal characters upon 
 the eternal tablets of the soul. To embroider an earth- 
 ly garment, there must be knowledge and skill ; but 
 neither is regarded as necessary for the fit adornment of 
 the soul's imperishable vesture. The young mother seems 
 to think she has done her whole duty to her child when 
 she has christened it George Washington Lafayette, or 
 Evelina Henrietta Augusta ; but she consults neither book 
 nor friends to know by what hallowed words of counsel 
 and of impulse she can baptize it into a life of wisdom and 
 of holiness. What wonder then, what wonder then, when 
 children grow old, that they should disperse in all ways, 
 rather than walk in the way in which they should go ? 
 
 If the vehement, but blind love of offspring, which 
 comes by nature, is not enlightened and guided by knowl- 
 edge, and study, and reflection, it is sure to defeat its 
 own desires. Hence, the frequency and the significance 
 of such expressions as are used by plain, rustic people, 
 of strong common sense: " There were too many pea- 
 cocks where that boy was brought up ; " or, " The silly 
 girl is not to blame, for she was dolled up, from a doll in 
 the cradle to a doll in the parlor." All children have 
 foolish desires, freaks, caprices, appetites, which they have 
 no power or skill to gratify ; but the foolish parent sup- 
 plies all the needed skill, time, money, to gratify them ; 
 and thus the greater talent and resources of the parent 
 foster the propensities of the child into excess and pre- 
 dominance. The parental love which was designed by 
 Heaven to be the guardian angel of the child, is thus 
 transformed into a cruel minister of evil. 
 
 Think, my friends, for one moment, of the marvellous 
 
 VOL. I. 15
 
 228 THE WOEK OF EDUCATION. 
 
 nature with which we have been endowed, of its mani- 
 fold and diverse capacities, and of their attributes of 
 infinite expansion and duration. Then cast a rapid 
 glance over this magnificent temple of the universe into 
 which we have been brought. The same Being created 
 both by His omnipotence ; and, by His wisdom, He has 
 adapted the dwelling-place to the dweller. The exhaust- 
 less variety of natural objects by which we are sur- 
 rounded ; the relations of the family, of society, and of the 
 race; the adorable perfections of the Divine mind, 
 these are means for the development, and spheres for the 
 activity, and objects for the aspiration of the immortal 
 soul. For the sustentation of our physical natures, God 
 has created the teeming earth, and tenanted the field 
 and the forest, the ocean and the air, with innumerable 
 forms of life ; and He has said to us, " have dominion " 
 over them. For the education of the perceptive intellect, 
 there have been provided the countless multitude and 
 diversity of substances, forms, colors, motions, from a 
 drop of water, to the ocean ; from the tiny crystal that 
 sparkles upon the shore, to the sun that blazes in the 
 heavens, and the sun-strewn firmament. For the educa- 
 tion of the reflecting intellect we have the infinite relations 
 of discovered and undiscovered sciences, the encyclo- 
 paedias of matter and of spirit, of which all the en- 
 cyclopaedias of man, as yet extant, are but the alphabet. 
 We have domestic sympathies looking backwards, around, 
 and forwards ; and answering to these, are the ties of filial, 
 conjugal, and parental relations. Through our inborn 
 sense of melody and harmony, all joyful and plaintive 
 emotions flow out into spontaneous music ; and, not friends 
 and kindred only, but even dead nature echoes back our 
 sorrows and our joys. To give a costless delight to our 
 sense of beauty, we have the variegated landscape, the
 
 THE WORK OF EDUCATION. 227 
 
 rainbow, the ever-renewing beauty of the moon, the 
 glories of the rising and the setting sun, and the ineffable 
 purity and splendor of that celestial vision when the 
 northern and the southern auroras shoot up from the 
 horizon, and overspread the vast concave with their many- 
 colored flame, as though it were a reflection caught from 
 the waving banner of angels, when the host of heaven 
 rejoices over some sinner that has repented. And finally, 
 for the amplest development, for the eternal progress of 
 those attributes that are proper to man, for conscience, 
 for the love of truth, for that highest of all emotions, the 
 love and adoration of our Creator, God, in his un- 
 searchable riches, has made full provision. And here, on 
 the one hand, is the subject of education, the child, 
 with its manifold and wonderful powers ; and, on the 
 other hand, this height, and dopth, and boundlessness of 
 natural and of spiritual instrumentalities, to build up the 
 nature of that child into a capacity for the intellectual 
 comprehension of the universe, and into a spiritual simi- 
 litude to its Author. And who are they that lay their 
 rash hands upon this holy work ? Where or when have 
 they learned, or sought to learn, to look at the unfolding 
 powers of the child's soul, and to see what it requires, 
 and then to run their eye and hand over this universe of 
 material and of moral agencies, and to select and apply 
 whatever is needed, at the time needed, and in the mea- 
 sure needed ? Surely, in no other department of life is 
 knowledge so indispensable ; surely, in no other is it so 
 little sought for. In no other navigation is there such 
 danger of wreck ; in no other is there such blind pilotage. 
 But the parent has the child on hand, and he must 
 educate and control him. For this purpose, he must ap- 
 ply such means and motives as he is acquainted with, 
 and use them with such skill as he may happen to possess.
 
 228 THE WORK OP EDUCATION. 
 
 In regard to the intellect, the parent has one general 
 notion that the child has faculties by which he can learn, 
 and he has another general notion that there are things 
 to be learned ; but, at the same time, he is utterly ig- 
 norant of the distinctive nature of the intellectual facul- 
 ties ; of the periods of their respective development ; of 
 the particular classes of objects in the external world, 
 and the particular subjects of philosophical speculation, 
 which are related to particular faculties, and adapted to 
 arouse and strengthen them ; and he is also ignorant of 
 all the favoring circumstances under which the faculties 
 and their related objects should be brought into com- 
 munion. In such a condition of things, are not the 
 chances as infinity to one against the proper training of 
 the child ? 
 
 I say, the parent who has never read or reflected on 
 this subject, is necessarily ignorant of the favoring cir- 
 cumstances under which knowledge should be addressed 
 to a child's mind. What but a profound and widely 
 prevalent ignorance on this point, can account for the 
 fact, that a parent should send his child of four years 
 of age to a dreary and repulsive schoolroom, and plant 
 him there upon a seat, which, like the old instruments 
 of torture, seems to have been contrived in the light of 
 anatomical knowledge, and pre-adapted to shoot aches 
 ai^d cramps into every joint and muscle ? What but ig- 
 norance on this subject, could ever permit a teacher to 
 enforce stagnation upon both the body and the mind of 
 a little child, for at least two hours and a half of the 
 three hours in each half day's session of a school ? In 
 our old schoolhouses, and under our old system, were 
 not little children denied alike the repose of sleep and the 
 excitements of being awake ? Were not their heads often 
 surrounded by air as hot and dry as that of an African
 
 THE WORK OF EDUCATION. 229 
 
 desert, while Boreas was allowed to seize them by the 
 feet ? Were they not condemned to read what they did 
 not comprehend, and to commit to memory arbitrary 
 rules in grammar and in arithmetic, which were not 
 explained ? Did the parent visit the school, or manifest 
 interest and sympathy in the studies of the child ? And 
 when, at last, alienation and disgust succeeded, when the 
 school was deserted, the books thrown aside, and scenes 
 of rude and riotous pleasure were sought in their stead, 
 did not the parent justify himself, and throw the blame 
 of his own folly upon nature, by saying, Alas ! the child 
 never loved learning ? But I ask whether such a course 
 of proceeding is a fair trial of the question, whether God 
 has created the human intellect to hate knowledge ? In 
 all soberness I ask, whether it would not be every whit 
 as fair an experiment, should an idiot seize a child in one 
 hand and a honey-pot in the other, and after besmearing 
 the soles of his feet and the palms of his hands, and the 
 nape of his neck with the honey, and producing only resist- 
 ance and disgust, should then deny that children like 
 honey ? 
 
 Still more disastrous are the mistakes of ignorance, 
 in moral training. All punishment, for instance, holds 
 the most intimate relation to morals ; and yet, how reck- 
 less and absurd is its infliction, when administered by 
 ignorant or passionate parents ! When a child is made 
 to expiate a wrong, by committing to memory two chap- 
 ters in the Bible, as many a child has been compelled 
 to do, does it make him love the right or hate the 
 Bible ? When a rich father threatens to disinherit a way- 
 ward son, does the menace tend to make that son obey 
 the fifth commandment, or does it only make him hope 
 that his father will die in a fit, and too suddenly to make 
 a will ? I once saw the mother of a large family of chil-
 
 230 THE WORK OP EDUCATION. 
 
 dren, a woman who would have been ashamed not to 
 be able to discuss the merits of the latest novel, induce 
 her little son to take a nauseous dose of medicine, by tell- 
 ing him that if he did not swallow it quickly, she would 
 call in his little sister and give it all to her ; and so strong 
 had the selfish desire of getting something from his sister 
 become, that the little imp shut his eyes, scowled terri- 
 bly, and gulped down the dose ! When a child, to whom 
 no glimpse of the necessity and beauty of truth has ever 
 been revealed, sees a terrific storm of vengeance gathering 
 over him, and just ready to burst upon his head, it is not 
 depravity, it is only the instinct of self-preservation, that 
 prompts him to escape, through falsehood. Bodily fear 
 is one of the lowest of all motives, whether we regard the 
 object or the actor. As it regards the object, it is the 
 brute, and the brutish part of man only, that are amena- 
 ble to it. As it regards the agent, no one is so ignorant 
 and barbarous as not to know its power. The Hottentot, 
 the Esquimaux, the Fejee-Islander, all know that the 
 power of inflicting corporal pain produces subjection ; 
 nay, the more ignorant and barbarian any one may be, 
 the more sure is he to make the power of inflicting pain 
 his only resource. I do not mean to say, that, in the 
 present state of society, this motive can be wholly dis- 
 pensed with, in the government of children ; or, that evils 
 worse than itself might not arise from its universal pro- 
 scription. Still, its true place is certainly at, or very near, 
 the bottom of the scale. It may be used to prevent 
 wrong, by the sudden arrest of the offender ; but it never 
 can be used as an incentive to good. Other low classes 
 of motives consist in the gratification of appetite, the 
 acquisition of wealth, the love of display, the desire of 
 outshining others, and so forth. A character of high 
 and enduring excellence can never be formed from any
 
 THE WORK OF EDUCATION. 231 
 
 quantity or any combination of these elements. If dis- 
 tinction is the only thing for which my heart pants, and 
 I happen to belong to a community or a party that rever- 
 ences truth and virtue, then I shall be led to simulate 
 such motives and to perform such external actions as 
 resemble truth and virtue. Even then, however, the 
 semblance, and not the reality, will be my aim. But if 
 I am transferred to another community or party, which 
 carries its measures by persecution and senseless clamor, 
 or by persistence in falsehood and wrong ; then, spurred 
 on by the same love of distinction, I shall persecute, and 
 clamor senselessly, and persist to the end in falsehood 
 and wrong. It is because of a prevalent ignorance how 
 to use the motives of filial affection, of justice, of bene- 
 volence, of duty to God, of doing right for the internal 
 delight which doing right bestows ; it is because of this 
 prevalent ignorance, that bodily fear, the pleasures of 
 appetite, emulation and pride, constitute so large a portion 
 of the motive-forces that are now employed in the educa- 
 tion of children. And parents are yet to be made to 
 believe, with a depth of conviction they have never ex- 
 perienced ; they are to be made to feel as they have never 
 yet felt, that, from the same infant natures committed to 
 their care, they may rear up children who will be an honor 
 to their old age, and a staff for their declining years, or those 
 who will bring down their gray hairs with sorrow to the 
 grave ; and that, in the vast majority of cases, these 
 results depend, more than upon all things else, upon the 
 knowledge or the ignorance, the wisdom or the folly, that 
 superintends their training. 
 
 In explaining that part of the work of education which 
 the Creator seems to have committed to the hands of 
 men, I have been led thus far to speak of our duties as 
 individuals, rather than of those social and civil duties
 
 232 THE WORK OF EDUCATION. 
 
 which devolve upon us as neighbors, as citizens, and as 
 constituent parts of the government. 
 
 The first glance at our social position reveals one of 
 the most striking and significant facts in the arrangements 
 of Providence ; and, as a consequence of this fact, one 
 of the clearest of our social duties. A parent, however 
 vigilant and devoted he may be, prepares only a part of 
 the influences which go to the education of his child. 
 The community, and the State where he resides, prepare 
 the rest. The united force of all makes up the positive 
 education which the child receives. No person can now 
 be situated as Adam and Eve were, when rearing the two 
 elder members of their family. Without knowledge, 
 and guided only by chance, or by their own uninstructed 
 sagacity, they reared first a murderer, and then one who 
 feared God. The first was what we call a spoiled child, 
 whether ruined by indulgence or by severity, we know 
 not, perhaps by both ; the second had the advantage 
 of a little parental experience. But since their day, all 
 children are subject to influences external to the parental 
 household. No parent, now, can bring up his child in 
 an exhausted receiver. And henco the necessity that 
 each parent should look, not only to his own conduct, 
 but to the conduct of the community in which he resides. 
 That community must be moral and exemplary, in order 
 that he may be safe. Here, therefore, even an enlight- 
 ened selfishness coincides with benevolence. In order to 
 our own highest good, we are bound to do good to others ; 
 for we cannot be wholly safe while they are wrong. How 
 glorious the appointment of Providence, which thus 
 reconciles self-love with the love of the race; which, in- 
 deed, makes the former defeat its own ends, when it pur- 
 Hues them in contravention of the latter ! The love of 
 our own children, then, when duly enlightened, prompts 
 us to regard the welfare of those of our neighbor.
 
 THE WORK OF EDUCATION. 233 
 
 Emphatically do some of the most important of all 
 duties devolve upon us, as members of a State which is 
 invested with the authority to legislate for itself. If we 
 were governed by others, on their heads would be the 
 crime of our misgovernment ; but when we govern our- 
 selves, and govern wrongly, we unite, in our own persons, 
 both the guilt and the calamities of misgovernment. In 
 the present state of society, an education of a high char- 
 acter cannot be universally diffused, without a union of 
 the forces of society, and a concert in its action. Co-op- 
 eration and unity of purpose will be found to increase the 
 power of citizens in peace, as much as they do of soldiers 
 in war. And hence the duty of combined action, on the 
 part of the community, in reference to this subject. But 
 combined action can never be effected to any useful pur- 
 pose amongst a free people, without agreement, without 
 compact, that is, where the action of great numbers is 
 concerned, without law. Upon the lawgivers then, there 
 fastens an obligation of inexpressible magnitude and sa- 
 credness ; and utterly unworthy the honorable station of 
 a lawgiver is he, who would elude this duty, or who un- 
 faithfully discharges it, or who perverts it to any sinister 
 purpose. And why should the legislator forever debase 
 his character to that of a scourger, a prison-keeper, and 
 an executioner? Why, wearing a gorgon's head, and 
 carrying stripes in his hand, should he pass before the 
 community as an avenger of evil only, and not as the pro- 
 moter and rewarder of good ? If terror and retribution 
 are his highest attributes, then his post is no more honor- 
 able than that of the beadle who whips, or of the heads- 
 man who decapitates. A legislator, worthy of the name, 
 should seek for honor and veneration, by moving through 
 society as a minister of beneficence, rather than as a spec- 
 tre of fear. He should reflect that new and better re-
 
 234 THE WOBK OP EDUCATION. 
 
 suits in the condition of mankind are to be secured by 
 new and wiser measures. We are not to ask Heaven for 
 the annihilation of the present race, and the creation of 
 a new one ; but we are to ascertain and to use those 
 means, for the renovation, the redemption of mankind, 
 which have been given, or which the veracity of Heaven 
 stands pledged to give, whenever, on our part, we perform 
 the conditions preliminary to receiving them. 
 
 You will recollect, my friends, that memorable fire 
 which befell the city of New York, in the year 1835. It 
 took place in the heart of that great emporium, a spot 
 where merchants, whose wealth was like that of princes, 
 had gathered their treasures. In but few places on the 
 surface of the globe was there accumulated such a mass 
 of riches. From each continent and from all the islands 
 of the sea, ships had brought thither their tributary offer- 
 ings, until it seemed like a magazine of the nations, the 
 coffer of the world's wealth. In the midst of these 
 hoards, the fire broke out. It raged between two and 
 three days. Above, the dome of the sky was filled with 
 appalling blackness; below, the flames were of an unap- 
 proachable intensity of light and heat ; and such were 
 the inclemency of the season and the raging of the 
 elements, that all human power and human art seemed 
 as vanity and nothing. Yet, situated in the very midst 
 of that conflagration, there was one building, upon 
 which the storm of fire beat in vain. All around, 
 from elevated points in the distance, frOm steeples and 
 the roofs of houses, thousands of the trembling inhab- 
 itants gazed upon the awful scene; and thought, as 
 well they might, that it was one of universal and 
 undistinguishing havoc. But, as some swift cross-wind 
 furrowed athwart that sea of flame, or a broad blast beat 
 down its aspiring crests, there, safe amidst ruin, erect
 
 THE WORK OF EDUCATION. 235 
 
 amongst the falling, was seen that single edifice. And 
 when, at last, the ravage ceased, and men again walked 
 those streets in sorrow, which so lately they had walked 
 in pride, there stood that solitary edifice, unharmed amid 
 surrounding desolation ; from the foundation to the 
 cope-stone, unscathed ; and over the treasures which 
 had been confided to its keeping, the smell of fire had 
 not passed. There it stood, like an honest man in the 
 streets of Sodom. Now, why was this ? It was con- 
 structed from the same material, of brick and mortar, of 
 iron and slate, with the thousands around it, whose sub- 
 stance was now but rubbish, and their contents ashes. 
 Now, why was this ? It was built by a workman. IT 
 WAS BUILT BY A WORKMAN. The man who erected that 
 surviving, victorious structure, knew the nature of the 
 materials he used ; he knew the element of fire ; he 
 knew the power of combustion. Fidelity seconded his 
 knowledge. He did not put in stucco for granite, nor 
 touchwood for iron. He was not satisfied with outside 
 ornaments, with finical cornices and gingerbread work ; 
 but deep in all its hidden foundations, in the interior 
 of its walls and in all its secret joints, where no human 
 eye should ever see the compact masonry, he consoli- 
 dated, and cemented, and closed it in, until it became 
 impregnable to fire, insoluble in that volcano. And 
 thus, my hearers, must parents become workmen in the 
 education of their children. They must know that, from 
 the very nature and constitution of things, a lofty and 
 enduring character cannot be formed by ignorance and 
 chance. They must know that no skill or power of man 
 can ever lay the imperishable foundations of virtue, by 
 using the low motives of fear, and the pride of superi- 
 ority, and the love of worldly applause or of worldly 
 wealth, any more than they can rear a material edifice,
 
 236 THE WORK OF EDUCATION. 
 
 storm-proof and fire-proof, from bamboo and cane- 
 brake ! 
 
 Until, then, this subject of education is far more 
 studied and far better understood than it has ever yet 
 been, there can be no security for the formation of pure 
 and noble minds ; and though the child that is born to- 
 day may turn out an Abel, yet we have no assurance that 
 he will not be a Cain. Until parents will learn to 
 train up children in the way they should go, until 
 they will learn what that way is, the paths that lead 
 down to the realms of destruction must continue to be 
 thronged ; the doting father shall feel the pangs of a 
 disobedient and profligate son, and the mother shall see 
 the beautiful child whom she folds to her bosom, turn to 
 a coiling serpent and sting the breast upon which it was 
 cherished. Until the thousandth and the ten thousandth 
 generation shall have passed away, the Deity may go on 
 doing his part of the work, but unless we do our part 
 also, the work will never be done, and until it is done, 
 the river of parental tears must continue to flow. Unlike 
 Rachel, parents shall weep for their children because they 
 are, and not because they are not; nor shall they be 
 comforted, imtil they will learn, that God in His infinite 
 wisdom has pervaded the universe with immutable laws, 
 laws which may be made productive of the highest 
 forms of goodness and happiness ; and, in His infinite 
 mercy, has provided the means by which those laws can 
 be discovered and obeyed ; but that he has left it to us to 
 learn and to apply them, or to suffer the unutterable con- 
 sequences of ignorance. But when we shall learn and 
 shall obey those laws, when the immortal nature of the 
 child shall be brought within the action of those influ- 
 ences, each at its appointed time, which have been 
 graciously prepared for training it up in the way it should
 
 THE WORK OF EDUCATION. 237 
 
 go, then may we be sure that God will clothe its spirit in 
 garments of amianthus, that it may not be corrupted, and 
 of asbestos, that it may not be consumed, and that it will 
 be able to walk through the pools of earthly pollution, 
 and through the furnace of earthly temptation, and come 
 forth white as linen that has been washed by the fuller, 
 and pure as the golden wedge of Ophir that has been 
 refined in the refiner's fire.
 
 LECTURE V. 
 1840.
 
 LECTURE V. 
 
 AN HISTORICAL VIEW OF EDUCATION; SHOWING ITS 
 DIGNITY AND ITS DEGRADATION. 
 
 GENTLEMEN OF THE CONVENTION : 
 
 IN treating any important and comprehensive subject, 
 it will inevitably happen that some portions of it will be 
 found less interesting than others ; inferior in beauty, 
 dignity, elevation. In every book we read, some chapters 
 will be less animating and instructive than the rest ; in 
 every landscape we survey, some features less impressive 
 and grand ; in every journey we take, some stages more 
 dreary and laborious. Yet we must accept them to- 
 gether, as a whole, the poor with the good. This is 
 my apology for presenting to you, at the present time, a 
 class of views, which, whether they excite more or less 
 interest, will derive none of it from flattering our self- 
 complacency. 
 
 In attempting a series of lectures on the great subject 
 of Education, I have arrived at a topic which must be 
 discussed, however far it may fall below the average in 
 interest and attractiveness. In previous lectures, I have 
 spoken of the general state and condition of education 
 amongst us, and have pointed out some of the more 
 urgent and immediate wants which it enjoins us to sup- 
 ply. I have endeavored to unfold some of the more vital 
 principles of this great science ; I have spoken of its 
 objects ; of its importance in all countries and in all 
 times ; and, more especially, of its absolute and uncon- 
 ditional necessity under social and political institutions 
 
 VOL. I. 16 241
 
 242 HISTORICAL VIEW OF EDUCATION. 
 
 like ours. Under this last head, I have endeavored to 
 demonstrate that, in a land of liberty, that is, in a land 
 where the people, in their collective capacity, are free to do 
 wrong as well as free to do right ; where there is no san- 
 guinary or surgical code of laws to cut off the offending 
 members of society ; no thousand-eyed police to detect 
 transgression and crush it in the germ ; in fine, where 
 are few external restraints which can be brought to bear 
 upon the appetites and passions of men, that, in such 
 a land, there must be internal restraints ; that reason, 
 conscience, benevolence, and a reverence for all that is 
 sacred, must supply the place of force and fear ; and, for 
 this purpose, the very instincts of self-preservation ad- 
 monish us to perfect our system of education, and to 
 carry it on far more generally and more vigorously than 
 we have ever yet done. For this purpose we must study 
 the principles of education more profoundly ; we must 
 make ourselves acquainted with the art, or processes, by 
 which those principles can be applied in practice ; and, 
 by establishing proper agencies and institutions, we must 
 cause a knowledge both of the science and the art to be 
 diffused throughout the entire mass of the people. 
 
 In this stage of the inquiry, it seems proper to consid- 
 er in what relative esteem or disesteem the subject of ed- 
 ucation has heretofore been held, and is now held, in the 
 regards of men. Let us seek an answer to such ques- 
 tions as these : Have men assigned to the cause of ed- 
 ucation a high or a low position ? What things have they 
 placed above it ; and what things, (if any,) have they 
 placed below it ? How have its followers been honored 
 or rewarded ? What means, instrumentalities, accommo- 
 dations, have been provided for carrying on the work ? 
 In fine, when its interests have come in competion with 
 other interests, which have been made to yield ? It is re-
 
 ITS DIGNITY AND ITS DEGRADATION. 243 
 
 lated of a certain king, that, when embarked on a voyage, 
 attended by some of his courtiers, and carrying with him 
 some of his treasures, a storm arose^ which made it ne- 
 cessary to lighten the ship ; whereupon, he commanded 
 his courtiers to be thrown overboard, but saved his 
 money. How is it with parents, who are embarked with 
 fortune and family on this voyage of life ; when they 
 need a better schoolhouse to save their children from ill 
 health, or a better teacher to rescue them from immorality 
 and ignorance ; or even a slate or a shilling's worth of 
 paper to save them from idleness ; have we any parents 
 amongst us, or have we not. who, under such circum- 
 stances, will fling the child overboard, and save the 
 shilling ? 
 
 A ten-pound weight will not more certainly weigh 
 down a five-pound weight, than a man will act in obedi- 
 ence to that which, on the whole, is his strongest motive. 
 When, therefore, we would ascertain the rank which 
 education actually holds in the regards of any community, 
 we must not merely listen to what that community says ; 
 we must see what it does. This is especially true, 
 in our country, where this cause has so many flatterers, 
 but so few friends. Not by their ivords, but by their 
 works, shall yc know them, is a test of universal appli- 
 cation. Nor must we stop with inspecting the form of 
 the system which may have been anywhere established : 
 we must see whether it be a live system, or an autom- 
 aton. 
 
 A practical unbelief as to the power of education, 
 the power of physical, intellectual and moral training, 
 exists amongst us. As a people, we do not believe that 
 these fleshly tabernacles, which we call tabernacles of 
 clay, may, by a proper course of training, become as it 
 were tabernacles of iron ; or, by an improper course of
 
 244 HISTORICAL VIEW OP EDUCATION. 
 
 training, may become tabernacles of glass. We do not 
 believe, that if we would understand and obey the Phys- 
 ical Laws of our nature, our bodies might be so com- 
 pacted and toughened, that they would outlast ten cast- 
 iron bodies ; or, on the other hand, that by ignorant 
 and vicious management, they may become so sleazy and 
 puny, that a body of glass, made by a glass-blower, would 
 outlast ten of them. We have no practical belief that 
 the human intellect, under a course of judicious culture, 
 can be made to grow brighter and brighter, like the rising 
 sun, until it shall shed its light over the dark problems 
 of humanity, and put ignorance and superstition to flight ; 
 we do not believe this, as we believe that corn will 
 grow, or that a stone will fall ; and yet the latter facts 
 are no more in accordance with the benign laws of nature 
 than the former. We manifest no living, impulsive faith 
 in the scriptural declaration, " Train up a child in tho 
 way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart 
 from it." The Scripture does not say that he probably 
 will not depart from it ; or that in nine cases out of ten 
 he will not depart from it ; but it asserts, positively and 
 unconditionally, that he WILL NOT depart from it ; the 
 declaration being philosophically founded upon the fact, 
 that God has made provision for the moral welfare of all 
 his creatures, and that, when we do not attain to it, the 
 failure is caused by our own ignorance or neglect. It is 
 not more true that a well-built ship will float in sea-water 
 instead of diving to the bottom, than it is that spiritually- 
 cultivated affections will buoy up their possessor above 
 the low indulgences of sensuality, and avarice, and pro- 
 faneness, and intemperance, and irreverence towards 
 things sacred. 
 
 But I repeat, that, as a people, we have no living faitli 
 in these sublime and indestructible truths ; no faith
 
 ITS DIGNITY AND ITS DEGRADATION. 245 
 
 that makes the mind think and the hand work ; no faith 
 that induces exertions and sacrifices, as men exert them- 
 selves to acquire fortunes or to obtain honors. Did we 
 comprehend, in all their vastness and splendor, the re- 
 wards of earthly honor and glory, and of a blissful im- 
 mortality, which an appropriate training of all parts of 
 their nature is fitted to procure for our children, then we 
 should hunger and thirst after the requisite knowledge ; 
 we should make all efforts and sacrifices to secure the 
 outward means, by which so great a .prize could be won ; 
 and we should subordinate all other desires to this grand 
 desire. It would rise with us in the morning, attend us 
 through the day, retire with us to the nightly couch, and 
 mingle its aspirations, not only with our prayers but with 
 our dreams. 
 
 And, furthermore, as a people, we justify our scepti- 
 cism in regard to the power of education ; we virtually 
 charge it with impotency ; we say that, of two children, 
 brought up in the same family, in precisely the same man*- 
 ner, and under the same influences, one shall be almost a 
 saint, and the other quite a sinner ; when the truth is, 
 that the natural temperament and dispositions of chil- 
 dren belonging to the same family, are often so different 
 from each other, that their being brought up in precisely 
 the same manner, under the same influences, and, of 
 course, without any of the necessary discriminations, is 
 enough to account for the result that, while one of them 
 may be almost a saint, the other should be the chief of 
 sinners. 
 
 We also appeal to the history of the past, and aver that 
 among the most enlightened nations of the earth, educa- 
 tion has done little or nothing towards producing a state 
 of individual and social well-being, at once universal and 
 permanent; and now, in this infancy of the world, we
 
 216 HISTORICAL VIEW OF EDUCATION. 
 
 rashly prescribe limits to what may be done, from what 
 has been done, which is about as wise as it would be to 
 say of an infant, that because it never has walked or 
 talked, it never will walk or talk. 
 
 My purpose and hope, on the present occasion, are, to 
 vindicate the cause of education from this charge of im- 
 becility ; and to show that it has prospered less than other 
 causes have prospered, for the sole and simple, but suffi- 
 cient reason, that it has been cherished less than other 
 causes have been cherished, not only in former times 
 and in other countries, but in our own time and country, 
 that is, always and everywhere. 
 
 I affirm generally, that, up to the present age and hour, 
 the main current of social desires and energies, the lit- 
 erature, the laws, the wealth, the talent, the character- 
 forming institutions of the world, have flowed in other 
 channels, and left this one void of fertilizing power. 
 Philosophers, moralists, sages, who have illumined the 
 world with the splendor of their genius on other subjects, 
 have rarely shed the feeblest beam of light upon this. 
 Of all the literature of the ancients which has comedown 
 to us, only a most meagre and inconsiderable part has any 
 reference to education. Examine Homer and Virgil, 
 among the poets ; Herodotus, Josephus or Livy, among 
 the historians ; or Plutarch among biographers ; and you 
 would never infer that, according to their philosophy, the 
 common mass of children did not grow up noble or hate- 
 ful by a force of their own, like a cedar of Lebanon, or a 
 wild thorn-tree. 
 
 The most important and most general fact which meets 
 us, on approaching the subject, is, that, until within less 
 than two centuries of the present time, no system of free 
 schools for a whole people was maintained anywhere 
 upon earth ; and then, only in one of the colonies of this
 
 ITS DIGNITY AND ITS DEGEADATION. 247 
 
 country, that colony being the feeble and inconsiderable 
 one of Massachusetts, containing at that time only a few 
 thousand inhabitants. 
 
 Among several of the most powerful nations of anti- 
 quity, where laws on the subject of education existed, 
 there were no Public Schools. Rome, which so long 
 swayed the destinies of the world, and at last sunk to so 
 ignominious a close, had no Public Schools. Its schools 
 were what we call Private, undertaken on speculation, 
 and by any person, however unsuitable or irresponsible. 
 
 Among the Jews, there seems to be no evidence that 
 there were schools even for boys. It is supposed that 
 even arithmetic was not taught to them, and so univer- 
 sally was the education of females neglected, that even 
 the daughters of the priests could not read and write. 
 Girls, however, were instructed in music and dancing. 
 
 The part of education most attended to by all the an- 
 cient nations, was that which tended to strengthen and 
 harden the body. Even this, however, was hardly worthy 
 of being called physical education, because it was con- 
 ducted without any competent notions of anatomy or 
 physiology. As war was the grand object which nations 
 proposed to themselves, the education of male children 
 was conducted in reference to their becoming soldiers. In 
 modern times we have gone to the other extreme, edu- 
 cating the mind, or rather parts of the mind, to the 
 almost total neglect of the body. A striking illustration 
 of these facts is, that the places appropriated to bodily 
 exercises among the Greeks, were called Gymnasia; 
 while the Germans, who sxcel in the cultivation of clas- 
 sical literature, call those schools where mind is culti- 
 vated, to the almost entire neglect of the body, by the 
 same name. There can be no true education without 
 the union of both.
 
 248 HISTORICAL VIEW OF EDUCATION. 
 
 The subject-matter of education, was, of course, very 
 limited amongst all ancient nations. Their encyclopaedia 
 of knowledge would have been but a primer, in size, com- 
 pared with ours. The seven liberal arts taught in the 
 celebrated schools of Alexandria, in the time of our 
 Saviour, were grammar, rhetoric, dialectics, arithmetic, 
 geometry, astronomy, and music ; and these constituted 
 the complete circle of liberal knowledge. As eloquence 
 conferred a celebrity inferior only to success in arms, it 
 was more assiduously cultivated than any of the other 
 studies. But rhetoric gives only a power over men, while 
 natural philosophy gives a power over nature. In no 
 one respect is the contrast or disparity between ancient 
 and modern times more remarkable than in their igno- 
 rance of, and our acquaintance with the natural sciences. 
 
 It would be unjust to pass unnoticed a few illustrious 
 educators among the ancients, who existed, not in accord- 
 ance with, but in defiance of the spirit of the age in 
 which they lived. One of the earliest, and probably the 
 most remarkable of these, was Pythagoras, a Greek, bora 
 between five and six hundred years before Christ. He 
 opened a school in the southern part of Italy, and proved 
 the power of education by the results of his labors. Un- 
 der his instructions, his pupils became men of the most 
 exemplary and noble character ; and going out from his 
 school into the different cities of Magua Graecia, they ef- 
 fected the most beneficent revolutions in the social rela- 
 tions of life, and the public institutions of society. Music 
 with him was a prominent means of culture. Each day 
 began and ended with songs, -accompanied by the lyre or 
 some other instrument. Particular songs, with corre- 
 sponding metres and tunes, lively or plaintive, religious or 
 mirthful, were prepared, as excitants or antidotes for par- 
 ticular passions or emotions.
 
 ITS DIGNITY AND ITS DEGRADATION. 249 
 
 Following Pythagoras, were Socrates, Plato and Aris- 
 totle among the Greeks, and Quintiliau among the Ro- 
 mans, great men, indeed, but with not enough of great 
 men around them to correct their errors ; - and hence it 
 may be questioned whether the authority of their names 
 has not propagated, through succeeding times, more of 
 error than of truth. This is doubtless true of Aristotle, 
 if not of some of the rest. 
 
 Little was done by any of the ancient nations for the 
 honor or emolument even of the best of teachers. We 
 know that Socrates was put to death for his excellences ; 
 and, according to some accounts, Pythagoras fell in a 
 public commotion which had been raised by a factious 
 hostility to his teachings. Julius Caesar was the first who 
 procured for Grecian scholars an honorable reception at 
 Rome, by conferring the right of citizenship upon them.* 
 Augustus encouraged men of learning by honorable dis- 
 tinctions and rewards, and exempted teachers from hold- 
 ing certain public offices ; but, at one time, a hundred 
 and seventy years before Christ, Grecian philosophers and 
 rhetoricians were expelled from Rome by a decree of the 
 censors. 
 
 Quintilian, one of the most eminent and successful of 
 teachers, is supposed to have been the first, and perhaps 
 the only one, among the ancients, who disused and con- 
 demned whipping in school ; but his power seems, for 
 many centuries, to have been among the lost arts. He 
 taught in the last half of the first century of the Christian 
 era. 
 
 Scattered up and down, but with vast intervals, 
 among Grecian and Roman writings, we now and then 
 catch a glimpse of this multiform subject ; as when 
 
 * Perhaps it is not generally known that Julius Caesar wrote a Latin 
 Grammar.
 
 250 HISTORICAL VIEW OF EDUCATION. 
 
 Polybius speaks of the influence of music in refining the 
 character of the Arcadians ; or when Horace says that 
 the cultivation of the Fine Arts prevents men from 
 degenerating- into brutes; but considering the vast 
 expanse, ages of time and millions of minds, over 
 which these few beams of light were thrown, what right 
 have we to say, that the power and beneficence of educa- 
 tion had any opportunity to make known their transform- 
 ing and redeeming prerogatives, in ancient times ? 
 
 It occurs to me here to make a single remark in refer- 
 ence to the limited number of those who enjoyed the 
 advantages of education among the ancients. I have 
 elsewhere expounded that beautiful law, in the Divine 
 economy, by which the improvement of the society around 
 us is made indispensable to our own security, because 
 no man, living in the midst of a vicious community, can 
 be sure that all the virtuous influences which he imparts 
 to his own children will not be neutralized and lost, by 
 the counter influences exerted upon them by others. 
 The sons of Themistocles, Aristides, Pericles. Thucydides, 
 and even of Socrates himself, were contaminated by the 
 corruptions of the times, and thus defeated their paternal 
 hopes. The parent who wishes to bring up his own 
 children well, but refuses to do all in his power to perfect 
 the common, educational institutions around him, should 
 go with his family into voluntary exile, he should fly 
 to some Juan Fernandez, where no contagion of others' 
 vices can invade his solitude and defeat his care. 
 
 Shortly after the commencement of the Christian era, 
 all idea of general popular education, and almost all 
 correct notions 1 concerning education itself, died out of 
 the minds of men. A gloomy and terrible period suc- 
 ceeded, which lasted a thousand years, a sixth part of 
 the past duration of the race of men ! Approaching this
 
 ITS DIGNITY AND ITS DEGRADATION. 251 
 
 period from the side of antiquity, or going back to view 
 it from our own age, we come, as it were, to the borders 
 of a great Gulf of Despair. Gazing down from the brink 
 of this remorseless abyss, we behold a spectacle resem- 
 bling rather the maddest orgies of demons, than any 
 deeds of men. Oppression usurped the civil throne. 
 Persecution seized upon the holy altar. Rulers demand- 
 ed the unconditional submission of body and soul, and 
 sent forth ministers of fire and sword to destroy what 
 they could not enslave. Innocence changed places with 
 guilt, and bore all its penalties. Even remorse seems to 
 have died from out the souls of men. As high as the 
 halls of the regal castle rose into the air, so deep beneath 
 were excavated the dungeons of the victim, into which 
 hope never came. By the side of the magnificent Cathe- 
 dral was built the Inquisition ; and all those who would 
 not enter the former, and bow the soul in homage to 
 men, were doomed by the latter to have the body broken 
 or burned. All that power, wealth, arts, civilization had 
 conferred upon the old world, even new-born, divine 
 Christianity itself, were converted into instruments of 
 physical bondage and spiritual degradation. These cen- 
 turies have been falsely called the Dark Ages ; they were 
 not dark; they glare out more conspicuously than any 
 other ages of the world ; but, alas ! they glare with in-' 
 fernal fires. 
 
 What could education do in such an age ? Nothing ! 
 nothing ! Its voice was hushed ; its animation was sus- 
 pended. It must await the revival of letters, the art of 
 printing, and other great revolutions in the affairs of the 
 world, before it could hope to obtain audience among 
 men. 
 
 In the Augustan age of English literature, in the 
 days of Johnson, Goldsmith, Swift, Pope, Addison, in
 
 252 HISTORICAL VIEW OF EDUCATION. 
 
 all the beautiful writings of these great men, almost 
 nothing is said on the subject of education. Not any- 
 where is there a single expression showing that they, or 
 either of them, had any just conception of its different 
 departments, and of the various and distinct processes by 
 which the work of each is to be carried on. Dr. Johnson 
 has a few paragraphs scattered up and down over his 
 voluminous writings ; but by far the most labored pas- 
 sage he ever prepared on the subject was a forensic 
 argument for Boswell, defending the brutal infliction of 
 corporal punishment so common in those days. To show 
 the opinion of this great man respecting the propriety of 
 giving an education to the laboring and poor classes, let 
 me quote a sentence or two from his " Review of Free 
 Inquiry." 
 
 " I know not whether there are not many states of life, 
 in which all knowledge less than the highest wisdom will 
 produce' discontent and danger. I believe it may be 
 sometimes found that a little learning' to a poor man is a 
 dangerous thing" 
 
 " Though it should be granted that those who are born 
 to poverty and drudgery should not be deprived by an im- 
 proper education of the opiate of ignorance, yet," &c. 
 
 One of these expressions of Dr. Johnson seems to have 
 been caught from a celebrated couplet of Pope : 
 
 " A little learning is a dangerous thing, 
 Drink deep or taste not the Pierian spring ; 
 There, shallow draughts intoxicate the hrain, 
 But drinking deeper sobers us again." 
 
 One would like to know what extent of acquired 
 knowledge would constitute " deep drinking" in the 
 sense of this authority ; or, in surveying the vastness of 
 the works of God, whether all that Pope himself knew,
 
 ITS DIGNITY AND ITS DEGRADATION. 253 
 
 though it were multiplied a hundred-fold, would not be 
 " a dangerous thing." The doctrine of this passage is 
 as false in the eye of reason, as the simile is in the creed 
 of a teetotaler ! 
 
 Pope has another oft-quoted passage, in the last line of 
 which, namely, 
 
 " Just as the twig is bent, the tree's inclined," 
 
 he uses the word " twig" in a false sense, as it properly 
 means the end of a limb, and not the stem or shoot which 
 expands into a tree. In this he was probably misled by 
 the strength of his associations, because the twigs, or ends 
 of limbs, performed so important a part in the work of 
 education in his day, that they had become to him the type 
 and symbol of the whole process. At the most, Pope 
 merely symbolizes the general truth ; he nowhere pro- 
 poses to tell us what modes or processes of cultivation 
 will stimulate its aspiring tendencies, or bow it downward 
 to the earth ; he never pretends to instruct us how the 
 tiny germs just breaking from the shell, or the tender 
 shoot just peering from the earth, may be reared into the 
 lofty tree, bearing a forest-like crown of branches upon its 
 top, and having limbs and trunk of such massiveness and 
 cohesive strength, that they will toss off the storm and 
 survive the thunderbolt. 
 
 In one of the numbers of the Spectator, Addison com- 
 pares the qualities of different dispositions to different 
 kinds of flowers in aigarden ; but the article is short, and 
 was written for humor rather than for instruction. 
 
 Shakspeare gives us a glimpse of the repulsive aspects 
 of educational means, in his time, when he describes the 
 child as " creeping, like snail, unwillingly to school." 
 
 Shenstone makes himself merry with the toils and pri- 
 vations, and homely manners of a school dame.
 
 254 HISTORICAL VIEW OP EDUCATION. 
 
 Goldsmith describes a schoolmaster as an arbitrary, 
 tyrannical, storm-faced brute. 
 
 Cowper, in his earnest appeals, preferred in behalf of 
 the private tutors of gentlemen's sons, gives us the fol- 
 lowing glimpses of the indignities to which they were cus- 
 tomarily subjected in his day : 
 
 " Doom him not then to solitary meals, 
 But recollect that he has sense and feels ; 
 His post not mean, his talent not unknown, 
 He deems it hard to vegetate alone. 
 And if admitted at thy board to sit, 
 Account him no just mark for idle wit ; 
 Offend not him, whom modesty restrains 
 From repartee, with jokes that he disdains ; 
 Much less transfix his feelings with an oath, 
 Nor frown, unless lie vanish with the cloth." 
 
 Sir Walter Scott gathers all ungainliness of person, 
 and awkwardness of manner, and slovenliness of dress, 
 into one person, makes him horrid with superstition and 
 pedantry, and names the pedagogue Dominie Sampson. 
 Even in his sober moments, when expressing his own 
 thoughts, rather than bodying forth the common idea of 
 the times, he says of Dr. Adam, the learned author of the 
 "Roman Antiquities," that "He was deeply imbibed 
 with the fortunate vanity which alone could induce a 
 man, who has arms to pare and burn a muir, to submit to 
 the still more toilsome task of cultivating- youth." 
 
 In some admirable essays lately written in England, for 
 an educational prize, the condition of the school-teacher 
 is represented as being below that of menial servants, 
 throughout the kingdom of Great Britain.* 
 
 * I find the following pointed remark, in a lecture delivered before the 
 American Institute of Instruction, at Pittsfield, in 1843, by R. B. Hubbard, 
 Esq., the accomplished Principal of the High School at Worcester, Mass. :
 
 ITS DIGNITY AND ITS DEGRADATION. 255 
 
 Milton, it is true, wrote a short tract on education, 
 beautiful to read, but wholly destitute of practical instruc- 
 tion ; and it would be unpardonable to pass by that admi- 
 rable treatise, Locke's " Thoughts on Education ; " but 
 while his system of metaphysics, which is the poorest of 
 all his works, has been made a text-book both in the uni- 
 versities of England and America, this excellent treatise, 
 which is by far better than any thing which had ever then 
 been written, has been almost wholly neglected and for- 
 gotten. 
 
 Consider, too, my friends, another general but decisive 
 fact, showing in what subordinate estimation this para- 
 mount subject has been held. The human mind is so coir 
 stituted that it cannot embrace any great idea, but, forth- 
 with, all the faculties strive to aggrandize and adorn and, 
 dignify it. Let any principle or sentiment be elevated by 
 the public voice, whether rightfully or wrongfully, 
 to a station of pre-eminence or grandeur, in the eyes of 
 men, and it is at once personified, and, as it were, conse- 
 crated. The arts go, as on a pilgrimage, to do it rever- 
 ence. Music celebrates it in national songs. Sculpture 
 embodies it in enduring substance, and clothes it in im- 
 pressive forms. Painting catches each flashing beam of 
 inspiration from its look, transfers it to her canvas, and 
 holds it fast for centuries, in her magic coloring. Archi. 
 tecture rears temples for its residence and shrines for its 
 worship. Religion sanctifies it. In fine, whatever is ac- 
 counted high or holy in any age, all the sentiments of 
 taste, beauty, imagination, reverence, belonging to that age, 
 
 " The meed of praise has been very liberally and justly awarded to Wash- 
 ington Irving for his valuable contributions to our scanty stock of polite 
 literature ; yet it may well be questioned, whether the injury done to the 
 cause of common education in the character of Ichabod Crane has not more 
 than cancelled the whole debt."
 
 256 HISTORICAL VIEW OF EDUCATION. 
 
 ennoble it with a priesthood, deify its founders or law- 
 givers while living, and grant them apotheosis and hom- 
 age when dead. Such proofs of veneration and love sig- 
 nalized the worship of the true God among the Jews, and 
 the worship of false gods among pagans. Such devotion 
 was paid to to the sentiment of Beauty among the Athe- 
 nians ; to the iron-hearted god of War among the Ro- 
 mans ; to Love and knightly bearing in the age of chivalry. 
 Without one word from the historian, and only by study- 
 ing a people's relics, and investigating the figurative ex- 
 pressions in their literature and law, one might see reflect- 
 ed, as from a mirror, the moral scale on which they 
 arranged their idea of good and great. Though history 
 should not record a single line in testimony of the fact, 
 yet who, a thousand years hence, could fail to read, in 
 their symbols, in their forms of speech, and in the tech- 
 nical terms of their law, the money-getting, money-wor- 
 shipping tendencies of all commercial nations, during the 
 last and the present centuries ? The word " sovereign," 
 we know, means a potentate invested with lawful dignity 
 and authority ; and it implies subjects who are bound to 
 honor and obey. Hence, in Great Britain, a gold coin, 
 worth twenty shillings, is called a " sovereign ; " and hap- 
 py is the political sovereign who enjoys such plenitude of 
 power and majesty, and has so many loyal and devoted 
 subjects as this vicegerent of royalty. An ancient Eng- 
 lish coin was called an angel. Its value was only ten shil- 
 lings, and yet it was named after a messenger from heav- 
 en. In the Scriptures, and in political law, a crown is 
 the emblem and personification of might and majesty, of 
 glory and blessedness. The synonyme of all these is a 
 piece of silver worth six shillings and seven pence. As 
 the king has his representative in a sovereign, so a duke 
 has his in a ducat, the inferior value of the latter cor-
 
 ITS DIGNITY AND ITS DEGRADATION. 257 
 
 responding with the inferior dignity of its archetype. As 
 Napoleon was considered the mightiest ruler that France 
 ever knew, so, for many years, her highest coin was called 
 a Napoleon ; though now, in the French mint, they strike 
 double-Napoleons. God grant that the world may never 
 see a double-Napoleon of flesh and blood ! Our fore- 
 fathers subjected themselves to every worldly privation 
 for the sake of liberty, and when they had heroically 
 endured toil and sacrifice for eight long years, and at 
 last achieved the blessing of independence, they showed 
 their veneration for the Genius of Liberty by placing its 
 image and superscription upon a cent ! 
 
 So, too, in our times, epithets the most distinctively sa- 
 cred are tainted with cupidity. Mammon is not satisfied 
 with the heart-worship of his devotees ; he has stolen the 
 very language of the Bible and the Liturgy ; and the car- 
 dinal words of the sanctuary have become the business 
 phraseology of bankers, exchange-brokers; and lawyers. 
 The word " good," as applied to character, originally 
 meant benevolent, virtuous, devout, pious ; now, in the 
 universal dialect of traffic and credit, a man is techni- 
 cally called good who pays his notes at maturity ; and 
 thus, this almost divine epithet is transferred from those 
 who laid up their treasures in heaven, to such as lay up 
 their treasures on earth. The three-days' respite which 
 the law allows for the payment of a promissory note or 
 bill of exchange, after the stipulated period has expired, 
 is called "grace" in irreverent imitation of the sinner's 
 chance for pardon. On the performance of a broken cov- 
 enant, by which a mortgaged estate is saved from forfeit- 
 ure, it is said, in the technical language of the law, to be 
 saved by " redemption" The document by which a de- 
 ceased man's estate is bequeathed to his survivors, is 
 called a testament ; and were the glad tidings of the New 
 
 VOL. I. 17
 
 258 HISTORICAL VIEW OP EDUCATION. 
 
 Testament looked for as anxiously as are the contents of 
 a rich man's last will and testament, there would be no 
 further occasion for the Bible Societies. Indeed, on open- 
 ing some of our law-books, and casting the eye along the 
 running titles at the top of the pages, or on the marginal 
 notes, and observing the frequent recurrence of such 
 words as " covenant-broken," " grace," " redemption," 
 " testament," and so forth, one might very naturally fall 
 into the mistake of supposing the book to be a work on 
 theology, instead of the law of real estate or bank stock. 
 I group together a few of these extraordinary facts, my 
 friends, to illustrate the irresistible tendency of the hu- 
 man mind to dignify, honor, elevate, aggrandize, and even 
 sanctify, whatever it truly respects and values. But edu- 
 cation, that synonyme of mortal misery and happiness ; 
 that abbreviation for earth and heaven and hell, where 
 are the conscious or unconscious testimonials to its worth ? 
 "What honorable, laudatory epithets, what titles of enco- 
 niuni or of dignity, have been bestowed upon its profes- 
 sors ? What, save such titles as pedagogue, (which, 
 among the Romans, from whom we derived it, meant a 
 slave,) and pedant, and knight of the birch and ferule ? 
 What sincere or single offering has it received from the 
 hand or voice of genius ? Traverse the long galleries of 
 art, and you will discover no tribute to its worth. Listen 
 to all the great masters of music, and you will hear no 
 swelling notes or chorus in its praise. Search all the vol- 
 umes of all the poets, and you will rarely find a respect- 
 ful mention of its claims, or even a recognition of its ex- 
 istence. In sacred and devotional poetry, with which all 
 its higher attributes so intimately blend and harmonize, 
 it has found no place. As proof of this extraordinary 
 fact, let me say that, within the last five years, I have 
 been invited to lecture on the subject of education, in
 
 ITS DIGNITY AND ITS DEGRADATION. 259 
 
 churches of all the leading religious denominations of New 
 England ; and perhaps in the majority of instances the lec- 
 ture has been preceded or followed by the devotional 
 exercises of prayer and singing. On these occasions, 
 probably every church hymn-book belonging to every re- 
 ligious sect amongst us has been searched, in order to 
 find fitting and appropriate words wherein to utter fitting 
 and appropriate thoughts on this sacred theme. But, in 
 all cases, the search has been made in vain. I think I 
 hazard nothing in saying that there is not a single psalm 
 or hymn, in any devotional book of psalms and hymns, to 
 be found in our churches, which presents the faintest out- 
 line of this great subject, in its social, moral and religious 
 departments, or in its bearing upon the future happiness 
 of its objects. On these occasions, the officiating clergy- 
 man has looked through book and index, again and again, 
 to make a suitable selection ; he has then handed the 
 book to me, and I have done the same, the audience all 
 the while waiting, and wondering at the delay, and at 
 last, as our only resource, we have been obliged to select 
 some piece that had the word " child " or the word 
 " young " in it, and make it do. 
 
 In contrast with this fact, think of the size of a com- 
 plete collection of Bacchanal songs, or of martial music ; 
 these would make libraries ; but the Muse of educa- 
 tion is yet to be born. 
 
 In regard to all other subjects, histories have been 
 written. The facts pertaining to their origin and progress 
 have been collected ; their principles elucidated ; their 
 modes and processes detailed. As early as the time oi 
 Cato, there was the history of agriculture. In modern 
 times we have the history of the silk-worm, the history of 
 cotton, the history of rice and of tobacco, and the history 
 of the mechanic arts ; but, in the English language, we
 
 260 HISTORICAL VIEW OF EDUCATION. 
 
 have no history of education. Indeed, even now, we can 
 scarcely be said to have any treatise, showing at what fa- 
 voring hours the sentiments of virtue should be instilled 
 into young hearts ; or by what processes of care and nur- 
 ture, or by what neglect, the chrysales of human spirits 
 are evolved into angels or demons. 
 
 And while almost nothing has been written or taught, 
 on this subject, by the great guides and dictators of the 
 human mind ; how has it been with the lawgivers of the 
 race, and the founders of its social and political institu- 
 tions ? Hitherto there has existed but very little freedom 
 of thought and action among mankind. Laws and insti- 
 tutions have been moulds, wherein the minds of men 
 have been cast, almost with mechanical precision. 
 The reciprocal action between the institutions of society, 
 on the one side, and the successive generations of men, 
 on the other, has been this : The generations of men have 
 been born into institutions already prepared and consoli- 
 dated. During their years of minority, the institutions 
 shaped their mind ; and when they arrived at majority, 
 they upheld the institutions to which they had been con- 
 formed, and, in their turn, bequeathed them. Sometimes, 
 indeed, a mighty spirit has arisen, too large to be com- 
 pressed within the mould of existing institutions, or too 
 unmalleable and infusible to be beaten or molten into 
 their shape. Then came a death-struggle. If the insti- 
 tutions prevailed over the individual, he was crushed, an- 
 nihilated. If the individual triumphed in the unequal 
 contest, he dashed the mould of the institutions in pieces, 
 prepared another in his own likeness, and left it behind 
 him to shape the minds of coming generations. Such 
 men were Aristotle, in regard to metaphysics ; Alfred, in 
 regard to law ; Bacon, in regard to philosophy ; Luther 
 and Calvin, in regard to religious faith.
 
 ITS DIGNITY AND ITS DEGRADATION. 261 
 
 Both in Europe and in this country, scientific institu- 
 tions have been founded, and illustrious men, during suc- 
 cessive ages, have poured the collected light of their ef- 
 fulgent minds upon other departments of science and of 
 art, upon language, astronomy, light, heat, electricity, 
 tides, meteors, and so forth, and so forth. Such were 
 the Royal Academy of Sciences, in Paris, founded in 
 1660 ; the Royal Society of England, founded in 1663 ; 
 and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, founded 
 in 1780 ; and what ponderous volumes of reports, es- 
 says, and transactions, they have published ! But when 
 or where have a nation's sages met in council to inves- 
 tigate the principles and to discuss the modes by which 
 that most difficult and delicate work upon earth, the 
 education of a human soul, should be conducted ? 
 Yet what is there in philology, or the principles of uni- 
 versal grammar ; what is there in the ebb and flow of 
 tides, in the shooting of meteors, or in the motions of the 
 planetary bodies ; what is there, in fine, in the corpo- 
 real and insensate elements of the earth beneath, or of 
 the firmament above, at all comparable in importance to 
 those laws of growth and that course of training, by 
 which the destiny of mortal and immortal spirits is at 
 least foretokened, if not foredoomed ? 
 
 So, too, in regard to those ancient and renowned literary 
 institutions, which have been established and upheld by 
 the foremost nations of Christendom, the Sorbonne in 
 France ; the universities of Oxford and Cambridge and 
 Edinburgh, in Great Britain; and the universities and 
 colleges of this country, the grand object of all these 
 institutions has been, not to educate the general, the 
 common mass of mind, but to rear up men for the three 
 learned professions (as they are called), Physic, Law, and 
 Divinity. For this comparatively narrow and special
 
 HISTORICAL VIEW OF EDUCATION. 
 
 purpose, vast legislative endowments and munificent pri- 
 vate donations have been made, and the highest talents 
 have been culled from the community, for presidentships 
 and professorships. 
 
 The three learned professions, it is true, represent the 
 three great departments of human interests, the Medi- 
 cal representing the body, or corporeal part, through 
 whose instrumentality alone can the spirit make itself 
 manifest ; the Legal profession being designed to establish 
 social rights, and to redress social wrongs, in regard to 
 property, person, and character ; and the Theological to 
 guide and counsel us in regard to our moral and religious 
 concernments both for time and for eternity. But all the 
 learning of all the professions can never be an adequate 
 substitute for common knowledge, or remedy for common 
 ignorance. These professions are necessary for our gen- 
 eral enlightenment, for guidance in difficult cases, and 
 for counsel at all times ; but they never should aim to 
 supersede, they never can supersede, our own individual 
 care, forethought, judgment, responsibility. Yet how 
 little is this truth regarded ! How imperfectly do we 
 live up to its requirements ! In respect to the medical 
 profession, we are this year, this day, and every day, 
 sending young men to college, and from college to the 
 medical school, that they may acquire some knowl- 
 edge of human diseases and their remedies ; but, at the 
 same time, we are neglecting to educate and train our 
 children in accordance with the few and simple laws upon 
 which health depends, and which every child mi-ght be 
 easily led to know and to observe ; and the consequence 
 is, that we are this year, this day, and every day, sowing, 
 in the constitutions of our children, the seeds of innu- 
 merable diseases ; so that the diseases will be ready for 
 the doctors quite as soon as the doctors are ready for the
 
 ITS DIGNITY AND ITS DEGRADATION. 263 
 
 diseases. Indeed, before the doctor confronts the disease, 
 or while he is pondering over it, how often does death 
 step in and snatch the victim away ! 
 
 At what vast expense, both of time and money, is the 
 legal profession trained, and the judicial tribunals of 
 the land supported ! Two or three, or half a dozen years, 
 spent in preparing for college, four years at college, and 
 two or three years at a law school, or elsewhere, as a 
 qualification to practise in the courts ; then, the mainte- 
 nance of the courts themselves ; the salaries of judge?, 
 and of prosecuting officers ; the expense of jurors, grand- 
 jurors, and witnesses; the amount of costs and counsel 
 fees ; the vast outlay for prisons, jails, and houses of 
 correction ; and all this enormous expenditure, in order 
 to adjust disputes, rectify mistakes, and punish offences, 
 nine-tenths of which would have been prevented by a de- 
 gree of common knowledge easily taught, and of common 
 honesty, to which all children, with scarcely an exception, 
 might be trained. 
 
 When the law of hereditary distempers shall be as 
 profoundly investigated as the law which regulates the 
 hereditary transmission of property, then may we expect 
 some improvement in the health and robustness and 
 beauty of the race. Compare all the books written on 
 the transmission from parents to children of physical or 
 moral qualities with the law-books and treatises on the 
 descent of estates. When will the current of public 
 opinion, or the stimulus of professional emolument, create 
 a desire to understand the irreversible ordinances and 
 statutes of Nature, on this class of subjects, as strong as 
 that which now carries a student at law through Fearne 
 on Contingent Remainders ? a book which requires the 
 same faculty for divining ideas, that Champollion had for 
 deciphering Egyptian Hieroglyphics.
 
 264 HISTORICAL VIEW OF EDUCATION. 
 
 And how is it with the clerical profession ? They enter 
 upon the work of reforming the human character, not 
 at the earlier stages of its development, but when it 
 has arrived at, or is approaching to, its maturity; a 
 period, when, by universal consent, it has become almost 
 unchangeable by secondary causes. They are reformers, 
 I admit, but in regard to any thing that grows, one right 
 former will accomplish more than a thousand re-formers. 
 It is their sacred mission to prepare a vineyard for the 
 Lord, to dress it, and make it fruitful ; but I think no 
 one will say that an army of laborers, sent into a vine- 
 yard at midsummer, when brambles and thorns have al- 
 ready choked the vines, and the hedges have been broken 
 down, and the unclean beasts of the forest have made 
 their lair therein ; I think no one will say that an army 
 of laborers, entering the vineyard at such a time, will be 
 able to make it yield so abundant a harvest as one 
 faithful, skilful servant would do, who should commence 
 his labors in the spring-time of the year. 
 
 The Constitution of the United States makes no pro- 
 vision for the education of the people ; and in the Con- 
 vention that framed it, I believe the subject was not even 
 mentioned. A motion to insert a clause providing for the 
 establishment of a national university was voted down. I 
 believe it is also the fact, that the Constitutions of only 
 three of the thirteen original States made the obligation 
 to maintain a system of Free Schools a part of their fun- 
 damental law. 
 
 On what grounds of reason or of hope, it may well be 
 asked, did the framers of our National and State Consti- 
 tutions expect that the future citizens of this Republic 
 would be able to sustain the institutions, or to enjoy the 
 blessings, provided for them ? And has not all our sub- 
 sequent history shown the calamitous consequences of
 
 ITS DIGNITY AND ITS DEGRADATION. 265 
 
 their failing to make provision for the educational wants 
 of the nation ? Suppose it had been provided, that no 
 person should be a voter who could not read and write, 
 and also that no State should be admitted into the Union 
 which had not established a system of Free Schools for all 
 its people ; would not our National history and legisla- 
 tion, our State administrations and policy, have felt the 
 change through all their annals ? Great and good men 
 though they were, yet this truth, now so plain and 
 conspicuous, eluded their sagacity. They did not reflect 
 that, in the common course of nature, all the learned 
 and the wise and the virtuous are swept from the stage 
 of action almost as soon as they become learned and 
 wise and virtuous ; and that they are succeeded by a 
 generation who come into the world wholly devoid of 
 learning and wisdom and virtue. The parents may have 
 sought out the sublimest truths, but these truths are 
 nothing to< the children, until their minds also shall have 
 been raised to the power of grasping and of understand- 
 ing them. The truths, indeed, are immortal, but the be- 
 ings who may embrace them are mortal, and pass away, 
 to be followed by new minds, ignorant, weak, erring, 
 tossed hither and thither on the waves of passion. Hence, 
 each new generation must learn all truth anew, and for 
 itself. Each generation must be able to comprehend the 
 principles, and must rise to the practice of the virtues, 
 requisite to sustain the position of their ancestors ; and 
 the first generation which fails to do this, loses all, and 
 comes to ruin not only for itself but for its successors. 
 
 At what time, then, by virtue of what means, is the 
 new generation to become competent to take upon itself 
 the duties of the old and retiring one ? At which of 
 Shakspeare's "Seven Ages" is the new generation ex- 
 pected to possess the ability to stand in the places of the
 
 266 HISTORICAL VIEW OF EDUCATION. 
 
 departed ? Allow that the vast concerns of our society 
 must be submitted to a democracy, still, shall they be 
 submitted to the democracy of babyhood, to those 
 whose country, as yet, is the cradle, and whose universe 
 the nursery ? Can you call in children from trundling 
 hoops and catching butterflies, organize them into 
 " Young Men's Conventions," and propound for their de- 
 cision the great questions of judicature and legislation, 
 of civil, domestic, and foreign policy ? Or will you take 
 the youth of the land, from sixteen to twenty-one years 
 of age, in the heyday of their blood, with passions unap- 
 peasable in their cry for indulgence, and unquenchable 
 by it ; without experience, without sobriety of judg- 
 ment ; whose only notions of the complex structure of 
 our government and of its various and delicate relations 
 have been derived from hearing a Fourth-of-July Oration ; 
 with no knowledge of this multiform world into which 
 they have been brought, or of their dangers, duties and 
 destiny, as men, in one word, with no education, 
 and is it to such as these that the vast concernments of a 
 nation's well-being can be safely intrusted ? Safer, far 
 safer, would it be to decide the great problems of legisla- 
 tion and jurisprudence by a throw of dice ; or, like the 
 old Roman soothsayers, by the flight of birds. And even 
 after one has passed the age of twenty-one, how is he any 
 better fitted than before to perform the duties of a citi- 
 zen, if no addition has been made to his knowledge, and 
 if his passions have not been subjected to the control of 
 reason and duty ? 
 
 I adduce these extraordinary facts, in relation to the 
 founders of our Republic, not in any spirit of disparage- 
 ment or reprehension, but only as another proof in the 
 chain of demonstration, to show in what relative esteem, 
 how low down in the social scale, this highest of all
 
 ITS DIGNITY AND ITS DEGRADATION. 267 
 
 earthly subjects has been held, and held in a Republic 
 too, where we talk so much about foundations of knowl- 
 edge and virtue. 
 
 And what was the first school established by Congress, 
 after the formation of the general government ? It was 
 the Military Academy at West Point. This school is sus- 
 tained at an annual expense of more than a hundred 
 thousand dollars. It is the Normal School of war. 
 As the object of the common Normal School is to teach 
 teachers how to teach ; so the object of this Academy is 
 to teach killers how to kill. At this school, those delight- 
 ful sciences are pursued which direct at what precise 
 angle a cannon or a mortar shall be elevated, and what 
 quantity and quality of gunpowder shall be used, in 
 order to throw red-hot balls or bomb-shells a given dis- 
 tance, so as, by the one, to set a city on fire, and, by the 
 other, to tear in pieces a platoon of men, husbands, 
 brothers, fathers. And while it is thought of sufficient 
 importance, to nominate the most learned men in the 
 whole land, and to assemble them from the remotest 
 quarters of the Union, to make an annual visit to this 
 School of War, and to spend days and days in the 
 minutest, severest examination of the pupils, to see if 
 they have fully mastered their death-dealing sciencies ; it 
 is not uncommon to meet with the opinion that our Com- 
 mon Schools need no committees and no examination. 
 
 Great efforts have been made in Congress to establish a 
 Naval School, having in view the same benign and phil- 
 anthropic purposes, for the ocean, which the Military 
 School has for the land. 
 
 At Old Point Comfort, in Virginia, there now is, and for 
 a long time has been, under the direction of the general 
 government, what is called a " School for Practice," 
 where daily experiments are tried to test the strength of
 
 268 HISTORICAL VIEW OF EDUCATION. 
 
 ordnance, the explosive force of gunpowder, and the dis- 
 tance at which a Christian may fire at his brother Chris- 
 tian and be sure to kill him, and not waste his ammu- 
 nition ! 
 
 At selected points, throughout our whole country, 
 the thousand wheels of mechanism are now playing ; 
 chemistry is at work in all her laboratories ; the smelter, 
 the forger, the founder in brass and iron, the prover of 
 arms, all are plying their daily tasks to prepare im- 
 plements for the conflagration of cities and the destruc- 
 tion of human life. Occasionally, indeed, a Peace 
 Society is organized ; a few benevolent men assemble to- 
 gether to hear a discourse on the universal brotherhood 
 of the race, the horrors of war and the blessings of 
 peace ; but their accents are lost in an hour, amid the 
 never-ceasing din and roar of this martial enginery. 
 And so the order and course of things will persist to be, 
 the ministers of the Gospel of Peace may continue to 
 preach peace for eighteen centuries more, and still find 
 themselves in the midst of war, or of all those passions 
 by which war is engendered, unless the rising generation 
 shall be educated to that strength and sobriety of intellect 
 which shall dispel the insane illusions of martial glory ; 
 and unless they shall be trained to the habitual exercise 
 of those sentiments of universal brotherhood for the race, 
 which shall change the common heroism of battle into a 
 horror and an abomination. 
 
 A deputation of some of the most talented and learned 
 men in this country has lately been sent to Europe, by 
 the order and at the expense of the general government, 
 to visit and examine personally all the founderies, armo- 
 ries and noted fortifications, from Gibraltar to the Bal- 
 tic ; to collect all knowledge about the forging of iron 
 cannon and brass cannon, the tempering of swords, the
 
 ITS DIGNITY AND ITS DEGRADATION. 269 
 
 management of steam-batteries, and so forth, and so forth, 
 to bring this knowledge home, that our government 
 maybe instructed and enlightened in the art to kill. 
 I have not heard that Congress proposes to establish any 
 Normal School, the immediate or the remote object 
 of which shall be to teach " peace on earth and 
 good will to men." " Go ye out into every nation 
 and preach the gospel to every creature," has hitherto 
 been practically translated, " Go ye out into every 
 nation and kill or rob every creature." We are told that 
 a celestial choir once winged its way from heaven to 
 earth on an errand of mercy and love ; but for the com- 
 munication of that message which burned in their hearts 
 and melted from their tongues, they sought out no 
 lengthened epic or long-resounding psean ; they chant- 
 ed only that brief and simple strain, "Peace on earth 
 and good will to men," as if to assure us that these were 
 the telectest words in the dialect of heaven, and the 
 choicest beat in all its music. But long since have 
 these notes died away. Oh ! when shall that song be re- 
 newed, and every tongue and nation upon earth unite 
 their voices with those of angels in uplifting the heavenly 
 strain ? 
 
 Again I say, my friends, that the arraignment and de- 
 nunciation of men is no part of my present purpose. I 
 advert to these world-known facts, for the sole and simple 
 object of showing how the subject of education stands, 
 and has stood, in prosaic and poetic literature, in the 
 refining arts, in history, and in the laws, institutions and 
 opinions of men. I wish hereby to show its relative 
 degradation, the inferiority of the rank assigned to it, as 
 compared with all other interests, or with any other 
 interest ; and thus to exhibit the true reasons why, as 
 vet, it has done so little for the renovation of the world.
 
