.-;; 
 
 A Lecture Read Before the 
 Massachusetts Teachers f Association, 
 At Springfield, October 19th, 186 1 ? 
 
 By 
 Henry ^. Harrington 
 
 

 
 
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 L E C T IT R E 
 
 HEAD HKFOKK THK 
 
 MASSACHUSETTS TEACHERS' ASSOCIATION, 
 
 AT SPRINGFIELD, October i9th, 1867, 
 
 HENRY F. HARRINGTON, 
 
 Superintendent of Public Schools, New Bedford. Mass. 
 
 SECOXD KD1TIOX. 
 
 BOSTON: 
 
 riMKSIJ V AND A INS WO 15 Til. 
 
 1868.
 
 Our Grammar Schools: Why do they not furnish more and 
 better material to our High Schools ? 
 
 LEG TTJRE 
 
 READ BEFORE THE 
 
 MASSACHUSETTS TEACHEES' ASSOCIATION, 
 
 AT SPRINGFIELD, October ipth, 1867, 
 
 BT 
 
 HENRY F. HARRINGTON, 
 Superintendent of Public Schools, New Bedford, Mass. 
 
 SECOND EDITION. 
 
 BOSTON: 
 CROSBY AND AINSWORTH. 
 
 1868.
 
 Library 
 Cf^ 
 
 
 
 LECTURE 
 
 Fellow Teachers of the Massachusetts Association : 
 
 J 
 
 When one undertakes an examination of the High 
 
 
 Schools of our State, that he may acquaint himself with 
 their condition and the measure of their usefulness, he ia 
 
 confronted, at the outset, by two striking facts. 
 y One is, that the number of scholars in that grade of schools 
 * is comparatively very small. For whereas, (using the sta- 
 2 tistics of some of the larger communities as the basis of com- 
 
 U* 
 
 putation,) the average number of scholars of all the grades to 
 every thousand of the population is about one hundred and 
 forty, and the average number of Grammar scholars to the 
 same is sixty-hve, the corresponding average of High School 
 
 ^ scholars to every thousand of the population is only seven. 
 
 i The second fact adverted to is, that the education of the 
 \1 great majority of the youth who are admitted to our High 
 
 \ Schools is found, when they are put upon the work of those 
 schools, to be poor and inadequate. The teachers of High 
 Schools, almost everywhere, when they converse on the sub- 
 ject, inveigh against the wretched mental furnishing of the 
 periodical increment of their schools. This very essay orig- 
 inated, in part, in a question put by a prominent High 
 School instructor, in my hearing, some time ago. Said he, 
 in accents of the deepest interest and concern, "Can we not 
 have, at the meeting of the Teachers' Association this year, 
 in some form or other, a consideration of the causes why the 
 
 397465
 
 material that comes to our High Schools from the Grammar 
 Schools, is so miserably incompetent for the studies of the 
 High School course?" It is not that the scholars in ques- 
 tion may not have passed the prescribed examination for 
 admission with credit to themselves, nor that that examina- 
 tion may not have been based on a high standard of require- 
 ment, according to current notions of high requirement. 
 Heaven help the teachers and scholars of those High Schools, 
 where the standard of fitness is so low, that even technical 
 excellence in the ordinary Grammar School branches is not 
 cared for ; so that the studies of those schools are only a 
 patch-work of elementary branches mixed up with ill-assorted 
 osophies and ologies, with which latter, few of the scholars 
 are competent to deal in any wise. Heaven help them, I 
 say, for they would seem to be beyond the reach of mortal 
 aid ! No, I am not emphasizing any failure of this description; 
 for it is one distinguishing feature of the case, that, like as 
 not, the more excellent a scholar may have been as to the 
 technical requisitions of his examination, the less qualified 
 will he be found, in some particulars, for an intelligent grasp 
 of the studies that may be assigned him. His defect may be 
 stated, in brief, to be a lack of sufficient mental development 
 to comprehend the subject matter of the new fields of study 
 that he is put upon in the High School, and too great igno- 
 rance of language to understand the phraseology of his new 
 text books. Language is the indispensable key to all intel- 
 ligent study and progress; and how muchsoever else the 
 Grammar Scholar may have learned, he is in general poorly 
 equipped with knowledge of the power and uses of language ; 
 and therefore is incompetent to get fairly on. 
 
 And I ask now, are these two fiacts irremediable, or can 
 we, if we be so minded, and sustained by the requisite 
 authority, substitute a new order of things?. The answer 
 to this question will constitute the substance of this essay.
 
 I am ready to reply, and hope to convince you, that both 
 these defects, the former in part, the latter altogether, are the 
 direct consequences of a false system of action, and are 
 therefore so far of easy remedy. T insist that both result, to 
 the extent that I have indicated, from the strained and 
 pedantic standard of qualification for admission to the High 
 School which now almost invariably prevails. Change that 
 standard, and you will instantly accomplish a corresponding 
 change of results. 
 
 Jn the first place, I am quite sure that it is not a fact, as is 
 generally assumed, at least in all the considerable centers of 
 population, that few now enter the High Schools from the 
 Grammar Schools, because the necessities, the sordid interest, 
 or the indifference of the parents of the remainder, forces 
 them to leave study for remunerative work. This is true to 
 a large extent. But I believe .that at least a hundred per 
 cent, more than now enter the High Schools might be 
 readily induced to become members of them, if the condi- 
 tions of admission were what they ought to be; if they 
 were not artificially and arbitrarily repressive. It is in vain 
 to tell rne that the parents who now withdraw their children 
 from study at the close of the Grammar School course, are 
 well satisfied with that limit of education for them. I have 
 found that the parents of our scholars, in every phase of 
 society, wherever I have had opportunities of observation, 
 are actuated by an intense desire that their children should 
 enjoy the very highest fruits of our Public School System. 
 They 'feel a satisfaction, (of which pride is an element, as 
 well 'as a sense of benefit,) at being able to say that their 
 children have been members of the High School, that makes 
 many of the poor among them willing to undergo the sever- 
 est privations, if only that goal may be reached ; and 
 furthermore, there are few parents, at least of native ancestry,
 
 6 
 
 who do not realize intensely, that it is to cut off their children 
 from opportunity in the very best, the crowning period of 
 their educational progress, to withdraw them from school 
 before they are from sixteen to seventeen years of age. And 
 by the common consent of educators, they ought to be 
 well nigh through the High School, as its studies are now 
 apportioned, at seventeen years of age. Why, I ask, do 
 they not enjoy corresponding opportunities? 
 