 270 HISTOKICAL VIEW OF EDUCATION. 
 
 I have spoken only of the general current of events, of 
 opinions and of practices common to mankind. In our 
 own times, in such low estimation is this highest of all 
 causes held, that in these days of conventions for all 
 other objects of public interest, when men go hundreds 
 of miles to attend railroad conventions, and cotton con- 
 ventions, and tobacco conventions ; and when the delegates 
 of political conventions* are sometimes counted, as Xer- 
 xes counted his army, by acres and square miles, yet 
 such has often been the dispersive effect upon the public 
 of announcing a Common-school Convention, and a Lec- 
 ture on Education, that I have queried in my own mind 
 whether, in regard to two or three counties, at least, in 
 our own State, it would not be advisable to alter the law 
 for quelling riots and mobs ; and, instead of summoning 
 sheriffs and armed magistrates and the posse comitatm 
 for their dispersion, to put them to flight by making 
 proclamation of a Discourse on Common Schools. 
 
 When we reflect upon all this, what surprises and 
 grieves us most is, that so few men are surprised or 
 grieved. 
 
 It has been my fortune, within the last few years, to 
 visit schools in many of our sister States ; and I have 
 spared no efforts to make myself acquainted with the 
 general system, so far as any system exists, adopted 
 in them all. Although in one or two States the general 
 plan of Public Instruction, owing to its more recent 
 establishment, may have a few advantages over our own, 
 yet there is not a single State in the Union whose whole 
 system is at all comparable to that of Massachusetts, 
 whether we consider its extent, its efficiency, or the gen- 
 eral intelligence with which it is administered by the 
 
 * It was said that at the Young Men's Whig Convention, held at Balti- 
 more, in May, 1844, there were forty thousand delegates in attendance.
 
 ITS DIGNITY AND ITS DEGRADATION. 271 
 
 local authorities.* Disproportionately, however, as we 
 value this cause, it would be impossible to convict Mas- 
 sachusetts of such dereliction from duty as has been 
 manifested by some of her sister States. 
 
 I think, for instance, that it would be impossible for our 
 people to imitate the example of our neighbors, the inhab- 
 itants of Maine, so long and so lately a part of ourselves, 
 where, in the year 1839, there was a general uprising of 
 the whole population, and an appropriation, by an almost 
 unanimous vote of the Legislature, of the sum of eight 
 hundred thousand dollars, for the forcible rescue of certain 
 outlands, or outwastes, claimed by Great Britain ; while, 
 for three successive sessions, some of the wisest and best 
 
 * I believe this statement to have been strictly true at the time when it 
 was written, (1841.) But, in some respects, it is no longer so. As it re- 
 gards efficiency, and the means of rapid improvement, to say no more, the sys- 
 tem of the State of New York now takes precedence of any in the Union. In 
 addition to a State Superintendent of Common Schools, whose jurisdiction 
 extends over them all, there are one or more Deputy Superintendents in eadi 
 county, whose time is devoted to a visitation of the schools, to lecturing 
 and diffusing information among the people, and so forth ; and who make a 
 report, once a year, or oftener, to the Stare Superintendent, respecting the 
 condition of the schools within their respective counties. These Deputy 
 Superintendents, generally speaking, are men of superior intelligence, prac- 
 tically acquainted with the business of school-keeping, and enthusiastically 
 devoted to the duties of their office. We can imagine how efficient such a 
 system must be, by supposing the existence of one or more intelligent 
 school agents or officers, in each county of the State of Massachusetts, 
 whose whole time should be devoted to visiting the schools, and to creating, 
 in the minds of the people, a more adequate conception of their value. 
 
 There is a school library in every school district in the State of New 
 York. 
 
 At the session of the legislature, in 1844, by a unanimous vote of both 
 branches, the sum of $10,000 a year, for five years, was appropriated for 
 the support of a Normal School. This was the crowning work. The 
 school was opened at Albany, in December, 1 844. 
 
 The State of New York now possesses every means and facility for the 
 improvement of its Common Schools, which are possessed by any other 
 State in the Union, and some which no other State enjoys.
 
 272 HISTORICAL VIEW OF EDUCATION. 
 
 men iii that State have been striving, in vain, to obtain 
 from that same Legislature the passage of a law author- 
 izing school districts to purchase a school library, by 
 levying a tax upon themselves for the purpose. In the 
 memoirs of the Pickwick Club, it is related that they 
 passed a unanimous vote, that any member of said club 
 should be allowed to travel in any part of England, Scot- 
 land or Wales, and also to send whatever packages he 
 might please, always provided that said member should 
 pay his own expenses. But the Legislature of Maine 
 would not allow their school districts to buy libraries, 
 even at their own cost ! What latent capacities for enjoy- 
 ment and for usefulness, which will now lie dormant for- 
 ever, might not that sum of eight hundred thousand dollars 
 have opened for the people of that State, for their chil- 
 dren and their children's children, had it been devoted 
 by enlightened minds to worthy objects ! 
 
 So, too, to give one more example, you will all recollect 
 that outbreak of South Carolina against the general gov- 
 ernment, in 1832, when a few of the demi-gods of that 
 State stamped upon the earth, and instantly it was cov- 
 ered with armed men ; a State convention was held, laws 
 were enacted, extending the jurisdiction of the courts 
 and investing the Executive almost with a Dictator's 
 power, all under the pretext of defending State rights, 
 while, for the last thirty years, her whole appropriation 
 for public schools has been less than forty thousand dol- 
 lars per annum; and out of a white population, of all 
 ages, of less than 270,000, there are more than 20,000, 
 above the age of twenty years, who cannot read and 
 write ; as though it could long be possible, without 
 more efficient means for the general diffusion of intelli- 
 gence and virtue, to have any State rights worth defend- 
 ing.
 
 ITS DIGNITY AND ITS DEGRADATION. 273 
 
 But, after a thorough and impartial inquisition, what 
 verdict can we render, with a clear conscience, in regard 
 to our own much-lauded Commonwealth ? The Fathers 
 of New England, it is true, soon after the settlement of 
 the colony, established Common Schools, for which let 
 their names be honored above the names of all other men, 
 while the world stands, but one of their two avowed 
 objects was, to enable the people to read the Scriptures in 
 their native tongue. They seem to have forgotten that 
 the extent of intelligence, and the teachable and consci- 
 entious and reverential spirit with which one comes to 
 that reading, is of paramount importance. The insane 
 followers of Matthews, and of Joe Smith, can read the 
 Scriptures. Years, too, before Common Schools were es- 
 tablished for the many, a college was endowed to give a 
 full and elaborate education to the few, who, according 
 to the prevalent views of those times, were to be desig- 
 nated and set apart, even in youth, to fill the offices of 
 church and state in subsequent life. This, however, 
 should be remembered in their praiso, that the teachers 
 selected for the schools, in the early years of the colony, 
 were uniformly men of age, experience, learning and 
 moral worth ; and, according to the accustomed rates of 
 compensation in those days, they were fairly remunerat- 
 ed. In that age, no prudential-committee-man, or other 
 officer, by whatever name he might have been called, 
 was seen groping about through all the colonies, after 
 bats and moles to teach young eagles how to fly, because 
 they would do it cheap. But is it our general practice to 
 select, as teachers, only those who have arrived at mature 
 age, who are known and respected, far and wide, for their 
 experience, weight of character, dignity of deportment, 
 and extent of intelligence ? The rate of compensation, 
 too, had fallen, before the year 1837, when the Board of 
 
 VOL. I. 18
 
 274 HISTORICAL VIEW OP EDUCATION. 
 
 Education was established, far below that of skilful arti- 
 sans and mechanics, or even of the better class of opera- 
 tives in manufacturing establishments. The common 
 laborers on our farms, the journeymen in our shops, and 
 the workpeople in our mills, all have some fixed resi- 
 dence, some place enjoying the seclusion and invested 
 with the sacred associations of home. Even the old- 
 fashioned cobbler, who used to travel from house to 
 house, carrying on his back his box of tools and his 
 scraps of leather, has at last found an abiding-place ; 
 nobody but the schoolmaster is obliged to board round. 
 Nobody but the schoolmaster is put up at auction, and 
 knocked off to the lowest bidder ! I think this use of 
 the word " lowest " must oftentimes vivify a teacher's 
 grammatical notions of the superlative degree. Think 
 you, my friends, there would be so many young men 
 pressing forward into the profession of the law, if lawyers 
 were put up at auction, and then had to board round 
 among their clients ? 
 
 Compare the salaries given to engineers, to superintend- 
 ents of railroads, to agents and overseers of manufacturing 
 establishments, to cashiers of banks, and so forth, with 
 the customary rates of remuneration given to teachers. 
 Yet, does it deserve a more liberal requital, does it require 
 greater natural talents, or greater attainments, to run 
 cotton or woollen machinery, or to keep a locomotive 
 from running off the track, than it does to preserve this 
 wonderfully-constructed and complicated machine of the 
 human body in health and vigor ; or to prevent the spir- 
 itual nature, that vehicle which carries all our hopes, 
 from whirling deviously to its ruin, or from dashing 
 madly forward to some fatal collision ? Custom-house 
 collectors and postmasters sometimes realize four, five 
 or six thousand dollars a year from their offices, while
 
 ITS DIGNITY AND ITS DEGRADATION. 275 
 
 as many hundreds are grudgingly paid to a school- 
 teacher. 
 
 The compensation which we give with the hand is a 
 true representation of the value which we affix in the 
 mind; and how much more liberally and cordially do we 
 requite those who prepare outward and perishable gar- 
 ments for the persons of our children, than those whose 
 office it is to endue their spirits with the immortal vest- 
 ments of virtue ? Universally, the price-current of accom- 
 plishments ranges far above that of solid and enduring 
 attainments. Is not the dancing-master, who teaches our 
 children to take the steps, better requited than he who 
 teaches their feet not to go down to the chambers of death ? 
 Were the music-master as wretchedly rewarded and as 
 severely criticised as the schoolmaster, would not his 
 strains involuntarily run into the doleful and lugubrious ? 
 Strolling minstrels, catching the eye with grotesque 
 dresses, and chanting unintelligible words, are feasted,/*?^/ 
 and garlanded ; and when a European dancer, nurtured 
 at the foul breast of theatrical corruption, visits our land, 
 the days of idolatry seem to have returned ; wealth 
 flows, the incense of praise rises, enthusiasm rages like 
 the mad Bacchantes. It is said that Celeste received 
 fifty thousand dollars, in this country, in one year, for the 
 combined exhibition of skill and person ; and that devotee 
 to Venus, Fanny Ellsler, was paid the enormous sum of 
 sixty thousand dollars, in three months, for the same 
 meritorious consideration, or value received. In both 
 these cases, a fair proportion was contributed in the 
 metropolis of our own State. At the rate of compensa- 
 tion at which a majority of the female teachers in Mas- 
 sachusetts have been rewarded for their exhausting toils, 
 it would require more than twenty years' continued labor 
 to equal the receipts of Fanny Ellsler for a single night !
 
 276 HISTORICAL VIEW OF EDUCATION. 
 
 Thus, in our most populous places, and amongst people 
 who profess to lead society, stands the relative supremacy 
 of sense and soul, of heels and head. And I blush while 
 I reflect, that amongst all the daughters of New England 
 who witnessed the unreserved displays of these Cyprian 
 women, there was not one to be found, in whose veins 
 flowed the chaste blood of the Puritan mothers, prompt- 
 ing her to approach these female sans culottes, backwards, 
 and perform for them the same friendly service, which, 
 on a like necessity, the sons of Noah performed for him. 
 And although I would not silence one note in the burst 
 of admiration with which our young men, who assume to 
 be the leaders of fashion, respond to the charms of female 
 beauty, agility, or grace ; yet I do desire, that, in paying 
 their homage, they should distinguish between the Venus 
 Celestial and the Venus Infernal ! * 
 
 * In discussing the propriety or impropriety of exhibiting live specimens 
 of female nudity, before mixed assemblies of ladies and gentlemen, es- 
 pecially when the spectacles are of the ad libitum sort, and where the actress 
 is expected to acknowledge every round of applause by enlarging the field of 
 vision, I have sometimes been answered in the language of King Edward's 
 celebrated saying, " Honi soit qui mal y pense," "Evil to him who thinks 
 eril." One thing has tended to disgust me with this retort. I have never 
 known it used, for this purpose, except by persons more or less deeply taint- 
 ed with libertinism during some part of their lives. I never knew it 
 given by a man wholly free from reproach, in conduct and reputation, on the 
 score of licentiousness. 
 
 One of the most striking things in the " Letters from Abroad," by Miss 
 C. M. Scdgwick, is the uniform and energetic condemnation which that 
 irue American lady bestows upon opera-dancers, and the whole corps dc 
 htllet., for the public and shameless exhibition of their persons upon the 
 stage. Have the young ladies of our cities a nicer sense of propriety, of 
 modesty, and of all tbe elements of female loveliness, than this excellent 
 author, who has written so much for their improvement, and who is herself 
 so admirable an example of all feminine purity and delicacy? And have 
 the young men of America a higher ideal of what belongs to a true gentle- 
 man, to a man of lofty and noble nature, than a writer, who is so justly
 
 ITS DIGNITY AND ITS DEGRADATION. 277 
 
 As I have before intimated, the relics, the symbols, the 
 monuments, of whatever kind they may be, which a 
 people has prepared to sustain or enshrine the objects of 
 its interest or affections, furnish undesigned, and there- 
 fore demonstrative evidence of the relative estimation in 
 which these objects were held. The dull and heavy 
 Egyptians have left us the visible impress and emblem 
 of their minds, in their indistinct hieroglyphics, their 
 ponderous architecture, and in their pyramids, which ex- 
 hibit magnificence without taste, costliness without ele- 
 gance, and power without genius. But the splendid 
 temples, statues and arches of the Greeks, the massive 
 aqueducts and horizon-seeking roads of the Romans, were 
 only the outward and visible representations of their 
 conceptions of ideal beauty, of grandeur and power. 
 Amongst a people strongly drawn towards commerce, as 
 the source of their supremacy and opulence, like the 
 ancient Phoenicians, or like the people of Great Britain 
 or of the United States at the present day, the art of 
 ship-building is sure to be cultivated, and the finest 
 specimens of naval architecture to be produced. So, if 
 great reliance is placed upon an extensive inland traffic, 
 then innavigable rivers will be made navigable, mountains 
 of solid rock will be channelled, valleys filled, and what 
 we have before called the everlasting hills will be removed 
 
 celebrated, in both hemispheres, for her pure and elevated conceptions of 
 human character? 
 
 It is not with any harshness of feeling that I make another remark, but 
 only in view of the natural consequences or tendencies of conduct ; but it 
 seems to me that, for a husband to accompany his wife, or a father his 
 daughter, to such an exhibition, ought to be held a good plea in bur in 
 all our courts of law, should the same husband or father afterwards appear 
 as a prosecutor claiming damages, as the legal phraseology runs, "for loss 
 of service and pain of mind," on account of the wife or daughter whom he 
 had accompanied to such an exhibition.
 
 278 HISTORICAL YIEW OF EDUCATION. 
 
 to create facilities for internal transportation. In fine, 
 our works are the visible embodiment and representation 
 of our feelings. Thus, the Psalmist, referring to the 
 unspeakably .magnificent heavens, says: they "declare 
 the glory of God, and the firmament showeth his handi- 
 work." 
 
 Tried by this unerring standard in human nature, our 
 Schoolhouses are a fair index or exponent of our interest 
 in Public Education. Suppose, at this moment, some po- 
 tent enchanter, by the waving of his magic wand, should 
 take up all the twenty-eight hundred schoolhouses of 
 Massachusetts, with all the little triangular and nonde- 
 script spots of earth whereon and wherein they have been 
 squeezed, whether sand-bank, morass, bleak knoll, or 
 torrid plain, and, whirling them through the affrighted 
 air, should set them all down, visibly, round about us, in 
 this place ; and then should take us up into some watch- 
 tower or observatory, where, at one view, we could behold 
 the whole as they were encamped round about, ea,ch one 
 true to the point of compass which marked its nativity, 
 each one retaining its own color or no-color, each one 
 standing on its own heath, hillock, or fen ; I ask, my 
 friends, if, in this new spectacle under the sun, with its 
 motley hues of red, gray, and doubtful, with its windows 
 sprinkled with patterns taken from Joseph's many-colored 
 coat, with its broken chimneys, with its shingles and clap- 
 boards flapping and clattering in the wind, as if giving 
 public notice that they were about to depart, I ask, if, 
 in this indescribable and unnamable group of architec- 
 ture, we should not see the true image, reflection and 
 embodiment of our own love, attachment, and regard for 
 Public Schools and Public Education, as, in a mirror, face 
 answereth to face ? But, however neglected, forgotten, 
 forlorn, these edifices may be, yet within their walls is con-
 
 ITS DIGNITY AND ITS DEGRADATION. 279 
 
 tained the young and blooming creation of God. In them 
 are our hope, the hopes of the earth. There are gathered 
 together what posterity shall look back upon, as we now 
 look back upon heroes and sages and martyrs and apos- 
 tles ; or as we look back upon bandits and inquisitors and 
 sybarites. Our dearest treasures do not consist in lands 
 and tenements, in railroads and banks, in warehouses or 
 in ships upon every sea ; they are within those doors, be- 
 neath those humble roofs ; and is it not our solemn duty 
 to hold every other earthly interest subordinate to their 
 welfare ? 
 
 My friends, these points of contrast between our devo- 
 tion to objects of inferior interest, and our comparative 
 neglect of this transcendent cause, are as painful to me 
 as they can be to any one. Among all that remain, I 
 will mention but one class more. I ask you to look at 
 'the pecuniary appropriations, which, within a few years 
 past, the State has made for the encouragement of out- 
 ward and material interests, compared with what it has 
 done, or rather refused to do, for the enlightenment and 
 moral renovation of society, through a universal education 
 of the people. Within the last three years, the treasury 
 of the Commonwealth has dispensed a bounty of about 
 twenty-five thousand dollars to encourage the growth of 
 wheat, and within the last two years, of about five 
 thousand dollars for the culture of silk, for those goods 
 which perish with the using ; while it has not contributed 
 one cent towards satisfying the pressing demand for ap- 
 paratus and libraries for our schools, by which the im- 
 perishable treasures of knowledge and virtue would be 
 increased a hundred-fold. The State has provided for 
 the gratuitous distribution of a manual, descriptive of 
 the art and processes of silk-culture, but made no pro- 
 vision for the distribution of any manual on that most
 
 280 HISTORICAL VIEW OP EDUCATION. 
 
 difficult of all arts, the art of Education, as though 
 silk-culture were more important and more difficult than 
 soul-culture. 
 
 During the very last year, the State paid a Militia 
 Bounty of thirty thousand dollars, to soldiers, for three or 
 four trainings. Where are those trainings now ? Where 
 now the net proceeds, the value received, the available, 
 visible result, as exhibited in the advancement of society, 
 or the promotion of human welfare ? Could thirty thou- 
 sand dollars have been distributed to sustain the sinking 
 hearts of those females who keep school for a dollar a 
 week, or for ninepence a day, should we not now be able 
 to show some of its tangible fruits, and would not a trans- 
 fer of the fund to such an object have illustrated quite as 
 well the gallantry of the 'citizen soldier ? 
 
 To the American Institute of Instruction, whose noble 
 object it is to improve the race of children, the State, 
 after much importunity, has given the sum of three 
 hundred dollars a year for five years, (fifteen hundred 
 dollars,) while to Agricultural Societies, formed for the 
 purpose of improving the breed of cattle and a few other 
 kindred objects, it has given from four thousand dollars 
 to six thousand dollars a year, for about twenty years ! 
 
 In the year 1834, the Legislature made provision for 
 the prospective creation of a School Fund, to be formed 
 from half the proceeds of wild lands in the State of 
 Maine, and from the Massachusetts claim on the general 
 government for militia services rendered during the last 
 war. Through unexpected good fortune, about four 
 hundred thousand dollars have been realized from these 
 sources. Compare this bestowment, however, of a con- 
 tingent sum, a part of which was not regarded, at the 
 time, as much better than a gift of half the proceeds of a 
 lottery ticket, provided it should draw a prize, with its
 
 ITS DIGNITY AND ITS DEGRADATION. 281 
 
 prompt and magnificent encouragement of railroads. 
 No sooner were the eyes of the State opened to the com- 
 mercial importance of an internal communication with 
 the West, than it forthwith bound itself to the amount 
 of five millions of dollars in aid of this merely corporeal 
 and worldly enterprise. 
 
 One word more, and I will forbear any further to de- 
 pict these painful contrasts; I will forbear, not from 
 lack of materials, but from faintnoss of spirit. Almost 
 from year to year, through the whole period of our his- 
 tory, wealthy and benevolent individuals have risen up 
 amongst us, who have made noble gifts for literary, chari- 
 table and religious purposes, for public libraries, for 
 founding professorships in colleges, for establishing scien- 
 tific and theological institutions, for sending abroad mis- 
 sionaries to convert the heathen, some to one form of 
 faith, some to another. For most of these objects, the 
 State has co-operated with individuals ; often, it has given 
 on its own account. It has bestowed immense sums upon 
 the University at Cambridge, and Williams College, es- 
 pecially the former. It gave thirty thousand dollars to 
 the Massachusetts General Hospital. It put ten thousand 
 dollars into the Bunker-hill Monument, there to stand 
 forever in mindless, insentient, inanimate granite. But 
 while, with such a bounteous heart and open hand, the 
 State had bestowed its treasures for special, or local ob- 
 jects, for objects circumscribed to a party or a class, 
 it had not, for two hundred years, in its parental and 
 sovereign capacity, given any thing for universal educa- 
 tion ; it had given nothing, as God gives the rain aud 
 the sunshine, to all who enter upon the great theatre of 
 life. 
 
 It was under these circumstances, that a private gentle- 
 ; man, to his enduring honor, offered the sum of ten thou-
 
 282 HISTORICAL VIEW OP EDUCATION. 
 
 sand dollars, on condition that the State would add an 
 equal amount, to aid Teachers of our Common Schools 
 in obtaining those qualifications which would enable them 
 the more successfully to cultivate the divinely wrought^ 
 and infinitely valuable capacities of the human soul. The 
 hope and expectation were, that these teachers would go 
 abroad over the State, and, by the improved modes and 
 motives which they would introduce into the schools, 
 would be the means of conferring new, manifold and un- 
 speakable blessings upon the rising generation, without 
 any distinction of party or of denomination, of mental, 
 or of physical complexion. This hope and expectation 
 were founded upon the reasonableness of the thing, upon 
 the universal experience of mankind in regard to all 
 other subjects, and upon the well-attested experience of 
 several nations in regard to this particular measure. The 
 proposition was acceded to. This sum of twenty thou- 
 sand dollars was placed at the disposal of the Board 
 of Education, to carry the purposes of the donor and of 
 the Legislature into effect. Institutions called Normal 
 Schools were established. That their influence might be 
 wholly concentrated upon the preparation of teachers for 
 our Common Schools, the almost doubtful provision, that 
 the learned languages should not be included in the list 
 of studies taught therein, was inserted in the regulations 
 for their government ; not because there was any hos- 
 tility or indifference towards those languages, but because 
 it was desirable to prepare teachers for our Common 
 Schools, rather than to furnish facilities for those who are 
 striving to become teachers of Select Schools, High 
 Schools, and Academies. 
 
 The call was responded to by the very class of persons 
 to whom it was addressed. Not the children of the rich, 
 not the idle and luxurious, not those in pursuit of gaudy
 
 ITS DIGNITY AND ITS DEGRADATION. 283 
 
 accomplishments, came ; but the children of the poor, 
 the daughter of the lone widow whose straitened circum- 
 stances forbade her to send to costly and renowned sem- 
 inaries, the young man came from his obscure cottage- 
 home, where for years his soul had been on fire with the 
 love -of knowledge and the suppressed hope of usefulness ; 
 some accounted the common necessaries of life as 
 superfluities, and sold them, that they might participate 
 in these means of instruction ; some borrowed money 
 and subsidized futurity for the same purpose, while 
 others submitted to the lot, still harder to a noble soul, 
 of accepting charity from a stranger's hand. They came, 
 they entered upon their work with fervid zeal, with glow- 
 ing delight, with that buoyancy and inspiration of hope 
 which none but the young and the poor can ever feel. 
 
 But alas ! while this noble enterprise was still in its 
 bud and blossom, and before it was possible that any 
 fruits should be matured from it, it was assailed. In the 
 Legislature of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, an 
 attempt was made to abolish the Normal Schools, to dis- 
 perse the young aspirants who had resorted to them for 
 instruction, and crush their hopes ; and to throw back 
 into the hands of the donor the money which he had 
 given, and which the State had pledged its faith to appro- 
 priate, the first and only gift which had ever been 
 made for elevating and extending the education of all the 
 children in the Commonwealth. 
 
 In the document which purports to set forth the reasons 
 for this measure, the doctrine, that " the art of teaching- 
 is a peculiar art," is gainsaid. It is boldly maintained 
 " that every person who has himself undergone a process 
 of instruction, must acquire by that very process the art 
 of instructing others." And in this country, where, 
 without a higher standard of qualification for teachers.
 
 HISTORICAL VIEW OF EDUCATION. 
 
 without more universal and more efficient means of edu- 
 cation than have ever elsewhere existed, all our laws and 
 constitutions are weaker barriers against the assaults of 
 human passion than is a bulrush against the ocean's tide ; 
 
 in this country, that document affirmed that " perhaps 
 it is not desirable that the business of keeping these 
 schools, [the Common Schools,] should become a distinct 
 and separate profession." 
 
 Conceding to the originators and advocates of this 
 scheme for abolishing the Normal Schools, that they were 
 sincerely friendly to the cause of Common Schools, how 
 strikingly does it exhibit the low state of public senti- 
 ment in regard to these schools ! Those claiming to be 
 their friends, men, too, who had been honored by their 
 fellow-citizens with a seat in the Legislature, thought 
 it unnecessary, even in this country, to elevate the teach- 
 er's office into a profession ! 
 
 I will never cease to protest that I ana not bringing for- 
 ward these facts for the purpose of criminating the 
 motives, or of invoking retribution upon the conduct of 
 any one. My sole and exclusive object is to show to what 
 menial rank the majesty of this cause has been degraded ; 
 
 to show that the affections of this community are not 
 clustered around it ; that it is not the treasure which 
 their hearts love and their hands guard ; in fine, that 
 the sublime idea of a generous and universal education, 
 as the appointed means, in the hands of Providence, for 
 restoring mankind to a greater similitude to their Divine 
 Original, is but just dawning upon the public mind. 
 
 But I have done. Let this rapid survey of our con- 
 dition, by showing us how little has been done, convince 
 us how much remains to be accomplished. Instead of 
 repining at the inadequate conceptions of our prede- 
 cessors, let us rejoice and shout aloud for joy, that we
 
 ITS DIGNITY AND ITS DEGRADATION. 285 
 
 have been brought to a point, where the vista of a more 
 glorious future opens upon our view. Let us dilate our 
 spirits to a capacity for embracing the magnitude and 
 grandeur of the work we have undertaken. Let us 
 strengthen our resolutions, till difficulty and obstruction 
 shall be annihilated before them. If the ascent before us 
 is high, all the more glorious will be the prospect from 
 the summit ; if it is toilsome, our sinews shall grow 
 mightier by every struggle to overcome it. If it is grate- 
 ful to recognize blessings which have been won for us by 
 our ancestors, it is more noble in us to win blessings for 
 posterity, for God has so constituted the soul, that the 
 generous feelings of self-sacrifice are infinitely sweeter 
 and more enduring than the selfish pleasures of indul- 
 gence. Although, as friends of this cause, we are few 
 and scattered, and surrounded by an unsympathizing 
 world, yet let us toil on, each in his own sphere, what- 
 ever that sphere may be, nor " bate one jot of heart or 
 hope." Although we now labor, like the coral insects at 
 the bottom of the ocean, uncheered, unheard, iinseen, 
 with the tumultuous waters of interest and of passion 
 raging high above us, yet let us continue to labor on. 
 for, at length, like them, we will bring a rock-built con- 
 tinent to the surface, and upon that surface God will 
 plant his Paradise anew, and people it with men and 
 women of nobler forms and of diviner beauty than any 
 who now live, with beings whose minds shall be illu- 
 mined by the light of knowledge, and whose hearts shall 
 l>e hallowed by the sanctity of religion. 
 
 For the fulfilment, then, of these holy purposes, what 
 labor shall we undertake, and in what resolutions shall wo 
 persevere unto the end ? for labor and perseverance are 
 indispensable means for the production of any good by 
 human hands.
 
 286 HISTORICAL VIEW OF EDUCATION. 
 
 In the first place, the education of the whole people, iu 
 a. republican government, can never be attained without 
 the consent of the whole people. Compulsion, even 
 though it were a desirable, is not an available instrument. 
 Enlightenment, not coercion, is our resource. The nature 
 of education must be explained. The whole mass of mind 
 must be instructed in regard to its comprehensive and 
 enduring interests. We cannot drive our people up a 
 dark avenue, even though it be the right one ; but we 
 must hang the starry lights of knowledge about it, and 
 show them not only the directness of its course to the goal 
 of prosperity and honor, but the beauty of the way that 
 leads to it. In some districts, there will be but a single 
 man or woman, in some towns scarcely half a dozen men 
 or women, who have espoused this noble enterprise. But 
 whether there be half a dozen or but one, they must be 
 like the little leaven which a woman took and hid in three 
 measures of meal. Let the intelligent visit the ignorant, 
 day by day, as the oculist visits the blind man, and de- 
 taches the scales from his eyes, until the living sense leaps 
 to the living light. Let the zealous seek contact and 
 communion with those who are frozen up in indifference, 
 and thaw off the icebergs wherein they lie embedded. 
 Let the love of beautiful childhood, the love of country, 
 the dictates of reason, the admonitions of conscience, the 
 sense of religious responsibility, be plied, in mingled ten- 
 derness and earnestness, until the obdurate and dark 
 mass of avarice and ignorance and prejudice shall be dis- 
 sipated by their blended light and heat. 
 
 But a duty more noble, as well as more difficult and 
 delicate than that of restoring the suspended animation 
 of society, will devolve upon the physician and friend of 
 this cause. In its largest sense, no subject is so compre- 
 hensive as that of education. Its circumference reaches
 
 ITS DIGNITY AND ITS DEGRADATION. 287 
 
 around and outside of, and therefore embraces all other 
 interests, human and divine. Hence, there is danger 
 that whenever any thing practical, any real change, 
 is proposed, all classes of men will start up and inquire, 
 how the proposed change will affect some private interest, 
 or some idolized theory or opinion of theirs. Suppose a 
 short-sighted, selfish man to be interested as manufacturer, 
 author, compiler, copyright owner, vender, peddler, or puff- 
 er, of any of the hundreds of school-books, from the read- 
 ing-book that costs a dollar, to the primer that costs four- 
 pence, whose number and inconsistencies infest our 
 schools, and whose expense burdens our community, 
 then he will inquire which one of all these books will be 
 likely to meet with countenance or disfavor, in an adjudi- 
 cation upon their merits ; and he will strive to turn the 
 scales which confessedly hold the great interests of hu- 
 manity, one way or the other, as their inclination will pro- 
 mote or oppose the success of his reading-book or his 
 primer. So one, who has entered the political arena, not 
 as a patriot, but as a partisan, will decide upon any new 
 measure by its supposed bearing upon the success of his 
 faction or cabal, and not by its tendency to advance the 
 welfare of the body politic. In relation, too, to a more 
 solemn subject, how many individuals there are belong- 
 ing to the hundred conflicting forms of religious faith, 
 which now stain and mottle the holy whiteness of Christi- 
 anity, who will array themselves against all plans for the 
 reform or renovation of society, unless its agents and in- 
 struments are of their selection ! And so of all the varied 
 interests in the community, industrial, literary. political, 
 spiritual. Whatever class this great cause may touch, or 
 be supposed likely to touch, there will come forth from 
 that class, active opponents ; or, what may not be less 
 disastrous, selfish and indiscreet friends. I have known
 
 288 HISTORICAL VIEW OF EDUCATION. 
 
 the carpenter and the mason belonging to the same school 
 district, change sides and votes on the expediency of 
 erecting a new schoolhouse, after it had been determined, 
 contrary to expectation, to construct it of brick instead 
 of wood. I have known a bookmaker seek anxiously to 
 learn the opinions of the Board of Education respecting 
 his book, in order to qualify himself to decide upon the 
 expediency of its having been established. 
 
 How, then, I ask, is this great interest to sustain itself, 
 amid these disturbing forces of party and sect and faction 
 and clan ? how is it to navigate with whirlwinds above 
 and whirlpools below, and rocks on every side ? 
 
 In the first place, in regard to mere secular and busi- 
 ness interests, we are to do no man wrong ; we are to 
 show by our deeds, rather than by our words, that we are 
 seeking no private, personal aims, but public ends by 
 equitable means. We are to show that our object is to 
 diffuse light and knowledge, and to leave those who can 
 best bear these tests to profit most by their diffusion. 
 Let us here teach the lessons of justice and impartiality 
 on what, in schools, is called the exhibitory method ; that 
 is, by an actual exhibition of the principle we would in- 
 culcate ; and as, for the untaught schoolboy, we bring 
 out specimens, and models and objects, and give practical 
 illustrations by apparatus and diagram to make him ac- 
 quainted with the various branches of study ; so, in the 
 great school of the world, let us illustrate the virtues of 
 generosity, magnanimity, equity and self-sacrifice, by the 
 shining example of our acts and lives. 
 
 And again ; in regard to those higher interests which 
 the politician and theologian feel called upon to guard 
 and superintend, let us show them that, in supporting a 
 system of Public Instruction, adapted to common wants 
 and to be upheld by common means, we will not en-
 
 ITS DIGNITY AND ITS DEGRADATION. 289 
 
 croach one hair's breadth upon the peculiar province 
 of any party or any denomination. But let us never 
 cease to reiterate, and urge home upon the consideration 
 of all political parties and religious denominations, that, 
 in order to gain any useful ally to their cause, or worthy 
 convert to their faith, they must first find a MAN, not 
 a statue, not an automaton, not a puppet, but a free, a 
 thinking, an intelligent soul; a being possessed of the 
 attributes as well as the form of humanity. For what 
 can the enlightened advocate of any doctrine do, if he is 
 compelled to address brutish souls through adders' ears ? 
 How much can the senator or the ambassador of Christ 
 accomplish, in convincing or in reforming mankind, if 
 they are first obliged to fish up their subjects from the 
 fetid slough of sensualism, or to excavate them from 
 beneath thick layers of prejudice, where, if I may express 
 myself in geological language, they lie buried below 
 the granite formation ? In expounding the great problems 
 of civil polity, or the momentous questions pertaining to 
 our immortal destinies, how much can they effect, while 
 obliged to labor upon men whose intellects are so halt- 
 ing and snail-paced, that they can no more traverse the 
 logical distance between premises and conclusion, in any 
 argument, than their bodies could leap the spaces between 
 the fixed stars ? As educators, as friends and sustainers 
 of the Common-school system, our great duty is to pre- 
 pare these living and intelligent souls ; to awaken the 
 faculty of thought in all the children of the Common- 
 wealth ; to give them an inquiring, outlooking, forth- 
 going mind ; to impart to them the greatest practicable 
 amount of useful knowledge ; to cultivate in them a 
 sacred regard to truth ; to keep them unspotted from the 
 world, that is, uncontaminated by its vices ; to train them 
 up to the love of God and the love of man ; to make the 
 
 VOL. I. 19
 
 290 HISTORICAL VIEW OF EDUCATION. 
 
 perfect example of Jesus Christ lovely in their eyes ; and 
 to give to all so much religious instruction as is compat- 
 ible with the rights of others and with the genius of our 
 government, leaving to parents and guardians the di- 
 rection, during their school-going days, of all special and 
 peculiar instruction respecting politics and theology ; and 
 at last, when the children arrive at years of maturity, 
 to commend them to that inviolable prerogative of pri- 
 vate judgment and of self-direction, which, in a Protes- 
 tant and a Republican country, is the acknowledged birth- 
 right of every human being. 
 
 But sterner trials than any I have yet mentioned await 
 the disciples of this sacred apostleship. The strong 
 abuses that have invaded us will not be complimented 
 into retirement ; they will not be bowed out of society ; 
 but as soon as they are touched, they will bristle all over 
 with armor, and assail us with implacable hostility. 
 While doing good, therefore, we must consent to suffer 
 wrong. Such is human nature, that the introduction of 
 every good cause adds another chapter to the Book of 
 Martyrs. Though wise as serpents, yet there are adders 
 who will not hear us ; and though harmless as doves, yet 
 for that very harmlessness will the vultures more readily 
 stoop upon us. We shall not, indeed, be literally carried 
 to the stake, or burned with material fires ; but pangs 
 keener than these, and more enduring, will be made to 
 pierce our breasts. Our motives will be maligned, our 
 words belied, our actions falsified. A reputation, for 
 whose spotlessness and purity we may, through life, have 
 resisted every temptation and made every sacrifice, will 
 be blackened ; and a character, perhaps our only 
 precious possession wherewith to requite the love of 
 family and friends, will be traduced, calumniated, vili- 
 fied ; and, if deemed sufficiently conspicuous to attract
 
 ITS DIGNITY AND ITS DEGRADATION. 201 
 
 public attention, held up, in the public press, perhaps in 
 legislative halls, to common scorn and derision. What 
 then ? Shall we desert this glorious cause ? Shall we 
 ignobly sacrifice immortal good to mortal ease ? No ; 
 never! But let us meet opposition in the spirit of him 
 who prophetically said, " If they have persecuted me, 
 they will also persecute you." For those who oppose 
 and malign us, our revenge shall be, to make their chil- 
 dren wiser, better, and happier than themselves. If we 
 ever feel the earthly motives contending with the heaven- 
 ly in our bosoms, selfishness against duty, sloth against 
 enduring and ennobling toil, a vicious contentment 
 against aspiring after higher and attainable good, 
 let us not suffer the earth-born to vanquish the immor- 
 tal. What though it cannot be said, 
 
 " A cloud of witnesses around 
 Hold us in full survey," 
 
 yet the voiceless approval of conscience outweighs the 
 applauses of the world, and will outlast the very air and 
 light through which the eulogiums of mankind, or the 
 memorials of their homage, can be manifested to us. 
 
 What, too, though we cannot complete or perfect the 
 work in our own ag-e. For the consummation of such 
 a cause, a thousand years are to be regarded only as a 
 day. We know that the Creator has established an indis- 
 soluble connection between our conduct and its conse- 
 quences. We know that the sublime order of his Provi- 
 dence is sustained, by evolving effects from causes. We 
 know that, within certain limits, he has intrusted the 
 preparation of caxises to our hands : and, therefore, we 
 know, that just so far as he has committed this prepara- 
 tion or adjustm'ent of causes to us, he has given us power 
 over effects ; he has given us power to modify or turn
 
 292 HISTORICAL VIEW OF EDUCATION". 
 
 the flow of events for coming ages. As the apostles and 
 martyrs and heroes, who lived centuries ago, have modi- 
 fied the events which happen to us, so have we the power 
 to modify the events which shall happen to our posterity. 
 We are not laboring, then,' for threescore and ten years 
 only, but, for aught we know, for threescore and ten 
 centuries, or myriads of centuries. Through these im- 
 mutable relations of cause and effect, of evolution, 
 transmission and reproduction, our conduct will pro- 
 ject its consequences through all the eras of coming time. 
 Though our life, therefore, is but as a vapor which passeth 
 away, yet we have power to strike the deepest chords of 
 human welfare, and to give them vibrations which shall 
 sound onward forever. Corresponding with this stupen- 
 dous order of events, we are endowed with a faculty of 
 mind, by which we can recognize and appreciate our 
 power over the fortunes and destinies of distant times. 
 By the aid of this faculty, we can see that whatever we 
 undertake and prosecute, with right motives and on sound 
 principles, will not return to us void, but will produce its 
 legitimate fruits of beneficence. On this faculty, then, 
 as on eagles' wings, let us soar beyond the visible horizon 
 of time ; let us survey the prospect of redoubling mag- 
 nificence, which, from age to age, will open and stretch 
 onward, before those whose blessed ministry it is to im- 
 prove the condition of the young ; let our thoughts wan- 
 der up and down among the coming centuries, and par- 
 take, by anticipation, of the enjoyments which others 
 shall realize. If we ever seem to be laboring in vain, 
 if our spirits are ever ready to faint, amid present obstruc- 
 tion and hostility, then, through this faculty of dis- 
 cerning what mighty results Nature and Providence will 
 mature from humble efforts, let us look forward in faith, 
 and we shall behold this mighty cause emerging from its
 
 ITS DIGNITY AND ITS DEGRADATION. 293 
 
 present gloom and obscurity, expanding and blossoming 
 out into beauty, and ripening into the immortal fruits of 
 wisdom and holiness ; and as we gaze upon the glorious 
 scene, every faculty within us shall be vivified, and en- 
 dued with new and unwonted energy. 
 
 What, then, though our words and deeds seem now to 
 be almost powerless and hopeless ; what though bands of 
 noble followers should rise up in our places, to be suc- 
 ceeded again and again by others, whose labors and sac- 
 rifices shall seem to fall and perish like the autumnal 
 leaves of the forest; yet, like the annual shedding of 
 that foliage, which, for uncounted centuries, has been 
 gradually deepening the alluvium, throughout the vast 
 solitudes of the Mississippi valley, increasing its depth and 
 its richness, so shall the product of our labors accumu- 
 late in value and in amount, until, at last, beneath the 
 hand of some more fortunate cultivator, it shall yield 
 more abundant harvests of excellence, and righteousness 
 and happiness, than had ever before luxuriated in the 
 " seed-field of Time."

 
 LECTURE VI. 
 1840.
 
 LECTURE VI. 
 
 ON DISTRICT-SCHOOL LIBRARIES. 
 
 I PROPOSE, in the following lecture, to consider the ex- 
 pediency of establishing a School Library in the several 
 School Districts of the State. 
 
 The idea of a Common-school Library is a modern 
 one. It originated in the State of New York. In the 
 year 1835, a law was passed by the Legislature of that 
 State, authorizing its respective school districts to raise, 
 by tax, the sum of twenty dollars the first year, and ten 
 dollars in any subsequent year, for the purchase of a 
 Common-school Library. No inducement was held out 
 to the districts to make the purchase, but only a mere 
 power granted ; and the consequence was, that for three 
 years this law remained almost a dead letter upon the 
 pages of the statute-book. But in the year 1838, Gover- 
 nor Marcy, in his inaugural address to the Legislature, 
 recommended the appropriation of a part of the income 
 of the United-States deposit fund, or surplus revenue, 
 (so called,) to this object. The recommendation was 
 adopted, and the sum of $55,000 for three years was set 
 apart to be applied by the districts to the purchase of a 
 District-school Library. The towns were also required 
 to raise an equal sum, to be united with the former, and 
 to be applied in the same way.* How much more does 
 
 * By a law of 1 839, this provision for three was extended to Jive years ; 
 and by a law of 1843, it was made perpetual, with the following modifica- 
 tions : Whenever the number of children in a district, between the ages of 
 
 297
 
 298 DISTRICT-SCHOOL LIBRARIES. 
 
 such an act of permanent usefulness redound to the 
 honor of a Governor or a Legislature, than those party 
 contests which occupy so much of public attention for a 
 few days or months, but are then forgotten, or are only 
 remembered to be lamented or condemned ! 
 
 By the law of April 12, 1837, the Legislature of Mas- 
 sachusetts authorized each school district in the State to 
 raise, by tax, a sum not exceeding thirty dollars for the 
 first year, and ten dollars for any subsequent year, for 
 the purchase of a library and apparatus for the schools. 
 Few districts, however, availed themselves of this power ; 
 and, up to the close of the year 1839, there were but 
 about fifty libraries in all the Common Schools of Mas- 
 sachusetts. 
 
 Being convinced of the necessity, and foreseeing the 
 benefits, of libraries in our schools, I submitted to the 
 Board of Education, on the 27th day of March, 1838, a 
 written proposition on that subject. In that communica- 
 tion it was proposed that the Board itself should take 
 measures for the preparation of such a Common-school 
 Library as should be adapted to the wants of the schools, 
 and should at the same time be free from objection on 
 account of partisan opinions in politics, or sectarian views 
 in religion. I had been led to suppose that one of the 
 principal reasons why so few libraries had been purchased, 
 under the law of 1837, was the jealousy entertained 
 against each other by members of different political par- 
 
 five and sixteen years, exceeds fifty, and the number of volumes in the 
 library shall exceed one hundred and twenty-five ; or when the number of 
 children in a district, between the same ages, is fifty, or less, and the num- 
 ber of volumes belonging to the library shall exceed one hundred, then the 
 district may appropriate the whole or any part of its distributive share of 
 the "library money" "to the purchase of maps, globes, blackboards, or 
 other scientific apparatus, for the use of the school."
 
 DISTRICT-SCHOOL LIBRARIES. 299 
 
 ties and of different religious denominations. Though 
 sensible men, and friends of education, almost without 
 exception, were earnest in their desires for a library, yet 
 they either had fears of their own, or encountered ap- 
 prehension in others, that the public money devoted to 
 this purpose of general utility might be perverted, in the 
 hands of partisans, to the furtherance of sinister ends. 
 The proposition submitted to the Board, as above stated, 
 was accompanied by guards designed to obviate these 
 difficulties. It was favorably received, and immediately 
 acted upon. 
 
 Being convinced, however, that nothing could be effected 
 towards the accomplishment of so grand an object, except 
 by going before the people with indubitable facts and 
 irresistible arguments, I set myself to the work of mak- 
 ing extensive and minute inquiries throughout the State, 
 respecting the number of public libraries, the number of 
 volumes which each contained, their estimated value, the 
 general character of the books, and also the number of 
 persons who had a right of access to them. I obtained 
 returns from all but sixteen towns, which, being small, 
 had an aggregate population of only 20,966. The result 
 exceeded my worst apprehensions. I found that there 
 were but 299 social libraries in the State. The number 
 of volumes they contained was 180,028. Their estimated 
 value, $191,538. The number of proprietors, or persons 
 having access to them, in their own right, was only 25,705. 
 
 In* addition to the above, there were, in the State, from 
 ten to fifteen town libraries, that is, libraries to which 
 all the citizens of the town had a right of access. These 
 contained, in the aggregate, from three to four thousand 
 volumes, and their estimated value was about $1,400. 
 There were also about fifty school-district libraries, con- 
 taining about ten thousand volumes, and worth, by
 
 300 DISTRICT-SCHOOL LIBRARIES. 
 
 estimation, about $3,200 or $3,300. Fifteen of these were 
 in Boston. The number of Public Schools in the State, 
 at that time, was 3,014. 
 
 A few of the incorporated academies had small libraries. 
 
 There were also a few circulating libraries in different 
 parts of the State, out of the city of Boston, perhaps 
 twenty, but it would be charitable to suppose that, 
 on the whole, this class of libraries does as much good as 
 harm. 
 
 Of all the social libraries in the State, thirty-six, con- 
 taining 81,881 volumes, valued at $130,055, and owned 
 by 8,885 proprietors, or share-holders, belonged to the 
 city of Boston. 
 
 It appeared, then, that the books belonging to the public 
 social libraries, in the city of Boston, constituted almost 
 one-half, in number, of all the books in the social libraries 
 of the State, and more than two-thirds of all in value ; 
 and yet only abput one-tenth part of the population of 
 the city had any right of access to them. 
 
 I have said above that the whole number of propri- 
 etors, or share-holders, in all the social libraries in the 
 State, was 25,705. Now, supposing that each proprietor 
 or share-holder, in these social libraries, represents, on 
 an average, four persons, (and this, considering the 
 number of share-holders who are not heads of families, 
 is probably a full allowance,) the population represented 
 by them, as enjoying the benefits of these libraries, would 
 be only a small fraction over one hundred thousand ;' and 
 this, strange and alarming as it may seem, would leave a 
 population, in the State, of more than six hundred thou- 
 sand, who have no right of participation in those benefits. 
 
 I omit here, as not having an immediate connection 
 with my present purpose, to give an account of the libra- 
 ries belonging to the colleges and other literary and scien-
 
 DISTRICT-SCHOOL LIBRARIES. 301 
 
 tific institutions in the State. A detailed account of these 
 may be found in iny Third Annual Report to the Board 
 of Education. 
 
 Do not the above facts show a most extraordinary and 
 wide-spread deficiency of books in our Commonwealth ? 
 
 But even where books exist, another question arises, 
 hardly less important than the preceding, as to the suit- 
 ableness or adaptation of the books to the youthful mind. 
 One general remark applies to the existing libraries al- 
 most without exception ; the books were written for 
 men, and not for children. The libraries, too, have been 
 collected by men for their own amusement or edification. 
 There is no hazard, therefore, in saying, that they contain 
 very few books, appropriate for the reading of the young, 
 either in the subjects treated of, the intellectual manner 
 in which those subjects are discussed, or the moral tone 
 that pervades the works.* 
 
 * As descriptive of the general character of the public libraries now ex- 
 isting in the State, I give the following extract from my Third Annual 
 Report : 
 
 The next question respects the character of the books composing the 
 libraries, and their adaptation to the capacities and mental condition of chil- 
 dren and youth. In regard to this point, there is, as might be expected, 
 but little diversity of statement. Almost all the answers concur in the 
 opinion, that the contents of the libraries are not adapted to the intellectual 
 and moral wants of the young, an opinion, which a reference to the titles, 
 in the catalogues, will fully sustain. With very few exceptions, the books 
 were written for adults, for persons of some maturity of mind, and pos- 
 sessed, already, of a considerable fund of information ; and, therefore, they 
 could not be adapted to children, except through mistake. Of course, in 
 the whole, collectively considered, there is every kind of books ; but proba- 
 bly no other kind, which can be deemed of a useful character, occupies so 
 much space upon the shelves of the libraries, as the historical class. Some 
 of the various histories of Greece and Rome ; the History of Modern Eu- 
 rope, by Russell ; of England, by Hume and his successors ; Robertson's 
 Charles V. ; Mavor's Universal History ; the numerous Histories of Napo- 
 leon, and similar works, constitute the staple of many libraries. And how 
 little do these books contain, which is suitable for children ! How little do
 
 302 DISTRICT-SCHOOL LIBRARIES. 
 
 Now the object of a Common-school Library is to sup- 
 ply these great deficiencies. Existing libraries are owned 
 
 they record but the destruction of human life, and the activity of those 
 misguided energies of men, which have hitherto almost baffled the benefi- 
 cent intentions of Nature for human happiness ! Descriptions of battles, 
 sackings of cities, and the captivity of nations, follow each other, with the 
 quickest movement, and in an endless succession. Almost the only glimpses 
 which we catch of the education of youth, present them as engaged in 
 martial sports, and in mimic feats of arms, preparatory to the grand trage- 
 dies of battle; exercises and exhibitions, which, both in the performer 
 and the spectator, cultivate all the dissocial emotions, and turn the whole 
 current of the mental forces into the channel of destructiveness. The 
 reader sees inventive genius, not employed in perfecting the useful arts, but 
 exhausting itself in the manufacture of implements of war. He sees rulers 
 and legislators, not engaged in devising comprehensive plans for universal 
 welfare, but in levying and equipping armies and navies, and extorting 
 taxes to maintain them, thus dividing the whole mass of the people into 
 the two classes of slaves and soldiers; enforcing the degradation and ser- 
 vility of tame animals upon the former, and cultivating the ferocity and 
 blood-thirstiness of wild animals in the latter. The highest honors are 
 conferred upon men, in whose rolls of slaughter the most thousands of 
 victims are numbered ; and seldom does woman emerge from her obscurity 
 indeed, hardly should we know that she existed but for her appear- 
 ance to grace the triumphs of the conqueror. What a series of facts would 
 be indicated, by an examination of all the treaties of peace which history 
 records ! they would appear like a grand index to universal plunder. The 
 inference which children would legitimately draw, from reading like this, 
 would be, that the tribes and nations of men had been created only for 
 mutual slaughter, and that they deserved the homage of posterity for the 
 terrible fidelity with which their mission had been fulfilled. Rarely do 
 these records administer any antidote against the inhumanity of the spirit 
 they instil. In the immature minds of children, unaccustomed to consider 
 events under the relation of cause and effect, they excite the conception of 
 magnificent palaces or temples, for bloody conquerors to dwell in, or in 
 which to offer profane worship for inhuman triumphs, without a suggestion 
 of the 'bondage and debasement of the myriads of slaves, who, through 
 lives of privation and torture, were compelled to erect them ; they present 
 an exciting picture of long trains of plundered wealth, going to enrich 
 some city or hero, without an intimation, that, by industry and the arts of 
 peace, the same wealth could have been earned more cheaply than it was 
 plundered ; they exhibit the triumphal return of warriors, to be crowned 
 with 'honors worthy of a god, while they take the mind wholly away from
 
 DISTBICT-SCHOOL LIBRARIES. 303 
 
 by the rich, or by those who are in comfortable circum- 
 stances. The Common-school Library will reach the 
 
 the carnage of the battle-field, from desolated provinces, and a mourning 
 people. In all this, it is true, there are many examples of the partial and 
 limited virtue of patriotism ; but few, only, of the complete virtue of phi- 
 lanthropy. The courage held up for admiration is generally of that ani- 
 mal nature, which rushes into danger to inflict injury upon another ; but 
 not of that Divine quality, which braves peril for the sake of bestowing 
 good attributes, than which there arc scarcely any two in the souls of 
 men, more different, though the baseness of the former is so often mistaken 
 for the nobleness of the latter. Indeed, if the past history of our race is to 
 be much read by children, it should be rewritten ; and, while it records 
 those events, which have contravened all the principles of social policy, and 
 violated all the laws of morality and religion, there should, at least, be 
 some recognition of the great truth, that, among nations, as among indi- 
 viduals, the highest welfare of all can only be effected by securing the in- 
 dividual welfare of each. There should be some parallel drawn between 
 the historical and the natural relations of the race, so that the tender and 
 immature mind of the youthful reader may have some opportunity of com- 
 paring the right with the wrong, and some option of admiring and emulat- 
 ing the former, instead of the latter. As much of history now stands, the 
 examples of right and wrong, whose nativity and residence are on opposite 
 sides of the moral universe, are not merely brought and shuffled together, so 
 as to make it difficult to distinguish between them ; but the latter are made 
 to occupy almost the whole field of vision, while the existence of the former 
 is scarcely noticed. It is as though children should be taken to behold, 
 from afar, the light of a city on fire, and directed to admire the splendor of 
 the conflagration, without a thought of the tumult, and terror, and death 
 reigning beneath it. 
 
 Another very considerable portion of these libraries, especially where 
 they have been recently formed or replenished, consists of novels, and all 
 that class of books which is comprehended under the familiar designations 
 of "fictions," "light reading," " trashy works," "ephemeral," or "bubble 
 literature," &c. This kind of books has increased, immeasurably, within 
 the last twenty years. It has insinuated itself into public libraries, and 
 found the readiest welcome with people who arc not dependent upon libra- 
 ries for the books they peruse. Aside from newspapers, I am satisfied 
 that the major part of the unprofessional reading of the community is of 
 the class of books above designated. Amusement is the object, mere 
 amusement, as contradistinguished from instruction, in the practical con- 
 cerns of life ; as contradistinguished from those intellectual and moral im- 
 pulses, which turn the mind, both while reading and after the book is closed , 
 to observation, and comparison, and reflection upon the great realities of 
 existence.
 
 304 DISTRICT-SCHOOL LIBRARIES. 
 
 poor. The former were prepared for adult and educated 
 minds ; the latter is to be adapted to instruct young and 
 unenlightened ones. By the former, books are collected 
 in great numbers, at a few places, having broad deserts 
 between ; by the latter, a few good books are to be sent 
 into every school district in the State, so that not a child 
 shall be born in our beloved Commonwealth, who shall 
 not have a collection of good books accessible to him at 
 all times, and free of expense, within half an hour's walk 
 of his home, wherever he may reside. 
 
 My friends, I look upon this as one of the grandest 
 moral enterprises of the age. The honor of first embody- 
 ing this idea, in practice, belongs to the State of New 
 York ; and how much more glorious is it than the honors 
 of battle ! The execution of this project will carry the 
 elements of thought where they never penetrated before. 
 It will scatter, free and abundant, the seeds of wisdom 
 and virtue in the desert places of the land. It will prove 
 as powerful an agent in the world of mind, as the use of 
 steam has done in the world of matter. 
 
 I propose now to notice a few particulars, in which the 
 usefulness of our schools will be so much enlarged in 
 extent, and increased in efficiency, by means of a library, 
 that they will become almost new institutions. 
 
 The idea which came down to us from our ancestors, 
 and which has generally prevailed until within a few 
 years, was, that Common District-schools are places where 
 the mass of the children may learri to read, to write, and 
 to cipher. 
 
 In regard to the first of these studies, Reading, 
 how imperfect was the instruction given ! Good reading 
 may be considered under three heads, the mechanical, 
 or the ability to speak the names of words on seeing 
 them ; the intellectual, or a comprehension of an author's
 
 DISTRICT-SCHOOL LIBRARIES. 305 
 
 ideas ; and the rhetorical, or the power of giving, by the 
 tones and inflexions of the voice and other natural lan- 
 guage, an appropriate expression to feeling. Now most 
 men, whose Common-school education closed twenty or 
 twenty-five years ago, will bear me out in saying, that 
 the mechanical part of reading was the only branch of 
 this accomplishment which, in the great majority of our 
 schools, was then attended to. The intellectual part, 
 which consists in seeing, with the mind's eye, the whole 
 subject, broad, ample, unshadowed, just as the author 
 saw it, was mainly neglected. Consider what a wonder- 
 ful, what an almost magical boon, a writer of great 
 genius confers upon us, when we read him intelligently. 
 As he proceeds from point to point in his argument or 
 narrative, we seem to be taken up by him, and carried 
 from hill-top to hill-top, where, through an atmosphere 
 of light, we survey a glorious region of thought, looking 
 freely, far and wide, above and below, and gazing in ad- 
 miration upon all the beauty and grandeur of the scene. 
 But if we read the same author unintelligently, not one 
 of the splendors he would reveal to us is pictured upon 
 the eye. All is blank. The black and white pages of 
 the book are, to our vision, the outside of the universe 
 in that direction. I never attended any but a Common 
 School until I was sixteen years of age, and up to that 
 time, I had never heard a question asked, either by 
 teacher or scholar, respecting the meaning of a word or 
 sentence in a reading-lesson. In spelling, when words 
 were addressed singly to the eye or ear, we uttered a sin- 
 gle mechanical sound ; and in reading, when the words 
 came in a row, the sounds folio.wed in a row ; but it was 
 the work of the organs of speed i only, the reflecting 
 and imaginative powers being all the while as stagnant 
 as the Dead Sea. It was the noise of machinery thrown 
 
 VOL. i. 20
 
 306 DISTRICT-SCHOOL LIBRARIES. 
 
 out of gear ; and, of course, performing no work, though 
 it should run on forever. The exercises had no more sig- 
 nificancy than the chattering of magpies or the cawings 
 of ravens ; for it was no part of the school instruction of 
 those days to illustrate and exemplify the power and co- 
 piousness of the English language, and, out of its flexible 
 and bright- colored words, to make wings, on which the 
 mind could go abroad through height and depth and dis- 
 tance, exploring and circumnavigating worlds. 
 
 Nor was our instruction any better in regard to the 
 rhetorical part of reading, which consists in such a com- 
 pass of voice and inflection of tone, as tend to reproduce 
 the feelings of the speaker in the minds of the hearers. 
 There is this difference between the intellectual and the 
 rhetorical part of reading ; the intellectual refers to our 
 own ability to perceive and understand ideas, arguments, 
 conclusions ; the rhetorical refers to the power of ex- 
 citing in others, by our own enunciation and manner of 
 delivery, the sentiments and emotions which we feel, or 
 which were felt by the author in whose place we stand. 
 
 Some men have possessed this power, and some men 
 now possess it, in such perfection, that when they rise to 
 address a concourse of people, the more numerous the 
 concourse, the better for their purpose, they forthwith 
 migrate, as it were, into the bodies of the whole multi- 
 tude before them; they dwell, like a spirit, within the 
 spirits of their hearers, controlling every emotion and re- 
 solve, conjuring up before their eyes whatever visions 
 they please, making all imaginations seem substance and 
 reality, rousing, inflaming, subduing, so that if they cry 
 War ! every hearer becomes valiant and hot as Mars ; 
 but if they cry Peace ! the fiercest grow gentle and mer- 
 ciful as a loving child. This is a great art ; and when 
 .the orator is wise and good, and the audience intelligent,
 
 DISTRICT-SCHOOL LIBRARIES. 307 
 
 there is no danger, but a delicious illusion and luxury in 
 its enjoyment. Who has not gone beyond the delight, 
 and speculated upon the phenomenon itself, when he has 
 seen a master of the art of music place himself before a 
 musical instrument, and, soon as with nimble fingers he 
 touches the strings, which, but a moment before, lay 
 voiceless and dead, they pour out living and ecstatic har- 
 monies, as though some celestial spirit had fallen 
 asleep amid the chords, but, suddenly awakening, was 
 celebrating its return to life, by a song of its native ely- 
 sium ? When such music ceases, it seems hardly a figure 
 of speech to say, " the angel has flown." But what is 
 this, compared with that more potent and exquisite in- 
 strument, the well-trained voice ? When Demosthenes 
 or Patrick Henry pealed such a war-cry, that all people, 
 wherever its echoes rang, sprang to their arms, and every 
 peaceful citizen, as he listened, felt the warrior growing 
 big within him, and taking command of all his faculties, 
 what instrument or medium was there, by which the soul 
 of the orator was transfused into the souls of his hear- 
 ers, but the voice ? Yet while their bodies stood around, 
 as silent and moveless as marble statuary, there raged 
 within their bosoms a turbulence and whirlwind and boil- 
 ing, fiercer than if ocean and ^Etna had embraced. And 
 so, to a great extent, it is even now, when what they ut- 
 tered is fittingly read. We call this magic, enchant- 
 ment, sorcery, and so forth ; but there is no more magic 
 in it, than in balancing an egg on the smaller end, 
 each being equally easy when we have learned how to 
 do it. 
 
 None, however, of the beauties of rhetorical reading 
 can be attained, unless the intellectual part is mastered. 
 The mechanical reader is a mere grinder of words. If 
 he reads without any attempt at expression, it is mere
 
 308 DISTRICT-SCHOOL LIBRARIES. 
 
 see-saw and mill-clackery ; if he attempts expression, he 
 is sure to mistake its place, and his flourishes become ri- 
 diculous rant and extravagance. 
 
 Now no one thing will contribute more to intelligent 
 reading in our schools, than a well-selected library ; arid, 
 through intelligence, the library will also contribute to 
 rhetorical ease, grace, and expressiveness. Wake up a 
 child to a consciousness of power and beauty, and you 
 might as easily confine Hercules to a distaff, or bind Apol- 
 lo to a tread-mill, as to confine his spirit within the me- 
 chanical round of a schoolroom, where such mechanism 
 still exists. Let a child read and understand such stories 
 as the friendship of Damon and Pythias, the integrity of 
 Aristides, the fidelity of Regulus, the purity of Washing- 
 ton, the invincible perseverance of Franklin, and he will 
 think differently and act differently all the days of his 
 remaining life. Let boys or girls of sixteen years of age 
 read an intelligible and popular treatise on astronomy 
 and geology, and from that day, new heavens will bend 
 over their heads, and a new earth will spread out beneath 
 their feet. A mind accustomed to go rejoicing over the 
 splendid regions of the material universe, or to luxuriate 
 in the richer worlds of thought, can never afterwards read 
 like a wooden machine, a thing of cranks and pipes, 
 to say nothing of the pleasures and the utility it 
 will realize. 
 
 Indeed, when a scholar, at the age of sixteen or eigh- 
 teen years, leaves any one of our Public Schools, I can- 
 not see with what propriety we can say he has learned the 
 art of reading in that school, if he cannot promptly un- 
 derstand, either by reading himself, or by hearing another 
 read, any common English book of history, biography, 
 morals, or poetry ; or if he cannot readily comprehend 
 all the words commonly spoken in the lecture-room, the
 
 DISTRICT-SCHOOL LIBRARIES. 309 
 
 court-room, or the pulpit. It is not enough to understand 
 the customary words used at meal-time, or in a dram- 
 shop, or in congressional brawling. I know it is the 
 cry of many a hearer to the speaker, " Come down to 
 my comprehension ; " but I cannot see why any speaker, 
 who speaks good English words, whether derived origi- 
 nally from the Saxon or the Latin, or any other lawful 
 source, has not quite as good a right to say to the hearer, 
 " Come up to my language." When a clergyman, or 
 public speaker of any kind, for every hour that he spends 
 in thinking out his discourse, must spend two hours in 
 diluting it with watery expressions, in order to have it 
 run so thin that everybody may see to the bottom, he 
 loses not only the greater part of his time, but he loses 
 immensely in the value and impressiveness of his teach- 
 ings. If, in the heat of composition, and with the light 
 of all his faculties brought to a focus, he kindles with a 
 thought which glows like the orient sun, must he stop and 
 cut it up into farthing candles, lest the weak eyes of 
 some bat or mole should be dazzled by its brightness ? 
 But, in all such cases, the hearers lose still more than the 
 speaker. By the half-hour or hour together, they must 
 receive small coins, cents and four-penny bits, in- 
 stead of guineas and doubloons. They are like those ig- 
 norant, foreign depositors in one of our city Savings 
 Banks, during a late panic in the money-market, who 
 rushed to the counter, demanding immediate payment ; 
 but when pieces of gold were offered to them, of whose 
 value they had no test, and with whose image and super- 
 scription they were not acquainted, they besought the 
 officers, although, as they supposed, at the imminent risk 
 of losing their whole deposit, to pay them in small change, 
 where they felt at home. Just so it is with those who are 
 forever calling upon the speaker to come down to their
 
 310 DISTEICT-SCHOOL LIBB ARIES. 
 
 comprehension, in regard to his language and style ; for, 
 if he obeys the call and goes very far down, in order to 
 meet them, he necessarily leaves much of the grandeur 
 and beauty and sublimity of his subject behind him. 
 When a speaker is to discourse upon any great theme, 
 one belonging to any department of a universe which 
 Omniscience has planned and Omnipotence has builded, 
 ought he not to be allowed a generous liberty in the 
 use of language ? Ought he not to be allowed a scope and 
 amplitude of expression, by which he can display, as on a 
 sky-broad panorama, the infinite relations that belong to 
 the minutest thing ; or, on the other hand, should he not 
 be allowed that condensation of speech, by which the 
 vastest systems of nature can be consolidated into a sin- 
 gle word, to be hurled, like a bolt, at its mark ? Is it 
 not as absurd to restrict the speaker, on such occasions, 
 to mere nursery or cradle talk, as it would be to deny sea- 
 room to an admiral, and require him, for our amusement, 
 to mano3iivre navies in a mill-pond ? 
 
 Suppose a company of Americans should go to France 
 or Germany, and, after picking up a few words in hotels 
 and diligences, should attend the public lecture, the play, 
 or the services of the cathedral, and should there demand 
 of the speakers to keep within the narrow limits of their 
 vocabulary, I ask, whether it would not be most un- 
 reasonable, on the one side, to make such a demand, and 
 impossible, on the other, to comply with it ? And how- 
 would the case be altered, though the company should re- 
 side there for twenty-one years, if they still remained ig- 
 norant of the language of the country ? Now this is 
 just our case. Children, of course, come into the world 
 with just as little knowledge of English as of French and 
 German ; and if they remain here for twenty -one years, 
 without learning English words, how can they expect to 
 understand English speakers ?
 
 DISTRICT-SCHOOL LIBRARIES. 311 
 
 I do not mean, by these remarks, to countenance or 
 palliate the folly of those speakers or writers, who are 
 always straining after new words, or swell : ng forms of 
 expression ; and whose breadth and flow of style do not 
 resemble a river, but only a tiny stream whipped into 
 bubbles. It is occasionally our lot to encounter men 
 who seem to have imbibed some mathematical notion, 
 that the power of a word is as the square of its length, 
 and hence they suppose, that what Horace calls seven- 
 foot words * must have have at least forty-nine times 
 the pith of monosyllables. Such diction and style are as 
 offensive to men of good taste as they are unintelligible 
 to the illiterate. But I do mean, by these remarks, to 
 give a definition of what should be understood by the 
 phrase, learning to read. Unless pupils, therefore, on 
 going out from our schools, can read intelligently any 
 good English book, and understand any speech or dis- 
 course expressed in good English words, they cannot, with 
 any propriety, be said to have learned to read. And as 
 no set of reading-books, in our schools, contains any 
 thing like the whole circle of words which are in common 
 and reputable use in the pulpit, at the bar, in the senate, 
 or in works of standard literature, it is obvious that a 
 school library is needed to supply the great deficiency, 
 which otherwise would necessarily exist in the language of 
 the present children ; and, of course, in the language of 
 the future men and women. 
 
 Justice, in reference to this subject, has never been 
 done to the clerical profession. They habitually address 
 audiences, the most promiscuous in point of attainment, 
 and, so far as it regards the various qualities of lan- 
 guage, its scope, its majesty, its beauty, its melody, its 
 
 * Sesquipedalia verba.
 
 312 DISTRICT-SCHOOL LIBRARIES. 
 
 simplicity, if they prepare an entertainment of milk 
 for intellectual babes, the full-grown men die of thin 
 blood and inanition ; if, on the other hand, they bring 
 forward strong meat for men, it cannot be assimilated 
 by the weak organs of the sucklings. Hence multitudes 
 abandon the sanctuary altogether ; and the ignorant, who 
 need its teachings most, are most likely to desert it. How 
 important, then, it is, for all the divine purposes of this 
 profession, to teach children the art of reading, in the 
 true, legitimate, and full sense of that phrase ! and, for 
 this end, a good school library is indispensable. 
 