 In all localities where a well considered school organiza- 
 tion prevails, there is in existence an ideal system of gra- 
 dation, whereby a child who enters the Primary School at 
 five years of age is to graduate from the Grammar School 
 at thirteen or fourteen years of age; the classes being 
 expected to move forward in mass, on a scale of minimum 
 requirement, that will give average ability and application a 
 fair chance ; so that only in exceptional cases, where some 
 outright dullard or trifler* would plainly be injured by ad- 
 vancement, is any one to be kept down. This is the true 
 system. This alone can secure the greatest g*ood of the 
 greatest number. We have no moral right to cull out the 
 choice, highly gifted spirits from the several classes, and put 
 them rapidly forward, instituting repressive maximum ex- 
 aminations, that only such gifted spirits can encounter. Our 
 schools are for the children of the whole people, all the way 
 through. True, there must be stimuli to exertion. But let 
 them be derived from other sources than the interposition of 
 barriers impassible by the majority until after failure upon 
 failure, and a travel over and over the same track in hateful 
 repetition. According to the system of organization to* which 
 I have referred, the classes should be put regularly forward, 
 first through the Primary Schools, then up through the 
 allotted years of the Grammar Schools, and then, tested by a 
 sufficient, but not arbitrarily repressive ordeal, into the High 
 School. And under such circumstances, I believe, as I have
 
 said, that at least as many again would attend the High 
 Schools as are found to join them now. 
 
 And why is it otherwise ? It is because of the artificial, 
 pedantic character of the examinations for admission to the 
 High Schools, which operates to modify the structure of the 
 Grammar Schools in the most vicious manner, and thereby 
 to keep the bulk of the scholars unduly back, so as to de- 
 prive them of the opportunity of High School instruction. 
 Take for illustration, the working of the Boston Grammar 
 Schools ; and I instance them particularly, not in any spirit 
 of invidious detraction* I trust that I shall not be accused 
 of that but because the school system of Boston is regarded 
 as standing at the head of the school organizations of the 
 State, and is the object of special inquiry and emulation ; 
 and because, moreover, the Boston Grammar Schools, on 
 account of their unusual size, exhibit in a very striking man- 
 ner, the vicious results of which I have spoken. We find 
 the most of those schools, comprising severally eight, ten, 
 twelve, fourteen and sixteen rooms, while nominally subdi- 
 vided into four classes, corresponding to the years allotted 
 to the Grammar School course, virtually if not confessedly 
 separated into as many, or nearly as many classes, as there 
 are rooms in the building. Passage from room to room of 
 all this number depends on the results of stated and rigid 
 examinations ; and the consequence is that the great major- 
 ity are kept down, until nearly or quite all their possible 
 school time is exhausted in the struggle upwards ; and that 
 perhaps, even before they have enjoyed the advantage of 
 membership in the highest class. The highest class in each 
 school embraces, from year to year, from the very nature of 
 
 *I wish to say, emphatically, that my criticism on the Boston Schools is to 
 be limited expressly to the points in question. In other regarda I rejoice to 
 acknowledge their preeminent merits.
 
 9 
 
 the case, only the choice spirits of the school, such as have 
 proved themselves capable of undergoing with success the 
 peculiar training essential to prepare them for the ordeal of 
 admission to the High School. Thus the interests of the 
 school as a grand whole, are disregarded and sacrificed. 
 And we have these further results ; first, that in many if not 
 most instances, the ages of the second class, destined to re- 
 main two years in the school, will average about the same 
 with the ages of the first class, destined to remain only one 
 year in the school ; again, that the number to enjoy the full 
 honors of graduation is painfully small in comparison with 
 the average complement of the schools ; so that we had in 
 July last, thirty-five as the largest number to graduate from 
 any Boston Grammar School, although several of her Gram- 
 mar Schools have an average of from eight hundred to a 
 thousand scholars; and one school, in high repute, with an 
 average attendance of nearly nine hundred, graduated only 
 twenty-three. It is a related fact that the total admitted to 
 the Girls' High and Normal School from all the Grammar 
 Schools, for fourteen years, to 1866, was only fourteen hundred 
 and eighty-five ; and to the English High School for the same 
 period, only thirteen hundred and thirty-eight. This twenty 
 eight hundred and twenty-three, for fourteen years, to both 
 schools, gives an average of two hundred and one per an- 
 num, which is the whole number to which Boston has 
 afforded public High School instruction out of an average 
 attendance on the Grammar Schools of nearly twelve thou- 
 sand for the same number of years. We have this further 
 fact, that the average age of the girls when they graduate 
 from a Boston Grammar School, is sixteen years six months. 
 The average age of the boys, up to the present year, has 
 been about fifteen years six months. Thus, a good part of 
 those years of Boston youth, which are ordinarily expected 
 to be spent in the High Schools, is exhausted in the Gram-
 
 9 
 
 mar Schools. And, with due allowance for difference of 
 circumstances, these lamentable results of the strained and 
 artificial examinations for admission to the High Schools of 
 Boston, may be asserted to attach more or less to most of the 
 school systems of the State at large. And it is a fair de- 
 duction, that if the scholars of the Grammar Schools were 
 moved forward systematically, according to a true organiza- 
 tion, rny premise would hold good, viz : that as many again 
 would be profitably enjoying the advantages of the High 
 Schools as are found to enter them now. 
 
 There is a second ground on which I base that premise, 
 comprised in a few casual but striking facts. Thus the 
 immber admitted to the English High School in Boston, by 
 a little extra attention, without any radical change of system, 
 has been positively doubled within three years ; and in an- 
 other of our cities, the substitution of symmetrical organ- 
 ization in lieu of little or no system, has placed in the first 
 classes of the Grammar schools, and in preparation for the 
 High School, full one hundred per cent, more scholars, at the 
 same comparative standard of attainment, than were ever in 
 those classes under similar circumstances, before. 
 
 But it may be said, "My Dear Sir, you are stultifying 
 yourself! You begin with the bold assumption that the in- 
 crement of our High Schools is, in 'some respects, poorly 
 cultured, and yet are complaining that the number of candi- 
 dates should be so small. Surely, if they are to manifest 
 so marked disability, the fewer that may present themselves, 
 the better." 
 