 I proceed to notice another grand distinction between 
 a Common School with a library, and a Common School 
 without one ; and a still more important distinction, be- 
 tween a State, all of whose Common Schools have li- 
 braries, and a State in which there are none. This dis- 
 tinction consists in the power of libraries to enlarge the 
 amount of useful knowledge possessed by a community. 
 The State which teaches one new truth to one of its 
 citizens does something; but how much more, when, by 
 teaching that truth to all, it multiplies its utilities and its 
 pleasures by the number of all the citizens ! The saying 
 of Adam Smith has been quoted thousands of times, that 
 he who makes two blades of grass grow where but one 
 grew before is a public benefactor. But he who doubles 
 the amount of knowledge belonging to a community is a 
 public benefactor as much greater than he who doubles 
 the blades of grass on its soil, as immortal, life-giving 
 truth is better than the perishing flowers of the field. 
 Could we examine all the nations which are called civil- 
 ized or Christian, we should not find one individual in a 
 thousand worthy to bo called intelligent, in regard to 
 many kinds of knowledge, which might be possessed, and, 
 for their own safety and happiness, should be possessed by
 
 DISTRICT-SCHOOL LIBRARIES. 313 
 
 all. We should not find one individual in a thousand 
 who knows any thing instructive or pleasurable re- 
 specting the wonderful structure of his own body, and 
 the still more wonderful constitution and functions of his 
 own mind ; and respecting the laws, the certain and 
 infallible laws, of bodily health and mental growth. 
 There is not one individual in a thousand who has any 
 knowledge, so definite as to be beneficial, of the history 
 of our race ; or who knows any thing of the sublimer 
 parts of astronomy, or of the magnificent and romantic 
 science of geology, a science which leads the mind 
 backwards into time as far as astronomy leads it out- 
 wards into space ; or of chemistry with its applications 
 to the arts of life ; or of the principal laws of natural and 
 mechanical philosophy ; or of the origin, history, and pro- 
 cesses of those useful arts, by which the common and 
 every-day comforts of life are prepared. Now respecting 
 most, if not all these subjects, every man and woman 
 might possess a liberal fund of information, which would 
 be to them an ever-springing fountain of delight and use- 
 fulness. But the uniform policy of governments has 
 been to create a few men of great learning rather than to 
 diffuse knowledge among the many. Literary insti- 
 tutions have been founded, and a nation's treasury almost 
 emptied for their endowment ; and when a rare and 
 mighty genius has appeared in any part of the kingdom, 
 he has been summoned to embellish and dignify the 
 court or university ; and rarely have such men ever sent 
 back a ray to illumine the dark places of their nativity. 
 The policy of governments has absorbed all light into the 
 centre, instead of radiating it to the circumference. And 
 when, by the combined labor of learned and studious 
 men, amid mountains of books, amid museums and ap- 
 paratus and all the appliances of human art, some new
 
 314 DISTRICT-SCHOOL LIBRARIES. 
 
 law of nature has been detected, another planet dis- 
 covered in the heavens, or another curiosity upon the 
 earth, the rulers of mankind, the depositaries and 
 trustees of a people's welfare, have celebrated the event 
 with jubilee and Te Deum, and written themselves down 
 the Solomons of the race. Between England and France, 
 two kingdoms which now stand and have long stood in 
 the van of science and art, a strong national jealousy 
 exists as to the relative superiority of their great men. 
 England boasts that it was her Newton whose mighty 
 hand drew aside the veil from the face of the heavens, 
 and revealed the stupendous movements of the solar sys- 
 tem. France retorts, that it was left to her La Place to 
 perfect the Newtonian discovery, and to make every part 
 of the celestial mechanism as intelligible as a watch to a 
 watchmaker. England displays her achievements in the 
 natural sciences. France flaunts her trophies in the 
 exact ones. England points to her useful arts ; France 
 to those which are born of an elegant imagination. Now 
 all these inventions and discoveries, so far as they go, are 
 well. I rejoice in the existence of learning, anywhere. 
 I contemplate with delight those imperial structures, 
 where, for centuries, a sincere, though often an unintelli- 
 gent homage has been offered to the divinities of know- 
 ledge. I gaze with gladdened eye, through the long 
 vista of those galleries, where the lore of all former times 
 has been gathered. It charms and exalts me to look 
 upon cabinets which are enriched with all the wonders of 
 land and sea ; and upon laboratories, where Nature 
 comes and submits herself to our rude and awkward ex- 
 periments, teaching us, as lovingly as a mother teaches 
 her infant child, and striving to make us understand 
 some of the words of her omnipotent language. I look 
 upon all these with delight, for they are treasuries and
 
 DISTRICT-SCHOOL LIBRARIES. 315 
 
 storehouses for the instruction and exaltation of mankind. 
 Above all, I hail with inexpressible joy whatever dis- 
 covery may be made in any department of the immense 
 and in finitely- varied fields of Nature ; for I know that all 
 truth is of God ancKfrom God, and was sent out to us as 
 a messenger and guide, to lead our faltering steps up- 
 wards to virtue and happiness. 
 
 But still I mourn. I mourn that this splendid appa- 
 ratus of means should be restricted to so narrow a circle 
 in the diffusiveness of its blessings. I mourn that num- 
 bers so few should be admitted to dwell in the light, 
 while multitudes so vast should remain in outer darkness. 
 I mourn that governments and rulers should have been 
 blind to their greatest glory, the physical and mental 
 well-being of the millions whose destiny has been placed 
 in their hands. God has given to all mankind capacities 
 for enjoying the delights and profiting by the utilities of 
 knowledge. Why should so many pine and parch, in 
 sight of fountains whose sweet waters are sufficiently 
 copious to slake the thirst of all ? The scientific or lite- 
 rary well-being of a community is to be estimated not so 
 much by its possessing a few men of great knowledge, as 
 by its having many men of competent knowledge ; and 
 especially is this so, if the many have been stinted in 
 order to aggrandize the few. Was it any honor to Rome 
 that Lucullus had Jive thousand changes of raiment in 
 his wardrobe, while an equal number of her people went 
 naked to furnish his superfluity ? How does the farmer 
 estimate the value of his timber-lands ? surely not by 
 here and there a stately tree, though its columnar shaft 
 should shoot up to the clouds, while, all around, there is 
 nothing but dwarfish and scraggy shrubs. One or a few 
 noble trees are not enough, though they rise as high and 
 spread as wide as the sycamore of the Mississippi, but he
 
 316 DISTRICT-SCHOOL LIBRARIES. 
 
 wants the whole area covered, as with a forest of banians. 
 And thus should be the growth of these immortal and 
 longing natures which God has given to all mankind. 
 Each mind in the community should be cultivated, so 
 that the intellectual surveyor of a people, the mental 
 statistician, or he who takes the valuation of a nation's 
 spiritual resources, should not merely count a few 
 individuals, scattered here and there ; but should be 
 obliged to multiply the mental stature of one by the num- 
 ber of all, in order to get his product. The mensuration 
 of a people's knowledge should no longer consist in cal- 
 culating the possessions of a few, but in obtaining the 
 sum total, or solid contents, in the possession of all. 
 And for this end, the dimensions of knowledge, so to 
 speak, must be enlarged in each geometrical direction ; 
 it must not only be extended 'on the surface, but deep- 
 ened, until the whole superficies is cubed. 
 
 I say I rejoice that, in former times, facilities and in- 
 citements for the acquisition of knowledge have been 
 enjoyed even by a few ; but if this is to be all, and man- 
 kind are to stop where they now are ; if, while light 
 gladdens a few eyes, tens of thousands are still to grope 
 on amid the horrors of mental blindness ; if, while a few 
 dwell serenely in the upper regions of day, the masses of 
 mankind are to be plunged in Egyptian night, haunted 
 by all the spectres of superstition, and bowing down to 
 the foul idols of appetite and sense ; if such were the 
 prospective destiny of the race, I would pray Heaven for 
 another universal deluge, 
 
 " To make one sop of all this solid globe," 
 
 to sweep all existing institutions away, and give a clear 
 space for trying the experiment of humanity anew. The
 
 DISTRICT-SCHOOL LIBRARIES. 317 
 
 atrocities and abominations of men have proceeded from 
 their ignorance as much as from their depravity ; and 
 rather than that war should continue to devour its 
 nations ; that slavery should always curse, as it now does, 
 both enslaved and enslaver; that fraud and perfidy 
 between man and man should abound, as they now 
 abound, and that intemperance should rekindle its dying 
 fires; rather than all this, I would rejoice to see this 
 solid globe hurled off into illimitable space, and made a 
 tenantless wanderer of the " vast inane." Now, who 
 does not see that to< gem the whole surface of the State 
 with good schools, and to supply each school with a good 
 library, will be the most effective means ever yet devised 
 by human wisdom for spreading light among the masses 
 of mankind ? 
 
 There is another respect in which the establishment of 
 a library in every school district will add a new and grand 
 feature to our Common-school system. The whole object 
 in the foundation and maintenance of our schools, hither- 
 to, has been the education of children, of minors. 
 Ordinarily, and with very few exceptions, when our chil- 
 dren have reached the age of sixteen, eighteen, or, at 
 farthest, of twenty-one years, they have been weaned 
 from the schoolhouse ; and, in a vast proportion of cases, 
 so thoroughly weaned, too, that the very idea of the milk 
 of this mother has been bitterness to their palates ever 
 afterwards. How many, or rather how few, adults ever 
 revisit the schoolhouse, as the spot of early and endearing 
 associations ! How few have been drawn to it by the tie 
 of tender and delightful recollections, as a far wanderer 
 is drawn homeward to visit, with tearful eyes, the almost 
 holy spot where his infancy was cradled, where he slept 
 upon his mother's breast, and listened to the counsels of 
 his father! No! Vast numbers of our children, when
 
 318 DISTRICT-SCHOOL LIBRARIES. 
 
 they have served out their regular terra in the old, cheer- 
 less schoolroom, and are leaving it for the last time, have 
 shaken the dust from off their feet, as a testimony against 
 it. Were the schoolroom an attractive place, why should 
 it be considered as so extraordinary an exploit in a 
 teacher to get the fathers and the mothers of the district 
 to visit their own children in it ? Even the school com- 
 mittee, those whose official duty it was to visit, and 
 watch over the schools,. did not, until recently, make 
 one-fourth part of the visitations required by law. With 
 very few exceptions, too, it was ascertained by the com- 
 mittees, that, although the law had prescribed the number 
 of visitations which they should make, yet it had not 
 prescribed their length ; and the consequence was, that 
 the longitude of their visits was inversely as the latitude 
 of their construction. 
 
 But by a good school library, the faculty of the school 
 will be enlarged. It will be made to extend its enlighten- 
 ing influences to the old as well as to the young ; because 
 every inhabitant of the district, under such conditions as 
 may be deemed advisable, should be allowed to partici- 
 pate in the benefits of the library. Hence the school- 
 house will be not only a nursery for children, but a place 
 of intelligent resort for men. The school will no longer 
 be an institution for diffusing the mere rudiments or in- 
 strumentalities of knowledge, but for the bountiful dif- 
 fusion of knowledge itself. The man will keep up his 
 relation with the school, after he ceases to attend it as a 
 scholar. Though he has mastered all the text-books in 
 the schoolroom, yet he will not have outgrown the school 
 until he has mastered all the books in the library. 
 
 And here I would dispel an apprehension, sometime* 
 felt, that children, although supplied with suitable books, 
 will contract no fondness for them. Since submitting the
 
 DISTRICT-SCHOOL LIBB ABIES. 319 
 
 plan to the Board of Education, for the establishment of 
 school libraries, I have sent out not less than a thousand 
 letters soliciting information respecting the existence, 
 magnitude and quality of public libraries of all kinds ; 
 and I have also availed myself of all opportunities fur- 
 nished by personal intercourse, to ascertain the habits 
 and means of our people in regard to reading. After 
 all these opportunities for information, I am able to say, 
 that I have never heard of a single instance where a well- 
 selected library for children has run down or run out 
 through abandonment or indifference on their part. I 
 have heard of many instances where grown people, dur- 
 ing some transient spasm of literature or vanity, have 
 collected a library for themselves, whose books, after a 
 short time, were read, as bills are so often read in our legis- 
 lative bodies, by their titles only ; and, at last, the office 
 of librarian has been merged in that of auctioneer. But 
 I have never known one such case in regard to children's 
 libraries. 
 
 But suppose an unfortunate case of neglect or abuse 
 of the library privileges should sometimes, or even fre- 
 quently, occur, would it furnish a valid argument against 
 the measure ? Does the gardener refuse to plant his 
 garden, or the husbandman his fields, because every seed 
 that he casts into the earth does not spring up and yield 
 its thirty, its sixty, or its hundred fold ? Nay, if, through 
 accident or misfortune, the whole expected growth fails, 
 does he not, with undirninished faith and alacrity, com- 
 mit new seed to the soil, confiding in the veracity of the 
 Proraiser and the fulfilment of the promise, that, if ye 
 sow bountifully, ye shall reap also bountifully ? 
 
 There is another advantage of a good school library, 
 not so obvious, perhaps, as those already mentioned, 
 but one which I deem of no small importance. A library
 
 320 DISTRICT-SCHOOL LIBRARIES. 
 
 will produce one effect upon school children, and upon 
 the neighborhood generally, before they have read one of 
 the books, and even if they should never read one of 
 them. It is in this way : The most ignorant are the 
 most conceited. Unless a man knows that there is some- 
 thing more to be known, his inference is, of course, that 
 he knows every thing. Such a man always usurps the 
 throne of universal knowledge, and assumes the right of 
 deciding all possible questions. We all know that a con- 
 ceited dunce, will decide questions extemporaneously, 
 which would puzzle a college of philosophers, or a bench 
 of judges. Ignorant and shallow-minded men do not see 
 far enough to see the difficulty. But let a man know that 
 there are things to be known, of which he is ignorant, 
 and it is so much carved out of his domain of universal 
 knowledge. And for all purposes of individual character, 
 as well as of social usefulness, it is quite as important 
 for a man to know the extent of his own ignorance as 
 it is any thing else. To know how much there is that we 
 do not know, is one of the most valuable parts of our at- 
 tainments ; for such knowledge becomes both a lesson of 
 humility and a stimulus to exertion. Let it be laid down 
 as a universal direction to teachers, when students are 
 becoming proud of their knowledge, to spread open before 
 them some pages of the tremendous volume of their igno- 
 rance. 
 
 Now those children who are reared without any advan- 
 tages of intelligent company, or of travel, or of books, 
 which are both company and travel, naturally fall into 
 the error of supposing that they live in the centre of the 
 world, that all society is like their society, or, if different 
 from theirs, that it must be wrong ; and they come, at 
 length, to regard any part of this vast system of the works 
 of man, and of the wisdom of God, which conflicts with
 
 DISTRICT-SCHOOL LIBRARIES. 321 
 
 their home-bred notions, as baneful, or contemptible, or 
 non-existent. They have caught no glimpse of the vari- 
 ous and sublime sciences which have been discovered by 
 human talent and assiduity ; nor of those infinitely wise 
 and beautiful laws and properties of the visible creation, 
 in which the Godhead has materialized his goodness and 
 his power, in order to make them perceptible to our 
 senses ; and hence they naturally infer that they know 
 all knowable things, and have " learnt out ;" that they 
 have exhausted the fulness of Deity, and into their nut- 
 shell capacities have drained dry the fountains of Omni- 
 science. Now, when this class of persons go out into the 
 world and mingle with their fellow-men, they are found 
 to be alike useless on account of their ignorance, and 
 odious for their presumption. And if a new idea can be 
 projected with sufficient force to break through the in- 
 crustations of folly and prejudice which envelop their 
 souls, and with sufficient accuracy of aim to hit such small 
 globules, they appear as ridiculous, under its influence, 
 as did the mouse, which was born in the till of a chest, 
 and, happening one day to rear itself upon its hind-legs 
 and to look over into the body of the chest, exclaimed, 
 in amazement, that he did not think the universe so 
 large ! A library, even before it is read, will teach people 
 that there is something more to be known. 
 
 An incidental advantage will often accrue from this 
 library enterprise, which I cannot pass by in silence. 
 Suppose the most intelligent and respectable portion of 
 the State to be deeply convinced of the expediency of a 
 school library, and, therefore, to send up an earnest ap- 
 peal to the Legislature, for some assistance or bounty to 
 enable the districts to procure one. Suppose that the 
 Legislature should offer to contribute a certain sum, on 
 condition that the districts would raise an equal sum, for 
 
 VOL. I. 21
 
 322 DISTRICT-SCHOOL LIBRARIES. 
 
 the purpose. Doubtless, on the part of a large number 
 of districts, there would be great alacrity in complying 
 with the conditions prescribed. But still, the number of 
 districts and even of towns will not be inconsiderable, 
 where Ignorance and Mammon bear such sway, that .the 
 majority of voters will refuse to grant even this pittance 
 for the welfare of their children. It is in this class of 
 cases that the incidental advantages to which I refer will 
 be realized. In most of such districts or towns, there 
 will be some individual or individuals, of narrow means, 
 but of a boundless soul, who will at once give the 
 requisite sum, and thus secure the object. Now these 
 occasional or special opportunities to do a good deed are 
 of inestimable value. They stir up the generous emotions 
 of our nature from a depth, where they might otherwise 
 have lain stagnant forever. They awaken within us a 
 delightful surprise at our own capabilities of usefulness 
 and happiness. Our sordid habit is, to call every unex- 
 pected occurrence of good fortune happening to ourselves 
 a god-send ; but there is no such god-send as the divine 
 prompting to do good to others. Let an unforeseen 
 occasion of beneficence be presented to a benevolent man, 
 and let the merits of the case be made visible to him by 
 their own beautiful light ; a resolve to act, at once 
 flashes upon his mind, and the generous deed is done ; 
 not done from ostentation, or the love of praise, or from 
 any low or sordid aim ; but done because it is right and 
 lovely, and in harmony with his better nature ; and lo ! 
 in the bosom of that man the fountains of immortal joy 
 burst open, arid such peace and gladness and exaltation 
 pervade and dilate his soul, that he would not barter one 
 moment of their fruition for an eternity of selfish pleas- 
 ures. When a majority of the district belong to the firm 
 of Hunks, Shirk & Co., then Mr. Goodman must supply
 
 DISTRICT-SCHOOL LIBRARIES. 323 
 
 the library, and the next generation will rise up and bless 
 him. 
 
 The effects of a habit of reading, in furnishing home 
 and fireside attractions for children, and thus keeping 
 them from vicious companions, and from places of vicious 
 resort, are so obvious, that I shall not here dwell upon 
 them ; but content myself with referring to one more of 
 the unenumerated and innumerable advantages of a well- 
 chosen library for our schools ; I mean the efficacy of 
 good books in expelling bad ones. A true friend of our 
 country and our race is not satisfied with knowing that 
 we are a reading people ; he asks impatiently, what it 
 is that we read. That there is an alarming amount of 
 vain and pernicious reading in our community, no observ- 
 ing person will deny. For unchastened imaginations and 
 perverted morals, there is a fascination in accounts of 
 battles, shipwrecks, murders and piracies ; and many 
 people gloat over those demoralizing police reports in the 
 newspapers, in which the foul scenes of darkness and 
 depravity are brought to light, and made themes for jest 
 and merriment. But have we taught children to read, 
 for the sake of enlarging their acquaintance with im- 
 purity and immorality ? Fiction, too, from the plump 
 novel of two volumes to the lean newspaper story of two 
 columns, together with the contents of light and fanciful 
 periodicals, constitutes the staple reading of a vast num- 
 ber of our people. Now I believe it to be no exaggeration 
 to say, that ninety-nine parts in every hundred of all the 
 novels and romances extant are as false to truth and 
 nature, to all verisimilitude to history and to the affairs 
 of men, as though they had been written, not by lunarians, 
 but by lunatics themselves. I mean, that, if we, as men 
 and women, were to act as novel-writers make their men 
 and women act, the results upon our fortunes and lives
 
 324 DISTRICT-SCHOOL LIBRARIES. 
 
 would bear no resemblance to the fortunes and lives 
 of the fictitious personages they describe. The novelist 
 makes godlike heroes and benefactors of the race of those 
 who never studied and toiled and sacrificed for the wel- 
 fare of mankind ; and, just so far as he does this, he is 
 contradicted by the testimony of universal history and 
 experience. His works are often bloated with a maudlin 
 sentiment, wholly unkindred and alien to that healthy 
 humanity, which, by the combined action of intellect and 
 benevolence, not only perceives, but fulfils, the law of love. 
 Often, too, he robes impurity in the garments of light, 
 and thus sets at defiance all the laws of the moral universe ; 
 or he deems it poetic justice to reward the holy sacrifices 
 of virtue by the base coin of wordly honors or wealth. 
 The mind, when fed on mere fantasies and etherealities, 
 has no vigor for the stern duties of life ; it is borne away 
 by every illusion, like a bulrush upon the tide. 
 
 The prevalence of novel-reading creates a host of novel- 
 writers ; and the readers and writers, by action and re-ac- 
 tion, increase the numbers of each other. Hence great 
 capacities for usefulness are lost to the world, and the 
 most important of human duties remain unperformed. 
 For many of the sons and daughters of Adam, this is a 
 world of perplexity and suffering and inexpressible anguish ; 
 it is a world where innocent nerves are laid bare to all 
 the aggressions of want and disease, and where men sink 
 into pitfalls of ruin, which the light of a little knowledge 
 would have revealed, and from which kindly counsels 
 would have saved them. What is worst of all, it is a 
 world where guiltless children are led, as by the hand, 
 into dangers and temptations ; or rather they are propelled 
 into dangers and temptations by forces of which they 
 are unconscious, and over which they have no control ; 
 and in these perils they struggle for a moment, and then
 
 DISTRICT-SCHOOL LIBRARIES. 325 
 
 sink into horrible depths of crime and wretchedness, 
 which, by an unholy influence, harden our hearts against 
 them as much as they harden their hearts against virtue. 
 Society is spotted all over with moral leprosy ; and hot 
 tears, more bitter than the waters of Marah, are furrow- 
 ing innocent checks ; and while this actual sin and suffer- 
 ing abound, we cannot spare the finest geniuses of the 
 race to spend their lives in creating Worlds of Shadow ; 
 nor can we allow the most educated of our people to 
 escape from the great work of solacing and redeeming 
 mankind, to revel in the brilliant but bodiless realms of 
 fancy. Every hand and every hour should be devoted to 
 rescue the world from its insanity of guilt, and to assuage 
 the pangs of human hearts with balm and anodyne. To 
 pity distress is but human ; to relieve it is Godlike. But 
 I have never found that those who weep most freely over 
 fictitious pain have keener susceptibilities than others for 
 real woe. What an absolute inversion of the whole 
 moral nature does it suppose, to find delight in tracing 
 the fortunes of imaginary beings, while living in the 
 midst of such actual sufferings as ought to dissolve the 
 soul into a healing balm for their relief, without recog- 
 nizing their existence. It is said, indeed, that Dickens, 
 the last king whom the world of novel-readers has seated 
 upon its precarious throne, has attributes of humani- 
 ty which distinguish him from his predecessors. It ig 
 said that he looks over and beyond the splendid circles of 
 opulence and fashion, and selects his objects of interest 
 and sympathy from among the hitherto outcast and 
 forsaken of the world. But I must say again, that I have 
 not seen any fresh outflowing of compassion, any swell- 
 ing of the scanty rills of benevolence towards the poor, 
 the ignorant, the helpless, the misguided, among the gay 
 and affluent circles who vindicate their homage to this
 
 326 DISTRICT-SCHOOL LIBRARIES. 
 
 new sovereign, because he illumines his pages with the 
 glow of a kindlier humanity. To those who, while 
 surrounded with luxuries and superfluities, and defended 
 by golden guards against cold and hunger, and all the 
 privations and temptations of poverty, read, breath- 
 less and tearful, the story of " Little Nell," let me say, 
 there is a " Little Nell" in the next street, or at the next 
 door, of you all, some hapless child, cast, desolate and 
 forlorn, upon the bleak shores of Time, having no friend 
 in the abandoned mother that bore her, and wandering, 
 through all the years of infancy and childhood, as in one 
 perpetual and tempestuous night of fear and suffering ; 
 while the opulent and the educated, reclining on silken 
 couches, in splendid saloons, expend a barren sympathy 
 over woes that never were felt. Throughout our land, 
 in city and in country, groups and companies of innocent 
 children, the offspring of intemperance or profligacy, 
 are tossed for an hour upon the weltering tide of life ; 
 but hearing no voice of sympathy, seeing no hand out- 
 stretched for their deliverance, they sink to rise no more. 
 
 As when the young of land-birds, in the spring, 
 Quit the warm nest, and spread the untaught wing, 
 Some whirlwind blast, descending from the north, 
 Wheels them on high, and drives them furious forth 
 Far out to sea. Alas, the fated brood ! 
 The empty sky's above ; below, the yawning flood. 
 Backward they turn to win their native vale, 
 And strive, with desperate wing, to stem the gale. 
 In vain ! They fall, by fear and toil opprest, 
 Till the rude wave assaults their throbbing breast. 
 Once more ! for life ! they mount with piteous cry, 
 Then, one by one, they fall, they shriek, they die ! 
 
 Even thus, by tens and by hundreds, perish innocent chil- 
 dren, at our own doors, lost to all the delights of life, 
 lost in the deeper perdition of the soul, through lack
 
 DISTRICT-SCHOOL LIBRARIES. 327 
 
 of human sympathy in self-styled Christians. Such chil- 
 dren are the victims of temptations and exposures, which,, 
 to all moral intents, they are as incapable of resisting, as 
 is the half-fledged young of the land-bird to defy the 
 mingled might of ocean and storm. Is it as noble, is it 
 as like the Divine Exemplar, to dote over imaginary cre- 
 ations of loveliness and purity, as to create and foster 
 that loveliness and purity ourselves in hearts otherwise 
 perverted and lost ? To describe possible happiness, or 
 linger over its enchanting delineations, is it, or can it be, 
 like rescuing children from the very throat of the whirl- 
 pool which is carrying them down to destruction ; is it 
 like bestowing happiness, by our own efforts, upon our 
 sorrowing fellow-mortals ? Look, my friends, for one 
 moment, around you, and see what things God accom- 
 plishes without our assistance ; then look again, and see 
 for the accomplishment of what things God honors us by 
 demanding our aid. To combine insensate elements into 
 a flower ; to spread the rainbow across the dark folds of 
 the retreating storm ; to emblaze the deep recesses of the 
 firmament with new constellations ; these works God 
 has left to blind mechanical and organic laws. But to 
 rear the amaranth of virtue for a celestial soil ; to pale 
 the diamond's glow by the intenser effulgence of genius ; 
 to pencil, as with living flame, a rainbow of holy promise 
 and peace upon the blackness and despair of a guilty life; 
 to fit the spirits of weak and erring mortals to shine for- 
 ever, as stars, amid the Host of Heaven ; for these di- 
 viner and more glorious works, God asks our aid ; and 
 He points to the children who have been evoked into life, 
 as the objects of our labor and care. One drop of baptis- 
 mal water poured upon the infant's head, from the holy 
 font of wisdom and love, will quench more of the fires of 
 guilt, than an ocean of consecrated waters can afterwards
 
 328 DISTEICT-SCHOOL LIBRARIES. 
 
 extinguish. And is it not time for the self-styled disci- 
 ples of Christ to repel the bitter irony of their name ? Is 
 it not time for them to imitate the Divine Master on whose 
 name they call, and, like him, surrender the pleasures of 
 luxury and sense, that they may go about doing good ? 
 Is it not time for them to seek out the children of wretch- 
 edness, and so much the more as they are the more 
 wretched, and fold them in their arms, and bless them 
 by instruction and example ? The garden of an earthly 
 paradise for mankind can never be entered but through 
 the Garden of Gethsemane. Yet where are they who 
 sweat drops of blood in their agony for the welfare of the 
 race ; where are they who spurn the honors and distinc- 
 tions of an earthly ambition, and say, of the proffered 
 empire of the world, that it is an offence ; where are 
 they whose striving soul sleep does not visit at the com- 
 ing-on of night, whose head is pillowless, though sur- 
 rounded by chambers of Oriental magnificence, and who 
 enter the path of duty with unfaltering step, although in 
 the vista's distant perspective there stands the fatal cross V 
 If Peter were one of us, and should stand unconcerned 
 in the midst of the rising generation, and put forth no 
 helping hand to succor them, he would need no oath to 
 seal his perfidy to his Master, forsworn by apathy 
 alone ! 
 
 Oh ! how forever beautiful and divine in the sight of 
 man ; how holy in the eye of Heaven ; how gladdening 
 in the retrospect of all coming ages ; if, instead of sur- 
 rendering their cultivated powers to the dreams and fan- 
 tasies of romance, the daughters of opulence and leisure 
 would awaken to the realities of the only true and worthy 
 existence, and would seek an enduring happiness, 
 where they would be sure to find it, in carrying knowl- 
 edge and virtue and joy to the children of poverty and
 
 DISTRICT-SCHOOL LIBRARIES. 329 
 
 wretchedness ! Let them lead these darkling wanderers 
 to the joyful light of knowledge. Let them shake free 
 the wings of immortal spirits, now so clogged with the 
 mire of earth, that they cannot soar upward to heaven. 
 Beneath the feet of such angel ministers, as they go on 
 their errands of mercy and love, the very earth is hal- 
 lowed ; and the air is made fragrant and luminous by 
 their tones and smiles of affection. Surely, no thanks- 
 giving offered to God can be so grateful as deeds of 
 charity done to suffering childhood. 
 
 But how, I ask, can that pernicious reading, which has 
 done at least as much as any thing else to separate feel- 
 ing from action, to sever the natural connection between 
 benevolent impulses and benevolent deeds, to dissociate 
 emotions of pity for distress from a desire to succor and 
 relieve it, how can the flood of this reading be stayed ? 
 I answer, that much can be done by the substitution of 
 books and studies which expound human life and human 
 duty as God has made them to be. Neither by the force 
 of public opinion, nor by any enactment of the Sovereign 
 Legislature, can the noxious works which now infest the 
 community be gathered into one Alexandrian pile, and 
 by the application of one torch, the earth be purified from 
 their contaminations. No ! It must be done, if done at 
 all, in the expressive language of Dr. Chalmers, " by 
 the expulsive power of a new affection." A purer cur- 
 rent of thought at the fountain can alone wash the chan- 
 nels clean. For this purpose, I know of no plan, as yet 
 conceived by philanthropy, which promises to be so com- 
 prehensive and efficacious as the establishment of good 
 libraries in all our school districts, open respectively to 
 all the children in the State, and within half an hour's 
 walk of any spot upon its surface.
 
 330 DISTEICT-SCHOOL LIBRARIES. 
 
 NOTE. On the 3d day of March, 1842, the Legislature passed a Resolve 
 offering a bounty of $15 to each school district in the State which would 
 appropriate $15, both sums to be expended for the purchase of a school 
 library. By subsequent Resolves, enlarging the provisions of the former, it 
 is now provided that where a district contains more than twice sixty chil- 
 dren, three times sixty, &c., it may draw as many times $15 from the State 
 Treasury as the number sixty is contained in the number of its children, 
 on condition of raising an equal sum. Towns not districted may draw in 
 the same proportion. A great majority of the districts in the State have 
 already availed themselves of the privileges of these Resolves.
 
 LECTURE VII. 
 1840.
 
 LECTURE VII. 
 
 ON SCHOOL PUNISHMENTS. 
 
 MY subject is Punishment, arid, more especially, COR- 
 PORAL PUNISHMENT, in our schools. Important questions 
 are agitated, respecting its rightfulness and expediency, 
 under any circumstances ; and, if rightful and expedient 
 at all, then respecting its mode, its extent, and the circum- 
 stances under which it should be inflicted. I despair of 
 reconciling the conflicting opinions which are entertained 
 on these topics ; but may I not hope to elucidate some 
 points pertaining to them, and perhaps to lessen the dis- 
 tance between the extremes of doctrine now existing 
 amongst us? 
 
 All punishment, considered by itself, is an evil. In 
 other words, all pain, considered by itself, is an evil ; and 
 the immediate object of punishment is the infliction of 
 pain. I think that no one who does not altogether deny 
 the existence of evil will deny that pain, abstracted from 
 all antecedents and consequences, is evil ; and, if any 
 one denies that evil exists, I answer him in the language 
 of Soame Jenyns, " let him have the toothache, or get 
 into a law-suit." The ultimate object of punishment is 
 to avert an evil greater than itself. We justify ourselves 
 for inflicting it, not because it is a pleasure to us to do 
 so, for that would be diabolical ; nor wholly because 
 the culprit deserves it ; for if we could arrest him and 
 reform him, as well without the infliction of pain as with 
 it, no benevolent man would prescribe the pain ; and,
 
 334 SCHOOL PUNISHMENTS. 
 
 amongst all civilized nations, when a malefactor, who has 
 been condemned to death, becomes insane, he is respited 
 until reason is restored ; although it is clear that the loss 
 of reason cannot expiate tho past offence, and, there- 
 fore, that the deserts of the transgressor remain the same 
 as before. We do not then inflict punishment wholly 
 because it is deserved ; but we inflict it that we may 
 ward off a greater evil by a less one, a permanent evil 
 by a temporary one. We administer it, only as a physi- 
 cian sometimes administers poison to a sick man, not 
 because poison is congenial to the healthy sj^stem, nor, 
 indeed, because poison is congenial to the diseased sys- 
 tem ; but because it promises to arrest a fatal malady 
 until appropriate remedial measures can be taken. Would 
 any person be upheld or approved, by a sane community, 
 for inflicting the pain of punishment upon a child, when 
 he could have produced the desired object as well without 
 it ? Punishment, then, taken by itself, is always to be 
 considered as an evil. The practical deduction from this 
 principle, is, that the evil of punishment should always 
 be compared with the evil proposed to bo removed by it ; 
 and, in those cases only where the evil removed prepon- 
 derates over the evil caused, is punishment to be tolerated. 
 The opposite course would purchase exemption from a 
 less evil, by voluntarily incurring a greater one. 
 
 These principles seem clear, and for their support I 
 believe we have the concurrent opinion of all writers of 
 any note, on jurisprudence or ethics, and of all sensible 
 men. In following out these principles to their applica- 
 tion, I fear I may fall into error ; and I proceed, with 
 unfeigned diffidence, to a further development of my 
 views. Should I differ from others, I only ask, what 
 I am most ready, on my own part, to give, a candid 
 reconsideration of the points of disagreement.
 
 SCHOOL PUNISHMENTS. 335 
 
 Let me premise, that there are two or three peculiar 
 difficulties attending the discussion of this subject. If 
 the truth lies, as I believe it does, in the mean, and not 
 in either of the extremes, then those ultraists who believe 
 in the doctrine either of no-punishment, or of all-punish- 
 ment, will be prone to seize upon arguments or conces- 
 sions, on their own side, to reject those on the other side, 
 and thus confirm themselves in their respective ultraisrns ; 
 and perhaps, at the same time, bring forward a charge of 
 inconsistency. Probably there is no subject, which it is 
 more difficult for a speaker to balance well in his own 
 mind, and to leave well balanced in the minds of his 
 hearers. 
 
 Again ; it is undoubtedly true that most men have 
 formed their opinions on the subject of punishment, more 
 from feeling and less from reflection, than perhaps on 
 any other subject whatever. In conversing upon this topic, 
 I have almost uniformly observed, that my collocutor 
 has advanced positive, decided general opinions, and then 
 adverted to some particular fact, in his own experience or 
 observation, on which the general opinions had been 
 founded. But sound opinions are usually the result of 
 an extended survey of facts. Here, however, the inten- 
 sity with which a single fact has been felt is a substitute 
 for numbers. The judgment of many a man has been 
 decided, if not enlightened, respecting the whole 
 subject of punishment, by one vivid impression made, 
 while a schoolboy, on his back or hand. Two boys fight. 
 One of them gets seriously injured. The schoolmaster 
 punishes the victor. The vanquished boy and his parents 
 approve the avenging dispensation, and become strenu- 
 ous advocates for high-toned discipline. The victorious, 
 but punished boy, with his parents, question the policy, 
 perhaps deny altogether the right of chastisement. And
 
 336 SCHOOL PUNISHMENTS. 
 
 thus the same fact gives rise to opposite opinions, accord- 
 ing to the relation sustained towards it by the parties. 
 
 Probably on no other subject, pertaining to Education, 
 is there so marked a diversity or rather hostility of opin- 
 ion as on this ; nor on any other, such perseverance, not 
 to say obstinacy, in adhering to opinions once formed. 
 Where feeling predominates, there is a strong tendency 
 to ultraism ; and questions respecting punishment are 
 more often decided by sensation than by reflection. 
 Hence the extremes to which opinions run, and the posi- 
 tiveness and dogmatism with which they are advocated 
 by the partisans of each side. In the public station 
 which it is my lot to fill, I have been present at many 
 discussions on this subject, and have held conversation 
 and correspondence respecting it with a great number of 
 individuals, in all parts of the Commonwealth ; and I 
 find one party strenuously maintaining, that improve- 
 ment in our schools can advance only so far and so fast 
 as bodily chastisement recedes, while the other party re- 
 gard a teacher or a parent, divested of his instruments of 
 pain, as a discrowned monarch. It is no exaggeration to 
 say, judging from their tone of earnestness and confi- 
 dence, that there are men who would destroy all trees 
 and shrubbery in order to abolish the means of flagel- 
 lation, while others seem devoutly to believe that a good 
 supply of the materials for whipping is the final cause 
 for trees growing ; and they would always locate a 
 schoolhouse in convenient vicinity to a hickory or birchen 
 grove, not for the shade, but for the substance. 
 
 The first point which I shall consider, is, whether cor- 
 poral punishment is ever necessary in our schools. As 
 preliminary to a decision of this question, let us take a 
 brief survey of facts. We have, in this Commonwealth, 
 about one hundred and eighty thousand * children be- 
 
 * Now, (1845,) above 192,000.
 
 SCHOOL PUNISHMENTS. 337 
 
 tween the ages of four and sixteen years. All these 
 children are not only legally entitled to attend our public 
 schools, but it is our great desire to increase that attend- 
 ance, and he who increases it is regarded as a reformer. 
 All that portion of these children who attend school, 
 enter it from that vast variety of homes which exist in 
 the State. From different households, where the widest 
 diversity of parental and domestic influences prevail, the 
 children enter the schoolroom, where there must be com- 
 parative uniformity. At home, some of these children have 
 been indulged in every wish, flattered and smiled upon, 
 for the energy of their low propensities, and even their 
 freaks and whims have been enacted into household laws. 
 Some have been so rigorously debarred from every inno- 
 cent amusement and indulgence, that they have opened 
 for themselves a way to gratification, through artifice and 
 treachery and falsehood. Others, from vicious parental 
 example, and the corrupting influences of vile associates, 
 have been trained to bad habits and contaminated with 
 vicious principles, ever since they were born ; some 
 being taught that honor consists in whipping a boj r larger 
 than themselves ; others that the chief end of man is to 
 own a box that cannot be opened, and to get money 
 enough to fill it.; and others again have been taught, 
 upon their fathers' knees, to shape their young lips to the 
 utterance of oaths and blasphemy. Now, all these dispo- 
 sitions, which do not conflict with right more than they 
 do with each other, as soon as they cross the threshold 
 of the schoolroom, from the different worlds, as it were, 
 of homes, must be made to obey the same general regula- 
 tions, to pursue the same studies, and to aim at the same 
 results. In addition to these artificial varieties, there 
 are the natural differences of temperament and disposi- 
 tion. 
 
 VOL. I. 22
 
 338 SCHOOL PUNISHMENTS. 
 
 Again ; there are about three thousand public schools 
 in the State, in which are employed, in the course of the 
 year, about five thousand different persons, as teachers, 
 including both males and females. Excepting a very few 
 cases, these five thousand persons have had no special 
 preparation or training for their employment, and many 
 of them are young and without experience. These five 
 thousand teachers, then, so many of whom are unpre- 
 pared, are to be placed in authority over the one hundred 
 and eighty thousand children, so many of whom have 
 been perverted. Without passing through any transition 
 state, for improvement, these parties meet each other in 
 the schoolroom, where mutiny and insubordination and 
 disobedience are to be repressed, order maintained, knowl- 
 edge acquired. He, therefore, who denies the necessity 
 of resorting to punishment, in our schools, and to cor- 
 poral punishment, too, virtually affirms two things : 
 first, that this great number of children, scooped up 
 from all places, taken at all ages and in all conditions, 
 can be deterred from the wrong and attracted to the 
 right, without punishment ; and secondly, he asserts that 
 the five thousand persons whom the towns and districts 
 employ to keep their respective schools, are now, and in 
 the present condition of things, able to accomplish so 
 glorious a work. Neither of these propositions am I, at 
 present, prepared to admit. If there are extraordinary 
 individuals, and we know there are such, so singu- 
 larly gifted with talent and resources, and with the divine 
 quality of love, that they can win the affection, and, by 
 controlling the heart, can control the conduct of children, 
 who, for years, have been addicted to lie, to cheat, to 
 swear, to steal, to fight, still I do not believe there are now 
 five thousand such individuals in the State, whose heaven- 
 ly services can be obtained for this transforming work.
 
 SCHOOL PUNISHMENTS. 339 
 
 And it is useless, or worse than useless, to say, that such 
 or such a thing can be done, and done immediately, with- 
 out pointing out the agents by whom it can be done. 
 One who affirms that a thing can be done, without any 
 reference to the persons who can do it, must be thinking 
 of miracles. If the position were, that children may be 
 so educated from their birth, and teachers may be so 
 trained for their calling, as to supersede the necessity of 
 corporal punishment, except in cases decidedly monstrous, 
 then I should have no doubt of its truth ; but such a 
 position muse have reference to some future period, which 
 we should strive to hasten, but ought not to anticipate. 
 
 Coinciding, then, with those who assert the necessity 
 of occasional punishment, and even of occasional corpo- 
 ral punishment, in our schools, it seems to me that the 
 more strenuous of its advocates are disposed to give too 
 latitudinarian a construction to one argument in its favor. 
 They quote and apply, as though there were no qualifica- 
 tion or limit to their applicability, such passages as these 
 from the Proverbs of Solomon : " He that spare th the 
 rod hateth his son, but he that loveth him chastiseth him 
 betimes." " Foolishness is bound in the heart of a child, 
 but the rod of correction shall drive it far from him." 
 " Withhold not correction from the child, for if thou 
 beatest him with the rod, he shall not die." " Thou 
 shalt beat him with a rod, and shalt deliver his soul from 
 hell." " The rod and reproof give wisdom," &c., <fec. 
 Now if these passages, and such as these, are applicable, 
 in their unqualified and literal sense, to our times, then, 
 indeed, we must admit that the rod is the emblem of all 
 the Christian graces. But, by the Mosaic law, he that 
 smote his father or his mother was to be put to deatli : 
 and why is there not as much reason to suppose that the 
 latter of these commands remains unabrogated and un-
 
 340 SCHOOL PUNISHMENTS. 
 
 qualified, as well as the former; and, therefore, that the 
 true remedy for those who now make forcible resistance 
 to parental control, is, not the House of Reformation 
 for juvenile offenders, but the gallows ? But can any 
 one suppose that the passages above cited, and others of a 
 kindred nature, were to be taken without any qualifica- 
 tion, even in the age in which they were written ? Can 
 any one suppose that they were designed for all children 
 alike, and to be exclusive of all other practicable means 
 to deter from wrong-doing ? And yet, there is no express 
 limitation. If alike applicable to all children, at that 
 time, and if they remain unmodified, then they are ap- 
 plicable to all children, and alike, at the present time. 
 But again, I say, can any one suppose that the domestic 
 discipline of a people, like the stiff-necked Jews, so ac- 
 customed to spectacles and histories of blood and car- 
 nage ; by whose code so many offences were capital ; who 
 massacred men, women and children, whole cities at 
 a time, and sawed asunder their prisoners, and tore 
 them to pieces under harrows of iron ; can any one 
 suppose that modes of parental discipline, in a land rife 
 and red with such spectacles, are to be literally copied in 
 a state of civilization so different as ours, without the 
 most positive and unambiguous injunctions ? One fact is 
 worthy of remark in passing. If the doctrines of Solo- 
 mon are to be taken literally, then he must have departed 
 from them most egregiously, in regard to his own house- 
 hold ; or those doctrines must have failed of their intend- 
 ed effect, for his son and his grandson proved to be two 
 of the most atrocious and heaven-contemning sinners 
 that ever sat upon the throne at Jerusalem. 
 
 There is one school, however, where I would give to 
 these declarations of Solomon the freest interpretation, 
 applying them to all its pupils, and shivering rods by the
 
 SCHOOL PUNISHMENTS. 341 
 
 bundle, that is, the School for Scandal. There, let the 
 motto be, " Lay on, Macduff." 
 
 But a conclusion in favor of the rightfulness or admis- 
 sibility of punishment, in school, does nothing towards 
 sanctioning an indefinite amount of it. Its rightfulness 
 is limited by its object ; and its only justifiable object is to 
 restrain from the commission of offences, until remedial 
 means can be brought to bear upon the offender. Be- 
 yond this limit, punishment becomes punishable itself. 
 The object of punishment is, prevention from evil; it 
 never can be made impulsive to good. Its office is to 
 seize upon the contemiier of laws, and stop him in his 
 career of wrong, and hold him still, until by earnest ex- 
 postulation, by kind advice, by affectionate persuasion, by 
 a clear display of the nature of the offence committed, 
 and the duty and the benefits of an opposite course, the 
 offender can be led to inward repentance, and to resolu- 
 tions of amendment. To produce such repentance and 
 resolutions, is a work of time, of skill, of wisdom, of 
 sympathy. It is a work which cannot be done in a min- 
 ute, and it is because it cannot be done in a minute, that 
 punishment becomes justifiable, as a means of preventing 
 a continuance or repetition of the wrong, until a refor- 
 mation can be effected in the culprit's mind. In all cases, 
 therefore, the very fact of punishment supposes that a 
 great deal else is to be done. By punishment, the of- 
 fender is intercepted in the commission or the pursuit of 
 wrong ; but it is a wholly different task, and accomplished 
 by wholly different means, to bring him back to the right, 
 and to make him see it and love it. Whoever, then, 
 inflicts punishment, and stops there, omits the weighti- 
 est part of his duty ; and such omission goes far to take 
 away all justification for the punishment itself. 
 
 I have said that puniskment, in itself, and abstracted
 
 342 SCHOOL PUNISHMENTS. 
 
 from its hoped-for consequences, is always an evil. I wish 
 to add a few considerations showing that it is a very 
 great evil. 
 
 Punishment excites fear ; it is, indeed, the primary 
 object of -punishment to excite fear ; and fear is a most 
 debasing, dementalizing passion. It may be proper to 
 say, that I use the word fear, in this connection, as im- 
 plying an intense activity of cautiousness, or apprehension 
 for personal safety ; and not as partaking at all of the 
 idea of reverence or awe, in which sense it is sometimes 
 used, in reference to the Supreme Being, as when it is 
 said, " The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom." 
 It is the former species of fear only that is appealed to by 
 the infliction of pain, and not one of the virtues ever 
 grows under the influence of that kind of fear. Such 
 fear may check the growth of vices, it is true ; and this 
 is the strongest remark that can be made in its defence ; 
 but it has, at the same time, a direct tendency to check 
 the growth of every virtue, because fear of pain is not 
 an atmosphere in which the virtues flourish ; so that even 
 the negative good which it produces, in deterring from 
 wrong, is accompanied by the infliction of some positive 
 harm. Let any person revert to his own experience, and 
 then answer the question, whether he was as competent 
 to think clearly, or to act wisely, when under the influ- 
 ence of fear, as when calm and self-possessed. Fear may 
 make a man run faster, but it is always from, not towards 
 the post of duty. Look at a man in an agony of fear ; 
 he is powerless, paralyzed, bereft of his senses, and almost 
 reduced to idiocy, so that, for the time being, he might as 
 well be without limbs and without faculties as to have 
 them. It is said that even the hair of the head will turn 
 gray, in five minutes, under the boiling bleachery of a 
 paroxysm of fear. . There have been many cases where
 
 SCHOOL PUNISHMENTS. 343 
 
 adults, men whose minds had acquired some constancy 
 and firmness, have been made fools for life by sudden 
 fright, annulled at once, their brains turned into ashes 
 by its consuming fires. And if such are the consequences 
 of intense fear in grown men, what must be the effect 
 upon the delicate texture of a child's brain, when, with 
 weapon in hand, a brawny, whiskered madman flies at 
 the object of his wrath, as a fierce kite pounces upon a 
 timorous dove ? Yet who of us that has reached middle 
 age has not seen these atrocities committed against chil- 
 dren, again and again ? 
 
 Another consideration, showing punishment to be a 
 very great evil, is, that the fear of bodily pain, which it 
 proposes, makes the character pusillanimous and ignoble. 
 Children should be trained to a disregard, and even a 
 contempt, of bodily pain ; so that they may not be un- 
 nerved and unmanned at the very exigencies, when, in 
 after-life, fortitude and intrepidity become indispensable 
 to the performance of duty. Some foolishly-tender par- 
 ents commit a great mistake when they fuss and flurry, 
 and gather the whole household around, at every little 
 rub or scratch received by a child ; and bring out their 
 apparatus of lint and liniment, enough for the surgeon 
 of a man-of-war, in a naval engagement. Sensitiveness 
 to bodily pain should be discountenanced, because it im- 
 pairs manliness and steadfastness of character. Children 
 should be taught that corporal suffering, and imprison- 
 ment, and death itself, are nothing, compared with loyalty 
 to truth and the Godlike excellence of well-doing, so that 
 when they become men they will be able to march, with 
 unfaltering step, to the post of duty, though their path is 
 enfiladed by a hundred batteries. But keeping the idea 
 of bodily pain forever present to a child's mind counter- 
 works this result. Indeed, a child who is whipped much
 
 344 SCHOOL PUNISHMENTS. 
 
 will inevitably be driven into one or the other of two 
 ruinous extremes. Which of the extremes it shall be, will 
 depend upon the feebleness or the vigor of his natural 
 disposition. If constitutionally of a timid and irresolute 
 character, then frequent correction will excite his cau- 
 tiousness to such a morbid activity that his check will 
 blanch and his heart quail at the slightest menace of real 
 dangers, or the imagination of unreal ones ; and he will 
 go through life trembling with causeless apprehensions, 
 and incapable of recovering from one shudder of fear 
 before he will be seized by another ; incapable of all 
 manly resolution and heroism. If, on the other hand, the 
 child has an energetic will, the very vehemence of which 
 prompts to disobedience and waywardness, then frequency 
 of chastisement will exasperate his nature, and make him 
 recklessly bold and fool-hardy. It will make him despise 
 the gentleness that belongs to a noble spirit, and mistake 
 ferocity for courage. Now, what requital can any teach- 
 er make, which shall be an adequate compensation to a 
 child for causing his dispositions to grow into a deformity 
 which shall be a torment and a disgrace to him while life 
 lasts ? Have you never seen an aged tree whose trunk 
 still bore the mark where some heedless man had struck 
 his axe while it was yet young, and have you not observed 
 that, on the wounded side of the tree, the foliage was 
 sickly and the branches scraggy and misshapen, while a 
 superabundance of nutriment sent. up on the other side 
 had made the limbs shoot out into huge disproportions? 
 Such wounds are inflicted by unnecessary punishment, 
 upon the whole moral nature of a child. 
 
 But there is another consideration, of still more serious 
 import. A teacher's duty is by no means restricted to the 
 mere communication of knowledge. He is to superin- 
 tend the growth of his pupils' minds. These minds con-
 
 SCHOOL PUNISHMENTS. 345 
 
 sist of various powers and faculties, by which they are 
 adapted to the various necessities, relations and duties of 
 life. Some of them were given us for self-preservation. 
 The object of these is, ourselves, our own existence, 
 our own sustenance, our own exemption from pain, and 
 protection against danger and loss ; in fine, our per- 
 sonal well-being. Other powers are domestic and social 
 in their nature, such as the reciprocal love of parents 
 and children ; the celestial zone of affection that binds 
 brothers and sisters into one ; and our attachment to 
 friends, which, under proper cultivation, enlarges into 
 fraternal affection for the race. We also have moral and 
 religious sentiments, which may be exalted into a solemn 
 feeling of duty towards man and towards God. Now, it 
 is a most responsible part of the teacher's duty to super- 
 intend the growth of these manifold powers, and to de- 
 velop them symmetrically and harmoniously ; to repress 
 some, to cherish others, and to fashion the whole into 
 beauty and loveliness as they grow. A child should be 
 saved from being so selfish as to disregard the rights of 
 others, or, on the other hand, from being a spendthrift of 
 his own. He should be saved from being so proud as to 
 disdain the world, or so vain as to go through the world 
 beseeching everybody to praise and flatter him. He 
 should be guarded alike against being so devoted to his 
 own family as to be deaf and dead to all social claims ; 
 and against being so quixotically social as to run to the 
 ends of the earth, to bestow the bounty, for which his 
 own family and neighborhood are suffering. In fine, the 
 teacher, as far as possible, is so to educate the child, that 
 when he becomes a man, all his various faculties shall 
 have a relative and proportionate activity and vigor, in- 
 stead of his being nervously excitable on one side of his 
 nature, and palsy-stricken on the other. This task is most
 
 346 SCHOOL PUNISHMENTS. 
 
 difficult, and it requires that all the lights possible should 
 shine upon the work. -'It is very easy to point out de- 
 formities of character, as they exhibit themselves glar- 
 ingly and hideously in manhood ; but it requires great 
 perspicacity to detect the early tendencies to deformity, 
 and the utmost delicacy and felicity of touch to correct 
 them. If a full-grown tree is ugly or misshapen, any- 
 body can see it, but it is only the skilful cultivator who 
 can foretell and forestall its irregular tendencies while it 
 is yet young. It is this duty which makes the office of a 
 teacher a sacred office. The teaching of A, B, C, and the 
 multiplication-table, has no quality of sacredness in it ; 
 but if there is a sacred service, a holy ministry upon 
 earth, it is that of setting a just bound to the animal ap- 
 petites and sensual propensities of our nature, and quick- 
 ening into life, and fostering into strength, all benevolent 
 and devout affections ; for it is by the relative proportions 
 between these parts of its nature, that the child becomes 
 angel-like or fiend-like. Now, that the teacher may 
 cherish what grows too slow, and check what grows too 
 fast, it is indispensable that he should become acquainted 
 with the inmost character and tendencies of his pupil. 
 The pupil's whole mind and heart should be spread out, 
 like a map, before the teacher for his inspection. The 
 teacher should be able to examine this map, to survey ii 
 on all sides and at anytime, as you see a connois- 
 seur walk round a beautiful statue or edifice, that he 
 may commit all its proportions to memory. And here 
 comes the evil I refer to. The moment a child's mind is 
 strongly affected by fear, it flies instinctively away and 
 hides itself in the deepest recesses it can find, often in 
 the recesses of disingenuousness and perfidy and false- 
 hood. Instead of exhibiting to you his whole conscious- 
 ness, he conceals from you as much of it as he can ; or
 
 SCHOOL PUNISHMENTS. 347 
 
 he deceptively presents to you some counterfeit of it, in- 
 stead of the genuine. No frighted water-fowl, whose 
 plumage the bullet of the sportsman has just grazed, 
 dives quicker beneath the surface, than a child's spirit 
 darts from your eye when you have filled it with the sen- 
 timent of fear. And your communication with that 
 child's heart is at an end ; on whatever side you ap- 
 proach him, he watches you and flies, and keeps an im- 
 passable distance between you and himself, until friendly 
 relations are re-established between you. His body may 
 be before you, but not his soul ; or, if his soul ventures to 
 peep from its hiding-place, it is only in some masquerade 
 dress of deception, which he supposes may avert your 
 anger. So long as this relation continues, whatever you 
 do to him, you do in the dark. As he has ceased to show 
 you what he is, you cannot know what he needs, and 
 what will best befit his condition. When was there ever 
 painter or sculptor so skilful, that he could paint or chisel 
 without seeing the canvas or the marble on which he 
 wrought ? And when was ever a teacher so omniscient, 
 that he could cultivate habits and character aright, unless 
 he was admitted from day to day to see those thoughts 
 and emotions of the child, whose long indulgence will 
 result in the habits and character of the man ? 
 
 A child should always be encouraged to make known 
 all his doubts and difficulties, both of an intellectual and 
 of a moral character ; and, if won to you by confidence 
 instead of being banished from you by fear, he will gen- 
 erally do so. If a learner does not state his doubt or 
 difficulty at the time he feels it, the season will pass by, 
 perhaps never to return. And certainly no other time 
 can be so favorable for acquiring correct information, or 
 for solving a doubt, as the time when the desire or the 
 doubt arises in the mind. Yet, if a pupil fears even
 
 348 SCHOOL PUNISHMENTS. 
 
 a rebuke or a frown, he will allow the proper occasions 
 to pass by, at the hazard of remaining ignorant forever. 
 
 Are not these considerations sufficient to show that 
 punishment, I mean more particularly, corporal pun- 
 ishment, and the fear which punishment proposes, con- 
 stitute a great evil ? Yet great as the evil is, I admit 
 that it is less than the evil of insubordination or disobe- 
 dience. It is better, therefore, to tolerate punishment, in 
 cases where the teacher has no other resource, than to 
 suffer insubordination or disobedience in our schools. 
 Yet how infinitely better, to secure order and proficiency, 
 by the power of conscience and the love of knowledge ; 
 to supersede the necessity of violence by moral means. 
 This is already done in a considerable number of schools ; 
 I trust it is done, with regard to some scholars, in every 
 school ; that is, I trust there are at least some scholars 
 in every school in the Commonwealth who never know 
 the degradation of the lash. I trust there is no teacher, 
 with such a vacuum of good qualities and such a plenum 
 of bad ones, as to create the necessity for indiscriminate 
 and universal flogging. What, then, ought teachers to 
 do ? I answer, they should aim to reach those higher 
 and higher points of qualification, which shall enable them 
 to dispense more and more with the necessity of punish- 
 ment. If there is any teacher so low in the scale of fit- 
 ness or competency as to feel obliged to punish every 
 day, he should strive to prolong the interval to once a 
 week. If any teacher punishes but once a quarter, he 
 should strive to punish but once a year. If any one dis- 
 graces himself and human nature by punishing fifty per 
 cent of his pupils, he should either leave the school, or 
 make a most liberal discount from such an intolerable 
 percentage. If any one punishes ten per cent of his 
 pupils, he should strive to reduce the number to five, to
 
 SCHOOL PUNISHMENTS. 340 
 
 three, to one per cent, and then, if possible, to none 
 at all. If there are five per cent of our teachers who 
 now keep school without punishment, this number should 
 be increased, as fast as possible, to ten per cent, to thirty, 
 to sixty, to ninety per cent.* That the necessity of pun- 
 ishment, so vehemently urged by some teachers, and 
 which is urged most vehemently by those who punish 
 most, is found, when analyzed, to be a necessity that 
 arises from a want of competency, or fitness, in the 
 teacher himself, rather than from any perversity or un- 
 governableness in the scholars, is demonstrable from this 
 fact ; that certain teachers find it necessary to punish 
 their pupils abundantly, but, on leaving the schools, and 
 being succeeded by competent persons, the necessity of 
 punishment vanishes, the same schools being governed 
 without it. Instances have occurred where a teacher 
 who could not govern without punishment, has been fol- 
 lowed, through successive schools, by one who could, 
 thus proving that the alleged necessity of punishment be- 
 longed to the teacher and not to the schools. Many a 
 teacher has been turned out of school, because he could 
 not govern without punishment, nor even with it ; and 
 has been succeeded, the next week, by one who found no 
 occasion to use it, thus affording demonstrative evi- 
 dence, that the necessity of punishment, in those cases, 
 was not in human nature, but only in the nature of Mr. 
 A. B. Such is the result to be aimed at, longed for, 
 
 * There are now (1845) at least ten to one of our teachers, as compared 
 with the number in 1839 (when this lecture was written), who keep school 
 without corporal punishment. And in ninety-nine towns in every hundred, 
 in the State, the flogging of girls, even where it exists at all, is an excecdingly 
 rare event. Since 1837, the number of schools in the State, annually broken 
 up through the incompetency of the teachers, or the insubordination of the 
 scholars, has been reduced from between three and four hundred, to about 
 fifty.
 
 350 SCHOOL PUNISHMENTS. 
 
 toiled for, by all. In the mean time, I blame no teacher 
 for occasional punishment, nor even for occasional corpo- 
 ral punishment. But what seems to me utterly unjusti- 
 fiable, is, the defence of punishment, as though it were 
 a good ; or the palliation of it, as though it were not a 
 great evil. What seems to me worthy of condemnation, 
 is, a resort to punishment, because it may seem to be a 
 more summary and convenient method of securing obedi- 
 ence and diligence than such a preparation for lessons ou 
 the part of the teacher, as would make them attractive 
 to the pupil ; and such exhibitions of kindness and inter- 
 est, as would win the affection of a child, and make him 
 a grateful co-operator, instead of a toiling slave. An 
 hour spent daily, by the teacher, in the preparation of 
 lessons, an anecdote, a narrative, an illustrative picture, 
 would be a far more powerful awakener of dormant or 
 sluggish minds, than the rod. A private interview with 
 a neglectful or disorderly pupil, a visit to his family, some 
 little attention or gratuity bestowed upon him, any 
 mode, in fine, of evincing a genuine interest in his wel- 
 fare, would oftentimes accomplish what it is not in the 
 power of blows to do. " By mercy and truth, iniquity is 
 purged," says Solomon ; "and by the fear of the Lord," 
 not by the fear of man, "men depart from evil." 
 
 As the profession of teaching rises in the estimation of 
 the public, and as teachers improve in their capacities and 
 disposition to fulfil the sacred duties of their office, may 
 we not hope for a gradual change in our schools, in this 
 respect, equally auspicious to them and to society ? And 
 may we not expect that those teachers who enjoy the 
 most of social consideration and of emolument will take 
 the lead in diffusing a higher spirit and in setting a nobler 
 example ? 
 
 Allow me here to say a word respecting a notion which
 
 SCHOOL PUNISHMENTS. 351 
 
 I sometimes hear advocated, but which seems to me un- 
 tenable. As an argument against corporal punishment, 
 it is sometimes urged, that it makes the body a vicarious 
 and involuntary sufferer for the offences of the mind. It 
 is the mind, say these metaphysicians, which wills, which 
 offends ; and to punish the body for the offences of the 
 mind, is as unjust as to punish John for the sins of Peter. 
 But, if it is the mind which offends, in the guilty act, is it 
 not also the mind which suffers, in the consequent penal- 
 ty ? Take away the mind, that is, leave the body a 
 corpse, and would its dead members then suffer ? I con- 
 fess, I cannot fathom the philosophy of this objection. 
 There is, however, one way in which it can be answered, 
 even on the principles which it assumes. If body and 
 mind are to be considered as two, so as to exempt the 
 former from suffering for the offences of the latter ; 
 even then, though the mind may be the original offender, 
 yet the body becomes a particeps criminis, a partaker 
 in the crime, by consenting to carry the criminal pur- 
 pose of the mind into execution ; and it may therefore 
 be lawfully punished as an accessory after the fact. 
 
 As to modes of punishment, not much needs be said, for 
 the savageness of torture formerly practised in our schools 
 is now nearly discontinued, though it is still retained to a 
 frightful extent in many families. When I was at the 
 bar, I knew a father, who was a blacksmith by trade, and 
 who used to punish his son by confining him in the cellar 
 and carrying do\vn heated nail-rods with which to punch 
 and goad him. Before the boy was fifteen years old, he was 
 tried for a capital offence. I was assigned by the court 
 as his counsel. He was convicted and sentenced to death, 
 though the penalty was commuted to imprisonment, in 
 the state-prison, for life. Such a fate was the natural 
 result of such an education. If one or the other must
 
 352 SCHOOL PUNISHMENTS. 
 
 have gone to the gallows, who can doubt that it should 
 have been the father, and not the son ? When an angry 
 man chastises a child, it is not punishment ; it is down- 
 right fighting, and so much the more criminal and dis- 
 graceful, as the person assailed is a child, and not a 
 man. 
 
 Blows should never be inflicted on the head. We 
 observe, every day, how thin the skull of an infant is. 
 We can see the pulse beat, on the top of its head. The 
 cranium does not ordinarily become fixed in its shape, 
 until the age of twenty-five years, sometimes, not until 
 a much later period of life. Dr. Griscom, in his excellent 
 work, entitled " Animal Mechanism," says, " a vibration 
 of the skull, by communicating a corresponding motion 
 to the brain, is more dangerous ofttimes than an instru- 
 ment forced through the bones and piercing the sub- 
 stance of the brain." And again; "Concussion of the 
 brain is generally more productive of immediate serious 
 results, than a puncture of its substance. It is well 
 known, in fact, that a considerable portion of it [the 
 brain] may be removed or destroyed, without proving 
 fatal, or even injuring the mental faculties ; but a sud- 
 den jar of its whole substance will almost certainly de- 
 prive the individual of all sense and consciousness, and, 
 if not speedily recovered from, must terminate in death." 
 This form of punishment, too, is as foolish as it is danger- 
 ous. To thwack a child over the head because he does 
 not get his lesson, is about as wise as it would be to rap 
 a watch with a hammer because it does not keep good 
 time. No one, could he but see the delicate texture of 
 the brain, that organ where the Deity has brought the 
 material and the immaterial, the earthly and the immor- 
 tal substances together, making each atom of the former 
 so nice, so ethereal, so divinely-fashioned, and suspending
 
 SCHOOL PUNISHMENTS. 353 
 
 all, as it were, particle by particle, in the " Dome o. 
 Thought," so that they might leap, with lightning quick- 
 ness, at the command of the all-pervading yet invisible 
 soul ; no one, I say, who has ever seen this, if he be 
 not a madman or a fool, will ever again strike a child 
 upon the head I have no doubt that the intellects of 
 thousands of children have been impaired for life, by the 
 blows which some angry parent or teacher has inflicted 
 upon the head. Nature, foreseeing that the brain would 
 be exposed to accidents, secured it, on all sides, by the 
 hard bones of the cranium ; and, to conceal any rugged- 
 ness in the solid masonry, she caused a silky vegetation to 
 spring up from and adorn it. Had she foreseen how 
 brutally it would be assaulted by men, would she not 
 rather have encircled it with a spherical iron-fender, or 
 made it bristle, all over, with porcupine's quills, to give 
 it a defence instead of an ornament ? Even in the British 
 army and navy, where whipping has been, for frequency, 
 like their daily bread, certain parts of the frame, such as 
 the head and loins, have been held sacred from the in- 
 struments of torture. 
 
 Neither should a child ever be subjected to any violent 
 motion or concussion, such as seizing him by the arm, 
 holding him out at arm's-length, and shaking him, the 
 whole weight of the body being suspended by a single 
 ligament, and the strain upon that being greatly increased 
 by the jerking. Most of us have experienced the shock 
 which even a slight fall may give to the system. When, 
 in descending a flight of steps, we mistakingly suppose 
 we have reached the bottom, and so step forward upon 
 the air, instead of the floor, the jar to the whole body is 
 always uncomfortable, and sometimes serious ; but how 
 much more severe must be the effect upon the feebly- 
 knitted frame of a child, when a strong man seizes him, 
 
 VOL. I. 23
 
 354 SCHOOL PUNISHMENTS. 
 
 and jerks him forwards and backwards, as a coachman 
 cracks a whip ; and then dashes him upon the floor, feet 
 foremost, shortening his dimensions, as one shuts up a 
 telescope ; and coils him and uncoils him, and crimps him 
 and stretches him smooth again ! I have seen a man 
 seize two boys, at a time, in school, for some joint mis- 
 demeanor, and, holding them by the back of the coat- 
 collar, make them " chassee " right and left, then "for- 
 ward and back two" and, at last, bring them together 
 with a terrific "dos-d-dos" until his own strength or the 
 tailor's stitching gave way ; and do it all with as much 
 zest as though it were an exercise in gymnastics. 
 
 Corporal punishment should be with a rod, rather than 
 with a ferrule, and below the loins or upon the legs, 
 rather than upon the body or hand. 
 
 In regard to the extent or severity of punishment, it is 
 obvious that it must be a reality, and not a sham. If 
 the lightning never struck, nobody would be afraid of the 
 thunder. Yet the opposite extreme is to be sedulously 
 guarded against. In all schools that are rightly gov- 
 erned, it is the mortification of being punished, quite as 
 much as the bodily smart or tingling, which causes it to 
 be deprecated, and gives it efficacy. If the common 
 standard or average of punishment is fixed low, whatever 
 exceeds that amount will be equally as formidable as 
 though the average were higher. Besides, if the penalty 
 for moderate offences be very severe, what shall be done 
 in aggravated cases ? Where stealing a shilling is pun- 
 ishable with death, and murder with nothing more, it is, 
 virtually, offering a premium on murder. The most dis- 
 orderly school I ever saw, was one where the teacher car- 
 ried a rattan in his hand all the time ; and even while the 
 company was present, there was scarcely any thing done, 
 except giving a practical synopsis of the verb to whip. A
 
 SCHOOL PUNISHMENTS. 355 
 
 universality of whipping defeats itself. Where all share 
 the same odious fortune, disgrace attaches to none. Like 
 the inhabitants of Botany Bay, all being rogues, nobody 
 loses caste. Shame never belongs to multitudes. It is 
 the separation of one or a few from all others, and affix- 
 ing a stigma upon them, that begets shame. 
 
 In graduating the amount of punishment, we should 
 regard the motive from which the offence proceeded, and 
 not the consequences which may have been produced by 
 it. In the government of children, people are prone to 
 look at the outward, external consequences of the wrong- 
 ful act, and to apportion the punishment according to 
 the mischief done ; for a small mischief punishing 
 lightly, for a serious one, severely. This is a false 
 criterion. An act merely careless may set a house on 
 fire; and again, an attempt to burn a house may fail, 
 through the merest accident, and do no injury. The true 
 rule, in meting out punishment, is, to disregard the ex- 
 ternal consequences, to look to the intention and motive 
 from which the offence emanated, and to apportion the 
 penalty to the wickedness of the intent, whether it took 
 effect or failed. It is the condition of the mind that is to 
 be regarded. If that is wrong, all is wrong ; if that is 
 right, it is of comparatively little consequence what out- 
 ward effects may have followed. Teach children, that to 
 die is but a small calamity ; to be depraved, a great one. 
 
 One word more as to the extent or amount of punish- 
 ment. Severe punishments are usually incurred by the 
 violent outbreak of some passion or propensity. A child 
 has a quarrelsome disposition, and beats a schoolmate ; 
 or he has been accustomed to place all pleasure in the in- 
 dulgence of appetite, and steals fruit or cakes ; or he 
 wishes to conceal a fault, and lies. In these cases, he 
 acts under the impulse of an appetite or propensity, and
 
 356 SCHOOL PUNISHMENTS. 
 
 these impulses are all blind. They act instinctively. 
 Remove the temptation, in these cases, that is, let the 
 desired object be attainable without the commission of 
 the offence, and the offence would not be committed. 
 The offence is not committed for its own sake, but for the 
 sake of the gratification or immunity to be purchased by 
 it. Now, I have no doubt, that when the temptation is 
 not present, the reason and conscience of most children 
 tell them plainly enough that the indulgence is wrong. 
 When the passions are asleep, reason and conscience 
 affirm their own authority, declare their own rights, and 
 place themselves in an attitude of defence. But, by and 
 by, the insurgent passion returns and demands its grati- 
 fication ; and when reason and conscience place them- 
 selves in its pathjjt rides them down, as heavy-armed 
 cavalry ride over unarmed peasantry. In these cases, 
 reason and conscience are the antagonists of passion ; 
 but they are not a match for it, and are trodden down by 
 it. Here, if all other means fail, punishment, that is, 
 the fear of punishment, may be lawfully called in. as an 
 ally to duty, so that the child's first thought shall be 
 this : However much I desire such or such a pleasure, 
 I must incur so much pain by obtaining it, that, on the 
 whole, it is not worth what it will cost. Such is the case 
 in ten thousand minds, whether of children or of men, 
 Fear fighting Desire; and here the fear, that is, 
 the amount of punishment exciting the fear, should 
 be strong enough, with such aid as reason and conscience 
 may contribute, to vanquish the desire. This affords a 
 rule for the measure of punishment. All beyond this 
 is wantonness or vindictiveness, and not to be tolerated. 
 To illustrate what I mean, by an anecdote: Just as a 
 certain school was closing, one afternoon, a boy named 
 John, who had become almost crazy with impatience, and
 
 SCHOOL PUNISHMENTS. 357 
 
 in whom the steam of discontent had risen almost to the 
 exploding point, whistled outright. "John," said the 
 teacher, " was it you who whistled ? " " No, sir," says 
 John. " Henry," says the teacher, " didn't John whis- 
 tle?" "Yes, sir," says Henry. "John," says the 
 teacher, " how dare you say you did not whistle ? " "I 
 didn't," says John, " it whistle d itself.'" Now, in this 
 case, if John were to be punished at all, he should only 
 be punished so much that it would not whistle itself, the 
 next time. 
 
 As to the question, under what circumstances punish- 
 ment should be inflicted, I think, in the first place, it 
 should, in ordinary cases, be private, at recess, or in an- 
 other apartment, or after the close of the school. Punish- 
 ment is often braved by audacious natures, and its effect 
 lost upon them by its publicity. They wish to sustain, or 
 to win a reputation for hardiness and indomitableness of 
 spirit, and hence they will bear any punishment, if pub- 
 licly inflicted, without shrinking or flinching ; just as 
 an Indian sings when he is tortured, or as some steel- 
 fibred malefactors walk unconcernedly up the gallows' 
 ladder, as though they were going up stairs to bed. So 
 far as the effect upon other pupils is concerned, it is ob- 
 vious that their imaginations will be likely to exaggerate 
 an unknown punishment beyond the reality, unless, in- 
 deed, it be terribly severe. Under actual inspection, 
 punishment would have its limits of suffering ; but im- 
 agination has no limits. 
 
 Punishment should never be inflicted without deep so- 
 lemnity of manner. The teacher should exhibit every 
 indication that he suffers more pain in giving, than its 
 object does in receiving it. Because grown persons arc 
 out of the way of punishment, they are prone to think 
 of it lightly, to speak of it lightly, and to inflict it lightly.
 
 358 SCHOOL PUNISHMENTS. 
 
 But it is a solemn dispensation, and should be treated 
 with corresponding solemnity. I believe a finely-tempered 
 child suffers as much, by being kept from his playmates 
 after school, to be punished, as a high-spirited man would 
 suffer, in being taken to prison from family and friends. 
 How obvious then it is, that punishment should never be 
 inflicted in a passion, unless, indeed, it be a passion of 
 tears. Angry feelings in a teacher beget angry feelings 
 in a pupil, and if these are repeated, day after day, they 
 will at last rise to obstinacy, to obduracy and incorrigible- 
 ness. No man can conceive the difference which must be 
 produced in the future character and happiness of chil- 
 dren, and eventually upon the future character and hap- 
 piness of the whole community, if, on the one hand, the 
 early years of life are filled with' dissocial, morose and 
 revengeful feelings, or, on the other, with sentiments of 
 tenderness and affection. I will not cite the case of 
 barbarous tribes, because they are an extreme ; but 
 whence did the old Romans derive their inexorableness 
 and impenetrability of heart ? They rose to the highest 
 state of ancient civilization, and yet their national em- 
 ployment was war ; their national resources were plunder, 
 and their national glory consisted in unrighteous victo- 
 ries, won over unoffending nations. Under such influ- 
 ences, their hearts became more impenetrable than the 
 iron mail that covered them. In their religion, Mars 
 received ten times more homage than Jupiter. They 
 prayed and sacrificed to the latter, just enough to retain 
 his good will, but the former was the god of their affec- 
 tions. This intense destructiveness in the national char- 
 acter was cultivated by their exhibitions of fighting wild 
 beasts, and their gladiatorial contests. One of these 
 spectacles lasted more than four months ; eleven thousand 
 animals of different kinds were killed, and ten thousand
 
 SCHOOL PUNISHMENTS. 359 
 
 gladiators fought. Think of a people who could give 
 the appellation of "Games" to these blood-reeking abom- 
 inations. Every person who manifests cruelty or anger 
 before the young, does all he can to fashion their un- 
 formed tempers into this revolting and unchristian shape. 
 
 Is not the British nation celebrated, the world over, for 
 the aggressive spirit of its policy, and, with many beauti- 
 ful exceptions, for the unamiable character of its people ; 
 and is it not in the schools of Great Britain that punish- 
 ments are more frequent and more severe than in any 
 other part of Christendom ? I know it is said that this se- 
 verity in the discipline of children is accompanied by great 
 hardihood of spirit and by distinguished martial bravery 
 in men. Look into British factories and British mines, 
 and see by what else it is accompanied ! 
 
 Punishment should not be inflicted in haste, nor sum- 
 marily. It should bear every mark of consideration, and 
 of being administered from the moral compulsion of duty. 
 Its effects pervade the whole moral nature of a child. 
 By its application, the disease may not be cured, but only 
 driven in, to break out with increased violence at another 
 time, or in another place. The times when a punished 
 child is dismissed or sent back to his seat are among the 
 most decisive epochs in his moral history. Often, they 
 are turning-points in the journey of life, where, for good, 
 or for evil, he leaves one path and enters upon another ; 
 and though, at first, their divergency may be slight, yet 
 their terminations may be as far asunder as the upper 
 from the nether world. Hence the necessity of learning 
 the condition of his feelings at those times, in order to 
 rectify whatever may be wrong in them. I confess that I 
 have been amazed and overwhelmed, to see a teacher 
 spend an hour at the black-board, explaining arithmeti- 
 cal questions, and another hour on the reading or gram-
 
 360 SCHOOL PUNISHMENTS. 
 
 mar lessons ; and, in the mean time, as though it were 
 only some interlude, seize a boy by the collar, drag him 
 to the floor, castigate him, and remand him to his seat, 
 the whole process not occupying two minutes. Such la- 
 borious processes for the intellect, such summary dealings 
 with the heart ; with that part of us, where all motives 
 reside, whence all actions proceed, and which shall grow 
 in loftiness, until we become, in moral stature, taller than 
 archangels, or arch-fiends ! But, says the teacher, in de- 
 fence of his extempore inflictions, I have no time for your 
 homilies and moralizings. I should come short of my daily 
 round of tasks, I must skip or clip my recitations, did 1 
 spend time to inquire whether the child thought himself 
 wronged or justly dealt by ; whether he would look back- 
 ward upon the occasion with repentance, or forward with 
 revenge ; whether conscience were alive or dead in his 
 breast. But, for man's sake and for Heaven's sake, let 
 rne ask, what was time made for, if not for these moral 
 uses ? To what holier purpose can time be appropriated, 
 than, when a child gets lost in error, to set his face to- 
 wards the right point of the moral compass before he is 
 started off again? The glass of time contains no sands 
 more sacred than those which run during these precious 
 moments. When I look back to the playmates of my 
 childhood ; when I remember the acquaintance which I 
 formed with nine college classes ; when I cast my eye 
 over the circles of men with whom professional and pub- 
 lic duties made me conversant ; I find amongst all these 
 examples, that, for one man who has been ruined for 
 want of intellect or attainment, hundreds have perished 
 for want of morals. And yet, with this disproportion be- 
 tween the causes of human ruin, we go on, bestowing at 
 least a hundred times more care and pains and cost in the 
 education of the intellect, than in the cultivation of the
 
 SCHOOL PUNISHMENTS. 861 
 
 moral sentiments, and in the establishment of moral prin- 
 ciples. From year to year, we pursue the same course of 
 navigation, with all these treasure-laden vessels going 
 down to destruction around us and before us, when, if the 
 ocean in which they are sunk were not fathomless and 
 bottomless, the wrecks, ere this, would have rilled it solid 
 to the surface. 
 
 Let me adjure teachers to reconsider this whole sub- 
 ject ; to apportion anew the appeals to the physical and 
 to the moral nature of children ; and, if the practice 
 anywhere still exists of punishing by sections or rjlatoons, 
 without inquiry and without counsel, to abolish it, instan- 
 taneously and forever. 
 
 A child may surrender to fear, without surrendering to 
 principle. But it is the surrender to principle only which 
 has any permanent value. The surrender of a child to 
 fear, is like a surrender of our purse to a highwayman, 
 whom, that very instant, we would shoot if we could. 
 Hence, after the outward demonstrations of the inward 
 evil have been repressed, let not teacher or parent think 
 that his labor is done. It is only begun. In a moral 
 sense, the child is still a valetudinarian. Often, the very 
 process which quells the rage of the disease, weakens the 
 constitution of the patient, and special pains become so 
 much the more necessary to re-establish health. Let the 
 cordial of love and consolation be administered to the 
 wounded spirit. This is often the most delicate, always 
 the most important part of the process. I had almos,t 
 said, better die of the disease than to expel it by remedies, 
 which, proving fatal to the constitution, entail a daily 
 torture upon all subsequent life. The external manifesta- 
 tion, the overt acts, of a passion, may be stifled, 
 while the passion itself lives on, and broods over its viper- 
 offspring in the silent breast. Instead of a solemn re-
 
 362 SCHOOL PUNISHMENTS. 
 
 solve against further indulgence, it may be nursing its 
 strength in secrecy for a postponed gratification. It may 
 have withdrawn from outward view, but be lying in am- 
 bush, and watching the hour when it can securely leap 
 upon its victim. Now, no fury of external outbreak is so 
 much to be dreaded and deprecated as these silent 
 machinations, or foretastes of revenge. It is, therefore, 
 no paradox to say, that order and silence and regularity 
 may be maintained, in a school, by a course of discipline, 
 which, while it seems to make a good school, shall, in 
 reality, be a skilfully arranged process for making bad 
 men. The feelings, with which the child leaves the bar 
 and the tribunal, the course which is given to his 
 future feelings by the executions of the sentence; this, 
 as it regards the moral welfare of the child, is the whole ; 
 all else is as nothing, compared with it. His moral 
 nature has been fused in the fires of shame and pain, and 
 the question is, in what shapes, of good or of evil, it shall 
 harden as it cools. Everybody is familiar with the story 
 of Dr. Bowditch, who came near to being inhumanly 
 punished for an alleged falsehood, because he said he had 
 solved an arithmetical question, whose solution required 
 more talent than his tyrannical master supposed him to 
 possess. Late in life, that great man spoke of the event 
 in a manner which showed that, after the lapse of half 
 a century, the feeling of righteous indignation towards 
 the teacher was still vivid in his breast. How often do 
 we meet men, who never speak of some former teacher 
 of theirs, without a contraction of the whole muscular 
 system ; without such involuntary motions as would 
 indicate that they were crushing a viper in their hands, 
 and had the head of a serpent under their heel ! Punish- 
 ment inflicted by such teachers may have prevented 
 whispering in school, but at the expense of a thousand
 
 SCHOOL PUNISHMENTS. 363 
 
 muttered curses afterwards. Those whose art it is to 
 color cloths have a time and a process for what they call 
 .letting the color. The hour of punishment is the time, 
 when, perhaps more than at any other time, the com- 
 plexion of the moral character is set ; and oh ! how 
 often it is dyed to that hue of immitigable blackness, 
 which can neither be purged nor washed away by the 
 refiner's fire or the fuller's soap ! 
 
 If angry feelings survive punishment, they can rarely 
 be concealed from a discerning eye. They will be be- 
 trayed by the looks, and, especially, by the tones of the 
 voice. The child will not have the same freedom, or ease 
 of manner, as before, nor the same zest for accustomed 
 pleasures. His eye will droop, or turn away, when it 
 meets that of the teacher, or else it will be fixed upon 
 him, with a look of defiance. Perhaps he will be even 
 more punctilious in the discharge of duties, as one of the 
 concealments for the revenge he is nourishing within. 
 But that subtlest organ, the voice, will be the great index. 
 Any of these indications should admonish the teacher 
 that the realm within is not yet wholly at peace, and that 
 it needs another visitation from the spirit of duty to calm 
 its troubled elements. And well may the teacher afford 
 to spend time and strength for such an object ; for, if he 
 can effect a thorough reformation, by a change of view or 
 by the inspiration of a new purpose, it will probably be a 
 reformation, once for all, a repentance not to be re- 
 pented of. 
 
 In the management of children, we often aggravate 
 the obstinacy and incorrigibleness we lament, by perpetu- 
 ally rebuking and punishing a bad tendency, instead of 
 expending the same amount of time and means for 
 inspiring the proper countervailing motives. The relative 
 strength of any one faculty is as certainly reduced by
 
 364 SCHOOL PUNISHMENTS. 
 
 increasing the strength of its antagonist faculties, as by 
 reducing its own. Remove by introducing. Nourish the 
 good plant, until it overshadows the bad one, and inter- 
 cepts its sunshine and absorbs its nutriment. One of the 
 most efficient means of that revolution which has lately 
 taken.placc, in the cure of the insane, consists in the sub- 
 stitution of new trains of thoughts and feelings, until 
 the former ones die out. While the old physicians strove 
 to expel the currents of insane thought and emotion, by 
 scourgings, and drownings, and confinements in dun- 
 geons, they tried and tortured in vain. They only aggra- 
 vated the maladies they were appointed to heal. But 
 from the day that they began to open new sources of 
 thought and feeling in the minds of their patients, from 
 that day, a power to cast out the evil spirits of insanity 
 was given them. So, in the training of a child, it is 
 possible to supplant vicious images and vicious desires, 
 by substituting virtuous images and virtuous desires ; but 
 it is not possible to create a void by merely removing the 
 vicious ones. 
 
 Another rule is to be observed in administering all re- 
 bukes and all punishments. Always connect the rebuke 
 or the punishment with the wrong that incurs it, and not 
 with the correlative right. Keep the idea of the offence 
 before the child's mind, as the cause of his suffering. If 
 you correct a boy for not coming to school half an hour 
 earlier, he wishes the school was in the Red Sea, because, by 
 the law of mental association, the punishment is involun- 
 tarily connected with the school. But correct him for 
 truancy, in stopping to play at marbles, and the next time 
 he is tempted to stop and play, the very sight of the 
 marbles, by the law of association, will make his skin itcli 
 and tingle. If a boy is convicted of falsehood, and the 
 teacher, as he lays on the smart, says, " I'll teach you
 
 SCHOOL PUNISHMENTS. 365 
 
 how to speak the truth," the boy will hate the very idea" 
 of truth, for the bad company it comes in. But if the 
 teacher, in administering the penalty, explains that false- 
 hood and punishment are Siamese twins, and must go to- 
 gether, then, when falsehood comes smiling and bland- 
 ishing along to tempt its victim again, he will see the 
 terrific form of pain standing by its side. Thus the as- 
 sociation of pain should always be connected with the 
 wrong done, and never with the duty omitted. It thus 
 becomes unconsciously an auxiliary for the right. So, 
 on the other hand, the rewards of virtue should be always 
 associated with the virtuous conduct, as though the 
 former grew naturally from the latter. Every person, at 
 all conversant with the forum or the senate, knows that 
 one of the great secrets of an orator's power consists in 
 his skilful management of the involuntary associations. 
 If this is an efficient instrument in swaying the minds of 
 men, how much more so in controlling children ! 
 
 I cannot close these remarks, without saying a word 
 upon the general duty of parents whose children are 
 punished at school. That duty is to espouse the side of 
 the teacher, to vindicate his conduct, and, especially, to 
 abstain from all complaint against him in any place where 
 it may come to the child's ear. They should have an in- 
 terview with the child himself on the subject ; they should 
 explain the nature of the misconduct that incurred the 
 punishment, and they should show them that they, the 
 parents, suffer shame and mortification, on his account, 
 sharper than any pain of chastisement can be. They 
 should strive to close any breach of alienation between 
 pupil and teacher, which the punishment may have 
 caused. If the parent has reason to suppose that the 
 punishment was too severe, or that the mode or spirit of 
 inflicting it was improper, let him seek a private interview
 
 366 SCHOOL PUNISHMENTS. 
 
 with the teacher, frankly state his apprehensions, and 
 then, like an honest and impartial man, hearken to the 
 defence that may be made. The punishment of children 
 at school furnishes the very occasions when that love of 
 offspring, which Heaven, for the wisest purposes, has 
 planted in every parental breast, is liable to become inju- 
 rious and excessive ; and when, therefore, it most needs 
 the control of reason. Only in cases made flagrant by 
 their excess, or their frequency, should the conduct of 
 the teacher receive public animadversion. 
 
 I knew a family, in which there were five children, who 
 received almost all the education they ever had, in the 
 district school of an obscure country town. It was the 
 father's custom, during the first week of the winter's 
 school, to invite the master to dine with him ; and when 
 the whole family were gathered around the table, to make 
 the importance of the school, the necessity of good order, 
 and obedience in it, with other kindred topics, the subject 
 of conversation ; and then, in the presence of the chil- 
 dren, to say, as it were incidentally, that he trusted they- 
 would all behave well ; that they knew no desire was so 
 near his heart as their welfare ; but that, if they justly 
 incurred any punishment at school, he should repeat it at 
 home, because he should consider an offence committed 
 in school as an offence against himself, as well as against 
 the teacher. One of the sons, a boy of such high, 
 sanguineous temperament that his feelings were subject to 
 a sort of spontaneous combustion, one day drew down 
 punishment upon himself for a practical joke, which, 
 if the wit of it had been an atonement, instead of an 
 aggravation, would have been expiated in the commis- 
 sion ; and the fact being known at home, by the very 
 solemnity of the children's looks, the father inquired into 
 the circumstances, and, finding the punishment to have
 
 SCHOOL PUNISHMENTS. 367 
 
 been well merited, that very night he laid upon the boy's 
 back what the learned would call a fac-simile, or dupli- 
 cate original, of the stripes ; and there ended the chapter 
 of school punishments, in that family, forever. Not 
 another child, ever afterwards, got sting or tingle at 
 school ; and this, happening in the old-fashioned times, 
 when the mischievous system of emulation bore sway, the 
 children of that family, year after year, swept away all the 
 prizes, and nobody ever thought of asking who were at 
 the heads of the classes. 
 
 I would conclude with this summary of what has been 
 said : that, in the present state of society, and with our 
 present inexperienced and untrained corps of teachers, 
 punishment, and even corporal punishment, cannot be 
 dispensed with, by all teachers, in all schools, and with 
 regard to all scholars ; that, where a school is well con- 
 ducted, the minimum of punishment shows the maximum 
 of qualifications ; that the office of punishment is solely 
 to restrain transgressors, until other and higher motives 
 can be brought to bear upon them, and, therefore, that 
 the great and paramount duty of the teacher, in all cases, 
 is to regard, as all-essential, the state of mind into which 
 a child is brought by the punishment, and in which he is 
 left after it, the current of thought and feeling intro- 
 duced being in every respect as important as that which 
 is turned away ; that, as the object of school is to prepare 
 for the duties of after-life, it follows that the school is 
 made for the world, arid not the world for the school ; 
 and hence, however much any course may seem to pro- 
 mote the present good appearance or intellectual advance- 
 ment of the school, yet, if it tends to defeat the welfare 
 of the future men and women, now composing the school, 
 its adoption is shortsighted and suicidal ; and finally, that 
 punishment of no kind is ever inflicted in the right spirit,
 
 368 SCHOOL PUNISHMENTS. 
 
 or is likely to be inflicted in the right measure, or with 
 the right results, unless it is as painful to him who im- 
 poses as to him who receives it. Let these truths be re- 
 garded, and Christian teachers and parents, in the few 
 cases in which they will be called upon to administer 
 pain, will do it with the noble feelings that animated the 
 pagan executioner, who gave, as he was commanded, the 
 cup of poison to Socrates, but wept as he gave it. 
 
 " Oh, woe to those who trample on the mind, 
 That deathless thing ! They know not what they do, 
 Nor what they deal with. Man, perchance, may bind 
 'The flower his step hath bruised ; or light anew 
 The torch he quenches ; or to music wind 
 
 _Again the lyre-string from his touch that flew ; 
 
 ( But for the soul, oh, tremble, and beware 
 
 \ To lay rude hands upon God's mysteries there ! "
 
 FIRST ANNUAL REPORT 
 
 BOARD OF EDUCATION. 
 
 MARCH, 1838. 
 
 VOL. I. 24
 
 FIRST ANNUAL REPORT 
 
 BOARD OF EDUCATION, 
 
 The Board of Education, created by an act of the Legis- 
 lature, approved 2Qth April, 1887, ask permission to 
 submit their First Annual Report. 
 
 THE Board held its first meeting in the Council Cham- 
 ber in Boston, on the 29th June, 1837. Authority hav- 
 ing been given, by the law creating the Board, to appoint 
 a Secretary, the Honorable Horace Mann, late President 
 of the Senate of the Commonwealth, was elected by bal- 
 lot to that office. It being provided that the Secretary 
 should receive a reasonable compensation for his services, 
 not exceeding one thousand dollars per annum, it was 
 unanimously agreed by the Board, that this sum should 
 be allowed as his salary ; - it being understood that he 
 should devote himself exclusively to the duties of his of- 
 fice. On this subject, the Board will ask permission to 
 make a few observations in the sequel of their report. 
 
 The duties of the Board, as prescribed by the statute, 
 are, 1st, to prepare and lay before the Legislature, in a 
 printed form, on or before the second Wednesday in Jan- 
 uary, annually, an abstract of the school returns received 
 by the Secretary of the Commonwealth, and 2d, to make 
 a detailed report to the Legislature of all their doings, 
 
 371
 
 372 FIRST ANNUAL REPORT 
 
 with such observations as their experience and reflection 
 may suggest, upon the condition and efficiency of our 
 system of popular education, and the most practicable 
 means of improving and extending it. 
 
 The first duty has been discharged. The Board at an 
 early day confided to their Secretary the duty of preparing 
 an abstract of the school returns. This abstract has been 
 duly submitted to the Legislature, in a highly convenient 
 form. The recapitulation at its close, supersedes the 
 necessity of presenting in this place any summary of its 
 contents. Imperfect as such a document must nec'essarily 
 be, it comprises a great amount of valuable information. 
 The Board are of opinion, that, by such improvements as 
 experience may suggest, it will be in their power, if 
 authority be granted to them, to render it still more 
 instructive and useful. It is respectfully recommended, 
 that power be granted to the Board, by the Legislature, 
 to direct such amendments in the mode and time of 
 making the returns, and in the mode of* keeping the 
 school-register, as will more effectually answer the pur- 
 poses for which the returns are directed to be made. 
 
 It is made the duty of the Secretary, " under the direc- 
 tion of the Board, to collect information of the actual 
 condition and efficiency of the common schools and other 
 means of popular education ; and to diffuse as widely as 
 possible, throughout every part of the Commonwealth, 
 information of the most approved and successful methods 
 of arranging the studies and conducting the education of 
 the young." 
 
 The limited powers conferred on the Board left them 
 scarce any discretion in the choice of the means, by which 
 they could enable their Secretary to discharge his duty as 
 thus prescribed. It was necessary to depend almost ex- 
 clusively on the voluntary co-operation of the people ;
 
 OF THE BOARD OF EDUCATION. 373 
 
 and no way suggested itself in which this co-operation 
 could be given so effectually, as through the medium *of 
 conventions, called in each county of the Commonwealth, 
 to be composed of teachers, school-committee-men, and 
 the friends of education generally, deputed from the sev- 
 eral towns to attend these conventions. The conventions 
 were so arranged as to time, as to be held successively at 
 convenient intervals throughout the State, in order that 
 the presence of the Secretary of the Board might be given 
 at each county convention. It was the purpose of the 
 Board, that these meetings should also be attended by 
 such members of their own body, as from their place of 
 residence were able conveniently to be present ; and this, 
 when other engagements permitted, has been done. In 
 pursuance of these views, an address was issued by the 
 Board to the people of the Commonwealth, a copy of 
 which will be found subjoined to the Report of the Secre- 
 tary, herewith presented. 
 
 By way of preparation for the county conventions, a 
 series of questions was prepared by the Secretary, and 
 widely circulated throughout the Commonwealth, for the 
 purpose of drawing forth and concentrating information 
 on the most important points, connected with the subject 
 of education. A copy of these questions is also sub- 
 joined. 
 
 At the appointed time, the circuit of the county con- 
 ventions was commenced by their Secretary, and the 
 Board feel warranted in saying, that his attendance and 
 public addresses at these meetings were productive of the 
 happiest effects. Seconded by an enlightened zeal for 
 the improvement of education, on the part of those by 
 whom these conventions were attended, it is believed that 
 his services and efforts have been highly instrumental in 
 awakening a new interest in the cause of school educa-
 
 374 FIRST ANNUAL REPORT 
 
 tlon. At the semi-annual meeting of the Board, on the 
 fii*st day of the present month, a detailed REPORT of his 
 proceedings was submitted by the Secretary, with various 
 observations on the leading topics which had engaged his 
 attention, in the discharge of- his duty. This document 
 will be found appended to the present report, and the 
 Board refer to it with great satisfaction, as a result of the 
 organization of the Board of Education for the first year 
 of its existence, in the highest degree creditable to its 
 author, and likely to prove equally beneficial to the cause 
 of education and acceptable to the people of the Com- 
 monwealth. 
 
 It is not the province of the Board of Education to 
 submit to the Legislature, in the form of specific projects 
 of law, those measures, which they may deem advisable 
 for the improvement of the schools and the promotion of 
 the cause of education. That duty is respectfully left by 
 the Board, with the wisdom of the Legislature and its 
 committees, on whom it is by usage devolved. Neither 
 will it be expected of the Board, on the present occasion, 
 to engage in a lengthened discussion of topics, fully 
 treated in their Secretary's report, to which they beg 
 leave to refer, as embodying a great amount of fact, and 
 the result of extensive observation skilfully generalized. 
 The Board ask permission only to submit a few remarks 
 on some of the more important topics connected with the 
 general subject. 
 
 1. As the comfort and progress of children at school 
 depend, to a very considerable degree, on the proper and 
 commodious construction of schoolhouses, the Board ask 
 leave to invite the particular attention of the Legislature 
 to their Secretary's remarks on this subject. As a general 
 observation, it is no doubt too true, that the schoolhouses 
 in most of the districts of the Commonwealth are of an
 
 OP THE BOARD OF EDUCATION. 375 
 
 imperfect construction. It is apprehended that sometimes 
 at less expense than is now incurred, and in other cases, 
 by a small additional expense, schoolhouses much more 
 conducive to the health and comfort, and consequently to 
 the happiness and progress of children, might be erected. 
 Nor would it be necessary, in most cases, in order to in- 
 troduce the desired improvements, that new buildings 
 should be constructed. Perhaps in a majority of cases, 
 the end might be attained to a considerable degree, by 
 alterations and additions to the present buildings. It is 
 the purpose of the Secretary of the Board, as early as 
 practicable, to prepare and submit a special report on the 
 construction of schoolhouses. When this document shall 
 be laid before them, it will be for the Legislature to judge, 
 whether any encouragement can, with good effect, be of- 
 fered from the school-fund, with a view to induce the 
 towns of the Commonwealth to adopt those improvements 
 in the construction of schoolhouses. which experience and 
 reason show to be of great practical importance in carry- 
 ing on the business of education. 
 
 2. Very much of the efficiency of the best system of 
 school education depends upon the fidelity and zeal with 
 which the office of a school-committee-man is performed. 
 The Board deem it unnecessary to dila.te upon a subject 
 so ably treated by their Secretary. The difficulties to be 
 surmounted before the services of able and faithful school- 
 committee-men can be obtained, in perhaps a majority of 
 the towns of the Commonwealth, are confessedly great 
 and various. They can be thoroughly overcome only by 
 the spirit of true patriotism, generously exerting itself to- 
 ward the great end of promoting the intellectual improve- 
 ment of fellow-men. But it is in the power of the Legis- 
 lature to remove some of the obstacles, among which not 
 the least considerable is the pecuniary sacrifice involved
 
 376 FIRST ANNUAL REPORT 
 
 in the faithful and laborious discharge of the duties of 
 the school committee. The Board have understood, with 
 great satisfaction, that the subject has been brought before 
 the House of Representatives. They know of no reason 
 why the members of school committees should not receive 
 a reasonable compensation, as well as other municipal 
 officers, of whom it is not usually expected that they 
 should serve the public gratuitously. There are none 
 whose labors, faithfully performed, are of greater moment 
 to the general well-being. The duties of a member of a 
 school committee, if conscientiously discharged, are oner- 
 ous ; and ought not to be rendered more so, by being- 
 productive of a heavy pecuniary loss, in the wholly unre- 
 quited devotion of time and labor to the public good. 
 
 3. The subject of the education of teachers has been 
 more than once brought before the Legislature, and is of 
 the very highest importance in connection with the im- 
 provement of our schools. That there are all degrees of 
 skill and success on the part of teachers, is matter of too 
 familiar observation to need repetition ; and that these 
 must depend, in no small degree, on the experience of 
 the teacher, and in his formation under a good discipline 
 and method of instruction in early life, may be admitted 
 without derogating, in any measure, from the importance 
 of natural gifts and aptitude, in fitting men for this as 
 for the other duties of society. Nor can it be deemed 
 unsafe to insist that, while occupations requiring a very 
 humble degree of intellectual effort and attainment de- 
 mand a long-continued training, it cannot be that the ar- 
 duous and manifold duties of the instructor of youth 
 should be as well performed without as with a specific 
 preparation for them. In fact, it must be admitted, as 
 the voice of- reason and experience, that institutions for 
 the formation of teachers must be established among us,
 
 OF THE BOARD OF EDUCATION. 377 
 
 before the all-important work of forming the minds of 
 our children can be performed in the best possible man- 
 ner, and with the greatest attainable success. 
 
 No one who has been the witness of the ease and effect 
 with which instruction is imparted by one teacher, and 
 the tedious pains-taking and unsatisfactory progress which 
 mark the labors of another of equal ability and knowl- 
 edge, and operating on materials equally good, can enter- 
 tain a doubt that there is a mastery in teaching as in 
 every other art. Nor is it less obvious that, within reason- 
 able limits, this skill and this mastery may themselves 
 be made the subjects of instruction, and be communicated 
 to others. 
 
 We are not left to the deductions of reason on this sub- 
 ject. In those foreign countries, where the greatest at- 
 tention has been paid to the work of education, schools 
 for teachers have formed an important feature in their 
 systems, arid with the happiest result. The art of im- 
 parting instruction has been found, like every other art, 
 to improve by cultivation in institutions established for 
 that specific object. New importance has been attached 
 to the calling of the instructor by public opinion, from 
 the circumstance that his vocation has been deemed one 
 requiring systematic preparation and culture. Whatever 
 tends to degrade the profession of the teacher, in his own 
 mind or that of the public, of course impairs his useful- 
 ness ; and this result must follow from regarding instruc- 
 tion as a business which in itself requires no previous 
 training. 
 
 The duties which devolve upon the teachers even of 
 our Common Schools, particularly when attended by large 
 numbers of both sexes, and of advanced years for learn- 
 ers (as is often the case), are various, and difficult of per- 
 formance. For their faithful execution, no degree of
 
 378 FIRST ANNUAL REPORT 
 
 talent and qualification is too great ; and when we reflect 
 that in the nature of things only a moderate portion of 
 both can, in ordinary cases, be expected, for the slender 
 compensation afforded the teacher, we gain a new view 
 of the necessity of bringing to his duties the advantage of 
 previous training in the best mode of discharging them. 
 
 A very considerable part of the benefit, which those 
 who attend our schools might derive from them, is un- 
 questionably lost for want of mere skill in the business 
 of instruction, on the part of the teacher. This falls 
 with especial hardship on that part of our youthful popu- 
 lation, who are able to enjoy, but for a small portion of 
 the year, the advantage of the schools. For them it is 
 of peculiar importance, that, from the moment of enter- 
 ing the school, every hour should be employed to the 
 greatest advantage, and every facility in imparting knowl- 
 edge, and every means of awakening and guiding the 
 mind, be put into instant operation : and where this is 
 done, two months of schooling would be as valuable as a 
 year passed under a teacher destitue of experience and skill. 
 The Board cannot but express the sanguine hope, that 
 the time is not far distant, when the resources of public 
 or private liberality will be applied in Massachusetts for 
 the foundation of an institution for the formation of 
 teachers, in which the present existing defect will be 
 amply supplied. 
 
 4. The subject of district-school libraries is deemed of 
 very great importance by the Board. A foundation was 
 made for the formation of such libraries, by the Act of 
 12th April, 1837, authorizing an expenditure by each 
 district of thirty dollars, for this purpose, the first year, 
 and ten each succeeding year. Such economy has been 
 introduced into the business of printing, that even these 
 small sums judiciously applied for a term of years will
 
 OF THE BOARD OP EDUCATION. 379 
 
 amply suffice for the desired object. To the attainment 
 of this end, it is in the power of booksellers and publish- 
 ers to render the most material aid. There is no reason 
 to doubt, that if neat editions of books suitable for Com- 
 mon-School libraries were published and sold at a very 
 moderate rate, plainly and substantially bound, and 
 placed in cases well adapted for convenient transporta- 
 tion, and afterwards to serve as the permanent place of 
 deposit, it would induce many of the districts in the Com- 
 monwealth to exercise the power of raising money for 
 school libraries. A beginning once made, steady prog- 
 ress would in many cases be sure to follow. Where cir- 
 cumstances did not admit the establishment of a library 
 in each district, it might very conveniently be deposited 
 a proportionate part of the year in each district succes- 
 sively. But it would be highly desirable that each school- 
 house should be furnished with a case and shelves, suit- 
 able for the proper arrangement and safe -keeping of 
 books. The want of such a provision makes it almost 
 impossible to begin the collection of a library ; and where 
 such provision is made, the library would be nearly sure 
 to receive a steady increase. 
 
 Although the Board are of opinion, that nothing would 
 more promote the cause of education among us, than the 
 introduction of libraries into our district schools, they 
 have not deemed it advisable to recommend any measure 
 looking to the preparation of 'a series of volumes, of which 
 such a library should be composed, and their distribution, 
 at public expense. Whatever advantages would belong- 
 to a library consisting of books expressly written for the 
 purpose, obvious difficulties and dangers would attend 
 such an undertaking. The Board deem it far more 
 advisable to leave this work to the enterprise and judg- 
 ment of publishers, who would, no doubt, find it for
 
 380 FIRST ANNUAL REPORT 
 
 their interest to make preparations to satisfy a demand 
 for district-school libraries in the way above indicated. 
 
 In this connection the Board would observe, that much 
 good might unquestionably be effected by the publication 
 of a periodical journal or paper, of which the exclusive 
 object should be to promote the cause of education, 
 especially of Common-School education. Such a journal, 
 conducted on the pure principles of Christian philan- 
 thropy, of rigid abstinence from party and sect, sacredly 
 devoted to the one object of education, to collecting and 
 diffusing information on this subject, to the discussion of 
 the numerous important questions which belong to it, to 
 the formation of a sound and intelligent public opinion, 
 and the excitement of a warm and energetic public sen- 
 timent, in favor of our schools, might render incalculable 
 service. The Board are decidedly of opinion, that a 
 journal of this description would be the most valuable 
 auxiliary which could be devised, to carry into execution 
 the enlightened policy of the government, in legislating 
 for the improvement of the schools, and they indulge a 
 sanguine hope that its establishment will shortly be wit- 
 nessed. 
 
 5. The subject of school-books is perhaps one of more 
 immediate and pressing interest. The multiplicity of 
 school-books, and the imperfection of many of them, is 
 one of the greatest evils at present felt in our Common 
 Schools. The Board know of no way, in which this evil 
 could be more effectually remedied, than by the selection 
 of the best of each class now in use, and a formal recom- 
 mendation of them by the Board of Education. Such a 
 recommendation would probably cause them to be gen- 
 erally adopted ; but should this not prove effectual, and 
 the evil be found to continue, it might hereafter be 
 deemed expedient to require the use of the books thus
 
 OP THE BOARD OP EDUCATION. 381 
 
 recommended, as a condition of receiving a share of the 
 benefit of the school fund. 
 
 The foregoing observations are all that now occur to 
 the Board of Education, as proper to be made to the Legis- 
 lature, in connection with the improvement of our Com- 
 mon Schools. They beg leave to submit an additional 
 remark on the subject of their own sphere of operations. 
 It is evident, from the nature of the case, that much of 
 the efficiency and usefulness of the Board must depend 
 on the zeal and fidelity of its Secretary, and that it is all- 
 important to command, in this office, the services of an 
 individual of distinguished talent and unquestioned 
 character. No other qualifications will inspire the con- 
 fidence generally of the people ; and without that 
 confidence, it is impossible that his labors or those of the 
 Board should be crowned with success. The Board ask 
 permission to state, that they deem themselves very 
 fortunate in having engaged the services of a gentleman 
 so highly qualified as their Secretary, to discharge the in- 
 teresting duties of his trust ; and they respectfully sub- 
 mit to the Legislature, the expediency of raising his 
 compensation to an amount, which could more fairly be 
 regarded as a satisfactory equivalent for the employment 
 of all his time. The Board also think, that a small 
 allowance should be made for the contingent expenses of 
 the Secretary in the discharge of his duties, such as post- 
 age, stationery, and occasional clerk-hire. It is just, 
 however, to add, that this proposal for an increase of 
 salary is made wholly without suggestion on the part 
 of the Secretary. 
 
 In conclusion, the Board would tender their ac- 
 knowledgments to their fellow-citizens, who, by attending 
 on the meetings of the county conventions, or in any 
 other way, have afforded their co-operation in the pro-
 
 382 FIRST ANNUAL REPORT 
 
 motion of the great cause of popular education. At 
 most of these meetings, permanent county conventions 
 for the improvement of education have been organized. 
 Spirited addresses have, in almost every case, emanated 
 from the county meetings, well calculated to impart vigor 
 and warmth to the public sentiment in reference to the 
 cause of education. On the whole, the Board have reason 
 to hope, that an impulse has been given to the public 
 mind on the subject of education, from which valuable 
 effects may be anticipated. It will be their strenuous 
 effort, under the auspices of the Legislature, and as far 
 as the powers vested in them extend, to encourage and 
 augment the interest which has been excited, and they 
 hope, as they shall acquire experience, that their labors 
 will become more efficient. They do not flatter them- 
 selves that great and momentous reforms are to be ef- 
 fected at once. Where the means employed are those of 
 calm appeal to the understanding and the heart, a grad- 
 ual and steady progress is all that should be desired. The 
 schools of Massachusetts are not every thing that we could 
 wish, but public opinion is sound in reference to their 
 improvement. The voice of reason will not be uttered in 
 vain. Experience, clearly stated in its results, will com- 
 mand respect, and the Board entertain a confident opinion 
 that the increased attention given to the subject will re- 
 sult in making our system of Common-School education 
 fully worthy of the intelligence of the present day, and 
 of the ancient renown of Massachusetts. 
 
 All which is respectfully submitted by 
 
 EDWARD EVERETT, 
 GEORGE HULL, 
 JAMES G. CARTER, 
 EDMUND DWIGHT, 
 GEORGE PUTNAM, 
 E. A. NEWTON 
 
 ROBERT 'RANTOUL, Jus., 
 
 JARED SPARKS. 
 Boston, February 1, 1838.
 
 OP THE BOARD OP EDUCATION. 383 
 
 NOTE. Rev. Messrs. EMEKSON DAVIS of Westfield, and THOMAS 
 ROBBINS of Rochester, members of the Board, were prevented, by the 
 distance of their respective places of residence from Boston, from being 
 present at the adjourned meeting of the Board at which the foregoing 
 report was adopted.
 
 FIRST ANNUAL REPORT 
 
 SECRETARY OF THE BOARD OF EDUCATION. 
 
 To THE BOARD OF EDUCATION : 
 
 GENTLEMEN : The act of the Legislature, under which 
 you were constituted, authorized the appointment of a 
 Secretary, and specifically prescribed his duties in the 
 following words : the Secretary "shall, under the di- 
 rection of the Board, collect information of the actual 
 condition and efficiency of the Common Schools and other 
 means of popular education; and diffuse, as widely as 
 possible, throughout every part of the Commonwealth, 
 information of the most approved and successful methods 
 of arranging the studies and conducting the education of 
 the young, to the end that all children in this Common- 
 wealth, who depend upon the Common Schools for instruc- 
 tion, may have the best education which those schools can 
 be made to impart" Having accepted the office of Sec- 
 retary of the Board, I entered upon the public discharge of 
 its duties, about the close of the month of August last. 
 But before devoting even the brief period of three months 
 to a beginning of the work of " collecting information of 
 the actual condition and efficiency " of about three thou- 
 sand different public schools, and several hundred perma- 
 nent private schools and academies, I was obliged to return 
 to this city, in order to prepare the " Annual Abstract of the 
 
 884
 
 THE SECRETARY'S FIRST ANNUAL REPORT. 385 
 
 School Returns," which, by a law of the Commonwealth, 
 was to be prepared and laid before the Legislature, in a 
 printed form, on or before the second Wednesday in Jan- 
 uary inst. : the labor of that preparation having, by a 
 vot3 of the Board, been devolved upon me. This last 
 work has supplied me with almost incessant occupation 
 ever since my return. It soon became a question, there- 
 fore, in my own mind, whether I ought not to consider 
 myself debarred, by the briefness of the time, and the 
 magnitude of the labor, from attempting, at this early 
 period, to submit to the Board any report, relative to the 
 " condition and efficiency of our Common Schools and 
 other means of popular education." But as I was per- 
 fectly satisfied that there were a few classes of facts, and 
 some important views, pertaining to this subject, in re- 
 gard to which a more thorough examination would only 
 supply additional facts of the same kind, and corroborate 
 the same views by additional arguments, I thought it 
 clearly to be my duty not to delay their communications 
 for the sake of presenting them in a less imperfect form, 
 or of fortifying obvious conclusions with cumulative evi- 
 dence and argument. 
 
 I proceed, therefore, to state the principal sources of 
 information consulted, together with some of the facts 
 learned and of the conclusions formed. 
 
 Between the 28th of August and the 15th of Novem- 
 ber last, I met conventions of the friends of education 
 in every county in the State except Suffolk. With the 
 exception of two counties, these conventions were very 
 fully attended, almost all the towns in the respective 
 counties being represented. The character of the con- 
 ventions for intelligence and moral worth has probably 
 never been surpassed. Selfish and illaudable motives do 
 not tempt men to abandon business, and incur expense, 
 
 VOL. i. 26
 
 386 THE SECEET ART'S 
 
 to attend distant meetings, when no emolument is to be 
 secured, nor offices apportioned. A desire to promote a 
 philanthropic object, whose full beneficence will not be 
 realized until its authors shall have left the stage, must 
 have been the honorable impulse which assembled them 
 together. 
 
 Statements, uncontradicted and unquestioned, publicly 
 made at these conventions, by gentlemen worthy of entire 
 confidence, respecting facts alleged to be within their own 
 personal knowledge, I have considered as worthy of full 
 reliance. 
 
 Some weeks before commencing this tour of explora- 
 tion, I addressed to the school committee of every town 
 a circular letter, specifying a number of topics upon 
 which information was sought. A copy of that circular, 
 together with the Address of the Board of Education, 
 referred to therein, is appended to this report. Direct 
 written answers have been received from nearly half the 
 towns in the State, together containing more than half 
 its population. This information I regard as of an au- 
 thentic and official character. 
 
 Having, fortunately for this purpose, been so situated 
 as to form a personal acquaintance with very many of 
 those gentlemen, who, for the last ten years, have been 
 members of one or the other branch of our State Legisla- 
 ture, I determined to avail myself, as far as practicable, of 
 this advantage, to extend into details, and render more 
 minute and particular, my information upon the great 
 subject intrusted to me. I think it not unworthy to be 
 mentioned, that, for this purpose, I adopted a mode of 
 travelling which made me perfect master of my own move- 
 ments, and rendered it always convenient for me to stop 
 and make inquiries, and to turn off my nearest course, 
 whenever valuable information was supposed to lie on
 
 FIRST ANNUAL REPORT. 387 
 
 either side of my direct route. In this way I have travelled 
 between five and six hundred miles, besides going to Dukes 
 County and Nantucket. I have been able, by this means, 
 to inspect the condition of many schoolhouses; and I 
 have personally examined, or obtained exact and specific 
 information regarding the relative size, construction, and 
 condition of about eight hundred of those buildings, and 
 general information concerning, at least, a thousand 
 more. These, together with the school-returns, which 
 have been received this year from two hundred and 
 ninety-four out of the three hundred and five towns in 
 the Commonwealth, and such limited correspondence as 
 I have been able to conduct, have been the principal 
 sources of information consulted. 
 
 It would be depriving many persons of a most honor- 
 able tribute to which they are completely entitled, and 
 it would withhold from the friends of the sacred cause of 
 education one of the highest satisfactions, did I omit to 
 declare, that neither at the conventions which have been 
 held in the several counties, nor in my intercourse or cor- 
 respondence with any one, has there been infused into this 
 cause the slightest ingredient of partisan politics. In 
 regard to this great subject, all have reverted to their 
 natural relations as fellow-men ; discarding strifes about 
 objects which are temporary, for interests which are en- 
 during. In a spirit of harmony and unity, having 
 brought the facts of individual experience and observa- 
 tion into common stock, they have regarded them as a 
 fund, from which the wisest results were to be wrought 
 out by the aid of common counsels. 
 
 The object of the Common-School system of Massa- 
 chusetts was to give to every child in the Commonwealth 
 a free, straight, solid pathway, by which he could walk 
 directly up from the ignorance of an infant to a knowl-
 
 388 THE SECRETARY'S 
 
 edge of the primary duties of a man ; and would acquire 
 a power and an invincible will to discharge them. Have 
 our children such a way ? Are they walking in it ?. Why 
 do so many, who enter it, falter therein ? Are there not 
 many who miss it altogether ? What can be done to re- 
 claim them ? What can be done to rescue faculties, 
 powers, divine endowments, graciously designed for indi- 
 vidual and social good, from being perverted to individual 
 and social calamity ? These are the questions of deep 
 and intense interest, which I have proposed to myself, and 
 upon which I have sought for information and counsel. 
 
 Our institutions for the education of our children de- 
 pend for their success not more upon the perfection of 
 their individual parts than upon their just adaptation 
 and concurrent working. The co-operation of many dif- 
 ferent agents is essential to their prosperity. In exam- 
 ining the causes of failure, therefore, in a system so ex- 
 tensive and complex, not only ought its several parts to 
 be scrutinized and their details mastered, but the relation 
 and fitness of each wheel to the whole machinery should 
 be scanned ; because parts, individually perfect, may 
 counterwork each other from mal-adjustment. and thus 
 impair or even wholly destroy the desired results. I shall 
 make no apology, therefore, for discarding all specula- 
 tion and theory, and for descending at once to more use- 
 ful, though perhaps less interesting particulars ; because 
 nothing, however minute, can be unimportant, which will 
 ultimately affect the value of the product. 
 
 I am bound, here, to make a preliminary remark, to be 
 steadily kept in view as a qualification of this entire re- 
 port. In pointing out errors in our system, that they 
 may be rectified, I wish at the same time to aver my 
 belief in the vast preponderance of its excellences over 
 its defects. A specification of the latter, therefore, how-
 
 FIRST ANNUAL REPORT. 389 
 
 ever extensive, is not to be understood as questioning the 
 manifold superiority of the former. So, too, in advert- 
 ing to non-performances of duty in any one class or body 
 of men, or to adverse influences, exerted by any other 
 class, I disclaim all. personal implication whatever; 
 believing that the defects are mainly chargeable on the 
 system rather than the individual ; and that, in some 
 points at least, the errors of the system have been recti- 
 fied by the fidelity of its administrators. 
 
 There are four cardinal topics, under which all consid- 
 erations, relating to our Common Schools, naturally 
 arrange themselves. First in order is the situation, con- 
 struction, condition, and number of the school houses. I 
 mention the number of the schoolhouses under this head, 
 because, in populous places, there is a temptation to build 
 too few, and to compact too many scholars into one house; 
 while towns sparsely populated are beset with the oppo- 
 site temptation, of making too minute a subdivision of 
 their territory into districts ; and thus, in attempting to 
 accommodate all with a schoolhousc near by, the accom- 
 modation itself is substantially destroyed. In many cases, 
 this pursuit of the incident works a forfeiture of the prin- 
 cipal. A schoolhouse is erected near by, but it is at the 
 expense of having a school in it, so short, as to be of but 
 little value. 
 
 Secondly, the manner, whether intelligent and faithful, 
 or inadequate and neglectful, in which school-committee- 
 men discharge their duties. 
 
 Thirdly, the interest felt by the community in the edu- 
 cation of all its children ; and the position in which a 
 certain portion of that community stand in relation to the 
 free schools. 
 
 Fourthly, the competency of teachers. 
 
 First. When it is considered, that more than five-sixths
 
 390 THE SECRETARY'S 
 
 of all the children in the State spend a considerable por- 
 tion of the most impressible period of their lives in our 
 schoolhouses, the general condition of those buildings, and 
 their influences upon the young, stand forth, at once, as 
 topics of prominence and magnitude. The construction of 
 schoolhouses connects itself closely with the love of study, 
 with proficiency, health, anatomical formation, and length 
 of life. These are great interests, and therefore suggest 
 great duties. It is believed that, in some important par- 
 ticulars, their structure can be improved without the 
 slightest additional expense ; and that, in other respects, a 
 small advance in cost would be returned a thousand-fold 
 in the improvement of those habits, tastes, and sentiments 
 of our children, which are so soon to be developed into 
 public manners, institutions, and laws, and to become un- 
 changeable history. But this topic of schoolhouse archi- 
 tecture is too extensive for present examination. It is 
 my intention, as early as practicable, to prepare a separate 
 report, which shall comprise under one view, and in some 
 detail, the essentials of an edifice devoted to the improve- 
 ment of the whole life, by improving its beginning. 
 
 Secondly. School-committee-men, both prudential and 
 superintending, occupy a controlling position in relation 
 to our Common Schools. They are the administrators of 
 the system ; and in proportion to the fidelity and intelli- 
 gence exercised by them, the system will flourish or de- 
 cline. 
 
 Although it is not always in the power of school com- 
 mittees to introduce into the schools devoted and accom- 
 plished teachers ; yet it is in their power, and it is a most 
 responsible and solemn part of their duty, not to inflict 
 upon the children of a whole district the calamity of an 
 ignorant, ill-tempered, or profane teacher. It is no trivial 
 arbitrament to decide, whether a school shall be a bless-
 
 FIRST ANNUAL REPORT. 391 
 
 ing or a nuisance, and therefore the question of a teach- 
 er's fitness is not to be guessed at, but solemnly pondered. 
 If the husbandman, by any effort of body or of mind, by 
 toil or supplication, could foredoom and predestinate 
 what sort of seasons should spread mildew and barrenness 
 over his fields, and leave him empty granaries, or what 
 should make his pastures luxuriant and heap his garners, 
 he surely would not be content with conjecture, with su- 
 perficial and scanty inquiry, or with hasty decisions. And 
 yet what the seasons are to the fields and crops of the 
 farmer, the teacher is to the children of the school. Nay, 
 more ; he is season and cultivation also. No part, there- 
 fore, of the examination of applicants for schools is form. 
 It is all substance. It is all pregnant with good or evil ; 
 because the certificate of the committee is a commission 
 to the teacher, under which he may usurp a place to do 
 but little good, where another would do much ; or under 
 which, perhaps, he may do great and remediless harm, 
 without any admixture of good. 
 
 The law of 1826 required school committees to obtain 
 evidence of the good moral character of all instructors, 
 and to ascertain, "by personal examination or otherwise, 
 their literary qualifications and capacity for the govern- 
 ment of schools." In the Revised Statutes, the words 
 " or otherwise " were intentionally omitted. Hence the 
 duty of personal examination became, in all cases, imper- 
 ative. So great, however, is the tax imposed by this 
 requirement upon the time of the committees, that from 
 the best information I have been able to obtain, I am led 
 to believe, that in a majority of instances, the examination 
 is either wholly omitted, or is formal and superficial, rather 
 than intent and thorough. 
 
 The engagement of a teacher by the prudential com- 
 mittee, subject to the approval of the committee of the
 
 392 THE SECRETARY'S 
 
 town, is itself a step of great importance ; because there 
 are intrinsic objections to the use of the veto power by 
 the latter, and it can never be exercised without reluc- 
 tance and hazard. The prudential committee ought not, 
 therefore, to be compelled to close a bargain at the first 
 offer, but he should have opportunity for full inquiries, 
 or, at least, for availing himself of such information as 
 might come in his way, during the season. The la\v 
 fixes no time for the election of prudential-committee- 
 men, when chosen by the districts. In some large dis- 
 tricts, through which I passed late in the autumn, that 
 officer had not been chosen for the current year. When 
 chosen, he could have no opportunity for extended in- 
 quiry or discriminating selection, but would be almost 
 compelled to employ the first person whom chance should 
 throw in his way. 
 
 Again ; the law expressly requires every teacher to ob- 
 tain, from the school committee of the town, a certificate 
 of his qualifications " before he opens the school" This im- 
 plies, that it is a violation of duty on the part of & teacher 
 to open a school previously to obtaining such a certificate ; 
 and also, on the part of the town committee, to examine 
 a teacher after he has opened his school, for the purpose 
 of giving him a retro-active certificate. Magistrates and 
 officers might as well enter upon the discharge of their 
 duties, with the expectation of being qualified some time 
 before or after the close of their official term. The reason 
 for this prohibition upon teachers and committees is un- 
 answerable. After the teacher has intruded into the 
 school without a certificate, other considerations, besides 
 fitness, come in, and strenuously urge, if they do not 
 morally compel, the committee to give him one. Just 
 before a school begins, parents generally make arrange- 
 ments for dispensing with the personal services of their
 
 FIRST ANNUAL REPORT. 393 
 
 children. Some take them away from regular and profit- 
 able employments. During the first few weeks of a school, 
 the children never study with the same facility, nor arc 
 they able to make the same progress, as afterwards. Even 
 men cannot rally and apply their whole mental forces, on 
 the first day of commencing an unaccustomed work. It, 
 is a subject of universal regret with good teachers of short 
 schools, that as soon as the school has gathered impetus, 
 it is arrested. A change of teachers, when a school has 
 just opened, is, in itself, a great misfortune ; because 
 different persons have different regulations and different 
 modes of administering them. In all schools, the harness 
 of good order and discipline will chafe a little at first, and 
 some time must elapse before it will sit easy. At the 
 opening of a school, a teacher ought to learn the pro- 
 ficiency of his scholars, for the purpose of arranging 
 classes, and as a basis of judicious advice in regard to ad- 
 vanced studies. In the course of two or three weeks, a 
 teacher of any discernment will get an insight respecting 
 the peculiar temperament and disposition of each scholar, 
 and he will find avenues, or open them, by which a 
 readier access can be had to his pupils' minds. A school 
 will but partially develop its powers of advancement, un- 
 til teacher and pupils become acquainted ; until the 
 standing relations between them are established, and 
 their minds are so mutually fitted into each other as to 
 work without friction. Suppose, at this moment, when the 
 school ought to be under strong headway, the teacher is 
 presented to the committee for examination and approval ; 
 and, in addition to such considerations as those above 
 suggested, the prudential committee enforces the demand 
 of a certificate with the plea, that it is now too late in 
 the season to obtain any better substitute. Now, the 
 painful alternative may be directly presented, either to
 
 o94 THE SECEETABY'S 
 
 approve an incompetent teacher, or to reject him and 
 break up the school : two modes about equally efficient 
 in ruining the school for that season. Between these evils, 
 however, there is a choice ; a badly kept school being 
 worse than none. Yet the first is the branch of the alter- 
 native far the most likely to be accepted ; because the 
 evil of breaking up the school is instant and impending, 
 while that of its continuance, though greater, is remote ; 
 and it is a rule, lamentably prevalent in the actions of 
 men, that when a less but immediate evil comes in com- 
 petition with one far greater, but more remote, the former 
 prevails. The malignity of the case is, that it enlists all 
 the good motives of the committee on the bad side. 
 
 From facts which have come to my knowledge. I am 
 constrained to believe, that, in two-thirds at least of the 
 towns in the Commonwealth, this provision of the law is 
 more or less departed from. And in the great majority 
 of the cases where an examination is had, previous to 
 the opening of the school, it takes place on the very eve 
 of its commencement, when the evils above enumerated 
 must partially ensue from a rejection of the candidate, 
 and, therefore, undue motives in favor of granting a cer- 
 tificate must have a proportionate force. 
 
 Another evasion of much rarer occurrence, though of 
 a far more mischievous tendency, is, that the school is 
 kept for the stipulated period, and then the prudential 
 committee gives the teacher an order on the town treas- 
 urer, and the town treasurer pays the money, without 
 any certificate ever having been obtained or applied for. 
 Indeed, the relation between the prudential and the town 
 committee, in regard to the employment of teachers, con- 
 tains in itself an element of variance or hostility, which 
 is oftentimes developed into open rupture, and more often, 
 perhaps, suppressed, by injurious yielding and acquies-
 
 FIRST ANNUAL REPORT. 395 
 
 cence on the part of the latter. So manifest is this ten- 
 dency, and so unhappy its consequences, that very many 
 judicious men maintain the expediency of vesting the 
 whole power of employing teachers in the town com- 
 mittee. 
 
 Another duty of the town committee is that of direct- 
 ing what books shall be used in the schools. There is a 
 public evil of great magnitude in the multiplicity and 
 diversity of elementary books. They crowd the market, 
 and infest the schools. One would suppose there might 
 be uniformity in rudiments, at least ; yet the greatest va- 
 riety prevails. Some books claim superiority, because 
 they make learning easy, and others because they make 
 it difficult. All decry their predecessors, or profess to 
 have discovered new and better modes of teaching. By 
 u change of books, a child is often obliged to unlearn 
 what he had laboriously acquired before. In many im- 
 portant particulars, the pronunciation, the orthography, 
 and the syntax of our language changes, according to 
 the authority consulted. Truth and philosophy, in re- 
 gard to teaching, assume so many shapes, that common 
 minds begin to doubt whether there be truth or philoso- 
 phy under any. The advantages of cheapness, resulting 
 from improvements in the art of printing, are intercepted 
 from the public, to whom they rightfully belong, and di- 
 vided among compilers. Over this, as an expensive pub- 
 lic mischief, as a general discouragement to learning, and 
 as a misfortune of the Commonwealth, town committees 
 have no control. But it is still in their power, and it is 
 an important and substantial part of their duty, as en- 
 joined by law, " to direct what books shall be used in the 
 several schools," in their respective towns. When the 
 committee fail in directing what books shall be used, a 
 way is opened for the introduction of books which are
 
 396 THE SECRETARY'S 
 
 expressly prohibited by law, as " calculated to favor the 
 tenets of particular sects of Christians." Under such 
 omission, also, the schoolhouse may cease to be neutral 
 ground between those different portions of society, now 
 so vehemently contending against each other on a variety 
 of questions of social and national duty. Instances of 
 both kinds have occurred, and were, under such circum- 
 stances, to be expected ; because it is the nature of ex- 
 treme views to make all other truths bow down before 
 the idolized truth. But the liability and the temptation 
 should be cut off. Would the disciples of hostile doc- 
 trines look forward, and foresee to what results a breach 
 of the truce in regard to the schoolroom must infallibly 
 lead, it seems scarcely credible that each should not 
 agree, in good faith, to refrain from every attempt to pre- 
 occupy the minds of school children with his side of 
 vexed and complicated questions, whether of state, or 
 theology ; and that all should not concur, in regard to an 
 evil so self-propagating and ruinous, in enforcing meas- 
 ures which would bar out the possibility of its occur- 
 rence. The only reason urged by school committees for 
 a non-compliance with the provision of law in relation 
 to selecting books, is, that parents object to the expense 
 of purchasing so many new books as would give uniform 
 sets to the school. Hence the evil is endued with a self- 
 perpetuating power ; because, as it increases, the obsta- 
 cle to its removal increases also. Where a diversity of 
 books prevails in a school, there will necessarily be unut- 
 nessandmal-adjustment in the classification of scholars. 
 Those who ought to recite together are separated by a 
 difference of books. If eight or ten scholars, in geogra- 
 phy, for instance, have eight or ten different books, as has 
 sometimes happened, instead of one recitation for all, 
 there must be eight or ten recitations. Thus the teach-
 
 FIRST ANNUAL REPORT. 397 
 
 er's time is crumbled into dust and dissipated. Put a 
 question to a class of ten scholars, and wait a moment 
 for each one to prepare an answer in his own mind, and 
 then name the one to give the answer, and there are ten 
 mental operations going on simultaneously ; and each 
 one of the ten scholars will profit more by this social re- 
 citation than he would by a v solitary one of the same 
 length. But if there must be ten recitations, instead of 
 one, the teacher is, as it were, divided by ten, and re- 
 duced to the tenth part of a teacher. Nine-tenths of his 
 usefulness is destroyed. The same would be true in re- 
 gard to most other studies. This irretrievable loss is 
 incurred, merely because parents will not agree to pro- 
 cure the best books. 
 
 It would seem, beforehand, that no duty of school com- 
 mittees could be more acceptable to parents, than that 
 of enforcing a uniformity of books in all the schools of a 
 town. Every school, where there are no regulations upon 
 this subject, holds out a standing invitation to every book- 
 peddler and speculator, to foist in his books, which 
 may be new, or they be books whose sheets may have 
 been printed for years, but garnished with a new title- 
 page bearing a recent date. The diversity may be ag- 
 gravated through the intervention of the teacher, who 
 often desires to introduce the books from which he, him- 
 self, learnt, or has been accustomed to teach. But if the 
 books are prescribed, all applications for a change must 
 be made directly to the committee, and imposition be- 
 comes impracticable, or, at least, the chances of it are 
 very much reduced. While the diversity continues, each 
 succeeding teacher will urge the children to procure his 
 favorite books ; the .children will importune their parents, 
 and enough of them will prevail to perpetuate the mis- 
 chief. There cannot be a doubt, that the aggregate ex-
 
 398 THE SECRETARY'S 
 
 pense of books, for any given number of years, will be 
 much greater in towns where the committee are thwarted 
 by the parents in the discharge of this duty, than in 
 towns where it is duly performed. In this, as in any 
 other operation or business whatever, the absence of sys- 
 tem and pre-arrangement doubles cost and halves profits. 
 Families can rarely remove from one town to another, 
 and, very often, they cannot, even from one district to 
 another in the same town, without incurring the expense 
 of a new set of books for their children. This bears, in 
 every respect, most hardly upon the poor. 
 
 Notwithstanding the manifest advantages of a perform- 
 ance of this branch of duty, and the grievous mischiefs 
 resulting from its neglect, it is neglected in about one 
 hundred torvns, or one-third part of the towns in the 
 Commonwealth. 
 
 The law further provides, that, in case any scholar shall 
 not be furnished by his parent, master, or guardian, with 
 the requisite books, " he shall be supplied therewith at 
 the expense of the town." Few things. seem more pre- 
 posterous than to send children to school, or to keep them 
 there, for the purpose of not studying. Half a dozen 
 children, stationed in different parts of a school, with 
 nothing to do for want of books, will soon enlist three 
 times their number in the same service. In not less 
 than forty towns is this duty wholly omitted. Children 
 attend school, surrounded by temptations to mischief, 
 and without any means of occupation. 
 
 An inquiry into the " regulation and discipline " of the 
 schools is another of the duties enjoined upon the town 
 committee ; and so important is this duty, in the judg- 
 ment of the law, that its performance is commanded, not 
 only at the opening and close of the schools, but at each 
 of the monthly visitations. Under this head, many points
 
 FIRST ANNUAL REPORT. 399 
 
 are embraced, vital to the cause of Common-School edu- 
 cation. I will give but a single example. The " regula- 
 tion " of a school comprises the means of insuring as 
 much punctuality and regularity as possible in the at- 
 tendance of all the children in the district. Absences 
 and tardiness are great obstructions to progress. The 
 punctual are injured by them hardly less than the delin- 
 quent. In some towns, the excellent practice of keeping 
 daily registers by the teachers, to be exhibited to the 
 committee at each visitation, of holding the scholars to 
 a strict account for all absences, and of discouraging de- 
 sertion from the school by all other practicable means, has 
 obviated almost all delinquencies of this kind. In other 
 towns, where the attendance upon school is prompted by 
 no motive, nor enforced by any salutary regulation, 
 habits of idleness and truantship in the present children 
 are laying the foundations of vagrancy, poverty, and vice 
 in the future men. 
 
 In connection with this topic of the " regulation " of 
 a school, as one of the means of securing punctuality in 
 the attendance of scholars, it is material to advert to 
 another provision of the law, which makes it the joint 
 and several duty of school committees, resident ministers 
 of the gospel, and selectmen, " in their several towns, to 
 exert their influence and use their best endeavors, that 
 the youth of their towns shall regularly attend the schools 
 established for their instruction." The success attendant 
 upon the exertions of these officers, to secure a " regular " 
 attendance upon schools, will appear by the following 
 statement : 
 
 The whole number of children, in the 294 towns which have made 
 
 returns, who are between four and sixteen years of age, is 177,053 
 
 If from this number we deduct twelve thousand, as the number 
 of children who attend private schools and academies, and do 
 not attend the public schools at all, there will remain 165,053
 
 400 THE SECRETARY'S 
 
 Whole number of scholars of all ages, attending school in winter 141,837 
 
 Whole number of scholars of all ages, attending school in summer 1 22,889 
 
 The average attendance in winter is 111 ,520 
 
 Do. Do. in summer is 94,956 
 So that the average attendance, in winter, of children of all ages, 
 falls below the whole number of children in the State between 
 4 and 1 G years of age, who depend wholly upon the Common 
 
 Schools 53,533 
 
 And in summer it falls below that number 70,097 
 
 That is, a portion of the children, dependent wholly 
 upon the Common Schools, absent themselves from the 
 winter school, either permanently or occasionally, equal 
 to a permanent absence of about one-third of their whole 
 number ; and a portion absent themselves from the sum- 
 mer schools, either permanently or occasionally, equal to 
 a permanent absence of considerably more than two-fifths 
 of their whole number. 
 
 The average length of all the schools in the two hun- 
 dred and ninety-four towns heard from is six mouths 
 and twenty-five days each, for the whole year. Were the 
 winter and summer terms equal in length, this average 
 would give three months and twelve days and a half to 
 each. But, on account of the voluntary absences from 
 school, the winter term is reduced to the scholars, on an 
 average, to about two months and one week, and the 
 summer term to two months and an inconsiderable frac- 
 tion ; or, taking both winter and summer terms, to about 
 four months and one week in the year. And so much as 
 some scholars, dependent upon the Common School, actu- 
 ally attend school more, just so much do others actually 
 attend less. 
 
 Were it certain that the number, one hundred and 
 seventy-seven thousand and fifty-three, was not an over- 
 estimate of the children between four and sixteen years 
 of age, and did the returns embrace all the children of
 
 FIRST ANNUAL REPORT. 401 
 
 all ages attending in all the public schools, it would appear 
 that forty-two thousand one hundred and sixty-four chil- 
 dren, wholly dependent upon the Common Schools, have 
 not, the past year, attended school at all in the summer ; 
 and twenty-three thousand two hundred and sixteen, 
 neither in summer nor winter. There is some reason to 
 believe, that from omissions in the returns, and, perhaps, 
 from other causes, the total of the children of all ages, 
 attending all the schools, is rather too low. After mak- 
 ing every possible allowance, however, the returns exhibit 
 frightful evidence of the number of children, who either 
 do not go to school at all, or go so little as not to be 
 reckoned among the scholars. 
 