 Yes, if they are to manifest so marked disability. But 
 for the sake of the reputation dear old mother Massachu- 
 setts bears for discarding shams and conserving only solid 
 realities, let us reform the course of instruction in our 
 Grammar Schools, so that their graduates may no longer be
 
 10 
 
 branded with such shames. This brings me to my second 
 point, viz : that the defects of which High School teachers 
 complain in the material furnished them, are the inevitable 
 consequences of a false standard of qualification for admis- 
 sion to the High School, that almost everywhere prevails. 
 The questions now annually prepared as tests of qualifica- 
 tion, bear about as close a relation to the rounded, juicy 
 comprehensive fruits of a genuine culture, as the fieshless 
 skeleton in an anatomical museum bears to the perfect, con- 
 scious organism of a living man ! So many problems in 
 Arithmetic, so many questions in the technics of Grammar, 
 so many from the innumerable details in most Geographies, 
 so many on the bald facts of History, and a number of 
 words to be spelled, culled from among the hardest to be 
 found in the pages of the Spelling Book or the Dictionary, 
 how meagre and fruitless they all are, as exponents of that 
 culture which enlarges and furnishes the mind, inspires it 
 with the power to think, confers a mastery over language, 
 that subtle, mysterious instrument of thought, and brings it 
 into communication with the facts and processes of the work- 
 ing, progressive world, in which it is soon to take its part I 
 High School examinations as now conducted, emphasize 
 and make imperative all that detailed lumber of the text 
 books, which, if useful to be learned at all, is so only to 
 serve as a stepping Itone to something broader and higher j 
 becoming worse than useless after the higher point has been 
 reached ; and therefore then to be dismissed into oblivion. 
 
 And they necessitate a rigid adherence by the teachers of 
 the Grammar Schools to the mere technics of the several 
 test studies, at the expense of all others; and of the vitality 
 and highest usefulness of those studies themselves. It is 
 in vain to inveigh against this ; it is inevitable. I defy a 
 teacher, however conscientious, before whom is forever loom- 
 ing up the apparition of an arbitrary ordeal by which his
 
 11 
 
 whole efficiency is to be estimated, to do justice to himself or 
 his scholars. He were more than human to disregard its 
 cramping requisitions. Mr. Philbrick, the accomplished and 
 efficient Superintendent of the Boston Schools, to whose 
 enlightened suggestions we are all so much indebted, says in 
 one of his recent reports, (first putting on velvet slippers, 
 that he might not tread too heavily on anybody's pedal ex- 
 cressences,) "In connection with the annual reports on the 
 Girls' High and Normal School, tables have sometimes been 
 printed, showing the percentage of correct answers at the 
 examination for admission by the candidates from each 
 Grammar School. Their operation is attended with serious 
 evils. They show the relative rank of the examinees in 
 only about half of the studies prescribed for the First Class 
 of the Grammar Schools. The consequence is that the 
 Master who is bent on securing a high percentage on the 
 test studies, must either neglect the % non test branches or 
 overtask his pupils. On the other hand, a Master who aims 
 to carry out the spirit of the regulations and to teach all the 
 branches fairly and faithfully, may find himself placed low 
 down on the comparative scale." Here we get an insight to 
 the state of affairs, not in Boston alone but everywhere. It 
 is not the comparative tables to which Mr. Philbrick refers, 
 that are specially in fault. Masters of Grammar Schools 
 everywhere, are compelled to confine themselves rigidly to 
 the test studies, lest, by some flaw of preparation, their 
 scholars should fail of success at the examinations ; without 
 necessarily presupposing any spirit of competition for a very 
 high percentage. Elsewhere, with one slipper off, Mr. Phil- 
 brick writes : "Most teachers feel obliged not only to confine 
 themselves to the text books, but to teach every thing in 
 them ; or rather to require the pupils to learn every thing in 
 them. By this ill contrivance the best teachers are ham- 
 pered and cramped. They are constrained, against their
 
 12 
 
 better judgment, to teach many things which they deem 
 useless, and to teach in a manner which they deem not the 
 best manner. Some are driven by it to perpetrate the two 
 grave educational offences of cramming and high pressure, 
 which generally go hand in hand." True, every word. But 
 no detailed programme of instruction will remedy the evil, 
 as Mr. Philbrick suggests. Programme or no programme, 
 so long as the character of examinations for admission to 
 the High Schools remains what it is, technical teaching, 
 cramming and high pressure will inevitably characterize 
 Grammar School instruction. For every question missed at 
 such an examination involves the loss of a certain number 
 of per cent, from the summing up, and proportionately perils 
 the result. And since it is uncertain-what questions may be 
 asked, what out of the way details may be called for, there- 
 fore every rule, problem, method and formulary in the 
 crowded Arithmetic, every definition, exception and rigma- 
 role in the lumbered Grammar, and all the insignificant 
 details jn the old style of Geographies, from "What is the 
 North fork of Musquash River?" all through to "Which 
 way is Bungtown from Sleepy Hollow ?" must be forced 
 into the minds of the candidates. There is no margin for 
 the operation of any intelligent principle of selection and 
 abbreviation, so as to make room for other important studies. 
 Mr. Philbrick says, moreover, that far too much time is 
 wasted on spelling in the upper classes of the Boston Gram- 
 mar Schools. But can he expect anything else, so long as 
 progress in spelling is to be tested by a list of the most dif- 
 ficult words in the spelling book, instead of by the correctness 
 of orthography exhibited by the examinees in their examina- 
 tion papers throughout? 
 
 Such are the consequences of the existing state of things. 
 So does it come about that scholars from schools taught by 
 men of comparatively narrow ability and loan acquirements,
 
 13 
 
 are found to pass through the High School examinations, 
 year after year, with superior eclat to those from the schools 
 taught by men of depth of power and breadth of culture. 
 Because the former are willing slaves of the text books, to 
 deprive them of which, indeed, is to render them impotent; 
 while the latter would scorn to let the text book become 
 their master; and fretting against the shackles imposed on 
 them, and yielding to the inspiration of their nobler ideals, 
 sometimes break away from their constraints, and teach for 
 a while in freedom and joy, at the expense of the formal 
 technics and cumbrous details, so essential to nominal suc- 
 cess. There is nothing that the live, competent Grammar 
 School teachers so long for, as freedom ; freedom to be 
 themselves, and to teach according to their conscience and 
 their power. 
 