 In this State, where the traditional habits and usages 
 of the people exact some term of apprenticeship for all 
 arts except for the most difficult of all, the art of teach- 
 ing an intelligent and assiduous committee can do 
 much, by way of counsel and sympathy, to encourage 
 teachers, if not to capacitate them for the discharge of 
 their delicate and arduous work. No person, fitted by 
 Nature even for a temporary guardianship of the young, 
 if not specially taught and skilled for his office, can re- 
 main in school a single week, without a deep conscious- 
 ness of incapacity for interesting, guiding, and elevating 
 the beings intrusted to his tutelage. In this condition 
 of things, the committee are his only resource ; and, if 
 they also are incompetent to counsel and enlighten, acci- 
 dent and darkness must preside over the education of 
 our youth. 
 
 Another important duty enjoined upon school commit- 
 tees is the visitation of the schools. Such visitations may 
 be a moral incitement to the scholars, of great efficacy. 
 Advice, encouragement, affectionate persuasion, coming 
 from such of their townsmen as the children have been
 
 402 THE SECRETARY'S 
 
 accustomed to regard with respect or veneration, will sink 
 deep and remain long in their hearts. Wise counsel 
 from acknowledged superiors makes a deep impress. It 
 comes with the momentum of a heavy body, falling from 
 a great height. The same counsel, if the same could be 
 had, from men whom the children hold in no respect or 
 esteem, might be remembered only to be ridiculed. The 
 visitations of the committee break in upon the monotony 
 of the school. They spur the slothful, and reward the 
 emulous and aspiring. To suppose that the children in 
 a school will ever feel a keen, impulsive interest in learn- 
 ing, while parents and neighbors are disregarded of it, is 
 to suppose the children to be wiser than the men. The 
 stimulus of acting under the public eye, though an infe- 
 rior motive, is still an allowable one amongst adults. To 
 the mind of the sworn officer, is it not more pleasant than 
 his oath ? Do not much of the uprightness and thorough- 
 ness brought to the discharge of public duties depend 
 upon their being performed under public inspection? 
 And why, in regard to children, may we not avail our- 
 selves of this innate sentiment as an auxiliary in the at- 
 tainment of knowledge ; always holding it subordinate to 
 the supreme sentiment of duty ? I have heard hundreds 
 of teachers, with one voice, attest its utility. Such visi- 
 tations by the committee are not less useful to teachers 
 than tp pupils. While all due respect should be accorded 
 to teachers and certainly no class in the community 
 are more deserving both of emolument and of social con- 
 sideration than they yet, as our school-system is now 
 administered, we are not authorized to anticipate any 
 more fidelity and strenuousness in the fulfilment of duty 
 from them than from the same number of persons en- 
 gaged in any reputable employment. This State employs, 
 annually, in the Common Schools, more than three thou-
 
 FIRST ANNUAL REPORT. 403 
 
 sand teachers, at au expense of more than four liundred 
 and sixty-five thousand dollars, raised by direct taxation. 
 But they have not one-thousandth part of the supervision 
 which watches the same number of persons, having the 
 care of cattle or spindles, or of the retail of shop-goods. 
 Who would retain his reputation, not for prudence, but 
 for sanity, if he employed men on his farm, or in his fac- 
 tory, or clerks in his counting-room, month after month, 
 without oversight and even without inquiry ? In regard 
 to what other service are we so indifferent, where the re- 
 muneration swells to such an aggregate ? 
 
 Being deeply impressed with these views, I inserted in 
 the circular an interrogatory upon this subject; and wher- 
 ever I have been, I have made constant inquiries whether 
 this duty of visitation were performed, agreeably to law. 
 I have heard from nearly all the towns in the State. The 
 result is, that not in more than fifty or sixty towns, out of 
 the three hundred and five, has there been any pretence 
 of a compliance with the law ; and in regard to some of 
 these towns, after a reference to the requisitions of the 
 statute, the allegation of a compliance has been with- 
 drawn, as having been made in ignorance 1 of the extent 
 of its provisons. 
 
 It would be unjust to attribute the omission even of this 
 important duty to any peculiar deadness or dormancy, on 
 the part of committees, towards the great interest of our 
 Common Schools. No body of men in the community 
 have performed services for the public, at all comparable to 
 theirs, for so little of the common inducements of honor 
 and emolument. In not more than about one-fifth part of 
 the towns do the committee receive either compensation 
 or re-imbursement for devoting from six to sixty days of 
 time to the duties of their office, and for incurring ex- 
 penses of horse and carriage hire, amounting to ten or
 
 404 THE SECRETARY'S 
 
 twenty, ana sometimes even to thirty dollars per annum. 
 Where any thing is given, it rarely exceeds a quarter of 
 the lowest wages of day labor. The towns paying most 
 liberally, I believe, are Falmouth and Sandwich, in the 
 county of Barnstable, where one dollar a day, and six- 
 pence a mile for travel, are given. In a very few other 
 towns, the compensation is fixed at seventy-five cents for 
 each visit (understood to occupy a full half-day) ; in a few 
 more, fifty cents a visit is paid ; but in most other cases, it is 
 a small fixed sum to be given to the chairman or the 
 secretary of the committee, or to be divided between the 
 members of the Board ; as in Lincoln, ten dollars to 
 chairman ; in HaverMll and Iling-ham, ten dollars to the 
 clerk or secretary ; in East Hampton, eight dollars for the 
 whole Board ; in Cummington and Wareham, five dollars 
 for each member ; in Franklin, three dollars for each ; in 
 William sburg-, once, nine dollars for all, and so forth. 
 To the inquiry, Whether paid or not ? the letter of the 
 answer in some cases, and, in many others, the spirit of 
 it, has been, " Neither paid nor thanked." In many 
 cases, where gentlemen have served gratuitously in the 
 office for several years, and have then presented a bill for 
 expenses merely, they have been dropped from the board 
 for the ensuing year : in others, where, after having served 
 for years in succession, and, having been re-elected, they 
 have offered to accept, on condition of receiving half as 
 much as was allowed for working upon the highways, as 
 a means of defraying their expenses, the offer has been 
 rejected by a vote of the town, and the vacancy more 
 cheaply filled. Neither does there seem to be any social 
 consideration attached to the station. While the office 
 of selectman and of representative to the general court 
 is often an object of avidity, the more useful, responsible, 
 and intrinsically honorable office of school-committee-
 
 FIRST ANNUAL REPORT. 405 
 
 man is shunned as thankless and burdensome. It is not 
 to be disguised, that, in many places, it encounters oppo- 
 sition and reproach, just in proportion to the fidelity with 
 which its obligations are observed. In many of the prin- 
 cipal towns in the Commonwealth, committee-men have 
 been chosen, year after year, by not more than ten or 
 twenty votes ; and, upon their declining, the vacancies 
 have been filled by as small a number. In one town, con- 
 taining three hundred voters, they were once chosen by 
 three votes. In many places it is strikingly observable, 
 that persons desirous of certain other offices are especially 
 wary of this. In others, again, it has been necessary to 
 resort to the expedient of electing persons not present at 
 the meeting, in order that the office might be nominally 
 filled. Other towns, again, have chosen them, in order 
 to avoid the penalty of the law, and to obtain their dis- 
 tributive share of the school-fund, with an express under- 
 standing that they should discharge none of their duties, 
 except making their return to the Secretary of State. 
 
 Dormancy and deadness, therefore, in regard to this 
 plastic institution, now moulding and fashioning the 
 beings upon whom all the interests of society are so soon 
 to devolve, seem chargeable upon the people, who not only 
 deny all remuneration for the loss of time, and even all 
 re-irnbursement for expenses incurred, but many of whom 
 thwart and baffle the due administration of the office, and 
 render the duties they impose onerous and unwelcome. 
 Hence it often happens, that the citizens, best qualified 
 for the station, decline its acceptance ; or, having ac- 
 cepted it, they abridge its labors, and thereby curtail its 
 usefulness. Clergymen allege, that their relation to the 
 schools has been modified by recent legislation. Their 
 parishes were once territorial, now they are poll ; and thus 
 the special relation they once sustained to all the schools
 
 406 THE SECRETARY'S 
 
 within their territory is dissolved. Once they owed a 
 special debt to society for their immunity from taxation ; 
 now that obligation is cancelled. From this or some 
 other cause it has happened, that a public school, kept 
 the whole twelve months, in a place where several clergy- 
 men were constantly resident, has never been visited by 
 any of them for a succession of years. Public men and 
 professional men decline the service on account of their 
 various engagements. The industrious aver, that " time 
 is money ; " thus alleging a maxim, designed only to en- 
 force a lower duty, as a justification for disregarding a 
 higher-; and forgetting that it is no more true that " time 
 is money " than it is that " time is knowledge, or wisdom, 
 or virtue," because it may be converted into the latter, as 
 easily and certainly as into the former. But, I repeat, 
 the fault is in the system, more than in the individuals. 
 At every convention I have attended, from every intelli- 
 gent individual with whom I have conversed, no opinion 
 has been so universal and emphatic, as that our institu- 
 tion of Common Schools will continue to languish and 
 cannot be revived, until wise boards of school-committee- 
 men shall, themselves, be a living exposition of the law ; 
 and shall make all its provisions in regard to the " exam- 
 ination of teachers," the " selection " and " supply " of 
 books, the " visitation " and "the regulation and disci- 
 pline of the schools," and " the habits and proficiency 
 of the scholars," as legible in their actions as on the 
 pages of the statute-book. 
 
 The law exacts a performance of duty from other 
 municipal officers, under the sanction of a penalty ; be- 
 cause, as they receive something by way of fee or per 
 diem allowance, they may well be held amenable for any 
 official delinquency. But the trainers of the law pre- 
 scribing the duties of committee-men must have felt the
 
 FIRST ANNUAL REPORT. 407 
 
 flagrant injustice of denouncing any penalty for derelic- 
 tions, when the demands upon time and money were so 
 ample, and the requital nothing. Hence an entire aban- 
 donment of duty involves no forfeiture, and subjects to 
 no animadversion. Such abandonment has occurred, and 
 been tolerated and acquiesced in, if not demanded, by 
 public sentiment. At one convention it was stated, 
 openly and without contradiction, by a gentleman of high 
 respectability, in the presence of his colleagues and 
 others, who must have known the case, that in his town, 
 containing about forty school districts, the school-com- 
 mittee, for eight or more successive years, had never ex- 
 amined a teacher, nor visited a school. During this long 
 intermission of duty, the children in the public schools 
 passed through two-thirds of the whole of their school- 
 going life. Many other cases have come to my knowl- 
 edge, calculated to excite the deepest alarm in every 
 mind which sees the character of the next generation of 
 men foreshadowed and prophesied in the direction which 
 is given to the children of this. 
 
 I feel it my duty, therefore, to submit to the Board of 
 Education the expediency of recommending to the gen- 
 eral court, the appropriation of some portion of the in- 
 come of the school-fund, when divided among the towns, 
 as a compensation to school-committees. for the discharge 
 of duties so laborious and influential. Were this done, 
 there would then be justice and propriety, certainly in 
 cases of gross delinquency, in subjecting them to legal 
 animadversion, or withholding from their respective 
 towns their share of the annual apportionment. This 
 course would relieve the towns from the burden of taxing 
 themselves to pay the committee. The single fact of 
 being obliged to render a written account to the town, of 
 their services, at the end of each year, would prompt to
 
 408 THE SECRETARY'S 
 
 punctuality and fidelity, and create another impulse to 
 duty. It may be said, that, in some towns, the money 
 would be paid without much valuable consideration in 
 services rendered : but this, it is believed, would happen 
 in but few cases, even at first, and would not be lastingly 
 true anywhere. Such a provision might require some 
 slight modification in the constitution of the board of 
 town committees. Indeed, is it not worthy of considera- 
 tion, whether some plan may not be adopted in distrib- 
 uting the income of the school-fund, which would assist 
 towns or districts in purchasing apparatus or school 
 libraries, or in doing some other thing for the benefit of 
 the schools, which they cannot conveniently, or will not 
 ordinarily, do without such assistance ? The fund would 
 then be a stimulant instead of an opiate. 
 
 Could the complement of service be secured from com- 
 mittees as well without compensation as with it, undoubt- 
 edly such unbought efforts would infuse into the system 
 a quicker life and a higher energy ; because work is 
 always better done, just in proportion as it is done from 
 a higher motive. But in this case, I am satisfied, that 
 the only alternative presented us is, between a groping 
 and dilatory performance, on the one hand, and such 
 faithful, though not wholly disinterested efforts, on the 
 other, as may be commanded for a moderate requital. 
 
 It is obvious, that neglectful school-committees, in- 
 competent teachers, and an indifferent public, may go on 
 degrading each other, until the noble system of free 
 schools shall be abandoned by a people, so self-abased as 
 to be unconscious of their abasement. 
 
 Thirdly. Another topic, in some respects kindred to 
 the last, is the apathy of the people themselves towards 
 our Common Schools. The wide usefulness of which 
 this institution is capable is shorn away on both sides,
 
 FIRST ANNUAL REPORT. 409 
 
 by two causes diametrically opposite. On one side, there 
 is a portion of the community, who do not attach suffi- 
 cient value to the system to do the things necessary to its 
 healthful and energetic working. They may say excellent 
 things about it, they may have a conviction of its general 
 utility ; but they do not understand, that the wisest con- 
 versation not embodied in action, that convictions too 
 gentle and quiet to coerce performance, are little better 
 than worthless. The prosperity of the system always re- 
 quires some labor. It requires a conciliatory disposition, 
 and oftentimes a little sacrifice of personal preferences. 
 A disagreement about the location of a schoolhouse, for 
 instance, may occasion the division of a district, and thus 
 inflict permanent impotency upon each of its parts. In 
 such cases, .a spirit of forbearance and compromise, avert- 
 ing the evil, would double the common fund of knowl- 
 edge for every child in the territory. Except in those 
 cases where it is made necessary by the number of the 
 scholars, the dismemberment of a district, though it may 
 leave the body, drains out its life-blood. So, through 
 remissness or ignorance on the part of parent and 
 teacher, the minds of children may never be awakened 
 to a consciousness of having, within themselves, blessed 
 treasures of innate and noble faculties, far richer than 
 any outward possessions can be ; they may never be sup- 
 plied with any foretaste of the enduring satisfactions of 
 knowledge ; and hence, they may attend school for the 
 allotted period, merely as so many male and female au- 
 tomata, between four and sixteen years of age. As the 
 progenitor of the human race, after being perfectly fash- 
 ioned in every limb and organ and feature, might have 
 lain till this time, a motionless body in the midst of the 
 beautiful garden of Eden, had not the Creator breathed 
 into him a living soul : so children, without ?ome favoring
 
 410 THE SECRETARY'S 
 
 influences to woo out and cheer their faculties, may 
 remain mere inanimate forms, while surrounded by the 
 paradise of knowledge. It is generally believed, that 
 there is an increasing class of people amongst us, who 
 are losing sight of the necessity of securing ample op- 
 portunities for the education of their children. And 
 thus, on one side, the institution of Common Schools is 
 losing its natural support, if it be not incurring actual 
 opposition. 
 
 Opposite to this class, who tolerate, from apathy, a de- 
 pression in the Common Schools, there is another class, 
 who affix so high a value upon the culture of their chil- 
 dren, and understand so well the necessity of a skilful 
 preparation of means for its bestowment, that they turn 
 away from the Common Schools, in their depressed state, 
 and seek, elsewhere, the helps of a more enlarged and 
 thorough education. Thus the standard, in descending 
 to a point corresponding with the views and wants of one 
 portion of society, falls below the demands and the re- 
 gards of another. Out of different feelings grow dif- 
 ferent plans ; and while one remains fully content with 
 the Common School, the other builds up the private 
 school or the academy. The education fund is thus 
 divided into two parts. Neither of the halves does a 
 quarter of the good which might be accomplished by a 
 union of the whole. One party pays an adequate price, 
 but has a poor school ; the other has a good school, but 
 at more than fourfold cost. Were their funds and 
 their interest combined, the poorer school might be as 
 good as the best, and the dearest almost as low as the 
 cheapest. This last-mentioned class embraces a consid- 
 erable portion, perhaps a majority, of the wealthy persons 
 in the State ; but it also includes another portion, 
 numerically much greater, who, whether rich or poor,
 
 FIRST ANNUAL REPORT. 411 
 
 have a true perception of the sources of their children's 
 individual and domestic well-being, and who consider the 
 common necessaries of their life, their food and fuel and 
 clothes, and all their bodily comforts, as superfluities, 
 compared with the paramount necessity of a proper men- 
 tal and moral culture of their offspring. 
 
 The maintenance of free schools rests wholly upon the 
 .social principle. It is emphatically a case where men, 
 individually powerless, are collectively strong. The 
 population of Massachusetts, being more than eighty 
 to the square mile, gives it the power of maintaining 
 Common Schools. Take the whole range of the western 
 and south-western States, and their population, probably, 
 does not exceed a dozen or fifteen to the square mile. 
 Hence, except in favorable localities, Common Schools 
 are impossible ; as the population upon a territory of con- 
 venient size for a district is too small to sustain a school. 
 Here, nothing is easier. But by dividing our funds, we 
 cast away our natural advantages. We voluntarily re- 
 duce ourselves to the feebleness of a State, having but 
 half our density of population. 
 
 It is generally supposed, that this severance of interests, 
 and consequent diminution of power, have increased 
 much of late, and are now increasing in an accelerated 
 ratio. This is probable, for it is a self-aggravating evil. 
 Its origin and progress are simple and uniform. Some 
 few persons in a village or town, finding the advantages 
 of the Common School inadequate to their wants, unite 
 to establish a private one. They transfer their children 
 from the former to the latter. The heart goes with the 
 treasure. The Common School ceases to be visited by 
 those whose children are in the private. Such parents 
 decline serving as committee-men. They have now no 
 personal motive to vote for, or advocate, any increase of
 
 412 THE SECRETARY'S 
 
 the town's annual appropriation for schools ; to say noth- 
 ing of the temptation to discourage such increase in in- 
 direct ways, or even to vote directly against it. If, by 
 this means, some of the best scholars happen to be taken 
 from the Common School, the standard of that school is 
 lowered. The lower classes in a school have no abstract 
 standard of excellence, and seldom aim at higher attain- 
 ments than such as they daily witness. All children, like 
 all men, rise easily to the common level. There the mass 
 stop ; strong minds only ascend higher. But raise the 
 standard, and, by a spontaneous movement, the mass will 
 rise again, and reach it. Hence the removal of the most 
 forward scholars from a school is not a small misfortune. 
 Again : the teacher of the Common School rarely visits 
 or associates, except where the scholars of his own school 
 are the origin of the acquaintance, and the bond of at- 
 tachment. All this inevitably depresses and degrades the 
 Common School. In this depressed and degraded state, 
 another portion of the parents find it, in fitness and ade- 
 quacy, inferior to their wants ; and, as there is now a 
 private school in the neighborhood, the strength of the 
 inducement, and the facility of the transfer, overbalance 
 the objection of increased expense, and the doors of the 
 Common School close, at once, upon their children, and 
 upon their interest in its welfare. Thus another blow is 
 dealt ; then others escape ; action and re-action alternate, 
 until the Common School is left to the management of 
 those, who have not the desire or the power, either to im- 
 prove it or to command a better. Under this silent, but 
 rapid corrosion, it recently happened, in one of the most 
 flourishing towns of the State, having a population of more 
 than three thousand persons, that the principal district 
 school actually ran down and was not kept for two years. 
 I have been repeatedly assured, where every bias of my
 
 FIRST ANNUAL REPORT. 413 
 
 informants would lead them to extenuate and not to mag- 
 nify the facts, that, in populous villages and central dis- 
 tricts, where there is naturally a concentration of wealth 
 and intelligence, and a juster appreciation of the blessings 
 of a good education, and where, therefore, the Common 
 School ought to be the best in the town, it was the poor- 
 est. 
 
 Believing that this subject bears very nearly the same 
 relation to the healthfulness of our republican institu- 
 tions that air does to animal life, I must solicit for it, iu 
 ;-ome detail, the consideration of the Board. Our law 
 enacts, that every town containing five hundred families, 
 or householders (taken here to be equivalent to three 
 thousand inhabitants, or six persons to a family, on an 
 average), shall maintain a school, to be kept by a master 
 of competent ability and good morals, "for the benefit of 
 all the inhabitants of the town," ten months, at least, ex- 
 clusive of vacations, in each year, who, in addition to the 
 branches of learning to be taught in the district schools, 
 shall give instruction in the history of the United States, 
 book-keeping, surveying, geometry, and algebra ; and in 
 towns of four thousand inhabitants, the master of such 
 school shall be competent to instruct in the Latin and 
 Greek languages, and general history, rhetoric, and logic. 
 Iu this Commonwealth, there are forty-three towns, ex- 
 clusive of the city of Boston, coming within the provis- 
 ions above recited. I leave this city out of the computa- 
 tion, because the considerations, appertaining to it iu 
 connection with this subject, are peculiar to itself. I need 
 only mention, that Common Schools, in Boston, valuable 
 as they are, bear no proportion to the whole means of 
 education and improvement which they do in the coun- 
 try. These forty-three towns contain an aggregate of 
 about two-fifths of all the population of the State, exclu-
 
 414 THE SECRETARY'S 
 
 sive of the metropolis. Of these forty-three towns, only 
 fourteen maintain those schools " for the benefit of all 
 the inhabitants of the town," which the law requires. 
 The other twenty-nine towns, in which this provision of 
 the law is wholly disregarded, contain a very large frac- 
 tion over one-fifth part of the whole population of the 
 State, out of Boston. These twenty-nine delinquent 
 towns, if we leave out the three cities of Boston. Lowell, 
 and Salem, stand in the very front rank of wealth and 
 population. They contain thirty-three thousand five 
 hundred and sixty-six persons between the ages of four 
 and sixteen years. And while the two hundred and 
 ninety-four towns, heard from, raise by taxes, for the sup- 
 port of Common Schools, a sum equal to two dollars and 
 eighty-one cents for each of the one hundred and sixty- 
 five thousand and fifty-three persons supposed to be wholly 
 dependent upon the Common Schools, these twenty-nine 
 rich and populous towns raise but two dollars and twenty- 
 one cents each for the thirty-three thousand five hundred 
 and sixty-six children they contain between the ages of 
 four and sixteen years. And so much as these wealthy 
 towns fall short of their contributive share of the two 
 dollars and eighty-one cents, so much must the other 
 towns overrun theirs. In these twenty-nine towns, which 
 do not keep the " town school " required by law, the sum 
 of forty-seven thousand seven hundred and seventy-^ix 
 dollars is expended in private schools and academies, 
 while only seventy-four thousand three hundred and 
 thirteen dollars is expended for the support of public 
 schools. 
 
 The average expense for tuition of all those attending 
 private schools and academies, inclusive of those small 
 and short private schools which are kept in the districts 
 between the winter and summer terms, and which com-
 
 FIRST ANNUAL REPORT. 415 
 
 prise, probably, more than one-half of the scholars attend- 
 ing the whole number, is more than fourfold the average 
 expense of those attending the public schools. 
 
 In the above computation, respecting towns obliged by 
 law to maintain a school " for the benefit of all the in- 
 habitants," I have included in the class, observant of the 
 law, one town where no such school is yet established, 
 but preparations only are making to open one the ensu- 
 ing season ; and two other towns, where, though such 
 schools exist, yet their accommodations for room, and 
 their provisions for instruction, are so limited as to ren- 
 der the adoption of arbitrary rules absolutely indispen- 
 sable, for the exclusion of many children desirous of 
 attending them. The results would have been far more 
 criminating, had I not adopted this most exculpatory 
 construction. 
 
 The refusal of the town to maintain the free town school 
 drives a portion of its inhabitants to establish the private 
 school or academy. When established, these institutions 
 tend strongly to diminish the annual appropriations of 
 the town ; they draw their ablest recruits from the Com- 
 mon Schools ; and, by being able to offer higher compen- 
 sation, they have a pre-emptive right to the best qualified 
 teachers ; while, simultaneously, the district schools are 
 reduced in length, deteriorated in quality, and, to some 
 extent, bereft of talents. competent for instruction. 
 
 Some objections are urged, on both sides, to a restitu- 
 tion of our system to its original design ; but, as they are 
 anti-social in their nature they must be dissipated by a 
 more enlarged view of the subject. Citizens, living re- 
 mote from the place where the town school would proba- 
 bly be kept, allege the difference in the distances of resi- 
 dence, and the consequent inequality of advantages de- 
 rivable from it, as arguments against its maintenance.
 
 416 THE SECRETARY'S 
 
 They, therefore, resist its establishment, and thus extin- 
 guish all chances of a better education for a vast major- 
 ity of the children in the town, whatever may be their 
 talents or genius. They debar some, perhaps their own 
 offspring, from the means of reaching a higher sphere 
 of usefulness and honor. They forbid their taking the 
 first steps, which are as necessary as the last, in the as- 
 cension to excellence. They surrender every vantage- 
 ground to those who can and will, in any event, com- 
 mand the means of a higher education for their children. 
 Because the balance of advantages cannot be mathemat- 
 ically adjusted, as in the nature of things it cannot be, 
 they cast their own shares into the adverse scale ; as 
 though it were some compensation, when there is not an 
 absolute equality, to make the inequality absolute. The 
 cost of education is nothing to the rich, while the means 
 of it are every thing to the poor. 
 
 Even if the argument against the town school, thus 
 broadly stated, had validity, its force is essentially im- 
 paired by the consideration, that this class of schools 
 need not be confined to one fixed place ; as the statute 
 expressly provides, that they may be kept " alternately at 
 such places in the town, as the inhabitants at their an- 
 nual meeting shall determine." 
 
 On the other hand, the patrons of the private school 
 plead the moral necessity of sustaining it, because, they 
 say, some of the children in the public school are so ad- 
 dicted to profanity or obscenity, so prone to trickishness, 
 or to vulgar and mischievous habits, as to render a 
 removal of their own children from such contaminating 
 influences an obligatory precaution. But would such 
 objectors bestow that guardian care, that parental watch- 
 fulness, upon the Common Schools, which an institution, 
 so wide and deep-reaching in its influences, demands of
 
 FIRST ANNUAL REPORT. 417 
 
 all intelligent men. might not these repellent causes be 
 mainly abolished ? Reforms ought to be originated and 
 carried forward by the intelligent portion of society ; by 
 those who can see most links in the chain of causes and 
 effects ; and that intelligence is false to its high trusts, 
 which stands aloof from the labor of enlightening the 
 ignorant and ameliorating the condition of the unfortu- 
 nate. And what a vision must rise before the minds of 
 all men, endued with the least glimmer of foresight, in 
 the reflection, that, after a few swift years, those children 
 whose welfare they now discard, and whose associations 
 they deprecate, will constitute more than five-sixths of 
 the whole body of that community, of which their own 
 children will be only a feeble minority, vulnerable at 
 every point, and utterly incapable of finding a hiding- 
 place for any earthly treasure, where the witness, the 
 juror, and the voter cannot reach and annihilate it ! 
 
 The theory of our laws and institutions undoubtedly 
 is, first, that in every district of every town in the Com- 
 monwealth, there should be a free district school, suffi- 
 ciently safe, and sufficiently good, for all the children 
 within its territory, where they may be well instructed in 
 the rudiments of knowledge, formed to propriety of de- 
 meanor, and imbued with the principles of duty ; and 
 secondly , in regard to every town, having such an in- 
 creased population as implies the possession of sufficient 
 wealth, that there should be a school of an advanced 
 character, offering an equal welcome to each one of the 
 same children, whom a peculiar destination, or an im- 
 pelling spirit of genius, shall send to its open doors, 
 especially to the children of the poor, who cannot incur 
 the expenses of a residence from home in order to attend 
 such a school. It is on this common platform, that a 
 general acquaintanceship should be formed between the 
 
 VOL. i. 27
 
 418 THE SECRETARY'S 
 
 children of the same neighborhood. It is here that the 
 affinities of a common nature should unite them together 
 so as to give the advantages of pre-occupancy and a sta- 
 ble possession to fraternal feelings, against the alienating 
 competitions of subsequent life. 
 
 After the State shall have secured to all its children 
 that basis of knowledge and morality which is indispensa- 
 ble to its own security ; after it shall have supplied them 
 with the instruments of that individual prosperity, whose 
 aggregate will constitute its own social prosperity ; then 
 they may be emancipated from its tutelage, each one to 
 go whithersoever his well-instructed mind shall determine. 
 At this point, seminaries for higher learning, academies 
 and universities, should stand ready to receive, at private 
 cost, all whose path to any ultimate destination may lie 
 through their halls. Subject, of course, to many excep- 
 tions, all, however, inconsiderable, compared with the 
 generality of the rule, this is the paternal and compre- 
 hensive theory of our institutions ; and is it possible, 
 that a practical contradiction of this theory can be wise, 
 until another shall be devised, offering some chances at 
 least of equally valuable results ? 
 
 Amongst any people, sufficiently advanced in intelli- 
 gence to perceive that hereditary opinions on religious 
 subjects are not always coincident with truth, it cannot 
 be overlooked, that the tendency of the private-school 
 system is to assimilate our modes of education to those 
 of England, where Churchmen and Dissenters, each 
 sect according to its own creed, maintain separate 
 schools, in which children are taught, from their tender- 
 est years, to wield the sword of polemics with fatal dex- 
 terity ; and where the gospel, instead of being a temple 
 of peace, is converted into an armory of deadly weapons, 
 for social, interminable warfare. Of such disastrous con-
 
 FIRST ANNUAL REPORT. 419 
 
 sequences, there is but one remedy and one preventive. 
 It is the elevation of the Common Schools. Until that is 
 accomplished (for which, however, they ought to co-op- 
 erate), those who are able, not only will, but they are 
 bound by the highest obligations to, provide surer and 
 better means for the education of their children. 
 
 It ought not to be omitted, that it is urged, in defence 
 of the private-school system, that it is preparing a class 
 of better teachers for the Common Schools than they 
 could otherwise obtain. Suppose, however, that the 
 Common Schools were what they should be, could not 
 they prepare the teachers as well ? 
 
 I trust I shall not be deemed to have given an undue 
 importance to the different interests involved in this topic, 
 when it is considered, that more th&n five-sixths of the chil- 
 dren in the State are dependent upon the Common Schools 
 for instruction, and would have no substitute if they be- 
 came valueless ; while less than one-sixth are educated 
 in the private schools and academies, and these would be 
 educated, even if the Common Schools were abolished. 
 To hold one-sixth of the children to be equal to five-sixths, 
 I should deem to be as great an error in morals as it 
 would be in arithmetic. 
 
 The number of scholars attending private schools and 
 academies (if we allow four thousand for Boston, which 
 omitted to make any return respecting that fact the pres- 
 ent year, but which returned four thousand as the num- 
 ber last year) is twenty-seven thousand two hundred 
 and sixty-six, and the aggregate paid for their tuition, 
 $328,026.75, while the sum raised by taxation, for all the 
 children in the State, is only $465,228.04. 
 
 Fourthly. Another component element in the pros- 
 perity of schools is the competency of teachers. Teach- 
 ing is the most difficult of all arts, and the profoundest
 
 420 THE SECRETARY'S 
 
 of all sciences. In its absolute perfection, it would in- 
 volve a complete knowledge of the whole heing to be 
 taught, and of the precise manner in which every possible 
 application would affect it ; that is, a complete knowledge 
 of all the powers and capacities of the individual, with 
 their exact proportions and relations to each other, and a 
 knowledge, how, at any hour or moment, to select and 
 apply, from a universe of means, the one then exactly 
 apposite to its ever-changing condition. But in a far 
 more limited and practical sense, it involves a knowledge 
 of the principal laws of physical, mental, and moral 
 growth, and of the tendency of means, not more to im- 
 mediate than to remote results. Hence to value schools, 
 by length instead of quality, is a matchless absurdity. 
 Arithmetic, grammar, and the other rudiments, as they 
 are called, comprise but a small part of the teachings in 
 a school. The rudiments of feeling are taught not less 
 than the rudiments of thinking. The sentiments and 
 passions get more lessons than the intellect. Though 
 their open recitations may be less, their secret rehearsals 
 are more. And even in training the intellect, much of 
 its chance of arriving, in after-life, at what we call soand 
 judgment, or common sense, much of its power of per- 
 ceiving ideas as distinctly as though they were colored 
 diagrams, depends upon the tact and philosophic sagacity 
 of the teacher. He has a far deeper duty to perform 
 than to correct the erroneous results of intellectual pro- 
 cesses. The error in the individual case is of little con- 
 sequence. It is the false projecting power in the mind, 
 the power which sends out the error, that is to be dis- 
 covered and rectified ; otherwise the error will be re- 
 peated as often as opportunities recur. It is no part of 
 a teacher's vocation to spend day after day in moving 
 the hands on the dial-plate backwards and forwards, in
 
 FIRST ANNUAL REPORT. 421 
 
 order to adjust them to the true time : hut he is to adjust 
 the machinery and the regulator, so that they may indi- 
 cate the true time ; so that they may be a standard and 
 measure for other things, instead of needing other things 
 as a standard and measure for them. Yet how can a 
 teacher do this, if he be alike ignorant of the mechanism 
 and the propelling power of the machinery he superin- 
 tends ? 
 
 The law lays its weighty injunctions upon teachers, in 
 the following solemn and impressive language : " It shall 
 be the duty of all instructors of youth to exert their best 
 endeavors to impress on the minds of children and youth, 
 committed to their care and instruction, the principles of 
 piety, justice, and a sacred regard to truth, love to their 
 country, humanity, and universal benevolence, sobriety, 
 industry, and frugality, chastity, moderation, and tem- 
 perance, and those other virtues, which are the ornament 
 of human society, and the basis upon which a republican 
 constitution is founded ; and it shall be the duty of such 
 instructors to endeavor to lead their pupils, as their ages 
 and capacities will admit, into a clear understanding of 
 the tendency of the above-mentioned virtues to preserve 
 and perfect a republican constitution, and secure the bless- 
 ings of liberty, as well as to promote their future happi- 
 ness, and also to point out to them the evil tendency of 
 the opposite vices" Is it not worthy of the most solemn 
 deliberation, whether, under our present system, or rather 
 our present want of system, in regard to the qualifications 
 and appointment of teachers, we are in any way of real- 
 izing, to a reasonable and practicable extent, a fulfilment 
 of the elevated purposes contemplated by the law ? And 
 will not an impartial posterity inquire what measures 
 had been adopted by the lawgiver to insure the execution 
 of the duties which he had himself so earnestly and sol- 
 emnly enjoined ?
 
 422 THE SECRETARY'S 
 
 Wherever the discharge of my duties has led me 
 through the State, with whatever intelligent men I have 
 conversed, the conviction has been expressed with entire 
 unanimity, that there is an extensive want of competent 
 teachers for the Common Schools. This opinion casts no 
 reproach upon that most worthy class of persons, engaged 
 in the sacred cause of education ; and I should be unjust 
 to those, whose views I am here reporting, should I state 
 the fact more distinctly than the qualification. The 
 teachers are as good as public opinion has demanded. 
 Their attainments have corresponded with their opportu- 
 nities ; and the supply has answered the demand as well 
 in quality as in number. Yet, in numerous instances, 
 school committees have alleged, in justification of their 
 approval of incompetent persons, the utter impossibility 
 of obtaining better for the compensation offered. It was 
 stated publicly by a member of the school committee of a 
 town, containing thirty or more school districts, that one- 
 half at least of the teachers approved by them would be 
 rejected, only that it would be in vain to expect better 
 teachers for present remuneration. And, without a 
 change in prices, is it reasonable to expect a change in 
 competency, while talent is invited, through so many 
 other avenues, to emolument and distinction ? From the 
 Abstract of the School Returns of this Commonwealth 
 (which I have this day submitted to the Board), includ- 
 ing Boston, Salem, Lowell, Charlestown, and other towns, 
 with their liberal salaries, it appears that the average 
 wages per month paid to male teachers throughout the 
 State, inclusive of board, is twenty-five dollars and forty- 
 four cents ; and to female teachers, eleven dollars and 
 thirty-eight cents. Considering that many more than 
 half of the whole number of "teachers are employed in the 
 counties bordering on the sea, it is supposed that two
 
 FIRST ANNUAL REPORT. 423 
 
 dollars and fifty cents a week for males, and one dollar 
 and fifty cents a week for females, would be a very low 
 estimate for the average price of their board, respectively, 
 throughout the State. In the country, there would not 
 be this difference between males and females, but in the 
 populous towns arid cities it would probably be greater. 
 That of females is purposely put rather low, because there 
 were several towns where it was not included, by the re- 
 turns, in the wages. On this basis of computation, the av- 
 erage wages of male teachers throughout the State is fif- 
 teen dollars and forty-four cents a month, exclusive of 
 board, or at the rate of one hundred and eighty -five dollars 
 and twenty-eight cents by the year; and the average 
 wages of female teachers, exclusive of board, is five dollars 
 and thirty-eight cents a month, or at the rate of sixty-four 
 dollars and fifty-six cents by the year. 
 
 In regard to moral instruction, the condition of our 
 public schools presents a singular, and, to some extent at 
 least, an alarming phenomenon. To prevent the school 
 from being converted into an engine of religious prose- 
 lytism ; to debar successive teachers in the same school 
 from successively inculcating hostile religious creeds, until 
 the children in their simple-mindedness should be alien- 
 ated, not only from creeds, but from religion itself; the 
 statute of 1826 specially provided that no school-books 
 should be used in any of the public schools, " calculated 
 to favor any particular religious sect or tenet." The 
 language of the Revised Statutes is slightly altered, but 
 the sense remains the same. Probably, no one would de- 
 sire a repeal of this law while the danger impends which it 
 was designed to repel. The consequence of the enactment, 
 however, has been, that among the vast libraries of books, 
 expository of the doctrines of revealed religion, none 
 have been found, free from that advocacy of particular
 
 424 THE SECRETARY'S 
 
 " tenets " or " sects," which includes them within the 
 scope of the legal prohibition ; or, at least, no such books 
 have been approved by committees, and introduced into 
 the schools. Independently, therefore, of the immeasura- 
 ble importance of moral teaching, in itself considered, 
 this entire exclusion of religious teaching, though justifi- 
 able under the circumstances, enhances and magnifies, a 
 thousand-fold, the indispensableness of moral instruction 
 and training. Entirely to discard the inculcation of the 
 great doctrines of morality and of natural theology has 
 a vehement tendency to drive mankind into opposite ex- 
 tremes ; to make them devotees on one side, or profligates 
 on the' other ; each about equally regardless of the true con- 
 stituents of human welfare. Against a tendency to these 
 fatal extremes, the beautiful and sublime truths of ethics 
 and of natural religion have a poising power. Hence 
 it will be learnt with sorrow, that of the multiplicity of 
 books used in our schools, only three have this object in 
 view ; and these three are used in only six of the two 
 thousand nine hundred and eighteen schools from which 
 returns have been received. 
 
 I have adverted to this topic in this connection, not 
 only on account of its intrinsic importance, but on ac- 
 count of its relationship to the one last considered. Under 
 our present system, indeed, this is only a branch of the 
 preceding topic. If children are not systematically in- 
 structed in the duties they now owe, as sons and daugh- 
 ters, as brothers and sisters, as school- fellows and asso- 
 ciates ; in the duties also which they will so soon owe, 
 when, emerging from parental restraint and becoming a 
 part of the sovereignty of the State, they will be enrolled 
 among the arbiters of a nation's destiny ; is not the im- 
 portance immeasurably augmented, of employing teach- 
 ers, who will, themselves, be a living lesson to their pupils,
 
 FIRST ANNUAL REPORT. 425 
 
 of decorous behavior, of order, of magnanimity, of jus- 
 tice, of affection ; and who, if they do not directly teach 
 the principles, will still, by their example, transfuse and 
 instil something of the sentiment of virtue ? Engaged in 
 the Common Schools of this State, there are now, out of 
 the city of Boston, but few more than a hundred male 
 teachers, who devote themselves to teaching as a regular 
 employment or profession. The number of females is a 
 little, though not materially, larger. Very few even of 
 these have ever had any special training for their voca- 
 tion. The rest are generally young persons, taken from 
 agricultural or mechanical employments, which have 110 
 tendency to qualify them for the difficult station ; or they 
 are undergraduates of our colleges, some of whom, there 
 is reason to suspect, think more of what they are to re- 
 ceive at the end of the stipulated term, than what they 
 are to impart during its continuance. To the great ma- 
 jority of them all, however, I concede, because I sincerely 
 believe it is their due, higher motives of action than those 
 which govern men in the ordinary callings of life ; yet 
 still, are they not, inevitably, too inexperienced to under- 
 stand and to act upon the idea, that the great secret of 
 insuring a voluntary obedience to duty consists in a skil- 
 ful preparation of motives beforehand ? Can they be ex- 
 pected, as a body, to be able to present to their older pupils 
 a visible scale, as it were, upon which the objects of life, 
 so far forth as this world is concerned, are marked down, 
 according to their relative values ? Among the pagan 
 Greeks, the men most venerated for their wisdom, their 
 Platos and Socrates, were the educators of their youth. 
 And after such teachers as we employ are introduced 
 into the schools, they address themselves to the culture 
 of Ihe intellect mainly. The fact that children have 
 moral natures and social affections, then in the most
 
 426 THE SECRETARY'S 
 
 rapid state of development, is scarcely recognized. One 
 page of the daily manual teaches the power of commas ; 
 another, the spelling of words ; another, the rules of ca- 
 dence and emphasis ; but the pages are missing which 
 teach the laws of forbearance under injury, of sympathy 
 with misfortune, of impartiality in our judgments of men, 
 of love and fidelity to truth ; of the ever-during relations 
 of men, in the domestic circle, in the organized govern- 
 ment, and of stranger to stranger. How can it be ex- 
 pected that such cultivation will scatter seeds, so that, in 
 the language of Scripture, "instead of the thorn shall 
 come up the fir-tree, and instead of the brier shall come 
 up the myrtle-tree " ? If such be the general condition 
 of the schools, is it a matter of surprise, that we see lads 
 and young men thickly springing up in the midst of us, 
 who startle at the mispronunciation of a word, as though 
 they were personally injured, but can hear volleys of pro- 
 fanity, unmoved ; who put on arrogant airs of superier 
 breeding, or sneer with contempt, at a case of false spell- 
 ing or grammar, but can witness spectacles of drunken- 
 ness in the streets with entire composure ? Such eteva- 
 tion of the subordinate, such casting-down of the supreme, 
 in the education of children, is incompatible with all that 
 is worthy to be called the prosperity of their manhood. 
 The moral universe is constructed upon principles, not 
 admissive of welfare under such an administration of its 
 laws. In such early habits, there is a gravitation and 
 proclivity to ultimate downfall and ruin. If persevered 
 in, the consummation of a people's destiny may still be 
 a question of time, but it ceases to be one of certainty. 
 To avert the catastrophe, we must look to a change in 
 our own measures, not to any repeal or suspension of the 
 ordinances of Nature. These, as they were originally 
 framed in wisdom, need no amendment. Whoever wishes
 
 FIRST ANNUAL REPORT. 427 
 
 for a change in effects without a corresponding change in 
 causes, wishes for a violation of Nature's laws. He pro- 
 poses, as a remedy for the folly of men, an abrogation of 
 the wisdom of Providence. 
 
 One of the greatest and most exigent wants of our 
 schools at the present time, is a hook, portraying, with 
 attractive illustration and with a simplicity adapted to 
 the simplicity of childhood, the obligations arising from 
 social relationships ; making them stand out, with the 
 altitude of mountains, above the level of the engross- 
 ments of life ; not a book written for the copy-right's 
 sake, but one emanating from some comprehension of the 
 benefits of supplying children, at an early age, with sim- 
 ple and elementary notions of right and wrong in feeling 
 and in conduct, so that the appetites and passions, as they 
 spring up in the mind, may, by a natural process, be con- 
 formed to the principles, instead of the principles being 
 made to conform to the passions and appetites. 
 
 It is said, by a late writer on the present condition of 
 France, to have been ascertained, after an examination 
 of great extent and minuteness, that most crimes are per- 
 petrated in those provinces where most of the inhabitants 
 can read and write. Nor is this a mere general fact, but 
 the ratio is preserved with mathematical exactness ; the 
 proportion of those who can read and write, directly rep- 
 resenting the proportion of criminals, and conversely. 
 Their morals have been neglected, and the cultivated 
 intellect presents to the uncultivated feelings, not only a 
 larger circle of temptations, but better instruments for 
 their gratification. 
 
 It is thought by some, that the State cannot afford any 
 advance upon the present salaries of teachers, which we 
 have seen to be on an average, exclusive of board, fifteen 
 dollars and forty-four cents per month for males, and five
 
 428 THE SECRETARY'S 
 
 dollars and thirty-eight cents for females. The valuation 
 of the State, according to the census of 1830, was $208,- 
 860,407.54. During the past season, it has been repeatedly 
 stated, in several of the public papers, and, so far as I have 
 seen, without contradiction or question, that it is now equal 
 to three hundred millions. The amount raised by taxes 
 tlie current year, for the support of Common Schools, in 
 the towns heard from, is four hundred and sixty-five thou- 
 sand two hundred and twenty-eight dollars and four cents, 
 which, if we assume the correctness of the above estimate 
 respecting the whole property in the State, is less than 
 one mill and six-tenths of a mill on the dollar. 
 
 Would it not seem, as though the question were put, 
 not in sobriety, but in derision, if it were asked, whether 
 something more than one six-hundredth part of the wel- 
 fare of the State might not come from the enlightenment 
 of its intellect and the soundness of its morals ? and yet 
 this would, to some extent certainly, involve the question 
 whether the State could afford any increase of its annual 
 appropriations for schools. 
 
 There are other topics, connected with this subject, 
 worthy of exposition, did time permit. I can enumerate 
 but one or two of them in closing this report. 
 
 The law of 1836, respecting children employed in fac- 
 tories, is believed to have been already most salutary in 
 its operation. I have undoubted authority for saying, 
 that, in one place, four hundred children went to school, 
 last winter, who never had been before, and whose attend- 
 ance then was solely attributable to that law. Sufficient 
 time has not yet elapsed (as the law took effect April 1, 
 1837) to determine whether there is a general disposition 
 to comply with its requirements. So far as I have learned, 
 the accounts hold out an encouraging prospect of compli- 
 ance on the part of the owners and agents of manufactur-
 
 FIRST ANNUAL REPORT. 429 
 
 ing establishments, notwithstanding attempts to evade it 
 by some parents, who hold their children to be articles of 
 property, and value them by no higher standard than the 
 money they can earn. 
 
 From the best information I have been able to obtain. 
 I am led to believe that there are not more than fifty 
 towns in the State, where any thing worthy the name of 
 apparatus is used in schools. With few exceptions, Hoi- 
 brook's Common - School apparatus, and occasionally a 
 globe, conclude the list. Thus the natural superiority of 
 the eye over all the other senses, in quickness, in precision, 
 in the vastness of its field of operations, in its power of 
 penetrating into any interstices where light can go and 
 come, and of perceiving, in their just collocations, the 
 different parts of complex objects, is foregone. Children 
 get dim and imperfect notions about many things, where, 
 with visible illustrations, they might acquire living and 
 perfect ones at a glance. This great defect will undoubt- 
 edly be, to a considerable extent, supplied by the law of 
 April 12, 1837, which authorizes school districts to raise 
 money by taxation, to be expended for the purchase of 
 apparatus and Common - School Libraries, in sums not 
 exceeding thirty dollars the first year, and ten for any 
 succeeding year. 
 
 In every county where I have been, excepting two, 
 county associations for the improvement of Common 
 Schools have been formed. In the two excepted coun- 
 ties, there were teachers' associations previously existing. 
 Measures were taken to make these associations auxiliary 
 to the Board of Education in the general plan of State 
 operations. These county associations will open a chan- 
 nel of communication in both directions, between the 
 Board as a central body, and the several towns and school 
 districts in the State ; and through the Board, between
 
 430 THE SECRETARY'S 
 
 all the different parts of the State ; so that improvements, 
 devised or discovered in any place, instead of being wholly 
 lost, may be universally diffused, and sound views, upon 
 this great subject, may be multiplied by the number of 
 minds capable of understanding them. Several excellent 
 addresses have already emanated from committees, ap- 
 pointed by these associations, or by the conventions which 
 originated them. 
 
 If, in addition to these county associations, town asso- 
 ciations could be formed, consisting of teachers, school- 
 committee-men, and the friends of education generally, 
 who should ^meet to discuss the relative merits of differ- 
 ent modes of teaching, thus discarding the worst, and 
 improving even the best, but little, perhaps nothing 
 more, could be desired in the way of systematic organiza- 
 tion. It should be a special duty of all the members of 
 the town associations, to secure, as far as possible, a reg- 
 ular and punctual attendance of the children upon the 
 schools. 
 
 Some means of obtaining more precise information re- 
 specting the number of scholars attending the public 
 schools, and the regularity of that attendance, is most 
 desirable. The practice of keeping registers in the 
 schools, indispensable as it is to statistical accuracy, 
 seems to be very often neglected. In preparing the ab- 
 stract, evidence has been constantly occurring of the 
 want of information, which such registers would have 
 supplied. Sometimes, the committee resort to conject- 
 ure ; sometimes they frankly avow their ignorance of the 
 desired fact ; and sometimes all the sums, set down in 
 several columns of considerable length, have a common 
 multiple, which is incompatible with the diversity of 
 actual occurrences. On the whole, there is, undoubtedly, 
 a very close approximation of truth ; and where particu-
 
 FIRST ANNUAL REPORT. 431 
 
 lars are so numerous, errors on one side will often balance 
 and cancel errors on the other ; excepting where there is 
 some standing bias, when the errors will all be on the 
 gravitating side. Still exactness should be aimed at, as 
 statistics are every day becoming more and more the 
 basis of legislation and economical science. While the 
 State, in the administration of its military functions, 
 establishes a separate department, fills the statute-books 
 with pages of minute regulations and formidable penal- 
 ties, commissions various grades of officers, so that the 
 fact of every missing gun-flint and priming-wire may be 
 detected, transmitted, and recorded among its archives, 
 it prescribes no means of ascertaining how many of its 
 children are deserters from what should be the nurseries 
 of intelligence and morality. This is mentioned here 
 with no view of disparaging what is done, but only to 
 contrast it with what is omitted. 
 
 Not a little inconvenience results from the fact, that 
 school committees are elected at the annual town-meet- 
 ings in the spring, and are obliged to make their returns 
 in October following. Their returns, therefore, cover 
 but half the time of their own continuance in office, while 
 they cover half the time of the official existence of their 
 predecessors. It is for the Legislature to say whether 
 there be any good reason, why the time covered by these 
 returns should not be coincident with their duration in 
 office. 
 
 In closing this report, I wish to observe, that, should it 
 
 ever fall under the notice, either of individuals or of 
 
 classes, who may suspect that some imputation is cast 
 
 upon them by any of its statements, I wish to assure them, 
 
 v at no word of it has been dictated by a feeling of un- 
 
 viidness to any one. The object of whatever has been 
 
 said was to expose defects in a system so substantially
 
 432 THE SECRETARY'S FIRST ANNUAL REPORT. 
 
 excellent, as to requite any labor for its reformation ; 
 and all the remarks which may seem accusatory of 
 persons connected with it have caused ine more pain to 
 write, than they can any one to read. To have spoken in 
 universal commendation of the system and of its admin- 
 istrators would have been most grateful, could it have 
 been, also, true ; but, in the discharge of a duty, respect- 
 ing one of the most valuable and enduring of human 
 interests, I have felt that it would be unworthy the sacred 
 character of the cause, if, to purchase any temporary 
 gratification for others or for myself, I could have sacri- 
 ficed one particle of the permanent utility of truth. 
 
 HORACE MANN, 
 
 Secretary of the Board of Education, 
 Boston, January 1, 1838.
 
 REPORT OF THE SECRETARY OP THE BOARD OP EDUCATION 
 ON THE SUBJECT OP SCHOOLHOUSES. 
 
 SUPPLEMENTARY TO HIS FIRST ANNUAL REPORT. 
 
 To THE BOARD OF EDUCATION. 
 
 Gentlemen, In the Report, which I lately submitted 
 to you on the subject of our " Common Schools and 
 other means of popular education," I mentioned school- 
 house architecture, as one of the cardinal points in the 
 system, and I reserved the consideration of that topic for 
 a special communication. 
 
 In my late tour of exploration, made into every county 
 in the State, I personally examined or obtained exact and 
 specific information, regarding the relative size, construc- 
 tion, and condition of about eight hundred schoolhouses ; 
 and, in various ways principally by correspondence 
 I have obtained general information respecting, at least, 
 a thousand more. 
 
 As long ago as 1832, it was said by the Board of Cen- 
 sors of the American Institute of Instruction, that " if 
 we were called upon to name the most prominent defects 
 in the schools of our country, that which contributes 
 most, directly and indirectly, to retard the progress of 
 public education, and which most loudly calls for a 
 prompt and thorough reform, it would be the want of 
 spacious and convenient schoolhouses." As a general 
 fact, I do not think the common, district schoolhouses are 
 
 VOL. I. 28 3
 
 434 REPORT OF THE SECRETARY 
 
 better now than when the above remark was written. I 
 have, therefore, thought, that I could, at this time, in no 
 other way more efficiently subserve the interests of the 
 cause in which we are engaged, than in bringing together, 
 and presenting under one view, the most essential points 
 respecting the structure and location of a class of build- 
 ings, which may be said to constitute the household of 
 education. 
 
 I do not propose to describe a perfect model, and to 
 urge a universal conformity. It is obvious that some 
 difference in construction is necessary, according to the 
 different kind of school to be kept. In each case, it must 
 be considered, whether the schoolroom be that of an 
 academy or of an infant school ; whether it be in the 
 city or in the country ; for males or for females, or both ; 
 whether designed to accommodate many scholars, or only 
 a few ; or, whether the range of studies to be pursued 
 is extensive, or elementary only. The essentials being 
 understood, the plan can be modified for adaptation to 
 each particular case. 
 
 The schoolhouses in the State have a few common 
 characteristics. They are, almost universally, contracted 
 in size ; they are situated immediately on the road-side, 
 and are without any proper means of ventilation. In 
 most other respects, the greatest diversity prevails. The 
 floors of some are horizontal ; those of others rise in the 
 form of an amphitheatre, on two, or sometimes on three 
 sides, from an open area in the centre. On the horizontal 
 floors the seats and desks are sometimes designed only 
 for a single scholar ; allowing the teacher room to ap- 
 proach on either side, and giving an opportunity to go 
 out or into the seat, without disturbance of any one. In 
 others, ten scholars are seated on one seat, and at one 
 desk, so that the middle ones can neither go out nor in
 
 ON SCHOOLHOUSES. 435 
 
 without disturbing, at least, four of their neighbors. In 
 others, again, long tables are prepared, at which the 
 scholars sit face to face, like large companies at dinner. In 
 others, the seats are arranged on the sides of the room, 
 the walls of the house forming the backs of the seats, and 
 the scholars, as they sit at the desks, facing inwards ; 
 while in others, the desks are attached to the walls, and 
 the scholars face outwards. The form of schoolhouses 
 is, with very few exceptions, that of a square or oblong. 
 Some, however, are round, with an open circular area in 
 the centre of the room, for the teacher's desk and a stove, 
 with seats and desks around the wall, facing outwards, 
 separated from each other by high partitions, which pro- 
 ject some distance into the room, so that the scholars 
 may be turned into these separate compartments, as into 
 so many separate stalls. In no particular does chance 
 seem to have had so much sway as in regard to light. In 
 many, so much of the walls is occupied by windows, that 
 there is but little difference between the intensity and the 
 changes of light within and without the schoolroom : 
 while in some others, there is but one small window on 
 each of the three sides of the house, and none 011 the 
 fourth. Without specifying further particulars, however, 
 it seems clear that some plan may be devised, combining 
 the substantial advantages and avoiding the principal 
 defects of all. 
 
 In the Report, above referred to, it was observed, that 
 " when it is considered, that more than five-sixths of all 
 the children in the State spend a considerable portion of 
 the most impressible period of their lives in the school- 
 house, the general condition of those ouildings and their 
 influences upon the young stand forth, at once, as topics 
 of prominence and magnitude. The construction of 
 schoolhouses connects itself closely with the love of study,
 
 436 REPOBT OP THE SECRETARY 
 
 with proficiency, health, anatomical formation, and length 
 of life. These are great interests, and therefore suggest 
 great duties. It is believed, that, in some important par- 
 ticulars, their structure can be improved, without the 
 slightest additional expense ; and that, in other respects, 
 a small advance in cost would be returned a thousand- 
 fold in the improvement of those habits, tastes, and senti- 
 ments of our children, which are so soon to be developed 
 into public manners, institutions, and laws, and to become 
 unchangeable history." 
 
 The subject of schoolhouse architecture will be best 
 considered under distinct heads. 
 
 VENTILATION AND WARMING. 
 
 Ventilation and warming are considered together, be- 
 cause they may be easily made to co-operate with each 
 other in the production of health and comfort. It seems 
 generally to have been forgotten, that a room, designed 
 to accommodate fifty, one hundred, and, in some cases, two 
 hundred persons, should be differently constructed from 
 one intended for a common family of eight or ten only. 
 In no other particular is this difference so essential as in 
 regard to ventilation. There is no such immediate, in- 
 dispensable necessary of life as fresh air. A man may 
 live for days, endure great hardships, and even perform 
 great labors, without food, without drink, or without 
 sleep ; but deprive him of air for only one minute, and 
 all power of thought is extinct ; he becomes as incapable 
 of any intellectual operation as a dead man, and in a few 
 minutes more he is gone beyond resuscitation. Nor is 
 this all; but just in proportion as the stimulus of air 
 is withheld, the whole system loses vigor. As the ma- 
 chinery in a water-mill slackens when the head of 
 water is drawn down ; as a locomotive loses speed if the
 
 ON SCHOOLHOUSES. 437 
 
 fire be not seasonably replenished ; just so do muscle, 
 nerve, and faculty faint and expire, if a sufficiency of 
 vital air be not supplied to the lungs. As this Report is 
 designed to produce actual results for the benefit of our 
 children ; and as it is said to be characteristic of our 
 people, that they cannot be roused to action, until they 
 see the reasons for it, nor restrained from action when 
 they do, I shall proceed to state the facts, whether pop- 
 ular or scientific, which bear upon this important subject. 
 The common, or atmospheric, air, consists, mainly, 
 of two ingredients, one only of which is endued by 
 the Creator with the power of sustaining animal life. 
 The same part of the air supports life and sustains com- 
 bustion ; so that in wells or cellars, where a candle will 
 go out, a man will die. The vital ingredient, which is 
 called oxygen, constitutes only about twenty-one parts in 
 a hundred of the air. The other principal ingredient, 
 called azote, will not sustain life. This proportion is 
 adapted by omniscient wisdom, with perfect exactness, to 
 the necessities of the world. Were there any material 
 diminution of the oxygen, other things remaining the 
 same, every breathing thing would languish, and waste, 
 and perish. Were there much more of it, it would stim- 
 ulate the system, accelerating every bodily and mental 
 operation, so that the most vigorous man would wear out 
 in a few weeks or days. This will be readily understood, 
 by all who have witnessed the effects of breathing exhila- 
 rating gas, which is nothing but this oxygen or vital por- 
 tion of the air, sorted out and existing in a pure state. 
 Besides, this oxygen is the supporter of combustion, and, 
 were its quantity greatly increased, fire would hardly be 
 extinguishable, even by water. But the vital and the 
 non-vital parts of the air are wisely mingled in the exact 
 proportions, best fitted for human utility and enjoyment ;
 
 438 REPORT OP THE SECRETARY 
 
 and all our duty is not to disturb these proportions. 
 About four parts of the twenty-one of vital air are de- 
 stroyed at every breath ; so that, if one were to breathe 
 the same air four or five times over, he would substan- 
 tially exhaust the life-giving principle in it, and his bodily 
 functions would convulse for a moment, and then stop. 
 As the blood and the air meet each other in the lungs, 
 not only is a part of the vital air destroyed, but a poison- 
 ous ingredient is generated. This poison constitutes 
 about three parts in a hundred of the breath thrown out 
 from the lungs. Nor is it a weak, slow poison, but one 
 of fatal virulence and sudden action. If the poisonous 
 parts be not regularly removed (and they can be re- 
 moved only by inhaling fresh air), the blood absorbs 
 them, and carries them back into the system. Just 
 according to the quantity of poison forced back into the 
 blood, follow the consequences of lassitude, faintness, or 
 death. The poisonous parts are called carbonic acid. 
 They are heavier than the common air, and as the lungs 
 throw them out at the lips, their tendency is to fall 
 towards the ground or the floor of a room, and if there 
 were no currents of the air, they would do so. But the 
 other parts of the air, being warmed in the lungs, and 
 rarefied, are lighter than the common air, and the mo- 
 ment they pass from the lips, their tendency is to rise 
 upward towards the sky. Were these different portions 
 of the air, as they come from the lungs, of different 
 colors, we should, if in a perfectly still atmosphere, see 
 the stream divided, part of it falling and part ascending. 
 A circulation of the air, however, produced out of doors 
 by differences of temperature, and in our apartments by 
 the motion of their occupants and by other causes, keeps 
 the poisonous parts of the air, to some extent, mingled 
 with the rest of it, and creates the necessity of occfisionally
 
 ON SCHOOLHOUSES. 439 
 
 changing the whole. Though the different portions of 
 the air have the same color to the bodily eye, yet in the 
 eye of reason their qualities are diametrically opposite. 
 
 Although there is but the slightest interval between 
 one act of breathing and another, yet, in a natural state 
 of things, before we can draw a second breath, the air of 
 the first is far beyond our reach, and never returns, 
 until it has gone the circuit of nature and been reno- 
 vated. Such are the silent and sublime operations, go- 
 ing on day and night, without intermission, all round the 
 globe, for all the myriads of breathing creatures that 
 inhabit it, without their notice or consciousness. But, 
 perhaps some will suppose, that, in this way, the vital 
 portion of the air, in process of time, will be wholly con- 
 sumed or used up ; or that the poisonous portion, thrown 
 off from the lungs, will settle and accumulate upon the 
 earth's surface, and rise around us, like a flood of water, 
 so high as eventually to flow back into the lungs, and 
 inflict death. All this may be done ; not however in the 
 course of nature, but only by suicidal or murderous con- 
 trivances. In the Black Hole of Calcutta, in the year 
 1756, one hundred and forty-six persons were confined to 
 a room only eighteen feet square for ten hours ; and 
 although there was one aperture for the admission of air 
 and light, one hundred and twenty-three had perished at 
 the end of that time. Only twenty-three survived, and 
 several of these were immediately seized with the typhus- 
 fever. In the Dublin Hospital, during the four years 
 preceding 1785, out of seven thousand six hundred and 
 fifty children, two thousand nine hundred and forty-four 
 died within a fortnight after their birth ; that is, thirty- 
 eight out of every hundred. TRe cause of this almost 
 unexampled mortality was suspected by Dr. Clarke, the 
 physician, who caused fresh air to be introduced by
 
 440 REPORT OP THE SECRETARY 
 
 means of pipes, and during the three following years, the 
 deaths were only one hundred and sixty-five out of four 
 thousand two hundred and forty-three, or less than 
 four in a hundred ; that is, a diminution in the propor- 
 tion of deaths of more than than thirty-four per cent. 
 Hence it appears, that, through a deficiency of pure air. 
 in one hospital, during the space of four years, there per- 
 ished more than twenty-six hundred children. In Na- 
 ples, Italy, there is a grotto, where carbonic acid issues 
 from the earth, arid flows along the bottom in a shallow 
 stream. Dogs are kept by the guides who conduct trav- 
 ellers to see this natural curiosity, and, for a small fee, 
 they thrust the noses of the dogs into the gas. The con- 
 sequence is, that the dogs are immediately seized with 
 convulsions, and, if not released, they die in five minutes. 
 But let us not cry, Shame! too soon on those who are 
 guilty of this sordidness and cruelty. We are repeating 
 every day, though in rather a milder fashion, the same 
 experiment, except that we use children instead of dogs. 
 
 But why, in process of time, it may still be asked, is 
 not the vital principle of the air wholly exhausted, and 
 the valleys and plains of the earth, at least, filled with 
 the fatal one ? Again, Divine Wisdom has met the exi- 
 gency in a manner fitted to excite our admiration and 
 wonder. The vegetable world requires for its growth 
 the very substance which the animal world rejects as its 
 death ; and in its turn, all vegetable growth yields a por- 
 tion of oxygen for the support of animal life. One flour- 
 ishes upon that which is fatal to the other. Thus the 
 equilibrium is for ever restored ; or rather it is never 
 disturbed. They exchange poison for aliment ; death 
 for life ; and the elements of a healthful existence flow 
 round in a circle for ever. The deadly poison thrown 
 from the lungs of the inhabitants of our latitudes, in the
 
 ON SCHOOLHOUSES. 441 
 
 depths of winter, is borne in the great circuit of the at- 
 mosphere to the tropical regions, and is there converted 
 into vegetable growth ; while the oxygen, exhaled in the 
 processes of tropical vegetation, mounts the same car of 
 the winds, and, in its appointed time, revisits the higher 
 latitudes.* Why should we violently invade this beauti- 
 ful arrangement of Providence ? 
 
 There is another fact, impossible to be overlooked in 
 considering this subject. Who can form any just concep- 
 tion of the quantity of air which has been created ? 
 Science has demonstrated, that it is poured out between 
 forty and fifty miles deep all round the globe. It was to 
 prevent the necessity of our using it, second-hand, that it 
 was given us by sky-fuls. Then, again, it is more liquid 
 than water. It rushes into every nook and crevice, and 
 fills every unoccupied place upon the earth's surface. All 
 the powers of art fail in wholly excluding it from any 
 given space. We cannot put our organs of breathing 
 where some of it will not reach them. All we can do is 
 to corrupt it, so that none but fatal or noxious air shall 
 reach them. This we do. Now if the air were a product 
 of human pains-taking ; if laborers sweated or slaves 
 groaned to prepare it ; if it were transported by human 
 toil from clime to clime, like articles of export and im- 
 port, between foreign countries, at a risk of property and 
 life ; if there were ever any dearth or scarcity of it ; if 
 its whole mass could be monopolized, or were subject to 
 accident or conquest, then economy might be commend- 
 able. But ours is a parsimony of the inexhaustible. We 
 are prodigals of health, of which we have so little, and 
 niggards of air, of which we have so much. In the State 
 Lunatic Hospital at Worcester, there are eight hundred 
 feet cubic measure to each apartment, for one patient 
 
 * See Appendix B and C.
 
 442 REPORT OF THE SECRETARY 
 
 only. Iii the Prison at Charlestown, one huncred and 
 seventy-one and a half cubic feet are allowed to each 
 prisoner's cell. In addition to this, free ingress and egress 
 of the air is allowed, by means of apertures and flues in 
 the walls. In the Penitentiary, erected at Philadelphia 
 a few years since, thirteen hundred cubic feet were al- 
 lowed to each prisoner, solitarily confined ; while in some 
 of our schoolrooms, less than forty cubic feet is allowed 
 to a scholar, without any proper means of ventilation ; 
 und in one case, a school has been constantly kept, for 
 thirteen years, in a room which allows less than thirty 
 feet of air to the average number of scholars now attend- 
 ing it ; and even this schoolroom, contracted as it is, is 
 besieged by such offensive effluvia from without, that the 
 windows are scarcely opened, even in summer. 
 
 I know of but three causes which can have led to these 
 opprobrious results. In populous and crowded places, 
 the price of land may have been thought to justify the use 
 of small rooms for many scholars. Bat this can never 
 have been even a pecuniary argument of any weight with 
 a financial mind ; for the ultimate public expense of the 
 sickness and poverty engendered would overbalance, a 
 thousand-fold, the requisite original outlay. Besides, 
 even if there were limit and constraint horizontally, there 
 can have been none perpendicularly. 
 
 A motive of some efficacy may have been felt in the 
 increased expense of erecting a house of adequate size. 
 This is a tangible motive. But how feeble is it, when 
 compared with the health and comfort of children, their 
 love of study, and their consequent proficiency in it ! 
 Should a case of necessity actually arise, where children 
 were obliged to undergo some privation, far better would 
 it be to stint them in their clothes, their food, or their 
 fuel, than in their air. But in regard to schoolhouses
 
 ON SCHOOLHOUSES. 443 
 
 which are built at the public expense, such a necessity 
 never can occur. Besides, these considerations affect size 
 only, not ventilation. 
 
 An economy of the air, which has once been warmed, 
 is the only remaining motive for using foul air. But if 
 the warm air is saved, the foul air must be breathed ; 
 for they are the same. For several years past, high ceil- 
 ings have been strenuously recommended as a compro- 
 mise of the difficulty. But when the room is high, it is 
 necessary, in the first place, to warm a much greater 
 quantity of air than is required for breathing, and when 
 it has all been once breathed, it becomes as necessary to 
 remove it and supply its place with pure air as though 
 the quantity had been small. Besides, pure air at a lower 
 temperature will warm the human system more than im- 
 pure air at a higher. In our climate, a moderately low 
 ceiling is preferable to a high one, because, with such, a 
 much larger portion of the air which we have been at the 
 expense to heat can be used. 
 
 But it is believed, that, in the vast majority of cases, 
 this habitual use of foul air is not the result of calcula- 
 tion, but of oversight. And it is worthy of especial at- 
 tention, that many of our schoolrooms, where the greatest 
 privation of healthful air is now suffered, were constructed 
 originally with a large open fireplace, which was of itself 
 a sufficient ventilator ; and that afterwards close stoves 
 were introduced to overcome the coldness of the rooms, 
 without any reflection, that what was gained in warmth 
 and comfort was lost in the purity of the atmosphere, 
 and consequently in bodily health and mental vigor. 
 
 In regard to this most immediate of all the necessaries 
 of life, that arrangement would be perfect which should 
 introduce the life-sustaining air just as fast as it should be 
 wanted for breathing ; and, when b: eathed, should carry
 
 444 REPORT OF THE SECRETARY 
 
 it off, not to be breathed again, until it should be reno- 
 vated and purified in the laboratory of Nature. If one 
 washes himself in running water, he will never dip up 
 the same water a second time. So should it be with the 
 air we respire. An arrangement producing this effect is 
 perfectly practicable and easy. By examining a most 
 valuable communication, placed at the end of this report, 
 from Dr. Woodward, the Superintendent of the Lunatic 
 Hospital at Worcester, it will appear, that fifty persons 
 will consume the entire body of air in a room, thirty feet 
 square and nine feet high, in about forty minutes. If, 
 however, the room be perfectly tight, the air, once re- 
 spired, will be partially mingled with the whole mass of 
 air in the room, and will offer itself to be breathed again. 
 What is wanted, therefore, is a current of fresh air flow- 
 ing into the room, while a current of the respired air flows 
 out of it ; both to be equal to the quantity required for 
 the occupants. Under such circumstances, if there be 
 but little motion in the room, the poisonous part of the 
 air will settle towards the floor as soon as it is cast from 
 the lungs, while the other part of it, being raised almost 
 to a blood-heat in the lungs, will rise to the ceiling. In 
 the ceiling, therefore, should be an aperture for its escape. 
 The carbonic acid will tend to flow out under the door, 
 or when it is opened. If the ceiling be concave or dome- 
 shaped, only one aperture will be necessary ; if horizon- 
 tal, and the room be large, several may be required. The 
 number will depend upon the manner in which the room 
 is heated. If the house be of one story only, the aper- 
 tures will open into the attic. On the upper side of 
 the aperture let a trap-door be hung, to be raised by a 
 cord, running over a pulley, and coming down into the 
 room, or (which is more simple) by wires, after the man- 
 ner of house-bells. This door should be prevented from
 
 ON SCHOOLHOUSES. 445 
 
 opening to a greater angle than eighty degrees, so that 
 when the cord is loosened it will fall by its own weight, and 
 dose the orifice. The door will be opened, more or less, 
 according to the temperature of the weather and the de- 
 gree of wind prevailing without, so as always to carry off 
 the impure air just as fast as it is fouled by the lungs. 
 Any person, by stepping into the open air and inhaling it 
 for half a minute, can, on returning into the room, deter- 
 mine the state of the air within it. If the apertures 
 through the ceiling open into the attic, the air can be let 
 off, either through fan-windows at the ends, or through 
 sky-lights ; or an opening can be made into the chimney, 
 and a flue carried up to its top. In the last case, the floor of 
 the attic, immediately under the flue, should be plastered, 
 or covered with something incombustible, to make it per- 
 fectly secure against cinders coming down through the 
 flue. If the building be two stories high, the apertures 
 for ventilation in the lower story, instead of being in the 
 upper ceiling of the room, should be in the side walls, 
 next the ceiling, and so ascend, by flues, through the 
 walls of the second story until they open into the attic. 
 Sliding dampers can be used, in order to open or close 
 these lower orifices, so as to regulate the escape of air 
 from the room. Where a schoolhouse two stories in height 
 has been built in disregard of the laws of health and life, 
 the lower room may be ventilated by making apertures in 
 its upper ceiling, next to the walls of the room, and car- 
 rying up flues through the second story in tight boxes, 
 attached to the walls, and opening into the attic through 
 similar apertures in the upper ceiling of the second story. 
 These boxes will appear, in the second story, to be only 
 casings of posts or pilasters, and will not materially dis- 
 figure the room. 
 
 The best apparatus for expelling foul air from a room
 
 44C REPORT OP THE SECRETARY 
 
 consists in the proper means of introducing a supply of 
 fresh warm air. Undoubtedly, the best mode of warming 
 a room is to have a cellar under it, and to place a furnace 
 in the cellar. Some place of storing wood seems indis- 
 pen sable for every schoolhouse, and a cellar could ordina- 
 rily be dug and stoned as cheaply as a woodhouse could 
 be built. I suppose, also, that a schoolhouse would be 
 much less exposed to take fire from a furnace well set, 
 than from a common fireplace or stove. But the great 
 advantage of warming by a furnace is, that all parts of 
 the room are kept at the same temperature. The air 
 presses outward instead of inward, through every crack 
 and crevice in door or window. No scholars are injured 
 by being forced to sit in the vicinity of a stove or fireplace : 
 nor is any part of the room encumbered by either. When 
 the latter are used, many scholars, who sit in exposed sit- 
 uations, will spend half an hour a day, and often more, in 
 going to the fire to warm themselves ; and, in addition to 
 those whose comfort requires them to go, idlers, from all 
 sides of the house, will make it a rendezvous or halfway 
 place, for visiting. With an unequal diffusion of heat in 
 a school warmed by a stove, or fireplace, I believe it is al- 
 ways true, that diligent scholars will stay in their seats and 
 suffer, while the lazy will go to the fire to drone. Some 
 other advantages of setting a furnace in a cellar to warm 
 a school are mentioned in the excellent communication 
 of Dr. Woodward, above referred to. Feet can be warmed 
 or dried at the orifices for admitting the heated air from 
 a furnace, as well as at a stove. There may be two of these 
 orifices, one for the boys and one for the girls. The set- 
 ting of a furnace requires some skill and science. We 
 often meet with a prejudice against furnaces, which be- 
 longs not to the furnaces themselves, but to the ignorance 
 of those who set them. There seems to be no objection,
 
 ON SCHOOLHOUSES. 447 
 
 except it be that of appearance, against setting the furnace 
 so high in the cellar, as that its brick or soapstone top 
 shall be on a level with the floor of the room, and consti- 
 tute a part of it. 
 
 If a common stove must be used for warming the room, 
 then let it be enclosed in a case of sheet-iron, rising from 
 the floor on three sides of the stove and bending over it ; 
 not, however, so as to close over its top, but leaving an 
 opening in the case, greater or less, according to the size 
 of the stove and of the room. The sides of the case 
 should be two or three inches from the sides of the stove. 
 The stove should stand on legs a few inches from the floor, 
 and fresh air should be introduced from out of doors, and 
 conducted under the stove in a tube or trough, which, as 
 it rises around the stove, will be warmed, and enter the 
 room through the opening in the case at the top. A slide 
 in the tube or trough will regulate the quantity of air to 
 be admitted. The sensations experienced in a room into 
 which the external air is directly introduced, and warmed 
 in its passage, belong to a class entirely distinct from 
 those engendered by air warmed in the ordinary way. 
 They will be grateful to the pupils, and will promote elas- 
 ticity and vigor of mind. It would be well to place the 
 stove directly in the current of air caused by opening the 
 door. 
 
 The common expedient of letting down windows from 
 the top, so that the noxious air may escape, and the vacuum 
 be filled with the pure, accomplishes the object in a very 
 imperfect, and, at the same time, an objectionable manner. 
 If there be any wind abroad, or if there be a great dif- 
 ference in temperature between the external air and the 
 air of the room, the former rushes in with great violence 
 and mingles with the heated and corrupted air, so that, 
 unless several roomfuls of air be admitted, a portion of
 
 448 REPORT OP THE SECRETARY 
 
 that which has been rendered unfit for use will still re- 
 main, while some that has been partially warmed will es- 
 cape. But the greatest objection is, that the cold air 
 drops like a shower-bath upon the scholars' heads : a 
 mode which all agree in pronouncing unhealthful, and 
 sometimes dangerous. 
 
 Some schoolrooms are heated by a common close stove, 
 the front part of which is placed in the wall, so that the 
 door, where the stove is filled, is in an entry, while the body 
 of the stove is in the schoolroom. It depends on other 
 circumstances, whether this arrangement is beneficial or 
 injurious. Where the air which keeps up the fire in the 
 stove is taken from an entry, it passes through the funnel 
 and chimney, and leaves the body of air in the room 
 unchanged. This is no objection, provided the air in the 
 room is changed otherwise. But if no other provision is 
 made for changing the air in the room, the draught 
 of the stove becomes important for that purpose. And 
 although this may involve the evil of drawing in just as 
 much air, through the crevices and openings, as is car- 
 ried off through the stove, yet it is a less evil than that 
 of stagnant air in the room. If, however, the room is 
 warmed by introducing a current of air from without, 
 which is heated in its passage, then the arrangement of 
 feeding the stove in an entry is unobjectionable, and may, 
 often, be very commodious. 
 
 If the room be so warmed that the air presses from 
 within, outwards, the doors should be hung so as to open 
 inwards ; if, on the other hand, the room be warmed by a 
 common stove or fireplace, the external air will press in- 
 wards, and therefore the doors should be hung so as to 
 open outwards. Where the schoolroom has been so fault- 
 ily constructed, that a current of air blows directly upon 
 a row of scholars every time the door is opened, the door
 
 ON SCHOOLHOUSES. 449 
 
 should be rehung, or have a spring to prevent its being 
 left open. 
 
 A thermometer should be kept in every schoolroom, 
 and hung on the coolest side of it. The proper tempera- 
 ture should be determined by unchangeable laws ; not by 
 the variable feelings or caprice of any individual. With- 
 out a thermometer, if the teacher be habituated to live 
 in the open air ; if he be healthy, vigorous, and young ; 
 if he walk a mile or several miles to school ; and espe- 
 cially if he keep upon his feet during school-hours ; 
 the scholars will be drilled and scolded into a resignation 
 to great suffering from cold. If, on the other hand, the 
 teacher lead a sedentary life ; if his health be feeble ; if 
 he step into the schoolroom from a neighboring door, he 
 will, perhaps unconsciously, create an artificial summer 
 about himself, and subject the children to a perilous tran- 
 sition in temperature, whenever they leave his tropical 
 regions. In this way, a child's lungs may get a wound 
 in early life, which neither Cuba nor the south of France 
 can ever afterwards heal. A selfish or inconsiderate mas- 
 ter will burn a whole roomful of children during the 
 chill, and freeze them during the fever, of his own ague- 
 fits. They must parch or congeal, as he shivers or 
 glows. 
 
 It should be remembered, also, that even the thermom- 
 eter ceases to be a guide, except in pure air. When pure 
 air enters the lungs, it evolves heat. Its oxygen carries on 
 the process (supposed to be combustion) necessary for 
 that purpose. This keeps our bodies warm. It is the 
 reason why the blood remains regularly at a temperature 
 of ninety-eight degrees, though the air by which we are 
 surrounded rises to that heat but a few times in a year. 
 The a-'r constantly supplies to the body, through the me- 
 
 VOL. I. 29
 
 450 EEPOBT OP THE SECRETARY 
 
 dium of the lungs, the heat which it is constantly ab- 
 stracting by contact with its surface. But it is only 
 through the agency of the oxygen, or life-sustaining por- 
 tion of the air, that this heat is supplied. A thermome- 
 ter, however, is insensible to this difference. It will in- 
 dicate the same degree of heat in azote, i.e., iu that por- 
 tion of the air which will not sustain life, as in oxygen ; 
 although a man immersed in azote at seventy or eighty 
 degrees would die of cold, if he did not of suffocation. 
 I reiterate the first position, therefore, that even a ther- 
 mometer ceases to be a guide, except in pure air. 
 
 Ordinarily, we can undergo a change of a few degrees 
 in temperature, without danger or serious inconvenience ; 
 but there is a limit, beyond which the change becomes 
 perilous and even fatal. Suppose in a school, having a 
 winter term of only four months, and consisting of but fifty 
 scholars, one-quarter of an hour in a day, on a'n average, is 
 lost for all purposes of study, in consequence of the too great 
 heat or cold of the room ; the aggregate loss, allowing six 
 hours to a day, will be two hundred days, or more than 
 eight months. And yet, in many of our schools, half the 
 day, for all purposes of improvement, is, by this cause 
 alone, substantially lost. 
 
 Every keeper of a greenhouse regulates its heat by a 
 thermometer. The northern blasts which come down 
 upon the blossoms of a farmer's orchard or garden chill 
 him as much as them. When shall we apply the same 
 measure of wisdom to the welfare of children as to that 
 of fruits and vegetables ? I am told by physicians, that 
 from sixty-five to seventy degrees is a proper temperature 
 for a room. Something, however, must depend upon the 
 habits of the children. In cities, there is generally less 
 exposure to cold than in the country ; and factory chil- 
 dren would suffer from cold, when those employed in the
 
 ON SCHOOLHOUSES 451 
 
 outdoor occupations of agriculture would be comfortably 
 warm.* 
 
 * We give below two letters, one from Col. JENKINS, an experienced 
 architect in the City of Boston, the other from Dr. WOODWARD, the 
 Superintendent of the State Lunatic Hospital at Worcester, on the subject 
 of the construction of schoolhouses. The suggestions will be found very 
 important. Though published in the 8th No. of our Journal, we deem 
 them worthy of a re-insertion here. ED. 
 
 "Boston, Jan. 21, 1839. 
 
 "Dear Sir, Your favor of the 19th is just received. In answer to 
 your question, ' whether it is a healthful way of finishing rooms, to plaster 
 them upon a solid brick wall, without furring,' I think, in a word, that it 
 is not. 
 
 " It is almost, perhaps quite, impossible that walls will not be penetrated 
 by water, and conduct it through to the inner surface ; some expedients 
 have been adopted, in order to obviate this evil as in prisons and hos- 
 pitals, where it is unsafe to attach any finish to the walls, which could be 
 removed by the inmates, and made the instruments of mischief in their 
 hands. One method has been, to construct the walls with an interstice, or 
 separation in the wall, between the outer and inner courses of the brick- 
 work, when made of brick, and on the same principle when of stone. 
 The objections to this are obvious. Unless the walls are made mueh 
 thicker than otherwise necessary, their strength is materially lessened, and 
 their liability to be penetrated by the weather proportionably increased. 
 The outer and inner parts of the wall must be banded together by separate 
 stones or bricks, which, in themselves, are conductors of moisture; the 
 vacuum also is liable to be filled with rubbish or other nuisances. I sup- 
 pose your inquiry has reference more especially to schoolrooms, and yon 
 will permit me to remark, that walls plastered upon the brick- work, without 
 furring, are not only liable to dampness, but always cold, and, next to iron or 
 marble, conductors of heat. Now, the youth in school are always allowed, 
 and much enjoy and improve, recesses for play and exercise ; they return 
 to their studies, glowing with a brisk circulation of vital warmth, and it is 
 clear, if in this state they come in contact with such a wall or any other 
 powerful conductor, a sudden change is produced, and the subject is injured 
 in health. Add to this, the uncomfortableness of such a wall : it is also 
 cheerless and unpleasant, and nothing of this kind should come in contact 
 with the mental or physical sense of the student. Will you pardon me, 
 sir, if I mention also, though aside from your inquiries, that the proportion* 
 and ventilation of schoolrooms are of vast moment to the well-being and 
 improvement of the pupil? I think there is native taste in every we.U- 
 baiunced mind, though uneducated; whatever, therefore, is brought m
 
 452 REPORT OP THE SECRETARY 
 
 SIZE. 
 
 
 
 The next thing in point of importance in regard to a 
 schoolhouse is its dimensions. In almost every thing 
 
 constant contact with that of the learner, should be symmetrical and agree- 
 able. 
 
 " The gas which is generated in assemblies of youth will arise and 
 escape through attic ventilators, while that produced by adults is more 
 dense, and of such a nature as to require apertures below to allow its escape. 
 These last hints are gratuitous, but your efforts in the cause of Education 
 will lead you to favor any auxiliary, however humble. 
 
 " I remain, sir, very respectfully, your ob't serv't, 
 
 " J. JENKINS." 
 
 " Worcester, Feb. 27, 1839. 
 
 " Dear Sir, I received your favor of the 25th instant, in which you 
 propose the inquiry, 'whether you think it a safe or proper mode of con- 
 structing brick buildings, to plaster the inside of the exterior walls, directly 
 upon the bricks, or without furring.' 
 
 " Many persons object to brick houses, because they are damp ; others 
 think them colder than houses built of wood. The reason for both ob- 
 jections lies in the fact, that many houses are plastered on the brick walls. 
 It' the walls of a brick house are furred or built hollow, they are nearly or 
 quite as dry as a house built of wood, and quite as warm. 
 
 " A brick wall, eight inches thick, is rarely so tight as to exclude the 
 external air or the rain in a driving storm, and of course should never be 
 plastered on the inside, but be furred so as to leave a space for air between 
 the wall and plastering. All brick walls, but particularly thick ones, are 
 generally colder than the atmosphere of the rooms, and will transmit the 
 heat so rapidly as to form a condensation of the vapor of the atmosphere 
 upon them, rendering them damp, and this moisture frequently accumulates 
 in such quantity as to be visible in drops and currents upon the wall. Such 
 houses can neither be comfortable nor healthful. 
 
 " If the walls of a house are not constructed so as to be hollow, or 
 have a vacant space of an inch or two in the brick-work, they ought to be 
 furred, lathed, and plastered, so as to leave a space for air between the brick 
 and plastering, which makes the house both warmer and dryer than it can 
 otherwise be made. 
 
 " Some years ago, I was frequently in a very handsome brick house, 
 built at great expense, but the exterior walls were plastered on the brick. 
 It had many occupants, all of whom concurred in the statement, that the 
 house was damp, and that articles of clothing, in closets no way connected
 
 ON SCHOOLHOUSES. 453 
 
 heretofore written on this subject, the size of the school- 
 room, in proportion to the number of scholars, has been a 
 very leading topic. And certainly, if there be no special 
 means provided for changing the air in the room, the im- 
 portance of liberal dimensions cannot be exaggerated. 
 But if, instead of forcing foul air back again and again 
 into the children's lungs, we permit Nature to perform her 
 gratuitous and beneficent labor, by carrying it beyond 
 their reach, as soon as it has once been respired, then one 
 main object of increasing the size of the room is already 
 accomplished. The great end of a supply of heathful air 
 being secured, the dimensions of the room are left to be 
 determined by other considerations. These are, the con- 
 venient arrangement of the seats, so that the teacher can 
 survey the whole school with a single look ; so that each 
 scholar can have an easy access to his own seat, without 
 disturbing or being disturbed by any other ; and so as 
 to remove the temptations to communicate, to play, or to 
 aggress. 
 
 In regard to the size of the rooms, it may be observed, 
 generally, that in addition to the room requisite for seats 
 and desks, as described below, there should be an open 
 space all round the walls, at least two feet and a half in 
 width, besides room for common recitations, and for the 
 teacher's desk. Seats may be attached to the walls for 
 the accommodation of visitors, or for the scholars, should 
 it ever be desirable, for any purpose, to arrange them in 
 a continuous line. Movable benches may be provided, 
 
 with the outer walls of the house, would become mouldy, and spoil, if not 
 attended to frequently ; and that all clothing and bedding in rooms not 
 constantly occupied would be so damp as to be quite unsafe and unfit 
 for use. 
 
 " Yours very truly and affectionately, 
 
 " SAMUEL B. WOODWARD."
 
 454 EEPORT OP THE SECRETARY 
 
 instead of seats fastened to the wall, to be taken 
 away, when not wanted for use, and so to leave that space 
 entirely unoccupied. Joseph Lancaster, in making ar- 
 rangements for great numbers of the children of the poor, 
 where cheapness was a main object, allows nine feet area, 
 on the floor, to each scholar. His rooms were fifteen 
 or twenty feet high. If only fifteen feet high, an area 
 of nine feet would give one hundred and thirty-five cubic 
 feet of space to each scholar; and one hundred and 
 thirty-five cubic feet in a room ten feet high would give 
 to each scholar an area four feet in length and almost 
 three feet and a half in width. Even at this rate, a 
 family of six persons would have a room only about eight 
 feet by ten. 
 
 DESKS, SEATS, &c. 
 
 It seems to be a very prevalent opinion, at the present 
 day, amongst all professional teachers, that seats on a 
 horizontal floor are preferable to those which rise on the 
 sides or at the end of a room, or both, in the form of an 
 amphitheatre. And it is obviously a great fault in the 
 construction of a room, if, when a class is brought upon 
 the floor to recite, the teacher is obliged to turn his back 
 upon the school, when he looks at the class, or upon the 
 class when he looks at the school. A level floor also 
 increases the space for air, and as the room is warmed 
 downwards, it makes the temperature more equable. The 
 seats with desks should be arranged in parallel lines, 
 lengthwise of the room, with aisles between, each seat to 
 accommodate one scholar only. Although it would be 
 better that they should be movable, yet as this cannot, 
 perhaps, ordinarily be done for district schools, the front 
 side of one seat may be the back of the next in the row. 
 Eighteen inches is, perhaps, a suitable width for the aisles.
 
 ON SCHOOLHOUSES. 455 
 
 Each desk should be two feet long, and not less than one 
 foot and six inches wide. A width of one foot and nine 
 inches would be better. In some houses, the seats con- 
 nected with single desks are one foot square, and are 
 placed behind the middle of the desks ; in others the 
 seats are one foot wide and as long as the desks. It may 
 sometimes be desirable to place two scholars temporarily 
 on the same seat, as for the purpose of reading from the 
 same book. The former arrangement would make this 
 impracticable. The children will sit more easily and 
 more upright, if the back of the seats slope a little from 
 them, at the shoulder-blades ; and also, if the seats them- 
 selves incline a little the front part being a little tho 
 highest. The forward part of the desk should be level 
 for about three or four inches. The residue should have 
 a slight inclination. A slope of an inch and a half in a 
 foot would, probably, be sufficient. It should not be so 
 great, as that books and slates would slide off. For the 
 deposit of books, and so forth, there may be a shelf under 
 the desk, or the desk may be a box, with a cover, hung 
 upon hinges for a lid. The first method supersedes the 
 necessity of raising a lid, by which books, pencils, and so 
 forth, are sometimes thrown upon the floor or upon the 
 front neighbor. The shelf, however, is far less convenient, 
 and the contents are liable to be perpetually dropped out. 
 The bo"x and lid, on the whole, seem much preferable, the 
 sloping part of the cover to constitute the lid. For the 
 security of the desks, locks and keys are sometimes used. 
 But the keys will occasionally be lost, by accident ; and 
 sometimes, by bad scholars, on purpose. Besides, what 
 appalling images throng the mind, at the reflection, that 
 the earliest associations of children in regard to the 
 security of property amongst themselves, must be of locks 
 and hiding-places, instead of honesty and justice ! The
 
 456 REPORT OF THE SECRETARY 
 
 board which makes the front of one seat and the back of 
 the next should rise, perhaps a couple of inches, above 
 the level of the horizontal part of the desk, to prevent 
 things from sliding off forwards. Into this horizontal 
 part of the desk, the inkstands may be let : so loosely, 
 however, as to allow of their being taken out to be filled ; 
 and so deep, that their tops will be on a level with the 
 desks. They may be covered, either with a metallic lid, 
 resembling a butt hinge, to rise and fall ; or, which is 
 better, with a common slide, or with a flat circular piece 
 of pewter, having a stem projecting on one side, like the 
 stem of a watch, through which a nail or screw may be 
 driven, not tightly, but so that the cover may be made to 
 slide over or off the orifice of the inkstand, on the nail or 
 screw, as a hinge. 
 
 Instead of the form of desks, above described, I have 
 seen some, constructed after the plan of Mr. Alcott's 
 Prize Essay, in which the box or case for the books, and 
 so forth, is in the front part of the desk ; that is, in the 
 horizontal and not the sloping part of the desk above 
 described. They are made about eight inches in width, 
 and deep enough to receive the largest atlases, slates, and 
 writing-books, when placed edgewise, for which purpose, 
 an inch or two on one side of the box is partitioned off. 
 The lid is hung on hinges, as above described, and when 
 shut forms a part of the desk.* 
 
 Last year, a gentleman in Hartford, Conn., offered a 
 handsome premium for the best form of a desk for schools. 
 Several plans were submitted to the judges selected to 
 award the premium. They decided in favor of a desk, 
 designed to accommodate two scholars, upon one seat. 
 
 * Mr. Alcott's Prize Essay may be found at the end of the second vol. 
 ume of the Lectures, published by the American Institute of Instruction, in 
 1831, and is a very valuable paper.
 
 ON SCHOOLHOUSE8. 457 
 
 The desk was a tight box, without any lid, but having an 
 oblong opening, at each end, large enough to admit books, 
 slates, <fec. In this way, whatever was put in or taken out 
 of the desk would be exposed to the view of the teacher 
 and scholars. 
 
 The edge of the desk and of the seat should be in the 
 same perpendicular line. This will not allow the scholar 
 to stand up in front of his seat ; but if the seats and desks 
 are single, he can stand on one side of the seat. If 
 the seats and desks are designed for two scholars, then the 
 corner of each scholar's seat may be cut off, as in the 
 representation below. 
 
 Here each scholar can stand up in the corner a, or sit 
 upon the seat b. 
 
 In regard to the height of the seats, it is common to 
 give exact measurements. But inflexible rules will never 
 fit varying circumstances. Some schoolrooms are for 
 females ; others for boys only. In factory villages, usu- 
 ally, a great portion of the scholars are young ; while, in 
 one county in the State, great numbers of the males 
 attending school, during the winter term, are more than 
 sixteen years of age. To follow unvarying rules, there- 
 fore, would aggrieve as many as it would accommodate. 
 But the principles to be observed are few, and capable of 
 a definite exposition. A live child cannot be expected to 
 sit still, unless he has a support to his back, and a firm 
 resting-place for his feet. As a scholar sits upright in his 
 seat, the knee-joint forming a right angle, and the feet 
 being planted horizon tally on the floor, no pressure what- 
 ever should come upon the thigh-bone where it crosses
 
 458 REPORT OF THE SECRETARY 
 
 the edge of the seat. If obliged to sit upon too high a 
 seat, a foot-board or block should always be provided for 
 the feet to rest upon. Children sometimes go to school 
 at an age when many of their bones are almost as limber 
 as a green with, when almost any one of the numerous 
 joints in the body may be loosened or distorted. They 
 go almost as early, as when the Chinese turn their chil- 
 dren's feet into the shape of horses' hoofs ; or when some 
 tribes of Indians make their children's heads as square as 
 a joiner's box. And, at this period of life, when portions 
 of the bones are but little more than cartilage, and the 
 muscles will stretch like sheep's leather, the question is, 
 whether the seats shall be conformed to the children, or 
 the children shall be deformed to the seats. I wish to 
 fortify myself on this subject, by making a few extracts 
 from a lecture on Physical Education, by that celebrated 
 surgeon, Dr. John C. Warren. "When children are sent 
 to school, care should be taken, that they are not confined 
 too long. Children under fourteen should not be kept in 
 school more than six or seven hours in a day ; and this 
 period should be shortened for females. It is expedient 
 that it should be broken into many parts, so as to avoid a 
 long confinement at one time. Young persons, however 
 well disposed, cannot support a restriction to one place 
 and one posture. Nature resists such restrictions ; and 
 if enforced, they are apt to create disgust with the means 
 and the object. Thus children learn to hate studies, that 
 might be rendered agreeable, and they take an aversion 
 to instructors, who would otherwise be interesting to 
 them. 
 
 "The postures they assume, while seated at their 
 studies, are not indifferent. They should be frequently 
 warned against the practice of maintaining the head and 
 neck long in a stooping position, and the disposition to
 
 ON SCHOOLHOUSES. 459 
 
 it should be lessened by giving a proper elevation and 
 slope to the desk, and the seat should have a support or 
 back. 
 
 " The influence of an upright form and open breast has 
 been sufficiently explained ; and what may be done to 
 acquire these qualities, is shown by many remarkable 
 facts, one of which I will mention. For a great number 
 of years, it has been the custom in France to give to 
 young females of the earliest age, the habit of holding 
 back the shoulders, and thus expanding the chest. From 
 the observation of anatomists, lately made, it appears that 
 the clavicle or collar bone is actually longer in females 
 of the French nation, than in those of the English. The 
 French have succeeded in the development of a part, in 
 a way that adds to health and beauty, and increases a 
 characteristic, that distinguishes the human being from 
 the brute. 
 
 " While all of us are desirous of possessing the excel- 
 lent qualities of strength, hardiness, and beauty, how 
 defective are our own systems of education in the means 
 of acquiring them ! 
 
 " In the course of my observations, I have been able 
 to satisfy myself, that about half the young females, 
 brought up as they are at present, undergo some visible 
 and obvious change of structure ; that a considerable 
 number are the subjects of great and permanent devia- 
 tions ; and that not a few entirely lose their health from 
 the manner in which they are reared. 
 
 " I feel warranted in the assertion, that, of the well- 
 educated females, within my sphere of experience, about 
 one-half are affected with some degree of distortion of 
 spine. 
 
 " The lateral distortion of the spine is almost wholly 
 confined to females, and is scarcely ever found existing
 
 460 REPORT OF THE SECRETARY 
 
 in the other sex. The difference results from a difference 
 of habits during the school education. The immediate 
 cause of the lateral curve of the spine to the right is the 
 elevation and action of the right arm in drawing and 
 writing." 
 
 Much more might be quoted, apposite to this important 
 subject. It seems only necessary to add, that nothing so 
 essentially tends to aggravate these evils, as the want of 
 a proper resting-place for the feet. Let any man try the 
 experiment, and see how long he can sit in an upright 
 posture, on a narrow bench or seat, without being able to 
 reach the floor with his feet, and consequently witli the 
 whole weight of his feet, boots, and the lower parts of 
 the lirnbs, acting with the power of a lever across the 
 middle of the thigh-bones. Yet, to this position, hun- 
 dreds of children in this State are regularly confined, 
 month after month ; and while condemned to this unnat- 
 ural posture, Nature inflicts her punishments of insup- 
 portable uneasiness and distress on every joint and muscle 
 if they do sit still, and the teacher inflicts his punishments 
 if they do not. A gentleman, extensively known to the 
 citizens of this State for the benevolence of his charac- 
 ter, and the candor of his statements, who, for the last 
 twenty years, has probably visited more of our Common 
 Schools than any other person in the State, writes to me 
 as follows : " I have no hesitation in repeating what I 
 have often publicly declared, that, from the bad construc- 
 tion of our schoolhouses, there is more physical suffering 
 endured by our children in them than by prisoners in our 
 jails and prisons." * The following is an extract of a 
 letter, addressed to a "Common- School Convention" held 
 at Northampton in February, 1837, by Dr. Joseph H. 
 Flint, of that place : " For want of attention to the 
 
 * The Rev. Gardiner B. Perry, of Bradford.
 
 ON SCHOOLHOUSES. 461 
 
 subject," (the construction of schoolhouses,) " I have the 
 means of knowing, that there has been annually loss of 
 life, destruction of health, and, in numberless instances, 
 anatomical deformities, that render life hardly worth 
 having. In the construction of schoolhouses, there are 
 many considerations, involving the comfort, and health, 
 and life, of the young," &c. 
 
 I am informed by surgeons and physicians, that a pupil, 
 when writing, should face the writing-desk squarely. This 
 position avoids all unequal lateral pressure upon the spinal 
 column, and of course all unequal tension of the muscles 
 on either side of it. It also interferes least with the free 
 play of the thoracic viscera, which is a point of great 
 importance. The edge of the desk should then be an 
 inch or two above the bend of the elbow, as the arm 
 hangs nearly by the side. Any slight want of exact 
 adjustment can be corrected, by extending the elbow 
 farther from, or bringing it nearer to, the body. 
 
 The height of the seats and desks should of course be 
 graduated, to fit the different sizes of the scholars ; the 
 smallest scholars sitting nearest the teacher's desk. 
 
 The arrangement of seats without desks, for small 
 scholars, when needed, is too obvious to require any expla- 
 nation. Their proper position will depend upon the 
 other arrangements of the schoolroom. Long benches, 
 having separate chair-shaped seats, but with a continuous 
 back, are sometimes used. 
 
 The place for hanging hats, bonnets, and so forth, will 
 also depend upon the general construction of the house. 
 It should be such as to encourage habits of neatness and 
 order. 
 
 The instructor's desk should be upon a platform, raised 
 so high as to give him a view of the persons of the pupils 
 above their desks. When the school is not large, it
 
 462 REPORT OP THE SECRETARY 
 
 should be at the end of the room. It should overlook 
 the play-ground. Cases for the deposit and preservation 
 of the apparatus and library should be near the desk, 
 except where a separate apartment is provided. A teacher 
 without apparatus, however numerous may be hi* 
 books, is like a mechanic with but half a set of 
 tools. 
 
 The average number of scholars in the schools in Mas- 
 sachusetts is about fifty. When the school is large, 
 there should be a separation of the older from the 
 younger children, and the latter, at least, placed under 
 the care of a female teacher. The opinion is almost 
 universal, in this State, that female teaching for young 
 children is. in every respect, superior to male. If the 
 number of the older scholars be large, there should be a 
 separate recitation-room, and a door and an entry for the 
 entrance and accommodation of each sex. 
 
 In very large schools, it may be thought expedient to 
 have desks, sufficiently long to accommodate six or more 
 scholars, with chairs, fastened to the floor, for seats, and 
 a space between the chairs and the next tier of desks, for 
 passing in and out. In such cases, the desks may be 
 placed longitudinally, and the teacher's platform for him- 
 self and assistants extend the whole length of the room, 
 in front of them. 
 
 I now come to a subject, which I think of primary 
 importance. It is the almost universal practice of teach- 
 ers to call their classes out upon the floor for reading and 
 recitation. If there were no other reason, the change of 
 position it gives them is a sufficient one. The seats in 
 schoolrooms are, almost without exception, so arranged, 
 that these proceedings take place in full view of all the 
 scholars ; and they are often so, that when the teacher 
 turns his face towards the class, he must turn his back
 
 ON SCHOOLHOUSES. 463 
 
 upon the school. The idle and disorderly seize upon such 
 occasions to violate the rules of the school. This they 
 can generally do with perfect impunity. They can screen 
 themselves from observation, by moving the head so that 
 an intermediate scholar shall intercept the teachqr's view; 
 or by holding up a book, slate, or atlas before themselves, 
 and under such shield, can whisper, eat, or grimace. 
 But the effect upon the attentive is worse than upon the 
 idle ; and its tendency is to turn the former into the 
 latter. The eye is the quickest of all the senses, and 
 the minds of children always yield instant obedience to 
 it, and follow wherever it leads. Every one must have 
 observed, that when a class is reciting in presence of a 
 school, if any thing unusual or incongruous transpires, 
 such as the falling of a book or slate, or the ludicrous 
 pronunciation of a word, the attention of every scholar 
 is broken off from his study. The blunder or stammer- 
 ing of a four-years-old child, learning letters, will strike 
 every hand in the school off its work. While the senses, 
 and especially the eye, are bringing vivid images to the 
 mind, it is almost impossible for men, and quite so for 
 children, to deny them access. Much of what the world 
 admires as talent, is only a power of fixing attention upon 
 an object, and of looking steadily at it until the whole of 
 it is seen. The power of concentration is one of the 
 most valuable of intellectual attainments, because it is 
 the principal means of achieving any other; and the 
 pupil, with but little positive knowledge, in whom this 
 has become a habit of mind, has a far higher chance of 
 success in any walk of life, than one with a thousand 
 times the knowledge, but without the habit. This power 
 is an acquired one as much as any other, and as suscep- 
 tible as any other of improvement. But overtasking de- 
 stroys it, just as overloading the limbs crushes, instead of
 
 464 REPORT OF THE SECRETARY 
 
 strengthening them. Reference must be had, therefore, to 
 the ordinary powers of children's minds, or we shall have 
 distraction instead of abstraction. Much fixedness of 
 thought ought not to be expected from the giddiness and 
 volatility of children. In rooms of the common construc- 
 tion, I do not believe that more than one-half of the time is 
 available for study. Not only, therefore, ought the desire 
 of strengthening this power to be inspired, but the ar- 
 rangement of the room and the tactics of the school 
 should be made to contribute, unconsciously to the chil- 
 dren, to the same effect. Although the habits of the 
 mind are the main thing to be regarded in education, yet 
 it cannot be denied that one hour of concentrated atten- 
 tion on any subject is worth more than a week's listless 
 hovering and floating around it. Hence, where there is 
 no separate recitation-room, (which, however, every large 
 school ought to have,) the area for that purpose should 
 be behind the scholars who remain in their seats. The 
 teacher can then take such a position at the end of the 
 room, opposite his desk, as to command at once a view 
 of the reciting class and the rest of the school. He will 
 then see, without being seen. The scholars can interpose 
 nothing between themselves and him. Every scholar 
 would be convinced, by strict vigilance on the part of the 
 teacher, during the first week of the school, that he had 
 no power of violating rules without detection. They 
 would, therefore, yield to the necessity of the case. The 
 temptation would die with the opportunity to gratify it. 
 The ear only of the scholars would be solicited to notice 
 the voices behind them, while the stronger attraction of 
 visible objects, the book, the slate, the map, would rivet 
 eye and mind upon the subjects of study. This slight 
 interruption in the rear, while the mind enjoyed such 
 advantages for overcoming it, would increase its power
 
 ON SCHOOLHOUSES. 465 
 
 of continuous attention, and enable it, in after-life, to 
 cany on processes of thought in the midst of conversa- 
 tion or other disturbing occurrences. Still, it is thought, 
 that the teacher's desk should always face those of 
 the scholars ; so that when a class recites in the seats, 
 when the whole school joins in any exercise, or when they 
 are to be addressed, each party should be able to see the 
 other face to face. The social principle will never, other- 
 wise, flow freely. 
 
 LOCATION OF SCHOOLHOUSES. 
 
 All philosophers agree that external objects affect tem- 
 per and character. If their influences are imperceptible, 
 the results will be so much the surer, because impercep- 
 tible influences are never resisted. Because children 
 cannot analyze and state in propositions the feelings, 
 which outward circumstances breathe into their suscepti- 
 ble minds, it is no proof that they are not undergoing 
 insensible changes. Everybody recognizes the silent influ- 
 ences of external nature, if exerted only for a few days, 
 in the case of those religious sects who use the forest for 
 a temple. Fatal contagions enter through the skin or 
 lungs, without sending forward any herald. Subtile 
 influences upon such delicate tissues as the nerves and 
 brain are not seen in the process, but only in the result. 
 But experience and reason enable us to foresee such con- 
 sequences, and, foreseeing, to"control them. Adults alone 
 can perform such a duty. If they neglect it, the children 
 must suffer. 
 
 It has been often objected to the people of our State, 
 that they insist upon having the schoolhouse in the geo- 
 graphical centre of the district. And, other things being 
 equal, surely it ought to be in the centre. But the house 
 is erected for the children, and not for the acres ; and 
 
 VOL. I. 80
 
 466 REPORT OF THE SECRETARY 
 
 the inconvenience of going fifty or even eighty rods 
 farther is not to be compared to the benefit of spending 
 a whole day in a healthful, comfortable, pleasing spot, 
 one full of salutary influences upon the feelings and 
 temper. Place a schoolhouse in a bleak and unsheltered 
 situation, and the difficulty of attaining and preserving a 
 proper degree of warmth is much increased ; put it upon 
 a sandy plain, without shade or shelter from the sun, and 
 the whole school is subjected to the evils of heat and dust ; 
 plant it in low marshy grounds, and it exposes to colds 
 or to more permanent diseases of the lungs, and impairs 
 habits of cleanliness both in dress and person ; make one 
 side of it the boundary of a public road, and the persons 
 of the children are endangered by the travel, when out, 
 and their attention, when in, called off the lesson by 
 every passer-by ; place it on a little remnant or delta of 
 land, where roads encircle it on all sides, without any 
 place of seclusion from the public gaze, and the modesty 
 of nature will be overlaid with habits of indecorum ; and 
 a want of decency, enforced upon boys and girls, will 
 become physical and moral turpitude in men and women. 
 But build it where some sheltering hill or wood mitigates 
 the inclemency of winter ; where a neighboring grove 
 tempers the summer heat, furnishing cool and shady 
 walks : remove it a little from the public highway, and 
 from buildings where noisy and clattering trades are 
 carried on ; and, above all, rescue it from sound or 
 sight of all resorts for license and dissipation, and a 
 sensibility to beauty, a purity of mind, a sentiment of 
 decency and propriety, will be developed and fostered, 
 and the chances of elevated feelings and correct conduct 
 in after-life will be increased manifold. Habits of mental 
 order and propriety are best cherished amidst external 
 order and propriety. It is a most beautiful trait in the
 
 ON SCHOOLHOUSES. 467 
 
 character of children, that they take the keenest delight 
 in the simplest pleasures. Their desires do not tax com- 
 merce for its luxuries, nor exhaust wealth for its embel- 
 lishments. Such pleasures as are imparted by the cheer- 
 ful light and the quickening air, by the wayside flowers, 
 the running stream, or the music of birds, are sufficient 
 for the more gentle and pensive ; and the impetuous and 
 exuberant of spirit only want a place to let off the 
 redundant activity of their arms and legs. And how 
 cheaply can these sources of gratification be purchased ! 
 Sometimes a little of the spirit of compromise ; some- 
 times a little forgetfulness of strifes among the parents, 
 engendered on other subjects, would secure to the children 
 the double boon of utility and enjoyment. Yet how often 
 are the unoffending children ground between the col- 
 lisions of their parents ! 
 
 It seems not unconnected with this subject to inquire, 
 whether, in many places out of our cities, a plan may not 
 be adopted to give greater efficiency to the means now 
 devoted to common-school education. The population of 
 many towns is so situated as conveniently to allow a gra- 
 dation of the schools. For children under the age of 
 eight or ten years, about a mile seems a proper limit, be- 
 yond which they should not be required to travel to school. 
 On this supposition, one house, as centrally situated as 
 circumstances will permit, would accommodate the popu- 
 lation upon a territory of four square miles, or, which is 
 the same thing, two miles square. But a child above that 
 age can go two miles to school, or even rather more, with- 
 out serious inconvenience. There are many persons, whose 
 experience attests, that they never enjoyed better health, 
 or made greater progress, than when they went two miles 
 and a half or three miles, daily, to school. Supposing, 
 however, the most remote scholars to live only at about the
 
 468 
 
 distance of two miles from the school, one house will then 
 accommodate all the older children upon a territory of 
 about sixteen square miles, or four miles square. Under 
 such an arrangement, while there were four schools in a 
 territory of four miles square, i. e. sixteen square miles, 
 for the younger children, there would be one central 
 school for the older. Suppose there is $600 to be divided 
 amongst the inhabitants of this territory of sixteen square 
 miles, or $150 for each of the four districts. Suppose 
 further, that the average wages for male teachers is $25, 
 and for female $12.50, per month. If, according to the 
 present system, four male teachers are employed for the 
 winter term, and four female for the summer, each of 
 the summer and winter schools may be kept four months. 
 The money would then be exhausted ; i. e. four months 
 summer, at $12.50 =$50, and four months winter, at $25 
 = $100; both = $150. But according to the plan 
 suggested, the same money would pay for six months' 
 summer school, instead of four, in each of the four dis- 
 tricts, and for a male teacher's school eight months, at 
 $35 a month, instead of four months, at $25 a month, 
 and would then leave $20 in the treasury. 
 
 4 miles. 
 
 Territory four miles 
 square, or of six- 
 teen square miles. 
 
 2 m. 
 
 a 
 
 a. a. a. a. District 
 school-houses for 
 female teachers. 
 
 A. Central school- 
 bouse for a male 
 teacher.
 
 ON SCHOOLHOUSES. 469 
 
 By this plan, the great superiority of female over male 
 training, for children under eight, ten, or twelve years of 
 age, would be secured ; the larger scholars would be sep- 
 arated from the smaller, and thus the great diversity of 
 studies and of classes in the same school, which now crum- 
 bles the teacher's time into dust, would be avoided ; the 
 female schools would be lengthened one-half; the length 
 of the male schools would be doubled, and for the in- 
 creased compensation, a teacher of fourfold qualifications 
 could be employed. Undoubtedly, in many towns, upon 
 the Cape or among the mountains, the course of the roads 
 and the face of the territory would present insuperable 
 obstacles to the full reduction of this scheme to practice. 
 But it is as unquestionable, that in many others no physical 
 impediments exist to its immediate adoption ; especially 
 if we consider the legal power of different towns to unite 
 portions of their territory for the joint maintenance of 
 schools. We have not yet brought the power of united 
 action to bear with half its force upon the end or the 
 means of education. I think it will yet be found more em- 
 phatically true in this department of human action, than 
 in any other, that adding individual means muliplies social 
 power. If four districts cannot be united, three may. If 
 the central point of the territory happen to be populous, 
 a schoolhouse may be built, consisting of two rooms ; one 
 for the large, the other for the small scholars ; both upon 
 the same floor, or one above the other. It ought to be 
 remarked, that where there are two schoolrooms under 
 the same roof, care should be taken to have the walls 
 well deafened, so that neither should ever be incommoded 
 by any noises in the other. 
 
 The above enumeration of requisites in a schoolhouse 
 is considered absolutely essential and indispensable. Just 
 so far as they are disregarded, that nursery for the rear-
 
 470 REPORT OP THE SECRETARY 
 
 ing of vigorous, intelligent, and upright men, must fail 
 of its object. If the children's lungs are fed only with 
 noxious and corrupted air, which has once performed its 
 office, and is, therefore, incapable of performing it again, 
 without renovation, it may generate positive and incura- 
 ble disease, and impair the energies both of body and mind 
 for the residue of life. " In looking back upon the lan- 
 guor of fifty years of labor as a teacher," said the vener- 
 able Mr. Woodbridge, " reiterated with many a weary day, 
 I attribute a great proportion of it to mephitic air ; nor 
 can I doubt that it has compelled many worthy and prom- 
 ising' teachers to quit the employment. Neither can I 
 doubt that it has been the great cause of their subsequent 
 sickly habits and untimely decease." People, who shud- 
 der at a flesh-wound and a trickle of blood, will confine 
 their children like convicts, and compel them, month after 
 month, to breathe quantities of poison. It would less 
 impair the mental and physical constitutions of our chil- 
 dren, gradually to draw an ounce of blood from their 
 veins, during the same length of time, than to send them 
 to breathe, for six hours in a day, the lifeless and poisoned 
 air of some of our schoolrooms. Let any man, who votes 
 for confining children in small rooms and keeping them 
 on stagnant air, try the experiment of breathing his own 
 breath only four times over ; and, if medical aid be not 
 at hand, the children will never be endangered by his 
 vote afterwards. Such darkening and benumbing of the 
 mind accustoms it, in its first beginnings, to look at 
 objects, as it were, through a haze, and to seize them with 
 a feeble grasp, and robs it of the pleasure of seeing things 
 in a bright light. Children always feel a keen delight in 
 the consciousness of overcoming difficulties, and of fully 
 comprehending any subject. This pleasure is the most 
 legitimate of all rewards, and one which Nature always
 
 ON SCHOOLHOUSES. 471 
 
 pays down on the spot. But, instead of this, after filling 
 their brains with bird-lime, we taunt or chastise them if 
 they stick or get posed. If a child suffer from heat or 
 cold, from a constrained or unnatural position ; if his 
 attention be perpetually broken off by causes beyond his 
 control ; it tends to make his temper fretful and irritable, 
 and compels him to go back, again and again, to the begin- 
 ning of his problem or exercise, like a traveller obliged 
 to return home and commence his journey anew after 
 having completed half its distance. 
 
 LIGHT. WINDOWS. 
 
 The manner in which a schoolhouse is lighted is of no 
 inconsiderable consequence. The additional cost of obey- 
 ing philosophical principles is, at most, trivial. We ought 
 also to remember, that the laws of Nature are never vio- 
 lated with impunity. In modern times the eye is much 
 more used than it formerly was. Civilization has imposed 
 multiplied and difficult labors upon that organ. Perhaps 
 the eye gives fewer monitions of being overworked, than 
 any other bodily power. It seems more to exhaust its 
 strength, and then fail irrecoverably. If so, it should be 
 protected by the foresight of reason. When provision is 
 not made for admitting into a schoolroom a good deal more 
 light than is ordinarily wanted, there will frequently be too 
 little, and no remedy. Hence the windows should be 
 such, as to furnish sufficient light at all times, and means 
 should be provided for excluding any excess. Window- 
 blinds and curtains, therefore, are essential. The transi- 
 tions of light in the open air are very great ; but it is to 
 be observed, that there is no out-of-door occupation which 
 severely tasks the eye. But in a schoolroom, without 
 blinds or curtains, when the sun is allowed to shine 
 directly upon a child's head, book, or desk, the transition
 
 472 REPORT OF THE SECRETARY 
 
 is greater and more sudden than in the open air ; while, 
 at the same time, the eye, being intensely engaged in look- 
 ing at minute objects, has its pupil widely distended, so that 
 the greatest quantity of light falls upon the optic nerve. 
 
 The following is extracted from a lecture, delivered by 
 Dr. Edward Reynolds, of Boston, before the American 
 Institute of Instruction, in 1833. " How much talent 
 lies dormant by the morbidly sensitive eyesight, occasioned 
 by inordinate and untimely use of the eyes ! This last- 
 mentioned evil is increasing to a fearful amount among 
 the young. Accurate inquiries have convinced me, that 
 a large number of these individuals must go back to the 
 schoolroom to find the source of their infirmities." 
 
 No persons, going with their eyes unprotected, ever 
 cross the Andes, without losing their sight. The glare 
 of light from the snow destroys it. Such facts admonish 
 us to beware of exposing the eyes of the young, either to 
 very intense light, or to great transitions, while engaged 
 in looking at small letters, or in making fine marks on 
 white paper. To say that the loss or impairing of sight 
 is an evil too contingent and uncertain to demand precau- 
 tion, is neither philosophical nor humane. Admit, that it 
 is a contingent and uncertain evil, in regard to any par- 
 ticular individual so exposed ; as it is uncertain, which 
 of the children, in Egypt, shall be blind men ; yet that 
 some one out of a given number, subjected to the danger, 
 shall be blind, is as certain as any law of Nature. Laws 
 applicable to classes of men are just as infallible in their 
 operation as those applicable to individuals, though we 
 cannot foresee upon which of the individuals in the class 
 the law is to be verified. In a multitude of cases, each 
 tendency, however slight, will have its quota of the 
 results. Hence the necessity of meeting tendencies with 
 
 prevention.* 
 
 * See Appendix D.
 
 ON SCHOOLHOUSES. 473 
 
 In order that passing, out-door objects and events may 
 not draw off the attention of the scholars, it is usually 
 recommended to insert the windows so high, that such 
 objects and events will be invisible in the schoolroom. It 
 cannot, however, be denied, that this gives to the room a 
 prison or cellar-like appearance. May not such interrup- 
 tions be better avoided by selecting a retired situation, 
 and by arranging the seats, so that the scholars shall sit 
 facing from the road ? Nor can there be any necessity 
 for having the windows very high for this purpose. As 
 scholars sit in their seats, the eyes of but few will be more 
 than three feet and a half from the floor. This would 
 allow of windows six feet deep in a room ten feet high. 
 So, too, it would be a perfect security against the evil, if 
 the lower sash, or the lowest part of it, were glazed with 
 ground glass. The windows should be made so that the 
 upper sash can be lowered. This may be very desirable 
 in summer, independently of the considerations, above 
 urged, in regard to ventilation. 
 
 YAEDS OR PLAY-GROUNDS. 
 
 On this subject, I have never seen, nor am I able to 
 prepare, any thing so judicious, and apposite to the con- 
 dition of the districts in Massachusetts, as the following 
 paragraphs, taken from a Report, published in 1833, " by 
 order of the Directors of the Essex-County Teachers' 
 Association." 
 
 " As the situation should be pleasant and healthful, so 
 there should be sufficient space around the building. With 
 the number who ordinarily attend these institutions, not 
 less than a quarter of an acre should ever be thought of 
 as a space for their accommodation ; and this should be 
 enclosed from the public highway, so as to secure it from 
 cattle, that the children may have a safe and clean place
 
 474 REPORT OP THE SECRETARY 
 
 for exercise at recess and at other times. We believe it 
 no uncommon thing for a district to meet with difficulty 
 in procuring a place for a house ; for while most wish it 
 to be near, they are unwilling to have it stand on a notch, 
 taken out of their own field. This reluctance to accom- 
 modate the district may have been carried too far ; the 
 actual may be less than the imagined evils. Yet it is 
 not without foundation ; for in most instances, from 
 the scanty and niggardly provision made by the district, the 
 man knows that his own cultivated fields must and will 
 be made the place of the scholars' recreation. We do 
 not overstate, when we say, that more than half the 
 inconveniences which persons thus experience in their 
 property from the contiguity of a schoolhouse, arises from 
 the insufficient provision made for the children by the 
 district. While all the district may think that a neigh- 
 bor is unaccommodating, because he is unwilling to let 
 them have just land enough to set their house upon, the 
 real truth is, that the smallness of the lot is the very thing 
 which justifies his reluctance ; for whether he theorize or 
 not on the subject, he well understands that he will have 
 to afford accommodations, which the district are unwill- 
 ing on their part to purchase. Every schoolhouse lot 
 should be large enough for the rational exercise which 
 the children ought to have, and will take. It would be 
 well to have it large enough to contain some ornamental 
 and fruit trees, with flower-borders, which we know chil- 
 dren may be taught to cultivate and enjoy ; and by an 
 attention to which their ideas of property, and common 
 rights, and obligations, would become more distinct. By 
 attention to what belonged to themselves, they would be 
 kept from many of those wanton injuries too often done 
 to the possessions of those near them. 
 
 " In regard to space, no one can be ignorant of the gen-
 
 ON SCHOOLHOUSES. 475 
 
 eral practice. We believe it would be difficult, in this 
 county, to find a score of these buildings, where the lot 
 is as large as the most inexperienced on the subject 
 would judge necessary. 
 
 " In by far the greater number of instances, there is 
 no more ground than that which is occupied by the build- 
 ing ; while many of them actually stand partly or wholly 
 in the highway. The children, therefore, have no resort 
 but to the public highway, or the private property of their 
 neighbors, for amusement. Healthful and vigorous exer- 
 cise is restrained ; the modesty of nature is often out- 
 raged ; and, not unfrequently, a permanent and extensive 
 injury done to the finer and better feelings, which ought, 
 at that age, to be cultivated and confirmed by the most 
 careful attention, not only as a great security from sin, 
 but as a most lovely ornament through life. Besides this, 
 there being no place for pleasant exercise for the boys 
 out of doors, the schoolroom, during the intermission at, 
 noon, becomes the place of noise and tumult, where, not 
 from any real intention, but in the forgetfulness of gen- 
 eral excitement, gentlemanly and lady-like feelings are 
 turned into ridicule, and an attempt to behave in an 
 orderly and becoming manner subjects the individual to 
 no small degree of persecution. We have often witnessed 
 such instances, and known those who refused to engage 
 in these rude exercises forced out of the room, and kept 
 out during the greater part of an intermission, because 
 their example cast a damp upon a course of rude and 
 boisterous conduct, in which they could not take a part. 
 Whatever others may think, it is our belief, that this 
 noise and tumult are, in a great measure, the natural 
 overflowing of youthful buoyancy, which, were it allowed 
 to spend itself in out-door amusements, would hardly 
 ever betray itself improperly in the house."
 
 476 REPORT OF THE SECRETARY 
 
 There is another topic of primary importance, the 
 merits of which are so well developed in a portion of the 
 Report above referred to, that I shall need no apology 
 for transferring it to these pages. It regards 
 
 THE DUTY OF INSTRUCTORS IN RELATION TO 
 SCHOOLHOUSES. 
 
 " Though Instructors may, ordinarily, have no direct 
 agency in erecting and repairing the buildings where they 
 are employed to keep school, yet by a little carefulness, 
 ingenuity, and enterprise, they can do much to avoid 
 some of the evils connected with them. When about to 
 open a school, they can look at the house, as a mechanic 
 at his shop, and adapt their system to the building, and 
 not carry into a house, ill adapted to its development, a 
 system of operations, however speculatively just it may 
 appear in their own minds. The buildings are already 
 constructed, and of materials not over plastic, and often 
 as incapable of accommodating a system got up in some 
 other place, as the house of the Vicar of Wakefield was 
 for the family painting. Instructors should make the 
 most of what is comfortable and convenient, and remedy, 
 as far as possible, what is bad. If the pupils are uncom- 
 fortably seated, they can allow them occasionally to 
 change their seats, or alter their position, which, though 
 attended with some inconvenience, cannot be compared 
 with the evils growing out of pain and restlessness, and 
 the effects which are likely to be produced upon the 
 health, the disposition, morals, and progress in learning, 
 from a long confinement in an uneasy position. Instruct- 
 ors can and ought to use their influence and authority 
 to preserve the buildings from injuries, such as cutting 
 the tables, loosening and splitting the seats, breaking the 
 doors and windows, by which most houses of this class
 
 ON SCHOOLHOUSE8. 477 
 
 are shamefully mutilated, and their inconveniences, great 
 enough at first, are increased. The extent to which 
 injuries of this kind are done, and the inconveniences 
 arising from them in respect of writing-books and clothes, 
 are great beyond what is ordinarily thought ; and, as it 
 is possible in a considerable degree to prevent them, they 
 should not be tolerated. So far as the scholars are 
 concerned, they may arise from a mixture of causes ; 
 thoughtlessness, idleness, a restless disposition, or real 
 intent to do injury. But, whatever may be the cause, 
 it argues an imperfection in the moral principle, which, 
 were it in wholesome exercise, would teach them that it 
 is equally iniquitous to damage public as private prop- 
 erty. The practice we refer to is actual injustice, a real 
 trespass, for which, in almost all other cases, the offender 
 would be called to an account. And we must confess 
 that it is matter of just surprise, that more efforts have 
 not been made to prevent it. A high responsibility rel- 
 ative to this concern rests on the instructors. The power 
 of preventing this lies principally with them. It is 
 obvious then to remark, if they have much reason to com- 
 plain for want of better accommodations, they have some 
 reason to reform ; and in measuring out the blame which 
 justly rests somewhere, to take a little portion to them- 
 selves. We are persuaded that schoolhouses will be more 
 readily built and repaired, when instructors shall use 
 more exertions to save them from the folly and indiscre- 
 tion of children. The injuries complained of, we are 
 persuaded, if not wholly, yet to a great extent, can be 
 prevented ; and it is high time that parents and teachers 
 should bring together their fixed and operative determi- 
 nation, to suffer them no longer. Separate from the 
 inconveniences which scholars themselves experience from 
 them, a licentious and irresponsible feeling, in regard to
 
 478 REPORT OP THE SECRETARY 
 
 public property, is encouraged. If the well-known loose 
 sense of obligation in respect to public interests, and the 
 wanton injuries which are so frequently done to institu- 
 tions of a public nature of every description, so pre- 
 eminently common throughout this country, do not 
 spring up in the habits referred to, they are certainly 
 most powerfully fostered by them; and there is great 
 reason to apprehend, that a principle so loose in respect 
 to public property, must extend itself by easy transitions 
 to private. In every view, the practice is wrong, and the 
 effect corrupting ; and it is high time that the attention 
 of the community was directed to it, the obligations of 
 men on this subject more fully taught, and, when neces- 
 sary, enforced in all our institutions of learning, from the 
 Infant School to the Professional Hall, not excepting our 
 Theological Seminaries, where, if in any place, we should 
 expect regard would be paid to public rights, and the 
 bestowments of private munificence ; and we could wish 
 the evil complained of, stopped here ; but truth con- 
 strains us to say, that the tables and seats of the Bench 
 and Bar in our court-houses, the pews, and even the pul- 
 pits, in our places of religious worship, bear evident 
 marks, that neither the ' ermine nor the lawn ' is suffi- 
 cient to restrain this most shameful, deforming, and 
 mischievous practice. 
 
 " Teachers should take the management of the fire 
 entirely under their own control ; for though their own 
 feelings may not be the thermometer of the room, yet, 
 if they are at all qualified to teach, they must possess 
 more discretion on the subject than those under them. 
 They should see that the room is in a comfortable con- 
 dition by the time the exercises commence. Many a half- 
 day is nearly wasted, and sometimes, from the disorder 
 consequent upon the state of things, worse than lost,
 
 ON SCHOOLHOUSES. 479 
 
 because, when the children collect, the room is so cold, 
 that they cannot study, nor can they be still. Nothing 
 short of the master's being in the house a half-hour 
 before the school commences, can, ordinarily, secure the 
 object referred to. It may be objected, that instructors 
 are not employed to build fires. We do not ask them to 
 do it ; but we ask them to see that fires are seasonably 
 built. And we must think those who can define so 
 nicely the limits of their obligations, as to excuse them- 
 selves from this care, have not the spirit of high-minded 
 and enterprising teachers, and that, however worthy they 
 may be, and however well qualified for other employ- 
 ments, they should never offer themselves for that of 
 school-keeping. 
 
 " Instructors should see, also, that the schoolroom be, 
 in all its parts, kept in a clean and comfortable condition. 
 Cleanliness is not ordinarily ranked so high, nor is the 
 contrary habit ranked so low, in the scale of moral worth 
 and sinful defilement, as they should be, nor do they, as 
 we fear, enter so fully into the account when men are 
 estimating their own moral state, or when others are 
 estimating it for them, as they ought. We will not say, 
 as a very able and careful observer of men once said, that 
 he did not believe any person could be a true Christian, 
 who was not becomingly neat in his person and in his 
 business ; yet we are free to say, that every additional 
 year's intercourse with the world in moral and religious 
 concerns, deepens the conviction, that cleanliness is in- 
 separable from any considerable advancement in a reli- 
 gious life, and that where its requirements are disregarded, 
 there is much reason to apprehend that other and impor- 
 tant defects of a moral nature do, most probably, exist. 
 Cleanliness in one's person, and the various occupations, 
 is intimately connected with manly and upright conduct,
 
 480 REPORT OP THE SECRETARY 
 
 chaste and pure thoughts, and sensible comfort in any 
 situation ; and, as a service exacted, or a habit estab- 
 lished, would go far to secure good order and agreeable 
 conduct in any school. We are persuaded that one of 
 the most powerful helps towards good government, and 
 consequent orderly conduct among the pupils, is over- 
 looked, through inattention or ignorance, where this prin- 
 ciple is not called in ; and where an exertion to establish 
 a principle and habit of neatness has not been put forth, 
 one of the strong bonds to a future worthy moral conduct 
 is lost, and a most important and legitimate object of 
 instruction and education neglected. Great exertions 
 should be used to cultivate among the pupils a taste for 
 cleanliness, decency, and elegance in all things, and their 
 particular responsibility in respect to the proper state of 
 the house, and all its outward connections. This is their 
 home, for the good and decent state of which, their char- 
 acter is at stake, and their comfort involved. They 
 should firmly and perseveringly resolve, that the school- 
 room should be kept clean ; not simply swept, but often 
 washed, and every day dusted. Without this attention, 
 it is impossible their own persons, their clothes, or books, 
 can be preserved in a decent and comfortable state. The 
 room they should consider as their parlor, and those that 
 occupy it, company to one another. The room must, 
 therefore, always be in a visiting condition. And what 
 should prevent this ? Cannot a number of young people, 
 all of whom, it must be presumed, are trained to order 
 and neatness at home, bring the principles of order and 
 neatness into an apartment, where they are to spend so 
 much time together, and where any one, who knows much 
 of the business of common families, must know there is 
 less excuse for any disorder or dirt, than there is in most 
 of our houses ? We know it is practicable to have a
 
 ON SCHOOLHOUSES. 481 
 
 schoolroom kept in a comfortable condition, and that 
 youth instructed and encouraged to do this, and having 
 their attention sufficiently directed to it, will soon become 
 interested in the subject, and manifest a commendable 
 disposition to have things as they ought to be, and a will- 
 ingness to make all the personal efforts which are 
 required to accomplish it. And we are persuaded, that, 
 when this is attempted, it will be found, perhaps, to 
 the surprise of many, that from the less injury done 
 to the clothes of scholars and to the books, as well as from 
 the better conduct which will invariably ensue, many of 
 the evils, connected with our Common Schools, would 
 be removed. 
 
 " It is a fact, susceptible of as perfect demonstration 
 as any moral proposition, that filth and dirt, if they be in 
 part the effect, are, at the same time, among the most 
 efficient causes of corrupt morals and debased conduct. 
 Gisborne, in one of his works, has a remark of this kind, 
 (we do not pretend to quote his words,) that in a part 
 of London, more young families, who, at setting out in 
 life, promise well, are made corrupt, and led into wretched 
 and destructive habits, from the unhappy location of 
 houses, which renders all attempts to keep them in a 
 pure and comfortable condition ineffectual, than from any 
 other single cause. Ineffectual efforts to keep things 
 neat lead to neglect, neglect to filthy habits, and filthy 
 habits to low and degraded vice. If such be the opera- 
 tion of a want of neatness in families, and we apprehend 
 the justness of the remark will find support in instances 
 which must have fallen within the knowledge of every 
 attentive observer, are there not reasons to fear, that the 
 same effects will follow the same course in school ? There 
 can be no doubt that, in many instances, a sense of pro- 
 priety is destroyed, in more, greatly weakened, by the 
 
 VOL. I. 31
 
 482 EEPORT OP THE SECRETARY 
 
 state of things in and about the houses of education. A 
 disregard to this subject, too common among scholars, 
 often settles down into a confirmed habit, and gradually 
 spreads itself over the whole surface of action, and 
 through life ; the individual becomes less interesting in 
 his appearance, less agreeable in his manners, less honor- 
 able in his conduct, and less moral and upright in his 
 principles. 
 
 " Instructors should also guard against the bad influ- 
 ence upon the dispositions and manners of scholars, 
 which the inconveniences they experience are apt to pro- 
 duce. The pain and uneasiness which a child experi- 
 ences from an uncomfortable situation in school, he will 
 very likely associate with his books and studies, or with 
 the instructor and regulations of school ; he may connect 
 them with those who sit near him, and who may be just 
 as uneasy as himself, and be ready to hate the whole and 
 quarrel with all, because he feels pain, and cannot, or 
 does not, rightly understand the occasion of it. The local 
 situation of children in school has a most obvious bearing 
 upon the conduct and temper. Place them a little out 
 of the observation of the instructor, and they will play ; 
 put them where they are crowded, or sit with inconve- 
 nience, and they will quarrel. ' It has often been a subject 
 of interest to me,' says one of the committee, ' when 
 visiting schools, to observe the operations of local circum- 
 stances upon the mind and conduct of children ; and the 
 more I have observed, the more importance am I con- 
 strained to attach to these things. In one house where I 
 have many times called, I do not recollect ever passing 
 a half -hour, without seeing contention among those 
 placed in a particular part of the room, and play in 
 another. I distinctly recollect the same thing in the sem- 
 inary where I pursued my preparatory studies. It was
 
 ON SCHOOLHOUSES. 483 
 
 as obvious in the lecture-room in college. In the semi- 
 nary which I had the care of for some years, it was so 
 apparent that I often changed the situation of those who 
 were unfavorably placed, to prevent the feelings and 
 conduct likely to be produced from settling down into con- 
 firmed habits. For permanent bad effects may and have, 
 in fact, grown out of these circumstances. Quarrels, also, 
 which have sprung up between children, and which had 
 no other legitimate cause than their being placed to- 
 gether in school, on uncomfortable seats, have led to a 
 state of unkind feelings, and unfriendly conduct through 
 life. The influence has sometimes extended beyond the 
 individuals ; families and neighborhoods have been drawn 
 into the contention ; and in not a few instances whole 
 districts thrown into disorder, only because at first some 
 little twig of humanity had become restless and quarrel- 
 some, in consequence of his uneasy position in school.' 
 
 "But if the effect be confined to the individual, yet it 
 may be sufficiently unhappy. Suppose, from one of the 
 causes above named, the child acquire a habit of loose 
 and foolish playfulness, or of restless discontent sup- 
 pose he acquire a disrelish for schools, his books, or un- 
 kind feelings towards his instructor, or his fellows will 
 there not be much personal loss, and is there no danger 
 of future consequences is there no danger that these 
 feelings will go into future life, and the individual prove 
 less comfortable to himself, and less comfortable to others ? 
 Youth is the season when the character is formed, and 
 direction given to the feelings and the conduct. It is a 
 matter of no small interest to the man himself, or those 
 with whom he is to act in future life, that these be of a 
 gentle and accommodating character. 
 
 " Since, therefore, from the construction of many of 
 our schoolhouses, it is not possible for the scholars to bo
 
 484 REPOET OF THE SECRETARY 
 
 altogether free from suffering, it is a subject well worthy 
 the special attention of instructors, carefully to guard 
 against the consequences which it is like to produce upon 
 their temper and conduct. This may be done, in some 
 degree, by allowing the children occasionally to change 
 their situation, to rise and stand up a few minutes ; or, 
 at convenient seasons, giving them a short additional re- 
 eess. To remove, in some degree, the gloom and deform- 
 ities of the house, and at the same time to draw off the 
 attention from their bodily pains, scholars should be al- 
 lowed to ornament it with greens and flowers, and other 
 things of an innocent nature, attracting to the minds of 
 youth. Agreeable objects originate agreeable feelings. 
 and pleasant feelings lead to good conduct. We would 
 also recommend to instructors to encourage the children, 
 in places where there is the least prospect of security, to 
 cultivate flower-borders upon the schoolhouse-grounds, 
 and certainly in boxes set in the house. Should it be 
 objected, that their attention would in this way be with- 
 drawn from their books, we must reply, that we doubt 
 the fact, and would in turn ask whether the feelings, the 
 taste, and the understanding would not be most essen- 
 tially improved by attention to the works of Nature, and 
 efforts to bring to the highest perfection those things 
 which a wise Providence, who knows by what means the 
 character of man is to be formed, has made beautiful to 
 the eye. Our own feelings have often been hurt, and our 
 views of expediency entirely crossed, when we have seen, 
 as we have on many occasions, a handsome branch, or 
 beautiful flower, or well-arranged nosegay, torn in a cen- 
 sorious and ruthless manner from the hand of a child, or 
 the place where his love for ornament and beauty had 
 placed it. We would encourage the children to make 
 the room of confinement as pleasant to them as they can,
 
 ON SCHOOLHOUSES. 485 
 
 consistently with other duties ; and if at any time it be 
 observed, that these things are gaining an undue influ- 
 ence over them, to check it, as any other practice not 
 evil in itself, but only in excess, should be corrected. It 
 should be done in such a manner, that the child should 
 be left free to enjoy, as far as it is safe to enjoy, and feel, 
 too, that he does it with the full approbation and good- 
 will of his instructor. 
 