 Thus it is that our Grammar Schools, so excellent in most 
 respects, are in part mistaught; that the scholars are crammed 
 with much that is worse than useless, and deprived of 
 much that is needful to a well rounded culture. "I have 
 shown the proximate cause of the evil. There is a remoter 
 cause ; for our High School examinations have not become 
 what they are without anterior, shaping influences; and 
 those influences must be thoroughly considered, if we would 
 institute a radical cure for the evil. And to that point I 
 shall devote the remainder of this essay. 
 
 The root of the whole matter is this. There has prevailed 
 in Massachusetts, from time immemorial, a very false notion 
 as to what the object of study is, and also as to the relative 
 values of the studies usually pursued in our Grammar 
 Schools. Take, for instance, one from among the red 
 school-houses at the forks of the roads, fifty years ago, on 
 an examination day after the winter school. The grand, 
 paramount requisition of the Committee, as to the First 
 Class, is, that they shall be able to "do their sums." If they
 
 14 
 
 show themselves quick at figures, if they can readily solve 
 any problem that may be given in Fractions, Rule of Three, 
 Interest and Square Root, the master's reputation is well 
 nigh established, however signally they may fail in every- 
 thing else. But if, when called up in Grammar, they can 
 promptly parse the knotty passage in Milton or Cowper, that 
 the Committee has spent half the previous night in carefully 
 selecting for the purpose of trying them, the appropriate rules 
 and definitions being reeled off memoriter without tripping, 
 and when exercised in spelling, succeed with such words 
 as Phthisic, Poignancy, Heresiarch, Synecdoche, Caterpillar, 
 Diaphragm, Epicycloid and the like, the master's fortune is 
 fairly made. It will add to his laurels, if the class are well 
 versed in the details of the Geography, and can read and 
 write pretty well. But these latter branches are com- 
 paratively immaterial. The test studies have been satisfac- 
 torily gone through with. The minds of the scholars have 
 been admirably drilled. The school is a splendid success ! 
 
 Now those same scholars may not be able to take up a 
 passage in an unfamiliar book, especially if it be a didactic 
 treatise, or a dignified history or biography, without blunder- 
 ing at every other word. They may penetrate into the real 
 sense and sentiment of the passages they have been drilled 
 to parse no deeper than a baby in arms penetrates into the 
 meaning of the book that he is holding upside down. They 
 may be incompetent to write an ordinary letter of friendship 
 or business in a creditable way. They may have acquired 
 no habit whatever of making a practicable application of 
 what they have been learning to the everyday affairs of life. 
 As for the principles of natural science and the arts in their 
 relation to common things, they may be so ignorant of them, 
 as not to know how to explain a single process in ordinary 
 'household or business affairs. And as for a love of literature, 
 a longing to communicate with the master minds of the race
 
 15 
 
 through their works, and loving glimpses into the glorious 
 world of ideas, such references are to their ears very much 
 like so much Greek to a Pawnee Indian. But what of all 
 this ? Can they not cypher and s'pell and parse ? 
 
 Now in all candor and honesty, has the ancient estimate 
 of the ends of culture, which turned out on society such 
 crude, ilJconditioned material, after years of golden opportu- 
 nity misused and wasted, been greatly modified to the 
 present day ? Looking at the matter in the light of principles 
 of action, are not things going on in very much the same 
 fashion in the red school-houses at the forks of the roads, or 
 their modernized substitutes, and according to more refined 
 patterns, in even the best schools of our cities ? Do not 
 Arithmetic and Grammar engross the largest and choicest 
 fraction of the working hours of the most of our Grammar 
 Schools ? Is the study of language, as the vehicle of the 
 mind, anywhere systematically and thoroughly pursued? 
 Do we find a place appointed in many of our Massachusetts 
 Grammar School systems, for that indispensable branch of 
 culture, which embraces the application of the principles of 
 science and art to the facts of Common life ? And did I 
 overstate, in a former connection, the narrow technical char- 
 acter of the most of our teaching, and its dreary prescription 
 of useless details ? 
 
 In regard t<4this last point, technical, detailed teaching, it 
 occurs to me to make a supposition. Suppose that our 
 School 'Committees, this year, instead of holding the exami- 
 nation for admission to the High School, in July, as usual, 
 immediately subsequent to the drill of the school rooms, had 
 postponed it for six or eight weeks, until after the summer 
 vacation. Consternation would have immediately pervaded 
 the whole Grammar School corps of teachers. Impassioned 
 remonstrances would have been heard on every hand. "It is 
 unjust." "It will be ruinous," they would have cried ; "it
 
 16 
 
 will drop down the results of the examination, fifty per cent. 
 After so long an interval of playtime, the candidates will have 
 forgotten half they knew." As things are, nothing more 
 likely in the world! And does it never occur to the minds 
 of Committees and teachers, who combine to have the ex- 
 aminations supervene, without interval, upon the drill of the 
 school rooms, so that the knowledge of the candidates shall 
 be fresh, that what would drop away from them, did an in- 
 terval occur, is what they have learned merely by rote, what 
 their minds have never assimilated, what perhaps they have 
 not more than half understood, and what has evidently 
 usurped the place of better things that would have affected a 
 permanent lodgment ? Does it not occur that what an exami- 
 nation, held after such an interval, would present as the 
 amount of the mental furnishing of the candidates' minds is 
 the sum of what is to be of future advantage to them, and that 
 what they would have forgotten would be the trash that na- 
 ture kindly provides shall drop speedily ont of the way? Is 
 there not something actually ludicrous in the thought that ex- 
 aminations for High Schools must be hurried up, because a 
 good deal of what has been learned, through manifold and 
 long protracted throes of preparation for those terrible or- 
 deals, wont keep long enough to bear the shock of a few 
 weeks of playtime, that will go sifting among its living and 
 dead details, just as an autumn wind sifts among the green 
 and the sere and yellow leaves of a tree, aud takes the latter 
 away on its wings to the ground? What of these forgotten 
 things, when, the playtime having occurred, the examinees 
 take their places in the High School? 
 
 Returning to our search after the root of these evils, we 
 can easily trace back our traditional system of study to its 
 origin. It came into being ages ago, when nothing resem- 
 bling true mental science existed, and when what is now 
 understood by the term, knowledge, was almost utterly un-
 
 17 
 
 known. Science had established no alliances with nature ; 
 and the work of the scholar was limited to subjective mental 
 processes, under the idea that mental discipline constitutes 
 the chief end of Education. Thus came -it, that lines of 
 study have been instituted and perpetuated, merely to per- 
 form the vicarious office of training the intellectual faculties ; 
 so that a good part of the work of our school rooms has 
 little or no practical relation to the affairs of life. 
 
 But the traditional system has had its day. The powers 
 and offices of the mind are understood. Science has opened 
 up glorious fields of knowledge, and man knows himself to 
 have been created for action, and demands that the educa- 
 tion of the young shall be a preparation for action. And 
 promptly rallying around the Spirit of the Age, as we hear 
 it challenging our present course of Grammar School in- 
 struction, with all the artifices that come of it, let us pass 
 that course of study in intelligent review. 
 
 As has been said, Arithmetic and Grammar now engross 
 the most of the working hours of our schools, not so much 
 for their intrinsic value, as for the vicarious part that they 
 are expected to perform in disciplining the mind. The 
 Mathematics, being an exact study, has the credit of train- 
 ing the reasoning powers better than any other branch, and 
 Grammar is held in special honor, on the ground that the 
 study of the structure of language best disciplines the mem- 
 ory and judgment. Now the first thing to be done, in order 
 to a fair estimate of the relative values of Grammar School 
 studies, is to dislodge from our minds every lingering prej- 
 udice that it is needful to carry forward any vicarious exer- 
 cises of the kind. We want to settle fairly and squarely 
 down upon the principle, that the mind will get discipline 
 enough, in view of the various other indispensable demands upon 
 the scholar's time, from any study whatever, which is worthy the 
 name of a study, that it systematically and thoroughly pursues. 
 
 m
 
 18 
 
 In another's words, "whatever is traversed by principles and 
 capable of methods," disciplines the mind. And as this may 
 be affirmed of any and all the branches taught in our Gram- 
 mar Schools, all", so far as this point is concerned, may be 
 placed on the same foundation. Bigoted adherents of the 
 traditional system will assail us with the cant of their school 
 of thought, and with shaking heads, cry in dolorous tones: 
 "Abridge Arithmetic and Grammar, those indispensable in- 
 struments of discipline ! It is to take the very heart out of 
 your system of education !" They must not be heeded. 
 Their day has gone by. It would amaze many of this school, 
 I think, to read, if they could do so with unprejudiced minds, 
 the dissertations of such eminent thinkers and metaphysi- 
 cians as Goethe, Mad. de Stael, Pascal, Niemeyer, Marcel, 
 Dugald Stewart, Sir William Hamilton and others, on the 
 use of Arithmetic and Grammar as instruments to discipline 
 the mind ; and their concurrent and emphatic conclusions, 
 that, when allowed paramount scope in any system of edu- 
 cation, for this purpose, they are positively injurious to the 
 mental powers. 
 
 But we have no time to follow out such a line of thought. 
 Enough for us these two points; first, that sufficient 
 mental discipline will be acquired from any ordinary study 
 that is systematically and faithfully pursued ; second, that 
 Arithmetic and Grammar now subordinate studies to them- 
 selves that are of superior importance, and crowd out en- 
 tirely others that are essential to the course of culture 
 demanded by modern life ; and these things being so, we 
 have no time to spend on any study for vicarious purposes 
 alone. 
 
 In the admirable words of Professor Atkinson ; "Practical 
 usefulness and by that term, I do not mean the mere vulgar 
 stomach and pocket filling with which it is so often con- 
 founded, but practical usefulness in a high and generous
 
 19 
 
 sense the serving of all worthy and noble objects, the en- 
 deavor to make our earth a better dwelling place, and man a 
 nobler dweller in it practical usefulness in this sense, 
 should be the very aim of all our teaching; and study can 
 never lose sight of it without most imminent peril of becom- 
 ing worthless for discipline as well as for use." 
 
 So then, we are to excise from every study whatever part 
 of it has been pursued for the sake of its drill, and not of its 
 utility; and we are ready to take a fair start, and to ask 
 what study it is, that henceforth should be regarded as first 
 in rank ; to be cared for with jealous interest and unintermit- 
 ted enthusiasm ; and be accorded a paramount place in all 
 test examinations ? 
 
 V 
 
 That foremost place is now occupied by Arithmetic. 
 Said a prominent educational official to me, not long ago ; 
 "Our schools are sacrificed to Arithmetic." I would have 
 Arithmetic give this place of honor to the Study of Lan- 
 guage; study for the purpose of accomplishment in the 
 knowledge and use of our mother tongue. For this lies at 
 the base of all learning, and is the key to the knowledge of 
 all other branches. Even Arithmetic, although it possesses 
 its own peculiar symbols, would not be able to interpret 
 those symbols to the mind, if it were not for the assistance 
 of words, those mystic instruments of thought. Indeed, 
 when considered in its' broader and higher application to 
 universal phenomena, the usefulness of language in its ser- 
 vice becomes even superior to that of its own special sym* 
 bols : and to be deficient in language is to be debarred from 
 its intelligent pursuit. Moreover, in every word that may be 
 garnered up in the mind's vocabulary, whose meaning and 
 uses are clearly apprehended, one has the skeleton of a 
 living idea ; yes, the starting point, perhaps, of a whole train 
 of ideas. Through these wonderful symbols it is, that the 
 priceless stores of the thought of past ages have been
 
 20 
 
 preserved to bless mankind, aud constitute the world's trans- 
 cendent treasures. Through them it is, that mind com- 
 municates to kindred mind its glowing conceptions; that 
 soul kindles soul with responsive feeling, and that the world 
 is glorified by the development of the unseen sphere lying 
 just outside the world of sense, which is its invisible com- 
 plement and counterpart, and opens out our higher powers 
 to God and eternity. Indeed, it is a mooted point, whether 
 we can think at all without words; and in a practical light, 
 it must be conceded that we cannot. According, then, to 
 one's grasp of language, his knowledge of words, their sig- 
 nificance and uses, will be, in general terms, the range and 
 progress of his mind. Just so far as we extend the intelli- 
 gent vocabulary of our children, we not only better furnish 
 them for every study to which they may devote themselves, 
 but enable them to interpret to themselves and others, the 
 conceptions and aspirations that ennoble their being, and 
 introduce them to new scenery in the universe of ideas. We 
 put them in the way to realize the thought that was in 
 Edward Everett's mind, when he said : "Instead of useful 
 studies, I plead for the noble inutility of generous studies ; 
 rather let me call it, for the ineffable beauty, dignity, loveli- 
 ness and priceless worth of the meditations of the thoughtful, 
 well instructed mind, soaring on the wings of conscious, nay, 
 better, of its unconscious powers and susceptibilities, far 
 above the region of utilitarian appliances, to the heaven of 
 thought, imagination and taste." 
 