 " There is one subject more to which we must be per- 
 mitted to refer ; one with which the morals of the young 
 are intimately connected, one in which parents, instruct- 
 ors, and scholars should unite their efforts to produce a 
 reform. There should be nothing in or about the school- 
 houses calculated to defile the mind, corrupt the heart, 
 or excite unholy and forbidden appetites ; yet, considering 
 the various character of those brought together in our 
 public schools, and considering also how inventive are 
 corrupt minds, in exhibiting openly the defilement which 
 reigns within, we do not know but we must expect that 
 schoolhouses, as well as other public buildings, and even 
 fences, will continue to bear occasional marks both of 
 lust and profaneness. But we must confess, that the 
 general apathy which apparently exists on this subject 
 does appear strange to us. It is an humbling fact, that 
 in many of these houses, there are highly indecent, pro- 
 fane, and libidinous marks, images, and expressions, some 
 of which are spread out in broad characters on the walls, 
 where they unavoidably meet the eyes of all who come 
 into the house, or, being on the outside, salute the trav- 
 eller as he passes by, wounding the delicate and annoying 
 the moral sensibilities of the heart ; while there is still a 
 much greater number, in smaller character, upon the ta- 
 bles and seats of the students, and even, in some instances, 
 of the instructors, constantly before the eyes of those
 
 486 REPOKT OF THE SECRETARY 
 
 who happen to occupy them. How contaminating these 
 must be, no one can be entirely insensible. And yet how 
 unalarmed, or, if not entirely unalarmed, how little is 
 the mind of the community directed to the subject, and 
 how little effort put forth to stay this fountain of corrup- 
 tion ! Such things ought not to be ; they can, to a con- 
 siderable extent, be prevented. The community are not, 
 therefore, altogether clear in this matter. 
 
 " When we regard the deleterious effect which the want 
 of accommodation and other imperfections, in and about 
 these buildings, must have upon the growth, health, and 
 perfectness of the bodily system, upon the mental and 
 moral powers, upon the tender and delicate feelings of 
 the heart, we must suppose there is as pressing a call for 
 the direct interference of the wise and benevolent, to 
 produce an improvement, as there is for the efforts of the 
 Prison Discipline Society, or for many of the benevolent 
 exertions of the day. And we do most solemnly and 
 affectionately call upon all, according to their situation in 
 life, to direct their attention to the subject; for the 
 bodies, the minds, the hearts of the young and rising 
 generation require this. It is a service due to the pres- 
 ent and future generation, a service due to their bodies 
 and souls." 
 
 I will now bring this long statement to a close by the 
 enumeration of a few further particulars, which could not 
 well be arranged under any of the preceding heads ; and 
 shall omit such things only as no CIVILIZED people can ever 
 forget. 
 
 Where the expense can be afforded, every schoolhouse 
 should be provided with a bell. If not the only mode, it 
 is probably the best one for insuring punctuality ; and 
 the importance of punctuality can hardly be overstated,
 
 ON SCHOOLHOUSES. 487 
 
 either as it regards the progress of the school collectively, 
 or the habits of the individual pupils. If morals were to 
 be divided into the greater and the less, the virtue of 
 punctuality should be set down in the first class. Prob- 
 ably there are few districts, which would not obtain a full 
 equivalent, every year, for the price of a bell, in the im- 
 proved habits and increased progress of the children. 
 
 It is also very desirable to have a time-piece placed in 
 some part of the schoolroom, where it can be seen by all 
 the scholars. It is both encouragement and relief to 
 them. It has an effect upon pupils, just like that of mile- 
 stones upon travellers. Men and children have a wonder- 
 ful power of adapting themselves to circumstances ; but, 
 with all their flexibility, neither child nor man can ever 
 adapt himself to a state of suspense or uncertainty. All 
 the large schools in the city of Lowell are provided with 
 a clock, which strikes after stated intervals. This is a 
 signal for classes to take their places for recitation, and 
 for reciting-classes to return to their seats. 
 
 Many schoolhouses in the country are situated a hun- 
 dred rods or more from any dwelling-house. In all cases 
 it is desirable, but in such cases it seems almost indispen- 
 sable, to have a pump or well, where water for drink and 
 so forth can be obtained. In the summer, children 
 usually require drink once in half a day. A hundred 
 rods is too far for them to run in a brief intermission, or 
 for water conveniently to be carried ; to say nothing of 
 the inconvenience to a neighbor of having his premises 
 invaded year after year, and, perhaps, his gardens and 
 fruit-trees thereby subjected to petty depredations. 
 
 No children or teacher ought ever to be blamed for 
 having a mud-plastered floor, if mats and scrapers are not 
 placed at the doors of the house. 
 
 If there be not a cellar for wood when that species
 
 488 REPORT OF THE SECRETARY 
 
 of fuel is used, a shed in which to house it is indispen- 
 sable. 
 
 In the year 1831, the censors of the American Institute 
 of Instruction submitted to that body a " Plan of a Vil- 
 lage Schoolhouse." As the object of this Report is, not 
 so much to present a model for universal adoption, as 
 to explain the great principles which should be observed, 
 whatever model may be selected, I have thought it might 
 be acceptable to accompany this Report with the " Plan " 
 which was submitted by the censors as above stated, 
 together with all the material parts of their explanation 
 of it. They are therefore appended. [See the 2d vol- 
 ume of the Lectures of the American Institute of Instruc- 
 tion, p. 285, et seq.] 
 
 It will be perceived, that the " Plan " of the censors 
 exhibits a Doric portico in front of the house. Such an 
 ornament would be highly creditable to the district which 
 should supply it. It would be a visible and enduring 
 manifestation of the interest they felt in the education of 
 their children. And what citizen of Massachusetts would 
 not feel an ingenuous and honorable pride, if, in whatever 
 direction he should have occasion to travel through the 
 State, he could go upon no highway, nor towards any 
 point of the compass, without seeing, after every interval 
 of three or four miles, a beautiful temple, planned accord- 
 ing to some tasteful model in architecture, dedicated to 
 the noble purpose of improving the rising generation, and 
 bearing evidence, in all its outward aspects and circum- 
 stances, of fulfilling the sacred object of its erection ? 
 What external appearance could impress strangers from 
 other States or Countries, as they passed through our 
 borders, with such high and demonstrative proofs, that 
 they were in the midst of a people, who, by forecasting 
 the truest welfare of their children, meant nobly to seek
 
 ON SCHOOLHOUSES. 489 
 
 for honor in the character of their posterity, rather than 
 meanly to be satisfied with that of their ancestors ? And 
 how different would be the feelings of all the children 
 towards the schools, and through the schools towards all 
 other means of elevation and improvement, if, from their 
 earliest days of observation, they were accustomed always 
 to look at the schoolhouse, and to hear it spoken of, as 
 among the most attractive objects in the neighborhood ! 
 
 In the preceding remarks, I have suggested defects in 
 the construction of our schoolhouses only for the purpose 
 of more specifically pointing out improvements. I would 
 not be understood as detracting from, but as attesting 
 to, their usefulness, as they are. Although often injudi- 
 ciously located, unsightly without, and uncomfortable 
 within, yet, more than any thing else, they tend to convert 
 the hope of the philanthropist into faith, and they fill him 
 with a gratification a thousand times nobler and more 
 rational than the sight of all the palaces in the Old 
 World. 
 
 HORACE MANN, 
 Secretary of the Board of Education. 
 Boston, March 27, 1838.
 
 SECOND ANNUAL REPOET OP THE SECRETARY 
 
 BOARD OF EDUCATION. 
 
 DECEMBER, 1838.
 
 SECOND ANNUAL REPORT 
 
 SECRETARY OF THE BOARD OF EDUCATION. 
 
 To THE BOARD OF EDUCATION. 
 
 GENTLEMEN : I hereby respectfully submit some ac- 
 count of my proceedings during the last year, in dis- 
 charging the duties of the office you have confided to me. 
 I should deem it an encroachment upon the province of 
 the Board to advert to such topics in the administration 
 of the school law, as are equally as well known to the 
 Board as to myself; such, for instance, as the measures 
 they have taken for establishing Normal Schools, for caus- 
 ing school libraries to be prepared, and the designation of 
 the form and time for making the School Returns. I 
 shall, therefore, confine myself to such facts as have come 
 more immediately within my own knowledge, and to the 
 considerations suggested by them. 
 
 During the past season, after having given seasonable 
 notice by sending circulars to the school committee of 
 each town in the Commonwealth, I visited the fourteen 
 counties in the State, and, at convenient and central 
 places, have met such of the friends of Education as 
 chose to attend. At a majority of these meetings I have 
 been aided by the presence and co-operation of one or 
 more of the members of the Board. Other distinguished 
 citizens, who, for many years, have received the fullest 
 
 493
 
 494 THE SECRETARY'S 
 
 testimonials of the people's confidence, have been present, 
 and have taken an active and most useful part in the 
 proceedings. Except in the three counties of Hampden, 
 Berkshire, and Essex, the conventions have been well 
 attended by school committees, teachers, and other friends 
 of Education. The time of the meetings has been occu- 
 pied by statements, respecting the condition of the public 
 schools, by discussions in regard to the processes of 
 teaching, and by the delivery of one or more addresses. 
 
 It appeared from facts ascertained during the last part 
 of the year 1837, and communicated by me to the Board 
 iu the report of Jan. 1, 1838, that the Common-school 
 system of Massachusetts had fallen into a state of general 
 unsoundness and debility ; that a great majority of the 
 schoolhouses were not only ill adapted to encourage 
 mental effort, but, in many cases, were absolutely peril- 
 ous to the health and symmetrical growth of the chil- 
 dren ; that the schools were under a sleepy supervision ; 
 that many of the most intelligent and wealthy of our 
 citizens had become estranged from their welfare, and 
 that the teachers of the schools, although, with very few 
 exceptions, 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 diffi- 
 cult and delicate task, which, in the arrangements of 
 Providence, is committed to human hands, were, necessa- 
 rily, and therefore without fault of their own, deeply and 
 widely deficient in the two indispensable prerequisites for 
 their office, viz., a knowledge of the human mind, as the 
 subject of improvement ; and a knowledge of the means 
 best adapted wisely to unfold and direct its growing 
 faculties. To expect that a system, animated only by a 
 feeble principle of life, and that life in irregular action, 
 could be restored at once to health and vigor, would be a
 
 SECOND ANNUAL REPORT. 495 
 
 sure preparation for disappointment. It is now twenty 
 years, since the absolute government of Prussia, under 
 the impulse of self-preservation, entered upon the work 
 of entirely remodelling their Common Schools, so as to 
 give them a comprehensiveness and an efficacy which 
 would embrace and educate every child in the kingdom. 
 In this undertaking, high intelligence has been aided, at 
 every step, by unlimited power ; and yet the work is but 
 just completed ; in some places and in some circum- 
 stances of detail, I believe, not yet completed. Their 
 engine of reform is the command of the sovereign, en- 
 forced by penalties ; ours is the intelligence of the 
 people, stimulated by duty. Their plan has the advan- 
 tage of efficiency and despatch, but it has this disad- 
 vantage, that what the ruler may decree to-day, his 
 successor may revoke to-morrow ; ours has the disad- 
 vantage of slowness in execution, but the compensatory 
 advantage of permanency, when accomplished. Besides, 
 if our schools are voluntarily advanced, through the intel- 
 ligence of the people, the agents themselves will be bene- 
 fited almost as much as the objects. These considera- 
 tions ought to satisfy those persons who seem impatient 
 of delay, and who think that any Board of Education 
 could re-animate our system in one, or even in a few 
 years. 
 
 Considering, then, the description of the means to be 
 employed for raising our schools to a reasonable and prac- 
 ticable point of usefulness, it may be confidently stated, 
 that the efforts, which have been made, in different 
 places, have accomplished something already, and have 
 given sure auguries of a speedier progression hereafter. 
 
 In my circuit this year, Nantucket was the first place 
 visited. The town contains almost 10,000 inhabitants. 
 When there, the previous season, there was but one set
 
 49 G THE SECRET ARY 7 S 
 
 of public schools for all the children. To them, only 
 children over the age of six years were admitted, and no 
 public provision existed for the education of those below. 
 During the last year, the town has established two pri- 
 mary schools for small children, and also a school (as it 
 is denominated in the statute) for the benefit of all the 
 inhabitants of the town. To the last, pupils are admitted 
 on passing an examination in the branches required to 
 be taught in the middle or secondary schools. The 
 organization, therefore, is now perfect. The small chil- 
 dren are provided for, by themselves. This is an advan- 
 tage, which can hardly be over-estimated. For the 
 purpose of preserving order and silence in schools, com- 
 posed of scholars of all ages, it becomes almost necessary 
 to practise a rigor of restraint and a severity of discipline 
 upon the small children, which is always injurious and 
 often cruel. The youngest scholars are, constitutionally, 
 most active. Their proportion of brain and nervous sys- 
 tem, compared with the whole body, is much the great- 
 est. Their restlessness does not proceed from volition, 
 but from the involuntary impulses of nature. They 
 vibrate at the slightest touch ; and they can no more help 
 a responsive impulse at every sight and sound, than they 
 can help seeing and hearing with open eyes and ears. 
 What aggravates the difficulty is, that they have nothing 
 to do. At a time when nature designs they shall be 
 more active than at any other period of life, a stagna- 
 tion of all the powers of mind and body is enforced. But 
 while the heart beats and the blood flows, the signs of 
 life cannot be wholly suppressed ; and therefore the 
 steady working of nature's laws is sure to furnish 
 the teacher with occasions for discipline. If it would be 
 intolerably irksome for any of the large scholars to sit 
 still for half a day, in a constrained posture, with hands
 
 SECOND ANNUAL REPORT. 497 
 
 unoccupied, arid eyes looking straight into vacancy, how 
 much more intolerable is it for the small ones ! Hence 
 the importance of having such a gradation of schools, in 
 every place where it is practicable, as has been lately 
 established in Nantucket. Another invaluable advantage 
 of having three grades of schools is, that while it dimin- 
 ishes, at least one-half, the number of classes in each 
 school, it increases the number in each class, and thus 
 allows the teacher to devote more time to the recitations 
 and to the oral instruction of his enlarged classes. An- 
 other point, of great importance to the schools, was well 
 illustrated in the change at Nantucket. When I was 
 there in 1837, a private school was in operation, kept by 
 one of the most accomplished instructors in the State, 
 and sustained at great expense to its patrons. When the 
 arrangement, above referred to, was made, this gentleman 
 was employed by the town to keep the town school. The 
 private school was, of course, given up ; but he carried 
 with him, into the town school, most of his former pupils. 
 And he now educates many others, who could not afford 
 the expense of the private school. Although, in such 
 cases, the compensation of the teacher may not be quite 
 as great, nominally, yet it will probably be worth as 
 much ; as he will receive it directly from the town, in 
 regular instalments, and will have none of the trouble of 
 collecting bills. 
 
 Within the last year, also, every schoolhouse in Nan- 
 tucket has been provided with a good ventilator and with 
 new and comfortable seats. This leaves little to be 
 desired in that town, in regard to the places where the 
 processes of education are carried on. Competent teach- 
 ers, fidelity in the committee, suitable school-books, libra- 
 ries and a good apparatus, and bringing all the children 
 
 VOL. I. 32
 
 498 THE SECRETARY'S 
 
 within the beneficent influences of the school, will com- 
 plete the work. 
 
 For the town school, an extensive and valuable appa- 
 ratus has been provided, and also some of a less costly 
 description for the primary schools. To accomplish 
 these praiseworthy purposes, the town, last year, almost 
 doubled its former appropriation. 
 
 Another highly gratifying indication of increased at- 
 tention to the welfare of the schools has been given by 
 the city of Salem. A year ago, the schoolhouses in that 
 city were without ventilation, and many of them with 
 such seats as excited vivid ideas of corporal punishment, 
 and almost prompted one to ask the children for what 
 offence they had been committed. At an expense of 
 about two thousand dollars, the seats in all the school- 
 houses, except one, have been reconstructed, and provi- 
 sions for ventilation have been made. I am told, that 
 the effect in the quiet, attention and proficiency of the 
 pupils, was immediately manifested. 
 
 In many other places, improvements of the same kind 
 have been made, though to a less extent and in a part 
 only of the houses. It would be a great mistake, how- 
 ever, to suppose, that nothing remains to be done in this 
 important department of the system of public instruction. 
 The cases mentioned are the slightest exceptions, com- 
 pared with the generality of the neglect. The urgent 
 reasons for making the report on schoolhouses, the last 
 year, still continue. In the important point of ventila- 
 tion, so essential to the health, composure, and mental 
 elasticity of the pupils, most of the houses remain without 
 change ; except, indeed, that very undesirable change 
 which has been wrought by time and the elements ; or 
 such change as has been effected by stripping off the ex- 
 ternal covering of the house, on some emergency for fuel.
 
 SECOND ANNUAL REPORT. 499 
 
 The children must continue to breathe poisonous air, and 
 to sit upon . seats, threatening structural derangement, 
 until parents become satisfied that a little money may 
 well be expended to secure to their offspring the bless- 
 ings of sound health, a good conformation, and a strong, 
 quick-working mind. 
 
 A highly respectable physician, who, for several years, 
 has attended to the actual results of bad internal ar- 
 rangements and bad locations for schoolhouses upon the 
 health of the pupils, took measures, during the past 
 summer, to ascertain with exactness the relative amount 
 of sickness suffered by the children, in a given period of 
 time, in two annual schools. The schools were selected 
 on account of their proximity, being but a short distance 
 from each other ; they consisted of very nearly the same 
 number of children, belonging to families in the same 
 condition of life, and no general physical causes were 
 known to exist, which should have distinguished them 
 from each other, in regard to the health of the pupils. 
 But one house was dry and well ventilated; the other 
 damp, and so situated as to render ventilation impracti- 
 cable. In the former, during a period of forty-five days, 
 five scholars were absent, from sickness, to the amount in 
 the whole of twenty days. In the latter, during the same 
 period of time and for the same cause, nineteen children 
 were absent, to an amount in the whole of one hundred 
 and forty-five days ; that is almost four times the num- 
 ber of children, and more than seven times the amount 
 of sickness ; and the appearances of the children not thus 
 detained by sickness, indicated a marked difference in 
 their condition as to health. On such a subject, where 
 all the causes in operation may not be known, it would 
 be un philosophical to draw general conclusions from a 
 particular observation. No reason, however, can be di-
 
 500 THE SECRETARY'S 
 
 vined, why this single result should not fairly represent 
 the average of any given number of years. Similar re- 
 sults for successive years must satisfy any one, respecting 
 the true cause of such calamities ; if, indeed, any one can 
 remain sceptical in regard to the connection between good 
 health and pure air. 
 
 ' The committee who take charge of the Primary Schools 
 in the city of Boston, established, in the month of Septem- 
 ber last, a " Model School." To this school it is intended 
 to devote an unusual share of attention. It is under the 
 immediate supervision of gentlemen, intelligent and highly 
 interested in its success. Their object is to select the best 
 books, to learn, as far as possible, the true periods of alter- 
 nation between study and exercise for young children, 
 and to improve upon existing processes for moral and 
 intellectual training. When their plans are somewhat 
 matured by observation and experience, it is their inten- 
 tion to bring the teachers of the other Primary Schools 
 (of which there are more than eighty in the city) in 
 regular succession into this school, to familiarize them 
 with whatever, upon experiment, shall be found to suc- 
 ceed well. Although it cannot be doubted, that this en- 
 terprise, under the judicious management of the commit- 
 tee, will prove very beneficial, yet it is hardly rational to 
 anticipate, that it will supersede the necessity of a Normal 
 School for the city. 
 
 I cannot doubt, that the Board will hear, with lively 
 gratification, other evidence of an increased interest in 
 this subject. Considering how inadequate to the wants 
 of the whole community a county meeting annual 
 only on the subject of Education, must necessarily be, 
 several of the county conventions appointed large and 
 most respectable committees to prepare and deliver, or 
 cause to be prepared and delivered, a lecture in the dif-
 
 SECOND ANNUAL REPORT. 501 
 
 ferent towns of the respective counties ; or, where 
 towns were large, then in different places in the same 
 town. In pursuance of this excellent plan, such lectures 
 have already been delivered, or lecturers are now engaged 
 in delivering them, in the counties of Nantucket, Hainp- 
 den, Hampshire, Franklin, Worcester, and to some extent 
 in Essex. 
 
 During the last summer, too, a few gentlemen in the 
 city of Boston adopted measures to procure the delivery 
 of a course of weekly lectures for the benefit of teachers 
 in the city. This course commenced about the middle of 
 October last, and still continues. Engaged, in country and 
 city, in this voluntary and gratuitous labor, are gentle- 
 men, who have been, or are, members of the State and 
 National Legislatures, counsellors at law, physicians, 
 clergymen of all denominations, experienced and long- 
 approved teachers, and some of the most popular writers 
 in the State. All these intelligent and forecasting men, 
 who see that future consequences can alone be regulated 
 by attention to present causes, are profoundly convinced, 
 that unless juvenile feelings, in this State and Country, 
 are assiduously trained to an observance of law and a 
 reverence for justice, it will be impossible to restrain 
 adult passions from individual debasement and public 
 commotion. The course of a stream, which a thousand 
 men cannot obstruct, as it flows into the ocean, may be 
 turned by a child at the fountain. Above, it will yield to 
 the guidance of a hand ; below, its flood will sweep works 
 and workmen away. 
 
 There are other indications, that public opinion on this 
 subject is advancing in the right direction. More com- 
 mittees are inquiring into the qualifications of candidates 
 for teaching, instead of taking such qualifications for 
 granted. Persons who had taught school a dozen win-
 
 502 THE SECRETARY'S 
 
 ters have been set aside for incompetency in the element- 
 ary branches. The law, requiring committees to visit 
 the schools, has been better observed than ever before ; 
 and teachers are realizing the benefit of such visitations, 
 in the encouragement and stimulus they have supplied to 
 the pupils. Many teachers are more justly appreciating 
 the true elevation and responsibleness of their vocation ; 
 and are animated by those high motives, whose preroga- 
 tive it is to convert toil into pleasure. 
 
 On the reverse side of this picture, however, it is my 
 duty to present, that of the twenty-nine rich and popu- 
 lous towns, bound by law to keep a school, at least ten 
 months in each year, " for the benefit of all the inhabit- 
 ants of the town," and which were reported, last year, 
 as violating this law, by non-compliance, only two, viz. 
 Nantucket and Taunton, have since established the 
 schools required. It will be recollected, that this class 
 of towns takes precedence of almost all the others in 
 wealth ; that they expend a far less proportion of money, 
 per scholar, for the support of public schools, than the 
 poorer and more sparsely populated towns, while, at the 
 same time, they expend a far greater proportion of money 
 for private schools. At the rate of two in a year, it will 
 take about fifteen years for all the towns in this class to 
 comply with the law ; a length of probation, it is to be 
 feared, which will tend to harden rather than reform the 
 delinquents. 
 
 Sufficient time has not yet elapsed to allow the practi- 
 cal results of last winter's legislation to be developed. 
 The law for the compensation of school committees was 
 not enacted, until after the committees for the current 
 year had been elected. The reasons, which, in former 
 years, had deterred so many competent men from accept- 
 ing that meritorious office, still existed. The ensuing
 
 SECOND ANNUAL REPORT. 503 
 
 annual elections will show how far the public will con- 
 sent, that any man, incompetent for, or heartless in, the 
 performance of this responsible duty, shall be intrusted 
 with it and receive its compensation. Nor has the time 
 yet arrived, at which all school committees are to make to 
 their respective towns a report, " designating particular 
 improvements and defects in the methods or means of 
 education, and stating such facts and suggestions in rela- 
 tion thereto, as, in their opinion, will best promote the 
 interests and increase the usefulness of the schools." 
 Great good will unquestionably result from each of these 
 provisions. 
 
 The " Register," prescribed by the law of last winter, 
 " to be faithfully kept, in all the town and district schools 
 in the Commonwealth," has been almost universally (one 
 or two places only, so far as I have learned, undertaking 
 to absolve themselves from a compliance with the law) 
 introduced into the schools, with excellent effect. Skilful 
 teachers find it a valuable auxiliary in securing greater 
 regularity in the attendance of the scholars. By the 
 Report of last year, it appeared that " a portion of the 
 children, dependent wholly upon the common schools, 
 absented themselves from the winter school, either per- 
 manently or occasionally, equal to a permanent absence 
 of about one-third part of their whole number ; and a 
 portion absented themselves from the summer schools, 
 either permanently or occasionally, equal to a permanent 
 absence of considerably more than two-fifths of their whole 
 number." Thus after all the labor and expense of estab- 
 lishing, maintaining, and supervising the schools have 
 been incurred, after the schools have been brought to 
 the very doors of the children, the school itself is made 
 to suffer in all its departments by the inconstant attend- 
 ance of the children, and the children suffer, in habits
 
 504 THE SECRETARY'S 
 
 and character, from inconstant attendance upon the 
 school. Whatever diminishes this evil is cheaply bought, 
 though at much cost. The keeping of a daily Register is 
 also the only means by which the committees can be 
 enabled to make accurate, instead of conjectural, returns, 
 for the Annual Abstracts. The "Register" and the 
 " Annual Abstract " are so far parts of a whole, that both 
 should be continued or both abolished. The Abstracts 
 are prepared as statistics for legislative action and eco- 
 nomical science. If true, they will evince philosophical 
 principles to be the basis of wise measures. But if false, 
 they lead to practical errors, with scientific certainty; 
 and they annul the chance which ignorance enjoys of 
 being sometimes right by accident or mistake. 
 
 The Board are already aware that the ''Form " of the 
 Register, prepared this year, was sent out in single sheets, 
 and for one year only, that its fitness might be tested ; 
 and that " in order to establish a more perfect and per- 
 manent Register, all persons were invited to suggest im- 
 provements." In the circulars sent to the school commit- 
 tees, this invitation was repeated. Verbally or in writing, 
 I have received a variety of suggestions for modifying 
 its form. Some of these suggestions are diametrically 
 opposite to each other, even w'here they come from towns 
 lying side by side, and whose general circumstances 
 (except in the amount of attention bestowed upon their 
 schools) are similar. The number of towns in the 
 country is precisely equal, which, on one side, declare it 
 to be too complicated and particular; and, on the other, 
 suggest, as improvements, the addition of a number of 
 new items. I mention these particulars, that the towns 
 may know how impossible is a conformity to views so 
 conflicting. As some teachers and school committees do 
 not seem to be aware of the advantages of keeping so
 
 SECOND ANNUAL REPORT. 505 
 
 full a Register as has been proposed, perhaps it may be 
 expedient to prepare a Form, embracing those facts only, 
 of which a record should be kept, in every school ; and 
 then to leave it to those who more fully appreciate its 
 uses, to keep such a supplementary Register as they may 
 think best. 
 
 The report on Schoolhouses, made by me to the Board 
 in March last, detailing, among other things, a plan for 
 a union of school districts and a gradation of schools, 
 in places where the compactness of the population would 
 allow, was followed by the act of the Legislature of 
 April 25th, authorizing a union of school districts for 
 the important purposes specified. A few towns have 
 already acted upon that plan, and the public mind is 
 earnestly called to it by the friends of education in other 
 places. Wherever it can be adopted, it will tend to 
 diminish the evils and to increase the efficiency of our 
 educational system. 
 
 But were all the territory of the State judiciously 
 divided into districts ; were there a just gradation in the 
 schools ; were every schoolhouse good ; had every school 
 the best teacher that could be found, and the guidance 
 and encouragement of the most wise and assiduous school 
 committee ; still, all these would be only preliminary 
 steps in the numerous and complicated processes of Edu- 
 cation. The true medium in the government of schools, 
 between austere demeanor and severity on the one hand, 
 and, on the other, a facile temper, yielding to every press- 
 ure and just according to the pressure ; the great 
 questions of rewards and punishments, whose influence 
 spreads out over such wide tracts of feeling and charac- 
 ter in after-life ; the selection of motives to enkindle 
 the ardor of children in their studies, together with the 
 precedents of these motives in regard to each other, that
 
 506 THE SECRETARY'S 
 
 is, whether the minds of children should be forever turned 
 outwards to the worldly advantages of wealth, office, rank, 
 display, as incitements to duty ; or inwards, towards the 
 perception of right and wrong in their own hearts, and 
 to the noiseless, boundless rewards which nature gives 
 for conscientious conduct, in spite of the laws, or power, 
 or hate of men ; the one course, setting the applause 
 of the world before rectitude, the other reversing their 
 position : and in regard to processes, more intellectual 
 in their character; such as the succession of studies 
 best tending to cultivate the mental powers, in the order 
 of their natural development ; the question of a more 
 or less rapid alternation from one study to another ; 
 the degrees in which either the instruction or government 
 of a school should be modified so as to be adapted to 
 peculiarities of individual character ; all these, and 
 many more points, would remain to be settled, before the 
 outlines were filled up of any thing worthy to be called 
 a philosophical plan of Education. Surveying the subject, 
 therefore, in the extent and diversity of its parts, the Only 
 practicable and useful course seemed to be, to select some 
 particular topic, and, as far as possible, to collect facts, 
 educe principles, and offer hints for practice. Science 
 must grow out of observation, art out of science. 
 
 From the earliest observations made on visiting schools, 
 (and such as I have visited were, probably, above the 
 average of schools in the State,) I have been impressed 
 with the obvious want of intelligence, in the reading- 
 classes, respecting the subject-matter of the lessons. With 
 some exceptions, I regret to say, that the eyes, features, 
 and motions of the readers have indicated only bodily 
 sensations, not mental activity ; while the volume of voice 
 emitted has too closely resembled those mechanical con- 
 trivances for the transmission of fluids, which, with ad mi-
 
 SECOND ANNUAL REPORT. 607 
 
 rable precision, discharge equal quantities in equal times. 
 At the same time, I was sure, that, had the subject-matter 
 of the reading-lesson been understood, it would have 
 opened a fountain of pleasurable emotions within, whose 
 streams would have flowed out through every channel of 
 expression. And, on examination, I have often found 
 that the black and white page of the book was the outer 
 boundary of the reader's thoughts, and a barrier to arrest 
 their progress, instead of being a vehicle to carry them 
 onward or upward into whatever region the author might 
 have expatiated. When the pupils were directed to the 
 subject-matter of the reading-lesson, to the orderly un- 
 folding of its parts, as branches proceeding from a com- 
 mon trunk, I have found them committing mistakes 
 which, though ludicrous as facts, were most lamentable 
 as indications. 
 
 Deeming the mode, and the degree of success found to 
 attend it, of teaching our children the orthography and 
 significance of their mother-tongue, to be the most im- 
 portant question which could be put in regard to their 
 intellectual culture, I determined to make those points 
 the main objects of inquiry in my annual visit into the 
 different counties. For distinctness' sake, I proposed, 
 among others, the two following questions to the school 
 committees of the several towns in the State. 
 
 1st. " Are scholars in your schools kept in spelling 
 classes from the time of their earliest combination of let- 
 ters, up to the time of their leaving- school ; or what is the 
 course ordinarily pursued in regard to teaching orthog- 
 raphy, and how long is it continued? " 
 
 2d. " Are there defects in teaching scholars to read? 
 Tliis inquiry is not made in regard to the pronunciation 
 of words and the modulation of the voice. But do the 
 scholars fail to understand the meaning of the words they
 
 THE SECRETARY'S 
 
 read ? Do they fail to master the sense of the reading- 
 lessons ? Is there a presence in the minds of the schol- 
 ars, when reading, of the ideas and feelings intended to 
 be conveyed and excited by the author ? " 
 
 lu answer to another question, not here quoted, relative 
 to the ages within which children attend our public 
 schoots, I have learnt, that exclusive regulations, founded 
 on age, exist in but very few towns probably in not 
 more than fifteen or twenty in the State. And although 
 the great majority of the children in the schools are 
 between the ages of four and sixteen, yet in almost all 
 the towns they are allowed to attend both earlier and 
 later, and they are found from three, and sometimes from 
 two years of age, up to twenty-one years, very frequently, 
 and sometimes to twenty-four or twenty-five. I learn, 
 also, that, with scarcely a single exception in the whole 
 State, the scholars are kept in spelling-classes, or they 
 spell daily from their reading-lessons, from the time 
 of their earliest combination of letters, up to the time of 
 their leaving school ; and yet, if testimony, derived from 
 a thousand sources, and absolutely uniform, can be relied 
 on, there is a Babel-like diversity in the spelling of our 
 language. 
 
 It is impossible to ascertain with any considerable 
 degree of precision the percentage of words in ordinary 
 use which the children are unable to spell ; but it seems 
 to be the general opinion of the most competent observers, 
 that the schools have retrograded within the last genera- 
 tion or half-generation in regard to orthography. Nor 
 is the condition of the schools better in regard to read- 
 ing, as will hereafter be shown. 
 
 The evil of incorrect spelling and unintelligent reading 
 is, by no means, wholly imputable to teachers. It springs, 
 in part, from the use of books ill adapted to the different
 
 8ECOND ANNUAL REPORT. 509 
 
 stages of growth in youthful minds. Another cause con- 
 sists in a most pernicious error on the part of parents in 
 regard to the true objects of reading. Many teachers 
 have assured me that they are perfectly aware that the 
 time spent in reading is mainly lost ; but that the usages 
 of the school and the demands of the district prohibit 
 them perhaps under penalty of dismission from adopt- 
 ing a better mode. It is said, that the first and only in- 
 quiry made by parents of their children is, " how many 
 times and how much have you read ? " not " what have you 
 read about ? " A question like the last presupposes some 
 judgment and some ability to follow it up with further 
 inquiries ; but anybody can put the first, for it is an easy 
 problem which solves the ratio of mental progress by the 
 number of pages mechanically gone over. The children's 
 minds are not looked into, to see what new operations 
 they can accurately perform ; but the inquiry relates only 
 to the amount of labor done by the organs of speech ; 
 as though so many turns of the bodily machine would 
 yield, perforce, a corresponding amount of mental prod- 
 uct. It is characteristic of the learned professions, that 
 the person employed directs the employer ; and it is ear- 
 estly to be hoped, that teachers will soon deservedly win 
 so much of the confidence of the community, that they 
 will no longer feel constrained to practise methods they 
 know to be valueless, in order to harmonize with opinions 
 they know to be pernicious. 
 
 It is probable, also, that this mischief may have been 
 aggravated, in those places where there is a gradation of 
 schools, by the conditions, prescribed in their regulations, 
 for advancing from one school to another. One important 
 fact, I have learned, is, that in places containing in the 
 aggregate not less than one hundred thousand inhabitants, 
 (about one-seventh of the population of the State,) a con-
 
 510 THE SECRETARY'S 
 
 dition for rising from one school to another is, either in 
 express words or in substance, that the candidate shall be 
 able to " read fluently." Under such a rule, should a 
 strong desire exist to advance children to a higher school, 
 there is great danger that the value of intelligent reading 
 will be sacrificed to the worthlessness of mere "fluent " 
 reading. 
 
 In this State, where the schools are open to all, an in- 
 ability to spell the commonly used words in our language 
 justly stamps the deficient mind with the stigma of illit- 
 eracy. Notwithstanding the intrinsic difficulty of master- 
 ing our orthography, there must be some defect in the 
 manner of teaching it ; otherwise, this daily attention 
 of the children to the subject, from the commencement 
 to the end of their school-going life, would make them 
 adepts in the mystery of spelling, except in cases of men- 
 tal incapacity. Anomalous, arbitrary, contradictory, as 
 is the formation of the words of our language from its 
 letters, yet it is the blessing of the children, that they 
 know not what they undertake, when they begin the labor. 
 
 But, however deeply we may be mortified at the general 
 inability of our youth to spell well, it is the lightest of all 
 regrets, compared with the calamity of their pretending to 
 read what they fail to understand. Language is not merely 
 a necessary instrument of civilization, past or prospective, 
 but it is an indispensable condition of our existence as 
 rational beings. We are accustomed to speak with admi- 
 ration of those assemblages of things, we call the neces- 
 saries, the comforts, the blessings of life, without thinking 
 that language is a pre-necessary to them all. It requires 
 a union of two things, entirely distinct in themselves, to 
 confer the highest attribute of human greatness ; in 
 the first place, a creative mind, revolving, searching, re- 
 forming, perfecting, within its own silent recesses ; and
 
 SECOND ANNUAL REPORT. 511 
 
 then such power over the energy and copiousness of lan- 
 guage, as can bring into life whatever was prepared in 
 darkness, and can transfer it to the present or the absent, 
 to contemporaries or posterity. Thucydides makes Peri- 
 cles say, that " one who forms a judgment upon any point, 
 but cannot explain himself clearly to the people, might 
 as well have never thought at all on the subject." The 
 highest strength of understanding and justness of feeling, 
 without fitting language to make themselves manifest, are 
 but as the miser's hoard, without even the reversion of 
 benefit we may ultimately expect from the latter. And 
 for all social purposes, thought and expression are de- 
 pendent, each upon the other. Ideas without words are 
 valueless to the public ; and words without ideas have 
 this mischievous attribute, that they inflict the severest 
 pains and penalties on those who are most innocent of 
 thus abusing them. 
 
 This is not a place to speak of the nature and utility 
 of language, any further than is rigidly necessary to an 
 exposition of the best mode of acquiring and the true 
 object in using it. Within this limit, it may be ob- 
 served, that we arrive at knowledge in two ways : first, 
 by our own observation of phenomena without, and our 
 own consciousness of what passes within us ; and we 
 seek words aptly to designate whatever has been observed, 
 whether material or mental. In this case, the objects and 
 events are known to us, before the names, or phrases, 
 which describe them ; or, secondly, we see or hear words, 
 and through a knowledge of their diversified applications 
 we become acquainted with objects and phenomena, of 
 which we should otherwise have remained forever igno- 
 rant. In this case, the words precede a knowledge of 
 the things they designate. In one case we are introduced 
 to words through things ; in the other, to things, through
 
 512 THE SECRETARY'S 
 
 words ; but when once both have been strongly associated 
 together, the presence of either will suggest its correla- 
 tive. The limited fund of knowledge laid open to us by 
 the former mode bears no assignable proportion to the 
 immense resources proffered us by the latter. Without 
 language, we should know something of the more obtru- 
 sive phenomena, within reach of the senses, but an im- 
 penetrable wall of darkness would lie beyond their narrow 
 horizon. With language, that horizon recedes until the 
 expanse of the globe, with its continents, its air, its oceans, 
 and all that are therein, lies under our eye, like an adja- 
 cent landscape. Without language, our own memory 
 dates the beginning of time, and the record of our own 
 momentary existence contains all that we can know of 
 universal history. But with language, antiquity re-lives ; 
 we are spectators at the world's creation ; we are present 
 with our first progenitors, when the glory of a new life 
 beamed from their inanimate frames ; the long train of 
 historic events passes in review before us ; we behold the 
 multiplication and expansion of our race, from individu- 
 als to nations, from patriarchs to dynasties ; we see their 
 temporal vicissitudes and moral transformations ; the bil- 
 lowy rise and fall of empires ; the subsidence of races, 
 whose power and numbers once overshadowed the earth ; 
 the emergence of feeble and despised tribes into wide-ex- 
 tended dominion ; we see the dealings of God with men, 
 and of men with each other ; all, in fine, which has 
 been done and suffered by our kindred nature, in arms, 
 arts, science, philosophy, judicature, government ; and 
 we see them, not by their own light only, but by the 
 clearer light reflected upon them from subsequent times. 
 What contrast could be more striking, than that between 
 an unlettered savage and a philosopher, the one im- 
 prisoned, the other privileged, in the halls of the same
 
 SECOND ANNUAL REPORT. 513 
 
 library ; the one compelled by fear to gaze upon the 
 pages of a book, the other impatient for the pleasure of 
 doing it ! As the former moves his reluctant eye down- 
 wards over successive lines, he sees nothing but ink and 
 paper. Beyond, it is vacancy. But to the eye of the 
 philosopher, the sombre pages are magically illuminated. 
 By their light he sees other lands and times. All that 
 filled his senses before he opened the revealing page is 
 only an atom of the world, in which he now expatiates. 
 He is made free of the universe. A sentiment, uttered 
 thousands of years ago, if touched by the spirit of human- 
 ity, falls freshly upon his responsive bosom. The fathers 
 of the world come out of the past and stand around him 
 and hold converse with him, as it were, face to face. Old 
 eloquence and poetry are again heard and sung. Sages 
 imbue him with their wisdom ; martyrs inspire him by 
 their example ; and the authors of discoveries, each one 
 of whom won immortality by the boon he conferred upon 
 the race, become his teachers. Truths which it took 
 ages to perfect and establish, sciences elaborated by the 
 world's intellect, are passed over to him, finished and 
 whole. This presents but the faintest contrast between 
 the savage and the philosopher, looking at the same books, 
 and, to a superficial observer, occupied alike. 
 
 To prepare children for resembling the philosopher, 
 rather than the savage, it is well to begin early, but it is 
 far more important to begin right ; and the school is the 
 place for children to form an invincible habit of never 
 using the organs of speech, by themselves, and as an 
 apparatus, detached from, and independent of, the mind. 
 The school is the place to form a habit of observing dis- 
 tinctions between words and phrases, and of adjusting the 
 language used to various extents of meaning. It is the 
 place where they are to commence the great art of adapt-
 
 514 THE SECRETARY'S 
 
 ing words to ideas and feelings, just as we apply a meas- 
 uring instrument to objects to be measured. Then, in 
 after-life, they will never venture upon the use of words 
 which they do not understand ; and they will be enabled 
 to use language, co-extensive with their thoughts and feel- 
 ings, language which shall mark off so much of any 
 subject as they wish to exhibit, as plainly as though they 
 could have walked round it and set up landmarks. 
 
 There is time enough devoted to exercises on language 
 in our schools, to have enabled every one of that numer- 
 ous class of citizens, whose attainments and good sense 
 entitle them to be elected to municipal offices or to some 
 station in the government, to prepare written documents, 
 to draught petitions, reports and so forth, upon all ordinary 
 subjects, not professional or technical. Yet how many 
 men of excellent judgment find themselves unable to 
 express their thoughts clearly and forcibly, in speech or 
 writing, because they have never been accustomed to 
 apply language to mental operations. Every man, con- 
 versant with the profession of the law, knows that no 
 inconsiderable portion of those litigated cases, which 
 burden courts and embroil neighborhoods, arises from 
 some misapprehension of the meaning of the language, 
 used by the parties, in oral or written contracts. The 
 time spent by the scholars in reading, from the age of 
 eight or ten to sixteen years, is amply sufficient to enrich 
 their minds with a great amount of various and useful 
 knowledge, without encroaching one hour upon other 
 accustomed studies. 
 
 There is another fact, most pertinent to this part of 
 the subject. It is well known that science itself, among 
 scientific men, can never advance far beyond a scientific 
 .language in which to record its laws and principles. An 
 unscientific language, like the Chinese, will keep a peo-
 
 SECOND ANNUAL REPORT. 515 
 
 pie unscientific forever. So the knowledge of a people 
 on any subject cannot far exceed the compass of the 
 language which they fully comprehend. If what arc 
 called the exact sciences do not depend upon the exact- 
 ness of the language they use, all exactness in other 
 sciences does. Nor is it a fact of less importance, that 
 language re-acts upon the mind that uses it. It is like 
 the garments in which some nations clothe themselves, 
 which shape the very limbs that draw them on. Men 
 are generally very willing to modify or change their 
 opinions and views, while they exist in thought merely, 
 but when once formally expressed, the language chosen 
 often becomes the mould of the opinion. The opinion 
 fills the mould, but cannot break it and assume a new 
 form. Thus errors of thought and of life originate in 
 impotence of language. 
 
 The English language has been estimated to contain 
 seventy or eighty thousand words in reputable use. A 
 knowledge of so many of these words as are in common 
 use, with a power of summoning them, like trained 
 bands, to come at the bidding of thought, arises from the 
 smallest beginnings. The distance is so immense be- 
 tween the first, rude articulation of an infant, and the 
 splendid and law-giving utterance of an eloquent man, 
 that we could hardly believe, beforehand, that the two 
 extremes had reference to the same individual. To gain 
 time, by shortening the distance between these extremes, 
 or by removing obstacles and thus accelerating progress 
 from the former to the latter, is one of the most appro- 
 priate labors of education. The hints which follow are 
 offered with diffidence ; in the hope, however, that they 
 may prove useful themselves, or be suggestive to other 
 minds of that which is better. 
 
 The process of learning to spell our language is so im-
 
 516 THE SECRETARY'S 
 
 perceptibly lost in that of learning to read it, that the 
 two can best be considered together. 
 
 One preliminary truth is to be kept steadily in view in 
 all the processes of teaching, and in the preparation of 
 all its instruments ; viz., that, though much may be done 
 by others to aid, yet the effective labor must be per- 
 formed by the learner himself. Knowledge cannot be 
 poured into a child's mind like fluid from one vessel into 
 another. The pupil may do something by intuition, but 
 generally there must be a conscious effort on his part. 
 He is not a passive recipient, but an active, voluntary 
 agent. He must do more than admit or welcome ; he 
 must reach out, and grasp, and bring home. It is the 
 duty of the teacher to bring knowledge within arm's- 
 length of the learner; and he must break down its 
 masses into portions so minute, that they can be taken 
 up and appropriated, one by one ; but the final appropri- 
 ating act must be the learner's. Knowledge is not 
 annexed to the mind like a foreign substance, but the 
 mind assimilates it by its own vital powers. It is far less 
 true, that each one must earn his own bread by the sweat 
 of his own brow, than it is that each one must earn his 
 own knowledge by the labor of his own brain ; for, 
 strictly speaking, nature recognizes no title to it by inher- 
 itance, gift or finding. Development of mind is by 
 growth and organization, not by external accretion. 
 Hence all effective teaching must have reference to this 
 indispensable, consummating act and effort of the learner. 
 The feelings may undoubtedly be modified by external 
 impressions, and, therefore, the mind is sometimes spoken 
 of as passive, recipient, adoptive ; and the objects around 
 us have a fitness and adaptation to awaken mental activ- 
 ity ; but the acquisition of positive knowledge is not 
 effected by a process of involuntary absorption. Such a
 
 SECOND ANNUAL REPORT. 517 
 
 notion belongs to the philosophy by which, a few years 
 ago, a grammatical chart was published and pretty exten- 
 sively sold in some of the States, whose peculiar virtue it 
 was, that, if hung up somewhere in a house, the whole 
 family would shortly become good grammarians, by mys- 
 teriously imbibing, as it were, certain grammatical efflu- 
 via. The distinction should bcome broader and broader, 
 between the theory of education which deals with mind 
 as living spirit, and that which deals with it as a lifeless 
 substance. Every scholar, in a school, must think with 
 his own mind, as every singer, in a choir, must sing 
 with his own voice. 
 
 If then, in learning, all wills and desires, all costs, 
 labors, efforts, of others, are dependent, at last, upon the 
 will of the learner, the first requisite is the existence in 
 his mind of a desire to learn. Children, who spend six 
 months in learning the alphabet, will, on the play- 
 ground, in a single half-day or moonlight evening learn 
 the intricacies of a game or sport, where to stand, 
 when to run, what to say. how to count, and what are 
 the laws and the ethics of the game ; the whole requiring 
 more intellectual effort than would suffice to learn half a 
 dozen alphabets. So of the recitation of verses, mingled 
 with action, and of juvenile games, played in the chimney- 
 corner. And the reason is, that for the one, there is de- 
 sire ; while against the other, there is repugnance. The 
 teacher, in one case, is rolling a weight up hill ; in the 
 other, down ; for gravitation is not more to the motions 
 of a heavy body, than desire is to the efficiency of the in- 
 tellect. Until a desire to learn exists within the child, 
 some foreign force must constantly be supplied to keep 
 him agoing; but from the moment that a desire is ex- 
 cited, he is self-motive, and goes alone. 
 
 Perhaps the best way of inspiring a young child with a
 
 518 THE SECRETARY'S 
 
 desire of learning to read, is to read to him, with proper 
 intervals, some interesting story, perfectly intelligible, 
 yet as full of suggestion as of communication ; for the 
 pleasure of discovering is always greater than that of 
 perceiving. Care should be taken, however, to leave off 
 before the ardor of curiosity cools. He should go away 
 longing, not loathing. After the appetite has become 
 keen, and nature supplies the zest, the child can be 
 made to understand how he can procure this enjoyment 
 for himself. The motive of affection also may properly 
 be appealed to, that is, a request to learn in order to 
 please the teacher ; but this should never be pressed so 
 far as to jeopard its existence, for it is a feeling more 
 precious than all knowledge. The process of learning 
 words and letters is toilsome, and progress will be slow, 
 unless a motive is inspired before instruction is at- 
 tempted ; and if three months are allowed to teach a 
 child his letters, there is greater probability, that the 
 work will be done at the end of the time, even though 
 ten weeks of it should be spent in gaining his voluntary 
 co-operation during the residue of the time. A desire 
 of learning is better than all external opportunities, 
 because it will find or make opportunities, and then 
 improve them. 
 
 Such are the difficulties in acquiring the orthography 
 of our language, that it is said we have but two or three 
 classes of uniformly correct spellers. Almost all, except 
 publishers or printers and proof-readers, are more or less 
 deficient in this acquisition. While some other languages, 
 as the Italian, French and German, assign to individual 
 letters a power, which is scarcely varied whenever they 
 recur ; the power given to the letters, in the English 
 alphabet, bears little resemblance to their power, when 
 combined in words. In a vast number of words, there is
 
 SECOND ANNUAL REPORT. 519 
 
 a uniformity of pronunciation with diversity in spelling, 
 or a diversity in pronunciation with similar spelling. 
 The same letter has many different sounds, while differ- 
 ent letters have the same sound, so that the learner, after 
 learning the sound of a letter in one place, has no assur- 
 ance of being right in giving it the same sound in 
 another. The letters seem to change work with each 
 other. Added to this, many words have silent letters ; 
 and in words, otherwise of a formation exactly similar, 
 some have silent letters, others none. Were it not for 
 our familiarity with it, no fact would be more striking 
 than that which always presents itself to the eye, upon 
 opening an English dictionary ; viz., the double column 
 of words for the same language, one for a guide in 
 spelling, the other, in pronunciation. But it is no part 
 of this report to analyze our language and expose its 
 unscientific structure and anomalous composition. It is 
 either very much too late or too early to reform its arbi- 
 trary constitution. To adapt the pronunciation to the 
 orthography would be to make a new spoken language ; 
 to adapt its orthography to its pronunciation would be to 
 make a new written one. 
 
 When a motive to learn exists, the first practical ques- 
 tion respects the order in which letters and words are to 
 be taught ; i.e., whether letters, taken separately, as in 
 the alphabet, shall be taught before words, or whether 
 monosyllabic and familiar words shall be taught before 
 letters. * In those who learnt, and have since taught, in 
 the former mode, and have never heard of any other, this 
 suggestion may excite surprise. The mode of teaching 
 words first, however, is not mere theory ; nor is it new. 
 It has now been practised for some time in the primary 
 schools of the city of Boston, in which there are four 
 or five thousand children, and it is found to succeed
 
 520 THE SECRETARY'S 
 
 better than the old mode. In other places in this coun- 
 try, and in some parts of Europe, where education is suc- 
 cessfully conducted, the practice of teaching words first, 
 and letters subsequently, is now established. Having no 
 personal experience, I shall venture no affirmation upon 
 this point ; but will only submit a few remarks for the 
 consideration of those, who wish, before countenancing 
 the plan, to examine the reasons on which it is founded. 
 
 During the first year of a child's life, he perceives, 
 thinks, and acquires something of a store of ideas, with- 
 out any reference to word or letters. After this, the won- 
 derful faculty of language begins to develop itself. Chil- 
 dren then utter words, the names of objects around 
 them, as whole sounds, and without any conception of 
 the letters of which those words are composed. In speak- 
 ing the word " apple," for instance, young children think 
 no more of the Roman letters which spell it, than, in eat- 
 ing the fruit, they think of the chemical ingredients 
 the oxygen, hydrogen, and carbon which compose it. 
 Hence, presenting them with the alphabet, is giving them 
 what they never saw, heard, or thought of before. It is 
 as new as algebra, and, to the eye, not very unlike it. But 
 printed names of known things are the signs of sounds 
 which their ears have been accustomed to hear, and their 
 organs of speech to utter, and which may excite agree- 
 able feelings and associations, by reminding them of the 
 objects named. When put to learning the letters of the 
 alphabet first, the child has no acquaintance with them, 
 either with the eye, the ear, the tongue, or the mind ; 
 but if put to learning familiar words first, he already 
 knows them by the ear, the tongue, and the mind, while 
 his eye only is unacquainted with them. He is thus in- 
 troduced to a stranger through the medium of old ac- 
 quaintances. It can hardly be doubted, therefore, that a
 
 SECOND ANNUAL REPORT. 521 
 
 child would learn to name any twenty-six familiar words 
 much- sooner than the twenty-six unknown, unheard, and 
 unthought-of letters of the alphabet. 
 
 For another reason, the rapidity of acquisition will be 
 greater, if words are taught before letters. To learn the 
 words signifying objects, qualities, actions, with which 
 the child is familiar, turns his attention to those objects, if 
 present, or revives the idea of them, if absent, and thus 
 they may be made the source^ of great interest and pleas- 
 ure. We all know, that the ease with which any thing is 
 learned, and the length of time it is remembered, are in 
 the direct ratio of the vividness of the pleasurable emo- 
 tions which enliven the acquisition. 
 
 But there is another consideration far more forcible 
 than the preceding. The general practice is founded upon 
 the notion that the learning of letters facilitates the cor- 
 rect combination of them into words. Hence children 
 are drilled on the alphabet, until they pronounce the 
 name of each letter at sight. And yet, when we combine 
 letters into words, we forthwith discard the sounds which 
 belonged to them as letters. The child is taught to sound 
 the letter a, until he becomes so familiar with it, that the 
 sound is uttered as soon as the character is seen. But 
 the first time this letter is found, even in the most familiar 
 words, as in father, papa, mamma, apple, peach, walnut, 
 hat, cap, bat, rat, slap, pan, &c., &c., it no longer has the 
 sound he was before taught to give it, but one entirely 
 different. And so of the other vowels. In words, they 
 all seem in masquerade. Where is the alphabetic sound 
 of o in the words word, dove, plough, enough, other, and 
 in innumerable others ? Any person may verify this by 
 taking any succession of words, at random, in any English 
 book. The consequence is, that whenever the child meets 
 his old friends in new company, like rogues, they have
 
 522 THE SECRETARY'S 
 
 all changed their names. Thus the knowledge of the 
 sounds of letters in the alphabet becomes an obstacle to 
 the right pronunciation of words ; and the more perfect 
 the knowledge, the greater the obstacle. The reward 
 of the child, for having thoroughly mastered his letters, is 
 to have his knowledge of them cut up in detail, by a reg- 
 ular series of contradictions, just as fast as he brings it 
 forward. How different, for instance, is the sound of the 
 word is, from the two alphabetic sounds, i and s; of the 
 word we, from the two sounds, w and e; of the word two, 
 from the three sounds, t, w, and o. We teach an honest 
 child to sound the letters, e, y, e, singly, until he utters 
 them at sight, and then, with a grave face, we ask him what 
 e, y, e, spells ; and if he does not give the long sound of i, 
 he is lucky if he escapes a rebuke or a frown. Nothing 
 can more clearly prove the delightful confidence and 
 trustfulness of a child's nature, than his not boldly char- 
 ging us, under such circumstances, with imposition and 
 fraud. 
 
 There is a fact, however, which may, perhaps, in part, 
 cancel the differences here pointed out. The alphabet 
 must be learned, at some time, because there are various 
 occasions, besides those of consulting dictionaries or cyclo- 
 pedias, where the regular sequence of the letters must 
 be known ; and possibly it may be thought, that it will be 
 as difficult to learn the letters, after learning the words, as 
 before. But the fact, which deprives this consideration 
 of some part at least of its validity, is, that it always 
 greatly facilitates an acquisition of the names of objects, 
 or persons, to have been conversant with their forms and 
 appearances beforehand. The learning of words is an 
 introduction to an acquaintance with the letters com- 
 posing them. ,;,*' 
 
 To obviate the inconsistency of teaching children the
 
 SECOND ANNUAL REPORT. 523 
 
 names of letters, which are to be untaught as soon as 
 they are combined into words, some persons instruct them 
 in the vocal elements of the letters only ; that is, to 
 utter, for each letter, that part of the sound of a whole 
 word, which belongs to the letters, respectively, as to 
 give a single breathing for the letter h, instead of the 
 sound of aytch. This practice is very limited. 
 
 The next step in the acquisition of our language is the 
 spelling of its words. The arbitrary and capricious for- 
 mation of words from letters, is, undoubtedly, one great 
 cause, that, with all our attention to the subject, we have 
 so few good spellers. 
 
 One fact has been often remarked, that if children do 
 not learn to spell pretty correctly before the age of ten 
 or twelve years, they rarely become good spellers after- 
 wards. This fact supplies us with a useful hint, in regard 
 to making other studies give place, a little, to this, before 
 the favorable season is passed. Another consideration, 
 derived from the order in which the intellectual powers 
 are developed, strongly corroborates the same position. 
 Language is an early developed intellectual power ; 
 reason is one of the latest. The spelling of a tongue, so 
 anomalous as ours, depends upon a verbal memory. It is 
 not a subject to be reasoned about. The more one relies 
 upon his reason to determine the true spelling of English 
 words, the oftener he will mistake. The discovery and 
 correct application of principles and analogies would gen- 
 erally exclude correctness. I presume it has happened 
 to many persons, when writing, that if they could write 
 one of the less common words, without thinking how it 
 should be spelt, they would write it correctly ; but if, by 
 any chance, the inquiry how it should be spelt arose 
 in their minds, they would immediately be involved in 
 doubts, which no reasoning could solve, and be obliged to
 
 524 THE SECRETARY'S 
 
 turn to a dictionary. These facts indicate also, that spell- 
 ing should be pursued at an age when more is learned by 
 perception and imitation than by reflection. 
 
 But one thing should be insisted upon,/rom the begin- 
 ning, and especially at the beginning. No word should 
 be taught, whose meaning is not understood. The teacher 
 should not count out words faster than ideas. The foun- 
 dation of the habit should be laid, in the reading of the 
 very first lesson, of regarding words as the names of 
 things ; as belonging to something else, and as nothing by 
 themselves. They should be looked at as a medium, and 
 riot as an end. It is as senseless for a child to stop at the 
 sign of the printed word, in reading, as it would be to stop 
 at the sound of the spoken word, in conversation. What 
 child would not repel the intercourse of a person, who 
 spoke to him only words of which he knew nothing ? No 
 personal charms would be long sufficient to compensate 
 for speaking to a child in an unknown tongue. How is 
 it possible, then, that an active-minded child should not 
 disdain the dreary pages of a book which awaken no 
 thought or emotion within him ; which are neither 
 beauty to the eye, nor music to the ear, nor sense to the 
 uaderstanding ? As reading is usually taught, the child 
 does not come into communication with his lesson by 
 any one of all his faculties. When a child looks into a 
 mirror, or at a picture where the perspective is strikingly 
 marked, he will reach around to look behind the mirror, 
 or behind the picture, in hope of finding the objects in the 
 place where they appear to be. He cares nothing for 
 the mirror, nor for the canvas ; his mind is with the 
 things presented to his senses. In reading, the page 
 should be only as the mirror, or picture, through which 
 objects are beheld. Thus there would be far more delight 
 in looking at the former, than at the latter ; because
 
 SECOND ANNUAL REPORT. 525 
 
 words can present more circumstances of variety, beauty, 
 life, amplitude, than any reflecting surface or dead pic- 
 ture. Should we not revolt at the tyranny of being 
 obliged to pore, day after day, upon the outer darkness 
 of a Chinese manuscript ? But if the words are not 
 understood, the more regular formation of the Chinese 
 characters gives them a decided advantage over our own 
 letters. Give a child two glasses, precisely similar in 
 every respect, except that one shall be opaque, the other 
 a magnifier. Through the former nothing can be teen, 
 and it therefore degenerates into a bawble ; but the latter 
 seems to create a thousand new and brilliant objects, and 
 hence he is enamoured of its quality. There is precisely 
 the same difference in the presentation of words. Yet 
 we punish children because they do not master words 
 without any regard to their being understood. 
 
 But how can this plan be executed ? In this way. 
 During the first year of a child's life, before the faculty 
 of speech is developed, before he has ever uttered a 
 word, he has obtained a considerable stock of ideas re- 
 specting objects, qualities, and motions. During the next 
 year or two, and before it is usual to teach letters, he is 
 employed through every waking hour, both in learning 
 the words expressive of known phenomena, and also in 
 acquiring a knowledge of new things and events ; so that 
 before the age of four, or even three years, the items of 
 his inventory of elementary knowledge swell to thou- 
 sands. In his memory are not merely playthings, but 
 catalogues of furniture, food, dress, insects, animals, vehi- 
 cles, objects in natural scenery, divisions of time, and so 
 forth, with various motions and appearances belonging to 
 them all. Numbers, sounds, events, feelings, also come 
 into the list. This is a stock not readily exhausted. By 
 first teaching the names or phrases exoressive of these,
 
 526 THE SECRETARY'S 
 
 the substance is always present to his mind, and the 
 words are mere signs or incidents ; and a habit is formed 
 of always keeping the mind, in after-life, intent upon 
 tilings and their relations, a habit of inestimable value, 
 and the only foundation of intellectual greatness. 
 
 I am not unaware of what is said by Locke, Burke, 
 and others, of our using words and phrases, without at 
 all summoning into the mind the particular ideas signi- 
 fied. This is undoubtedly true, to some extent, but it 
 belongs to a later period in life. It is only after having 
 used words, times almost innumerable, with an accom- 
 panying conception of the things signified, that we, at 
 last, transfer to the words a general conception of what 
 originally belonged to the ideas. If comparisons may be 
 allowed to illustrate a point somewhat obscure, the words 
 have been so long used as a vehicle of the things, that, 
 at last, when we see the vehicle, we presume the con- 
 tents ; or, as in the case of those persons who are ac- 
 customed to count large masses of specie, over and over 
 again, in branded boxes or labelled bags ; having opened 
 them many times, and found them to contain the quantity 
 stamped, they afterwards count by the mark. So it is 
 with words in relation to ideas. But, if the ideas have 
 never been compared with the words, that is, if the spe- 
 cie has never been counted and compared with the stamp, 
 then the latter has no signification. Hence the compari- 
 sons are the very first steps in the operation, and it is 
 only by virtue of having made them that we can after- 
 wards venture to facilitate the operation by relying upon 
 the index. And an early habit of associating every word 
 with an idea is rendered so much the more necessary, 
 because words are only arbitrary and artificial signs of 
 thoughts and feelings. Were they natural signs, then 
 the whole stress of observation and experience through
 
 SECOND ANNUAL REPORT. 527 
 
 life would serve to connect and bind together, more and 
 more closely, the signs and the things signified. There 
 would be a perpetual and strong tendency to coalescence 
 between them. But as the relation is wholly conven- 
 tional, if the habit is not formed of uniting the sound to 
 the sense, an opposite habit of separating them is neces- 
 sarily established. For an obvious reason, therefore, a 
 correct habit is more easily formed at the commencement 
 than ever afterwards. 
 
 Were this process observed, it would reduce almost to 
 nothing two classes of men amongst us ; one of whom 
 are greatly impaired in their usefulness, because, though 
 they think much, they can never speak ; the other abso- 
 lutely noxious, because, though speaking much, they 
 never think. The latter class, indeed, seem to be re- 
 taliating upon that early period of their life, when they 
 thought without speaking, by speaking without thinking 
 during the residue. 
 
 When it is said, however, that a child should not be 
 put to reading what he cannot understand, it is to be 
 taken with that reasonable qualification which springs 
 from the nature of the case, and which every candid mind 
 will supply. There are certain words in every-day use, 
 of whose comprehension all finite intellect must fall 
 almost infinitely short. Such are the words immensity, 
 infinity, absolute perfection, and so forth. These are 
 used, as mathematicians use algebraic signs, to express 
 unknown quantities. There are other words also, of 
 whose meaning no man has any thing more than a proxi- 
 mate apprehension. But a child of three years may per- 
 fectly understand what is meant, if he reads the word 
 newspaper, and he may know many things respecting it, 
 such as title, outside, inside, columns, margin, top, bottom, 
 size, length, breadth, fy-c., and these constitute a palpa-
 
 528 THE SECRETARY'S 
 
 ble idea of a newspaper, without knowing that it is a 
 microcosm, and that, for its production, there may have 
 been required an effort of all the human faculties, work- 
 ing on the three kingdoms, mineral, vegetable, and ani- 
 mal. So a child may have a clear conception of the 
 meaning of such words as home, parent, affection, guilt, 
 conscience, without penetrating one line's length into 
 their unfathomable depth of meaning. What is insisted 
 upon is, that the child should have a clear conception of 
 what is meant, that such conception should be correct as 
 far as it goes, and that it should be as extensive as his 
 ability will allow. 
 
 Were a child skilfully taught, with only a due alterna- 
 tion between physical and mental exercise, and with an 
 inspection of as many of the objects of nature and art as 
 common opportunity would allow, it is believed that he 
 might acquire a knowledge of the spelling and of the 
 primary meanings of substantially all the unscientific and 
 untechnical words, in ordinary use, before passing the 
 age when orthography becomes more difficult of attain- 
 ment. If, however, owing to early neglect in education, 
 or to mental inefficiency, the most favorable season for 
 learning to spell is passing away, and it is deemed advi- 
 sable to hasten this acquisition at the expense of other 
 studies, or (if any one so prefers) even of the meaning 
 of words, then it is believed that the words may be so 
 classified in the spelling-book, as greatly to facilitate 
 the labor. For this purpose, let words be arranged to- 
 gether, whose difficult syllables agree in formation ; as, 
 for instance, syllable, sycophant, sylvan, symbol, syna- 
 gogue, syntax, in which y has the sound of i, short ; or 
 in words where ch has the sound of k, as in machination, 
 chronological, bacchanalian ; or in words where qu has 
 the sound of k, as in mosque, opaque, liquor ; or where
 
 SECONP ANNUAL REPORT. 529 
 
 ei has the sound of a, as in eight, weight, inveigh, &c. 
 This list might be almost indefinitely extended ; the above 
 are given as specimens merely. The great advantage of 
 this system is, that when the true formation of the diffi- 
 cult syllable is known for one word, it is known for the 
 whole table, and frequent repetitions of the table will fix 
 the order of the letters in the memory, which, by the law 
 of association, will afterwards involuntarily recur, like 
 products in the multiplication-table, or successive notes 
 in a well-learned piece of music. Habit, founded on this 
 association, will command the successive letters in writ- 
 ing, as unconsciously as it does successive steps in walk- 
 ing. An excellent spelling-book has lately been published 
 in this city, in which words are arranged with reference 
 to their intelligibleness to children ; and Webster and 
 Fowle have made close approximation, certainly, to ar- 
 rangements of words, in conformity with the law of men- 
 tal association, above referred to. It is believed that a 
 spelling-book may be prepared which shall combine the 
 first, greatest, and most indispensable of all requisites, 
 that of addressing the innate and universal love of learn- 
 ing new things, with such a philosophical adaptation to 
 the successive periods of mental development, as shall, as 
 a general rule, present what is to be learned during the 
 epoch in which it can be most easily and pleas urably 
 acquired. 
 
 Would my limits permit, I should be glad to enter into 
 some detail with regard to the modes, now practised in 
 our schools, of teaching orthography. I will, however, 
 only observe, that spelling, by writing (when the pupil 
 can write), appears to have great advantages over spell- 
 ing orally. In the business of Life, we have no occasion 
 to spell orally, and thousands of cases have made it cer- 
 tain, that the same person may be a good speller with the 
 
 VOL, I. 84
 
 530 THE SECRETARY'S 
 
 lips, who is an indifferent one with the pen. Nor is this 
 any more strange, than that a man should not be able to 
 do dexterously with his left hand what he has always 
 been accustomed to do with his right. 
 
 It is obvious, that even in regard to orthography, the 
 book-maker is the great auxiliary of the teacher. It 
 is not less emphatically true of reading, that the book- 
 maker and the teacher are performing different parts 
 of one work. In this division of labor, the book-maker's 
 part is first to be performed, and it is impossible for the 
 best teacher wholly to make amends for what is untoward 
 or preposterous on the author's part ; because clumsy 
 and defective implements will baffle the ingenuity of the 
 most perfect workman. While measures are in progress, 
 therefore, to increase the competency of teachers, through 
 the medium of Normal Schools, the principles on which 
 school-books should be prepared should receive careful 
 attention, that good agents may have good instruments. 
 I avail myself of this occasion to make a few suggestions 
 upon the subject of reading-books. 
 