 And after all, what better mental discipline and direction 
 can there be, than to bring the mind into intercourse with 
 the great thoughts of the best writers, and thus induce a 
 a love of profitable reading ? 
 
 What this study of language should be, must suggest 
 itself, in the main, to every intelligent mind. It is not 
 Reading alone ; it is what we call Grammar scarcely at all.
 
 21 
 
 God speed the time when the useless stuff that is drilled 
 into our children's heads under the name of Grammar, shall 
 lumber and cumber them no longer! It is not what is usually 
 understood by the term "Analysis." When the authors of 
 the current text books so labelled, sat themselves down to 
 make them, all the bells should have been tolled in anticipa- 
 tory funereal lamentation for the hours to be buried under so 
 much dreary waste ! Reading, properly conducted, is an in- 
 dispensable exercise. But it is too frequently perverted from 
 its channels of highest advantage. It is often made only a 
 drill in modulation ; and the teacher will expend all the time 
 devoted to it on a very few rhetorical pieces, thus in good 
 part, negativing its splendid instrumentality in the study of 
 language. I could take up the whole series of reading 
 books assigned to our schools of all the grades, and contain 
 them between my hands, if held only six inches apart. 
 This, ridiculous as the fact appears in some regards, is the 
 sum total of the reading to be gone through with in all the 
 school hours of childhood, to familiarize the children with 
 literature, acquaint them with the classic varieties of style, 
 enlarge their vocabularies, and by introducing them to the 
 master-pieces of the language in prose and verse, enkindle 
 that love of good reading which shall make choice books 
 dearer than dollars to them all their lives. And yet, in some 
 localities, not the half of each of these books is read as the 
 scholars pass from class to class, except perhaps the Primer; 
 so entirely is the Reading exercise concentrated on a few. 
 favorite pieces. To practice modulation is essential. I 
 would have due time devoted to it. It is well that the sen- 
 timent and feeling of every passage read in school should be 
 thoroughly appreciated and expressed. But not at the ex- 
 pense of the paramount purpose of the Reading exercise, 
 which is the study of language. That demands' the passing 
 over of as much ground as possible, intelligently of course,
 
 22 
 
 in order to make a great variety of words familiar to both 
 the eye and sense, as symbols of ideas. And in addition, as 
 Edwards in the analytic lessons of his new Reader has ad- 
 mirably suggested, the reading lesson ought to be exhaustive 
 in inquiry as to all historic, biographic and other allusions; 
 to verbal definitions, distinctions and derivations; to refer- 
 ences to facts in science and art ; to the nature of the 
 thoughts, the character of the style, and the peculiarities of 
 the rhetorical imagery. 
 
 And such exercises might be diversified, with exceeding 
 interest and profit, by others, to test the scholars' power over 
 language ; such as various methods of writing Compositions; 
 imperfect sentences, dictated by the teacher, to be completed 
 by the scholars, so as to make good sense couched in finished 
 forms of expression ; lists of words assigned, to be wrought 
 into appropriate sentences ; passages dictated, to try the 
 power of transcribing accurately from others' lips. With 
 such operations in language and the like, incalculable inter- 
 est may be imparted to the work of the school room, and 
 superior results accomplished, in enlarging and furnishing 
 the mind. 
 
 But, as may plainly be seen, room must be made for such 
 exercises by a different economy from what now prevails in 
 the distribution of school time. 
 
 Arithmetic, to which we now specially turn, must have its 
 due place in the new order of things. It must not be 
 slighted in any regard. The great problem is, how to 
 introduce greater freedom and find room for studies now 
 neglected, without abating one jot of that orderly system 
 and thoroughness which are the glory of our schools. Arith- 
 metic, dealing as it does with conceptions of quantity under 
 various forms of expression, and with a various application 
 to universal phenomena, is based on solid utility and must 
 be accurately and systematically taught. But this may be
 
 23 
 
 abundantly secured I think, with the expenditure of half the 
 average time now devoted to the subject. From four to five 
 hours a week is ample. The abridgment is to be effected by 
 cutting off, in the first place, all those exercises that are im- 
 posed, only for the sake of the drill they afford ; second, all 
 duplicate modes of arriving at the same results ; third, all 
 processes that however theoretically valuable, are likely to be 
 called into requisition in the affairs of life so seldom as to be 
 practically useless; and above all things else, much of the 
 everlasting cyphering, that is carried on in many schools. 
 For, as Mr. G. B. Emerson has humorously said, "As to the 
 idea that difficult operations in Arithmetic are a valuable 
 exercise of the mind, the fact that Babbage's machine will 
 perform some of the most difficult operations and print the 
 result, in less time than it will take the most skilful reckoner 
 to go through them once, gives us somewhat of an answer. 
 If the doing well what a machine will do better is a valuable 
 exercise for the mind, then the working out of difficult oper- 
 ations in Arithmetic is a valuable exercise." 
 
 Again, I am quite confident that much valuable time may 
 be secured to other studies and nothing whatever lost to the 
 mind, by postponing the systematic study of Mental Arith- 
 metic to a much later period in the school course than it is 
 now imposed. As now apportioned, I believe that it pain- 
 fully anticipates the ability of the scholars to understand it. 
 The analytical formulas by which beginners are required to 
 explain its problems, are usually forced upon them through a 
 dreary process of iteration and reiteration, and recited as an 
 act of memory that has scarcely a gleam of intelligence 
 behind it. Now if I have rightly observed the course of 
 nature, she does not furnish forth the mind for an intelligent 
 comprehension of such processes until at least eleven or 
 twelve years of age. She is satisfied with her children, if 
 up to that time, they are busy with syo* maUrara iasgther-
 
 24 
 
 ing into their mental receptacles data for the reason to use, 
 when, more mature, it shall be capable of severer logical 
 effort. Our scholars must work, work hard. Study is good 
 for nothing that does not involve hard work. But there is all 
 the difference in the world between the activities of a mind 
 that is healthfully put upon its energies within the sphere of 
 its capacity, and those that it is forced to exert in a painful 
 struggle to grasp what is beyond its capacity. Make a 
 child open its eyes to the light, if the light be before them ; 
 but for humanity's sake and conscience's sake, do not require 
 it to see when there is no light! Apply the received prin- 
 ciple that the concrete should precede the abstract, to this 
 study as well as others. 
 
 In my views on this point I do not expect support from 
 many of our educators. For I presume that it is a settled 
 principle with the most, that Intellectual Arithmetic should 
 precede Written in the order of study. Thus Mr. G. B. Em- 
 erson, in one of those delightful papers that he read before 
 the Institute of Social Science last winter, when pleading for 
 the abridgment of the study of Arithmetic, takes care to say, 
 "The arrangements made for teaching Mental Arithmetic 
 and ready reckoning in the Primary Schools and the lower 
 classes of the Grammar Schools, are very valuable."* I am 
 therefore all the more gratified to be supported by such a 
 mathematician and educator, as President Hill. In a note 
 received from him a few days ago, he says, "When I went 
 to Waltham, boys began Arithmetic at the age of six or 
 seven years, and studied it about twelve hours a week for 
 eight years. I kept them back until the age of ten, and then 
 let them study it eight hours a week for five years. Thus I 
 reduced the time in the ratio of ninety-six to forty" 
 
 *Mr. Emerson has informed me that he did not intend to be thus under-
 
 25 
 
 "The consequence was, that the scholars, at the age of 
 fifteen, knew a great deal more of Arithmetic than they did 
 formerly. The change was principally in beginning with 
 the mere counting of beans, etc.; then taking Written 
 Arithmetic, and finishing with Colburn's First Lessons, re- 
 serving this last book to the age of from thirteen to fifteen."* 
 
 This I am satisfied is the true order of study in this 
 branch ; and if, in accordance with it, we relieve the teachers 
 of the lower classes in the Grammar Schools from those for- 
 mal exercises in Mental Arithmetic that are now so unin- 
 telligent and tasking, and consume such an amount of time, 
 and introduce the abbreviations in the course of Written 
 Arithmetic that have been mentioned, at least half the time 
 now devoted to this study may be diverted to other branches, 
 without the slightest disregard of its legitimate claims. 
 
 In the next place, how much time shall we take away 
 from Grammar, as now studied? I answer all the time 
 given to it as as a systematic text book study in the lower 
 classes, and a good part of that now given to it in the upper 
 classes. The lower classes in a Grammar School have 
 nothing to do with the subject, as an express scientific pur- 
 suit, and all that it is worth the while of the upper classes 
 to learn about it, may be contained in twenty octavo pages. 
 What are the elaborated exercises in Grammar for, that are 
 going on in so many of our schools, day after day, through 
 nearly all the classes, in definitions, exceptions, parsing and 
 what not ? Can anybody tell me ? The most common def- 
 inition of Grammar is, that it is the art of speaking and 
 writing the English language correctly. Does it fulfil either 
 
 President Hill says in the preface to his "First Lessons in Geometry ;" "a 
 powerful logical drill, like Colburn's admirable First Lessons in Arithmetic is 
 surely out of place in the hands ot a child whose powers of observation and 
 conception have as yet received no training whatever."
 
 26 
 
 of these promises ? In the first place, does it teach us to 
 speak correctly ? By no means. Improprieties of speech 
 are acquired by habit, not through ignorance of Grammar ; 
 and are to be overcome by habit, not rules. Still more, the 
 acquirement of the graces of a pure and refined diction is 
 wholly independent of the systematic learning of Grammar. 
 It is to be gained by conversation and intercourse ; and the 
 only competent school for it is good society. Practice, in this 
 regard, defies scholarship. It is both amazing and amusing to 
 hear a class of scholars go, without a single blunder, through 
 a Grammar lesson on improprieties of speech, as one often 
 may, and afterward hear some of them, when they join their 
 schoolmates at play, or converse in their homes, freely use 
 without the least consciousness of defect, the very errors 
 that they have so lately been prompt to correct at school ; 
 the habits of speech of their intimates governing their own 
 habits, and not the rules of their Grammars. And well edu- 
 cated teachers, whose home associations are illiterate, some- 
 times unconsciously use fearfully vicious phraseology even 
 in teaching Grammar itself. 
 
 Again, does Grammar teach us to write correctly ? Not 
 at all. Who, when he is about to write on any theme, 
 begins to construct his sentences by opening his Grammar 
 and poring over its syntactic formulas, or reproducing them 
 from memory ? Who ever employed one word in a certain 
 connection, and a second word in a still different connection, 
 because the Grammar had defined them as being appropriate 
 thus and so ? We write as we do, each according to his 
 idiosyncracies of style, because our thought instinctively 
 shapes itself in the words and phrases we use. Nouns, pro- 
 nouns, verbs and adverbs marshal themselves in order where 
 we pen them, because they satisfy our ear and sense in such 
 order, as being thus appropriate to represent our thoughts ; 
 not at all, because they are the subjects of the nomenclature
 
 27 
 
 of Grammar. It is both profitable and interesting to study 
 the structure of our language, after one has become familiar 
 with its powers and use. Prior to that, to do so is both unintel- 
 ligent and illogical, and a waste of time. The fact is 
 accordingly very striking, but not at all singular, that the 
 authors of the master pieces of prose and poetry in the liter- 
 ature of every land, from David the Psalmist down through 
 Homer and Zenophon and Demosthenes, Virgil and Cicero 
 Dante and Petrarch, Corneille, Moliere, La Fontaine, Bos- 
 suet, Shakspeare, Milton, Dryclen, Addison, Pope, Johnson, 
 Young, Thompson, Burns and others, on whose sentences 
 we linger as on the strains of so much music, never learned 
 a word of Grammar, and wrote, of course, without the 
 slightest grammatical aid. In addition, the most eminent 
 masters of language, in all ages, attribute their excellence of 
 style not io the study of Grammar, but to the study and im- 
 itation of the best writers ; and it is a fact that some of the 
 best grammarians are poor enough as writers.* 
 
 It does not surprise us, after being apprised of these facts, 
 to find such a metaphysician as Locke, writing, "If Grammar 
 ought to be taught at any time, it ought to be to one who 
 can speak the language already ;" to read from the pen of an 
 eminent English educator such words as these; "Grammar 
 is the science of language ; and in following the process of 
 nature, neither individuals nor nations arrive at the science 
 first. A language is spoken and poetry written before either 
 Grammar or Prosody is even thought of. Therefore as 
 Grammar was made after language, it ought to be taught 
 after language;" to find Herbert Spencer remarking on "that 
 intensely stupid custom of teaching Grammar to children ;" 
 and to read from the pen of Professor Youmans, this sen- 
 
 *See a striking passage in Professor Youmans' admirable book, "The culture 
 demanded by modern life."
 