 Reading is divisible into two parts. It consists of the 
 mechanical and the mental. The mechanical part is 
 the utterance of the articulate sounds of a language, on 
 inspecting its written or printed signs. It is called 
 mechanical, because the operation closely resembles that 
 of a machine, which may receive the best of materials, 
 and run through a thousand parcels of them every year ; 
 the machine itself remaining just as bare and naked 
 at the end of the year as it was at the beginning. On 
 the other hand, one portion of the mental part of reading 
 consists in a reproduction in the mind of the reader of 
 whatever was in the mind of the author ; so that whether 
 the author describes atoms or worlds, narrates the history 
 of individuals or nations, kindles into sublimity, or melts
 
 SECOND ANNUAL REPORT. 531 
 
 in pathos, whatever was in the author's mind starts 
 into sudden existence in the reader's mind, as nearly 
 as their different mental constitutions will allow. An 
 example of the purely mechanical part is exhibited in 
 reading a foreign language, no word of which is under- 
 stood ; as in the case of Milton's daughters, who read the 
 dead languages to their blind father ; they, with eyes, 
 seeing nothing but black marks upon white paper, he, 
 without eyes, surveying material and spiritual worlds, 
 at once charmed by their beauties, and instructed by 
 their wisdom. 
 
 With the mental part, then, reading becomes the 
 noblest instrument of wisdom ; without it, it is the most 
 despicable part of folly and worthlessness. Beforehand, 
 it would seem quite as incredible, that any person should 
 compel children to go through with the barren forms 
 of reading, without ideas, as to make them perform 
 all the motions of eating, without food. The body would 
 not dwindle under the latter more certainly than the 
 mind under the former. The inevitable consequences are, 
 that all the delight of acquisition is foregone ; the reward 
 which nature bestows upon the activity of the faculties 
 is forfeited, a reward which is richer than all prizes, 
 and more efficient than all chastisement ; and an invet- 
 erate habit is formed of dissociating thought and lan- 
 guage. " Understandest thou what thou readest," 
 therefore, is a question quite as apposite when put by a 
 teacher to a child in his horn-book, as when asked by an 
 Apostle of the ambassador of a Queen. 
 
 Entertaining views of the importance of this subject, 
 of which the above is only the feeblest expression, I have 
 devoted especial pains to learn, with some degree of 
 numerical accuracy, how far the reading, in our schools, 
 is an exercise of the mind in thinking and feeling, and
 
 532 THE SECRETARY'S 
 
 how far it is a barren action of the organs of speech upon 
 the atmosphere. My information is derived, principally, 
 from the written statements of the school committees 
 of the respective towns, gentlemen who are certainly 
 exempt from all temptation to disparage the schools they 
 superintend. The result is, that more than eleven- 
 twelfths of all the children in the reading-classes, in our 
 schools, do not understand the meaning of the words they 
 read ; that they do not master the sense of the reading- 
 lessons, and that the ideas and feelings intended by the 
 author to be conveyed to, and excited in, the reader's 
 mind, still rest in the author's intention, never having yet 
 reached the place of their destination. And by this it 
 is not meant that the scholars do not obtain such a full 
 comprehension of the subject of the reading-lessons, in 
 its various relations and bearings, as a scientific or erudite 
 reader would do, but that they do not acquire a reason- 
 able and practicable understanding of them. It would 
 hardly seem that the combined efforts of all persons 
 engaged could have accomplished more in defeating the 
 true objects of reading. 
 
 How the cause of this deficiency is to be apportioned 
 among the legal supervisors of the schools, parents, 
 teachers or authors of school-books, it is impossible to 
 say ; but surely it is an evil, gratuitous, widely prevalent, 
 and threatening the most alarming consequences. But 
 it is not a remediless one. There is intelligence enough 
 in this community to search out the cause, and wisdom 
 enough to find and apply a remedy. 
 
 It has been already stated, that we may acquire a 
 knowledge of a very few things, such as are placed 
 within the range of our senses, without the use of 
 language ; but that language is the only medium by 
 which any thing, prior to our own memory and expe-
 
 SECOND ANNUAL REPORT. 533 
 
 rience, or beyond our own vision, can be made known to 
 us. Although, therefore, the words which our language 
 is said to contain, seem to be many ; yet when we think 
 of all the relations of human life, domestic, business, 
 and social ; of the countless objects in the different 
 kingdoms of nature, with their connections and depend- 
 encies ; of the sciences which have been founded upon 
 them, and of the arts to which they have been made 
 subservient ; of all, in fine, external to ourselves, 
 within the circle of time and beneath the arch of heaven ; 
 and of our own conscious hopes, fears, desires, to which 
 that arch is no boundary ; we shall see, at once, that the 
 words of our language, numerous as they are, are only 
 as one to infinity, compared with the number of the 
 objects to which they are daily applied. And yet these 
 words are sufficient not only to present us with an image 
 and a record of past and present existences, but they are 
 capable of outrunning the course of time, and describing 
 the possibilities of the future, and of transcending the 
 limits of reality, and portraying the fancy-peopled worlds 
 created by the imagination. And, what is still more 
 wonderful is, that, with the aid of these comparatively 
 few words, we can designate and touch, as it were with 
 the finger, any one fact or event in this universe of facts 
 and events, or parcel out any groups of them, from tens 
 to tens of myriads ; or we can note any period on the 
 dial-plate of by-gone centuries, just as easily as we refer 
 to the hours of the passing day. Now to accomplish this, 
 it is obvious that language must be susceptible of com- 
 binations indefinitely numerous ; that most of its single 
 words must assume different meanings, in different collo- 
 cations, and that phrases, capable of expressing any one 
 or any millions of these facts, vicissitudes, relations, must 
 be absolutely inexhaustible. Then, again, language has
 
 534 THE SECRETARY'S 
 
 various, strongly marked forms, as colloquial, philo- 
 sophical, poetical, devotional ; and in each of these 
 divisions, whatever subject we wish to separate from the 
 rest, language can carve it out, and display it distinctly 
 and by itself, for our examination. It handles the most 
 abstruse relations and affinities, and traces the most sub- 
 tile analogies to their vanishing-point; or, with equal 
 ease, it condenses the most universal principles into brief 
 sentences, or, if we please, into single words. Hence, in 
 using it, to express any greater or smaller part of what 
 is perceived by the senses, by intellect, or by genius, the 
 two conditions are, that we must discern, mentally, what 
 individual object or quality, or what combinations of 
 objects and qualities, we wish to specify ; and then we 
 must select the words and form the phrases, or volumes, 
 if need be, which will depict or designate by name 
 the individual objects we mean, or will draw a line round 
 the combination of objects we wish to exhibit and de- 
 scribe. All true use of language, therefore, necessarily 
 involves a mental act of adjustment, measure, precision, 
 pertinency ; otherwise it cannot fix the extent or gauge 
 the depth of any subject. Language is to be selected 
 and applied to the subject-matter, whether that subject- 
 matter be business, history, art or consciousness, just as 
 a surveyor applies his chain to the measurement of areas, 
 or as an artist selects his colors to portray the original. 
 But what must be the result, if the surveyor knows 
 nothing of the length of the chain he uses, and if the 
 artist selects his colors by chance, and knows not to what 
 parts he applies them? 
 
 Hence, the acquisition of language consists far less in 
 mastering words as individuals, than it does in adjusting 
 their applications to things, in sentences and phrases. And 
 one great object there are others not less important
 
 SECOND ANNUAL REPORT. 535 
 
 of teaching the children in our schools to read, is, that 
 they may there commence this habit of adjustment, of 
 specifying and delineating with precision, whatever is 
 within the range of their knowledge and experience. 
 All attempts, therefore, to teach language to children, 
 are vain, which have not this constant reference to the 
 subject-matter intended to be specified and described. 
 If the thing signified is not present to the mind, it is 
 impossible that the language should be a measure, for, 
 by the supposition, there is nothing to be measured. It 
 becomes a mere hollow sound ; and with this disadvan- 
 tage, that, from the parade which is made in administer- 
 ing the nothingness, the child is led to believe he has 
 received something. The uselessness of such a process 
 would seem to be enough, without the falsity. The fact, 
 that many children may not be able to make great 
 progress in this adjustment of words to things, so far 
 from being any reply to this view of the subject, only 
 renders it so much the more important that what is done 
 should be done rightly. 
 
 Notwithstanding the immense treasures of knowledge 
 accumulated in the past six thousand years, and the im- 
 mense difference between the learned men of our own 
 and of ancient times, yet no one denies that children are 
 now brought into the world in the same state of igno- 
 rance as they were before the flood. When born, only a 
 single instinct is developed, that of appetite for food. 
 Weeks pass, before the quickest of all the senses the 
 sight takes note of any object. At about the age of a 
 year, the faculty of language dimly appears. One after 
 another, other powers bud forth ; but it seems to be the 
 opinion of the best metaphysicians, that the highest facul- 
 ties of the intellect those which, in their full develop- 
 ment and energy, make the lawgivers of the race, and
 
 5-J6 THE SECRETARY'S 
 
 the founders of moral dynasties hardly dawn before 
 the age of twelve or fourteen years. And yet, in many 
 of the reading-books now in use in the schools, the most 
 pithy sayings of learned men ; the aphorisms in which 
 moralists have deposited a life of observation and expe- 
 rience ; the maxims of philosophers, embodying the high- 
 est forms of intellectual truth, are set down as First Les- 
 sons for children; as though, because a child was born 
 after Bacon and Franklin, he could understand them of 
 course. While a child is still engrossed with visible and 
 palpable objects, while his juvenile playthings are yet a 
 mystery to him, he is presented with some abstraction or 
 generalization, just discovered, after the profoundest study 
 of men and things, by some master intellect. But it mat- 
 ters not to children, how much knowledge or wisdom 
 there may be in the world, on subjects foreign to them- 
 selves, until they have acquired strength of mind suffi- 
 cient to receive and appropriate them. The only interest 
 which a child has in the attainments of the age in which 
 he is born, is, that they may be kept from him until ho 
 lias been prepared to receive them. Erudite and scientific 
 men, for their own convenience, have formed summaries, 
 digests, abstracts, of their knowledge, each sentence of 
 which contains a thousand elements of truth, that had 
 been mastered in detail ; and, on inspection of these ab- 
 breviated forms, they are reminded of, not taught, the 
 individual truths they contain. Yet these are given to 
 children, as though they would call up in their minds the 
 same ideas which they suggest to their authors. But 
 while children are subjected to the law of their Creator, 
 that of being born in ignorance, their growth is the desid- 
 eratum, which Education should supply, and their intel- 
 lect cannot thrive upon what it does not understand ; 
 nay, more, the intellect carries as a burden whatever it
 
 SECOND ANNUAL EEPORT. 537 
 
 does not assimilate as nourishment. An indispensable 
 quality of a school-book, then, is its adjustment to the 
 power of the learner. No matter how far, or how little, 
 advanced from the starting-point of ignorance a child 
 may be, the teacher and the book must go to him. And 
 this is only saying, that he cannot proceed upon his jour- 
 ney from a point not yet reached, but must first go 
 through the intermediate stages. A child must know in- 
 dividual objects of a species, before he can understand a 
 name descriptive of the species itself. He must know 
 particulars, before he can understand the relations of 
 analogy or contrast between them ; he must be accus- 
 tomed to ideas of visible and tangible extension, before it 
 is of any nse to tell him of the height of the Alps or the 
 length of the Amazon ; he must have definite notions of 
 weight, before he can understand the force of gravitating 
 planets ; he must be acquainted with phenomena, before 
 he can be instructed in the laws which harmonize their 
 conflicting appearances ; and he must know something 
 of the relations of men, before he is qualified to infer the 
 duties that spring from them. 
 
 Nor should the first lessons be simple and elementary, 
 in regard to the subject only ; but the language of the 
 earliest ones should be literal. All figurative or meta- 
 phorical expression is based upon the literal, and can 
 have no intelligible existence without it. After a clear 
 apprehension of the literal meaning of words, there is a 
 charm in their figurative applications ; because a com- 
 parison is silently made between the figurative and the 
 literal meanings, and the resemblance perceived awakens 
 a delightful emotion. And this pleasure is proportioned 
 to the distinctness of the related ideas. But how can a 
 child understand those figures of speech, where a part is 
 put for the whole, or the whole for a part, when he knows
 
 538 THE SECRETARY'S 
 
 nothing either of whole or part; where sensible objects 
 are put for intelligible, or animate things for inanimate, 
 when he is wholly ignorant of the subjects likened or 
 contrasted ? How can there be any such thing as tautol- 
 ogy to a child, who is unacquainted with what went be- 
 fore ; or how can he perceive antithesis if both extremes 
 are invisible ? In writings, beautiful from the richness 
 of their suggestion, the tacit reference to collateral ideas 
 is wholly lost ; and yet it is the highest proof of a master, 
 to interweave ideas with which pleasurable emotions have 
 become associated. Hence, a child, put into reading-les- 
 sons which are beyond his ability, not only reads with a 
 dormant understanding, but all the faculties, productive 
 of taste, refinement, elegance, beauty, are torpid also. 
 The faculties being unemployed, the reading, which other- 
 wise would have been a pleasure, becomes irksome and 
 repulsive. There is another pernicious consequence, in- 
 separable from the practice of depositing, in the memory 
 of children, those general and synoptical views which 
 they do not understand. It leads to an opposite extreme 
 in instruction ; for when children, whose memory only 
 has been cultivated, are really to be taught any subject 
 with thoroughness, and for practical application, it then 
 becomes necessary to simplify and degrade it to the level 
 of their feeble apprehension. But why cannot the facul- 
 ties be strengthened by exercise, so that, in process of 
 time, they can master more difficult subjects, as well as to 
 degrade subjects to the level of weak faculties ? 
 
 In communicating the elements of knowledge to chil- 
 dren, there is, at first, but little danger of being too 
 minute and particular. Expansion, explanation, illustra- 
 tion, circumlocution, all are necessary. But, as the 
 child advances, less diffuseness is requisite. The prolix 
 becomes concise. Different and more comprehensive
 
 SECOND ANNUAL REPORT. 539 
 
 words are used, or the same in an enlarged signification. 
 What was pulverized and examined in atoms is now col- 
 lected and handled in masses. Care, however, is to be 
 taken at every step, in the first place, that what is pre- 
 sented to the learner should demand a conscious effort on 
 his part, for, without such an effort, there will be no in- 
 crease of strength ; and, in the next place, that what is 
 presented should be attainable by an effort, for, without 
 success, discouragement and despair will ensue. School- 
 books, however, are made for classes, and not for indi- 
 vidual minds, and hence the best books will be more pre- 
 cisely adapted to some minds than to others. This differ- 
 ence it is the duty of the teacher to equalize, by giving 
 more copious explanations to the dull and unintelligent, 
 and by tasking the strong and apprehensive with more 
 difficult questions connected with the text. Every sen- 
 tence will have related ideas of cause and effect, of what 
 is antecedent, consequent or collateral, which may be ex- 
 plored to the precise extent indicated by different abili- 
 ties. The old Balearic islanders of the Mediterranean, 
 famed among the ancients for being the best bowmen and 
 slingsmen in the then known world, had in this respect 
 a true idea of Education. They placed the food of their 
 children upon the branches of the trees, at different 
 heights from the ground, according to age and profi- 
 ciency, and when the children had dislodged it, by bow 
 or sling, they had their meals, but not before. 
 
 Tested by this criterion, are not many of the reading- 
 books in our schools too elevated for the scholars ? It 
 seems generally to have been the object of the compilers 
 of these books to cull the most profound and brilliant 
 passages, contained in a language, in which the highest 
 efforts of learning, talent, and genius have been em- 
 balmed. Had there been a rivalry, like that at the
 
 540 THE SECRETARY'S 
 
 ancient Olympic games, where emulous nations, instead 
 of individuals, had entered the classic lists, as competitors 
 for renown, and our fame as a people had been staked 
 upon our eloquent, school-book miscellanies, we should 
 have questioned the integrity of the umpire, had we not 
 won the prize. Certainly from no ancient, probably from 
 no other modern language, could such a selection of lite- 
 rary excellences be made, as some of them exhibit, 
 demonstrative arguments on the most abstruse and re- 
 condite subjects, tasking the acuteness of practised logi- 
 cians, and appreciable only by them ; brilliant passages 
 of parliamentary debates, whose force would be irresisti- 
 ble, provided only that one were familiar with all con- 
 temporary institutions and events ; scenes from dramas, 
 beautiful if understood, but unintelligible without an 
 acquaintance with heathen mythology ; wit, poetry, 
 eloquence, whose shafts, to the vision of educated minds, 
 are quick and refulgent as lightning, but giving out to 
 the ignorant only an empty rumbling of words ; every 
 thing, in fine, may be found in their pages, which can 
 make them, at once, worthy the highest admiration of the 
 learned, and wholly unintelligible to children. If I may 
 recur to the illustration of the Balearic islanders, given 
 above ; the prize of the young slingers and archers is in- 
 valuable, if it can be obtained ; but it is placed so high as 
 to be wholly invisible. Children can advance from the 
 proposition, that one and one make two, up to the meas- 
 urement of planetary distances, but an immense number 
 of steps must be taken in traversing the intermediate 
 spaces. And it is only by a similar gradation and pro- 
 gressiveness, that a child can advance from understanding 
 such nursery talk as "the ball rolls," "the dog barks," 
 "the horse trots," until his mind acquires such compass 
 and velocity of movement, that when he reads the brief
 
 SECOND ANNUAL REPORT. 541 
 
 declaration of the Psalmist, " Lord, how manifold are 
 thy works; in wisdom hast thou made them all!" his 
 swift conception will sweep over all known parts of the 
 universe in an instant, and return glowing with adoration 
 of their Creator. 
 
 Using incomprehensible reading-books draws after it 
 the inevitable consequence of bad reading. Except the 
 mental part is well done, it is impossible to read with any 
 rhetorical grace or propriety. Could any one, ignorant 
 of the Latin and French languages, expect to read a Latin 
 or French author with just modulations and expressive- 
 ness of voice, at the first or at the ten thousandth trial ? 
 And it matters not what language we read, provided the 
 mechanical process is animated by no vitality of thought. 
 Something, doubtless, depends upon flexibility and pli- 
 ancy of physical organs ; but should they be ever so per- 
 fect, a fitting style of delivery is born of intelligence and 
 feeling only, and can have no other parentage. Without 
 these, there will be no perception of impropriety, though 
 epitaphs and epigrams are read in the same manner. If 
 the pieces of which the reading-books consist are among 
 the most difficult in the English language, is it not absurd 
 to expect that the least instructed portion of the people, 
 speaking English the very children should be able to 
 display their meaning with grace and fulness ? To en- 
 courage children to strive after a supposed natural way 
 of expressing emotions and sentiments they do not feel, 
 encourages deception, not sincerity ; a discord, not a har- 
 mony, between the movements of mind and tongue. No 
 rules, in regard to reading, can supply a defect in under- 
 standing what is read. Rhetorical directions, though they 
 should equal the variety of musical notation, would not 
 suffice to indicate the slower or swifter enunciation of 
 emphatic or unemphatic words, or those modulations
 
 542 THE SECRETARY'S 
 
 of the human voice, which are said to amount to hun- 
 dreds of thousands in number. Inflections and the rate 
 of utterance are too volatile and changeful to be guided 
 by rules ; though perceptible, they are indescribable. All 
 good reading of dramatic or poetic works springs from 
 emotion. Nothing but the greatest histrionic power can 
 express an emotion without feeling it. But, once let the 
 subject-matter of the reading-lesson be understood, and, 
 almost universally, nature will supply the proper varia- 
 tions of voice. A child makes no mistakes in talking, 
 for the simple reason, that he never undertakes to say 
 what he does not understand. Nature is the only master 
 of rhetoric on the play-ground. Yet there, earnestness 
 gives a quick and emphatic utterance ; the voice is rough- 
 ened by combative feelings ; it is softened by all joyous 
 and grateful emotions, and it is projected, as by the accu- 
 racy of an engineer, to strike the ear of a distant play- 
 fellow. Nay, so perfect are undrilled children in this 
 matter, that if any one of a group of twenty makes a 
 false cadence or emphasis, or utters interrogatively what 
 he meant to affirm, a simultaneous shout proclaims an 
 observance of the blunder ; yet, if the same group were 
 immediately put to reading from some of our school- 
 books, their many-sounding voices would shrink from their 
 wide compass into a one-toned instrument ; or, what is 
 far worse, if they affected an expression of sentiment, 
 they would cast it so promiscuously over the sentences as 
 to make good taste shudder. Occasionally, in some of the 
 reading-books, there are lessons which the scholars fully 
 understand ; and I presume it is within the observation 
 of every person, conversant with schools, that the classes 
 learn more from those lessons than from the residue of 
 the book. The moment such lessons are reached, the 
 dull machinery quickens into life ; the moment they are
 
 SECOND ANNUAL REPORT. 543 
 
 passed, it becomes droning machinery again. Even the 
 mechanical part of reading, therefore, is dependent for all 
 its force, gracefulness and variety upon the mental. 
 
 There are other features of our reading-books too im- 
 portant to be unnoticed, even in a brief discussion of 
 their merits. Two prominent characteristics are, the in- 
 completeness of the subjects of the reading-lessons, con- 
 sidered each by itself; and the discordance between them, 
 when viewed in succession. Lord Kaimes maintains, in 
 substance, that there is an original, instinctive propensity 
 or faculty of the mind, which demands the completion or 
 finishing of what has been begun, and is displeased by an 
 untimely or abrupt termination. Other metaphysicians 
 attest the same doctrine. Whether such mental tendency 
 be native or superinduced, its practical value can hardly 
 be overestimated ; and whatever conduces to establish or 
 confirm it, should be sedulously fostered. In our state 
 of civilization, all questions have become complex. Hence, 
 an earnest desire to learn all the facts, to consider all the 
 principles, which rightfully go to modify conclusions, is a 
 copious and unfailing source of practical wisdom. Error 
 often comes, not from any mistake in our judgments upon 
 the premises given, but from omitting views, as much 
 belonging to the subject as those which are considered. 
 We often see men, who will develop one part of a case 
 with signal ability, and yet are always in the wrong, 
 because they overlook other parts, equally essential to a 
 sound result. Thus error becomes the consequence of 
 seeing only parts of truth. Often, the want of the hun- 
 dredth part to make a whole, renders the possession of the 
 other ninety-nine valueless. If one planet were left out 
 of our astronomical computations, the motions of the solar 
 system could not be explained, though all about the others 
 were perfectly known. Children, therefore, should not
 
 544 THE SECRETARY'S 
 
 only be taught, but habituated, as far as possible, to com- 
 pass the subject of inquiry, to explore its less obvious 
 parts, and, if I may so speak, to circumnavigate it ; so 
 that their minds will be impatient of a want of complete- 
 ness and thoroughness, and will resent one-sided views 
 and half-presentations. Merely a habit of mind in a child 
 of seeking for well-connected, well-proportioned views, 
 would give the surest augury of a great man. Now, if 
 there be such a tendency in the human mind, urging it 
 to search out the totality of any subject, and rewarding 
 success, not only with utility, but with a lively pleasure, 
 is not the reading pupil defrauded both of the benefit and 
 the enjoyment, by having his mind forcibly transferred, in 
 rapid succession, from a few glimpses of one subject to as 
 few glimpses of another ? On looking into a majority of 
 the reading-books in our schools, I believe it will be found, 
 that they contain more separate pieces than leaves. Often, 
 these pieces are antipodal to each other in style, treat- 
 ment, and subject. There is a solemn inculcation of the 
 doctrine of universal peace on one page, and a martial, 
 slaughter-breathing poem on the next. I have a reading- 
 book, in which a catalogue of the names of all the books 
 of the Old and New Testaments is followed immediately, 
 and on the same page, by a " receipt to make good red 
 ink." But what is worst of all is, that the lessons, gen- 
 erally, have not, in any logical sense, either a beginning 
 or an end. They are splendid passages, carved out of an 
 eloquent oration or sermon, without premises or conclu- 
 sion ; a page of compressed thought, taken from a 
 didactic poem, without the slightest indication of the sys- 
 tem of doctrines embodied in the whole ; extracts from 
 forensic arguments, without any statement of the facts of 
 the case, so that the imagination of the young reader is 
 inflamed, while those faculties which determine the fitness
 
 SECOND ANNUAL REPORT. 545 
 
 and relevancy of the advocate's appeals are wholly unex- 
 ercised ; forty or fifty lines of the tenderest pathos, 
 unaccompanied by any circumstances tending to awaken 
 sympathy, and leaving the children to guess both at cause 
 and consolation ; and while no dramatist dares violate 
 an absurd rule, that every tragedy written for the stage 
 shall have five acts, a single isolated scene, taken from 
 the middle of one of them, seems to be considered a fair 
 proportion for a child. Probably in a school of an average 
 number of scholars, three or four of these pieces would be 
 read at each exercise, so that, even if the pieces were in- 
 telligible by themselves, the contradictory impressions will 
 effectually neutralize each other. Surely, if, according to 
 Lord Kaimes, there be an innate desire or propensity to 
 finish, we should expect that the children would manifest 
 it, in such cases, by desiring to have done with the book 
 forever. 
 
 What the ancient rhetoricians said of a literary work, 
 that it should always have a beginning, a middle, and 
 an end, is more emphatically true of reading-lessons 
 for children. Each piece should have the completeness 
 of a fable or an allegory. Were a single figure cut from 
 the historic canvas of some master-painter, and presented 
 to us by itself, we should suffer vexation from the blank- 
 ness of the mutilated part, instead of enjoying the pleas- 
 ure of a perfect whole. 
 
 But, perhaps it will be said that children like variety, 
 and therefore a diversity of subjects is demanded. But 
 there is a wide distinction between what is variegated and 
 what is heterogeneous or conflicting. Quite as well may 
 it be said, that children like continuity, not less than 
 variety. Agencies working to a common end, elements 
 expanding and evolving into a full and symmetrical devel- 
 opment, present a variety more accordant to nature than 
 
 VOL. i. 86
 
 546 THE SECRETARY'S 
 
 that of patchwork. An easy and gliding transition from 
 topic to topic is far preferable to a sudden revulsion, 
 which seems, as it were, to arrest the mental machinery, 
 and work it backwards. Besides, all needful variety is 
 as attainable in long pieces as in short ones. An author 
 may pass from grave to humorous, from description to 
 narration, from philosophizing to moralizing, or even from 
 prose to poetry, without shocking the mind by precipitous 
 leaps from one subject to another. 
 
 Another mental exercise of the highest value is not 
 only overlooked, but rendered wholly impossible, by this 
 violent transference of the mind through a series of 
 repugnant subjects. The true order of mental advance- 
 ment is, from the primitive meaning of words to their 
 modified meaning in particular connections, and then to 
 a clear apprehension of the import of sentences and para- 
 graphs. After these come two other mental processes, 
 which are the crowning constituents of intellectual great- 
 ness. The first process is a comparison with each other 
 of all the parts presented, in order to discern their agree- 
 ment or repugnance, and to form a judgment of their 
 conduciveness to a proposed result. For this purpose, 
 the mind must summon the whole train of thought into 
 its presence, and see for itself whether the conclusion is 
 authorized to which its assent is demanded. Here the 
 reader must see whether the part he now reads, as 
 compared with the preceding, is consistent or contradic- 
 tory. Otherwise he may be marched and counter- 
 marched through all regions of belief, and even be made 
 to tread backwards in his own footsteps without knowing- 
 it. How can a juror judge of the soundness or fallacy of 
 an advocate's argument, if he cannot reproduce it and 
 compare its different points ; if he cannot, if a military 
 phrase may be used, bring up the long column of argu-
 
 SECOND ANNUAL REPORT. 547 
 
 merits and deploy them into line, so as to survey them 
 all at a glance ? Such a habit of mind confers a wonder- 
 ful superiority on its possessor ; and therefore it should 
 be cultivated by all practicable means. Great as it is in 
 some men, it has grown up, under favoring circum- 
 stances, from the feeblest beginnings ; and the minds of 
 all children may be managed so as to stifle or strengthen 
 it. Of course, all consecutiveness of thought is dispersed 
 by a scrap-book. 
 
 I will take a few examples from a reading-book now 
 in use in some of our schools. A most humorous disqui- 
 sition " On the head-dress of ladies " is immediately 
 followed by another disquisition, " On a future state of 
 eternal happiness or perdition ; " a passage from Mil- 
 ton's " Creation of the world " leads on " The facetious 
 history of John Gilpin ; " Thomson's " Hymn to the 
 Deity " ushers in " Merrick's chameleon ; " and two 
 minutes' reading from Blair's " Sermon on the Death of 
 Christ " precedes Lord Chesterfield's " Speech on Pen- 
 sions." Surely, the habit of mind I have endeavored to 
 describe is here impossible. There is no continuity in 
 the subject-matter for the mind to act on. 
 
 The preceding remarks contemplate the reader or 
 hearer, as engaged in fixing the whole train of the 
 author's thought in his own mind, for the purpose of 
 comparing its different parts. But to make reading 
 in the highest degree valuable, another mental process 
 still is necessary. It is not enough merely to discern the 
 agreement or disagreement of the associated parts, heard 
 or read ; but in the progress of the exercise, we ought to 
 look to the right and left, and compare the positions of 
 the speaker or writer with our own observation, experi- 
 ence and former judgment, so as to obtain new argu- 
 ments for our own opinions where there is a coincidence,
 
 548 THE SECRETARY'S 
 
 and be led to re-examine them with conscientious impar- 
 tiality when opposed. In this way only can we modify 
 and correct our own views by the help of other minds. 
 In this way only can we give permanence to our acquisi- 
 tions ; and what is rapidity in acquisition, without 
 durability in retention ? It is the absence of these two 
 mental exercises which makes so vast a portion of the 
 reading of our community utterly barren. Of course, 
 only the older scholars can fairly realize this degree of 
 intelligent reading. But after a little practice, all chil- 
 dren are capable of reading with such an open and 
 inquiring mind, that if any thing occurs in the lesson, 
 which is connected with their own recent experience or 
 observation, the two things will be immediately associ- 
 ated. This will grow into a habit of thinking not only 
 of what they read, but of associating and comparing their 
 previous knowledge upon the same subject with it ; and 
 it will be the best possible stimulant to the inventive 
 powers. It will also prevent them from blindly adopting 
 whatever is communicated to them by others. They 
 will acquire such a power, at once, of expanded views 
 and of thorough investigation, that if afterwards, in the 
 practical business of life, any plan or course of policy is 
 presented to them, and there be a difficulty in it, they 
 will see it; and if there be any way of obviating that 
 difficulty, they will see that also. 
 
 To mitigate the calamity of unintelligent reading, 
 various inventions have been sought out ; by some of 
 which it may have been slightly relieved, while others 
 seem wholly illusive. Spelling-books have been pre- 
 pared, purporting to give synonymous words, arranged 
 in parallel columns. On some pages two columns, on 
 others three columns, are found, where the words, which 
 are placed horizontally, in regard to each other, are
 
 SECOND ANNUAL REPORT. 549 
 
 alleged to be synonymous. Thus single words are sup- 
 posed to be defined by single words, as in the following 
 example, which is taken from one of them : 
 
 " comedy, tragedy, drama." 
 
 It is a remark of Dr. Blair, that " hardly in any lan- 
 guage are there two words that convey the same idea." 
 Dr. Campbell, also, the author of that^able work, " The 
 Philosophy of Rhetoric," observes, that " there are few 
 words in any language, (particularly such as relate to 
 operations and feelings of the mind,) which are strictly 
 univocal." To teach children that any considerable 
 number, even of the primitive words in the English lan- 
 guage, can be reduced to doublets and triplets of syno- 
 nymes, or that there are many cases where words can be 
 interchangeably used, would subject them to the cer- 
 tainty, both of being mistaken by others, and of mistak- 
 ing whatever they might hear or read ; and it would 
 destroy the power of aptness in the selection of words, 
 upon which all the accuracy, elegance and force of 
 diction depend. Surely, if a large majority of the words 
 of our language have, each, one or two synonymous 
 words, it would seem advisable for the government of 
 the " Republic of Letters," at once to reduce it to one- 
 half or one-third of its present bulk, by discarding the 
 superfluous parts, and thus save the young the labor of 
 learning and the old the trouble of writing and reading 
 a double or treble-sized vocabulary. But if, as is further 
 observed by Dr. Blair, any person, " conversant with the 
 propriety of the language, will always be able to observe 
 something that distinguishes any two of its words," then 
 a book would be greatly to be preferred which should 
 show that it has no synouymes. Even if our language
 
 550 THE SECRETARY'S 
 
 furnished synonymes, and these were carefully collated, 
 according to the above plan, it would seem quite as possi- 
 ble for the learner, with a little additional labor, to get 
 two or three words, without any glimmer of meaning, as 
 to get one. It is rarely possible to explain any word of 
 unknown meaning by any other single word. Our most 
 common words are susceptible, probably, of a hundred 
 significations, according to the connection in which they 
 are used. Their value is constantly changing, according 
 to the context. It is like the value of pieces upon a 
 chess-board; the same- piece, in one position, being 
 almost worthless, in another position commanding the 
 game. It is this fact which makes it such vanity and 
 uselessness to read words, without reference to their 
 significations. 
 
 Another method for teaching significations consists in 
 the use of the dictionary. This is far less fallacious 
 than the former, because no dictionary ever defines by a 
 single word. It usually gives a number of words and 
 short sentences, from a comparison of which, the princi- 
 pal idea, common to them all, can be separated from the 
 accessory ideas peculiar to each. Although, therefore, 
 it is a meagre resource for a learner, it is far better than 
 any definition, by a single inflexible word, can be. There 
 are. however, very serious objections to this mode. 
 Should the pupil take the words of the dictionary, in 
 course, he would study double the number which he 
 will have occasion to use in after-life ; and it seems a 
 misfortune, that scholars, who do not go to school half 
 long enough to learn what is needful, should spend 
 half their time while there in learning what is superflu- 
 ous. Nor do dictionaries indicate what words are in 
 reputable use, what are more appropriate to poetical, 
 what to prose writings, and so forth. But should the
 
 SECOND ANNUAL REPORT. 551 
 
 words to be studied or omitted be marked for the 
 learner, or a dictionary be prepared, containing the for- 
 mer only ; still an insuperable objection would remain, 
 in consequence of the order, or rather the entire want of 
 order, in regard to meaning, in which the words are 
 presented. For, while the words come alphabetically, 
 the ideas come chaotically. The learner is whirled back- 
 wards and forwards, carried through time and space, 
 presented witli matter and mind, principal and incident, 
 action and passion, all in a single column. Nothing can 
 be conceived more heterogeneous than the ideas neces- 
 sarily resulting from an alphabetical arrangement of the 
 words ; and were children to be drilled at much length 
 on such exercises, it would argue great soundness of 
 mind if their intellects were not a little unsettled. Sup- 
 pose a professor in the natural sciences, instead of teach- 
 ing his sciences in a natural order, should go into the 
 fields, and halting anywhere, at random, should take a 
 spot no larger than is sufficient for the growth of a single 
 blade of grass, and should proceed to lecture upon what- 
 ever was found at that single point. He would be 
 obliged to run over the subjects of geology, mineralogy, 
 chemistry, botany, and perhaps entomology, without 
 leaving the spot. Nor would this be a course half so 
 devious and erratic, as that of studying definitions 
 through the columns of a dictionary. 
 
 Another device to fill vacuity by pouring in vacuity, is 
 this ; a book is prepared, in which the spelling and read- 
 ing lessons alternate. First come a few columns of words, 
 and then a page of apothegms and synopses of universal 
 truths, not occupying, perhaps, more than a line each ; 
 some one word in the spelling-columns being incorporated 
 into each of these short sentences. The force of the rea- 
 sons against the preceding mode is but little abated when
 
 .552 THE SECRETARY'S 
 
 applied to this. This motley company of sentences repels 
 all interest on the part of the learner. Topics, more 
 alien from each other, and more bewildering to the mind, 
 could not be found, if one were to stick a pin through all 
 the leaves of a book, and then to read continuously all the 
 sentences through which the puncture was made. As 
 many-colored and diverse-shaped objects, flitting swiftly 
 before the eye, will make no stable impression upon the 
 retina ; so a multitude of incongruous ideas and feelings, 
 trooping hurriedly before the mental vision, can leave no 
 enduring traces of outline, aspect or quality upon the 
 mind. A rapid succession of discordant images will inflict 
 distraction upon the mind of an adult ; how much more 
 certain are they to do it upon that of a child ! The power 
 of passing abruptly from one subject of thought to an- 
 other, without mental disturbance, requires long 'habit 
 and familiarity with the matters presented. Children can 
 have neither. 
 
 But I will not occupy further time in exposing empiri- 
 cal plans for acquiring a ready and apposite use of our 
 language. After experimenting with every scheme, I 
 believe we shall be driven back to a single resource ; 
 and not reluctantly, for that resource is sure and adequate. 
 Language is to be learned, where it is used, as skill in 
 handling the implements of an art is acquired by prac- 
 tising with them upon their appropriate objects. It is to 
 be learned by conversation, and by the daily reading of 
 such books, as with the aid of free questioning on the part 
 of the pupil, and full explanations on that of the teacher, 
 can be thoroughly mastered. The ideas of the learner 
 are to be brought out, and set, objectively, before his own 
 eyes, like a picture. Any error can then be pointed out. 
 The boundary-line can be traced between his knowledge 
 and his ignorance. A pupil may recite a lesson with
 
 SECOND ANNUAL REPORT. 553 
 
 literal correctness, respecting the boundaries of the differ- 
 ent States in the Union ; and it may be impossible for the 
 teacher to determine whether this is done by a mental 
 reference to divisional lines and adjacent territory, or 
 whether it is done by remembering the words as they 
 stand in the geography. But if the pupil can delineate 
 a correct map of the United States on a blackboard, it is 
 then certain that he has the prototype of it in his mind. 
 So if the pupil applies language to something known to 
 both parties, the teacher can then perceive whether the 
 language is adjusted to the thing ; and, if it is not, he can 
 ascertain whether the error arises from a misconception of 
 the thing, or from an unskilful use of words in describing 
 it. Oral instruction, therefore, to some extent, respecting 
 known objects and such as can be graphically described, 
 should precede reading; and should accompany it ever 
 afterwards, though, perhaps, with diminishing frequency. 
 Early practice, in noting the real distinctions in the quali- 
 ties of sensible substances, will give accuracy to language ; 
 and when the child passes from present and sensible 
 objects to unseen or mental ones, a previously acquired 
 accuracy of language will impart accuracy to the new 
 ideas. Hence, too, the scenes of the first reading-lessons 
 should be laid in the household, the play-ground, among 
 the occupations of men, and the surrounding objects of 
 nature, so that the child's notions can be rectified at every 
 step in the progress. This rectification will be impossible, 
 if the notions of the pupil can be brought to no common 
 and intelligible standard. We must believe, too, that the 
 Creator of the human mind, and of the material world in 
 which it is placed, established a harmony and correspond- 
 ence between them ; so that the objects of nature are pre- 
 adapted to the development of the intellect, as the tempers, 
 dispositions and manners of the family are to develop the
 
 554 THE SECRETARY'S 
 
 moral powers. The objects of natural history, descrip- 
 tions of beasts, birds, fishes, insects, trees, flowers, and 
 unorganized substances, should form the subjects of the 
 earliest intellectual lessons. A knowledge of these facts 
 lays the foundation for a knowledge of the principles or 
 sciences which respectively grow out of them. We are 
 physically connected with earth, air, water, light ; we are 
 dependent, for health and comfort, upon a knowledge of 
 their properties and uses, and many of the vastest struc- 
 tures of the intellect are reared upon these foundations. 
 Lineally related to these is the whole family of the useful 
 arts. These classes of subjects are not only best calcu- 
 lated to foster the early growth of the perceptive, inven- 
 tive and reasoning powers ; but the language appropriate 
 to them excludes vagueness and ambiguity, and compels 
 every mistake to betray itself. Voyages and travels, also, 
 accompanied as they always should be with geography, 
 present definite materials both for thought and expres- 
 sion. Just as early as a habit of exactness is formed in 
 using words to express things, all the subjects of con- 
 sciousness may be successively brought within the domain 
 of instruction. The ideal world can then be entered, as 
 it were with a lamp in the hand, and all its wonders por- 
 trayed. Affection, justice, veracity, impartiality, self-sac- 
 rifice, love to man and love to God, all carried out into 
 action, can be illustrated by examples, after the learner 
 has acquired a medium through which he can see all the 
 circumstances which make deeds magnanimous, heroic, 
 god-like. Here the biography of great and good men 
 belongs. This is a department of literature, equally vivify- 
 ing to the intellect and the morals; bestowing useful 
 knowledge and inspiring noble sentiments. And much 
 of the language appropriate to it almost belongs to an- 
 other dialect ; fervid, electric, radiant. At the earliest
 
 SECOND ANNUAL REPORT. 555 
 
 practicable period, let composition or translation be com- 
 menced. By composition, I do not mean an essay " On 
 Friendship," or " On Honor ; " nor that a young Miss of 
 twelve years should write a homily " On the duties of a 
 Queen," or a lad, impatient of his nonage, " On the short- 
 ness of human life ;" but that the learner should apply, 
 on familiar subjects, the language he thinks best, to the 
 ideas and emotions he perceives clearest and feels strong- 
 est, to see how well he can make them fit each other, first 
 in sentences, or short paragraphs, then in more extended 
 productions. If the pupil's knowledge outruns his lan- 
 guage, as is often the case with the most promising, 
 then a more copious diction is to be sought ; but if lan- 
 guage overgrows ideas, it is to be reduced, though it be 
 by knife and cautery. 
 
 It is only in this way, by reading or translating good 
 authors, aided by oral instructions and by lexicographers, 
 but, most of all, by early habit, that any one can 
 acquire such easy mastery over the copiousness and flexi- 
 bility of our mother-tongue, as to body forth definitely, 
 and at will, any thought or thing, or any combination of 
 thoughts and things, found in the consciousness of men, 
 or in the amplitude of nature ; in no other way can 
 any one acquire that terseness and condensing force of 
 expression, which is a constituent in the highest oratory, 
 which clusters weightiest thoughts into briefest spaces, 
 reminding without repeating, each sentence speeding 
 straight onward to the end, while every salient epithet 
 opens deep vistas to the right and left ; and in this way 
 alone can any one ever learn the picture-words of that 
 tongue, wherewith the poet repays nature fourfold for all 
 her beauties, giving her back brighter landscapes, and 
 clearer waters, and sweeter melodies, than any she had 
 ever lent to him. By such processes alone can one of
 
 556 THE SECRETAEY'S 
 
 the most wonderful gifts of God, the faculty of speech, 
 be dutifully cultivated and enlarged. 
 
 It would be rendering a useful service, to follow out, 
 rightly, and in detail, the natural consequences of this 
 imperfect manner of teaching our language, after the chil- 
 dren have passed from the enforced routine of the school- 
 room to a free choice of their own intellectual amuse- 
 ments and recreations. I can here only hint at them, 
 The mere language of sensation and of appetite is com- 
 mon to all. Even the most illiterate are familiar with it. 
 Every one, too, either from his own experience, or from 
 the observation of others, is made acquainted with the 
 emotions of fear, hope, jealousy, anger, revenge, and with 
 the explosive phraseology in which those passions are 
 vented. Now the diction, appropriate and almost peculiar 
 to the manifestations of the coarser and more animal part 
 of our nature, is almost as distinct as though it were a 
 separate language from the style in which questions of 
 social right and duty, questions of morals, and even of 
 philosophy, when popularly treated, are discussed. Young 
 minds love excitement, and, to very many of those who 
 are just entering upon the stage of life, books furnish the 
 readiest and the most reputable means for mental stimulus. 
 What else, then, can reasonably be expected, than that 
 the graduates of our schoolrooms, who, by acquiring a 
 knowledge of the coarser and more sensual parts of our 
 language, possess a key to that kind of reading which is 
 mainly conversant with the lower propensities of human 
 nature, should use the key with which they have been 
 furnished, to satisfy desires which nature has imparted ? 
 But, having no key wherewith to open the treasures of 
 intellect, of taste, of that humane literature which is 
 purified from the dross of base passions, they turn away 
 from these elevating themes in weariness and disgust,
 
 SECOND ANNUAL REPORT. 557 
 
 and thus stifle the better aspirations of their nature. 
 These treasures are locked up in a language they do not 
 understand ; and no person will long endure the weariness 
 of reading without thought or emotion. May not this 
 explain, in part at least, why our youth of both sexes, 
 who wish to know something, or to appear to know some- 
 thing, of what is called the literature of the day, spend 
 months and years over the despicable " love and murder " 
 books, by which the reading portion of mankind is so 
 sorely afflicted? books which inflame passions and 
 appetites that are strong enough by nature, while they 
 blind and stupefy every faculty and sentiment which exalt 
 the character into wisdom and excellence. The most 
 limited fund of words, and a mere intellectual pauperism 
 in powers of thought, are abundantly sufficient to enable 
 one to understand a buccaneer's history, and all its intoxi- 
 cating incidents of piracies, murders, and scuttled ships ; 
 or to get vivid notions of loathsome crimes, perpe- 
 trated by the unfortunate victims of ignorance and of 
 vicious institutions. For the readers of such books, the 
 best minds in the world might as well have never been 
 created. By a different course of training, many of our 
 youth, whose imaginations are now revelling over these 
 flagitious works, might have been prepared for high en- 
 joyment won from companionship with noble characters, 
 from a study of their own spiritual natures, or from an 
 investigation of the sublime laws of the material universe, 
 and the operation of its beneficent physical agencies. 
 
 Another large class of our citizens scarcely consult any 
 oracle, either for their literature or for their politics, but 
 the daily newspaper. Wholly ignorant of the language 
 in which argumentative and profound disquisitions, on 
 subjects of policy or questions of government, are carried 
 on, why should we wonder that so many of them feel
 
 558 THE SECRETARY'S 
 
 less interest in dispassionate, instructive appeals to reason, 
 than in the savage idioms of party warfare ? The states 
 of mind thus excited are wholly incompatible with dis- 
 criminating judgment, with impartiality, with that delib- 
 eration and truth-seeking anxiety, which are indispensable 
 to the formation of correct opinions, and which lead to 
 conduct worthy of free citizens. I would not attribute 
 too efficient an agency to this cause, but if it only tends 
 to such disastrous results by the slightest approximation, 
 it furnishes another powerful argument for a thorough 
 reform in our practice. 
 
 During the first year of my officiating as Secretary of 
 the Board, very numerous applications were made to me. 
 from almost all parts of the State, to recommend class- 
 books for the schools, or to state what books were consid- 
 ered best by the Board, or by myself. As the Board had 
 adopted no order, nor were invested with any express 
 authority, by law, upon the subject, I uniformly abstained 
 even from expressing my opinion : but for the purpose of 
 learning, authentically, what were the prevalent views 
 of the community, I inserted, in my last circular to the 
 school committees, the following question : " Would it be 
 generally acceptable to the friends of Education in your 
 town, to have the Board of Education recommend books 
 for the use of the Schools?" This gave to school com- 
 mittees ample opportunity to consult with the friends of 
 Education, in their respective towns, and opened a way 
 to obtain a full and fair representation of the wishes of 
 the public. From this, as the principal source of infor- 
 mation, somewhat corroborated and extended by other 
 means, it appears that the friends of Education, in twenty 
 towns, containing, in the aggregate, a population of about 
 thirty-five thousand inhabitants, declare that such a recom- 
 mendation would not be acceptable. In one, containing
 
 SECOND ANNUAL REPORT. 559 
 
 eighteen thousand inhabitants, they say, " we feel so well 
 satisfied with our own selection of books, as to have no 
 wish, farther than to see how far the views of different 
 practical men agree." Ten towns wish to have the Board 
 recommend, but not prescribe; two towns, to have the 
 Board recommend and prescribe ; and one, that the Board 
 may be directed to prescribe by an act of the Legislature. 
 It also appears that the friends of Education in towns 
 containing more than seven-eighths of the population of 
 the State are in favor of having the Board of Education 
 recommend books for the use of the Schools. 
 
 The expediency of a recommendation, by the Board, of 
 class-books for the schools, leaving it optional with the 
 committees to adopt such recommendation or not, is a 
 question so exclusively within the competency of the 
 Board, that I shall not presume to express any opinion 
 concerning it. Considerations for and against such rec- 
 ommendation may be supposed to bear with different 
 degrees of force, in regard to different species of books ; 
 as geographies, grammars, and spelling or reading 
 books. In my Report of last year, I set forth some of 
 the very serious inconveniences resulting from the multi- 
 plicity of books now in use. I will here only add, that 
 if the Board should assume the labor of examining and 
 recommending any kind of school-books, I trust they will 
 not allow so favorable an opportunity to pass, without 
 securing a better quality of materials and workmanship 
 than go to the formation of some books now in use. It 
 is too obvious to be mentioned, that in case of a uniform- 
 ity of books, they would be furnished much cheaper than 
 at present, as measures would, of course, be taken to 
 prevent monopoly. 
 
 As the law now stands, in order to entitle a town to 
 receive its distributive share of the income of the School
 
 560 THE SECRETARY'S 
 
 Fund, the committee must make oath, that the town, " at 
 
 their last annual meeting, raised the sum of dollars, 
 
 to pay the wages of instructors solely" In preparing the 
 last "Annual Abstract," I found this certificate the sub- 
 ject of frequent alteration. Although the law prescribed 
 a certain form of oath as a condition precedent, the 
 school committees altered the form, and then made oath 
 to a form unknown to the law. The reason was, that 
 very few towns raised money " to pay the wages of in- 
 structors solely," and, therefore, though they had raised 
 a sufficient sum for schools to entitle them to a share of 
 the fund, they had not raised it in the particular form 
 contemplated by the certificate. 
 
 I endeavored this year to ascertain the form of the 
 vote, adopted by the towns, in raising school-money. 
 Owing, however, to a non-compliance on the part of many 
 school committees with my request, I have obtained a 
 copy of the form used the current year, from only one 
 hundred and ten towns. But six of these one hundred 
 and ten towns raised money " to pay the wages of instruct- 
 ors solely." In almost all the others, the terms used are 
 " for the support of schools," or some equivalent expres- 
 sion. It is very desirable that the certificate should be 
 conformed to the vote, or the vote to the certificate. 
 
 In my Report of last year, I exposed the alarming defi- 
 ciency of moral and religious instruction then found to 
 exist in our schools. That deficiency, in regard to re- 
 ligious instruction, could only be explained by supposing 
 that school committees, whose duty it is to prescribe 
 school-books, had not found any books at once expository 
 of the doctrines of revealed religion, and also free from 
 such advocacy of the " tenets " of particular sects of 
 Christians, as brought them, in their opinion, within the 
 scope of the legal prohibition. And hence they felt
 
 SECOND ANNUAL REPORT. 561 
 
 obliged to exclude books, which, but for their denomina- 
 tional views, they would have been glad to introduce. 
 No candid mind could ever, for a moment, accept this as 
 evidence of an indifference to moral and religious instruc- 
 tion in the schools; but only as proof that proper manuals 
 had not been found, by which the great object of moral 
 and religious instruction could be secured, without any 
 infringement of the statutory regulation. The time for 
 the committees to make another return not having yet 
 arrived, it is impossible to say, whether books, having the 
 above object in view, have been since introduced into any 
 more of the schools. I am happy, however, to say, that 
 a knowledge of that deficiency, then for the first time ex- 
 posed to the public, has turned the attention of some of 
 the friends of Education to the subject, and that efforts 
 are now making to supply the desideratum. Of course, 
 I shall not be here understood as referring to the Scrip- 
 tures, as it is well known that they are used in almost all 
 the schools, either as a devotional or as a reading book. 
 
 I close this second Report, inspired by opposite reasons 
 to renewed exertions in this sacred cause ; being not 
 more encouraged by what has already been accomplished, 
 than stimulated by what remains to be done. 
 
 BOSTON, Dec. 26, 1838. 
 VOL. i. 36 
 
 HORACE MANN, 
 Secretary of the Board of Education.
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 (A) p. 94. 
 
 THE detailed reports made to the Board of Education in compli- 
 ance with this provision proved to be the most important act of the 
 movement that created it. The Secretary was occupied three months 
 of every alternate year in collating from these reports such extracts as 
 were necessary to show the 9ondition of the schools ; and these were 
 published in a book called " Abstract of School Returns," which were 
 distributed to each town, and enabled all to see what improvements 
 or what deficiencies existed. This work has gone over the world, and 
 has been considered the most valuable educational document ever 
 printed. From it was subsequently gathered a statistical pamphlet 
 called the " Graduated Tables," which, Mr. Mann used to say, was the 
 only stroke of genius that characterized the administration of his office. 
 It recorded the towns in the order of the appropriations of money for 
 education made by each ; and such was the stimulating effect, that 
 from year to year the totvns changed places in a very striking manner. 
 It was found that many small towns appropriated far more money in 
 proportion to the population than even some of the large cities. The 
 transformation of the list was sometimes so great as to show the name 
 of a town that stood at the foot of the list one year, at the head of it 
 the next. So eloquent are figures. 
 
 (B.) 
 
 Letter from DR. SAMUEL B. WOODWARD, Superintendent of the 
 State Lunatic Hospital at Worcester. See p. 441. 
 
 Worcester, March 14, 1838. 
 HON. HORACE MANN, Secretary of the Board of Education : 
 
 DEAR SIR, Your note and queries, respecting the construction 
 of schoolhouses, came to hand yesterday. I improve the earliest 
 opportunity to reply. 663
 
 564 APPENDIX. 
 
 First, as to the ill effects of high and narrow benches, and seats 
 without backs. 
 
 High and narrow seats are not only extremely uncomfortable for the 
 young scholar, tending constantly to make him restless and noisy, dis- 
 turbing his temper, and preventing his attention to his books, but they 
 have also a direct tendency to produce deformity of the limbs. 
 
 If the seat is too narrow, half the thigh only rests upon it; if too 
 high, the feet cannot reach the floor ; the consequence is, that the 
 limbs are suspended on the centre of the thigh. Now, as the limbs 
 of children are pliable or flexible, they are easily made to grow out of 
 shape, and become crooked, y such an awkward and unnatural posi- 
 tion. 
 
 Seats without backs have an equally unfavorable influence upon the 
 spinal column. If no rest is afforded the backs of children while seated, 
 they almost necessarily assume a bent and crooked position ; such a posi- 
 tion often assumed, or long continued, tends to that deformity which has 
 become extremely common with children in modern times, and leads 
 to disease of the spine in innumerable instances, especially with deli- 
 cate female children. 
 
 The seats in schoolrooms should be so constructed that the whole 
 thigh can rest upon them, and at the same time the foot stand firmly 
 upon the floor ; all seats should have backs high enough to reach the 
 shoulder-blades ; low backs, although better than none, are far less easv 
 and useful than high ones, and will not prevent pain and uneasiness after 
 sitting a considerable time. Young children should be permitted to 
 change their position often, to stand on their feet, to march, and to visit 
 the play-ground. One hour is as long as any child, under ten years of 
 ;>ge, should be confined at once ; and four hours as long as he should be 
 confined to his seat in one day. 
 
 Second Query. " What general effects will be produced upon the 
 health of children by stinting their supply of fresh air through defects 
 in ventilation ? " 
 
 An answer to this query will involve some chemical principles, in 
 connection with the animal economy, not extensively and fully under" 
 stood 
 
 The blood, as it circulates through the vessels in our bodies, accumu- 
 lates a deleterious principle called CARBON, which is a poison itself, 
 and must be discharged frequently, or it becomes dangerous to life. 
 [u the process of respiration or breathing, this poisonous principle 
 unites in the lungs with a proportion of the oxygen of the air, and
 
 APPENDIX. 565 
 
 forms carbonic acid, which is expelled from the lungs at each expira- 
 tion. The proportion of oxygen in the air received into the lungs is 
 about twenty-one in the hundred ; in the air expelled, about eighteen 
 in the hundred ; the proportion of carbonic acid in the inhaled 
 air is one part in the hundred, in the exhaled air about four parts in 
 the hundred. By respiration, an adult person spoils, or renders unfit 
 for this vital process, about one gallon of air in a minute. By this 
 great consumption of pure air in a schoolroom, made tight and filled with 
 scholars, it will be easily seen that the whole air will soon be rendered 
 impure, and unfit for the purpose for which it is designed. If we con- 
 tinue to inhale this contaminated air, rendered constantly worse the 
 longer we are confined in it, this process in the lungs will not be per- 
 formed in a perfect manner ; the carbon will not all escape from the 
 blood, but will be circulated to the brain, and produce its deleterious 
 effects upon that organ, to which it is a poison. If no opportunity be 
 afforded for its regular escape, death will take place in a few minutes, 
 as in strangulation by a cord, drowning, and immersion in irrespirable 
 air. The cause of death is the retention and circulation of this poison- 
 ous principle in all these cases. 
 
 If a smaller portion is allowed to circulate through the vessels than 
 will prove fatal, it produces stupor, syncope, and other dangerous 
 effects upon the brain and nerves. In still less quantity, it produces 
 dulness, sleepiness, and incapacitates us for all mental efforts and 
 physical activity. The dulness of a school, after having been long in 
 session in a close room, and of a congregation, during a protracted 
 religious service, are often attributable to this cause mainly, if not 
 soldi/. Both teacher and scholar, preacher and hearer, are often 
 greatly affected in this way, without being at all sensible of the cause. 
 Fifty scholars will very soon contaminate the air of a schoolroom at 
 the rate of a gallon a minute. 
 
 Suppose a schoolroom to be thirty feet square and nine feet high. t 
 will contain 13,9'JG,000 cubic inches of atmospheric air. According to 
 Davy and Thompson, two accurate and scientific chemists, one indi- 
 vidual respires and contaminates 6,500 cubic inches of air in a minuto. 
 Fifty scholars will respire 325,000 cubic inches in the same time. In 
 about forty minutes, all the air of such a room will have become con- 
 taminated, if fresh supplies are not provided. The quantity of carbonic- 
 acid produced by the respiration of fifty scholars will be about 750 
 cubic inches in an hour. 
 
 From these calculations, we must see how soon the air of a school-
 
 566 APPENDIX. 
 
 room becomes unfit to sustain the animal powers, and how unfavorable 
 to vigorous mental effort such a contaminated atmosphere must prove 
 to be. To avoid this most serious evil, is a desideratum, which has not 
 yet been reached in the construction of schoolhouses. 
 
 In my opinion, every house and room which is closed for any con- 
 siderable time upon a concourse of people should be warmed by pure 
 air from out of doors, heated by furnaces placed in a cellar, (and every 
 schoolhouse should have a cellar,) or in some contiguous apartment, 
 so that the supply of air for the fire should not be from the schoolroom. 
 Furnaces for warming external air may be constructed cheaply, so as 
 effectually to answer the purposes of warmth and ventilation. 
 
 When a quantity of warm fresh air is forced into a schoolroom by 
 means of a furnace, the foul air is forced out at every crevice, and 
 at the ventilating passages; the currents are all warm, quite to these 
 passages. 
 
 But if the room is warmed by a stove or fireplace, the cold air from 
 without rushes in at every passage and every crevice, and while the 
 parts of the body nearest the fire are too warm, the currents of cold 
 air rushing to the fire to sustain the combustion keep all the other 
 parts cold and uncomfortable. This is a most direct way to produce 
 disease ; nothing can affect the system more unfavorably than currents 
 of cold air coming upon us when quite warm. 
 
 I have said that schoolhouses should have cellars under them. The 
 tioor of a building without a cellar is always cold, and often damp ; 
 this tends to keep the feet of scholars cold, while the head, in a region 
 of air much warmer, will be kept hot. This is both unnatural and 
 unhealthful. The feet should always be kept warm and the head cool. 
 No person can enjoy good health whose feet are habitually cold. In 
 schoolrooms heated by stoves, the feet are very liable to be cold, while 
 the upper stratum of air, kept hot and dry by a long reach of pipe, 
 produces a very unpleasant and unfavorable state of the head head- 
 ache, vertigo, and syncope often take place in such a room. 
 
 The human body is so constituted, that it can bear almost any 
 degree of heat or cold, if the change be not too sudden, and all parts 
 of it be subjected to it alike. We find no particular inconvenience 
 from respiring air at the temperature of ninety degrees on the one 
 hand, or at zero on the other ; but inequalities of temperature, at the 
 same time, affect us very differently, and can never be suffered for a 
 long time without danger. 
 
 There is one consideration in the preparation of furnaces for warm-
 
 APPENDIX. 5G7 
 
 ing rooms, that should not be overlooked. The object should be to 
 force into the room a large quantity of air, heated a tew degrees above 
 the temperature required, rather than a small quantity at a much 
 higher temperature. The air-chamber should be capacious, and the 
 passages free. The air should always be taken from out of doors, and 
 never from a cellar. The air of a cellar is often impure itself, and, if 
 pure, a cellar that is at all tight cannot furnish an adequate supply. 
 The whole air of a schoolroom should be changed at least every hour : 
 if oftener, it would be better. If a cellar is not much larger than the 
 room above it, this supply will soon be exhausted also. The air of the 
 cellar may be sufficient to supply the combustion of the fuel ; this is 
 all it should do and for this purpose it is better than air from out 
 of doors, as the coldness of this checks the heat, and diminishes the 
 temperature of the fire, and its power of heating the furnace. 
 
 In giving my views on this subject, I have been so desultory as to 
 embrace nearly all that I can say on the other queries proposed to 
 me. At any rate, my letter is already of an unreasonable length, 
 and I must come to a close. Wishing you every success in the 
 arduous duties of your present station, I remain truly and afleutionutely 
 yours, 
 
 S. B. WOODWARD. 
 
 (C.) 
 
 Extract of a letter from BENJAMIN SILUMAN, Professor of Chemistry 
 in Yale College, in reply to an inquiry similar to the SECOND pro- 
 posed to Dr. Woodward. See p. 441. 
 
 OF our atmosphere, only one-fifth part, by volume, is fitted to sus- 
 tain life. That portion is oxygen gas ; the remaining four-fifths being 
 azote or nitrogen gas, which, when breathed alone, kills by suffocation. 
 The withdrawing of the oxygen gas, by respiration or otherwise, 
 destroys the power of the atmosphere to sustain life, and this alone 
 furnishes a decisive reason why fresh air must be constantly supplied, 
 in order to support animal life. But this is not all. Every contact 
 of the air with the lungs generates in the human subject from six to 
 eight per cent of carbonic-acid gas the same gas that often destroys 
 the lives of people who descend incautiously into wells, or who remain 
 in close rooms, with a charcoal fire not under a flue. This gas the
 
 568 APPENDIX. 
 
 carbonic acid kills, it is true, by suffocation, as azote does, and as 
 water acts in drowning. But this is not all. It acts positively, with a 
 peculiar and malignant energy, upon the vital powers, which, even 
 when life is not instantly destroyed, it prostrates or paralyzes, probably 
 through the nervous system. 
 
 I find by numerous trials made with my own lungs, that a confined 
 portion of air, sufficient, however, to fill the lungs perfectly with a 
 full inspiration, is so contaminated by a single contact, that a candle 
 will scarcely burn in it at all ; and, after three contacts, the candle will 
 then go out, and an animal would die in it as quickly as if immersed 
 in azote, or even in water. 
 
 It is evident, therefore, that a constant renewal of the air is indispen- 
 sable to safety as regards life, and no person can be compelled to 
 breathe, again and again, the same portions of air. without manifest 
 injury to health, and, it may be, danger to life. 
 
 It follows, then, that the air of apartments, and especially of those 
 occupied by many persons at once, ought to be thrown off by a free 
 ventilation ; and, when blown from the lungs, the same air ought not 
 to be again inhaled until it has been purified from the carbonic-acid 
 gas, and its due proportion of oxygen gas restored. This is effected 
 by the upper surface of the green leaves of trees and plants, when 
 acted upon by the direct solar rays. The carbonic-acid gas is then 
 decomposed, the carbon is absorbed, to sustain, in part, the life of the 
 plant, by affording it one element of its food, while the oxygen gas is 
 liberated, and restored to the atmosphere. 
 
 (D.) 
 
 Extract of a letter from DR. SAMUEL G. HOWE, Director of the 
 
 Institution for the Education of the Blind, in Pearl Street, Boston. 
 
 See p. 472. 
 
 I TAKE it for granted, that the existence of blindness in the human 
 race, like every other physical infirmity, is the consequence of departure 
 from the natural laws of God ; that the proportion of blind persons in 
 every community is dependent upon the comparative degree of viola- 
 tion of the natural laws ; and that scientific observation can in almost 
 every case point to the kind and degree of violation. 
 
 Imperfect vision, partial av.d total blindness, are more common
 
 APPENDIX. 569 
 
 among men than animals, and in civilized than in savage or barbarous 
 nations. It seems to be well ascertained, that blindness is more com- 
 mon as we approach the equator ; and that on the same parallel it is 
 more frequent in dry, sandy soils, than in humid ones. 
 
 It is supposed by some, that, in very high latitudes, blindness is more 
 frequent than in the temperate zones, on account of the strong reflec- 
 tion of the sun's rays by the snow ; but besides that we have no statisti- 
 cal returns to confirm this opinion, there are other causes which make 
 it doubtful ; the solar rays are much less powerful, the days are short, 
 and the tendency to local or general inflammations and congestions of 
 blood is much less in cold than in warm climates. Without, however, 
 dwelling upon general rules, I will come at once to causes operating in 
 our own climate. 
 
 Any one who has reflected that man was created with a perfect 
 physical organization that his eye, the noblest organ of sense, was 
 fitted to reach to a distant star, or to examine the texture of the gossa- 
 mer's web, will be struck by the fact that every tenth man he meets is 
 either near-sighted, or far-sighted, or weak-eyed, or has some affection 
 or other of the vision. Now, the frequency of this departure from the 
 natural state of the vision is not a fortuitous circumstance ; if there 
 were but a single case, it must be referable to a particular cause ; and. 
 a fortiori, when it prevails in every section of the country, and in every 
 generation. Let us consider the greatest derangement of vision 
 blindness ; there are very few cases where the eye is totally insensible 
 to light ; let us call every person blind whose organ of vision is so per- 
 manently deranged, that he cannot distinguish the nails upon his fin- 
 gers ; for many persons can see how many fingers are held up between 
 the eye and a strong light, who cannot see the nails. Of persons 
 blind to this degree, and of those totally blind, there are about one in 
 two thousand in the United States. This calculation is warranted by 
 statistical returns, which are liable to error, only in putting down too 
 few. 
 
 Of these six thousand five hundred persons, but very few lose their 
 vision by wounds, injuries, or acute inflammation : the great majority 
 are blind in consequence of violation of the natural laws, either by 
 themselves or their parents ; for I hold it to be indisputable, that 
 almost every case of congenital blindness is the penalty paid by the 
 sufferer for the fault of the parent or progenitor. The number of 
 cases of hereditary blindness, and of hereditary tendency to diseases 
 of the eye, which have come under my observation, have established 
 this beyond all doubt in my own mind.
 
 570 APPENDIX. 
 
 I have known many cases, where a parent, with defective vision, 
 has had half his children blind ; and one case, where both parents 
 had defective vision, and all their children, seven in number, were 
 blind. 
 
 There are, then, causes at work in our own community, which 
 destroy the vision of one two-thousandth part of our population, and 
 impair the vision of a much greater part ; and although each indi- 
 vidual thinks himself secure, and attributes the blindness, or defective 
 vision of his neighbor, to some accidental or peculiar circumstance, 
 from which he himself enjoys immunity, yet the cause will certainly 
 have its effect; the violation of the natural laws must have their 
 penalty and their victim as a ball, shot into a dense crowd, must hit 
 somebody. It is incumbent, then, upon each one, in his individual 
 capacity, to avoid the remote and predisposing, as well as the immedi- 
 ate causes of impaired vision ; and it is incumbent on those, who have 
 an influence upon the condition and regulations of society, to use that 
 influence for the same end. 
 
 It would lead to tedious details to consider the various modes in 
 which each individual or each parent should guard against the impair- 
 ment of vision ; but there are some obvious dangers to which children 
 are exposed in schools, which may be pointed out in a few words. 
 
 You will often see a class of children reading or writing with the 
 sun shining on their books, or writing in a dark afternoon with their 
 backs to the window, and their bodies obstructing its little light ; and 
 if you tell the master he is perilling the eyesight of his scholars, he 
 thinks he gives you a complete discomfiture by saying, that he has 
 kept school so for ten years, and never knew a boy to become blind ; 
 nevertheless, it is a cause of evil, and so surely as it exists it will be 
 ibllowed by its effect. 
 
 A boy reading by twilight, or by the blaze of a fire, or by moonlight 
 even, will tell you he does not feel the effects ; nevertheless, they follow 
 as closely as the shadow upon the substance ; and if, ten years after- 
 wards, you see the boy selecting glasses at an optician's, and ask him 
 what caused his imperfect vision, he will tell you that there was no 
 particular cause ; that is, the amount of evil done at any particular 
 time was not perceptible as a toper, whose system is tottering to 
 ruin, cannot believe that any particular glass of brandy ever did him 
 any harm. 
 
 We should never read but in the erect posture ; we should never 
 read when the arterial system is in a state of high action ; we should
 
 APPENDIX. 57 1 
 
 never read with too much or too little light; we .should never read 
 with a da/zling light of the sun. or fire, striking on our face. 
 
 Schoolrooms should be arranged in such a manner, that the light 
 of the sun can be admitted in the right direction not dazzling the 
 eyes, but striking unon the books : there should be facilities for admit- 
 ting the light fullv in dark weather, and for excluding it partly when 
 the sun shines brilliantly. 
 
 I believe an attention to the physiology and laws of vision, by parents 
 and instructors, would be of great benefit to children, and diminish 
 the number of opticians : for as surely as a stone thrown up will come, 
 down, so surely does exposure to causes of evil bring the evil, at some 
 time, in some way, upon somebody. Truly yours, 
 
 SAMUICI, G. HOWH. 
 HORACK MANN, ESQ., 
 
 Secretary of the Board of Education. 
 
 U*\:llI.I. I'KX.H., 
 
 axo. a. R A x * Av
 
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