 28 
 
 fence ; "The usual school practice of thrusting the young 
 into the Grammar, even of their native tongue, is veil known 
 to be one of the most effectual means of the artificial produc- 
 tion of stupidity." I might quote passages of equal point 
 from many a writer of equal note. At the last examination 
 for admission to the New Bedford High School, four of the 
 questions on the Grammar paper were of a technical charac- 
 ter, and the six others were of a nature to test the accomplish- 
 ment of the candidates in the knowledge and use of lan- 
 guage. For it was held by those who proposed and sanc- 
 tioned them, that the quality of a harvest is of more 
 importance than any inquiry about the tools by which it has 
 been nurtured and gathered. One of the boys disregarded 
 the four technical questions altogether, and was marked zero 
 accordingly. But he surpassed almost all his compeers in 
 his answers to the remaining questions, evincing an ad- 
 mirable freedom and power of thought, and correct facility 
 of expression. And he received for each of those six answers 
 the highest mark, ten. Meeting him soon after the examina- 
 tion, I said "Master H. how happened it, that you failed on 
 all the questions about your Grammar ? "Oh sir," replied 
 he, -"I never liked Grammar, I never thought it of the 
 slightest use to me; so I wouldn't take the time to study it, 
 and I dont know anything about it." Now if all the ques- 
 tions on the Grammar paper had been technical, as is often 
 the case, this boy would have wholly failed, and, branded as 
 an ignoramus, would have been refused entrance into the 
 school that he is destined to adorn. But an opportunity was 
 afforded him to show that his ignorance of Grammar did not 
 prevent him from writing excellent English. And I am 
 quite sure that, in like manner, it will matter very little to 
 any of us, or to any whom we may teach, so far as cor- 
 rect facility in the use of language is concerned, how much 
 or how little of Grammar we mav know.
 
 29 
 
 Therefore T do not hesitate to say, without qualification, 
 that attention to Grammar, scientifically and methodically, 
 as a regular text book study, anywhere below the first and 
 second classes in the Grammar School, is an absolute waste 
 of time. Enough for the other classes to learn can be orally 
 communicated in connection with the reading lessons. 
 
 And the study will prove of little use even in the upper 
 classes, unless there shall first have been such a course of 
 study of language, as will have imparted considerable scope 
 and freedom in the use of words, the construction of sentences 
 and the expression of the ideas. 
 
 There is one other channel of instruction for which we 
 must gain time; and that not in occasional shreds and 
 patches, but at stated intervals and in liberal measure. I 
 mean that which includes the scientific and artistic principles 
 and truths, which have direct relation to the ordinary phenom- 
 ena of nature, and the labors, the duties, and the facts of 
 every day life. After all, even although we should succeed 
 in reinforcing the High Schools many fold, it would still 
 remain a fact of profound significance and interest, that the 
 great majority of the children of the Commonwealth will 
 complete their education in the Grammar Schools. The 
 Grammar Schools are, as has been aptly said, the people's 
 colleges. And the paramount consideration as to the in- 
 struction to be given in them should be, not as now, what is 
 requisite to fit boys and girls for the High Schools, but what 
 is requisite to fit them for the busy world in which they are 
 soon to bear their part. And is it not verily a crying shame, 
 that there should be so much unnecessary drill in Arithmetic 
 and Grammar, and such labored memorizing of useless facts 
 in Geography and History, and no place be secured to the 
 principles and truths of which I have spoken? There are 
 the principles of physiology, the elements of the natural
 
 30 
 
 sciences, the properties and uses of matter, of air, water, light, 
 heat, minerals, metals, woods; the materials and processes of 
 the mechanic arts ; the mechanical powers, the uses of steam, 
 the construction of the steam engine and the telegraph, the 
 materials and manufacture of textile fabrics, the preparation 
 of food ; and moreover, the nature, functions and departments 
 of Government, in this country of ours, in which every boy 
 who lives, is, in a few years, to be a free, voting, responsible 
 citizen: all these topics, that are inwrought with the very life 
 and soul of every day's thought and action; shall our Gram- 
 mar Schools ignore them, or only take them up fitfully and 
 imperfectly, as the mere by-play of the regular studies? 
 What more imperatively cries out for revision and reform? 
 
 Fellow Teachers, here I pause. I have not discussed all 
 the studies appropriate to our Grammar Schools, nor have I 
 said anything about methods of teaching. For it has been 
 my only purpose to consider what studies might judiciously 
 be omitted or abridged, and what it is our duty to introduce. 
 And the reforms that I have advocated once effected, our 
 system of instruction made more elastic and comprehen- 
 sive, an intelligent, mental development substituted for vi- 
 carious discipline as the true end of culture, and live realities 
 made the pleasurable instruments to accomplish what dead 
 technics have been impotent to effect, our Grammar Schools, 
 already so fondly our pride, will respond yet more nobly to 
 our anxious regard; and be felt in grander measure than 
 ever, as a power in the land. And on the instant of such a 
 renovation in the work of our Grammar Schools, the charac- 
 ter of the examinations for High Schools will be modified, 
 their arbitrary features will disappear, the bald technics with 
 which the memory may have been crammed, will be discred- 
 ited, and an essential element of fitness will be the culture
 
 that has entered into the staple of mind and of character, 
 and helped to mould the whole being into nobler proportions 
 and inspire it to nobler ends. I cannot specify just how 
 this new test is to be applied. I do not care to do so. I 
 only know that when the demand comes, the supply will 
 follow. Let it speedily come! It is in vain that School 
 Committees in their annual reports, sometimes earnestly ask, 
 why the teachers do not pay more attention to this or that 
 neglected yet important study. The teachers will attend to 
 all things for the good of their scholars, the moment that 
 School Committees will untie their hands and bid them work 
 in freedom. We love and honor our State. We glory in her 
 educational institutions. May the time soon come, through 
 the reforming faithfulness of those who have them in charge, 
 when every defect shall be removed from their structure and 
 methods, so that with fresh enthusiasm and renewed con- 
 fidence, we may challenge for them the admiration of the 
 world.
 
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